Political Scientist Seymour Lipset, 84; Studied Democracy and U.S. Culture

Dr. Lipset taught at Columbia, the University of California at Berkeley, Stanford University and Harvard University, where Theda Skocpol, now a Harvard professor, was one of his students.

"Of all the professors I had, he was the most humanly decent, a real mensch," Skocpol said. "Long before it was fashionable to support the careers of women, he did, in a matter-of-fact way. People saw him in different places on the political spectrum . . . but he was completely open to supporting people regardless of their political beliefs."

More recently, Dr. Lipset was a senior fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University and a professor at George Mason University in Fairfax County. He was also affiliated with the Woodrow Wilson Center for International Scholars and the Progressive Policy Institute.

"When he moved to Washington in 1990, he was like a kid in a candy store," Diamond said in an interview. "He had an extraordinarily active intellectual presence there, which coincided with transformation of Washington into a major intellectual center."

Dr. Lipset greatly enjoyed food, political gossip and people, but he could disregard the world around him when an idea struck.

"I remember one scene in his office," Diamond said. "He leaned back in his chair, hands behind his head, pipe in his hand. The spent ashes tilted onto his head, and he proceeded to have an extended conversation with a graduate student. Another time a bird flew in an open office window behind him and perched behind him -- he was completely oblivious. It was not a particularly good idea to be in the car when he was behind the wheel."

Dr. Lipset, an Arlington County resident, was a former president of the International Society of Political Psychology, the Sociological Research Association, the World Association for Public Opinion Research and the Society for Comparative Research. He was a member of the National Academy of Sciences, the American Philosophical Society, the National Academy of Education and the American Academy of Arts and Sciences. He was a director of the United States Institute of Peace and received the 1993 Marshall Sklare Award for distinction in Jewish studies.

His first wife, Elsie Braun Lipset, died in 1987.

Survivors include his wife of 16 years, Sydnee Guyer Lipset of Arlington; three children from his first marriage, David Lipset of Minneapolis, Daniel Lipset of Boston and Cici Lipset of Palo Alto, Calif.; and six grandchildren.