John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938inAkron, Ohio) was White House CounseltoU.S. President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. As White House Counsel he became deeply involved in events leading to the Watergate first break-in and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover up, even referred to as "master manipulator of the cover up" by the FBI.Template:Fn, and went on to become the star witness of the Watergate prosecution.
Dean earned his bachelor's degree from The College of Woosterin1961 and his law degree from Georgetown Universityin1965. After graduation, he joined a Washington, D.C. law firm.
He was subsequently employed as the chief counsel to the Republican members of the Judiciary Committee in the United States House of Representatives. A National Commission on the Reform of Federal Criminal Law was created in 1967: Dean was appointed its associate director. He volunteered to write position papers on crime for 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 and later became counsel to the president after the previous holder of this post John Ehrlichman became the president's chief domestic adviser.
OnFebruary 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. With almost no provocation, and in a hearing not even related to Watergate, 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.
OnMarch 23 the Watergate burglars were sentenced with stiff fines and jail time; Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Watergate investigators on April 6.
OnApril 22 Nixon requested 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. 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 refused. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same date he also announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman.
OnJune 25 Dean began his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee in which he implicated many administration officials, including himself, Nixon fundraiser and former Attorney General John Mitchell, and Nixon himself. He was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover up in press interviews as well as his testimony. 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 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 the existence of secret White House tape recordings was made public and those tapes could be analyzed that Dean's accusations were proved.
Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John SiricaonOctober 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. 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.
Dean chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition and Lost Honor. Blind Ambition would become the point of controversy many years after its publication.
In1992 he hired famed attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against G. Gordon Liddy for claims in his book Will and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent CoupbyLen Colodny and Robert Gettlin. Silent Coup alleged Dean was the mastermind of the Watergate burglaries and the true target of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and Maureen Biner in a prostitution ring. After hearing of Colodny's work Liddy issued a revised paperback version of Will supporting Colodny's theory.Template:Fn This theory was subsequently the subject of an A&E Network Investigative Reports series program entitled The Key to Watergate in 1992. Liddy's defense team focused on allegations that Blind Ambition was ghost writtenbyTaylor Branch, a charge that Dean denies to this day.Template:Fn In the preface to his 2006 book, Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean strongly denied Colodny's theory, pointing out that the Colodny's chief source (Philip Mackin Bailey) 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 "the Deans were satisfied." In the footnote to this portion of the preface Dean stated the federal judge handling the case forced a settlment with Liddy. Template:Fn
In2001, 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 calls for the impeachment of Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney for lying to the Congress.
His latest book released in Summer 2006 is titled Conservatives Without Conscience. In it, he asserts a correlation between post-Goldwater conservatives, and an adherence to authoritarian rulers (citing data from Robert Altemeyer). He cites G. Gordon Liddy's willingness to die to save the Nixon administration, and the Republican-controlled House of Representatives' adherence to a strict party line, as evidence of the relationship between modern right-wing conservatism and an authoritarian mindset.
After the revelation that George W. Bush authorised NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that President Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense".Template:FnOnMarch 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 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." According to Washington Post reporter Dana Milbank, "Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was sputtering mad."Template:Fn
Dean is now an investment banker in Beverly Hills, California, as well as an author and lecturer. In 2005, he returned to his alma mater, The College of Wooster, to speak. He is also a part-time contributor on FindLaw.
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