Long time gone

Johnnie Walters died yesterday at the age of 94. Interesting story, actually:

[Richard] Nixon had fired his first I.R.S. commissioner, Randolph W. Thrower, for resisting White House pressure to punish political opponents. Mr. Thrower, who served from 1969 to 1971, died at 100 in March.

This gave Johnnie Walters a chance to head the I.R.S. Soon, Nixon's men came calling:

Mr. Walters had not been told of Nixon’s other job requirements, as revealed in a White House conversation recorded on May 13, 1971. “I want to be sure he is a ruthless son of a bitch, that he will do what he’s told, that every income-tax return I want to see I see, that he will go after our enemies and not go after our friends,” the president said.

Mr. Walters failed to follow this script — which was unknown to him — when John W. Dean III, the White House counsel, summoned him to his office on Sept. 11, 1972. Mr. Dean handed him the “enemies list” of 200 people, most prominent Democrats, whom he wanted investigated.

“I was shocked,” Mr. Walters said in a 1997 interview with The Washington Post. “John, do you realize what you’re doing?” he remembered saying. “If I did what you asked, it’d make Watergate look like a Sunday school picnic.”

But Mr. Dean was emphatic, he recalled, saying, “The man I work for doesn’t like somebody to say ‘no.’ ”

Walters wouldn't do it. Instead, he did this:

Mr. Walters gave the list to Laurence N. Woodworth, chief of staff of Congress’s Joint Committee on Taxation. He wrote in his 2011 book, “Our Journey,” that this was the most important thing he did, “because then we could say with absolute certainty that I.R.S. never began any audit or investigation of any name on that list because of the list.”

Mr. Walters testified to various committees investigating alleged Nixon misdeeds. He left office in April 1973.

In 1973, we had dedicated public servants like Johnnie Walters, who refused to use the power of taxation to wage war on political enemies. I miss those days. RIP, Mr. Walters.