Died. General John Reed Hodge, 70, World War II Pacific combat commander, chief of occupation forces in South Korea (1945-48), a veteran of Guadalcanal, Leyte and Okinawa who found himself trying to organize a democracy in chaotic Korea, where he was instrumental in the rise of Syngman Rhee to the presidency, but then grew disenchanted with Rhee's autocratic ways, whereupon Rhee complained of his meddling in local affairs, and three months later he was recalled; of cancer; in Washington, B.C.

Died. Fritz Reiner, 74, master conductor, a squat, lusty Hungarian with a precise "vest-pocket" podium style (a daring musician once brought a telescope to rehearsal to catch his minuscule beat), who emigrated to the U.S. in 1922, taught Conductors Leonard Bernstein and Thomas Schippers, directed the Pittsburgh and Metropolitan Opera orchestras before going to the fading Chicago Symphony in 1953, which he whipped into one of the world's finest ensembles, with a repertory that ran from Mozart to his countryman Kodaly; of pneumonia; in Manhattan.

Died. Dr. Antonio Gasbarrini, 81, papal doctor since 1954, a gastroenterologist who attended the final illnesses of Pius XII in 1958 and his good friend John XXIII last spring; following a prostate operation; in Bologna.

Died. Charles Ruffin Hook, 83, longtime (1930-59) president and chairman of Armco Steel Corp., the nation's fourth-largest steel company (1962 sales: $918 million), who married the boss's daughter and ran the company with such a velvet glove (the industry's first eight-hour day, first group insurance plan) that to this day fewer than half of Armco's 34,000 employees belong to the steelworkers' union; of cancer; in Garrison, Md.

Died. Charles Erasmus Fenner, 87, New Orleans stockbroker, co-founder of Fenner & Beane, which he merged in 1941 into Manhattan's Merrill Lynch, E. A. Pierce & Cassatt to create what is today the world's largest brokerage house, responsible for 15% of the volume on the New York Stock Exchange; in Slidell, La.

Died. Margaret Alice Murray, 100, Egyptologist and demonologist, a wispy spinster (4 ft. 6 in.) who in 1904 at Abydos on the Nile was the first woman archaeologist to conduct her own "digs," went tenting with Bedouins at 70, finally "retired" to lecture on sorcery in England, where she held listeners spellbound as she expounded her thesis that the Inquisitors were absolutely right, Joan of Arc was indeed a witch; in Welwyn, Hertfordshire.

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