Dean, John - White House Counsel, Participated ...
John Dean
White House Counsel for Nixon - led the Watergate Cover-up and then key prosecution witness for reduced prison term
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John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) served as White House Counsel for United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up. He was referred to as the "master manipulator of the cover-up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI). He pleaded guilty to a single felony count, in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence, which he served at Fort Holabird (Early 1970s: Because it was near Washington, D.C., it was used to guard witnesses in major federal cases, such as the Watergate hearings; in 1973: Closed, area has been redeveloped into an industrial park.) outside Baltimore, Maryland.
From "master manipulator" to star witness
From "master manipulator" to star witness
The start of Watergate
This scaled-down Liddy plan would lead eventually to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal. The burglars' first break-in attempt in late May 1972 had been successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents. Specifically, the burglars were interested in information they thought was held by Lawrence F. O'Brien, head of the DNC. On their second attempt to break in, on the night of June 16-17, 1972, the burglars were discovered by hotel security. After the arrests of the burglars, Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, Jr., who had been supervising the Watergate burglaries, and later destroyed some of the evidence before it could be found by investigators.
Linked to cover-up
White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman would later claim that Dean was appointed by Nixon to take the lead role in coordinating the Watergate cover-up from an early stage, and that this cover-up was working very well for many months. Certain aspects of the scandal had come to light before the 1972 elections, but Nixon was re-elected to a second presidential term by a dominant margin.
Cooperates with prosecutors
On March 23, 1973, the five Watergate burglars, along with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were sentenced with stiff fines and prison time. Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Watergate investigators on April 6, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel, not disclosing this obvious conflict to President Nixon until some time later. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving vulnerabilites of other White House staff with the cover-up. On March 22, Nixon had requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, and even invited him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. Dean did go to Camp David and performed some work on this report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, this report-writing task placed him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement, as well as that of others, and he concluded he was being fitted for the role of scapegoat in the cover-up by those higher up. Dean did not complete the report.He continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up case, which up until then they had virtually ignored, having concentrated on the actual burglary and events preceding it. Dean also appeared before the Watergate Grand Jury, where he took the Fifth Amendment numerous times to avoid incriminating himself, and in order to save his testimony for the Senate Watergate hearings.
Watergate trial
Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notablyE. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. Archibald Cox, Watergate Special Prosecutor, was interested in meeting with Dean, and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was fired by Nixon the very next day, and it was not until some time later that Cox was replaced byLeon Jaworski. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals, and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special "safe house" holding facility primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia. He spent his days at the offices of Jaworksi, the Watergate Special Prosecutor, and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded on January 1, 1975. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced and on January 8, Judge Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which wound up being four months. With his conviction for felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer, so could no longer practice law.