mcgovern s staffers on his presidential campaign and george mcgovern s top donors, and he says to the irs commissioner, okay, go get them. and the irs commissioner, this guy johnny walters, despite the fact he was picked for this job supposedly on a recommendation of a guy who knew he d do it, walters is not done with this. he says he was shocked by this request from john dean. he walked out of that meeting with john dean holding this envelope containing this enemies list, this list that nixon was ordering him to investigate. you, you re the healed of the irs, investigate this list of people, audit this list of people, my political enemies. he walks out of the white house with that list in an envelope. and what did johnny walters do with that list? took it back to the irs in that sealed envelope, and he locked it up in a safe in his office. he did not act on it at all. he did not follow nixon s orders. and that list just sat there in that safe in the commissioner s office at the irs.
minutes. when he was sworn in as president in 1969, richard nixon found a republican lawyer from south carolina to run the internal revenue service. his name was randolph thrower. great name. he d been excuse me, i said south carolina. i believe he was from georgia, actually. that was a screw-up on my part. he had not been a part of the nixon campaign. he had not been a particularly politically active republican back home. but he was well liked. he was supported and recommended by his home state senators maybe. for whatever reason he ended up getting the job. he met nixon for the first time. when nixon named him to the job to run the irs. and that was probably mr. thrower s first mistake. it s not clear now that he knew what he was getting himself into had he took that job. it s pretty clear that he didn t know exactly what kind of president he would be working for when he took that job and what that president expected of the person he would have running the irs. that much became c
directed by white house staff to audit every single democratic senator who was up for recollectir re-election in 1970. commissioner thrower was quite certain president nixon was unaware of this pressure. he was certain if he could just let the president know face to face that this bad thing was happening, he was certain president nixon would be as horrified as he was. president nixon would agree about the dangers of any suggestion of the introduction of political influence into the workings of the irs. commissioner thrower was very wrong about that. richard nixon was not just as horrified as he was about this pressure that was being brought to bear on the irs. so randolph thrower calls up to the white house, explains that he needs a personal meeting with the president, flnz why he needed that meeting. mr. thrower received two responses to that request. the first was a memo from the president s appointment secretary saying a meeting with the president would not be possible. the second
call from john ehrlichman, the president s top domestic affairs adviser. mr. ehrlichman told commissioner thrower that he was fired. so yeah, that pressure that the honorable irs commissioner was under to go audit and investigate people who the white house didn t like, turns out that was not exactly a shock and a surprise to president nixon. but once nixon realized that randolph thrower was going to be a problem on this front over at the irs, nixon realized he needed to find somebody to replace this guy. somebody more suited to the way nixon expected to be able to use the government for his own purposes. there was a guy named john nolan who was then up for the job, was considered the front-runner to be the next irs commissioner. he was kind of the obvious choice. he was the guy in charge of tax policy at the treasury department anyway. the treasury secretary at the time, john connelly, supported this guy nolan getting the irs job. but president nixon really, really knew what he wanted
the person he would have running the irs. that much became clear when we got to mr. thrower s second mistake. after a couple years on the job rung the irs for richard nixon, randolph thrower decided that he needed to talk to the president. he made contact with the white house. again, he did not have a previous relationship with nixon, didn t come up through the nixon campaign and all that stuff. he only met nixon when nixon appointed him to run the irs. but thrower asked for a personal meeting with the president, contacted the white house and said he needed to talk to him. in january 1971 mr. thrower requested a meeting with the prrnths hoping to warn president nixon personally about pressure that white house staff members had been placing on the irs, pressure on the irs to audit the tax returns of certain individuals, beginning with anti-war leaders and civil rights figures. the list had grown to include journalists and even members of congress. as irs commissioner randolph thrower