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I think this article really needs more on Dean's role in the Watergate hearings. Right now there's too much stress on where he spent 127 days.-R. fiend15:35, 19 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
I agree. I've tried to rectify this a little bit by researching and documenting the details of Dean's plea, incarceration, and the reason his sentence was reduced, since the subject seems to be so far up a previous contributor's ass. Hopefully you feel this is an improvement as well. --Branden05:14, 23 May 2004 (UTC)[reply]
Rewrite
I found a lot of the language of this article to be tripping over itself so I attempted to expand and rewrite it some. A good portion that I found lacking in the article was Dean's role in Watergate. There was plenty in there about whistle-blower but very little about what he did in the cover up. I've tried to hit on that some, lay out the chronology leading up to his firing on April 30 and go from there.
I also standardized the references, added the photo, and broke it up into sections. Comments and suggestions always welcome.
Great work, Wgfinley! --Branden 06:49, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Well done. The improvement from the page is it is currently from how it was almost a year ago is amazing. -R. fiend 15:56, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
About to Get Hairy
The more I read about Dean the more I started to call into question some facts. Then I stumbled upon what has been going on in recent years regarding allegations of Dean being the main force behind Watergate and it was done to cover up a prostitution ring he was running with his wife. At first I dismissed this as nutjob stuff but the more I look at it the more it seems to have some merit.
First off, I found evidence that Dean has admitted to not writing his first book, that it was ghost written for him, and that whole sections of it are fabricated. That really set me off because he admitted this in 1995, the author who really did write it has acknowledged it on his own personal website yet the story hasn't seemed to have much traction. The star witness at Watergate admits he didn't write his own "tell all" book on the subject and that parts of it are totally made up and no one seems to care? That bothered me.
Before I get into this I decided to get the source material myself: the books WillbyG. Gordon Liddy (certainly to be taken with a grain of salt), Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan which seemed to start this ball rolling after Liddy's book and the latest one, Silent Coup by Len Colodny. The last book has interested me because both Dean and the DNC Secretary also implicated have lost their civil suits against Liddy and Colodny. Also John Ehrlichman ended up doing a documentary/interview video with Tom Clancy as the host that went into some of these issues some and finally, Investigative Reports on A&E did a show called The Key to Watergate covering this material. When Bill Kurtis puts his name on it (I'm a Chicago guy so Bill Kurtis carries a lot of weight with me) that really got me to thinking this isn't the usual conspiracy bunk. Also when I found out that Colodny is a liberal Democrat and has no love at all for Nixon that swayed me quite a bit because I didn't want Nixon apologist stuff.
So, what I've decided to do is get the books, read them, do some follow up research and come back at this article and the other Watergate articles to see how it should all fit. So, for now I think I will leave the article as it is rather than piecemeal revise things before I've done some more work. Once you get interested in this topic it really seems to eat you alive!! For me it all started wanting to flesh out some of the bios on Watergate figures and has snowballed into something else completely. I had always been a believer that Nixon's paranoia coupled with controlling and overzealous trusted aides (Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman) led to his demise. The more I look at it the more it seems this is really a story of ambitious thirtysomethings (Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, Egil Krogh and Gordon C. Strachan) who seized some power, mimicked and magnified the personal faults of Nixon, and brought down a presidency. In the case of Dean it could be even more than that.
