the armed forces. he was a horrible man. what i originally called to ask and find comment on is the fact that gordon liddy seems to be a very credible man these days on the buying of gold. isn't it amazing that he has so many followers? and the company selling the gold, using him to sell the gold finds him very credible in doing that. i would love to hear your comments on that one. ..

and after the meeting came down in the basement in the >> guest: it was just one ofthoy people down there. we had a lovely exchange. he gave me his business card. i gave him mine. he said, let's get together for lunch that i said bob, i would really like to do that. i think there are a lot of notes at the late station we can compare and try to help a together the pieces of what in the hell happened, and he said i'd like that. unfortunately, bob -- i didn't follow up fast enough that he didn't follow up fast enough. the next thing i learned he had stomach cancer and was shortly

gone. >> host: and he did not undergo medical treatment. why? >> guest: a number of his aides who were talking to him and talking to me, said that it was something that actually was treatable, but because of his christian science beliefs, that he said this was one thing he was going to do the way he felt that his religion called for him to do. and if the lord healed him, you know, he would be healed. if not, his time was up. that's what happened. >> host: in an interview in 1981, john called richard nixon a pathetic figure in american history. would you agree with that assessment? >> guest: i don't know if i would call him a pathetic figure. i can understand what he was coming from. my publisher has convinced me for my next book i should return to nixon, something i have done very reliably. i have never written about richard nixon%.

he has passed to another things, but i've really never looked at nixon and so i'm doing that right now. in one of the things i found recently in the archives archives, not a mr. kohl on a prior trip, the nixon papers are on their way to california. they will be as a more convenient for me. but i found in those final days, both haldeman and ehrlichman submitted rather full applications for pardons. they made their best case in the presentations, and it would be clear after reading ehrlichman in particular, his submission, why he would be extremely better when nixon did not grant him a pardon. because everything, everything ago had done basically for nixon, and the fact that he would not see fit or one of two of the final public servants he had ever known, as he announced

when they departed. to not issue a pardon, as george bush would, when capital and bird and some others were involved in things, that occur during his presidency had not taken care of it. i'm sure that he was better for the rest of his life. he became a very bitter man. i think it cost, took years off of his longevity. he got a law involved in a lot of his watergate revisionism, wanting to believe it. and i saw a man go downhill pretty quickly. >> for three hours during the first sunday of every month we don't "in depth" with authors. this month john dean. is written 10 books, and now working on your electric. and john is joining us from loss i guess. welcome to the program. >> caller: i wanted to know if

you thought that what happened in the 1960 election in illinois and west virginia had a major impact on president nixon's attitudes towards the powers that be as the need and what have you. and did you have any conversations regarding, i believe his top lawyers at the time wanted him to challenge the electoral count in illinois which would have given him the presidency. but from what i've known i had an indirect conversation, second party conversation with the president background 1966. his reasoning for not challenging that election, i believe was a would have torn the country apart in a time in the '60s when we had a very series problem with nuclear confrontation with the russian. and if you would, please, give me your thoughts, any conversations, and maybe that made him a little better to the press and what have you, because of the stolen election.

>> guest: yes, that's a good summary of the situation. and nixon's position was indeed that it would be too divisive if he did so. what was never really fully reported is yes, there were problems in the chicago area, but what never got flushed out because he did send a number of people to check out the situation to see what would happen if he did contest it, and the downstate illinois elections would have totally obliterated any changes if there was hanky-panky in chicago. so he realize in the long run he really would not have been able to prevail with illinois. but rather than make an issue out of that and all that polling and searching had done in downstate, he just let it pass and took the high road. and i think to his benefit for doing so.

>> host: let's go to tim from hancock, michigan. good morning. tim, are you with us? >> caller: i am. thank you. i have a question for john about the car he used to drive. it was a porsche. and i was just curious -- >> guest: 9/11. >> caller: did he sell it? it was a porsche 9/11, old maroon one. great shape. i loved the car. in fact, every time i drive on the dulles road, i think about that car and coming in from the airport, just a few days ago i thought about it because when i used to drive the dulles road and i had that car, 30 some years ago, there were no police on it and it was a good time to get the carbon out of the cylinders of the car. i sold it back to the dealer, so i never did find out what

happened to it when i left and went to california. >> host: allentown, pennsylvania, which most memorable moment during your tenure in the nixon presidency? >> guest: there was shortly more good days than bad days. watergate was a surprisingly small part of it. the most memorable days, hard to say days because it was such a unique position. the counsel's office was high enough that we could see over everything virtually that happened in the white house as well as the government itself. so it's a wonderful perch from which to understand government. the overall job experience was very rewarding. i've often thought that, you know, in looking particularly going back and look at our papers, my files are one of the larger of the nixon house collections. and i'm not ashamed of anything we did in 99% of our work.

