I began my role in the cover-up as a fact-finder and worked my way up to idea man, and finally to desk officer. At the outset, I sensed no personal danger in what I was doing. In fact, I took considerable satisfaction from knowing that I had no criminal liability, and I consistently sought to keep it that way. I wanted to preserve my function as an "agent" of my superiors, taking no initiatives, always acting on orders. In the process I often found myself searching for alternatives that would keep me from taking dangerous steps...
Extracted from Dean, John. Blind Ambition. W.H.Allen & Co.Ltd. Great Britain.
Showing posts with label John Dean. Show all posts
Showing posts with label John Dean. Show all posts
Friday, March 6, 2009
Tuesday, November 27, 2007
Linchpin to Conspiracy
An Extract from John Dean's 1970's best-seller, Blind Ambition, Page 109:
(Both the White House faction and the Justice Department faction had earlier held a meeting to discuss the ongoing investigations into the break in that had been recently exposed by the news media. The author, then counsel to the President, John Dean was on the way to the Justice Department with the Assistant Attorney General, Richard G. Kleindienst.)
"This thing is so goddam stupid I can't believe it!" Kleindienst exploded when when we reached his office. "Breaking in and bugging the damn Democratic National Committee. There's nothing in there but a lot of crap, anyway. Anybody knows that. Dumbest damn thing I ever heard."
Kleindienst walked over to his desk and sat down. He waved his arms to emphasize his dismay. "This fella Liddy (Liddy G. Gordon, former FBI agent, general counsel of the Committee to Re-elect the President) must be crazy! He tracked me down at the Burning Tree Country Club on Saturday after my golf game. He said 'John Mitchell wants you to get the men arrested at the DNC out of jail.' Can you believe it? I told Liddy to get his ass packing. If I'd ever seen a guilty man, it was Liddy. He was rattled and nervous and I wasn't about to talk to him."
So that's the little encounter Dick had with Watergate over the weekend, I thought. Liddy's name had not yet surfaced in the investigation, and I assumed Kleindienst had not reported the incident for fear of implicating both Liddy and (Attorney General) Mitchell. Kleindienst was instinctively on the inside of the problem, too. This strengthened my impulse to confide in him.
I watched him change moods as he stared silently at his desk. "If John Mitchell is in trouble," he stared gravely, "I'll resign before I'd ever prosecute him." He knew where this was heading as well as I did. I decided to trade worries with him.
"Dick I don't have all the facts, but I'm worried. I'm afraid this thing could lead to the President. I don't know if the President is involved, but-"
"God, I hope the President is not involved in this, and that you're not involved."
TO BE CONTINUED...
Monday, November 12, 2007
Fire-fighting (6)
Continuing excerpt from John Dean's bestseller, Blind Ambition (page 35).
"This isn't any problem. I'll take care of it for you with a phone call, " he answered confidently. He returned the next day to report that a tax inquiry would be fruitless because the magazine was only six months old and its owners had yet to file their first return. Being resourceful, however, he had asked the IRS to look into the owners themselves. "You can tell the President everything is taken care of," he assured me.
'I've got a good one for you to pass along to the President," Jack added proudly. His Treasury Department sources had noticed an authoritative article in the U.S.-Mexico drug traffic published by Scanlan's Monthly. It would be excellent background reading for the President's upcoming meeting with Mexican President Diaz Ordaz. I attached a copy of the article to my memo to the President, and was amused to hear that the article was removed before the memo landed on the President's desk. No one in Halderman's office wanted to be responsible for passing along anything from a magazine the President hated so much.
I summarized the tax situation in my report. "The fact that Scalan's is a new entity does not make the tax inquiry very promising," I concluded. "Accordingly, I have also requested that the inquiry be extended to the principal organizers and promoters of the publication." Thus, within a month of coming to the White House, I had crossed an ethical line. I had no choice, as I saw it. The fact that I had not carried out the assignment myself eased my conscience slightly. I had no idea Jack had done it so easily, nor did I ask, and I never found out what became of the IRS inquiry.
"This isn't any problem. I'll take care of it for you with a phone call, " he answered confidently. He returned the next day to report that a tax inquiry would be fruitless because the magazine was only six months old and its owners had yet to file their first return. Being resourceful, however, he had asked the IRS to look into the owners themselves. "You can tell the President everything is taken care of," he assured me.
'I've got a good one for you to pass along to the President," Jack added proudly. His Treasury Department sources had noticed an authoritative article in the U.S.-Mexico drug traffic published by Scanlan's Monthly. It would be excellent background reading for the President's upcoming meeting with Mexican President Diaz Ordaz. I attached a copy of the article to my memo to the President, and was amused to hear that the article was removed before the memo landed on the President's desk. No one in Halderman's office wanted to be responsible for passing along anything from a magazine the President hated so much.
I summarized the tax situation in my report. "The fact that Scalan's is a new entity does not make the tax inquiry very promising," I concluded. "Accordingly, I have also requested that the inquiry be extended to the principal organizers and promoters of the publication." Thus, within a month of coming to the White House, I had crossed an ethical line. I had no choice, as I saw it. The fact that I had not carried out the assignment myself eased my conscience slightly. I had no idea Jack had done it so easily, nor did I ask, and I never found out what became of the IRS inquiry.
