* George L. Mehren; Assistant Secretary of Agriculture in the 1960s

George L. Mehren, 79, an internationally recognized agricultural economist who was assistant secretary of agriculture in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. Mehren, former chairman of the department of agricultural economics at UC Berkeley, where he received his undergraduate and doctoral degrees, was a Navy officer in the Pacific in World War II and became a director of the Office of Price Stabilization. President John F. Kennedy made him assistant secretary of agriculture in August, 1963, where he oversaw marketing and consumer affairs. He also worked with Kennedy and President Lyndon B. Johnson on the Food for Peace program and the enabling legislation for the nation’s food stamp program. Mehren was a frequent lecturer at foreign universities, a consultant to many overseas governments and an adviser to the U.N.’s Food and Agriculture Organization in Rome. In San Antonio on Saturday of a bone marrow disease.