THE ADMINISTRATION: Chain of Command

“He’s my kind of guy—we need more men like Nunan,” remarked the late Robert Hannegan of St. Louis, onetime (1943-44) Commissioner of Internal Revenue. Soon after, when Hannegan became Democratic Party Chairman, he picked Joseph D. Nunan Jr. to succeed him.

As BIR commissioner (1944-47), Nunan found need for his own cronies in top jobs. For Brooklyn collector he chose Joseph P. Marcelle, a Brooklyn ward boss. For director of New York’s alcohol tax unit: James B. E. Olson, his former deputy.

When Republican Senator John J. Williams touched off the scandals in the BIR, Marcelle and Olson were among the first casualties. Daniel A. Bolich, one of Nunan’s top tax agents in New York, who later became Assistant Internal Revenue Commissioner, was indicted for evading $7,444 of his own income tax. But Joe Nunan, who had been the No. 1 man in the tax-collecting hierarchy, managed to duck the committee’s questions, quietly became a tax attorney.

Last week, after months of investigation, the same federal grand jury in Brooklyn that indicted Bolich charged Nunan with tax fraud and evasion. The indictment said that over a five-year period Nunan had cheated Uncle Sam out of $91,086.