So i have pretty much done post watergate what i set out to do and had a lot of fun. I returned to writing after a successful career in business working in mergers and acquisitions. I had a lot of fun and went back to school and studied accounting. I almost went after the cpa but decided i dont want to do that but i needed the skills and knowledge. I found this something really important where you are lucky if you find the right wife or the right business partner. And i was blessed by both. I had great Business Partners and we had a lot of fun and did very well at what we did. I was able to retire at 60 and return to something i wanted to do. I am now on my eighth book in retirement so i have done pretty much what i want. Thank you. Thank you. Mr. Dean on behalf of this wonderful audience and the book fair thank you so much for a great conversation. [applause]audience thank you for a great we have moved inside the bus where we are joined by john dean whose most recent book is called the the nixon defense what he knew and when he knew it. Mr. Dean, how and when did you become mr. Nixons council . Here you can call me john please. July of 1970 when i was 30 years of age i became whitehouse council. I wasnt part of the nixon campaign. I had been in washington for a while working as the chief minority of the House Judicial Committee and i was a secretary deputy general and while at justice i had meetings with the whitehouse staff and when the assistant of the president for Domestic Affairs the chair was empty for a while and then the president invited me to come over and serve as whitehouse council. How often would you meet with the president . Very seldom is the best description of my job. Alex butterfield, who worked for the chief of staff, had a good overview of the management of the whitehouse. And he said i had two masters, i actually had three the chief of staff who i reported to and the assistant to the president for domestic affair never gave up the councils job and nixon turned had time him for a lot and i did the work and when the president started calling on me that was the third master how often did you meet with bob hope . Regularly. He had regular meetings and was a good administrative chief of staff. He was easy to work with. A lot of people found him tough to work with but i think it was his immediate staff that found that. June of 1972; what was that month like in the whitehouse . That is the month of the watergate arrest. I was in the philippines giving a speech at the time the break breakin and the arrest occur. My deputies fred field who later became a whitehouse council, was called and i said i am wiped out and im coming back after a quick trip. And i am going to delay a day and he said i think you better come back they are looking for you. There has been a breakin at the Democratic National committee. So sunday i jumped on the plane, in the office on monday morning, and from the getgo i get instructions to get involved and find out what happened. Did you have a sinking feeling when you first heard it . It was not good. It was not good. My first reaction when i got home on sunday night i thought colestein did something. It wasnt him in the long run. He wasnt uninvolved but he wasnt directly involved. I had a sinking feeling and it took me nano seconds to put together what happened and it was lidys operation over at the Reelection Committee your book is called the the nixon defense what he knew and when he knew it. What did the president know and when did he know it . Wow. To do that peter, i had to go through and transcribe all of the nixonwatergate conversations. I cataloged them, and had a team of transcribers help me so i could follow through day to day what nixon knew and what he did about it. There is not a page of the book i dont learn something new and report it. The Biggest Surprise is he initially doesnt want to know but when he asks questions of his top advisors they dont give him all of the answers. Hunt and liddy were never author authorized to break into the psychiatrists office. They would have cut them loose. Here are two of the cuban americans who are in jail as a result of the watergate breakin were involved in that breakin. So it all comes together and creates a mess we are in the city of miami right now which played a role in wait watergate. What is the role . The cuban americans that howard hunt worked with going back to the bay of pigs during the Kennedy Administration he was a cia officer and one of the senior operatives in the bay of pigs, and some of his key men were down here in miami and in the Cuban Committee and he recruited them to do the psychiatrist breakin and when he joined libby at the Election Committee he brought three people in. And after the arrest two of them are in jail. And they never talked but there were still multiple problems. And there was money down here in miami. The howard hunt check was written. That is a bizarre story. Howard hunt left a check in one of the burglars rooms in the Watergate Hotel for 6. 