Nixon's Enemies List
Encyclopedia
President of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
Richard Nixon
Richard Nixon
Richard Milhous Nixon was the 37th President of the United States, serving from 1969 to 1974. The only president to resign the office, Nixon had previously served as a US representative and senator from California and as the 36th Vice President of the United States from 1953 to 1961 under...
’s major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson
Charles Colson
Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson is a Christian leader, cultural commentator, and former Special Counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973....
, written by George T. Bell
George T. Bell
George T. Bell was a former special assistant to President Richard Nixon. He wrote the Nixon's Enemies List compiled by Charles Colson....
(assistant to Colson, special counsel to the White House), and sent in memorandum
Memorandum
A memorandum is from the Latin verbal phrase memorandum est, the gerundive form of the verb memoro, "to mention, call to mind, recount, relate", which means "It must be remembered ..."...
form to John Dean
John Dean
John Wesley Dean III is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up...
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 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
Daniel Schorr
Daniel Louis Schorr was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio...
, who happened to be on the list, managed to obtain copies of it later that day.
Purpose
The official purpose, as described by the White House CounselWhite House Counsel
The White House Counsel is a staff appointee of the President of the United States.-Role:The Counsel's role is to advise the President on all legal issues concerning the President and the White House...
's Office, was to "screw" Nixon's political enemies, by means of tax audits from the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
, and by manipulating "grant availability, federal contracts, litigation, prosecution, etc." In a memorandum from John Dean
John Dean
John Wesley Dean III is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up...
to Lawrence Higby
Lawrence Higby
Lawrence M. Higby is an American businessman and political activist. Higby was assistant to White House Chief of Staff H. R. Haldeman during the Nixon Administration. He later went on to become CEO of home medical equipment company Apria...
(August 16, 1971), Dean explained the purpose of the list:
People listed
The 20 names in the memo in order were as follows, although a master list of Nixon political opponentsMaster list of Nixon political opponents
A master list of Nixon political opponents was compiled to supplement the original Nixon's Enemies List of 20 key people considered opponents of President Richard Nixon. The master list was compiled by Charles Colson's office and sent in memorandum form to John Dean. Dean later provided this...
was developed later.
- Arnold PickerArnold PickerArnold M. Picker was a United States film industry executive, mayor of Golden Beach, Florida and the number one enemy on Richard Nixon's list of targets.Picker began his career by following in his father's footsteps...
- Alexander BarkanAlexander BarkanAlexander E. Barkan was head of the AFL-CIO's Committee on Political Education from 1963 until 1982. During the Watergate hearings, it became known that Barkan was one of the original members of Nixon's Enemies List....
- Edwin Guthman
- Maxwell DaneMaxwell DaneMaxwell "Mac" Dane was an American advertising executive and co-founder of the Doyle Dane Bernbach agency, known as DDB, that was established in Manhattan in 1949. For advertising against U.S...
- Charles DysonCharles DysonCharlie Henry Dyson was an American businessman and philanthropist. He was founder of the Dyson Kissner-Moran Corporation and the Dyson Foundation .-Business career:...
- Howard SteinHoward SteinHoward Mathew Stein ) was an American financier who is widely considered one of the fathers of the mutual fund industry. He was featured on the cover of TIME Magazine on August 24, 1970...
- Allard Lowenstein
- Morton HalperinMorton HalperinMorton H. Halperin is an American expert on foreign policy and civil liberties. He served in the Johnson, Nixon, and Clinton administrations and in a number of roles with think tanks and universities such as the Council on Foreign Relations and Harvard University.- Early career :Halperin received...
- Leonard WoodcockLeonard WoodcockLeonard Freel Woodcock was an American labor union leader and diplomat.He was the president of the United Automobile Workers from 1970 to 1977 and the first US ambassador to the People's Republic of China....
- S. Sterling Munro, Jr.S. Sterling Munro, Jr.S. Sterling Munro, Jr. was an aide of former Washington Senator Henry M. Jackson best known for being one of the members of Richard Nixon's Enemies List.-Life and career:...
