John Dean

For other people named John Dean, see John Dean (disambiguation).
John Dean
White House Counsel
In office
July 1970 – April 30, 1973
President Richard Nixon
Preceded by John Ehrlichman
Succeeded by Leonard Garment
Personal details
Born John Wesley Dean III
(1938-10-14) October 14, 1938
Akron, Ohio, U.S.
Political party Republican (Formerly)
Independent
Alma mater College of Wooster (B.A.)
Georgetown University (J.D.)

John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) served as White House Counsel for United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up. He was referred to as the "master manipulator of the cover-up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).[1] He pleaded guilty to a single felony count, in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland.

Dean is currently an author, columnist, and commentator on contemporary politics, strongly critical of conservatism and the Republican Party, and is a registered Independent who supported the efforts to impeach President George W. Bush.[2]

Early years and education

Dean was born in Akron, Ohio and lived in Marion, the hometown of former President Warren Harding, whose biographer he later became.[3] Thereafter, his family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois where he attended grade school through the eighth grade. For high school, he was sent to Virginia's Staunton Military Academy. He initially attended Colgate University, and then The College of Wooster in Ohio, where he obtained his B.A. in 1961. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the Georgetown University Law Center in 1965.[4]

Personal life

Dean married Karla Ann Hennings on February 4, 1962; they had one child, John Wesley Dean IV; they divorced in 1970. He married Maureen (Mo) Kane on October 13, 1972.[5]

Washington lawyer

After graduation, he joined a law firm in Washington, D.C. Having gone to prep school, Staunton Military Academy, since defunct, with the son of Barry Goldwater, he was a close friend of the senator and his family. Dean was subsequently employed as the chief minority counsel to the Republican members of the United States House Committee on the Judiciary from 1966 to 1967. Dean then served as associate director of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws for approximately two years.

Joins Nixon campaign, administration

Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. The following year he became an associate deputy in the office of the Attorney General of the United States, serving under Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with whom he was on friendly terms.[6] In July 1970 he accepted an appointment to become counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post, John Ehrlichman, became the president's chief domestic adviser.[6]

From "master manipulator" to star witness

The start of Watergate

On January 27, 1972, Dean, then White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of the Committee to Re-Elect the President, or CRP and CREEP) and John N. 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). At that time, Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence gathering operations during the campaign year 1972. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable. Liddy was ordered to scale down his ideas, and he presented a revised plan to the same group on February 4, which was, however, left unapproved at that stage.[7] A scaled-down plan would be approved by Mitchell in late March of that year in Florida.

The start of the Cover-up

The scaled-down Liddy plan led to two (2) attempts to wiretap the phones and photograph documents and files at the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C. The first break-in attempt (in late May 1972) was not discovered or detected; and from that standpoint the Liddy team deemed it partially successful. But the architects and directors of this domestic political intelligence scheme at CRP and on the President's staff; were disappointed with the poor-quality of information gathered, and the poor technical quality from their phone bugs. After review of the first break-in's results CRP Deputy Director Magruder and Gordon Liddy met with Charles Colson (Special Counsel to the President), who emphasized to them the nature and quality of the material that they wanted; and, directed them to "try again" and achieve better results. Specifically, the burglars were to seek information they thought was held by Lawrence F. O'Brien, head of the DNC. On their second attempt to break in, on the night of June 16–17, 1972, the five of the seven man team of burglars were discovered by hotel security, after a lengthy attempt at entry into the DNC offices.

The two co-leaders of the team E. Howard Hunt and G. Gordon Liddy were not in the DNC offices executing the photography and the reinstalling of wire-taps, so they escaped immediate capture and arrest. They did however leave identifying and incriminating evidence located in the team's base of operations, in the Watergate Hotel; which was part of the office complex; and, which one of the burglar's had an identifying room key to. After the arrests of the burglars, Hunt and Liddy fled the second location (the Howard Johnsons' motel across the street from Watergate); where the hotel room containing the wire-taps' receiving and recording radio station was located. Hunt went into temporary hiding (at home). Liddy sought out Dean after speaking to Magruder. Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, Jr., who had been supervising the Watergate burglaries, and later destroyed some of the evidence before it could be found by investigators.[8]

