WASHINGTON — Sherman Adams, who resigned under fire as President Dwight D. Eisenhower's chief White House aide in 1958 after accepting a vicuna coat and other gifts from an old friend who was having problems with the government, died today.
He was 87 and died in a hospital in Hanover, N.H., of respiratory complications. He most recently had owned a posh ski resort in the White Mountain National Forest in New Hampshire.
Until his resignation, Adams, a former Republican governor of New Hampshire, was the second most powerful figure in the executive branch of the government. He was a skilled and hard-working administrator, qualities prized by Eisenhower, who, as a career military man, put a high premium on staff work and disliked being bothered by details.
But Adams, by nature a taciturn New Englander, also was imperious, abrupt, aloof and a zealous guardian of access to the President.