not for the good of the nation in any stretch of the imagination why he's misleading woodward so much i'm not quite sure. he's telling him things like well, you know, you got to be careful. you're all out there going to be wiretapped. well, that's just baloney. none of that business is going on. he's got so many of the events mischaracterized that it's -- i can understand why bob woodward has gone on. he doesn't want to go back and correct that history. he's troubled by the fact that i'm unable to shake loose of it. i can't. for some reason it follows me wherever i go. so i might as well stay informed on it. you know, i think that's a fair description of authoritarian-type personality. >> host: we'll talk more about the so-called revisionist history on watergate. another hour and a half with our guest john dean here on booktv's "in depth." more of your phone calls and also as i said join the conversation online at twitter.com.

back in a moment. >> what's a normal workday like for you? >> well, most mornings after i digest my two or three newspapers increasingly i'm taking those online. i recently stopped my print editions from coming after 30 years of that. i exercise. i go to -- i have a gym in the house. stair master or a bike or a treadmill. where i read, i continue to read because i think that's a great place to get the juices going. then i'll come up here typically about, oh, 10:00 and start in the day. it depends on what phase of the book i'm in. right now the office is pretty

clean because i haven't plowed through all the documents i'm working on, on the book i'm working on right now. but i tend to stack things up on the floor in very precise stacks where i know everything is and get it all spread out. my wife accuses me of being a hamster. i just find that very convenient. so, one, forget things when i'm working on them and two, they're very accessible. right now one time in a reading phase. this is my book cart we're sittin by so i'm diving through that and making notes. getting a general overview of what i'm working on. and not really into the deep specifics at this point. when i'm actually in the writing process, i have papers everywhere. i spend a lot of time doing original research looking for primary documents. i'm gathering -- i've gathered right now about 15,000 pages of documents for the book i'm working. i'm on my trip back east and

will be gathering another 5,000 pages, i suspect. i'll then sort all that, go through it. and, you know, i recurrently go through and double-check to make sure i'm not missing things. when i'm writing, i'm there at the keyboard. but because it is such a passive activity, i keep my stair master or a little stepper here and will jump up -- in fact, i have a clock on -- an alarm on one of my computers. i have a facility where i can concentrate and i can literally lose the world around me and find myself, you know, two or three hours without even moving. in fact, i got a pretty good case of carpal tunnel in my right wrist from that very problem. just working, working, not realizing the time i was spending being in a bad posture. having the wrist up above. so i actually now use my mouse with my left hand. we're very adaptable. i switched over and now i'm as

fast with my left hand while i'm right handed. but i break up the pace of sitting at the endless hours at the computer by jumping up onto my stepper just for exercise. circulation, read there. making notes. there's a wonderful piece of software -- it's been out four or five months now called dragon dictation. for the iphone. and it converts dictation to text. so i will -- i'll have my book right there that i want to make notes on. i'll dictate some note from the book. then i just email it over to my computer. very handy. very handy. so i have no down time, if you will. but for the digital age we live in, i couldn't be producing a book a year. it used to take a lot longer to go to the library. to hand-write everything out. to manually type it. i also use a voice recognition

software. that eases up the wrist if i have a number of passages i need to pull out of a book. i'll just dictate them into my right into my machine. so i'm very digital in my work. and i'm also -- as i'm preparing my next book, with the coming of the ipad, i'm really thinking about multimedia. i'm thinking this is unique. there's a lot of public domain information. i won't have to screw around with rights to give a value-added to this work i'm doing. and not many people, for example, have heard the nixon tapes. and while the office tapes are terrible, some of the conversations are good. and some of those will work into my thing. there's other multimedia things i can use. so i'm thinking more than just it is straight linear narrative this time as i'm working on this book on what you can do with an ipad, which is kind of fun.