39 which he wanted Bernard Barker to mail to miami to his country club in maryland to pay his out of state dues. This led the police right to howard hunt. One of the things i never knew about in detail is nixon is down here at the time of the breakin as well at his vacation home. When he is back on the 20th that night, he comes up with a plan around the cubanamericans. He says listen bounces this way and what we are going to do is setup a cuban defense fund because these guys will need support money, Attorney Fees and have to pay fines and who knows what they will need it for. So this plan is to create a cuban defense fund. He wasnt going to do it secretly. He was going to do it openly and play it against his opponent mcgovern, who the Cuban Committee didnt want to become president. Had he done that it would not have been an obstruction of justice. There is conversations i foupd found of him taking to henry Peter Peterson about the plans and peterson agrees it would have been legally done. But holderman never tells anybody. There is another conversation with me i dont get into it until eight months later, that he runs by me and i dont know what he is talking about. It goes right by me and i continue because i realize i dont everything. June 23ered, 1972 talk about the day that is the day that became famous for the socalled smoking gun tapes. What is interesting about the smoking gun tapes is they are firing blanks really. And i say that because what happened is so much time had passed, that nixon couldnt figure out what it was really all about. And hollowman was no one was asking me at this point. So they take the tapes at face value and read them out of context when they finally surface and they surface at the end of his presidency when he setup had defense saying i knew nothing about watergate until march 21s, 1973 and this is june of 1972 and the are conversations he is trying to get the fbi to kill the entire investigation. That is not what he is talking about. He is talking about the fbi staying out of campaign finance, if not National Security and it is legitimate worry on that behalf. It is misled by his supporters in the Impeachment Committee who finally throw in the towel and say this is beyond what we are willing to defend. It is ironic. Not that there were other smoking guns that week. In fact there were conversations worse than that. That one surfaced when it did and ended his presidency because it put a lie to the defense of knowing nothing about the cover up. How did that 18. 5 minute gap happen in your view . I think it is clear from the judges expert panel there was an intentional erasure. Knowing this question would come up with this book i put an appendix in the book where i focused just on the 18. 5 minute gap, where it happened who had access to the tape and the fact there were 59 erasures and it occurs on a tape on june 20th of 1972, which is his first day back in the office after the arrest. It is his first question with hollowman after the arrest and we know they are talking about water watergate. It is something because of the timing of when this comes up that again shows that his defense that he knew nothing until march 21st is a lie. But it is ironic there are more conversations that same week that this happened to be one that the prosecutor subpoenaed so he had to flush it out and that is when they decided to re erase it. I include everybody that had access to that time and it runs the gamut. There are people well known, still alive and not well known. Someone may confess yet. John dean it is surprising to know when the taping system was in play in the whitehouse. It wasnt much of his presidency. No, it wasnt. He puts it in in february of 71. The reason it goes in is pretty basic. He had a system in his whitehouse where his staff took regular note and wrote the notes before the meeting started and then afterwards as to what happened in the meeting focusing on anything decision he might have made to tell somebody who was in there what the decision was and then he would have a record of it. So he could not go out of the office and say the president said such and such when he had a member of the staff who was there and knew exactly what he had. That system broke down pretty quickly. It got backed up. He came in and said this system isnt working. He wanted it for the purpose of having someone say he said Something Different and for historical pearls purposes. So when it broke down he said johnson said lets put in a taping system, he urged you to do it and hets put it in. What happens next isnt covered in the tape but they decided to put in a voiceactivated system and this was the killer. Johnson had a switch under his desk so he could control it. Nixon, if he is in the room, the recording equipment comes on in his executive office and the cabinet room has a physical switch and camp david is voice activated as well meaning the president had a device on him that sent out a signal so the security knew where he was. The taping system is key to the locater system. So it only plays if he is in the room. If the cleaning crew is in the oval office at midnight and talking while they are cleaning it will not start the taping system because it needs the president there with his locater button on him that keys it on. Even al hague who later became his chief of staff has no idea it is a voice activated system and doesnt learn it until the senate is told about it by Alex Butterfield in response to my testimony that i thought i was recorded john dean when did you leave the whitehouse . I leave with holderman and others on april 30th. I was open with my colleagues when i broke and the fact i was trying to convince them this isnt going to work . April 30th 1973 . He removes all of us. As he says on the tapes he fires us. He was silent on me. He had he accepted my resigning and one sentence on me. And you can tell from the conversations how frightened he is of all of us leaving because he doesnt want anybody to turn on him. And at that point i had never talked about the president to my lawyer, to the prosecutors, or anybody else. I didnt know if i was privileged. We had to work all of that out. But he is you know peter, i started this process to figure out how nixon could make such a mess out of his presidency and the bottom line is he is not as clever and sharp as he thought he was. He fumbles, makes terrible decisions, he is not a good administrator, he leaves evidence on his desk for no logical reason and i am wondering how many other areas of his presidency when students go through this