AILING. Frank M. Johnson Jr., 58, director designate of the FBI. The day after President Carter nominated him, the Alabama federal district judge was discovered to have an aneurysm, or abnormal swelling, of his abdominal aorta. After a 70-minute operation performed by Houston'. Dr. Michael E. DeBakey, in which the weakened portion of the aorta was replaced by a Dacron graft, Johnson was reported to be in "excellent" condition. He is expected to recover completely in six weeks. If his return to health is delayed Johnson said he would ask Carter to "secure someone else for the directorship."

DIED. Sebastian Cabot, 59, portly, bearded British actor best known for his role as French, the butler-nanny on TV's A Family Affair; of a stroke; in Victoria, B.C. Amiable and urbane, Cabot once said: "I like to think of myself as a rather dashing figure, like Falstaff."

DIED. Colonel Jacob M. Arvey, 81, Chicago's Democratic boss in the late 1940s and kingmaker instrumental in Harry Truman's narrow 1948 presidential victory; after a series of heart attacks; in Chicago. The son of poor Russian Jewish immigrants, Arvey rang doorbells for ward politicians as a teen-ager while he worked his way through law school. He became the epitome of the back-room politician, and engineered many a political career, persuading an ex-assistant to the Secretary of the Navy named Adlai Stevenson to run for the governorship of Illinois and a University of Chicago professor, Paul Douglas, to try for the U.S. Senate.

DIED. Chester J. LaRoche, 84, former advertising czar and chairman (1954-71) of the National Football Foundation and Hall of Fame; in Southampton, N.Y. The quarterback of Yale's championship football team in 1916, LaRoche went on to head Young & Rubicam, the War Advertising Council, served as vice chairman of the Blue Network (later ABC), and founded his own advertising agency.

DIED. Naum Gabo, 87, Russian-born sculptor who founded constructivism, one of the most innovative movements in 20th century art; of cancer; in Waterbury, Conn. Gabo studied medicine and engineering in pre-World War I Germany while, at the same time, painting and sculpting. In 1920 he wrote Realistic Manifesto, which outlined the principles he was to espouse, rejecting sculpture as mass and calling for the use of space as a structural part of the object. After working in England (1935-46), Gabo moved to the U. S. and in 1952 became an American citizen. He created a dazzling, airy body of work, fragile and coolly elegant. Twisting, swooping arcs made of glass or plastic, for example, were strung with wires like harps. His work greatly influenced later generations of artists, particularly kinetic and Pop sculptors.

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