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♪ >> host: john dean from "blind ambition" and "lost honor" to "pure goldwater" and the "the rehnquist choice." thanks for being with us here on booktv's "in depth." >> guest: pleasure. >> host: as we continue the conversation the personal side of richard nixon. what was he like to interact with? >> guest: for me he was certainly easy to work with. he was always pleasant. he had met my wife once flying

on air force one and he would say how is your pretty little wife and things like that. i discovered actually when doing the "the rehnquist choice," i listened to a lot of tapes. with a lot of different people. he's sort of a chameleon. he would have a different personality with different aides. i never realized it until i'd heard him, you know, doing one-on-one with others. it seems that, say, for example, haldeman and coulson would bring the worst out in him with mitchell, he was talking for a long time with more of a peer. seeking his advice, what do you think, john, you know, so on and so forth. with people like ray price and with me, you don't hear him swear. you don't hear him use his locker room -- occasionally, but not like he did with others.

so he's a different -- he's different with different people on the staff. you know, he's -- i laughed out loud -- in fact, i laughed out loud re-reading the book nixon's take on women, for example. here his daughters were pushing him along with his wife to put a woman on the supreme court. he had two vacancies to fill. so they're really leaning on him. we actually did very seriously consider a woman. mildred lily if she was not shot down by a 12 members of the aba she might have been on the court. i later looked at her credentials sandra day equally good and experience wise better. but anyway, when listening to these tapes, he would say things like to mitchell -- he'd say, you know, john, i don't have any women in my cabinet.

thank god i don't have any women in my cabinet but my cabinet is so lousy anyway, it won't make any difference. and then he'd say, i don't believe women should even be educated. [laughter] >> here he's got two lovely daughters. he's a very complex man, clearly. >> host: could you ever talk about the relationship between pat and dick nixon? >> guest: i would be reluctant to do so. my few dealings -- for example, i had some estate matters that had to be dealt with when he was doing his estate planning. and i was the intermediary to his outside lawyers. and he had me get the information from his wife rather than he got it from his wife. he would address her by sending her memos. but i send my wife emails and every time i do it, i think i might be richard nixon.

>> host: there was an interview with charles coulson and he said he had a target with your picture of you and he would throw darts on it. >> guest: we have an on and off relationship. he was still working with nixon very, very late. when i'm -- i've broken rank and he's trying to break me. using all of the -- all of the hatchet tachics. -- tactics. chuck was disappointed that i wouldn't join him in the christian right. and he really did a little proselyting for a little while to try to get me to join with him. and i think he's been disappointed. and on issues today, you know, my writing books like

"conservatives without conscience" and those are chuck's politics. he transferred one set of politics to another set of politics. and they happen to be very different from mine. >> host: as always we welcome your phone calls. 202 for those living in the eastern and central time zones. the number is 202-737-0001. and door those of you in the mountain or pacific time zones in our conversation with john dean, 202-737-0002. wayne is joining us from cold springs, florida. go ahead, please. >> caller: yes. i would like to ask mr. dean what was the verdict or outcome of the lawsuit you filed against g. gordon liddy? >> guest: what happened -- i filed a defamation lawsuit. my wife and i against a group of revisionists who had created a new story of watergate claiming -- i actually learned about the lawsuit -- or learned about the whole issue when mike wallace called me one -- early one monday morning asking me if

i knew i was in the middle of a new book coming out that explained that unbeknownst to the prosecutor and the watergate committee i ordered the watergate break-in. i said, mike, that's news to me. how did i do that and no one learn it? he said that's why we're calling to ask some questions before we go forward with this show. and he said you should understand what they're claiming is that you learned there was a call girl ring in the democratic national committee through your wife who was associated with the madam of the call girl ring. i said well, that is baloney. i can assure you that's not true. he said will you go on camera? i said of course i will. will you send me the book to explain how they reached all these conclusions. he said i can't. it's a saint martin's press book. we've done an agreement that we

won't release the book. and we're under a confidentiality agreement so i can't but i will tell you "time" magazine is going to do a release -- we're going to do our show on sunday night and they're releasing monday. this was about two weeks before the show. he said you might get something from "time." after i agreed to do the show, mike got off the line. i then called "time" magazine. i knew the principal watergate reporter from "time." fellow by the name of hays gory. i said what is this story. sure enough, we're doing an excerpt on this thing. i don't know how they could by this without running by the people who know it most but apparently they signed a confidentiality agreement in new york and they won't send it to me or carl bernstein who, of course, is bob woodward's partner knew as much about watergate as anybody.

and he said this has raised -- raised questions for me. hays said i called all the people i knew. and i knew many because i covered the democratic national committee to see if there could been a call girl ring over there. and he said i talked to a number of guys and they said, you know, one said i was a bachelor. i would have been the number one customer of this place if it existed. so hays says we have some doubts. i'm not quite sure how this is going to happen. to make a long story short on that, i called both -- i got back to 60 minutes. and i got back to "time." they both dropped the story. gave me new respect for their journalism. the publisher did publish. i put him on notice. and i learned very quickly -- well, his comment was -- he said you'll have plenty of time to read this in the bookstores. so they were -- they're not going to back down at all. i said well, you're going to have a lawsuit. and they did.

