John Dean details his time as the White House counsel chair in the Nixon administration, becoming the “desk officer” on Watergate, and having one on one meetings with Richard Nixon. He discusses the Pentagon Papers, being on the wrong side of the law, and Nixon’s resignation.

John Wesley Dean III was born on October 14, 1938 in Akron, Ohio. After graduating from the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia he went on to earn a Bachelor of Arts degree at The College of Wooster in Ohio in 1961. He then attended Georgetown University Law Center and received his Juris Doctor in 1965. He obtained a junior associate position at the Washington law firm of Welch & Morgan upon his graduation from Georgetown. Dean served as chief minority council for the Judiciary Committee in the United States House of Representatives from 1966 to 1967. He then spent the next two years as Associate Director of the National Commission on Reform of Federal Criminal Laws before working as an Associate Deputy Attorney, General Office of Criminal Justice, and Department of Justice, between 1969 and 1970. On July 9, 1970, Dean became Counsel to President Richard Nixon until April 1973. Dean is known for his role in the cover-up of the Watergate scandal and his subsequent testimony to Congress as a witness. His guilty plea to a single felony in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution ultimately resulted in a reduced sentence. Barred from practicing law due to his conspiracy conviction, Dean worked as an investment banker, lecturer, author, and political commentator.

From the HBO / Kunhardt Film Foundation (KFF) Documentary “The Newspaperman: The Life and Times of Ben Bradlee,” about one of America's most influential and celebrated newspaper editors, who found himself at the center of many of the 20th Century's most seismic storms, including: World War II, John F. Kennedy, Watergate and the fall of Richard Nixon.

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John Dean, White House Counsel, 1970-1973
Interviewed By: John Maggio
Interview Date: February 15, 2017

Chapters:
00:00 Intro
00:10 Starting in the Nixon Administration
01:53 Wanting to work in the Nixon administration
02:38 First Impressions of Nixon
03:40 Nixon vs. the press
07:01 Advising Nixon on Watergate
07:58 The Pentagon Papers
12:45 The Watergate break-in
15:42 The Watergate scandal
19:52 Unraveling the Watergate web
23:59 The slush fund
25:08 Watergate and The Washington Post
26:42 The Watergate cover-up
30:28 The pre-election coverage of Watergate
32:38 Watergate after the election
35:51 Investigating the White House
38:22 All the President’s Men
39:20 The loss-frame theory
41:47 A cancer on the presidency
45:44 The FBI investigation
47:17 Fact-checking the Post’s coverage
48:57 Gordon Liddy and Howard Hunt’s failed operation
50:06 Nixon’s response to scandal
51:10 Spying on the Post
53:34 Interviewing the grand jury
54:14 The scapegoat
57:31 Surrendering to the legal system
58:15 Defendants and deals
01:01:15 The Watergate story explodes
01:02:54 The Post got it right
01:04:58 Nixon’s Enemies List
01:06:17 Auditing Nixon’s enemies
01:07:19 Nixon’s resignation
01:09:28 Ben Bradlee’s lasting legacy

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