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The more I read about Dean the more I started to call into question some facts. Then I stumbled upon what has been going on in recent years regarding allegations of Dean being the main force behind Watergate and it was done to cover up a prostitution ring he was running with his wife. At first I dismissed this as nutjob stuff but the more I look at it the more it seems to have some merit.
First off, I found evidence that Dean has admitted to not writing his first book, that it was ghost written for him, and that whole sections of it are fabricated. That really set me off because he admitted this in 1995, the author who really did write it has acknowledged it on his own personal website yet the story hasn't seemed to have much traction. The star witness at Watergate admits he didn't write his own "tell all" book on the subject and that parts of it are totally made up and no one seems to care? That bothered me.
Before I get into this I decided to get the source material myself: the books Will by G. Gordon Liddy (certainly to be taken with a grain of salt), Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan which seemed to start this ball rolling after Liddy's book and the latest one, Silent Coup by Len Colodny. The last book has interested me because both Dean and the DNC Secretary also implicated have lost their civil suits against Liddy and Colodny. Also John Ehrlichman ended up doing a documentary/interview video with Tom Clancy as the host that went into some of these issues some and finally, Investigative Reports on A&E did a show called The Key to Watergate covering this material. When Bill Kurtis puts his name on it (I'm a Chicago guy so Bill Kurtis carries a lot of weight with me) that really got me to thinking this isn't the usual conspiracy bunk. Also when I found out that Colodny is a liberal Democrat and has no love at all for Nixon that swayed me quite a bit because I didn't want Nixon apologist stuff.
So, what I've decided to do is get the books, read them, do some follow up research and come back at this article and the other Watergate articles to see how it should all fit. So, for now I think I will leave the article as it is rather than piecemeal revise things before I've done some more work. Once you get interested in this topic it really seems to eat you alive!! For me it all started wanting to flesh out some of the bios on Watergate figures and has snowballed into something else completely. I had always been a believer that Nixon's paranoia coupled with controlling and overzealous trusted aides (Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman) led to his demise. The more I look at it the more it seems this is really a story of ambitious thirtysomethings (Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, Egil Krogh and Gordon C. Strachan) who seized some power, mimicked and magnified the personal faults of Nixon, and brought down a presidency. In the case of Dean it could be even more than that.
-- Wgfinley 19:04, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was surprised there was no article on Maureen Dean, John's wife, who has written at least three books herself.
67.142.130.17 ( talk) 01:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Deena 67.142.130.17 ( talk) 01:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Under the "Personal Life" section, his wife Maureen's maiden name is given as Kane. But, under the "Life after Watergate" section, she's referred to as "the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiancée)". This should be clarified and corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tfgreene ( talk • contribs) 16:49, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Ten years ago we had a discussion on this page about the difference between the biography, and specifically the bio box, for John Dean and that for his fellow convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy.
Now we see that Dean's bio box has been cleansed of all mention of his conviction, while Liddy's contains both "Criminal status Released when parole came up after 4.5 years in prison" as well as "Criminal charge Conspiracy, burglary, illegal wiretapping" and also "Penalty 20-year imprisonment, later commuted to 8 years by President Jimmy Carter"
Many people accuse Wikipedia of systematic Leftist POV, which I like to think is not true. In the years since working for Nixon Dean has been an outspoken critic of Republican administration and has been employed by left and center-left media outlets as a pundit.
Liddy has had a similar trajectory, only his commentary has been as a right-wing pundit and has taken place on right wing media outlets.
Why do the two convictions as part of the same political scandal merit such disparate treatment from Wikipedia editors? Occam's razor suggests that Liddy is viewed as a bad person, and his convictions are tangible proof of this, while Dean is "one of us" and a rehabilitated guy, who made a few mistakes in his past but heroically brought down Nixon, and so doesn't deserve to the the "felon" label attached to his bio box AT ALL, while Liddy gets it THREE TIMES.
It's not a good look for Wikipedia.
ZeroXero ( talk) 15:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
fromcott Searle did you live innapa calif my dad nameis Richard Searle is dad name was dave Searle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.214.71 ( talk) 09:07, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Based entirely on "The Ends of Power," H.R Haldeman's memoir, one user claimed that Dean had tried to get immunity from Nixon. This is false, Dean never tried to get immunity from Nixon, but went to federal prosecutors who denied him immunity The Watergate Source ( talk) 18:18, 30 October 2020 (UTC)
This is the
talk page for discussing improvements to the
John Dean article. This is not a forum for general discussion of the article's subject. |
Article policies
|
Find sources: Google ( books · news · scholar · free images · WP refs) · FENS · JSTOR · TWL |
Archives: 1Auto-archiving period: 365 days |
This article must adhere to the biographies of living persons (BLP) policy, even if it is not a biography, because it contains material about living persons. Contentious material about living persons that is unsourced or poorly sourced must be removed immediately from the article and its talk page, especially if potentially libellous. If such material is repeatedly inserted, or if you have other concerns, please report the issue to this noticeboard.If you are a subject of this article, or acting on behalf of one, and you need help, please see this help page. |
This article is rated B-class on Wikipedia's
content assessment scale. It is of interest to the following WikiProjects: | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
The more I read about Dean the more I started to call into question some facts. Then I stumbled upon what has been going on in recent years regarding allegations of Dean being the main force behind Watergate and it was done to cover up a prostitution ring he was running with his wife. At first I dismissed this as nutjob stuff but the more I look at it the more it seems to have some merit.
