John Dean

For other people named John Dean, see John Dean (disambiguation).

John Dean
John Dean, May 7, 1972
13th White House Counsel
In office 1970–1973
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	John Ehrlichman
Succeeded by	Leonard Garment
Personal details
Born	October 14, 1938 (1938-10-14) (age 73) Akron, Ohio
Political party	Independent
Alma mater	Colgate University The College of Wooster American University's Washington College of Law
Profession	Lawyer

John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to 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 "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 was 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 a registered Independent who supported the impeachment of 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. Thereafter, his family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois where he attended grade school through the eighth grade. For high school, he was sent off to Virginia's Staunton Military Academy. He initially attended Colgate University but left because of bad grades. He then attended The College of Wooster in Ohio where he obtained his B.A. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the Washington College of Law at American University in 1965.^[3]

Washington lawyer

After graduation, he joined a law firm in Washington, D.C.. Having gone to prep school 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. A National Commission on the Reform of Federal Criminal Law was created in 1967. Dean was appointed its associate director.

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 at the office of the Attorney General of the United States in the Nixon administration. In July 1970 he became counsel to the president, after the previous holder of this post John Ehrlichman became the president's chief domestic adviser.

From "master manipulator" to star witness

The start of Watergate

Dean, then White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of CREEP) and John N. Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and Director of CREEP) for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CREEP and a former FBI agent) on January 27, 1972, in Mitchell's office. 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.^[4] A scaled-down plan would be approved by late March of that year. This would lead eventually to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal.

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 indicating the White House had possession of FBI Watergate files, the committee chairman, Sam Ervin, questioned Gray as to what he knew about the White House obtaining the files. Gray stated he had given reports to Dean, and had discussed the FBI investigation with Dean on many occasions. Gray's nomination failed, and now Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up.

White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman claimed 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, keeping the scandal bottled up until after the 1972 elections, which were a landslide for the Republicans, with Nixon being returned for a second presidential term by a dominant margin, the second-greatest in American history, behind only Franklin Delano Roosevelt's win over Alf Landon in 1936.^[5]

Cooperates with prosecutors

On March 23, 1973, the Watergate burglars were sentenced with stiff fines and prison time; Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Watergate investigators on April 6, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel, never disclosing this obvious conflict to Nixon. On April 22, Nixon 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.

Fired by Nixon

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 and this 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.^[5]

Testifies at Senate 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. He 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, in July 1973), the tapes subpoenaed, and analyzed, that Dean's accusations were substantiated.

Watergate trial

Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on November 30, 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. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered himself 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 in the offices of 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. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced, and on January 8, 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.

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, he 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 Elizabeth Kane Owen "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.^[6] This theory was subsequently the subject of an A&E Network Investigative Reports series program entitled The Key to Watergate in 1992.^[7] 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.^[8]

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 the Congress.

His subsequent book, released in summer 2006, is titled Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative. In it, he asserts that post-Barry Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies (citing data from Robert 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".^[9] On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring the president over the issue. Sen. 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.^[10]

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.

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 serves as a guest on the former MSNBC and now 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.^[11]

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.^{[12][dead link]}

Bibliography

• Dean, John W. (1976). Blind Ambition: The White House Years. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0671224387. 
• Dean, John W. (1982). Lost Honor. Los Angeles: Stratford Press. ISBN 0-936906-15-4. 
• Dean, John W. (2001). The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2607-0. 
• Dean, John W. (2002). Unmasking Deep Throat. [S.l.]: Salon Media. ISBN 0-9721874-1-3. 
• Dean, John W. (2004). Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents). New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8050-6956-9. 
• Dean, John W. (2004). Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. New York: Little, Brown. ISBN 031600023X. 
• Dean, John W. (2006). Conservatives without Conscience. New York: Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03774-5. 
• Dean, John W. (2007). Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches. New York: Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-01820-1. 
• Dean, John W.; Barry M. Goldwater, Jr. (2008). Pure Goldwater. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1403977410. 
• Dean, John W. (2009). Blind Ambition: The Updated Edition: The End of the Story. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0671224387. 

References

1. ^ Office of Planning and Evaluation (5 July 1974) (.PDF). FBI Watergate Investigation: OPE Analysis. Federal Bureau of Investigation. p. 11. File Number 139-4089. http://www.watergate.info/burglary/fbi-files1.pdf. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
2. ^ Matthew Rothschild (20 May 2006). "An Interview with John Dean". The Progressive. http://progressive.org/mag_wx052006. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
3. ^ Leahy Michael (Monday, October 13, 2008). "Seeing White House From a Cell in Hanoi". The Washington Post: p. A01. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/10/12/AR2008101202306_pf.html. Retrieved 19 July 2011. "...Nixon White House counsel John Dean, a close family friend of the Goldwaters." 
4. ^ Magruder, Jeb Stuart (1974). An American Life: One Man's Road to Watergate. New York: Atheneum. pp. 192–197. ISBN 0689106033. 
5. ^ ^{a b} Haldeman, H.R.; Joseph DiMona (1978). The Ends of Power. New York: Times Books. ISBN 0812907248. 
6. ^ Stephen Bates (Monday, 5 February 2001). "Flipping His Liddy". Slate. http://slate.msn.com/id/1007011/. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
7. ^ 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".
8. ^ Dean, John: Conservatives Without Conscience, Viking, 2006.
9. ^ Jackson, David (28 December 2005). "War-powers debate on front burner". USA Today. http://www.usatoday.com/news/washington/2005-12-28-war-powers_x.htm. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
10. ^ Milbank, Dana (Saturday, 1 April 2006). "Watergate Remembered, After a Fashion". The Washington Post. http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/31/AR2006033101721.html. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
11. ^ Patricia Cohen (^{[dead link]}Saturday, 31 January 2009). "John Dean’s Role at Issue in Nixon Tapes Feud". The New York Times. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/02/01/washington/01kutler.html. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
12. ^ Youtube.com^{[dead link]}

Further reading

• Sussman, Barry (1992). The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate (Third ed.). Seven Locks Press. ISBN 0929765095. 
• "The Watergate Files". The Gerald R. Ford Museum & Library. http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/watergate_files/. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
• "The Key To Watergate". Barbara Newman Productions. 1992. http://www.NixonEra.com/library/watergate.asp. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 

External links

• Worse Than Watergate: Former Nixon Counsel John Dean Says Bush Should Be Impeached Democracy Now!, April 6, 2004, interview with John Dean
• Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More John Dean, Findlaw, September 9, 2005
• Video of John Dean interview by Keith Olberman on Countdown with Keith Olbermann about Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience on July 11, 2006, at Crooks and Liars, YouTube
• Spartacus Educational Biography

Persondata
Name	Dean, John W.
Alternative names
Short description
Date of birth	October 14, 1938
Place of birth	Akron, Ohio
Date of death
Place of death