John Andrew’s groundbreaking exploration of one of the most mysterious of all government agencies takes its title from Chief Justice John Marshall’s famous dictum, “The power to tax is the power to destroy.” Mr. Andrew confirms what many have suspected for a long time: that presidents, political appointees, and bureaucrats have attempted to use the Internal Revenue Service to punish their enemies. The author combed the papers of presidential staff, IRS officials, congressional critics, and the Watergate Special Prosecution Force, and petitioned under the Freedom of Information Act to obtain IRS documents. What he discovered was a series of projects and investigations that at times resemble a spy thriller. Beginning with the Kennedy administration’s Ideological Organizations Project, which investigated, intimidated, and challenged the tax-exempt status of right-wing foundations, Mr. Andrew traces the ways Democrats and Republicans alike used the IRS to accomplish political goals during the 1960s and early 1970s. Seemingly innocuous names like Operation Leprechaun and Project Tradewinds, together with an array of intelligence and surveillance activities, formed a pattern of abuse that threatened the foundations of American political culture. In one of the most powerful and sobering passages of the book, Mr. Andrew chronicles the IRS’s Special Service Staff, which carried out activities that were more extensive and intrusive than Nixon’s infamous Enemies List—yet received scant coverage in the media. He also offers important revelations about Nixon’s ties to organized crime through Bebe Rebozo. Power to Destroy is a shocking analysis of how political influence has corrupted the IRS, and how the agency’s own crusade for secrecy hides its operations from public scrutiny, even from congressional committees responsible for overseeing its activities.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
As historian Andrew (Lyndon Johnson and the Great Society) shows in this dense study, during the 1960s and '70s the White House used the power of taxation to attack enemies-and reward friends-with relative impunity. President Kennedy, for example, started an "Ideological Organizations Project" that used the IRS to challenge the tax-exempt status of (and thus choke off the funding from) such right-wing opponents as the John Birch Society. Johnson often promised tax favors to wealthy individuals who could deliver votes. But these abuses pale in comparison to the corruption of the Nixon administration, which used the IRS to persecute people on the president's notorious "Enemies List." At Nixon's request, the IRS launched audits and investigations of a host of real and imagined opponents, including the Jerry Rubin Foundation, the Fund for Investigative Journalism (which funded Seymour Hersh's reporting on the My Lai massacre) and the Center for Corporate Responsibility. The basic intent, Nixon aide John Dean wrote, was to "use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies." Though known to Watergate prosecutors, these abuses went largely unreported in the mainstream media because they weren't sexy enough for the general public. That, unfortunately, is also the problem with this book. The minutiae of IRS procedures, combined with an incredibly large cast of characters (mostly bureaucrats), makes it less than gripping. Andrew nonetheless presents an important and serious study of one of the least understood agencies in the federal government.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 2002 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Review
“Power to Destroy is a shocking analysis of how political influence has corrupted the IRS, and how the agency's own crusade for secrecy hides its operations from public scrutiny, even from congressional committees responsible for overseeing its activities.” (American Free Press )
“Andrew provides a noteworthy historical account of the possibility of using administrative agencies in abusive ways and demonstrates the need to be dilligent against government violation of individual civil liberties.” (P. Fisher CHOICE )
“Written by a distinguished historian and political liberal...citing a wealth of freshly uncovered documents...new evidence.” (Insight )
“Sizzling good stuff such as this...will keep many readers moving along through Andrew's pages.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Political dynamite.” (Washington Times )
“Powerful, trenchant, and ultimately wise.” (Stanley I. Kutler )
“In this illuminating and shocking work, John Andrew knocks down the wall shielding the IRS from public scrutiny.” (Shelley Davis )
“Stunning and fascinating...based upon mind-boggling research and presented with the balance and insight that marked all of Andrew's work.” (Gould, Lewis L. )
An invaluable portrait of a renegade government agency seldom studied by researchers...kudos. (John Sbardellati Journal Of Cold War Studies )
“Andrew provides a noteworthy historical account of the possibility of using administrative agencies in abusive ways and demonstrates the need to be dilligent against government violation of individual civil liberties.” (P. Fisher CHOICE )
“Written by a distinguished historian and political liberal...citing a wealth of freshly uncovered documents...new evidence.” (Insight )
“Sizzling good stuff such as this...will keep many readers moving along through Andrew's pages.” (Kirkus Reviews )
“Political dynamite.” (Washington Times )
“Powerful, trenchant, and ultimately wise.” (Stanley I. Kutler )
“In this illuminating and shocking work, John Andrew knocks down the wall shielding the IRS from public scrutiny.” (Shelley Davis )
“Stunning and fascinating...based upon mind-boggling research and presented with the balance and insight that marked all of Andrew's work.” (Gould, Lewis L. )
An invaluable portrait of a renegade government agency seldom studied by researchers...kudos. (John Sbardellati Journal Of Cold War Studies )
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5.0 out of 5 stars
Warning about political use of the IRS,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon (Hardcover)
This is a book that allows the average taxpayer to see just how corrupt the system of taxation is. The Internal Revenue service has political appointees at the top level who give their allegiance to those that appoint them, not to the citizens of the United States that they collect the taxes from. There are layers of nepotism within the IRS that protects them from scrutiny and allows them to act like the "brown shirts" of Hitler's era. A large portion of the book was about how the IRS, at the request of Kennedy's and Johnson's administrations, as well as the Putman committee in Congress, attacked conservative nonprofit organizations in an attempt to force them either to quiet their opposition to the Liberal Left's attempts to push our country into Socialism.Sadly, when Nixon came in office, his paranoia caused him to use the framework of corrupt use of the IRS developed by his predecessor, for his own agenda. He developed his enemies list and he obtained secret IRS data on his various opponents n the list, using that information to control their actions. Dr. Andrew was limited on every avenue of his research by the refusal of the IRS to provide information about their inner workings. Even with the Freedom of Information Act, the IRS redacted large amounts of information to deliberately cover up their actions. I'm sure that he would have exposed much more of the administration attempt to use the IRS as their own "Secret Service" if he had lived to complete the book.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Landmark research effort,
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Amazon Verified Purchase(What's this?)
This review is from: Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon (Hardcover)
The late John Andrew (this book was completed by his widow) uncovered fascinating records of government investigation on political dissidents during the Kennedy, Johnson and Nixon administrations. Searching through these president's archives, Andrew uncovered the ideological organizations project of the Kennedy Administration to monitor and combat what they viewed as right-wing organizations in America, following up on the recommendations of the Reuther Memo and the demands of Senator J. WIlliam Fulbright. The Johnson administration continued many of these same methods. An important perspective on the 1960s in America.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Explains and explores methods and purposes,
By Midwest Book Review (Oregon, WI USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon (Hardcover)
Any who would understand the functions and purposes of the IRS over decades of history and Presidential changes will want to read Power To Destroy, which explores how various projects and government agencies have changed IRS functions over the years. Both parties used the IRS to achieve political goals during the 1960s and 70s: this explains and explores methods and purposes.
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