they are good opinions that they were well handled. processing was good lawyering. we blew watergate totally but that was me. i didn't even tell my staff about what was happening because it never occurred to me when i went over there that one needed to be a criminal lawyer. i realize in that particular administration it was essential that the white house counsel be a very sophisticated criminal lawyer. had that been the case, my antenna might have been up and i might have been able to help the president much better by having that reaction faster than i did. >> host: and wonder the books, i am paraphrasing, there was no single meeting to plan the cover-up. >> guest: never. the cover-up was very much catch as catch can pick it was reaction to what was happening as it happened. a lot of confusion and initially, as to what had occurred. you know, why were all these men

arrested in the dnc, democratic national committee. who was james mccullough at the reelection committee? who were these cuban-americans? we were really struggling to put together the pieces initially and try to understand it. but as i say, you know, the best of my knowledge i had not heard of the crime of the structure of justice at that point. it wasn't until we're well on the other side of the law that i pull the code book down and start looking and say what are we doing here, is this a problem? indeed it was. and when i first raised for example, with john ehrlichman and another lawyer, i said it looks clear to me like a instruction of justice. we had better have second thoughts. and he had one of those lines that john typically had come you don't get easily and he said is there something putrid and your water out there in old town where you live? and i said no.

he said, i just think you are all wrong on this. he wasn't willing to look at the code. he didn't want any part of it. so anyway, i don't think -- and that, another interesting thing that comes up on the nixon tapes. after i go in and start telling nixon about the seriousness of the problems, he will later have conversation with haldeman saying i just don't think dean is right that this is up structure of just. i don't think there is anything wrong with paying these guys off. they didn't want to accept that these, because they did not feel, first of all, there was no bad motive in this in fact. i recently ran into a memo in the prosecutor's office on good intentions and committing criminal offenses. they were worried about that as a defense i some of the people involved, that they would say we had no real criminal intent to

do something that broke the law to the contrary. we didn't even know we are breaking the law. but i think that was very widespread in the nixon white house. one of the things was, you know, mistakes made because there are so many federal crimes. now, i've structured of justice and defrauding the government by misusing agencies of government would all become after watergate well understood. you don't do that. before then, these thoughts just didn't jump into our minds. >> host: let me go back to the tape. >> guest: not that it makes them isn't, it just makes it more understandable how we did is. >> host: you write about the 18 and happen again. first of all, that famous photograph of mayor rosemary woods stretching with a typewriter and the dictaphone. how did that come about? than a want to ask you what was in that conversation and why is it missing? >> guest: the photograph as i recall was done after the

special -- after the taping system became aware and subpoenas were served and what have you. the president agreed he had to turn over some of the tapes, at least these gaps start appearing. first of all, five minute gap, and 18 and happen to get. of the tapes are missing. and they have a massive hearing over in the judge's courtroom. at one point i think they took, went back to rose's office and have her show so the jury or the judge could see, just a judge again, what had happened and how, how she could reach the machine and have her foot on the pedal or reach the telephone and have her foot on the panel at the same time. and a long and short of it was, it was impossible. it wasn't physically possible. and that's shown in that picture how difficult it was. but when she was actually on the stand, it showed that she couldn't do it.

that has never been much in mr. in my mind about how that happened. there were only three people who had that conversation on june 20. , 72. one was steve who queued it up for the president what he wanted to listen to another was rosemary woods, when she was trying to transcribe it. the third was richard nixon, who was not very good with machinery. i remember him having machinery so basic as opening your drawer, or my favorite was when he would try to take the medicine tops off the bottles we had to push them down and turn them, he just couldn't get those all. he would have been in is not that mr. president, can i help you? so i can imagine hearing that tape and saying oh, my god. or even trying to relive that and say let me listen to that

again. and getting the wrong buttons, because the experts who the judge had to look at it said it took seven to nine different times to erase. you don't even need seven to nine different times. so i can see nixon trying to recapture this and say let me get it again and not understanding how it worked at all. and doing this. and since he is the only one who knows he did it, he has never admitted to anybody. so no one has ever known, you know, what it is. >> host: let's come back to that. jackson, where we, welcome to the program. all mac thank you and a great pleasure to talk to you, mr. dean. i see you a lot. i would just like to know a few questions that i can sit down and go to out. are you still a conservative philosophy? i would like to know what you thought of the movie with david