- Bernard T. FeldBernard T. FeldBernard T. Feld was a professor of physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He helped develop the atomic bomb, and later led an international movement among scientists to banish nuclear weapons....
- Sidney DavidoffSidney DavidoffSidney "Sid" Davidoff is an American lawyer who was one of 20 people on Nixon's Enemies List.-Life and career:Born in Brooklyn, New York, Davidoff graduated with a bachelor's degree from City College of New York in 1960 and earned his J.D. from New York University in 1963...
- John ConyersJohn ConyersJohn Conyers, Jr. is the U.S. Representative for , serving since 1965 . He is a member of the Democratic Party...
- Samuel M. LambertSamuel M. LambertSamuel M. Lambert was president of the National Education Association during the administration of Richard M. Nixon...
- Stewart Rawlings MottStewart Rawlings MottStewart Rawlings Mott Born in Flint, Michigan was a philanthropist who founded the Stewart R. Mott Charitable Trust...
- Ron DellumsRon DellumsRonald Vernie "Ron" Dellums served as Oakland's forty-fifth mayor. From 1971 to 1998, he was elected to thirteen terms as a Member of the U.S...
- Daniel SchorrDaniel SchorrDaniel Louis Schorr was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio...
- S. Harrison DogoleS. Harrison DogoleS. Harrison "Sonny" Dogole was president of Globe Security Systems in Philadelphia. Globe was a major private detective agency in the United States....
- Paul NewmanPaul NewmanPaul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
- Mary McGroryMary McGroryMary McGrory was a liberal American journalist and columnist. She was a fierce opponent of the Vietnam War and was on Richard Nixon's enemies list for writing "daily hate Nixon articles."...
Master list of political opponents
According to Dean, Colson later compiled hundreds of names on a “master list” which changed constantly. On December 20, 1973, the Congressional Joint Committee on Internal Revenue Taxation concluded that people on the "Enemies" list had not been subjected to an unusual number of tax audits. The report revealed a second list of about 576 (with some duplicates) supporters and staffers of George McGovern's 1972 presidential campaign given to Internal Revenue Commissioner Johnnie Walters by John Dean on September 11, 1972. The Washington Post printed the entire list the next day, but the New York Times reported just a few paragraphs on page 21.Reception
Newsman Daniel SchorrDaniel Schorr
Daniel Louis Schorr was an American journalist who covered world news for more than 60 years. He was most recently a Senior News Analyst for National Public Radio...
and Paul Newman
Paul Newman
Paul Leonard Newman was an American actor, film director, entrepreneur, humanitarian, professional racing driver and auto racing enthusiast...
stated, separately, that inclusion on the list was their greatest accomplishment. When this list was released, Schorr read it live on television, not realizing that he was on the list until he came to his own name.
In popular culture
In the United States the term "enemies list" has come to be used in contexts not associated with Richard Nixon. For example, satirist P. J. O'RourkeP. J. O'Rourke
Patrick Jake "P. J." O'Rourke is an American political satirist, journalist, writer, and author. O'Rourke is the H. L. Mencken Research Fellow at the Cato Institute and is a regular correspondent for The Atlantic Monthly, The American Spectator, and The Weekly Standard, and frequent panelist on...
's 1989 "A Call for a New McCarthyism
McCarthyism
McCarthyism is the practice of making accusations of disloyalty, subversion, or treason without proper regard for evidence. The term has its origins in the period in the United States known as the Second Red Scare, lasting roughly from the late 1940s to the late 1950s and characterized by...
" in The American Spectator
The American Spectator
The American Spectator is a conservative U.S. monthly magazine covering news and politics, edited by R. Emmett Tyrrell Jr. and published by the non-profit American Spectator Foundation. From its founding in 1967 until the late 1980s, the small-circulation magazine featured the writings of authors...
has a hybrid blacklist
Blacklist
A blacklist is a list or register of entities who, for one reason or another, are being denied a particular privilege, service, mobility, access or recognition. As a verb, to blacklist can mean to deny someone work in a particular field, or to ostracize a person from a certain social circle...
and enemies list, suggesting that, contrary to the spirits of these lists, the subjects there should be overexposed, not suppressed, "so that a surfeited public rebels in disgust."
