Richard Darman, 64, ex-budget director

WASHINGTON - Richard Darman, 64, who as White House budget director helped persuade former President George H.W. Bush to renege on his no-new-taxes pledge, died yesterday.

Mr. Darman died in Washington after battling leukemia for months, according to a statement issued by former Secretary of State James A. Baker 3d, a longtime friend.

Mr. Darman was chief architect of a compromise designed to reduce the federal budget deficit. Although it drew praise from economic analysts, the plan included tax increases that broke Bush's 1988 election promise, "Read my lips, no new taxes!"

Although the change of policy is partly blamed for Bush's reelection defeat to Bill Clinton in 1992, it contributed to balancing the federal budgets in the late 1990s.

Mr. Darman criticized the nation's obsession with its current finances and "our reluctance to adequately address the future."

But those words were from the same man who earlier had served as a top political strategist for President Ronald Reagan and helped craft an economic policy that stressed tax cuts even as federal budget deficits were reaching record levels.

Mr. Darman was deputy chief of staff to Reagan while Baker was running the staff. Baker became his mentor, which helped Mr. Darman survive in the Bush White House. When Baker switched jobs to become Treasury secretary, Mr. Darman went with him, becoming deputy Treasury secretary.

"He was absolutely brilliant at boiling down complex issues to their simplest forms," Baker said.

At the time of his death, Mr. Darman was a partner in the Carlyle Group, a global private equity firm.

The son of an industrialist, he was born in Charlotte, N.C., and raised in Rhode Island and Massachusetts.

Mr. Darman is survived by his wife, Kathleen Emmet, a writer, and three sons.