YouSaid · the spoken record

John Dean

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2022-06-16

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2022-06-16

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1. “Well, let me tell you, I may be naive, but I believed back during Watergate, and I believe it today, that the truth has its own way of getting out. And Trump can't suppress it. Republicans can't suppress it. And the game they're playing, the dangerous game they're playing with democracy now, they will take their full share of blame because the truth shows they own it.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

2. “Obviously, someone who's been through what I've been through is as public as I am, I've been asked this question many times. My answer always comes back to the fact I have no control over it. So my wanting or not wanting has little relevance. My hope is that he was a truth-teller. That's the best I could hope for.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

3. “He is. The Republican Party of today is a very different party. It's smaller than it's ever been, and its ideology is radical, which there are no moderates in the Republican Party. There are people who say, well, I'll look at the candidate and decide who I'm going to vote. I know I have a lot of Republican friends who voted for Trump because of the economic side of it. The tax side of it. And many of them regret doing it, but they say my selfish sense had me voting for Republican Party, not for necessarily Donald Trump. So it's a real problem. But one of the things that one of the reasons that Watergate is instructive is it shows us how fragile the system is. And it is Being tested now much, much more seriously than during Watergate.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

4. “And as circusy as it would be, get a fair trial. How do you find a jury that can even make those deliberations knowing that this is the first president to ever be in front of a jury? I think Georgia might do it, and that's where it should happen at a lower level than at the national level. And I think it's a travesty either way it plays to not indict Trump, who is clearly conspicuously violated many laws. Certainly the law that got everybody at Watergate was the General Conspiracy Statute of the federal government. Well, there are multiple conspiracies that Trump is not only involved in, he created them knowingly, openly. No issue of criminal intent here.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

5. “My initial reaction was I thought grossly unfair to Haldeman, Ehrlichman, everybody else involved, to give the president a pass when it was clear all this was done for him. These weren't freelancers. These were people who were trying to please the man who got the pardon. It just seemed unbalanced. I understood it, though, that he clearly didn't want to be burdened as he would have been by a trial of Richard Nixon. I don't think based on reading the records of the prosecutor's office, they would have indicted Nixon. And the reason they wouldn't have is because he couldn't get a fair trial. That's the issue today with Trump. How does a man that high and that conspicuous and that”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

6. “I think there's no question. It would have been very different had there one been a Fox News. He was instrumental in the idea of creating a Fox News. I think it would have been a whole different dynamic. But also. You got to remember the huge difference between Trump and Nixon is that Nixon clearly has a conscience. Is he ruthless at times? You bet. Did he override his conscience many times? Yes. Was he a racist? Yes, all those things. But he did believe in one thing, which was the rule of law. And he just accepted that that was the way, the only way the system would work if you did honor the Constitution. And I think that's the only reason he finally decided I'm not going to put the country through an impeachment. The other problem is he lost his staff by the time he resigned. The key players didn't think he should survive or”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

7. “I've talked to the senator about this. Remember the conversation vividly? He said, you know, the first thing we get down there and Haig is then the chief of staff. And Haig gets us in his office and says, for God's sake, don't tell him it's time to go. Don't tell him that. He's almost there. He's talking to the family about it. But if you push him and force that issue, he'll turn around to 180 and his back will get up and he'll never go. So this is delicate. And so Goldwater said they didn't push at all when asked what they saw the vote count, they told him how dire it was. But they didn't tell him he had to go”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

8. “And these are tough times because authoritarianism is going to challenge a fragile government, a fragile system of government, as our democracy is, like it's never been challenged.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

9. “Of people who will accept the big lie and run with it and not have a qualm about it. It's a fluke that they can get control of government, but it's the fluke of our system where we have an electoral college and you don't need a majority to control the government. So we have right now a minority that is capable or was capable during the Trump years of controlling. I think we're more alert to that now and it's not as likely to happen. But the other thing about these people is you can't convince them they're wrong. They were embarrassed before to surface as they are now. Not any longer. Trump has given them permission to be out there. We have our white supremacists that get arrested regularly and are proud of it.”

