Richard Nixon's enemies list
1970s list of political victims by White House administration
Richard Nixon's enemies list refers to a compilation of major political opponents to Richard Nixon, the president of the United States from 1969 until his resignation in 1974, that was assembled by Charles Colson and written by George T. Bell (assistant to Colson, special counsel to the White House), and sent in memorandum form to John Dean on September 9, 1971. The list was part of a campaign officially known as "Opponents List" and "Political Enemies Project".
The list became public knowledge on June 27, 1973, when Dean mentioned during hearings with the Senate Watergate Committee that a list existed containing those whom the president did not like. Journalist Daniel Schorr, who happened to be on the list, managed to obtain a copy of it later that day.
A longer second list was made public by Dean on December 20, 1973, during a hearing with the Congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation.
Purpose
The official purpose, as described by the White House Counsel's Office, was to "screw" Nixon's political enemies, by means of tax audits from the Internal Revenue Service, and by manipulating "grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc." In a memorandum from John Dean to Lawrence Higby (August 16, 1971), Dean explained the purpose of the list:
This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.
The IRS commissioner, Donald C. Alexander, refused to launch audits of the people on the list. While none on the list were audited, several major donors to the presidential campaign of George McGovern did get audited in 1973, prompting a later remark from Karl Hess, "The right of the victor of a presidential election is to the authority to audit the losers".
People listed
The twenty names in the memo were as follows, although a master list of Nixon's political opponents with additional names was developed later.
Arnold Picker, film executive
Alexander E. Barkan, head of the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education
Edwin Guthman, journalist
Maxwell Dane, advertising executive
Charles Dyson, businessman
Howard Stein, financier
Rep.
“Richard Nixon's enemies list” enters the record as 1970s list of political victims by White House administration. Crown Archives preserves that source wording while asking what Richard, Nixon's and enemies can confirm, complicate or overturn.
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