JOHN DEAN
Nixon's former counsel on the 9/11 Commission, looming Bush/Cheney scandals, and why the Iraq crisis
By Ed Rampell
How appropriate to interview Watergate whistleblower John Dean via a tape-recorded phone call - this time with his consent, unlike the calls his ex-boss, President Richard Nixon, secretly taped in the Oval Office. Dean was calling from Washington during a whirlwind book tour/media blitz for Worse Than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. Dean has a unique vantage point that distinguishes him from other Bush critics. At age 31, he became Nixon's counsel - and a Watergate insider. The scandal led Nixon to resign August 8, 1974, in no small part due to Dean's testimony on the president's role in the Watergate cover-up. Dean went on to serve four months in prison for obstructing justice, moved to Beverly Hills, and wrote the best-selling Watergate memoir Blind Ambition. In Worse Than Watergate, Dean calls Bush "the most hated president in recent history," and charges that Bush committed impeachable offenses, notably deceiving Congress and the public into attacking Iraq. Here he discusses how Bush discovered his inner Tricky Dick.
CityBeat: Is there a cancer growing on the Bush presidency?
John Dean: Given the context of that remark, when I made it to Nixon back on March 23, 1973 - I've not done a diagnosis on this presidency in that sense. There are certainly some malignancies, if you will, that are growing.
If the trend continues, and it does grow into a cancer, will the Bush presidency be killed by it?
We're in a political season right now. The country is highly divided. There's something like 11 potential scandals that could harm this presidency, cost the president re-election. About a third of the country is Republican, about a third is Democratic, and about a third is independent, and those independents lean both ways. I think we have another cliffhanger, and the election may well be determined in the few weeks or days before November 2.
As RNC chairman, what was George H.W. Bush's role during Watergate?
I've seen some correspondence from Bush Sr. to the White House - he clearly did not understand the implications of the problems. He kept trying to advise the president to get the information out, don't let it appear like a cover-up. Another interesting thing about Bush Sr. - I recalled first hearing the name of Karl Rove from the Watergate special prosecutor. [Rove is now George W. Bush's chief political strategist.] I found a slew of material in the prosecutor's files about how Bush Sr. had sort of taken Rove under his wing, and provided him a certain degree of protection when some controversy about his political activities arose. The Rove-Bush family relationship certainly goes back to Watergate.
Why is a comparison already being made between the 9/11 Commission and the Watergate hearings?
There are no real substantive comparisons between the 9/11 Commission and the Watergate investigation. One is commissioned [by the president], the others were congressional investigations. The comparisons are more on the level of the theater of the proceedings. The Watergate public hearings were designed intentionally by [Chief Counsel Sam] Dash, because much of the work was done behind the scenes by the staff in executive session, as with this commission. That's where they're really doing lots of their fact-finding. These provide an educational role and try to present information that will help the public understand: Yes, there is a commission, yes, it is trying to get to the answer.
Do people in Washington feel the 9/11 Commission has the potential to be Bush's undoing?
I don't think anybody in Washington sees this as a threat to Bush's presidency - but they don't know. In Governor [Thomas] Kean, you have a rather independent-thinking Republican. In Lee Hamilton, you have a rather independent-thinking Democrat. You have a commission trying its best to remain nonpartisan. But for the fact that Bush is running on his handling of 9/11, the commission would probably work quietly and not get the media attention it's been getting. Bush claims he did a bang-up job and was vigilant. [Former terrorism czar] Richard Clarke has obviously said that isn't the way it was. Rice's testimony really didn't head-on clash with Clarke. It probably wasn't a winning issue. Bill Clinton apparently gave a dazzling performance in front of the commission. He was extremely candid. He agonized over whether there was anything more he could have done. The Bush administration is doing everything they can do to hide what they did or did not do. It speaks for itself that Bush is going to the commission proceedings with his vice president.
In the summer of 2002, corporate scandals rocked America. Bush and Cheney seemed culpable in insider trading and accounting fiascoes. Bush was tied to Enron. Did the drumbeat of war deflect attention from the Wall Street scandals?
The entire post-9/11 Bush presidency has been an exploitation of terrorism. It's much easier to govern frightened sheep than thinking, debating Americans. I can't specify that the drum-beat of war was concocted - although I do note the coincidence and timing, which is highly suspicious - to influence the 2002 midterm election.
In your book, you detail the Cheney-Halliburton scandals.
The French investigation is something I only have a newspaper knowledge of. It's been publicly stated Cheney is a potential target of that investigation. It's either miraculous or malicious that Cheney was able to unload all of his Halliburton shares at the time that Halliburton shares were at their peak on the [stock] market. He did so with knowledge ... that Halliburton had 117,000 asbestos lawsuits against one of its subsidiaries that was part of a merger Cheney engineered. He traded his shares without disclosing what we know today is a $3.5 billion liability. When the problem became public, the shares Cheney sold and unloaded at around $55 a share dropped to $13. Selling stock without disclosing information to which you're privy - and the public is not - is insider trading.
What does Bush's pattern of never accepting responsibility or admitting mistakes reveal?
It's quite troubling. When mistakes were made, Reagan was the kind of guy to step up and say, "Hey, this happened on my watch. I'm not blaming anybody else." Rice's performance before the 9/11 Commission showed this administration is incapable of admitting they've done anything in error. They were busy pointing the finger at everybody but themselves as to how 9/11 happened. This inability to concede they're human, claiming they're some sort of perfect machines, is a fallacy I can't grasp.
Published: 04/22/2004
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