
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SUNDAY, March 31, 1991                   TAG: 9103310215
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: B3   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: 
DATELINE: MIAMI BEACH, FLA.                                LENGTH: Short

MAN WHO FOUND GAP ON NIXON TAPES DIES

Samuel Joseph Powers, a White House attorney who found the infamous 18-minute gap on President Nixon's Watergate tapes, died Friday after a short illness. He was 73.

Powers died at the Miami Heart Institute. The illness that caused his death was not disclosed.

Serving on Nixon's legal staff during the Watergate hearings, Powers and White House counselor Leonard Garment discovered the 18-minute gap that contributed to Nixon's decision to resign.

Former Nixon advisers already had testified before Watergate Judge John Sirica that the gap was only three or four minutes long. The tape fueled allegations of a high-level cover-up.

Powers joined the president's legal staff in November 1973 but returned to Miami in January 1974 after contracting a severe case of pneumonia.

The Ellicott City, Md., native worked primarily in private practice, specializing in insurance litigation, but also was an assistant state attorney general from 1969 to 1970 and a municipal judge in 1952 and 1953.

by CNB