Linked to cover-up

On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the FBI. Armed with newspaper articles alleging the White House had possession of the FBI's Watergate working and investigative files, the committee chairman, Sam Ervin, questioned Gray as to what he knew about the White House obtaining such files. Gray explosively (and not realizing the import of his own revelations) stated that he had not only given the FBI's working and investigative files on the Watergate case to Dean; Dean had (months earlier), requested of him that he (Dean), be allowed to "sit-in" on all FBI agent questionings of members of the White House staff (aides, clerks, secretaries, etc.) throughout their interviews; and, that he (Gray) had essentially had daily discussed the FBI investigation with Dean from the very beginning of the FBI launching their investigation. Gray also revealed (more dramatically), that when Howard Hunt's government safe in his office in the White House, had been forcibly opened after his arrest (Hunt had, contrary to security policy, had the safe's combination changed so that no one in the White House (except himself), not even the US Secret Service had the proper combination); Dean had, (with the FBI present) examined all the documents in the safe, and at Gray's permission, been allowed to choose which of the documents were to be released to the FBI agents investigating Hunt; and then to separately create his own file such other documents and items in the safe, and personally turn those materials over to Director Gray. Gray also revealed that he had merely taken Dean's observations and advice, that the materials and documents that Dean had given him from Hunts safe weren't related to the FBI's investigation, and "shouldn't see the light of day". Gray then later destroyed the materials and documents which turned out to be important evidence entrusted to him by Dean. Gray's nomination failed. And Dean's actions as related by Gray directly linked him to the operation and execution of the Watergate cover-up.

White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman would later claim that Dean was appointed by Nixon to take the lead role in coordinating the Watergate cover-up from an early stage, and that this cover-up was working very well for many months. Certain aspects of the scandal had come to light before the 1972 elections, but Nixon was re-elected to a second presidential term by a dominant margin.[9]

Cooperates with prosecutors

On March 22, 1973, Nixon had requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, and even invited him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. Dean did go to Camp David and performed some work on this report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, this report-writing task placed him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement, as well as that of others, and he concluded he was being fitted for the role of scapegoat in the cover-up by those higher up. Dean did not complete the report.[10]

On March 23, the five Watergate burglars, along with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were sentenced with stiff fines and maximum prison time of up to 40 years.

On April 6, Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Senate Watergate investigators, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel and ongoing participant in Nixon's cover-up efforts, not disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon until some time later. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving vulnerabilites of other White House staff with the cover-up.

Dean continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up case, which up until then they had virtually ignored, having concentrated on the actual burglary and events preceding it. Dean also appeared before the Watergate Grand Jury, where he took the Fifth Amendment numerous times to avoid incriminating himself, and in order to save his testimony for the Senate Watergate hearings.[11]

Fired by Nixon

Dean at the Miami Book Fair 2014 during the presentation of his book The Nixon Defense

Coupled with his sense of distance from Nixon's inner circle, "The Berlin Wall" of advisors H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Dean sensed he was going to become the Watergate scapegoat and despite going to Camp David, he returned to Washington without having completed his report. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same date he also announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

Dean had earlier asked Nixon for formal immunity from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed while serving as White House counsel. Nixon refused to grant this request and his refusal led Dean to cooperate with the prosecutors very soon afterwards. Upon going to the prosecutors, Dean also requested immunity, which was not granted despite his many revelations.[9]

Testifies at Senate Watergate Committee

On June 25, 1973, Dean began his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee, in which he implicated administration officials, including Nixon fundraiser and former Attorney General John Mitchell, Nixon, and himself. Dean's testimony attracted very high television ratings since he was breaking new ground in the investigation, and media attention grew apace, with more detailed newspaper coverage. Dean was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover-up in press interviews. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little impact legally, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations against him that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no proof beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. It was not until information about secret White House tape recordings having been made by President Nixon (disclosed in testimony by Alexander Butterfield, on July 16, 1973) and the tapes having been subpoenaed and analyzed that many of Dean's accusations were largely substantiated. Dean had earlier had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, but had not known this for sure, and he tipped prosecutors to ask witnesses questions along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations.

Watergate trial

Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. Archibald Cox, Watergate Special Prosecutor, was interested in meeting with Dean, and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the very next day, and it was not until some time later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one-to-four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals, and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special "safe house" holding facility primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia. He spent his days at the offices of Jaworski, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded on January 1, 1975. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Judge Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which wound up being four months. With his conviction for felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer, so could no longer practice law.[12]

Life after Watergate

John Dean in 2008 at the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists.

Shortly after Watergate, Dean became an investment banker, author, and lecturer.

Dean chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). Blind Ambition would become the point of controversy for many years after its publication.

In 1992, Dean hired famed attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against G. Gordon Liddy for claims in Liddy's book Will, and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. Silent Coup alleged that Dean was the mastermind of the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup, and the true target of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiancée) in a prostitution ring. After hearing of Colodny's work, Liddy issued a revised paperback version of Will supporting Colodny's theory.[13] This theory was subsequently the subject of an A&E Network Investigative Reports series program entitled The Key to Watergate in 1992.[14]

In the preface to his 2006 book, Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean strongly denied Colodny's theory, pointing out that Colodny's chief source (Phillip Mackin Bailley) had been in and out of mental institutions. Dean settled the defamation suit against Colodny and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, on terms which Dean stated in the book's preface he could not divulge under the terms of the settlement, other than stating that "the Deans were satisfied." In the footnote to this portion of the preface, Dean stated that the federal judge handling the case forced a settlement with Liddy.[15] Also in 2006, Dean appeared as an interviewee in the documentary The U.S. vs. John Lennon, about the Nixon administration's efforts to keep John Lennon out of the United States.

