ATLANTA — Griffin B. Bell, who grew up with Jimmy Carter and later became U.S. attorney general after Carter was elected president, died Monday. He was 90.
Bell died about 10 a.m. of kidney failure, said Diana Lewis, a spokeswoman for Piedmont Hospital. He was being treated at the Atlanta hospital for complications of pancreatic cancer and kidney disease, she said.
Carter said he was “deeply saddened” and called Bell a “trusted and enduring public figure.”
“As a World War II veteran, federal appeals court judge, civil rights advocate and U.S. attorney general in my administration, Griffin made many lasting contributions to his native Georgia and country,” he said in a statement.
Carter’s choice of his longtime friend as attorney general was considered the most controversial of his Cabinet appointments after the 1976 election.
The NAACP and other civil rights groups complained that Bell, as a federal judge, didn’t force Southern schools to integrate quickly enough. And they cited Bell’s tenure as chief of staff for Georgia Gov. Ernest Vandiver, who campaigned in 1958 on a segregation platform.
But Carter called Bell’s civil rights record superb, and many black Georgians came forward to support him.
Bell served 2 1/2 years at the Justice Department, leaving in mid-1979 — at his own request — to return to his Atlanta law firm, King &Spalding. But he called his tenure as attorney general “the best job I ever had,” and he remained close to the action in government by maintaining a law office in Washington. He also remained a key adviser to Carter.
As attorney general, Bell promoted judicial reform and supported the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, which limits government spying on U.S. citizens. He also investigated Koreagate, the alleged buying of congressional influence by Korean agents.
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