The Man Who Pulled a Thread

(7 of 8)

¶ Daniel A. Bolich, a former assistant commissioner of Internal Revenue, resigned because of his "health," was indicted for evading $7,444 of his own income taxes. A startling note about Bolich: when the House investigating subcommittee began its work in June 1951, he was assigned to assist it.

¶ Tammanyite Nunan, who resigned in 1947 and later had a lucrative law practice of tax cases, refused last April to tell the House investigating subcommittee how he happened to have $160,000 in undeclared income from 1944 to 1950. A grand jury is investigating.

¶ Charles Oliphant, chief counsel of the BIR, resigned suddenly after a tax-troubled Chicagoan testified that Oliphant's name had been used by a racketeer in an attempted shakedown. Oliphant had admitted accepting gifts and expensive entertainment from big taxpayers with cases pending before the BIR. A close friend of Oliphant was Henry ("The Dutchman") Grunewald, who refuses to testify before congressional committees.

¶ Theron Lamar Caudle, head of the tax division of the Department of Justice (which prosecutes frauds), was fired after he admitted accepting gifts, expensive entertainment and commissions from troubled taxpayers.

¶ Howard McGrath was fired as Attorney General in the furor about the corruption disclosures, although no specific irregularity has been charged against him.

Enter an Aristocrat. All that is quite a commotion to be stirred up by a man from Millsboro, Del., and some might expect that he is about to be overwhelmingly and triumphantly returned to the Senate by the grateful citizens of his state. This happy ending, however, is by no means certain. John Williams is facing a very tough fight for re-election this year.

His attendance record is the best in the Senate, but they give out no gold stars for that. His voting record, which counts more, is about ten miles to the right of Robert Taft's. Even more important is the fact that John Williams has been so busy protecting the taxpayers of the U.S. that he hasn't spent enough time doing things for the voters of Delaware.

Last but far, far from least is Williams' opponent. Alexis Irénée du Pont Bayard, 34, a Democrat of aristocratic lineage, is a veteran with a fine combat record, a good speaker, handsome, suave, a Princeton graduate and now Delaware's hard-working lieutenant governor. Alexis Bayard's father, Thomas Bayard, was a U.S. Senator. So were his grandfather, Thomas Bayard Sr., his great-grandfather, James A. Bayard Jr., his great-uncle, Richard Henry Bayard, his great-great-grandfather, James A. Bayard Sr., and his great-great-great-grandfather, Richard Bassett (who was also a member of the Constitutional Convention). Thomas Bayard Sr., also was U.S. Minister to the Court of St. James's when it was presided over by Victoria, daughter of a ruling house somewhat junior to the Bayards of Delaware. There is nothing like the Bayards in U.S. history, not even the Adamses, not even the Du Ponts.