WASHINGTON -- White House Counsel Harriet E. Miers yesterday withdrew her name from consideration for the Supreme Court, dealing another blow to an embattled White House and demonstrating the power of the conservatives who opposed her nomination.

In the face of heated criticism from the right, tepid reviews from senators who interviewed her, and a brewing fight over documentation of issues she handled in the White House, Ms. Miers, 60, called Mr. Bush at 8:30 Wednesday evening to tell him she thought it would be best for him and the country if she pulled out.

	Online Graphic : Other Supreme Court nominees who were not confirmed

In her official letter to the president yesterday, she wrote she was withdrawing because of continuing demands by both Republican and Democrats for records of her tenure in the White House as staff secretary, deputy chief of staff and general counsel.

She said that her long legal career offered a basis for senators to consider her nomination and that the independence of the executive branch must be preserved "and its confidential documents and information not be released to further a confirmation process."

Many conservatives who did not consider her credentials or her track record on conservative issues to be adequate cheered her withdrawal, calling it "courageous." Privately, many said they were relieved to have avoided a major fight with the White House.

In a statement, Mr. Bush said he "reluctantly" let Ms. Miers withdraw because of her concern about the process of confirmation. "It is clear that senators would not be satisfied until they gained access to internal documents concerning advice provided during her tenure at the White House -- disclosures that would undermine a president's ability to receive candid counsel," he said.

Just hours before Ms. Miers' call to the president Wednesday, the White House had privately assured senators she would not withdraw.

But other sources said that with only two weeks to prepare for confirmation hearings scheduled for Nov. 7, Ms. Miers, was overwhelmed by the amount of study she had before her to get ready for days of hearings.

And the White House was clearly getting indications from senators that the process was not going well.

Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist, R-Tenn., said he told the president that the Senate was on course to vote on Ms. Miers before Thanksgiving but that her confirmation would hinge on her performance in the hearings because many senators had a "wait and see" attitude.

And Ed Gillespie, the former chairman of the Republican National Committee, who has been a key handler of the Miers nomination for the White House, camped out at the Capitol Wednesday "taking the temperature," aides said, of senators.

In those discussions, a number of Republican senators expressed growing concerns about Ms. Miers' views, particularly after reading about two 1993 speeches by Ms. Miers -- first reported in the Washington Post -- in which she seemed to have a more open view of abortion than previously thought and praised liberal Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg.

Several Republican aides said another factor was the letter Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter sent Ms. Miers this week warning her he planned to ask questions about her views on the president's powers in the war on terrorism and the handling of detainees at the Guantanamo Bay prison in Cuba.

Former Republican senator Dan Coats of Indiana, who was shepherding Ms. Miers through the process, said no senator from either party had told him Ms. Miers should withdraw. But he acknowledged that an "accumulation of factors" led to her final decision.

"Obviously you'd hope for unanimous support from your base when the president nominates someone -- and that was divided," Mr. Coats said.

"There were legitimate questions being asked of her background because she did not have a paper trail."

But when asked what role the pressure from conservative groups had played, Mr. Coats argued that Ms. Miers' chief reason for withdrawing was "a very strongly held conviction that her advice to the president -- whether it was policy advice or legal advice -- was privileged information... and a precedent would be set if this executive privilege or attorney client privilege was breached in this case."

"The nominee's problems had been mounting not dissipating," said Sen. Sam Brownback, R-Kan., who has been among Ms. Miers' chief skeptics in the Senate. "At the end of the day, it was clear we were at a document impasse. I think the combination of those things made this really clearly the right thing to do."

Mr. Frist said yesterday that he expected the president to nominate a new candidate "quickly"-- fueling speculation that the White House might put forward a name as early as today to divert attention from the possible indictments of White House officials.

Though Ms. Miers and the president said collisions over privilege were the main reason for the withdrawal, some senators from both parties strongly disputed that view.

Those who requested more information emphasized that they were looking only for non-privileged documents that could provide a window into the acumen of a nominee who had few public writings to give them clues about her skills or judicial philosophy.

Senate Judiciary Chairman Arlen Specter, R-Pa., who wrote a letter last week to Ms. Miers with the committee's ranking Democrat, Sen. Patrick J. Leahy, of Vermont, pressing her to reveal more about issues she had worked on in the White House said the Judiciary Committee "carefully did not intrude on the president's executive privilege."

"The committee studiously avoided asking what advice Ms. Miers gave to the president," said Mr. Specter. "We must guard against having the Miers proceedings become a precedent for the future."

Mr. Leahy said the White House claim that requests for documents ended Ms. Miers' quest for retiring Justice Sandra Day O'Connor's seat on the high court was "a face-saving" move.

"This administration withheld the same kind of documents on [Chief Justice] John Roberts [Jr.]," Mr. Leahy said, "and he was confirmed overwhelmingly."

Conservative senators who had expressed skepticism about Ms. Miers' legal acumen and conservative credentials expressed collective relief that the president would be able to start fresh with a new nominee.

Sen. Rick Santorum, R-Pa., whose reelection bid could well have been complicated by his vote on Ms. Miers, said the nominee had done the "honorable thing" by withdrawing.

"Some degree of paper trail is actually important," Mr. Santorum said. "A complete blank slate -- given the limitation of what people say when they get up here [in hearings] -- is not a good thing."

Sen. Lindsey O. Graham, R-S.C., -- who had told the White House he wanted more information but had said he was predisposed to support her -- said he thought she had been "treated unfairly."

"If we don't watch it we're going to drive away good people from wanting to do this," Mr. Graham said.

Democrats, however, laid the blame for Ms. Miers' withdrawal squarely on conservative groups and said the president had capitulated to their demands.

Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, who suggested to the president that he should nominate Ms. Miers earlier this year, said the "radical, unrelenting right wing of the Republican party killed the Harriet Miers nomination."

"Apparently Ms. Miers did not satisfy those who want to pack the Supreme Court with rigid ideologues," said Mr. Reid, D-Nev..

There are about a dozen conservatives Mr. Bush and the White House team have already considered. Most of them now hold federal appellate court jobs, one step below the Supreme Court. The most frequently mentioned, in alphabetical order, include Samuel A. Alito Jr., Janice Rogers Brown, Edith Brown Clement, Emilio Garza, Edith Hollan Jones J. Michael Luttig, Michael W. McConnell, Priscilla Owen, and J. Harvie Wilkinson III.

Justice O'Connor, who announced her resignation at the end of June, has said she will stay on until her successor is confirmed, but originally had no intention of staying through the year and possibly into 2006.