So Dean has been accused by some reliable sources of having been the primary planner of the Watergate break-in? Is that what your'e saying? When you say "the main force behind Watergate" it's a little unclear exactly what that entails. That to me seems somewhat far fetched. And how does it connect with his alleged prostitution ring? I'm curious now. -R. fiend 19:14, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Basically it boils down to who ordered the Watergate break in. Dean's story, and the accepted story since he cooperated, has always been that John N. Mitchell ordered it. While Watergate was on the list of plans it wasn't at the time the break-in took place because that DNC office wasn't in full use, the candidate hadn't been picked, etc. In other words it had little practical use as a target for political espionage. Mitchell was no political neophyte, to think he would order that just doesn't seem right. Liddy states that Dean (stating he was acting on behalf of Mitchell) ordered the first infiltration and they successfully planted the bugs, one wasn't working right. Liddy was going to have the burglars go back to repair the defective bug when Magruder turned a simple repair operation into a major photo mission and allegedly the target was a secretary's desk where she was keeping these files on the prostitution ring. It's immense and there's some facts to back it up including a key taped to a notebook one of the burglars had, the key opened one thing -- the secretary's desk. From there it's a whole boatload of information, I need to sift through it some more which is why I'm holding off on doing anything. The major repository for Colodny's research for Silent Coup can be found online at The Nixon Era Center. I've gone through some material there and really want to have at the books some more to try to sort it all out. If you want a decent overview they have that entire Investigative Reports piece available here.[1] It's pretty shocking stuff. This was right after Colodny's book came out but Dean's admission his first book wasn't written by him, etc. --Wgfinley 23:16, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Okay, someone jumped the gun on me a bit with the issues regarding Blind Ambition so I decided to put what I have up there so far. Consider this very much a work in progress as I'm gathering additional information. --Wgfinley 19:29, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
The prositiution ring seems fishy to me. If it were true, and known by the Nixon administration, why wouldn't they go public with the information to discredit Dean when he became the star witness of the Watergate hearings? -R. fiend 19:51, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
Nobody knew, Dean was intercepting the files from the FBI on their investigation so he could stay ahead of them. There's a lot to it that really merits research. I think for now saying "these are the claims" and "Dean sued because they claimed that" and "dean lost the suit" is staying factual without getting into whether they are merited or not. The book is extremely well researched and documented so it's not like it's an Oliver Stone conspiracy theory (interestingly Stone never went into why there was a Watergate break-in in Nixon, it would be right up his alley!. I'll keep probing, can't wait until the books show up actually. --Wgfinley 20:48, 9 Mar 2005 (UTC)
There are exceptions, however: When I read the Wikipedia entry for myself, for example, I found it falsely states that in 1995, I admitted that my book Blind Ambition was ghost-written. Not only did I never make such an admission, but the book was not, in fact, ghost-written. Obviously, I could make a submission to Wikipedia to correct this misinformation, but so far, I've held off, for I am more curious to see if the open sourcing is self-correcting, than I am concerned about the error. Maybe my entry will next read that my last five books, and my columns, were ghost-written as well. For now, I'll just watch and wait, for seeing if this error is corrected, will help me judge the reliability of research with open source tools.
Someone needs to confirm this reference for the ghostwriting admission:
John W. Dean deposition on September 12, 1995 in Maureen K. Dean and John W. Dean v. St. Martin's Press et al United States District Court for the District of Columbia. Case No. 92 1807 (HHG)
Deposition transcripts aren't routinely filed with the court -- at least they aren't in any American legal system I've heard of. All or part of a transcript might be filed as an exhibit to motion papers. Someone could go to the office of the Clerk of the Court in D.C. and ask for the docket sheet for that case. It's old enough that it might be in some offsite storage, so the inquirer might have to come back a day or two later. (This happens in some federal courts but I've never dealt with this one.) The docket sheet lists each item that's in the clerk's file. You might find some item that seemed likely to include the relevant passages; you could then borrow and photocopy that part of the file. If nothing listed seemed likely to include the deposition, the file would have the contact information for the attorneys. You could see if by some miracle one of them still had the transcript and would let you copy it. I'm inclined to think that the assertion should be removed from our article unless and until confirmed in this fashion, or at least until the editor who added it can provide more information on exactly what the transcript says and how s/he came by a copy. JamesMLane09:08, 12 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Agreed. The text in question was added by Wgfinley, who's currently on a wikibreak. (User:Lupo has already left a note on Wgfinley's talk page.) Now, Wgfinley does discuss his research in the "About to get hairy" section farther up on this talk page. I'm starting to wonder if one of those sources was seriously exaaggerating or outright fabricating some claims. (Skepticism has already properly been voiced about the prostitution ring claim.)
For the record, here are three successive versions of the problematic text. (All of these follow the sentence "Dean chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition and Lost Honor" which I have retained.)