bush and nixon interview, i would also like to know about the new movie, w. that is out. and your opinion that said when he knew cheney, that cheney today is not the cheney that he knew, and you have any idea what he was talking about? >> host: thank you, butch. >> guest: let me take the first. on many issues i still consider myself a goldwater conservative. i am about as nonpolitical for somebody who writes about politics as you can imagine. i say that in a partisan sense. i vote both sides. i don't believe that anybody has all the answers, and i tried to study a problem and vote for who i think might be the best candidate for the best circumstance, and try not to be driven by any ideology. i am registered in california as an independent for all practical purposes. they have because we don't have to declare it a party, so i

don't. so those are my politics. your next question about the frost/nixon movie, i have not seen that yet. i actually have it on my iphone, and i got -- i was thinking about watching it on the way back but i watched in glorious bastards instead. so i haven't seen it yet but i will soon. and i understand it is well done. i still certainly remember the original, but i think -- i was delighted to see it. ron howard is such a good job with everything he does. it brought those issued to mind of another generation. and trust me, i have been over at usc's school as a visiting scholar for about nine years now. and kids today, they know nothing about watergate. i did a little seminar here in washington for harvard law students who have a washington semester. they know nothing about watergate today. so i tried to get out and about

a little bit and talk about it. the movie "w," i have not seen the movie "w." has that been released? i don't know. >> host: it came down a few years ago. >> guest: missed it totally. i missed "w." i am aware of that description. and i think there is something to do. i have talked to a number of people who have no cheney over the years. i heard david gergen recently on cnn talking about al haig after he passed, and al qaeda had a quadruple bypass. and how he had changed after that. i look at that when i was writing worse than what a gate, i talk about cheney's health and the fact that he wouldn't release his health records. and i did a lot of digging then and i talked to a doctor very recently was doing some more

research on the subject as to whether a quadruple bypass does change a personality. because i think they were two different cheney's, and it's only anecdotal a parent at this point as to whether personalities change in the circumstances, but from those who knew cheney, i did know dick cheney at the nixon white house in his earlier. i knew people who worked with him when he was white house chief of staff. they were not overly impressed with him then, and i must say that i find him a rather troubling character. i find him a very typical authoritarian conservative. i am very ages for his book to come out to see what he says to try to justify this. probably won't try to justify it. will claim it is okay, but i am glad that it's not likely he

will be elected president. >> host: speaking of books, your favorite books. among the list you list sets grants memoirs and my life so far by jane fonda. [laughter] >> guest: i couldn't resist that. i have no jane for a number of years, and when i read her book i talk to her when she was working on her book. and the book is so honest, i wish more people could write out her biographies with that kind of banter. and so for that reason it's all -- i had a number of my male friends read that book that i said, i think we all need to better understand a woman's point of view on so many issues. and jane is very outspoken on them. when i was assembling that list i said i should put jane's book because because i recommended it to so many people. >> host: welcome to "in depth" on booktv.

>> caller: thank you. thank you for taking my call. i, too, watched, you know, i was just, when the watergate hearings, i was just glued to the screen. and i was just fascinated by the whole thing. the persons name alludes me at the time, he was known as deep throat. of course, he has been explained. >> guest: mark. >> caller: thank you. nixon wasware that he was feeding information continuously to people. why did he fire him? >> guest: he wasn't aware he was feeding it to woodward and bernstein. what happened was and this comes up on one of dates in october of 1972. i have been over at the department of justice and i've learned from henry peterson that felt is leaking.

henry peterson has learned from one of the lawyers on the "washington post." enables me aside and says, you know, felt is a serious leak problem and we're worried that it could affect the investigation. i would back and reported that to haldeman who in turn reported it to nixon. that's what you see it on the tape. the tape is one of those that stanley cup are transcribed in his book, abuse of power. unfortunately, it's a very difficult conversation to understand. i listened to it, based on a tip from some people at the archives that i heard a lot of different things on the day. one of the most interesting things that he said towards the end of the conversation, and stan had used a lot of a let sees in the thing because he didn't have it and just want to shorten it. saw one point you have this conversation where nixon makes the rhetorical statement, he

said to haldeman, he said you know what i would do with felt, bob? and then there's and ellipses and tapers off and says son of a. well, i listen to the conversation that i heard something very different. he says you know what i would do with mark felt? bob, ambassadorship. difference. that's what he did with helms at the cia. he gave him an ambassadorship. so yes, they knew he was a leak, but at this point there is no deep throat that the reason i had always kept them off the list of my candidates is because, by the time bob woodward is getting his late -- the latest and last tip from deep throat is the first week of november of 1973. mark felt is out of the fbi in may of 1973. it may be that he just had somebody who gave him a tip that

