Press Secretary Jody Powell, 65 Dead

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Press Secretary Jody Powell, 65 Dead:Jody Powell, 65, a key public relations specialist for Jimmy Carter who helped orchestrate the obscure Georgia governor’s rise to the White House in 1976 and then served as his press secretary, died Sept. 14 at a hospital near his home in Cambridge, on Maryland’s Eastern Shore.

His death, from an apparent heart attack, was confirmed by Jack Nelson, a former Washington bureau chief for the Los Angeles Times and a friend of Mr. Powell’s.

As press secretary, Mr. Powell was widely considered effective because of his closeness to the president. “You could take what he told you to the bank because he was so close to Carter,” presidential scholar Stephen Hess said. “The problem for the White House press corps is that they do not see a lot of the president or go inside the Oval Office, and so they rely heavily on what a press secretary tells them.”

Mr. Powell served in the White House from 1977 to 1981 and played a role in keeping the media informed ofan administration that faced withering inflation, an energy crisis and the taking of American diplomats as hostages in Tehran during the Iranian revolution.