William K. Wolfrum

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter Five: Containment

Synopsis: John Dean proudly struts about the White House, as his power grows and he begins to get more face time with Nixon. The President himself holds a ballsy press conference and talks of the Watergate scandal, “What really hurts in matters of this sort is not the fact that they occur. What really hurts is you try to cover it up. Meanwhile, Dean and friends spend copious amounts of time trying to cover it up. Dean continues to stay ahead of the game by getting advanced info from the FBI’s investigation. Nixon vows revenge against all who have wronged him. Fred Fielding takes over as the new bag man whose job it is to deliver payola to those that committed the crime. The first indictments for the break-in are handed down. Upon his re-election, Nixon fires all political appointees, save a scant few. And by “upon his re-election” he does it the actual night of the election. Dean marries Maureen Biner.

Fast fact: G.Gordon Liddy later wrote a book “Silent Coup”, claiming the whole Watergate affair was about Dean trying to protect Biner from information that would have linked her to a call-girl operation, and that Dean masterminded it all and Nixon and the rest were but naive rubes. The book’s publisher settled with Dean in 1997, following a libel suit. Liddy is still generally considered a psycho.

Money Quote: “‘Sure Bob,’ I replied, swallowing hard. I was astounded. They’re really going to do it, I was thinking - take control of the whole executive branch and pull the strings.” — Dean, after Haldeman told him the administration planned to fire every political appointee and replace them with pro-Nixonies after the election.

Previous:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4

–WKW

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter Four: Linchpin of Conspiracy

Synopsis: Fred Fielding (photo above) calls boss John Dean to let him know that the Washington Post has broke the story that James McCord of President Richard Nixon’s reelection committee and four unnamed Cubans were arrested trying to bug Larry O’Brien’s office at the Democratic National Committee headquarters. One of the Cubans has a check from Howard Hunt, a CIA Operative and member of the White House “plumbers” unit. Fan, meet shit.

Mitchell, Ehrlichman and Haldeman all play it cool, while most in the White House blame G. Gordon Liddy, even though they all knew he was a lunatic in the first place and continued to let him operate. Everyone works - generally with Dean’s help - to get themselves and the President distanced from the stupid affair, which only serves to pull everyone deeper into trouble. The fact that the money used for the operation was from Nixon’s campaign fund is a big issue, as the campaign has had a total scofflaw attitude regarding campaign finance laws. Dean takes a while before he realizes he’s just as screwed as everyone else as the cover up continues unabated, as everyone from Nixon on down plots how they should handle things. More money is siphoned from the campaign funds for a clandestine “hush money” payment to the Cubans and McCord.

Money quote 1: “John, never, I repeat, never, has an Attorney General that I know of, as long as I’ve been here, and that’s quite a while now, reversed a major case after an investigation has begun and turned up evidence of a criminal violation.” — Assistant Attorney General Henry Peterson to John Dean, after Dean had been instructed to find out if the Justice Department had some type of vendetta against union labor leaders.

Money Quote 2: ” … And there was a phony State Department cable, whose obvious purpose was to convince the reader that President Kennedy had ordered the assassination of Vietnam’s President Diem. The phony cable was accompanied by several memos between Hunt and Coulson on how to leak the contents to Bill Lambert of Life Magazine.” — Dean’s recollection of what he found when going through Howard Hunt’s White House safe. Other findings included a pistol.

Previous:

Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3

–WKW

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter Three: The Tickler

Synopsis: Nixon, feeling vulnerable in his re-election bid, decides the best thing to do is to find out information on DNC chairman Lawrence O’Brien, and his relationship with Howard Hughes. It’s immediately clear that Nixon means that information should be found by any means necessary. The job goes to Dean at first, but he’s a big ethical pussy about it. Jack Caulfield comes up with “Operation Sandwedge” but everyone thinks he’s an idiot, so G. Gordon Liddy is given the reins as the “dirty tricks” go-to guy.

