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Thrower fended off the Caulfield appointment.
Commissioner Walters was similarly incensed when he was summoned to the office of then Presidential Counsel John Dean on Sept. 11, 1972, given a list of 579 members of Democratic Candidate George McGovern's campaign staff and contributors to his funds, and instructed by Dean to investigate their taxes in a way that would "not cause ripples." The list included Gavin, Heller, Clifford and MacLaine, as well as former IRS Commissioner Mortimer M. Caplin, Wisconsin Senator William Proxmire, Entertainers Polly Bergen, Joanne Woodward, Paul Newman, Gene Hackman, Playboy Publisher Hugh Hefner and former Diplomat Angier Biddle Duke. Walters told Dean it would be "disastrous" for the IRS to act on this request. He also protested to then Secretary of the Treasury George Shultz and, according to an affidavit given to the Judiciary Committee, Walters said: "Mr. Shultz looked briefly at the list and said do nothing with respect to it." Despite intense further prodding from Dean, Shultz and Walters refused to order tax audits of the McGovern supporters.
Sometimes the President's aides were more successful. On Sept. 21, 1970, Nixon Aide Tom Huston wrote a memo reminding the President's chief of staff, H.R. Haldeman, that Nixon had "indicated a desire for IRS to move against leftist organizations taking advantage of tax shelters." Huston advised that "what we cannot do in a courtroom via criminal prosecutions to curtail the activities of some of these groups, IRS could do by administrative action."
Huston attached a report by Commissioner Thrower indicating that a "special-service group" had been set up within IRS to check on extremist organizations "on the right or left," including the leftist S.D.S. as well as right-wing groups like the Ku Klux Klan. This special-service group had compiled financial information on some 1,025 organizations and 4,300 individuals and had recommended "enforcement action" against 26 groups and 43 persons. As a result, eight organizations were denied their previous tax-exempt status.
Thrower advised Huston that "knowledge of the existence and operations of this group should be carefully limited."
The White House failed in its desire to harass the Ford Foundation and the Brookings Institution. Dean complained in a July 20, 1971, memo that Commissioner Walters was reluctant "to make discreet politically oriented decisions" and that "purposeful delay appears to be the chosen bureaucratic tact [sic]." Arguing that both Ford and Brookings engaged in "either direct or indirect political activity [which] represents formidable opposition to the best interests of this Administration," Dean urged that the President order John Connally, then Treasury Secretary, to attack tax-exempt foundations generally in a major speech. If he would not do so, Dean advised, Vice President Spiro Agnew could use a