was very late in the game and the only thing he gave was something he picked off the white house grapevine. button is the reason i always, mark felt never made my list. and the other big thing is, there are, for somebody in his position who, for all practical purposes, the number one man on the watergate investigation and the fbi, a massive amount of bad information. i mean, dead wrong information. at one point i was lying to australia and that's a long flight. even from los angeles. about 17 hours. so i took the woodward bernstein book along and i have my laptop and i pulled out everything that felt had given to woodward and bernstein, principally bob. and i found about half of it dead wrong. and i posted it on one of my

articles. so if you google, if you google deep throat, find law, they are all done in it that you can find out how much bad information house back in fact you only mention marco three times in his book. buganda singh came a. did you think it was him? >> guest: the only reason i thought it was pat began is that what sort of a romantic issues. i think that pat would have been a wonderful deep throat. i wanted somebody to have no bull motives, and pat would have had no bull motives. >> host: a call from pittsburgh, pennsylvania. go ahead, please. >> caller: thank you for taking my call. mr. dean, i have to comment and question. first of all, you are right. it is difficult to define the conservative movement. i once read a quote from that once you think you have us

figured out we changed like chameleons and go in a different direction. my second comment is recently eight right-leaning supreme court ruled that large corporations could contribute to campaign advertising with no limitation. it's a known fact that during the 2008 campaign, most of obama's donations came from lower to middle-class people like myself who gave more than usual and in larger numbers. so my question is, wasn't the supreme court ruling a way to put more corporate money into the 2002 republican campaign, and how to donation made by average income americans? >> guest: yes, you're talking about a case called citizens united versus the federal elections commission. a very troubling decision. very troubling decision for me for a lot of reasons. first of all it wasn't a case they have to decide. it's one that there was obviously a majority of the

justices realize they had five votes, so they reached out with the case they had before them, and they added that to the case. this is what i would call judicial activism. when conservatives do if they don't seem to complain about it. but yes, they clearly wanted to resolve this issue. and making a corporation a person under the 14th amendment is always dubious. to make them a person that can make campaign contributions, given the very unique difference between a corporate person and a human person, where a corporate person is given an definite life. they are often given tax breaks, letting them reach into the the treasure when the shareholders may not want this money given. very troubling. very troubling. we don't know yet how this is going to play out.

i think we have to hope for the best, but the potential for the worst is certainly there. and we will get -- what i'm told by lawyers who are advising their clients now is that they are telling their corporate clients to keep a low profile. they say we won, let's just play quiet for a while, go through our trade associations, the chamber of commerce, what have you, and don't start getting, you know, when we all want to have our own senators we own. that would be a disaster. so i think they're being cautious initially, but it's a very troubling precedent. >> host: you can join the conversation online at twitter.com/booktv. or send us an e-mail question. david is doing us from oceanside, california. go ahead, please. >> caller: good morning, care in oceanside. god bless c-span and thank you,

mr. dean. i have enjoyed several of your appearances on c-span. i was going to ask about nixon's support from goldwater in the white house. you use the term watergate revisionism. i would love to hear your top three watergate revisionist strings. but i want to change direction slightly, since you were talking about mark felt. obviously, the idea that mark felt, deep throat, was this wonderful, you know, boys for sanity pushing upward, he seems more like he was you're up for of authoritarian personality, which seems to be endemic in the fbi. >> guest: i think you are right on felt, could well fall in the

authoritarian personality type. you know, very self-righteous in doing what he is doing, doing it for his own betterment, not for the good of the nation in any stretch of the imagination. he -- why he is busily woodward so much i am not quite sure. he is telling him things like well, you have to be careful, you are all out there, going to be wiretap. that was blown. none of that business was going on. he has got so many of the events mischaracterize. i can understand why bob woodward has gone on. he doesn't want to bother to go back and correct that history. he is often troubled by the fact that i am 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 unfair descriptidescription of authoritarian type personality. >> host: we'll talk more about

the so-called revisionist history on watergate another hour nap with our guests, john dean here on booktv's "in depth." more of your phone calls, and also join the conversation online at twitter.com. back in a moment. >> what a normal workday like for you? >> well, most mornings after i digest my two or three newspapers, increasingly i'm taking those online. in fact, really stop my print from coming after 30 years of it. i exercise, i have fortunate i have a gym in my house. stairmaster or recomment bike or treadmill. where i read. i continue to be because i think that is a great place to get the juices going. then i will ce up here,

