Therell be no end to it and Nixon has got to get out in front of it and we all have got to stand up and account for the mistakes weve made., Dean went to see Nixon in an effort to convince him that the cover-up would destroy his presidency. Well let me give you an example. Nine months into the mushrooming scandal, Dean bargained for immunity and won himself a lenient prison term by delivering the sensational, if deeply flawed, But this is not your fathers All the Presidents Men, as Rich put it. John D. Ehrlichman's and H.R. In this, there are no jokes., The situation is organically absurd, he continued. When it appeared that he might be foolish enough to blow the whistle on Heidi and her call girl ring, he was locked up at St. Elizabeth's, the District of Columbia's mental hospital. Nothing was happening at the DNC. It wasnt just Stenniss infirmities, of course, that rendered Nixons proposal laughable at the time; it was the suggestion that the president, by then identified as an actor in the Watergate saga, could be trusted to appoint the sole arbiter of the critical evidence in the case. The Watergate break-in and cover-up was the result of the disastrous interaction of John Dean with the CIA. He was one of the first officials in the Nixon administration to speak out. Indeed, the White House called him the cover-ups mastermind, The Times reported in June 1973. Dean has never been more concerned about American democracy than he is now. McCord dragged out the operation and left so many clues it was impossible the burglars would not be caught. People were shocked that people were breaking in and planting bugs, whereas nowadays that would seem like small potatoes.. But the WSPF concluded: Mitchells logs and schedule suggestDean exercised somewhat more discretion himself to forge ahead with getting Kalmbach into the picture than he has admitted.. Dean went into business for a while and tried to leave Watergate behind but a 1991 book that alleged he and his wife, Maureen, masterminded the cover-up prompted him to take legal action. He was released on Jan. 8, 1975. Forty years later, the former wunderkind is still suffering that death, over and over again, doomed to an eternity of evidentiary sifting and kneading. It would be incredibly entertaining to have a movie made based on this book; the nasty, sexy, funny truth about Washington, D.C. and how it really worked then and does, to a great extent, now. I can hear my frustration with this man and Im waiting for his fist to come down on the desk. I didnt feel vindication or anything of that nature. New episodes of Gaslit air Sundays at 8 p.m. EST on Starz. It was a barber I had never been to and it was last-minute. Easily manipulating Nixons deputy campaign manager, the squishy Jeb Magruder, Dean got him to push a bugging operation into the Watergate offices of the DNC -- Heidis biggest customer contact. The heart and soul the psyche of the show is about these two men and the way their decisions and choices they made had wider ramifications for themselves and their families, she said. Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA. Dean also told prosecutors about another break-in a year earlier in Los Angeles. . I dont recall John Dean talking to me about GEMSTONE after [February 1972], Magruder testified. Yet elsewhere in the same deposition, Magruder unmistakably continued to implicate Dean as the author of the DNC mission. Later that year Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice, was disbarred and served four months; he was in the witness protection programme so never went to prison. Watergate, Deep Throat, and the CIA, and proven in open court with a series of John Dean-Gordon Liddy lawsuits that ended in complete victory 20 years ago inWells v. Liddy. But Nixon was at best a peripheral figure. Here is how Dean, employing the first-person (in utterly dreadful prose), summarizes the Nixon-Haldeman conversation in The Nixon Defense: Because [Watergate burglar James] McCord had claimed I was aware of the Watergate break-in, I would be called to the grand jury, and my testimony would not jibe with Magruders. This Hero Helped Break the Watergate Scandal Which Led to Nixon's Resignation. President Nixon was implicated as well. Then he looked into the operationHeidi Rikanwas running right there next to the Watergate at the Columbia Plaza. Rikan was roommates with Mo Biner, the gal Dean would later marry. There are, in fact, those who disagree so vehemently with this version of events that they've sued-unsuccessfully, as it's turned out-to prevent it from being discussed in print. Such is the notoriety that the -gate suffix has been applied to dozens of controversies, from Sharpiegate (Donald Trump showing a map altered using a black marker pen) to Deflategate (allegations that Tom Bradys New England Patriots used deflated footballs) to Partygate (British prime minister Boris Johnsons social gatherings that flouted Covid-19 restrictions). And what motives are driving this project? While The Nixon Defense is chiefly a vehicle for introducing snippets of new transcriptions by Dean and his researchers, the book also reprises some familiar tapesunless they further inculpate Dean. The series portrays G. Gordon Liddy (Theroux, left) and E. Howard Hunt (Harrelson) as devoted to their cause and somewhat pathetic. Now here is the relevant excerpt of the same conversation as published by Stanley Kutler, the (left-wing) University of Wisconsin professor who edited the last compilation of Watergate transcripts, widely used by researchers, entitled Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (1997): HALDEMAN: Magruder has apparently told Dean that hes thought this whole thing through and hes nowno, he didnt tell Dean. In a February 1990 interview, he was asked about the fateful moment when he ordered G. Gordon Liddy to re-enter the DNCs Watergate officethe ill-fated mission whose disruption by the police touched off the great scandal. The problem, of course, is that Dean is no disinterested party. Of the Washington Post, he sneers, Much of their