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Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon

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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.

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.

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.