In Philip Roth's Our Gang
Our Gang (novel)
Our Gang is Philip Roth's fifth novel. A marked departure from his previous book, the popular Portnoy's Complaint, Our Gang is a political satire written in the form of a closet drama. Centered around the character of "Trick E...
, which was published in 1971, two years before the list was first mentioned in public, the Nixon parody character Trick E. Dixon begins to compile a rudimentary list of five political enemies. It includes Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda
Jane Fonda is an American actress, writer, political activist, former fashion model, and fitness guru. She rose to fame in the 1960s with films such as Barbarella and Cat Ballou. She has won two Academy Awards and received several other movie awards and nominations during more than 50 years as an...
and the Black Panthers who were on the real-life expanded master list, The Berrigans
Daniel Berrigan
Daniel Berrigan, SJ is an American Catholic priest, peace activist, and poet. Daniel and his brother Philip were for a time on the FBI Ten Most Wanted Fugitives list for their involvement in antiwar protests during the Vietnam war....
(who were not) and Curt Flood
Curt Flood
Curtis Charles Flood was a Major League Baseball player who spent most of his career as a center fielder for the St. Louis Cardinals. A defensive standout, he led the National League in putouts four times and in fielding percentage twice, winning Gold Glove Awards in his last seven full seasons...
.
In "Homer's Enemy
Homer's Enemy
"Homer's Enemy" is the twenty-third episode of the eighth season of the American animated television series The Simpsons. It was first broadcast on the Fox network in the United States on May 4, 1997. The episode's plot centers on the Springfield Nuclear Power Plant's hiring a new employee named...
", an 8th-season episode of The Simpsons
The Simpsons
The Simpsons is an American animated sitcom created by Matt Groening for the Fox Broadcasting Company. The series is a satirical parody of a middle class American lifestyle epitomized by its family of the same name, which consists of Homer, Marge, Bart, Lisa and Maggie...
, Moe Syzlak shows off his own enemies list, which Barney Gumble
Barney Gumble
Barnard "Barney" Gumble is a fictional character on the American animated sitcom The Simpsons. The character is voiced by Dan Castellaneta and first appeared in the series premiere episode "Simpsons Roasting on an Open Fire". He is the town drunk and Homer Simpson's best friend. His capacity for...
quickly appraises as Nixon's list, with the latter's name crossed out and replaced with Moe's. Barney is added to the list for his insolence. Another episode, Homer the Great
Homer the Great
"Homer the Great" is the twelfth television episode of The Simpsons sixth season. It originally aired on the Fox network in the United States on January 8, 1995. In the episode, Homer discovers that Lenny and Carl are members of the ancient secret society known as the Stonecutters...
, had Homer expressing anger at a shoddily-made "Econo-Save Factory Stool" that breaks and causes him to fall, and remarks "OK, Econo-Save, you just made the list!" Homer proceeds to add the company's name to a list.
External links
- Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force 1971 to 1977 via National Archives and Records AdministrationNational Archives and Records AdministrationThe National Archives and Records Administration is an independent agency of the United States government charged with preserving and documenting government and historical records and with increasing public access to those documents, which comprise the National Archives...
- EnemiesList.info, a complete, searchable, annotated Nixon's Enemies List
- http://www.archive.org/details/statementofinfor08unitStatement of Information, Hearings Before the Committee on the Judiciary, House of Representatives, Ninety-Third Congress, Second Session, Pursuant to H. Res. 803, a Resolution Authorizing and Directing the Committee on the Judiciary to Investigate Whether Sufficient Grounds Exist for the House of Representatives to Exercise its Constitutional Power to Impeach Richard M. Nixon, President of the United States of America, Book VIII, Internal Revenue Service, May-June 1974] via The Internet Archive