Wilbur Mills, Former Powerful Lawmaker, Dies : Congress: His career as chairman of House Ways and Means Committee was destroyed by a stripper’s plunge into Washington’s Tidal Basin.

Former Rep. Wilbur D. Mills, the powerful Arkansas congressman whose career was destroyed by a stripper’s plunge into Washington’s Tidal Basin, died Saturday of an apparent heart attack. He was 82.

Mills collapsed at his home in Kensett, Ark., and was taken to White County Memorial Hospital here, where efforts to revive him failed, said nursing supervisor Jackie Wooldridge.

Mills, a Democrat, wielded immense influence as chairman of the tax-writing House Ways and Means Committee for 16 years. Before retiring in 1976 after 38 years in the House, he wrote much of the federal tax code and helped shape the Social Security program.

His knowledge of tax legislation and knack for getting his way were renowned among Washington insiders.

During his years as chairman, the Ways and Means Committee arguably was the most powerful committee of Congress, and he was unarguably its leader. There were almost no tax, trade or government entitlement measures of the 1960s and 1970s that did not bear his mark. Measures such as tax cuts and Medicare were enacted only when he was ready.

During those years, the Democratic members of the Ways and Means panel also served as the body that assigned all their party members to the various committees of the House. This enabled the committee, and especially its chairman, to nearly make or break a House career.

The portly country lawyer-banker held sway not only because of the power he had, but also because of his unchallenged expertise. If his power was seldom challenged, it may have been because he was not an ideologue but a pragmatist who sought to make the system work.

Presidents often deferred to the Harvard-educated lawyer, who was once called “the most tightly buttoned-up man in Congress.”

The buttons popped off early on Oct. 7, 1974, when police stopped Mills’ weaving car in Washington near the Tidal Basin.

Annabel Battistella, a burlesque dancer known as Fanne Foxe, “the Argentine firecracker,” jumped from the car and ran, leaping into the Potomac River estuary near the Jefferson Memorial. An intoxicated Mills stepped from the car, his face bleeding.

At first, a Mills spokesman denied that the congressman was in the car. Later, Mills claimed Battistella was among neighbors and friends he was entertaining, that she became ill and he tried to take her home. He said there was a struggle and her elbow broke his glasses, causing facial cuts.

The truth came out, but slowly. Mills acknowledged the two had been companions and blamed the scandal on his alcoholism.

“I did something I shouldn’t have done,” Mills said in Little Rock, Ark., 10 days later. “I drank some champagne when I knew it went to my head quickly. And it did.”

Mills was elected to his 19th and final House term a month later, but he was held to 59% of the vote. He stepped down as chairman of the Ways and Means Committee during that term and saw both the committee and its chairman stripped of many of its powers.

After learning of the former chairman’s death, President Bush, who once represented Texas in the House, said in a statement: “Congressman Mills served with great distinction. As chairman, he provided me with a solid education on this nation’s tax laws when we served together on the House Ways and Means Committee.”

Arkansas Gov. Bill Clinton, the front-runner for the Democratic presidential nomination, called Mills “one of the most powerful and brilliant members of the House of Representatives in this century.” He also praised Mills for his efforts to fight alcohol abuse.

After the Tidal Basin incident, Mills entered a hospital for treatment of alcoholism.

As a recovered alcoholic, Mills spoke to civic clubs, state legislatures and congressional committees about the need for treatment programs.

First elected to Congress in 1939 at age 29, Mills worked as a lawyer in Washington after his retirement from Congress and later moved back to Arkansas.

While in Congress, he was mentioned as a possible nominee for Treasury secretary, the U.S. Supreme Court and even President.

Mills was born on May 24, 1909, in Kensett, about 60 miles northeast of Little Rock. He married his high school sweetheart, Clarine Billingsley, in 1934.

After four years at Hendrix College in Conway, Ark., and graduation from Harvard Law School in 1933, Mills worked for a year as a cashier in his father’s bank, then opened his own law office in Searcy.

Mills is survived by his wife and two daughters.