Gumshoes and Tax Audits

After the Senate Watergate hearings ended, Committee Member Lowell P. Weicker kept up his personal investigation into the Nixon Administration's snooping on political enemies. Last week he demonstrated that the scope of those activities was far broader than had been previously known. At hearings conducted jointly by three Senate subcommittees into Government invasion of privacy, the Connecticut Republican made public a sheaf of White House memorandums, which he said "display Government at its most efficient philosophically and at its scariest" to individuals. Among his revelations and documentation of previous reports:

> As White House gumshoe, Anthony Ulasewicz, a former New York City policeman, conducted 54 investigations for the Administration, some seemingly legitimate but others highly questionable. For example, according to a cryptic memo, he investigated allegations that the President's nephew, Donald A. Nixon, had been "involved in improper conduct, that drugs were involved, and love-making groups at Three Forks, Sierra Madre. Also concern of bribery." There was no indication of what Ulasewicz turned up. But in another case he looked into a "wild party" supposedly attended by Senator Edward Kennedy and decided that the allegation was "unfounded."

> The liberalism of certain research centers, notably the Brookings Institution, infuriated the Administration. According to one memo released by Weicker, Charles W. Colson, then White House Special Counsel, suggested that fire regulations be changed to permit the FBI to respond to any fire in the District of Columbia. In the memo, he explained: "If there were to be a fire at the Brookings Institution, the FBI could respond" and get a certain file from Senior Fellow Leslie H. Gelb's office. In another memo, former Presidential Counsel John Dean recommended that the White House retaliate against Brookings by cutting its $500.000 in annual Government contracts and getting the IRS to audit its taxes.

> In 1971 Caulfield investigated Evangelist Billy Graham's complaint that he was being audited by the IRS. In a memo, Caulfield reported that the IRS was looking into donations to the evangelist including construction and decorator work, clothing from stores in Charlotte and Asheville, N.C., and tuition for Graham's children in foreign schools. Caulfield said the audit might have been initiated by an anonymous telephone call and warned: "The contacting of a number of Graham donors by IRS investigators suggests that the inquiry might possibly surface in the media. Judgments should be made accordingly."

> Caulfield made a similar investigation into the case of Actor John Wayne, who, as a loyal Nixon supporter, wondered if he did not deserve better treatment than he was getting at the hands of the IRS. According to a 1971 memo from Caulfield to Dean, the IRS had demanded back taxes of $251,116 from Wayne for the years 1964 through 1966. As part of his probe, Caulfield examined the records of audits by the IRS of returns filed by a cross section of politicians and show-business personalities, both for and against Nixon. They included Richard Boone, Jerry Lewis, Peter Lawford, Fred MacMurray, Lucille Ball, Ronald Reagan, Frank Sinatra and Sammy Davis Jr. All had been dunned for back taxes. The biggest IRS bill had gone to Lewis, who owed $446,312 for 1958 through 1968. He was followed by Davis ($36,683 between 1961 and 1966), Lawford ($32,720 between 1966 and 1969) and Sinatra ($30,797 between 1960 and 1964). Concluded Caulfield: "The Wayne complaint, when viewed in the attached context, does not appear to be strong enough to pursue."

> Another memo disclosed that in one month of 1969, President Nixon made 21 requests of his staff for "specific action relating to what could be considered unfair news coverage." As a result, presidential aides reviewed methods for dealing with "the media and anti-Administration spokesmen." Jeb Stuart Magruder, then an aide to Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman, recommended antitrust action and threats of tax audits as weapons. Former White House Aide Franklyn ("Lyn") Nofziger was more imaginative according to the memo, "suggesting the 'licensing' of individual newsmen, i.e., the air waves belong to the public, therefore the public should be protected from the misuse of these air waves by individual newsmen."

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