and so we named the publishers, the authors. and we quickly learned that the silent collaborator in the book was g. gordon liddy so we named him as well. the lawsuit went on for nine years. we learned they spent $15 million fighting us. i was in a fortunate position i could literally shut down my business and go at this full time. aid and two goals. -- and i had two goals. one to win the lawsuit and two to get enough information to show for historical purposes that this was pure fraud. and they had offered to settle very early. they wanted a license to defame the deans and they didn't get that. but they did get nine years of litigation. it would settle. i wish i could tell you of the settlement.

unfortunately, it was a confidential settlement. we're allowed to say we were satisfied and we were satisfied. >> host: let me go back to something we talked about in our first hour, the 18.5 minute gap and the meeting that took place in 1972. this is an email from one of the viewers who said during that meeting was there a description of the attendees of the contents in that fred fielding had -- .. guest: was there >> host: during the in 1972 did you describe for the attendees the contents of what was in hunt's safe. >> guest: i never saw the contents at that point. and certainly not beforehand. what happened is -- in fact, i just learned this yesterday in looking at a document. the first person to find out whether hunt had an office and a safe was walter minnick who's now in congress. he worked for ehrlichman at the time.

he actually shared space in room 16 where the plumbers operated. but was told he wasn't supposed to talk to them about what they were doing. how much he learned by osmosis, i don't know. but anyway, ehrlichman called him that saturday or sunday after the break-in and said i've been told that hunt was involved. somehow his name came up in a notebook. have you seen hunt lately and have you talked to him. yes, as a matter of fact i've talked to him recently about international narcotics. he said well, will you find out if he's got an office? and minnick said, yes, i will. and the staff secretary went up and found out he had an office. the safe was locked. and they reported this back to ehrlichman. ehrlichman in turn was the one to have the safe opened. it was my -- because i was not around. i had gone to another meeting. i had asked -- either asked or fred just acted to go get the contents when they opened the

safe. and then they were brought to me in boxes. and we gave some of them to the fbi. we gave some of them back to the state department. we gave some of them directly to pat gray. and some of them were destroyed. >> host: did you always intend to be a writer or did you just a evolve into this? >> guest: you know, it's interesting. i was an english lit -- american english -- american literature and english literature undergraduate. i did a lot of creative writing as an undergraduate. >> host: at colgate. >> guest: and the college of wooster. i now -- an aunt reminded i wrote my first book at eight years of age. so there must have been some instincts. the short answer is yes. and i -- when i got in business, i said you know what i'd really like to do. i did "blind ambition." it was the first book, struggled how to do it right and what have you. did "lost honor" from then on.

all on my own. don't use research assistants but i enjoyed it tremendously doing those first two books. then went into business and i always said to myself, when i retire, and i retired fairly early, at 60, i'm going to spend those retirement years cranking out books. and i've been doing one a year ever since. >> host: norman is joining us from lodi, california. welcome to the program. >> caller: yes. in 1949 congressman richard nixon sent a letter to his constituents to explain his vote on the hill burton bill. i sent my letter back with a tally with both sides of the letter showing 18 lines of copy on one side and 18 personal pronouns on the other side. [laughter] >> caller: it permanently colored my perception of the man. and incidentally i voted for george mcgovern solely because i felt the watergate break-in had been done because of nixon's m

compulco compulsive desire to win by a landslide worth. >> host: mcgovern who knew him before -- and when i was doing a profile for rolling stone in '76 for the republican convention. and he was wearing a blue suit and sitting in his chair.c[ñ and i said, you know, this man in many regards is so much more presidential than the president i worked for. in recent -- in the recent years, he and i have shared a stage. he was out in california recently. and i had an event. and we have an awful lot of fun and we have no preprogrammed and we seem to interact well. i think he's 85 -- >> host: 87. >> guest: 87, yes. and may we all be half as sharp as he is 87. so as i say, we had a pleasant friendship.

