List of Famous people who died in 1989

Michel Aflaq was a Syrian philosopher, sociologist and Arab nationalist. His ideas played a significant role in the development of Ba'athism and its political movement; he is considered by several Ba'athists to be the principal founder of Ba'athist thought. He published various books during his lifetime, the most notable being The Battle for One Destiny (1958) and The Struggle Against Distorting the Movement of Arab Revolution (1975).

Andrée Rose Godard, known by her stage-name as Andrée Lafayette, also known by her self-invented title as Countess Andrée de la Bigne, (born19 May 1903, in Achères, and died 3 October, 1989, in Équemauville, Calvados. She was a French stage and film actress, and granddaughter of the infamous demi-mondaine Émilie Louise Delabigne who was known by her self-invented title as Countess Valtesse de La Bigne.

Sir Christopher John Howard Chancellor was a British journalist and administrator who was general manager of the news agency Reuters from 1944 to 1959. The Daily Telegraph credited him for keeping the company running under extremely difficult wartime circumstances, noting that "It was largely thanks to Chancellor that Reuters had survived the war intact, despite the loss for several years of the greatest part of its world market." By 1951, at the firm's 100th anniversary, Chancellor was credited with tripling the agency's correspondents and revenues.

Arseny Alexandrovich Tarkovsky was a prominent Soviet poet and translator. He is considered one of the great twentieth century Russian poets. He was predeceased by his son, film director Andrei Tarkovsky.

Rear-Admiral David Charles Cairns, 5th Earl Cairns,, was Marshal of the Diplomatic Corps in the Royal Household of the Sovereign of the United Kingdom from 1962 to 1971.

Hassler Whitney was an American mathematician. He was one of the founders of singularity theory, and did foundational work in manifolds, embeddings, immersions, characteristic classes, and geometric integration theory.