Andrew, John A. III. Power to Destroy: The Political Uses of the IRS from Kennedy to Nixon. Chicago: Ivan R. Dee, 2002. 385 pages.

The author of this book, who died in 2000, was a history professor for 27 years at Franklin & Marshall College. In a foreword his daughter explains that friends and family pulled together to finish his research, and received substantial support from the College. Professor Andrew's detailed research is amazing. Before he died, he traveled to archives across the country to collect data on the IRS. Almost certainly this is the most comprehensive and best-documented treatment of IRS abuses available.

Andrew begins with the Kennedy administration, which launched the Ideological Organizations Project to pressure the IRS to investigate right-wing groups. By the time LBJ was in office, the IRS was spending more time fending off Wright Patman, a Democrat from Texas who served in Congress from 1929 until his death in 1976. As a populist, Patman went after the big tax-exempt foundations, which faced almost no scrutiny from the IRS. After LBJ, Nixon turned the IRS into a weapon. Much of the book details the Nixon administration's war against dissent, and the activities of the Special Service Staff of the IRS. The SSS made Nixon's enemies list look tame. Toss in the chapter about Nixon's connections to organized crime, and it becomes clear that the mainstream press missed some very big stories in the 1970s.
ISBN 1-56663-452-0

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