[Revision as of 22:37, 20 July 2005; text originally added 19:26, 9 March 2005 by Wgfinley] In 1995 he admitted Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by Taylor Branch, that he never reviewed the book "cover to cover" and that portions of the book were fabricated "out of whole cloth" by Branch.[2] Branch has denied claims of fabrication.[3]
[Revision as of 09:49, 9 September 2005; by 134.102.222.106] Dean claims to do his own research so what role, if any, Taylor Branch, could have played in writing Blind Ambition is uncertain. In all events Dean specifically denies having had any ghost writer pen Blind Ambition [1]. Consequently, claims that he did not review the book [2] should be examined more closely, especially since Branch has denied claims of fabrication.[3]
[Revision as of 01:46, 11 September 2005, by Ummit] There is some controversy surrounding these memoirs, however. In a 1995 case, Dean allegedly admitted that Blind Ambition was ghostwritten by Taylor Branch and that portions of the book were fabricated "out of whole cloth" by Branch[2]. Branch has denied claims of fabrication[3], and today Dean specifically denies any admission of ghostwriting at all[6]
I agree with your removal of this material, but apparently the footnotes don't renumber automatically. (I tend to use embedded external links instead of a separate section of footnotes.) The numbers aren't consecutive now, and some orphan references, such as the one to the supposed deposition transcript, are still in the "Notes", even though they don't relate to anything in the text. It seems that, in the current state of the software, embedded links are still esier to work with. Is there any reason to keep the footnote structure? JamesMLane07:23, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
I knew the notes were going to be screwed up, but I figured it was okay temporarily (which is to say, I was too lazy to fix them :-) ). But also, the note numbered 6, at least, is worth having there still, as it's the one that directly pertains to the controversy. But I wouldn't object if someone reworked them. Steve Summit (talk) 12:04, 14 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Ghost-writing Controversy
First, let me say, I'm a little disappointed that a referenced piece of material was removed just because John Dean did an article saying he never said that. I took that line directly from a copy of his deposition that I found when originally doing the revision. I can't find this copy now so I am not going to revert it's removal, I will try to locate this again and will post it here. As I've said, it's in his deposition, he denies he said that but hasn't provided any proof from the deposition as cited nor did he even mention in the article that his deposition was cited as the source. Instead he said he would "watch and wait" to see if it would be corrected. He also stated he can't correct it himself which is complete hogwash.
Actually, no, he said that while he could, he chose not to -- as his own little experiment on the reliability of on-line information. (And on that score, I think we did pretty well -- his article is datelined September 9, and before the day was out, a note had appeared on the Reference Desk and the edits to the article had begun.) --Steve Summit (talk) 18:10, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Whatever the case, I will locate the PDF I had on this, will provide it for others to review and look forward to seeing that passage returned to the article.
Again, I don't think that cited material should be removed from an article just because someone says it's not true, you should demonstrate the cited material doesn't reflect that fact, especially something that's been there for a substantial amount of time without challenge. --Wgfinley17:43, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Although the material was indeed cited, the source wasn't readily available. My experience, from having read many deposition transcripts, is that passages are often subject to multiple interpretations. Therefore, I think it's a good idea for you to post the exact wording of the document you have. Also, was the transcript signed by the witness? Usual procedure is that the court reporter's transcript is given to the witness so that any errors can be corrected. The reporters are only human, and I've seen them make errors that exactly reversed the witness's meaning, or that brought in something from left field that didn't relate to anything the witness had said (except perhaps for using some of the same consonants). JamesMLane19:02, 15 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Your disappointment is well-taken, and all due apologies, but as one of the ones who removed the claim, let me explain: I didn't realize you'd personally seen the deposition in question (I figured it was just mentioned in one of your other sources), and in any case, the removal was temporary. Once we got you back from wikibreak to verify it, I assumed we'd put it right back in, if appropriate. Steve Summit17:13, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
It is interesting portions where Branch reportedly denied ghost-writing Blind Ambition yet his very own site on Literati states that he did. Still looking for that demo, the section in question may have been quoted in Silent Coup, I'm trying to find the actual depo. --Wgfinley00:09, 17 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
John, are you reading?
I hope you are John! I exchanged some emails with the author of Silent Coup, Len Colodny, who was helpful in retracing where I was pulling some information on. Now I see why he is a published author and I am not! Anyway, there's a few sources on this, the first source is the deposition itself which I cited in the original text. Mr. Colodny sent me a WordPerfect file with the entire depo. Now, this is not an official copy of the depo but I have no reason to believe that it's incorrect and this depo was videotaped. I have seen portions of the depo online somewhere and Mr. Colodny is helping me find those or see what we can do. But, I have made the WordPerfect file a PDF and uploaded it to one of my servers [2].
Relative to this there are some interesting articles and documents online concerning this issue on Blind Ambition. I should point out this all comes from the Nixon Era Center which is online at watergate.com -- the Nixon Era Center was set up at Mountain State University when Mr. Colodny donated almost all of the materials he had accumulated while researching Silent Coup':
Main Nixon Era article concerning Blind Ambition issues (scroll down to bottom): [3]
Excerpt from Dean testimony (this is from p.249 of the depo) where he states Branch fabricated a portion of the book: [4]
Dean's editor responding to his allegations that the publisher encouraged fabrications and encouraged Branch to fabricate portions of the book (includes audio): [5]
Now, Mr. Dean may be splitting hairs on exactly what "ghost-written" means but to me it is simple -- when someone else writes vast portions of your book, you admit under oath you haven't even read your own book (depo p.212) and you lay out the following on how the book was constructed:
(Dean) My agent, David Obst, who saw this project stalling and falling apart, suggested that we bring a writer in to write those sections (note: if you read earlier you will see "those sections" are concerning Watergate itself) of the book. That's exactly what was done. Taylor Branch was brought in. He took the material I had already written and he took my testimony and the tapes and he wrote that section of the book.