   2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

10. “As a result of my experience, where I watched my colleagues and my peers click their heels, salute, and go off and do stuff like firebomb the Brookings Institute. Like start tax audits on hundreds of people, just blindly doing those things with no, where I know from knowing them that they had morals, they knew the difference between right and wrong. I never understood why they did those things. So that got me into studying authoritarian personalities. And I visited that subject again with a title just before that was done just before the last election called Donald Trump and his authoritarian followers. He indeed, I don't think saw until he went out and became himself because he's a poster boy for an authoritarian personality. He didn't realize that there were so many people out there that would be willing to unquestionably follow him. And we see that today. These are the kind of”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

11. “Turned out to be a line that I really debated whether to put that in because it was speculation on my part. I didn't know for a fact and I was trying to just deal in pure knowledge, something I could support. But that was a bootstrap. And I told my lawyer I was going to do it. He said, do it.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

12. “Well, I hadn't planned on that. If I had known they were going to have me read the entire statement, it would have been maybe 6,000 words at the most. No idea that I'd had to read that whole thing. It took like eight hours of steady monotone reading to get through it.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

13. “Right. He was intimately familiar with the immunity statute and had said to Charlie, if John has the kind of testimony I think he does, he fits as a ideal person to immunize. There is just no way the government could have prosecuted me. Charlie was confident of that had I decided not to plead. But I had decided to plead from the get-go. I'd actually gone to Schaffer to negotiate a plea because I knew that these guys were going to lie. I knew I was prepared to take responsibility for my own activity. I didn't think anybody else would, but I thought I would just go in and be that much more dangerous if they knew I'd end it all if I was prepared. To plead.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

14. “Totally aware of it. And my lawyer, Charlie Schaffer, understood that very well. And we went initially in working with the prosecutors, we said, we didn't, I was given equitable immunity. That's when the prosecutor just says, you can come in and talk to us and we won't prosecute you for anything you tell us. And we very quickly found out that this wasn't going to go anywhere. So I also knew Sam Dash, who had been involved in council.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

15. “What happened is, I realized I wasn't going to convince anybody in the Nixon White House to come forward and end the cover-up. And so I was going to blow it up, including meeting with the prosecutors, told them that. I wanted to up the stakes for them”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

16. “This is being recorded. I said those leading questions, very unlike the prior conversations I've had with this man. And he knows the answers. He's not liking the answers I'm getting, so he now has a question he doesn't want recorded, so he's got across the office, but he wants my answer.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

17. “Through these questions, and the most glaring example of what he was doing, of trying to get me on record in a way that was less harmful to him, is he said, you remember that conversation we had when you told me there was a cancer on the presidency and we were talking about these guys demanding money and you said it could cost a million dollars. Well, you knew when I said I could get you, we could get that. I was just joking, didn't you? And I said, well, I didn't take it that way at the time, if that's what you say. And then at one point he literally gets up from his chair and in a stage whisper across the EOB says, John, I was foolish to talk to Chuck Colson about clemency for hunt, wasn't I? And I said, yes, Mr. President, I think that's probably obstruction of justice. That's the moment I said.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

18. “April 15th. This is after I get wind that they don't know what to do with me. And they just say, we'll make him responsible for the cover-up. So I have my secretary call the lead newspapers. New York Times, Washington Post, AP, and issue a statement that I won't be the scapegoat of Watergate. And if they don't understand that, they don't understand me. They don't understand how the system works. And so Nixon by the 15th, he wants to know more. So I go in to meet with Nixon late at night. He's been out on the Sequoia with BB. They've been drinking. I can smell alcohol in his breath. It's a very unusual conversation in that he's got a legal pad with a bunch of questions for me in his lap. And he starts.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

19. “After I leave and says, How much do we have in the slush fund? And he also goes to one of the people who is funding the secret payments and thanks him and tells him we may need more after I leave that meeting. So, you know, I totally fail. And, you know, I thought I created a hurdle he couldn't get around when I realized it's not working. I'm telling him, Mr. President, people may have to go to jail. That's where we are. And he says, like who? And I said, like me. And he goes, oh, for the obstruction thing, I can't believe that. That's not going to happen. So he doesn't even want to hear, but I know I've left the message that the president's counsel thinks he's on his way to jail, makes me a little bit radioactive at least.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