they will say where else did this apply . Was he useless without his staff . Did china happened because kissenger followed through. Maybe the other accomplishments are a result of the staff. It is a mess. John dean what was it like to work in that whitehouse . When you listen to the tapes and read the books it seems a lot of conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy conspiracy and groups working against each other. I was friendly with people in the Johnson Whitehouse so i knew a little about it. There was a unique feature of the whitehouse that i think was fatal somewhat. It was a need to know whitehouse. If you were working on something, you were pretty much for bidden to talk to anybody else about it. And that causes problems in the presidency. Watergate is out of the normal staffing system and that is part of the problem. All right. Very quickly, and then we will take some of your calls. The numbers are on the screen if you would like to participate. 2025853980 or 58538981. When did the watergate hearings start . They started in may of 1973. I dont testify until june 25th. I am an early witness. I had been cooperateing the committee. They knew my general areas of testimony. They had no idea that i would bring in for my testimony a 60,000 word document that had i been told i would have had to read it i would have never made it 60,000 words. It would have been closer to 6,000 words. I ended up reading it the entire day and read it in a monotone who keep my voice throughout the read and i didnt want to emphasis more than others so i thought i would put it out there. My first day of testimony was just eight hours of reading and the next four days question and answer. Then what happens to you . Very quickly, and i apologize to the viewers but i want to ask you these questions. How much did it cost you financely to go through that . I have never tried to figure it out. I hired a lawyer and he was very fair. I was in a position i could afford it. So, you know it was and i had a great lawyers and he insisted we do it his way or no way and he for a long time pushed for immuneity with the prosecution and senate and it delayed things and gave me time to prepare the testimony and see how things were going to shake out and when ultimately it came down to what the government could or could not do with me and they would have had very great difficulty prosecuting me because of the immunity. I had the case where oliver north later on said you cannot have it both ways. You cannot have someone testify under immunity and turn around and prosecute them. It has to be one of or the other. I had been informally immunized by the senate and prosecution and my lawyer said it will take them years to figure out they cannot do that if they want to litigate it. But i told charlie i didnt start down the road to beat the raft and i will take responsibility for whatever i did. I appreciate your good lawyering. The kid need the options. So it sorted itself out. What were you convicted and was what the penalty . I pled guilty to conspiracy to obstruct justice. I was sentenced to twofour years which was just before i testified in the trial of the others. It looks pretty clear the judge was trying to make it look like i was getting a stiff sentence. I was in the Witness Protection Program at the time. I was in that for a year and a half. I dont go to jail or prison. I am in a safe house in maryland and every day they bring me into the prosecutors office. I eat in restaurants and sleep at this place at night and get picked up the next morning by the marshles. My incarceration last 120 day and the judge says time served john dean is our guest. Ronald in monteray california you have been very patient. Since 1963 when john kennedy was assassinated and i am hoping you dont cut me off. Am i still on the air . We are listening ronald go ahead be quick. Thank you for mentioning oliver north. All the way from John Kennedys assassination and i dont know if you have seen the photos of senior in the plaza on the day when kennedy was assassinated. After nixon resigned through irancontra and george bush senior is placed ronald where were you going. I want to compliment john dean for having the guts to say any of this. There is books about how many people have been killed we were going to lose that caller they had howard hunt at daily plaza. I would be amazed if george bush senior was in daily plaza too. There were hundreds of people there. How do conspiracy theories like i think ronald was connecting dots there that may or may not be a part of how did they begin . Some of the most aggressive conspiracy theories are pushed pie Conspiracy Theory writers who are usually flawed and there is never an answer. If you change and show them one true fact they will invent a false fact to replace it. They have too much currency and they are complicit answers to complex problems they are bogus, dissort history and are not healthy for the body of politics. I think they pushed primarily by the people who write about them jack is in Providence Rhode island and you are on booktv. Caller the media hated nixon. In particular the Washington Post and secondally the Roosevelt Administration was corrupt to the t. It was loaded with communist. Harry dexter white being one of them and to get off this issue, i would like to talk about Something Different than watergate. Tell me about anna shu malt, called angel from asia. I think she helped him with the South Vietnamese as far as the paris peace talks. Thank you very much. Anything you want to address . He is mixing a lot in there. I have no expertise or seen anything in the material i looked at in connection with the bombing hall and the alleged behavior of anna snault making a deal where nixon promised South Vietnam he would give them