information was wrong; and he accuses the celebrated Judge John J. Sirica, who presided at both major Watergate trials, of acting as both prosecutor and judge and of practicing judicial extortion with his heavy sentencing. The supreme court ordered the release of a smoking gun tape confirming Deans claim that Nixon told aides to order the CIA to shut down the FBI investigation into the burglary. Whatever Deans true role, there can be no doubting that today, at age 76, he is one of the last surviving major figures of the Nixon presidency and remains, now more than ever, a decidedly interested party in Watergate, with an extant version of the affair, if not several competing ones, that he wishes to see cemented in history. one issue was the Larry O'Brien, to which you passed over as being a peripheral issue to your office. Though Magruder did offer several different versions of events, this claim endured beyond the spring of 1973, long past the point when there was any need for Magruder to clean himself up for the grand jury. What happened is, the editors got real excited, interesting wanted to make it more intriguing. Now a grandfather living in Beverly Hills, California, he quips: My speciality, I guess, is presidents in deep trouble., But if something like Watergate happened in the 2020s, he does not believe it would necessarily bring down a president again. Magruder was the youthful campaign aide who received the final order to move against the Democratic National Committee, issued to him by a more senior political figureDean himself, as I and others have argued, and as he deniesand transmitted it to G. Gordon Liddy and his squad of ex-spooks, who carried out the operation. None of this appears in The Nixon Defense. The scandal reaches the White House, as senior White House aides H.R. Explore the scintillating May 2023 issue of Commentary. Production on White House Plumbers was delayed by the Covid pandemic, which occurred amidturmoil, division and disruption in the country. Although Dean has recounted this meeting many times before, this riff on it is new, and it hints at the compulsive score-settling to be found in The Nixon Defense: the delight that Dean, armed with the results of his long trawl through the National Archives, takes in belittling his former colleagues, most of them deceased. HALDEMAN: And that what really happened on the Watergate was that all this planning was going on and Dean set it up and was involved in it and in getting the planning worked out, and they had the plan all set but they were not ready to really start with it, and then Strachan, Gordon Strachan, called him or went through or something and said: Haldeman has said that you cannot delay getting this operation started any longer. He did not go to prison, serving four months at Fort Holabird, a former Army base in Baltimore. WebJohn Wesley Dean III, Counsel to the President (Official White House Photo) John Dean admits "Blind Ambition", his autobiography, contains false information Why This Is Significant: This is extremely important because the false information contained in "Blind Ambition" directly contradicts his sworn testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. At first the incident seemed comically inept and inconsequential but, when it emerged in court that the lead burglar, James McCord, had worked for the CIA, journalists such as Bob Woodward and Carl Bernstein of the Washington Post sprang into action. The CIA however, and the Pentagon separately, did not trust Nixon and had quietly organized their ownspy operations against him. Imagine if Robert E. Lee had outlived Ulysses S. Grant by 45 years and determinedly made use of each new communications platform in that time framethe telegraph, the direct-dial telephone, radio, the talkiesto smooth out his account of Appomattox. He just discovered late in his presidency the enormous powers he does have as president. Indeed, Hunt and Liddy are portrayed as being slightly pathetic, but also sympathetic, if in a bumbling kind of way. Attorney General Richard Kleindienst also resigns, and John Dean, the White House counsel, gets fired. After John Dean gave his historic 1973 testimony on the Watergate scandal that eventually brought down the Nixon White House, he wanted to move on with his life. Dean got fired from his role as the White House counsel on April 30, 1973. But, when youre near broke, its amazing how tastes can change. After all, at the time Dean summoned the deputy director to the Executive Office Building, Haldeman and Ehrlichman had already met directly with CIA Director Richard Helms, importuned him to use the agency to block the FBIs nascent Watergate investigation, and been rebuffed. If Deans transcriptions are someday made available for verification, and if it is determined that he did not omit relevant materialtall hurdles, for sure, and practices uncharacteristic for Dean, as illustrated abovewe would understand that Nixon appears to have known earlier than we thought about the fitful payments of hush money to the burglars and their attorneys, and about how the whole story was destined to end. publicly stated it stood behind the reporting, told the news organization Axios on Sunday. Big Media never tires of repeating two enormous lies -- their versions of Joe McCarthys investigations and the Watergate Scandal. The biggest political scandal of the 20th century, and the only one to cause a presidential resignation, has become a byword for lost innocence and lost faith in institutions. All of which raises fundamental questions: Where else in The Nixon Defense does Dean play so fast and loose with his summaries of Watergate conversations? On January 27, 1972, Dean, the White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CRP and CREEP) and Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and soon-to-be Director of CRP), in Mitchell's office, for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CRP and a former FBI agent). Now an investment In the ward for the criminally insane, no less. On Saturday, Mr. Dean tweeted: Nixon, generally very