Liddy is terrifying even to the criminals running the White House, as his plans to sabotage the Democratic Party consists of wholesale spying, and the use of high-paid prostitutes, as he looks to make the White House a bunch of pimps, literally. Everyone thinks Liddy is psycho, but they love having him and eventually, with some modifications, they encourage his plans. Now, where to find a million bucks?

A Tickler: The name of the chapter is derived from Bob Haldeman’s minions, who would harangue White House staff to get assignments done, earning the name “Ticklers” from Dean. “Even Mitchell and Kissinger were subject to it,” writes Dean.

Money quote 1: “Well, in my business, John, it’s important that those I work with understand I’m a man of strength. Macho, as they say. So to prove myself to them I held my hand over a candle until the flesh burned, which I did without flinching, I wanted them to know I could stand any amount of physical pain.” — Liddy to Dean, explaining why his hand was injured.

Money quote 2: “I had stopped short of a hazy line that kept me off the first team, where men like Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Kissinger, Colson, and even Bud Krogh, trampled the rules, believing that their power kept them from danger.” - Dean, who will soon cross that line himself.

Fun Fact: O’Brien was NBA commissioner from 1975 to 1984, and the trophy for the NBA Champion is called the “Larry O’Brien NBA Championship Trophy.”

Previous:
Chapter 1
Chapter 2

–WKW

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter Two: Firefighting

Synopsis: Young lawyer John Dean settles into his job as counsel to President Richard Nixon, giving it all he has. On Dean’s first day, he faced with an ethical dilemma when he’s asked to sick the IRS on the owners of a magazine that printed a story negative to the Administration. Dean quickly and eagerly folds.

Dean then works to get a secret, illegal, domestic surveillance program into effect, but J. Edgar Hoover, who has experience with this sort of thing, is a thorn in the administration’s side. Dean’s office then spies on anti-war Vietnam veterans. Dean’s office then spies on a filmmaker who made a satirical film on Nixon’s White House. Dean then has to work to keep the Happy Hooker scandal from exploding. Dean’s office barely avoids commissioning a burglary to steal information harmful to the White House, while the Executive Branch does all it can to make the Judicial Branch impotent.

Finally, Dean does the best he can from keeping a scandal exploding when a memo from ITT’s Washington lobbyist, Dita Beard, reveals a relationship between ITT’s providing funds for the Republican National Convention and a Justice Department settlement of an antitrust suit favorable to ITT.

Money Quote 1: “Tom Huston came to brief me. With rapid conviction, he told me the nation would surely crumble from within if the government failed to deal with the revolutionaries and anarchists who were bent on destroying it.”

Money Quote 2: “As we kicked ’scenarios’ around the room, a public-relations strategy emerged around two central themes: hide the facts and discredit the opposition.”

Previous:
Blind Ambition: Chapter 1

–WKW

(Note: I’d long meant to tackle John Dean’s recounting of Watergate, “Blind Ambition” and have recently started reading it. I will be giving short recaps of the book over the following weeks.)

Blind Ambition

Chapter One: Reaching for the Top, Touching Bottom

Synopsis: Young lawyer John Dean finds himself being offered a job at the White House as counsel to the President. Dean plays coy about the job until he’s in the presence of Richard Nixon, who asks if he wants the position. Dean shrieks like a Latina teenager at a Menudo concert and giddily accepts.

Ladies Man: Dean is exceedingly heterosexual and wants to make sure everyone is aware of it. He hits on the stewardess on his flight to meet Nixon, and he admits to having an operator help him stalk a woman who wouldn’t give him his phone number. This is within the first 17 pages.

A Culture of Paranoia and Lawlessness: John Ehrlichman liked to hang out in the President’s bomb shelter spying on war demonstrations.

Fast Fact: Nixon’s team spent time debating what to do about a transvestite porn film called Tricia’s Wedding based on Patricia Nixon’s wedding to Edward Cox.

-WKW