Monday, November 5, 2007
Watergate: Firefighting 4
The following passages are extracts from Watergate co-conspirator's John Dean's Blind Ambition, detailing the workings of the Nixon Administration in the Watergate Scandal years.
Murray was testy, or maybe defensive-I couldn't decide. It was clear that he didn't want to discuss the matter further. I thanked him and left. If I was going to play ball in Richard Nixon's league, I would have to get over my squeamishness. I am not sure what I would have done if John J. Caulfield had not walked into my office.
Jack Caulfield could easily have been born in the mind of Damon Runyon instead of New York City. He had moved up the ranks of the New York police force, from a street beat to detective, arriving at the White House after an assignment as candidate Nixon's personal bodyguard in 1968. Bob Haldeman had assigned him to me without telling me why. Caulfield explained that he was White House liaison with the Secret Service and the local police, but his principal assignment was to investigate Senator Edward M. Kennedy's conduct in the Chappaquiddlck accident for John Ehrlichman.
Jack was a bountiful source of information. He knew what everybody was doing. He could tell you how to get a refrigerator or parking privileges and who was sleeping with whose secretary. And he wanted to help me find my bearings. He seemed a natural person to turn to with my IRS orders, and I decided to show him the memos. "How would you handle these assignments?" I asked.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Murray was testy, or maybe defensive-I couldn't decide. It was clear that he didn't want to discuss the matter further. I thanked him and left. If I was going to play ball in Richard Nixon's league, I would have to get over my squeamishness. I am not sure what I would have done if John J. Caulfield had not walked into my office.
Jack Caulfield could easily have been born in the mind of Damon Runyon instead of New York City. He had moved up the ranks of the New York police force, from a street beat to detective, arriving at the White House after an assignment as candidate Nixon's personal bodyguard in 1968. Bob Haldeman had assigned him to me without telling me why. Caulfield explained that he was White House liaison with the Secret Service and the local police, but his principal assignment was to investigate Senator Edward M. Kennedy's conduct in the Chappaquiddlck accident for John Ehrlichman.
Jack was a bountiful source of information. He knew what everybody was doing. He could tell you how to get a refrigerator or parking privileges and who was sleeping with whose secretary. And he wanted to help me find my bearings. He seemed a natural person to turn to with my IRS orders, and I decided to show him the memos. "How would you handle these assignments?" I asked.
TO BE CONTINUED.
Thursday, October 18, 2007
The Watergate Conspiracy 2
FIRE-FIGHTING
Continuation of excerpts from John Dean's fascinating Blind Ambition (W.H.Allen & Co. Ltd, 1977), an eye-opening account of his personal involvement in the infamous Watergate conspiracy...
.... Was it possible that he (President Nixon) had a secret plan to cancel the election and the Bill of Rights? I was embarrassed by the thought. Now I cannot look back at the episode without laughing, but then I was not at all loose about it. It was the President of the United States talking. Maybe he was right.
On the due date I wrote my first memorandum to the President, explaining the hazards of a lawsuit and the wisdom of waiting to see what an FBI investigation produced. I thought the affair had been put to rest. Not so. Back came another action memorandum from the staff secretary. The President agreed with my conclusions, but he wasn't yet content. "It was requested," said the memorandum, "that as part of this inquiry you should have the Inland Revenue Service conduct a field investigation on the tax front."
This was the "old Nixon" at work, heavy-handed, after somebody. I began to fret. How could anything be at once so troubling and so absurd? The President was asking me to do something I thought was dangerous, unnecessary and wrong. I did nothing for several days, but the deadline was hard upon me. I couldn't possibly respond, "Dean opposes this request because it is wrong and possibly illegal." I had to find some practical reason for doing the right thing or I would be gone. I called Bud Krogh several times, but he was out. Then I thought of my recent acquaintance, Murray Chotiner and arranged to meet him.
"I need some counsel, Murray."
"You're the lawyer.You're the one who's supposed to give counsel around here," he said with a chuckle.
"I'm still trying to find the water fountains in this place," I said. "Murray, seriously, I need some advice. The President wants me to turn the IRS loose on a shit-ass magazine called Scanlan Monthly because it printed a bogus memo from the Vice-President's office about canceling the 'seventy-two election and repealing the Bill of Rights."
To be continued...
Continuation of excerpts from John Dean's fascinating Blind Ambition (W.H.Allen & Co. Ltd, 1977), an eye-opening account of his personal involvement in the infamous Watergate conspiracy...
.... Was it possible that he (President Nixon) had a secret plan to cancel the election and the Bill of Rights? I was embarrassed by the thought. Now I cannot look back at the episode without laughing, but then I was not at all loose about it. It was the President of the United States talking. Maybe he was right.
On the due date I wrote my first memorandum to the President, explaining the hazards of a lawsuit and the wisdom of waiting to see what an FBI investigation produced. I thought the affair had been put to rest. Not so. Back came another action memorandum from the staff secretary. The President agreed with my conclusions, but he wasn't yet content. "It was requested," said the memorandum, "that as part of this inquiry you should have the Inland Revenue Service conduct a field investigation on the tax front."
