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

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.

As Caro explains, in Feb­ru­ary of 1944, just as the inves­ti­ga­tion was gain­ing steam but before the agents had an oppor­tu­nity to ques­tion key John­son cam­paign staff, the IRS Chief of Intel­li­gence instructed the agents to halt the inves­ti­ga­tion. In the end, Brown & Root received only a slap on the wrist in rela­tion to their prob­a­ble transgressions.

On June 28, Werner sub­mit­ted his final report on Case S.I.-19267-F, show­ing tax defi­cien­cies of $1,099,994 and a penalty of $549,972. But even this was to be scaled down. After a series of fur­ther con­fer­ences between IRS offi­cials and [Alvin] Wirtz [Johnson’s close col­league and attor­ney for the defense], Brown & Root were ulti­mately required to pay a total of only $372,000. There were of course no fraud indict­ments, no trial, no pub­lic­ity. (Caro 753)

The rest of the chap­ter is equally intrigu­ing, as Caro explains the exact nature of Brown & Root’s finan­cial maneu­vers and Johnson’s inter­ac­tions with the Roo­sevelt White House. How­ever, Caro did not at the time have access to the 1944 and 1945 diaries kept by Werner, which are now part of Mudd’s col­lec­tions. These diaries may pro­vide more fruit­ful infor­ma­tion for a future researcher.

More infor­ma­tion about this col­lec­tion, MC253, can be found on the Prince­ton Uni­ver­sity Find­ing Aids Web­site.

*Dur­ing its many years in busi­ness, Brown & Root has also been known as Kel­logg, Brown & Root and KBR. Brown & Root is a for­mer sub­sidiary of Hal­libur­ton.