Did John Dean Instigate the Watergate Coup?

Watergate Chapter 4

The History Channel (20160

Film Review

In this episode, the History Channel replays video footage of John Dean testifying to the Senate Judiciary Committee. There is also a clear attempt to elicit sympathy for Dean as the inexperienced dupe of Nixon. I don’t buy it. Neither does Russ Baker in his 2009 Family of Secrets (see Was Nixon Set Up?).

In “Chapter 11 Downing Nixon Part II The Execution,” he reveals (based on range of resources, including unclassified documents, first hand accounts of White House staff and congressional records) that it was Dean who instigated and engineered both the Watergate break-in and cover-up (as Nixon claimed at the time): 

• In November 1971, it was Dean who recruited two private eyes to do a “walk-through” of Watergate.
• It was Dean who ordered Jeb Magruder (deputy director of the Committee to Reelect the President) to ask CIA asset and Watergate burglar Gordon Liddy: “Do you think you can get into Watergate?”
• It was Dean who paid hush money to CIA assets and Watergate burglars as part of the coverup.

After Dean spends two days reading his 245-page testimony to the Senate Judiciary Committee, Nixon issues a statement accusing Dean of orchestrating the coverup without the knowledge of his superiors. Although no one believed him at the time, he seems to have been telling the truth.

After Dean, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman and White House Chief of Staff Bob Haldeman are summoned to testify, White House aide (and CIA asset, according to Baker) Alexander Butterfield reveals that Nixon records all Oval Office conversations. A week later, Judge Sirica (responsible for advising the grand jury, Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox and the Senate Judiciary Committee) orders the White House to turn over the tapes.

Nixon, following the precedent set by both Truman and Eisenhower, declines, citing executive privilege.

Meanwhile Vice President Spiro Agnew is charged with for accepting bribes as governor of Maryland, the Yum Kippur War breaks out in the Middle East and in October 1973 the oil-producing Arab countries declare an oil embargo against all western countries supplying military aid to Israel.

On October 30, 1973, the House begins impeachment hearings against Nixon.

The film can be viewed free on Kanopy

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/watergate-0

Watergate: The Oval Office Tapes

Watergate Chapter 3

The History Channel (2016)

Film Review

Chapter 3 mainly concerns the discovery of the Oval Office tapes. For me the most interesting section concerns the conflict between Nixon and his legal counsel John Dean over whether to cooperate with the Senate Judiciary Committee. According to the tapes, in March 1973 Nixon ordered Dean to issue a statement expressing the White House’s general willingness to cooperate in any investigation. Dean never did so. Instead (according to subsequent tapes), Dean advises him not to cooperate by claiming executive immunity.

By the spring of 1973, six defendants had been sentenced in the Watergate burglaries and Watergate hearings in the Senate Judiciary Committee are about to begin. Around the same time former CIA operative and Watergate burglar James McCord begins testifying to the grand jury about the White House staff who orchestrated the break-in.

By mid-1973, new scandals linking Watergate to the White House are breaking daily. John Dean hires a criminal lawyer and begins negotiations with the Senate Committee to trade testimony about White House involvement in the break-in and coverup for immunity from prosecution.

Nixon accepts the resignation of John Ehrlichman and Robert Haldeman, as their staff are heavily implicated in the cover-up. He simultaneously fires Dean, Attorney General Gordon Kleindienst and FBI Director L Patrick Gray.

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*Driven mainly by paranoia, Nixon recorded all his Oval Office conversations for most of his presidency.

**Gray was the first FBI director after Hoover’s mysterious death a month before Watergate. See http://www.maebrussell.com/Mae%20Brussell%20Articles/Watergate%20Deaths.html

This film can be viewed free on Kanopy.

https://pukeariki.kanopy.com/video/watergate-0