Richard H. Poff | Former congressman, 87

Richard H. Poff, 87, a former Republican congressman from Virginia who surprised official Washington in 1971 by withdrawing from consideration for a Supreme Court seat rather than submit to the scrutiny he feared his voting record against civil rights would arouse, died Tuesday in Tullahoma, Tenn.

His death, at a nursing home, was confirmed by his family.

Mr. Poff was a decorated World War II bomber pilot who rode Dwight D. Eisenhower's presidential coattails in 1952 to become one of the few southern Republicans in Congress since Reconstruction.

He was widely viewed as President Richard M. Nixon's first choice to fill the so-called Southern seat on the bench when Justice Hugo Black died in September 1971.

In June 1971, when he was being mentioned as a possible nominee, the usually press-shy Mr. Poff gave an extended interview to a Virginia newspaper in which he voiced regret over his segregationist record, admitting ruefully that he had voted against every landmark civil rights bill of the 1960s because he feared losing his seat in Congress, representing a district in western Virginia.

On Sept. 24, 1971, Nixon hinted in a news conference that Mr. Poff was among the top contenders for the court nomination. After the NAACP and Senate liberals raised objections, Mr. Poff unexpectedly announced that he had asked the president to drop him from consideration. Nixon then nominated Lewis F. Powell, a prominent Virginia lawyer. - N.Y. Times News Service