T. Lamar Caudle

T. Lamar Caudle was an Assistant Attorney General responsible for the tax division at the Justice Department. His brief appearance in the account of corruption in the Bureau of Internal Revenue links his dismissal to a wider effort to confront misconduct while preserving an important distinction: investigators described him as honorable, though naive in dealing with tax fixers.

Position and Dismissal

In November, Harry S. Truman fired Caudle from his post as head of the Justice Department’s tax division. The action came as senior officials in the Bureau of Internal Revenue were resigning and the administration faced mounting questions about tax-related corruption. Caudle’s removal was one part of a rapidly developing scandal, not an isolated personnel change.

Findings and Questions of Responsibility

A House investigating committee concluded that Caudle was undoubtedly an honorable man but had been naive in his dealings with tax fixers. The judgment framed his failure as poor judgment in a compromised environment rather than establishing that he was himself a tax fixer. The account offers no further particulars about those dealings, leaving the committee’s concise assessment as the clearest description of his conduct.

Place in the Scandal

The narrative also records that Caudle’s wife received a mink coat as a Christmas present from an attorney who had dealings with the tax division. That detail places the family within the scandal’s web of gifts and professional access, but the account does not say that Caudle received the coat or explain what the attorney sought in return. His role therefore remains sharply drawn but limited: a senior official dismissed amid a corruption crisis, assessed by investigators as honorable yet vulnerable to the influence of tax fixers.