Talk:Master list of Nixon's political opponents

Linking those listed to this article

I would like help in editing the articles on all the individuals listed here to reference their presence on the master list. CynicalMe 19:49, 10 July 2006 (UTC)

Mainly, it's celebrities and politicans that need the reference. Most of the other categories required writing articles, so I added the link as I wrote those. I usually added a line like "her political views and actions landed her on the master list of Nixon political opponents." Jokestress 02:31, 11 July 2006 (UTC)

The article says that Steve McQueen was on the Nixon enemies list; yet the McQueen page says that this is not true, just a rumour. What is right? —Preceding unsigned comment added by 66.9.52.174 (talk) 15:47, 5 October 2007 (UTC)

Steve McQueen is listed in the June 28, 1973 NY Times article on page 38. One could claim that this is an "opponents list," not the original "enemies list" approved by Charles Colson. Haldemann said as much in the Congressional hearings (www.archive.org/details/statementofinfor08unit). Most people on the various lists want the bragging rights of being on THE Enemies List. Mr. McQueen may feel differently. Danaxtell (talk) 08:18, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

Palmer

The President of the National Student Association was Charles F. Palmer, not Palm —Preceding unsigned comment added by 64.12.116.7 (talk • contribs)

moved to talk page. Jokestress 20:58, 14 August 2006 (UTC)

Warhol

A biography of artist Andy Warhol claims he was on Nixon's enemies list. It furthermore claimed that his presence on the list insured that his federal taxes were audited every year between 1968 until his death. Maybe some of the source material should be checked for this.

L. Greg 17:56, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

Can you cite the specific biography so we can confirm? Jokestress 18:07, 30 August 2006 (UTC)

If you are talking about "Warhol: The Biography" it does not claim he was on the enemies list. "Whether Andy was on Nixon's hit list or not, we did not know." p. 358SteveJEsposito (talk) 14:55, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

These claims of being on the list seem to be popular with certain individuals. See below about David Steinberg who has been making the claim since 2002. No reporters bother to call him on it and it appears in his autobiographical documentary too.SteveJEsposito (talk) 00:48, 24 August 2016 (UTC)

Why Joe Namath?

I dont understand was Broadway Joe Namath on this list. --Blue387 05:05, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

"His extravagant bachelor lifestyle" [1] and "his corrupting lifestyle" [2]. J. Edgar Hoover kept a file on him, too. Jokestress 06:02, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

A notable football player of the 1960s-70s who was very popular with the public. The 1969 Yearbook for the Encyclopedia Britannia described Nameath as a "living legend" who was frequently hired for television commercials, appeared on TV talk-shows, and was briefly the star of his own TV show. He was not only just a good football player, but also a likable and personable sort of guy who did well on the TV talk show circuit. The entry from the 1969 Yearbook' also states that in the year 1969 Namath was the subject of three biographies and one autobiography, the latter of which was a best-seller. Not bad for a guy who was 25-26 in 1969. So 50 years ago, Namath was a celebrity whom almost everybody would had known. Namath did not like Nixon, which is presumably how he made the enemies list. The fact that Namath made the enemies' list shows Nixon's paranoid insecurity. Namath was a very popular football player, but merely being a celebrity does not affect elections. Lots of celebrities disliked Nixon, but he still won by a landslide in the 1972 election. Having a celebrity endorse a product in a TV ad might increase sales, which is presumably why advertising companies hire celebrities all the time to do that, but the star power of a celebrity does not extend to politics. By all accounts, Nixon was an extremely intelligent man, but one of his defining traits was this paranoid insecurity, the man from a small town in California who believed "the establishment" was out to get him. A more self-confident man would not worried about the possibility of someone like Namath doing in him. I never heard of a single case of a politician losing an election because a football player endorsed his opponent.--A.S. Brown (talk) 01:29, 22 February 2020 (UTC) 

The inclusion of Joe Namath was an unmitigated mistake (and the "Giants" thing was a salient clue). Nixon didn't know at the time that his staff had added Broadway Joe to this Opponents List--a list unbeknownst to him. This is well documented. Please visit my modest website, www.enemieslist.info, before expounding. I'm very slow at adding information, but I do address the most popular misconceptions, like Joe Namath. Joe's going to die some year soon and he's one of the few people who doesn't point to his inclusion as a point of pride. I watched him on our new color TV in 1969. Let's appreciate that bit of his greatness and not some mistake that has nothing to do with Nixon or him. To overstate, his knees were so bad that a knee-jerk reaction to his Enemies List inclusion is just piling on. On this Wikipedia page that documents the original, absurd White House Enemies List (which probably belongs on Wikicommons at this point), all we need to know is that he was included as a NY Giant. History can decipher the full absurdity without any exposition. Danaxtell (talk) 03:27, 22 February 2020 (UTC)

Black Congress Men

Is it really appropriot to have a section of Black Congress men? There are already two other categories for Sentators, and Representatives. This category seems racist, and NPOV.(Lucas(CA) 19:17, 5 September 2006 (UTC))