First off, I found evidence that Dean has admitted to not writing his first book, that it was ghost written for him, and that whole sections of it are fabricated. That really set me off because he admitted this in 1995, the author who really did write it has acknowledged it on his own personal website yet the story hasn't seemed to have much traction. The star witness at Watergate admits he didn't write his own "tell all" book on the subject and that parts of it are totally made up and no one seems to care? That bothered me.
Before I get into this I decided to get the source material myself: the books Will by G. Gordon Liddy (certainly to be taken with a grain of salt), Secret Agenda by Jim Hougan which seemed to start this ball rolling after Liddy's book and the latest one, Silent Coup by Len Colodny. The last book has interested me because both Dean and the DNC Secretary also implicated have lost their civil suits against Liddy and Colodny. Also John Ehrlichman ended up doing a documentary/interview video with Tom Clancy as the host that went into some of these issues some and finally, Investigative Reports on A&E did a show called The Key to Watergate covering this material. When Bill Kurtis puts his name on it (I'm a Chicago guy so Bill Kurtis carries a lot of weight with me) that really got me to thinking this isn't the usual conspiracy bunk. Also when I found out that Colodny is a liberal Democrat and has no love at all for Nixon that swayed me quite a bit because I didn't want Nixon apologist stuff.
So, what I've decided to do is get the books, read them, do some follow up research and come back at this article and the other Watergate articles to see how it should all fit. So, for now I think I will leave the article as it is rather than piecemeal revise things before I've done some more work. Once you get interested in this topic it really seems to eat you alive!! For me it all started wanting to flesh out some of the bios on Watergate figures and has snowballed into something else completely. I had always been a believer that Nixon's paranoia coupled with controlling and overzealous trusted aides (Ehrlichman and H.R. Haldeman) led to his demise. The more I look at it the more it seems this is really a story of ambitious thirtysomethings (Dean, Jeb Stuart Magruder, Egil Krogh and Gordon C. Strachan) who seized some power, mimicked and magnified the personal faults of Nixon, and brought down a presidency. In the case of Dean it could be even more than that.
-- Wgfinley 19:04, 8 Mar 2005 (UTC)
I was surprised there was no article on Maureen Dean, John's wife, who has written at least three books herself.
67.142.130.17 ( talk) 01:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)Deena 67.142.130.17 ( talk) 01:43, 8 September 2008 (UTC)
Under the "Personal Life" section, his wife Maureen's maiden name is given as Kane. But, under the "Life after Watergate" section, she's referred to as "the former Maureen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiancée)". This should be clarified and corrected. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Tfgreene ( talk • contribs) 16:49, 9 August 2014 (UTC)
Ten years ago we had a discussion on this page about the difference between the biography, and specifically the bio box, for John Dean and that for his fellow convicted Watergate conspirator G. Gordon Liddy.
Now we see that Dean's bio box has been cleansed of all mention of his conviction, while Liddy's contains both "Criminal status Released when parole came up after 4.5 years in prison" as well as "Criminal charge Conspiracy, burglary, illegal wiretapping" and also "Penalty 20-year imprisonment, later commuted to 8 years by President Jimmy Carter"
Many people accuse Wikipedia of systematic Leftist POV, which I like to think is not true. In the years since working for Nixon Dean has been an outspoken critic of Republican administration and has been employed by left and center-left media outlets as a pundit.
Liddy has had a similar trajectory, only his commentary has been as a right-wing pundit and has taken place on right wing media outlets.
Why do the two convictions as part of the same political scandal merit such disparate treatment from Wikipedia editors? Occam's razor suggests that Liddy is viewed as a bad person, and his convictions are tangible proof of this, while Dean is "one of us" and a rehabilitated guy, who made a few mistakes in his past but heroically brought down Nixon, and so doesn't deserve to the the "felon" label attached to his bio box AT ALL, while Liddy gets it THREE TIMES.
It's not a good look for Wikipedia.
ZeroXero ( talk) 15:55, 13 June 2019 (UTC)
fromcott Searle did you live innapa calif my dad nameis Richard Searle is dad name was dave Searle — Preceding unsigned comment added by 75.167.214.71 ( talk) 09:07, 13 September 2019 (UTC)
Based entirely on "The Ends of Power," H.R Haldeman's memoir, one user claimed that Dean had tried to get immunity from Nixon. This is false, Dean never tried to get immunity from Nixon, but went to federal prosecutors who denied him immunity The Watergate Source ( talk) 18:18, 30 October 2020 (UTC)