a better deal than johnson. There has been a lot of hot air and conspiracy theories about this with very little fact. I cannot buy it. Were you surprised with mark felt became known . Not really. For this reason. There is a conversation in this book where i have gone over to talk to Henry Peterson at the Justice Department and henry told me felt is leaving. He had a General Council from one of the major news organizations, which i assumed was Time Magazine at the time or he was getting the better information for the Washington Post and worried they were printing his stuff to tell me he is leaking. He said i have not talk today the attorney general or the director of the fbi about this. But i think you should have it at the whitehouse. I take it back give a full report to the whitehouse, so nixon knows about this. He tells gray about this and he doesnt want to believe it but it is true next call is from jonathan in san carlos california. Mr. Dean if mark felt had not linked the information would the presidency succeeded and nixon gone on to the second term . I dont think so. That is a good question. Felt had good inside information put he is really going very broad. There has been a couple good books about this. There is one called leak which is great. He wants the job of director and the hoover cronies still there are helping him. I dont think it would have made much difference in the way it played out. He is aggrivating the situation and at times he is leaking information that makes it apparent that gray doesnt have control. Michael, boca raton. Caller when you testified i was a 12yearold boy and the one thing i remember from your testimony is when you told people you hope it didnt prevent young people from becoming active in politics. Well i did and i have been ever since. I wanted to ask you what happened to john dean since watergate in your personal career as well as anything in politics. Well, i had a nice and successful career in business in california where i lived. I was able to retire at 60 years of age. I am now on my eighth book since i have retired. And i have been cranking books out, write column and do a fair amount of lecturing and pretty active in politics through the prospect of a commentator. How could nixon have survived this . Very easy. Cut the committee and his own aids. The people who later went and should have gone from day one for he doesnt learn about the breakin until march 17th when i tell him. He should have been told that. And had all of those options but he just couldnt do it. He adopted the coverup and took it for granted in those early tapes you can hear him. He is not active in it. He actually approves every key element of the cover up until he is active in the first cover up and then the cover up of the cover up scomblchlt terry is in middle berry, indiana. Caller hello, mr. Dean years ago i heard that one of your coconspirators said they were providing funds to the democratic party. Did you hear anything like that . Never heard that. Never did. New diary entries have come out. Have you had a chance to peruse them . He would dictate the audios i listened to a number of them when i listened to the tape. I had a digitizer digitizing them and i would digitize them from analog to digital form. It is a flat voice where he is in a car or a place like that being driven home and he is deckitatingdeck taitictating the days events. He is disciplined and detailed. It is a wonderful document. He buried it in nixons papers so that the prosecutors couldnt get to it. It was lost for years. Just before he passed away he really started working on cleaning it up. He didnt delete anything but making sure people understood the way it worked and put it out. It is a very valuable document. I sighted in my book because it was great to collaborate on things not understood. When you told nixon there was a cancer growing around his presidency what was that like . That was an inflation. One of my lawyers at the Reelection Committee came to me and said hunt is demanding 120,000 or he is going to talk about the steady things he did and that happens on march 19th. Before that i have just started dealing with nixon really as of february 27th i started dealing with him. I am taking his temperature and he is taking my temperature and i am not sure how much he knows. But he is pushing be to write a bogus report and pushing me harder and harder. They come together and i say this man needs to understand in graphic terms as i can put together what is happening and why it is happening and it is criminal. I didnt mince any words with him. That is what is going on and what the surprise to me is that nixon reacts the way he does. That he doesnt respond when i tell him somebody is committee perjury and we should not do that. These people are going to cost who knows how much and he said how much and i said a million out of thin air which is about five and a half today. And he said i know where i can get that. One horrible after another he has an answer for. He said perjury is standoff to prove. He will not worry about that. I am surprised at his reaction and had the next event in the sequence not occurred when james mccord released a letter to a judge saying there was perjury at this trial and he jumps into watergate with both feet forcing nixon to take action. Otherwise not sure he would have taken action. He is sending the watergate people up to congress and if they dont testify they would get sentenced. He was putting a hammer on them. And those events forced nixon to deal with the situation who was the judge john sarica and how did he get the case . He was the chief judge of the United StatesCourt District of columbia. He got the case while it would normally come up in a rotation, it appears he picked this himself. He may have gotten t