The list is presented exactly as compiled by Nixon aides. The separation of Black Congressmembers was in the original. Jokestress 19:58, 5 September 2006 (UTC)

A link to the actual list -- or offering a citation to a publication where the list is presented in its full, verbaitim form, is needed here. Otherwise, we're basically just taking the word of whoever wrote this article that the list as it is is accurate. The paltry citation offered at the end of the article isn't even in proper form and gives me no idea where I should find it. Staff report? Whose staff??!? -- 64.72.137.241 (talk) 22:46, 16 November 2007 (UTC)

The citation you partially removed has the full list with "Black Congressmen" split out. Jokestress (talk) 02:26, 10 August 2008 (UTC)

John Lennon and others

Lennon has been among those added a couple of times, but Lennon was not on any published versions of Nixon's lists. Sure, Nixon disliked his politics, and Hoover was out to nail him, but we have to stick with reliable sources from published versions. If you have a book or other source that states Lennon was on Nixon's enemies list, we can discuss that. Jokestress 23:06, 12 February 2007 (UTC)

If one Googles "John Lennon Nixon enemies list" (w/o quote marks), there are certainly a lot of pages that come up claiming he was. I've no clue if any of them are reliable, but it's a start. --Ye Olde Luke (talk) 21:50, 21 May 2008 (UTC)

Time to prevent additions?

I just removed a person from the "Master List of Political Opponents". She'd been there at least 6 months. You can see my note in 'history'. Since this list now jives with the newspaper accounts, maybe it's time to prevent new names from being added. It's probably quite tempting to some types.

I also corrected several OCR (optical character recognition) errors in names. I suspect that the list was originally lifted from the OCR copy from Facts on File listed under External Links. The print versions in the NY Times and Washington Post on June 28, 1973 have none of these errors. The most humorous is Harriet Van HOME instead of Harriet Van HORNE. The OCR error has been spread so far that the non-existent Harriet Van Home even has a Wikipedia entry.

While the newspaper list is more authoritative that whatever was used before, it would still be delightful to get a PDF of the original June 27, 1973 Congressional testimony as a source. The "Original List" of 20 (complete with Charles Colson's 10 checkmarks) and the "Second Enemies List" of McGovern staffers and supporters is included in the Congressional IRS hearings at www.archive.org/details/statementofinfor08unit. But, the "Master List of Political Opponents" is not included in that record. It must be somewhere in the Congressional Record. Danaxtell (talk) 08:49, 1 June 2009 (UTC)

The original list with check marks is in WikiCommons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/Category:Nixon%27s_Enemies_List SteveJEsposito (talk) 17:54, 25 August 2016 (UTC)

When?

When was the list compiled? Why? The article's just "HeresAList!".

There's no physical proof that such a list even exists. Thismightbezach (talk) 13:55, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

The list was compiled between 1971 and 1973 and presented by the primary author to the US Senate in summer 1973. It was published widely as soon as it was released. You can order your own copies from the National Archives here. Jokestress (talk) 16:12, 4 July 2012 (UTC)

Categorization

Just curious why there are categories for "Business People", "Business Additions" and "Business". In "Media", people are mixed together with news organizations. At most, there should be one category for individuals in business and another one for companies.

Or is this the way that the people were grouped together on Nixon's list? Liz ^{Read! Talk!} 15:12, 24 August 2013 (UTC)

I would like an answer to this as well. Also, there were two duplications that I caught and removed: Sargent Shriver, and Katherine Graham. No need to put them twice. Were the duplications on the original list, or created by Wikipedia editors? (which is a telltale sign of WP:OR JustinTime55 (talk) 20:16, 12 March 2015 (UTC)

Typo Correction

The 'Oranizations List' gives a list of organizations that were highlighted, but the entry under AFL-CIO, has no direction for a sub group called COPE. It appears, in the description for the person 'Alexander E. Barken', that there was a group called 'Committee on Political Education'. So I can safely assume that was what the author (and perhaps the actual list) referred to, when the list was compiled. However, when one looks for disambiguation for 'COPE' there is no reference to 'Committee on Political Education' as such. and this gives a dead end. Since this article is flagged as 'context-11/2009 and 'refimprove-08/2013' and 'Multiple issues'. Based on these observations, the Link is expanded to give the full name, and an entry (with notes) added to the article in AFL-CIO, so that an accurate reference point can be formed. This is a two step process. The initial modification is only to prepare for the actual committee name inclusion in the main article of AFL-CIO.Richard416282 (talk) 20:55, 17 February 2015 (UTC)

David Steinberg?

Over the past few years, comedian and director David Steinberg has claimed to be "number 20" on the Nixon Enemies List. As far as I can tell, the only place he is linked with this list are in his interviews, by Steinberg himself. Just a heads up in case someone tries to add him. Slate interview Also in his bio/documentary "Quality Balls: The David Steinberg Story by Barry Avrich" — Preceding unsigned comment added by SteveJEsposito (talk • contribs) 21:34, 23 August 2016 (UTC) SteveJEsposito (talk) 21:36, 23 August 2016 (UTC)