competent, bungled and botched his handling of Watergate. John Dean on Capitol Hill on 10 June 2019. This is extremely important because the false information contained in "Blind Ambition" directly contradicts his sworn testimony to the Senate Watergate Committee. But this is no Veep II: White House Plumbers is as sad as it is funny. The Watergate break-in and cover-up was the result of the disastrous interaction of John Dean with the CIA. Thats not in any way to excuse the many stupid things Richard Nixon and his cronies did. He then publicly turned against Nixon by testifying to the Senate Watergate committee becoming the first White House official to accuse the president of being directly involved in the cover-up. But she had as many Republican clients as Democrats. Every day would be a new decision as to what he does and doesnt turn over from the Nixon archive. If you're not careful, you might even end up being called a "conspiracy theorist.". But we couldnt do it. Trump, a total incompetent, is bungling and botching his handling of Russiagate.. Those are the things that really happened.. I hope that will turn him but all it does is turn him against me because now Im radioactive., What were Deans impressions of Nixon the man? And if all else fails, they can always call you crazy-which is what happened to a young lawyer named Phillip Bailley, one of the principal witnesses to this roundly ignored bit of American history. (modern). A new five-part HBO mini-series may offer answers to those questions. This was the gang that couldnt shoot straight. . But in the new book, he frames the exchange thus: While I could not play the sycophant, as [special counsel Charles] Colson did, nor could I be a brittle and nasty son of a bitch, like [associate counsel] Tom Huston, both of whom I knew Nixon admired, I could play the admiring staffer in my own way, which I did with a couple of appreciative remarks, such as Thats an exciting prospect.. Back then, there was no effective broadcast opposition to dispute the falsehoods. Its not over. Is it true that John Dean was one of the people in the White House that was pushing for the GEMSTONE plan? he was asked. Dean was convicted of obstruction of justice and served four months in prison for his role in the Watergate scandal. He recounted his role in Watergate in Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). After his stint in prison, Dean became an investment banker. var date = new Date().getFullYear(); Starring Julia Roberts, Sean Penn, and Dan Stevens in the lead roles, Gaslit on Starz offers a glimpse into the extraordinary life of Martha Mitchell, the socialite who was kidnapped in an attempt to stop her from breaking the news about the Watergate break-in. The Rient memorandum did not surface until 1997. Indeed, the original Watergate prosecutors, led by Assistant U.S. Attorney Earl Silbert, concluded that Dean stood at the center of the criminality. He vehemently denies having ordered the Watergate operation and has spent much of the last two decades litigating or threatening to litigate, without success, against historians and others who have so argued. It's how she got her start, you see-moonlighting as a nude model while still serving as a private in the U.S. Army in Washington, D.C. Not long after she arrived at her duty station in the nation's capital, she was named "Miss Fort Myer." Did John Dean go to jail after Watergate? Mr. Dean was White House counsel and a cover-up coordinator. When it suits his purposes, the author halts the tape-centric narrative to second-guess virtually all the presidents men: to chide them for broaching a subject not too subtly, to gloat over their convictions and incarceration, to dismiss their recollections as invented after the fact, to boast that my analysis would later prove correctto anoint himself, in short, sole arbiter of what happened in Watergate, renderer of final verdicts. Corporationcampaign contribution to the Republican National Committee. . Then as now, D.C. is a rigged town, with very different rules for Republicans as against Democrats. More importantly, though, the photo should lend some flesh and blood substance to the life of a woman whose ghost has hovered over the Watergate saga for years now. Like Nixon in his claustrophobic Oval Office, rehashing the same suppositions and evasions for hours at a time, to no discernible benefit, Dean continues to wallow in Watergate. Theroux said he felt conflicted as he portrayed Liddy. Robert Maheu, one-time Howard Hughes executive and the real-life inspiration for Jim Phelps of Mission Impossible, would often set these up for the agency during his time there. Case in point: Deans approving responses to Nixons full-throated suggestions, in an Oval Office meeting in September 1972 when the cover-up was succeeding, that the White House should use the second term to target the presidents enemies more aggressively. White House Plumbers is centered primarily on two men who planned the Watergate break-in, played by Woody Harrelson, far right, and Justin Theroux, fourth from right. As Dan mentioned, in the summer of 1973, former White House counsel John Dean testified as part of the Senate's investigation into the Watergate break-in. ET. Dean/Colodny Interview Transcript and Tape - January 5, 1989. Youre to get it done. Haldeman reminded Nixon that Magruder was a good liar: Hes a hell of a convincing guy, as evidenced by how he got off on the Sirica trial.. Still. Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum. I said that is just not a good look; Id better get that neck cleaned up or my mother will be all over me. At the end of April 1973, with the walls closing in, Nixon aides HR Haldeman and Ehrlichman resigned and Dean himself was forced out. 2000- watergate.com Kathleen Turner plays the International Telephone and Telegraph lobbyist who, in this telling, is spirited out of Washington at the orders of the Nixon White House so she wouldnt give damaging testimony about an alleged quid pro quo involving an I.T.T.
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