20. “Well, I said, I kept telling this could go on indefinitely. He said, Well, how much could it cost? And I pulled out of thin air what I thought was a number he defined offensive. I said, well, it can cost a million dollars. I'd never even contemplated how much it might run. And his reaction caught me even more. I can hear on the tapes my own gasp at times. I'm not selling him. I'm dealing with the leader of the Western world. I'm 30 some mid-30s. I'm dealing with a man much my senior. I don't want to push too hard and say, what the hell are you thinking, Mr. President? This is crazy stuff, but rather I tell him, you know, it could cost a million dollars. And he said, John, that's no problem. I know where we can get a million dollars. In fact, what happens, I know from later, from doing other tapes, is he goes into Rose Woods. Office”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

21. “I thought at some point his hand would come down on the fist would come down on the desk and say, this is crazy. This isn't behavior we can engage in. I was trying to raise one horrible after another horrible after another horrible until at some point he did that. This is also the day I think I met Richard Nixon, who he really was. I think he had played games with me and tried to have an image of himself in front of me. But this is where I really saw who I'm dealing with.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

22. “And O'Brien says, What are you going to do about that? The guy who brought the message, I said, I'm not in the money business anymore. I'm not going to touch that. In fact, Paul, I'm likely to blow this whole thing up. This is stupid. This is endless. You and I are carrying all these messages around. And I'm going to try to get the president to end this thing. And that's what I did.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

23. “The notebooks had somehow been left in my safe, and I find them amongst the president's estate plan. And I don't even study them, don't want to know, shred them and know I'm probably obstructing justice, but I got to make this thing work. So yes, that's when I start, that's when I start doing clearly knowingly criminal activity. And it ends, however, when Howard Hunt gets wind and he sends a message to me through one of the lawyers at the reelection committee, and this re-election committee lawyer says to me, he said, Howard Hunt wants to send a message to you that if he doesn't get paid $120 some thousand dollars like yesterday, he's going to have see me things to say about what he did for John Ehrlichman while working at the White House and by implications probably others.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

24. “Violating that statute because I have no criminal intent. I said, John, I don't think you understand criminal intent and walked out realizing I'm going to get no relief here. But what I also realize, I'm in a lot of trouble. We're all in a lot of trouble. I got to make this cover-up work. That's when I do the really stupid things, like destroying Hunt's notebooks”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

25. “Had I thought I was involved in criminal activity, I would have never married the woman I've now been married to for 50 years and have apologized to her for the hell I put her through from my own stupidity on what I knew and didn't know. Anyway, after I find the obstruction statute, I go right over, I make a copy of it, go right over to Ehrlichman's office and say, John, we are in trouble. We're paying for the silence of people who should be in front of the grand jury. As I said in the documentary, it's hard for me to believe that he went to Stanford Law School where his classmates were William Rehnquist, former Chief Justice, Sandra Day O'Connor, and he somehow missed the day when they taught about criminal intent because he says to me, he says, John, we're not.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

26. “Comes to me after the election, Colson comes to my office and he has recorded a conversation, a telephone conversation with Howard Hunt. And he plays it for me. And he's pleased as punch because Hunt exonerates him. So Chuck is thrilled to have this. But what troubles me is Hunt says, listen, Chuck, this thing is going to break apart for foolish reasons because we're not getting paid money that we should be getting paid, in essence, to remain silent. And as soon as I heard that, I said, that's either extortion or bribery. I don't know which one, but I better get my fingers walking in the law books, and that's when I find, indeed, obstruction of justice. And we're obstructing justice. I have just been married about two weeks.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

27. “It was a different era than Post Watergate. You know, he's telling me that the FBI has no business over there, John. If Hoover alive, they wouldn't dare be pounding on your doors, things like that. I just don't have the background to know these things. But I do jump in with both feet knowing its obstruction of justice after the election because Chuck Colson, who we've introduced.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

28. “When I go in with both feet, after the election. First of all, there was never any grand meeting where everyone sits around and says, we've got to cover this up, obstruction of justice is necessary. First of all, nobody had ever heard of obstruction of justice. Watergate puts that crime on the map. Also, nobody had ever thought that the White House could be investigated. I knew Henry Peterson very well, who's the head of the”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

