Nixon's Enemies List

President Richard Nixon’s Official Presidential Photograph, taken in 1971

Nixon’s Enemies List is the informal name of what started as a list of President of the United States Richard Nixon’s major political opponents compiled by Charles Colson, written by George T. Bell^[1] (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 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 succinctly:

The original 20 names in Colson’s memo (and his notes accompanying them) were as follows, although a master list of Nixon political opponents and another list, with a combined total of over 30,000 names, were developed later.

Verbatim text of Colson's original memo (with his comments)

Having studied the attached material and evaluated the recommendations for the discussed action, I believe you will find my list worthwhile for status. It is in priority order.

1. Arnold M. Picker, United Artists Corp., New York; Top Edmund Muskie fund raiser. Success here could be both debilitating and very embarrassing to the Muskie machine. If effort looks promising, both Ruth and David Picker should be programmed and then a follow through with United Artists.
2. Alexander E. Barkan, national director of A.F.L.-C.I.O.’s Committee on Political Education, Washington, D.C.: Without a doubt the most powerful political force programmed against us in 1968 ($10-million, 4.6 million votes, 115 million pamphlets, 176,000 workers—all programmed by Barkan’s C.O.P.E.—so says Teddy White in The Making of the President 1968). We can expect the same effort this time.
3. Edwin Guthman, managing editor, Los Angeles Times national editor: Guthman, former Kennedy aide, was a highly sophisticated hatchetman against us in '68. It is obvious he is the prime mover behind the current Key Biscayne effort. It is time to give him the message.
4. Maxwell Dane, Doyle, Dane and Bernbach, New York: The top Democratic advertising firm—they destroyed Goldwater in ’64. They should be hit hard starting with Dane.
5. Charles Dyson, Dyson-Kissner Corporation, New York: Dyson and Larry O’Brien were close business associates after ’68. Dyson has huge business holdings and is presently deeply involved in the Businessmen’s Educational Fund which bankrolls a national radio network of five-minute programs, anti-Nixon in character.
6. Howard Stein, Dreyfus Corporation, New York: Heaviest contributor to McCarthy in ’68. If McCarthy goes, will do the same in ’72. If not, Lindsay or McGovern will receive the funds.
7. Allard Lowenstein, Long Island, New York: Guiding force behind the “Dump Nixon” vote drive.
8. Morton Halperin, leading executive at Common Cause: A scandal would be most helpful here. (A consultant for Common Cause in February-March 1971) (On staff of Brookings Institution)
9. Leonard Woodcock, United Auto Workers, Detroit, Michigan: No comments necessary.
10. S. Sterling Munro, Jr., Senator Henry M. Jackson’s aide, Silver Spring, Maryland: We should give him a try. Positive results would stick a pin in Jackson’s white hat.
11. Bernard T. Feld, president, Council for a Livable World: Heavy far left funding. They will program an “all court press” against us in ’72.
12. Sidney Davidoff, New York City, Lindsay’s top personal aide: a first class S.O.B., wheeler-dealer and suspected bagman. Positive results would really shake the Lindsay camp and Lindsay’s plans to capture youth vote. Davidoff in charge.
13. John Conyers, congressman, Detroit: Coming on fast. Emerging as a leading black anti-Nixon spokesman. Has known weakness for white females.
14. Samuel M. Lambert, president, National Education Association: Has taken us on vis-a-vis federal aid to parochial schools—a ’72 issue.
15. Stewart Rawlings Mott, Mott Associates New York: Nothing but big money for radic-lib candidates.
16. Ron Dellums, congressman, California: Had extensive EMK-Tunney support in his election bid. Success might help in California next year.
17. Daniel Schorr, Columbia Broadcasting System, Washington: A real media enemy.
18. S. Harrison Dogole, Philadelphia, Pennsylvania: President of Globe Security Systems—fourth largest private detective agency in U.S. Heavy Humphrey contributor. Could program his agency against us.
19. Paul Newman, California-Connecticut: Radic-lib causes. Heavy McCarthy involvement ’68. Used effectively in nationwide T.V. commercials. ’72 involvement certain.
20. Mary McGrory, Washington columnist: Daily hate Nixon articles.

When this list was released, Daniel Schorr read it live on television, not realizing that he was on the list until he came to his own name.^[2]

Master list of political opponents

According to Dean, Colson later compiled hundreds of names on a “master list” which changed constantly. The full list includes many notable people and publications, including Jane Fonda, Bill Cosby, Ted Kennedy, Shirley Chisholm, Bella Abzug, Barbra Streisand, Carol Channing, The New York Times, and The Washington Post.

Second "Enemies" List

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. This list includes relatively few celebrities. The Washington Post printed the entire list the next day, but the New York Times reported just a few paragraphs on page 21^[3][4].

Reception

Actors Paul Newman and Carol Channing have stated, separately, that inclusion on the list was their greatest accomplishment.

In Philip Roth's Our Gang, 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 and the Black Panthers who were on the real-life counterpart, The Berrigans (who perhaps surprisingly were not) and Curt Flood.

In Fear and Loathing on the Campaign Trail ’72, Hunter S. Thompson expresses disappointment in not having been included on the list.

Carl Djerassi's autobiography The Pill, Pigmy Chimps, and Degas' Horse states that President Nixon awarded him the National Medal of Science when he was on the Enemies List. He learned this from an article in The San Francisco Examiner a few months later.

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'Rourke's 1989 "A Call for a New McCarthyism" in The American Spectator has a hybrid blacklist and enemy's 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."

See also

• Proscription

References

External links

• Facts on File: A copy of the larger expanded enemies list and related memos
• Records of the Watergate Special Prosecution Force 1971 to 1977 via National Archives and Records Administration
• EnemiesList.info, a complete, searchable, annotated Nixon's Enemies List
• Statement 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