Monthly Archives: March 2011

“How High Can an Income Tax Fix Go?” The LBJ tax scandal that you’ve probably never heard of.

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The Mudd Man­u­script Library recently acquired an extremely inter­est­ing col­lec­tion from a little-noted event in polit­i­cal history.

werner
Werner’s 1944 memo explain­ing the dis­cov­ery of fraud­u­lent bonuses to Brown & Root exec­u­tives. The actual recip­i­ent of these funds was deter­mined to be the Lyn­don B. John­son 1941 U.S. Sen­ate campaign.

Between 1942 and 1944, Elmer Charles Werner led an Inter­nal Rev­enue Ser­vice inves­ti­ga­tion of Brown & Root’s* covert finan­cial sup­port of then U.S. Rep­re­sen­ta­tive Lyn­don B. Johnson’s failed 1941 U.S. Sen­ate cam­paign. Accord­ing to Werner’s records, this inves­ti­ga­tion was impeded and even­tu­ally ter­mi­nated by a com­pli­cated series of requests from John­son to Roosevelt’s White House to senior IRS officials.

This col­lec­tion includes Werner’s diaries from 1942–1945 (the period dur­ing which John­son was inves­ti­gated); Werner’s notes and news­pa­per clip­pings regard­ing the case; a chronol­ogy of the facts of the case pre­pared by Werner; and Werner’s man­u­script nar­ra­tive regard­ing his expe­ri­ences which he enti­tled “How High Can an Income Tax Fix Go?”

Many years before their trans­mit­tal to Mudd, these records were cen­tral sources for a chap­ter in Robert A. Caro’s book The Years of Lyn­don John­son: The Path to Power (1981). There, Caro explains how Johnson’s con­nec­tions to the Roo­sevelt White House pre­vented the IRS inves­ti­ga­tion from explor­ing the full scope of Brown & Root’s secret con­tri­bu­tions to the John­son campaign.

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New Public Policy Accessions: July 2010 — March 2011

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One of Mudd’s newest acces­sions, the Kris­ten Tim­o­thy Papers, finds itself in good com­pany with other Mudd col­lec­tions doc­u­ment­ing indi­vid­u­als who have had pro­found influ­ence in the United Nations, includ­ing the papers of Mar­garet Sny­der, Regional Advi­sor of the

United Nations Eco­nomic Com­mis­sion for Africa; Henry R. Labouisse, Direc­tor of UNRWA and Exec­u­tive Direc­tor of UNICEF; David A. Morse, Director-General of the ILO; and many other luminaries.

Tim­o­thy orga­nized the United Nations’ Fourth World Con­fer­ence on Women in Bei­jing in 1995. The con­fer­ence addressed endur­ing inequal­i­ties for women and girls across the world. Tim­o­thy was instru­men­tal in out­lin­ing the Bei­jing Dec­la­ra­tion and Plat­form for Action, which were adopted by con­sen­sus on 15 Sep­tem­ber 1995.

Timothy’s records include audio-visual mate­ri­als (much of which is avail­able online), records regard­ing the cre­ation of the plat­form for action, mate­ri­als cre­ated in prepa­ra­tion for and dur­ing the con­fer­ence, and a series of Timothy’s research records on the his­tory of the global women’s movement.

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Syngman Rhee’s Time at Princeton

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Dear Mr. Mudd,
What can you tell me about Syn­g­man Rhee’s time at Princeton?

In South Korea, March 1 marks Inde­pen­dence Move­ment Day, a com­mem­o­ra­tion of the 1919 Dec­la­ra­tion of Inde­pen­dence that marked the start of Korean resis­tance against the country’s Japan­ese occu­pa­tion. One of the notable fig­ures of that move­ment was Syn­g­man Rhee *1910, who was named the Pres­i­dent of the exile Pro­vi­sional Gov­ern­ment of the Repub­lic of Korea that arose dur­ing this strug­gle. Rhee served this exile gov­ern­ment, based in Shang­hai, China, until his ouster in 1925, and later served as the first pres­i­dent of the Repub­lic of Korea from 1948 until another acri­mo­nious depar­ture in 1960.
rhee_prince_photo
Pho­to­graph of Syn­g­man Rhee *1910 from the Octo­ber 6, 1950 Daily Princetonian

Researchers curi­ous about Rhee’s time at Prince­ton should know that the See­ley G. Mudd Man­u­script Library has a vari­ety of infor­ma­tion on him. Because Rhee was a grad­u­ate stu­dent, we have a Grad­u­ate Alumni File which pro­vides a great deal of insight into his time at Prince­ton, as well as the dis­ser­ta­tion he pro­duced in com­ple­tion of the degree. Researchers can also exam­ine Daily Prince­ton­ian arti­cles con­cern­ing Rhee’s later vis­its to Prince­ton, or view an infor­ma­tion file com­piled by the Office of Com­mu­ni­ca­tions.

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