29. “Mitchell comes to me and says, We need to activate Herb Kombach, who was the president's personal lawyer and a large fundraiser for the re-election. So Mitchell wants me to go to Haldeman and Ehrlichman to say that he needs Kombach to raise money to take care of these guys. So I do that. And do I think it's criminal at that time? No, I didn't. I thought it was a defense fund. Was I stupid? You bet.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

30. “Ehrlichman and Mitchell, their dislike of each other is why I became the desk officer. They can't talk to each other even. They don't want to talk to each other. They don't trust each other. Ehrlichman has from day one tried to influence Mitchell and how he runs the Department of Justice unsuccessfully. Mitchell doesn't want Ehrlichman to tell him now how to run his campaign. So I become the middleman. And that's how I get drawn right into this thing.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

31. “I don't know all these problems at that point. As I say, the desk officer, I'm picking up information and sharing it back and forth.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

32. “While I was working at the White House, I did an operation for Ehrlichman, a national security operation, where we broke into Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office. Two of the men I used in California at that operation are now in jail because I used them at the Watergate. He said, we need to get those men out of jail. I said, well, I said, Gordon, there's nothing I can do on that count. It's just, I don't know how you're going to deal with that. And I went back and told Ehrlichman, and he just played it as poker-faced as can be not even acknowledging he knew about the Ellsberg break-in.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

33. “Non government friend who had deep ties to the Cuban community. And the men who had been arrested at the Watergate were Cuban Americans. Hunt and Liddy were not arrested at the time. That comes much, much later. But so initially, Nixon says, I want to set up a defense fund.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

34. “There's a tape. I have the benefit now of having listened to every Nixon tape relating to Watergate. He is the one who says these people are going to need to be taken care of. And he said, what I want to do is I'm going to call BB Robozo, who was his best.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

35. “Didn't have to tamp the story down a paper covering the story was The Washington Post. So the post, and it was a metro story in the post that often made it to the front page, but the national reporters didn't cover it at all and there's no real national coverage of it throughout the campaign.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

36. “House should be clean of this. This is not the kind of things that should get dragged into the White House. So that's the last I heard about it until June 19th when I return from Manila after two days after the arrest at the Watergate on June 17th of 1972. And it doesn't take me any time at all to put together the pieces.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

37. “A week or 10 days later, I go back after that meeting and tell Haldeman what's happened in Mitchell's office. And I said, this is crazy shit. I mean, this is just off the wall. And he says, I agree you should have nothing to do with this. And what happens is Magruder calls me and says Liddy's coming back to Mitchell's office and you should probably hear his plans. So I go up to Mitchell's office and Magruder and Liddy are huddled around Mitchell's desk and they're talking about things like electronic surveillance at the Watergate. And I said at that point, I said, hey, you guys are talking about things that should never be talked about in the Office of the Attorney General of the United States. Just pour cold water on it as fast as I could. And I go back and tell Haldeman what I've done again because I think the white.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

38. “Lower them to this houseboat where he would have a two way camera mirror situation and somehow they would reveal the inner secrets of the Democratic plans. But one of the things was”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

39. “One of the most amazing meetings I've ever attended, not only in government, but anywhere. And Liddy is over there with Easel's setup, an easel setup in the Attorney General's back office. And Liddy begins this pitch, and he calls the operation. This is his gemstone operation. And there are things like intercepting ground-to-air communications with a chase plane for the opponent campaign operation. He's also, at that time, there were really a lot of demonstrations, anti-war demonstrations. He's got a solution he offers, Mitchell. He said, we plan to kidnap the leaders of the anti-war movement and take them below the border, drug them and take them below the border. He's got a plan to lease houseboats down in Miami at the convention where the Democrats are holding their convention and he'll have a”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

40. “And they try to fire. Magruder says, I got, I need a general counsel. He was the deputy director. So when they realized Lydia is not up to the task, they hire another guy, a deputy. They know who will do it. And Magruder gets into fights with Liddy all the time and they want to remove him. The person who saves him is a guy by the name of Fred LaRue and Fred says, well, we got to keep Liddy because he's doing our dirty tricks for us. And so that's how that's why they came.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

