DIED. Yigal Allon, 61, commander of Israel's combat forces in the 1948 war of independence, member of the Knesset since 1954, and a hawkish voice in several Labor Party Cabinets; of a heart attack; in Asulla, Israel. Allon took tough stands on defense matters but sought a moderate, long-range solution to the Middle East conflict. Thus, the "Allon Plan" of 1967 called for Israeli withdrawal from the populated areas of the occupied West Bank and other compromises. He also hailed Egypt's 1977 peace overture to Jerusalem as "a historic chance," though he later became one of the few Knesset opponents of the Camp David accords. Said he: "They endanger Israel's security."

DIED. Robert E. Hayden, 66, Detroit-born poet and University of Michigan English professor, who in 1976 became the first black to be appointed consultant in poetry to the Library of Congress; of a heart attack; in Ann Arbor, Mich. Hayden's work evoked a heroic sense of the black American past, whether his subject was a powerful personality like Frederick Douglass, the Motor City ghetto of his youth or such physical relics of slavery as the old factory he describes in his 1979 volume American Journal: "[In] the tidy ruins of a sugar mill./ More than cane was crushed. But I am tired today of history, its patina'd cliches of endless evil."

DIED. Willard D. Voit, 69, Los Angeles rubber magnate who turned a struggling company into one of the world's leading manufacturers of inflatable balls; of lung cancer; in Newport Beach, Calif. Though it was Voit's father William who expanded his tire-retread operation into ball manufacturing in the 1920s, it was Willard, company president from 1946 to 1960, who promoted the rubber revolution in athletics. His argument that rubber balls cost less, last longer, retain their shape better and are more water-repellent than their leather counterparts won over U.S. football, soccer and basketball coaches--and brought him $3.9 million in 1957, when he sold the firm to AMF Inc.

DIED. Alexander Brook, 81, American painter; of a heart attack; in Sag Harbor, N.Y. Ignoring the later popularity of abstract expressionism, Brook relentlessly pursued the realistic style and romantic mood that brought him early success in the '20s and informed his work--graceful nudes, broad, brooding landscapes, portraits of young girls caught in somber moods. Said he: "My approach is immediate. I try to maintain that first quick impression, that first quick look."

DIED. Virginia Murray Bacon, 88, widow of New York Republican Congressman Robert Low Bacon (who died in 1938), ebullient champion of the arts and historical preservation in the nation's capital, and grande dame of the city's G.O.P. elite for half a century; in Washington, D.C.

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