A. Whitney Ellsworth | N.Y. Review publisher, 75

A. Whitney Ellsworth, 75, who helped get the New York Review of Books up and running as its first publisher, a position he held for nearly 25 years, died of pancreatic cancer Saturday at his home in Salisbury, Conn.

Mr. Ellsworth also served in the mid-1970s as chairman of Amnesty International USA, securing the group's future by setting up a direct-mail fund-raising operation.

He was a frustrated young editor at the Atlantic Monthly in the early 1960s when he began dreaming of a kind of literary publication in the spirit of the British publication New Statesman, in which top-quality authors would contribute essaylike reviews of serious books.

His dream was aided in December 1962, when a printers' strike against New York's main newspapers offered an opportunity to start exactly the sort of journal he had in mind. He was invited to become publisher of the New York Review by the literary group, including book editors Jason and Barbara Epstein and poet Robert Lowell, that published its first issue in February 1963. As publisher, he expanded the journal's presence abroad by publishing a British edition.

In the early 1970s, prompted by an assistant who had worked for the British Information Service in Athens, he became interested in the plight of political dissidents imprisoned by the junta in Greece. His efforts to raise money on their behalf led to his involvement with Amnesty International USA, which he served a term as chairman from 1976 to 1978 and was treasurer for several years. - N.Y. Times News Service