The Greatest Generation: Tax Division

Headlines such as IRS Official Sought Audit of GOP Senator suggest the potential of tax audits as a political weapon. It certainly isn't a new idea. In 1971 President Nixon tried to turn the IRS loose on his political enemies. When the IRS Commissioner, Randolph W. Thrower, refused, he was fired.

Thanks to those famous White House tapes, we know exactly the characteristics Nixon desired in Thrower's replacement:

“I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he’s told, that every income-tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends."

The man chosen, recommended by Attorney General John MItchell, was Johnnie M. Walters, a World War II Air Force navigator who had flown over 50 combat missions, then serving as assistant attorney general for tax policy.

Walters moment of truth arrived on September 11, 1972. John Dean handed him Nixon's "enemies list," with instructions to make the 200 names IRS targets. My boss, Dean told Walters, doesn't like somebody to say "no."

Walters did not obey and, like Thrower, he was fired. 

Johnnie Walters died this week at age 94. Read his New York Times obituary here.