>> host: in his book "courage and consequence" karl rove who was working door rnc chair george herbert walker bush in 1973 asked one of the most fundamental questions that is asked about watergate. he said, quote, i found it increasingly difficult to defend nixon. what good could have come from burglarizing the dnc? nixon had been way ahead the democratic party was in disarray and the candidate was on his way to an enormous defeat so why? >> guest: you know the first time i heard the name karl rove was when i was asked by the watergate special prosecutor. he was on their radar. he has a small file. and it had to do with his giving classes to young republicans. nothing really developed of it.a but i think his perception is right. karl, has been very politically perceptive. what they don't understand is nixon wasn't calling the shots.

these things -- as i finally got together in appendix i wrote for "blind ambition," the new edition, the after word, i was able to understand how the flow happened. how this happened. it started actually a couple of years beforehand. where they wanted to get, you know, good intelligence about what the democrats were doing. and the way they did it is he wanted dirt on the democrats. and was constantly pushing him to get that dirt. and the way he pushed was very few places they could get it. and then you would add in to it the catalyst really is the itt scandal that arose in the spring of '72. this is when nixon was accused of having his administration settle an antitrust case for hefty campaign contributions. a prescribery. -- bribery.

it was untrue. there was a special investigation by the prosecutor on that. it didn't happen. what's forgotten and i put this together, the sequence the way it happened, he was -- his administration -- his attorney general out there. that's where he gets this idea on let's get some dirt on them and go after them. so it was a reactive where this starting. -- starts. he had a tip the democrats were getting kickbacks in their convention -- kevin philips provided this tip. and they thought it was -- worth exploring. and this is what they're looking for. >> host: a twitter question going back to the ideology of the republican party. >> guest: one thing, he's -- he's a belts and braces-type campaign.

even ahead he wants to make sure he's very ahead. wants that best landslide he can begun. >> host: mr. dean, will the future of republican party be determined by moderates like yourself remaining active in the party? >> guest: i'm, of course, an independent and i can't tell you how many friends who were very good republicans. provided a lot of money to the republican party. they have decided that they're not comfortable with the republican politics anymore. it's too bad. a lot of people in the business community feel that, you know, the republicans are best for them. you know, i'm not sure that's true. and there are many, many more just now declaring themselves independents and going where they think they can best spend their money because politics does require money. it requires an increasing amounts of money. i thought it was wonderful when obama was able to raise the kind of money he did through the internet. that's a great new resource.

we'll see if it works again. the corporate united decision troubles me because we don't want corporations being the backers for our -- particularly our presidential elections. >> host: you had left the white house after spiro agnew was forced out. did you have any interactions with the vice president? >> guest: i did. he and i used to laugh and i actually saw him after the fact. he was going on an up escalator and i was going on a down escalator in palm springs where he retired. he and i sat down -- he waved me come up and i did and we talked about our last visit which is on the government's small planes where we went -- i think we were going to chicago. they couldn't get the landing gear down. and we thought this might be our last flight. but i was -- i was fairly surprised that what happened to him. .

>> guest: if nixon did have to leave or something happened to him, he was a competent man, but they wouldn't want to shove him out just to get ford in. >> host: tanya's joining us from virginia beach. go ahead, please. tanya, you with us?

>> caller: oh, yes. >> host: please, go ahead. >> caller: oh, so wonderful to talk to you, mr. dean. >> guest: thank you. >> caller: you know, when i watched watergate, i was in my early 50s, but one thing i haven't heard anything is martha mitchell. because i used to watch this program, and they were saying that she was drugged and kidnapped and sent to california because she was talking too much. is that true? >> guest: no, she wasn't, she actually was in california when that incident happened. i liked martha. i knew her well, i knew her from my time at the opportunity of justice -- department of justice. she was a wonderful, charming personality. very southern, always the life of a party. but, unfortunately, she had a drinking problem, and when she had just a couple extra martinis, she'd get on the phone, and she was trouble. and most of the things she said were terribly exaggerated, and that was the sad part.

but she's well remembered, and that's the nice part. >> host: james is joining us from oregon. go ahead, please. >> caller: yeah, thank you, mr. dean, for coming on c-span and also the time you spend going on the randy rhodes show, i really appreciate that. but my question relates to your book, "conservatives without conscious," which is a fantastic book, and i really appreciate you writing it. i often ask my friends like you say you hear defending, you know, why don't they take the republican party back? and i wonder, you know, it seems that they have narrowed their focus on who can participate in their politics the point to where, you know, i worry about them going away which i think we need a conservative party even though i'm a liberal myself. i appreciate the values and hold some of those myself. but i just wonder what your perception is of where it's going, and then the last thing