This was the "old Nixon" at work, heavy-handed, after somebody. I began to fret. How could anything be at once so troubling and so absurd? The President was asking me to do something I thought was dangerous, unnecessary and wrong. I did nothing for several days, but the deadline was hard upon me. I couldn't possibly respond, "Dean opposes this request because it is wrong and possibly illegal." I had to find some practical reason for doing the right thing or I would be gone. I called Bud Krogh several times, but he was out. Then I thought of my recent acquaintance, Murray Chotiner and arranged to meet him.
"I need some counsel, Murray."
"You're the lawyer.You're the one who's supposed to give counsel around here," he said with a chuckle.
"I'm still trying to find the water fountains in this place," I said. "Murray, seriously, I need some advice. The President wants me to turn the IRS loose on a shit-ass magazine called Scanlan Monthly because it printed a bogus memo from the Vice-President's office about canceling the 'seventy-two election and repealing the Bill of Rights."
To be continued...
Monday, October 8, 2007
Deniability in a Conspiracy
One of the most interesting parts of the Watergate story was narrated by one of the top players in the scandal: John Dean, counsel to President Nixon. In his gripping account in his 1977 book, Blind Ambition (London: W.H. Allen & Co. Ltd.) of his first day in the White House, he wrote about his time with the powerful administration of one of the world's greatest statesman, Richard Nixon.
Here is an excerpt from that favorite old book of mine which has been gathering dust all these years:
FIREFIGHTING
The tests started that first day at the White House. ... but then my secretary brought me a sealed envelope with a small red tag. I asked her what it was. She had not opened it; it was stamped "CONFIDENTIAL", and the red tag meant "priority". Someone had been planning work for the new counsel. The cover memorandum was in a printed form, with striking blue and red instructions filled in:
ACTION MEMORANDUM
FROM THE STAFF SECRETARY LOG NO.: P523
Date: Friday, July 24, 1970 Time: 6:30 p.m.
Due Date: Wednesday, August 5, 1970 Time: 2:00 p.m.
SUBJECT: Request you rebut the recent attack on the Vice-President.
An attached "confidential memorandum" said that a new muck-raking magazine called Scanlan's Monthly had published a bogus memo linking Vice-President Agnew with a top-secret plan to cancel the 1972 election and to repeal the entire Bill of Rights. Agnew had publicly denounced the memo as "completely false" and "ridiculous", and the editors of Scalan's Monthly had replied: "The Vice-President's denial is as clumsy as it is fraudulent . The document came directly from Mr. Agnew's office and he knows it." My instructions were clear:"It was noted this is a vicious attack and possibly a suit should be filed or a federal investigation ordered to follow up on it."
"Noted" by whom? Since the memorandum was signed by John Brown, a member of Halderman's staff, I called him to find out. The "noter" was the President. I was told: he had scrawled my orders on the margin of his daily news summary. No one had to explain why the president's name was not used. He was always to be kept one step removed, insulated to preserve his "deniability."
So this is my baptism. I thought I was astounded that the President would be so angrily concerned about a funny article in a fledgling magazine. It did not square with my picture of his being absorbed in diplomacy, wars and high matters of state. Was it possible ...?
May be continued soon if I survive this present conspiracy...???
Here is an excerpt from that favorite old book of mine which has been gathering dust all these years:
FIREFIGHTING
The tests started that first day at the White House. ... but then my secretary brought me a sealed envelope with a small red tag. I asked her what it was. She had not opened it; it was stamped "CONFIDENTIAL", and the red tag meant "priority". Someone had been planning work for the new counsel. The cover memorandum was in a printed form, with striking blue and red instructions filled in:
ACTION MEMORANDUM
FROM THE STAFF SECRETARY LOG NO.: P523
Date: Friday, July 24, 1970 Time: 6:30 p.m.
Due Date: Wednesday, August 5, 1970 Time: 2:00 p.m.
SUBJECT: Request you rebut the recent attack on the Vice-President.
An attached "confidential memorandum" said that a new muck-raking magazine called Scanlan's Monthly had published a bogus memo linking Vice-President Agnew with a top-secret plan to cancel the 1972 election and to repeal the entire Bill of Rights. Agnew had publicly denounced the memo as "completely false" and "ridiculous", and the editors of Scalan's Monthly had replied: "The Vice-President's denial is as clumsy as it is fraudulent . The document came directly from Mr. Agnew's office and he knows it." My instructions were clear:"It was noted this is a vicious attack and possibly a suit should be filed or a federal investigation ordered to follow up on it."
"Noted" by whom? Since the memorandum was signed by John Brown, a member of Halderman's staff, I called him to find out. The "noter" was the President. I was told: he had scrawled my orders on the margin of his daily news summary. No one had to explain why the president's name was not used. He was always to be kept one step removed, insulated to preserve his "deniability."
So this is my baptism. I thought I was astounded that the President would be so angrily concerned about a funny article in a fledgling magazine. It did not square with my picture of his being absorbed in diplomacy, wars and high matters of state. Was it possible ...?
May be continued soon if I survive this present conspiracy...???
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