(Question) Which section?
(Dean) All the sections basically that related to my testimony.
(Question) Isn't that the whole book?
(Dean) Not really. There was a lot of stuff that I had written that preceded that we never put in the book.
Deposition pages 205-206
Pretty simple to me -- Blind Ambition is John Dean's first book on himself and Watergate, he states Taylor Branch was brought in to write the sections concerning Watergate, Taylor Branch is not mentioned anywhere in the credits for the book as a co-writer or editor. Therefore, I believe this reasonably meets the criteria for being "ghost-written". More as I find it. --Wgfinley17:03, 19 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
Having read Blind Ambition ( acouple of years ago) and all 335 pages of that PDF (this evening), my own conclusion is that Blind Ambition was partly ghost-written. According to Dean's testimony in the deposition you've provided, it's not true that Dean "hadn't even read [his] own book". Those are the words of John B. Williams, an attorney representing G. Gordon Liddy, which you repeat without citation (p. 215, lines 1-2). In any event, the statement is not true in the sense that most people would understand it, as Dean's testimony is that he _did_ read the galley proofs (as defined here on the Wikipedia as "a photograph, print or page layout presented as an example for proofreading or approval". And futhermore, immediately after the characterization of Liddy's lawyer which you borrowed for this discussion page, Dean and Williams go back and forth over what exactly Williams's questioning means. See deposition, page 215, line 3, to page 218, line 1.
I encourage people to read (at least) from p. 202, line 22, to p. 218, line 1, and judge for themselves what Dean does and does not "admit" to. For that matter, we cannot authenticate this deposition, and while it strikes me as plausible in a way that a supposed deposition wherein Dean volunteers confessions to rape and murder would not, it would be helpful if we could do so. Perhaps you're just enthusiastically engaging in research, for which you should be applauded, but your approach is starting to come off (in my opinon) as being non-NPOV in favor of G. Gordon Liddy.
I am also curious to read the following day's deposition of John Dean (Wednesday, 13 September 1995). Do you have that available? There is much material in the PDF you've already posted of interest to Watergate scholars, despite that fact that most of it appears to be an effort by Liddy's lawyers to personally embarrass Dean (for example, by trying to get him to enumerate the women he dated during a period when he stopped dating the woman who would later become his wife; see p. 232, line 7, to p. 238, line 15 -- and if, as Silent Coup reportedly alleges [I haven't read it], Dean was pimping these or other Washington women out, why didn't Liddy's lawyers ask him that point blank, or even approach the issue so as to lay traps for him when the case went to trial?). That this particular deposition document has shown up but the other hasn't (yet) suggests to me that while Dean's testimony of 13 September may not have been as useful to Liddy's lawyers, it may be educational for the rest of us.
Setting aside all of the above, I agree that it's probably worth mentioning in the main article that a website reportedly belonging to Taylor Branch asserts that he ghost-wrote Blind Ambition, and that Dean's own testimony from a deposition we can't authenticate (sure would be nice for a Wikipedia contributor to get a copy straight from the Distict Court of D.C. rather than via a possible Watergate revisionist historian) suggests that the book was indeed in part ghost-written by Branch. Branden06:45, 20 September 2005 (UTC)[reply]
All good points and certainly I agree going through entire depositions is not fun. I did find another source for where I got the information from and it was the Slate article by Stephen Bates that I had included as a source some time ago. Here's the section from that article:
"[M]emory," as the old unindicted co-conspirator points out in RN (1978), "is fallible." So which felon should you credit, Dean or Liddy? Dean got into print first, giving Liddy a chance to concoct a macho explanation that's partly consistent with Dean's observations: Behind those glazed eyes lurked visions of guerrilla-style assassination. But Dean, in an earlier Silent Coup-spawned lawsuit in the mid-1990s, tried to distance himself from his own book. His ghostwriter had invented portions of Blind Ambition "out of whole cloth," Dean testified, and he himself never had "gone through this book cover to cover." (When the galley proofs arrived, he testified, he was bedridden with a fever. His wife didn't want him to get ink on the bedclothes, so he didn't make corrections.) But Blind Ambition's ghostwriter, Taylor Branch, denies inventing any of the book's facts--and he went on to win the history Pulitzer for Parting the Waters: America in the King Years, 1954-63 (1988).
