Nixon's righthand man makes amends--or tries to.

• Author: Klebanow, Diana
• Position: Political Landscape - Richard M. Nixon, John W. Dean

THE 40TH ANNIVERSARY of the resignation of Richard M. Nixon has seen the publication of several books about the former president, but the one receiving the most attention has been John W. Dean's The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It, which is based on all of the Watergate recordings held by the National Archives that Nixon had made in the Oval Office, the bulk of which first became available in 1996 due to the efforts of historian Stanley I. Kutler, who successfully sued the National Achieves to release them. Kutler went on to write Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes (1997), in which he transcribed many of these tapes.

In his book, Dean states that he spent four years listening to 634 tapes that previously had not been transcribed by Kutler, and proceeded to offer more details about the Watergate coverup, explaining that new technologies enabled him to hear things that others had missed. At the same time, he notes he did not recount his own involvement in the Watergate story because his role already is well-documented from his testimony before Congress and in court in 1973-74, and from his other writings on the subject. He also decided not to post his transcripts of these conversations online on the grounds that the actual tapes already are available at the Nixon Presidential Library's website and at the Miller Center's Presidential Recordings Program at the University of Virginia.

Dean was the counsel to Pres. Nixon from 1970-73, and his role in the Watergate coverup--as well as in the events leading up to the coverup--has been the subject of controversy. A substantial number of Americans regard him as a man of great personal integrity because he was the first person in the White House to go public with accusations against the Nixon White House when others close to the President chose to remain silent. To his critics, Dean jumped ship only to protect himself and was able to escape full punishment for his own "illegal" activities by making a deal with the prosecutors to testify against his former associates.

Dean was born in 1938 in Akron, Ohio, and grew up in the city of Marion. He attended a local high school there for one year before transferring to the Staunton Military Academy in Virginia. One of his classmates was future (1964) Republican presidential nominee Barry Goldwater Jr., the first of the many important contacts Dean would make throughout his career. Following his graduation, he attended Colgate University, but switched to The College of Wooster. Deciding to study law, he graduated in 1965 from Georgetown University Law Center.

By this time, he was married to his first wife, Karla Hemmings, daughter of a senator from Missouri, and was the father of a young son. Following his graduation, he joined a prestigious Washington law firm, but was fired within six months because of "unethical conduct." His dismissal was over an alleged conflict of interest in the preparation of a St. Louis television license application. Fortunately for him, he managed to persuade the law firm to soften that charge for Civil Service Commission records.

Dean went on to serve as chief minority council to the House Judiciary Committee, associate director of the National Commission on Reform of the Federal Criminal Laws, and associate deputy attorney general. He worked hard to ingratiate himself with people in positions of power and, in July 1970, he accepted an appointment as counsel to...