Retired Col. Rex Applegate,84, a military tactics expert with an international reputation for his knowledge of riot control, counter- terrorism and combat techniques, died Tuesday of pneumonia, stroke and heart disease in Roseburg, Ore. He was a commando in Nazi-occupied France during World War II and was one of the first people assigned to the Office of Strategic Services, which became the CIA.

Robert Gorham Davis,90, a literary critic and professor emeritus of English at Columbia University, died July 12 in Cambridge, Mass. He regularly wrote for the New York Times Book Review, Partisan Review, Commentary and American Scholar. His short stories appeared in the New Yorker, and he won an O'Henry Award for one of them.

Henry J. Leir,98, a leading commodities trader and philanthropist who fled Nazi Germany and founded a major international trading business in the United States, died Wednesday in New York.

William Kennon McWilliams Jr.,75, a geologist, oil-and-gas industry leader, died Friday in Covington, La. Mr. McWilliams was an independent oil-and-gas producer, co-founder and chairman emeritus of McMoRan Oil and Gas Co., and director emeritus of Freeport-McMoRan Inc.

Hal Southern,79, an actor/songwriter who wrote the country classic "I Dreamed of a Hillbilly Heaven," died Wednesday of complications from diabetes in Nashville, Tenn. Mr. Southern appeared in the movies "Serpico," "The Shakiest Gun in the West" and "Blazing Saddles" and on the television show "The Waltons."

Pub Date: 7/19/98