DIED. Wilbur Mills, 82, powerful former chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee; in Searcy, Ark. After gaining a seat on the prestigious committee in 1943, the young Arkansas Democrat became its pre-eminent authority on taxation and longtime chairman. His career declined abruptly after a 1974 drunken-driving incident that landed Fanne Fox, a stripper, in Washington's Tidal Basin. In his later years he was an active advocate of alcoholism treatment.