Fed Chairman G. William Miller, 81

Recruited to the Wall Street law firm of Cravath, Swaine and Moore, he played a major role in helping Textron acquire a larger manufacturer. In 1956, Textron's chief executive hired Mr. Miller as assistant secretary overseeing acquisitions. Rapid promotions followed, and by 1968, he was chief executive.

He continued an aggressive series of acquisitions and expanded operations to Europe and Asia. In 1974, the year he assumed the Textron board chairmanship, he hosted a Soviet trade delegation at his headquarters in Providence.

Textron largely weathered the recession of the early 1970s through its diversification of products. He kept a tight control on costs that gave the company a generally conservative reputation, but he also invested to a significant degree in research and development that made his goods, especially the defense equipment, a high-demand commodity. By the mid-1970s, he was leading a multibillion-dollar corporation.

While advancing in business, he became active in civic life and political organizations. He pushed for hiring reforms toward blacks and other minorities as chairman of an advisory council to President Kennedy's Committee of Equal Employment Opportunities.

In 1978, he succeeded Fed Chairman Arthur F. Burns, a career economist whom the president had declined to reappoint after some testy exchanges about the bank's independence.

Mr. Miller, a director of the Federal Reserve Bank of Boston, was the first corporate leader chosen to direct the central bank. He also was viewed as far more in sync with White House economic policy.

After his government service, he held many directorships and board positions. He was treasurer of the American Red Cross; a trustee and director of the Washington Opera; and chairman of the Washington-based H. John Heinz III Center for Science, Economics and the Environment. He also was chairman and chief executive of Federated Stores Inc. from 1990 to 1992.

In 1946, he married Ariadna Rogojarsky, a Russian emigre whom he met in Shanghai during his Coast Guard service. She survives him, along with three sisters and two brothers.