Carter Spokesman Jody Powell Dies At 65

Enlarge Steve Pyle/AP

Jody Powell addresses a question on the Iranian hostage crisis at a news conference in Milwaukee on March 30, 1980.

Steve Pyle/AP

Jody Powell addresses a question on the Iranian hostage crisis at a news conference in Milwaukee on March 30, 1980.

Jody Powell, the White House press secretary under President Jimmy Carter, has died of an apparent heart attack. He was 65.

Powell died at his home near Cambridge on Maryland's Eastern Shore, said Jack Nelson, a retired reporter and close friend of Powell's.

Nelson said Powell had been working with firewood with a helper who briefly stepped away. Powell was discovered a short time later on the ground. He said Powell had had a previous heart attack in recent years.

Powell was a familiar face during the four stormy years of the Carter presidency — during the Israeli-Egyptian summit, the Iranian hostage crisis and Carter's 1980 campaign, first against Edward Kennedy and then Ronald Reagan.

A Georgia native known for his deep Southern drawl, he also worked on Carter's presidential campaign in 1976 and served as the Carter administration's spokesman between 1977 and 1981.

Powell, along with the late Hamilton Jordan, joined up with Carter several years before he was elected governor of Georgia in 1970. Powell served as Gov. Carter's press secretary, then, as well.

At one point, President Carter said that "Jody Powell knows me better than anyone else except my wife."

After Carter was defeated for re-election in 1980, Powell went on to work on several special projects and published his memoirs. At his death he was the CEO of the public relations firm Powell Tate.

Material from The Associated Press was used in this story.