I think the writer makes an excellent point though, "which felon should you credit?" I'm pretty certain that Bates is using the depo as his source for the material, the quote in particular that has always gotten me was Dean saying that Branch had invented portions of Blind Ambition "out of whole cloth" (Depo page 264) but, as you have pointed out, those were the words of the questioner, Liddy's attorney. I think what is important to note is to shy away from the catchy phrase and instead focus on what Dean admitted, there's a portion of the book where Dean states he didn't mention Strachan to the prosecutors (if I could ever find a copy I'd give you the page number) and Dean says he has no idea where that came from. This may seam like a miniscule point but leaving Strachan out makes Dean appear to be more of the person in the know at the White House. In other words, he would prefer to leave Strachan out of it so it looked like only he had information they wanted and would cut him a deal for.
Perhaps we could just say "allegations have been made that Blind Ambition was almost completely ghostwritten by Taylor Branch. Dean has denied this fact but admitted he has not read Blind Ambition cover to cover nor did he review the book after edits made by Branch before it went to press." Might need to be word-smithed some more.
I have come up with a way to present both sides of this controversy while sticking the the facts. I have removed any reference to parts of it being made up "out of whole cloth" is this was a defense question and not Dean's response. I have sticked to what Dean admitted to -- that Branch wrote the sections on Watergate, that he did not fact check them all and he has never read the book cover to cover.
I'm hoping John will be satisfied I have stuck with what he testified to. Of course, I encourage others to read up on Mr. Dean's history with the truth and find out for themselves. --Wgfinley04:53, 9 January 2006 (UTC)[reply]
I am late to this discussion, but it seems to me there are two problems: one is you are working off an "unofficial transcript" which was not the one ultimately read by Dean nor signed off by him as is customary. I would be hesitant to rely upon it. The other is, you have his denial but you don't use it on the main page. Gfwesq03:56, 22 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gfwesq, I concur with your points and and unimpressed at Wgfinley's complete failure to make any substantive edits in light of my critique above; he said they're "all good points", but they do not seem to have informed his approach in the least. Furthermore, he took down his copies of the deposition transcripts months ago, so no one else can indepently check them. I think this comes perilously close to knocking the deposition transcript into original research territory. Given this and his increasingly strident pro-Liddy stance, I fear a rewrite of that paragraph based on verifiable information may be necessary. Branden19:13, 23 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Branden, I changed it footnoting to his denial. I forgot to explain the edit in my first time. My apologies to all. However, I did explain in the 2nd and 3rd edit and hopefully, people can figure it out from there. if an authenticated depostion transcript can be found to corroborate the original edit, I would consider putting it back in. However, I don't believe its generally fair to use documents from a court proceeding that are not available on the internet (there is a Wikipedia rule on court documents that I think is overbroad if the court document is available for inspection by all on the web. It also becomes an issue of original research which violates another Wikipedia rule). Moreover, as noted previously, here the document was not the official one which would have been reviewed and signed off on by Dean. I do think it is valid to show Taylor Branch seems to be claiming to have ghostwritten it and I included a reference to apparant claim to point out the descrepancy. It's curious. Dean gave a flat out denial that it was ghost written in his 2005 statement. Taylor Branch's website interestingly enough appears to make the claim under the heading "past writing. " Past Writing strikes me as akward phrasing for an accomplished writer. I would think it should be categorized simply as Publications or even "Books and Magazine Articles." I wonder if Branch did the website himself or if someone else did it at his behast.Gfwesq04:36, 27 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Gfwesq, I concur with the removal of references to the transcript as unverifiable, and with your reasons for doing so. Thanks for your efforts! Branden17:46, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Honestly, I have not been following this discussion, and I don't know what the documents in question say, but I do have a problem with calling court documents original research if they are not on the web. Unless under seal, court documents are public documents -- they are public property and they can be examined by anyone willing to visit a law library or the courthouse or make some phone calls. Just because something is not available on the web does not mean it is "original research" -- there are real brick-and-mortar libraries filled with information that is not available on the web. This information is as valid as anything on the web and should not be excluded from an encyclopedia just because we are too lazy to leave our computer screens.--csloat18:15, 29 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
Your stance is not an unreasonable one, but as I understand it the issue is not as black and white as you state. Deposition transcripts in civil cases are not necessarily things that have been vetted by *anyone* in particular. This is quite distinct from a judge's findings of fact, as in the Microsoft Antitrust Trial, or a judicial opinion. Muddying the waters still further is the fact that some judicial opinions are "for publication", and others are not. Generally, opinions that are "not for publication" are those in which the judge deems that no significant case law has been established.
At any rate, the main problem with Wgfinley's transcript is that it hasn't even been authenticated, let alone is it verifiable. Branden04:50, 30 July 2006 (UTC)[reply]