41. “In working on the documentary on all this, I corrected things that were wrong. And 98% of them were accepted. One of the things that's wrong that got in there that Liddy's only assignment at the reelection committee was to be in charge of intelligence. That is exactly the opposite reason they sent him there. The true story, which I put on film, is that John Ehrlichman and Bud Kroe knew they had to get Liddy out of the White House. Once he bungled the break-in in Ellsberg's doctor's office, he is implicated the White House in a serious felony on multiple, but both a federal crime and state crimes, California crime. Liddy's mission, Liddy goes to the reelection committee and he really goes as a general counsel, but he doesn't want to do the work.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

42. “This doctor's office to see what is in his files about Ellsberg. And they come back and sell this to first to Bud Krogan, David Young, who in turn write it up and take it to Ehrlichman for approval, who approves it in a handwritten note saying, so long as I have your assurance that it is not going to anyway connect to the White House, which of course you've already connected it to the White House with that very statement.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

43. “These guys were already working at the White House, so they bring them down to this special unit that Bud Krog is given. He is co-director. With David Young, who's a former Kissinger aide, and the two of them are instructed by the president's that's on tape of obviously today, that he wants to deal with leaks and he wants to deal with it in a fairly ruthless manner. They're also monitoring the FBI's investigation of Daniel Ellsberg to see purportedly if he had also had contact with the Russians. They believed that. And when they learned that the FBI is unable to get anything out of Ellsberg's psychiatrist who they interview, he naturally claims the patient privilege. The patient privilege, right? That's when they cook up this scheme. Howard Hunt, who you've introduced and Gordon Liddy, who you've introduced, cook up this scheme to...”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

44. “Sensitive information that he thought was harmful. I tell Caulfield do nothing. Don't touch this. And I fly, I try to reach Erlichman on the phone. He's not there. I get on the courier flight to San Clemente, goes out to one of the Air Force bases and then takes me up to San Clemente and wait for Erlichman to come back in on Monday morning and to tell him, you know, John, this is an crazy scheme that Colson is cooking up. And he picks up the phone and says to Chuck, he says, young counsel Dean is out here, doesn't think the Brookings plan is a very good one? Cancel it. Boom. Puts the phone down. Said anything else? I said, that'll do it. And I left. But what I learned later is because of my actions, when they decide to create the plumber's unit, they're given everybody's.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

45. “Top aid, he's the president's well-known hatchet man and fairly ruthless character. In attacking the president's enemies, if you will. But anyway, he says Colson wants me to break into the Brookings because the president wants some papers in the file in the Brookings. And what the game plan is, is to go in, firebomb the place when the fire department responds before they get there. We'll have a group that will go in pretending to be firemen and get in the safe. I said, Jack, I said.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

46. “Right. Anyway, when that after that leaks, one day Jack Caulfield, who is just roams around, he'd worked for Ehrlichman. He's on my staff budget, but doesn't really do anything for me. But he comes into my office wide-eyed and says, John, you got to help me. I said, how so? He said, I have just come from Colson's office, and Colson wants me to firebomb the Brookings Institute. And I said, come again. And he explains that Colson has got this. Charles Colson.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

47. “Critical, but highly classified study of the origins of the war in Vietnam, which did not affect Nixon. It was not critical of Nixon in any way. It was critical. Of the Democrats for”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

48. “What happened, David, is when In July of 1971, after Daniel Ellsberg had leaked the Pentagon papers, the study, the highly classified study of the origin.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

49. “But how in the hell do you turn down that title at 31? No one knows how it's all gray what happens inside those gates at the White House. You know that as well as I do.”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source

50. “When they offer me the job, Bud Krog, who was an Erlichman aide, he said, would John Mitchell let you come over to the White House? And are you interested? And I said, well, Bud, why aren't you getting that job as counsel of the president? You're a deputy counsel now. He said, because I'm going with John Ehrlichman as an assistant to the president on domestic policy. I immediately figured out what's going on, what's happened is that they want to get rid of the grunt side of the work of the council's office and the guy who's going to remain for all practical purposes is Nixon's counsel is John Ehrlichman. I'm going to get the title of counsel to the president. At 31, I couldn't turn it down. When I raised it with Mitchell and Klein's both, they said, you're getting the title, you're not going to get the job. I said, I appreciate that”

    2022-06-16 · The Axe Files with David Axelrod · Ep. 494 — John Dean · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT · source