Nixon's Enemies List - Purpose

Purpose

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Nixon's Enemies List

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:

This memorandum addresses the matter of how we can maximize the fact of our incumbency in dealing with persons known to be active in their opposition to our Administration; stated a bit more bluntly—how we can use the available federal machinery to screw our political enemies.

Read more about this topic:  Nixon's Enemies List

Famous quotes containing the word purpose:

    Along the journey we commonly forget its goal. Almost every vocation is chosen and entered upon as a means to a purpose but is ultimately continued as a final purpose in itself. Forgetting our objectives is the most frequent stupidity in which we indulge ourselves.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)

    Politics should share one purpose with religion: the steady emancipation of the individual through the education of his passions.
    George F. Will (b. 1941)

    The purpose of punishment is to improve those who do the punishing—that is the final recourse of those who support punishment.
    Friedrich Nietzsche (1844–1900)