Dean retired from investment banking in 2000 while continuing to work as an author and lecturer, becoming a columnist for FindLaw's Writ online magazine. He currently resides in Beverly Hills, California.

In 2001, Dean published The Rehnquist Choice, an exposé of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the accession of William Rehnquist to the United States' highest court. Three years later, Dean authored a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, entitled Worse than Watergate, which called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to Congress.

His subsequent book, released in summer 2006, is titled Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's book The Conscience of a Conservative. In it, he asserts that post-Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies, citing data from Bob Altemeyer. According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically in the Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to Goldwater's philosophies and policies. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are placed in positions of power, and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. Dean cites the behavior of key members of the Republican leadership, including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich, and Bill Frist, as clear evidence of a relationship between modern right-wing conservativism and this authoritarian approach to governance. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress, and of the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the GOP, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality.

After it became known that George W. Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense".[16] On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring the president over the issue. Senator Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." In his testimony, Dean asserted that Richard Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well." Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was sputtering mad.[17]

Dean's 2007 book Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly described himself as a Goldwater conservative, built on Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three of the branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law.

John Dean at the 2014 Texas Book Festival.

In 2008, Dean co-edited Pure Goldwater, a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. Senator from Arizona Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. His co-editor was Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr..

In the 1979 TV mini-series, Blind Ambition, Dean was played by Martin Sheen. In the 1995 film, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. In the 1999 film Dick, Dean was played by Jim Breuer.

Dean frequently served as a guest on the former MSNBC and Current TV news program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Randi Rhodes Show on Premiere Radio Networks.

In January 2009, a new controversy arose about Dean. Historian Stanley Kutler was accused of editing the Nixon tapes to make Dean appear in a more favorable light.[18]

On September 17, 2009, Dean appeared on Countdown with new allegations about Watergate in hand. He stated that he had found information via the Nixon tapes, that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida. Dean also asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break-in, but that it was ordered by Ehrlichman on behalf of Nixon.[19]

In appearances at speaking gigs throughout 2014, Dean called Watergate a "lawyers' scandal" that, for all the bad, ushered in needed legal ethics reforms.[20]

Bibliography

See also

References

  1. ↑ Office of Planning and Evaluation (July 5, 1974). "FBI Watergate Investigation: OPE Analysis" (PDF). Federal Bureau of Investigation: 11. File Number 139-4089. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  2. ↑ Matthew Rothschild (May 20, 2006). "An Interview with John Dean". The Progressive. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  3. ↑ Dean, John W. (2004). Warren Harding. Henry Holt and Co. ISBN 0-8050-6956-9. Retrieved 2011-10-19.
  4. ↑ "John Wesley Dean III". Britannica.com. Retrieved August 22, 2012.
  5. ↑ Contemporary Authors Online, Gale, 2003. (February 19, 2003). "John Wesley Dean, III". Yahoo groups. Retrieved May 28, 2013.
  6. 1 2 Blind Ambition, by John Dean, Simon & Schuster 1976
  7. ↑ Magruder, Jeb Stuart (1974). An American Life: One Man's Road to Watergate. New York: Atheneum. pp. 192–197. ISBN 0-689-10603-3.
  8. ↑ Blind Ambition, by John Dean, Simon & Schuster 1976; Watergate, by Fred Emery, Touchstone Publishers 1994
  9. 1 2 Haldeman, H.R.; Joseph DiMona (1978). The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8129-0724-8.
  10. ↑ Blind Ambition: The White House Years, by John Dean, New York 1976, Simon & Schuster, pp. 196–274
  11. ↑ Blind Ambition: The White House Years, by John Dean, Simon & Schuster, New York 1976, pp. 196–274
  12. ↑ Blind Ambition: The White House Years, by John Dean, New York 1976, Simon & Schuster, pp. 274–390
  13. ↑ Stephen Bates (February 5, 2001). "Flipping His Liddy". Slate. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  14. ↑ Dean, John Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet: Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More, Findlaw, September 9, 2005. Taylor Branch states: "Blind Ambition (ghostwriter for John Dean) (Simon & Schuster: 1979)" under the heading "Past Writing".
  15. ↑ Dean, John: Conservatives Without Conscience, Viking, 2006.
  16. ↑ Jackson, David (December 28, 2005). "War-powers debate on front burner". USA Today. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  17. ↑ Milbank, Dana (April 1, 2006). "Watergate Remembered, After a Fashion". The Washington Post. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  18. ↑ Patricia Cohen (January 31, 2009). "John Dean's Role at Issue in Nixon Tapes Feud". The New York Times. Archived from the original on December 29, 2011. Retrieved July 19, 2011.
  19. ↑ MSNBC transcript
  20. ↑ ABA TECHSHOW conference

Further reading

External links

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Legal offices
Preceded by
John Ehrlichman		 White House Counsel
1970–1973 		Succeeded by
Leonard Garment
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