typically about 10:00 and start in a day. depends on what phase of the book i meant that right now the office is pretty clean. because i haven't plowed through all the document i'm working on come on a book i'm working on right now, but i tend to start things up on the floor in very precise stacks where i know where everything is, and get it all spread out. my wife accuses me of being a hamster. i just find that very convenient so one, i don't forget things when i'm working on them, and two, they are very accessible. but i am right now and a reading face. this is my book art writer we're sitting by. so i am diving through that, making notes, getting a general overview of what i'm working on, not really into the deep specifics at this point. >> when i am actually in the writing process, i have papers everywhere. i spend a lot of time doing

research, looking over primary documents. gathering right now about 15,000 pages of documents for the book i'm working on. on my trip to ikea so i will be gathering about another 5000 pages, i suspect. i will sort all that, go through it, what have you. you know, i go through and doublecheck and make sure i'm not missing things. when i am writing i am there at the keyboard but because it is such a passive activity i keep my stairmaster, little step are here, and would jump up, say, in fact have a clock, an alarm on one of my computers. i have a facility to concentrate and i can literally lose the world around me and find myself, you know, two or three hours without even moving. i've got a pretty good case of carpal tunnel in my right wrist from that very problem of just working, working in not realizing the time i was penny being in a bad posture and

having the wrist up about. so actually now use my mouse with my left hand. very adaptable i switch over now and i am as fast with my left hand. i a right-handed, but but i break up the pace of sitting the endless hours at the computer by jumping up onto my stepper, just for exercise, circulation, read there, make knows that there's a wonderful piece of software that's been out for or five months now called dragon dictation. for the iphone. and it converts the patient to text. so i will have my book writer that i want to make notes on. i would dictate some note from the book. then i just e-mail it over to my computer. a very handy. very handy. so i have no downtime, issue a. 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, 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 would just dictate them into, right into my machine. so i am very digital in my work. i am also, as i'm preparing my next book with the coming of the ipad, i am thinking about multimedia. i am thinking -- decision you, there is a lot of public domain information connecting to this. i won't have to screw around with rights to give a value added to this work i am 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 us will work into my thing. there are other multimedia things i could use. so i am thinking more than just

the straight linear narrative this time as i'm working on this book, of what you can do with an ipad. which is kind of fun. ♪ ♪

♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ ♪ >> host: john dean from "blind ambition" and lost honor to pure goldwater and "the rehnquist choice." thanks for being with us.

what was richard nixon like to interact with. >> guest: for me yes or easy to work with. he was always pleasant. he had met my wife wants flying on air force one and he would always say how is your pretty little wife, and things like that. i discovered actually when doing "the rehnquist choice" i had listened to a lot of days, if of different people. and he is sort of a chameleon. he would have a different personality with different age that i never realized that intel i heard him doing one on one with others. it seems that, say, for example, haldeman would bring the worst out of 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-and-so. 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 is a different -- is different with different people on the staff. you know, i had laughed out loud, in fact, i laughed out loud reading the book, nixon's take on women for example. hear his daughters were pushing him, along with his wife, to put a woman on the supreme court. he had to vacancies to fill. they are leaning on them. and we actually did very shows a consider a woman, mildred lilly, who probably should not been shot down by an all-male panel of 12 members of aba, she would have been on the court. and i later looked at her credentials versus sandra day, equally as good if not in some regards experience better.

but anyway, in listening to these tapes, he would say things like, to mitchell, he would say you know, john, he said i don't have any women in my cabinet. thank god i don't have any women in my cabinet. but my cabinet is lousy with maybe it will make any difference. and that he would say i don't believe women should even be educated. here he has got two lovely daughters, and he is a very complex man, click. >> host: could you ever access 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 that he got it from his wife. he would address her by, center

memos. but i send my wife e-mails not have done i do it i think of richard nixon's, i tried to do that very sparingly. >> host: your name came up to date in the "new york times" sunday magazine interview with charles colson, and he said he had a target with your picture on it that he would throw darts at. >> guest: chuck and i have an on and off again relationship. he was out at hollenberg when i was there. you know, i was on -- he was to working with nixon's very, very late. you know, i had broken ranking is trying to break me. and using all of his hatchet tactics. chuck was i think disappointed that i wouldn't join him in the christian right, and he really did a little proselytizing there for a while to try to get me to join with them.

and i think has been disciplined. and on issues today, my writing books like "conservatives without conscience" and writing about the religious right, those are chuck's people. those are his politics that he has transferred one set of conservative politics for a new set of conservative politics. and they have to be very different from mine. >> host: we welcome your phone calls. (202)737-0001. and for those of you in about a specific time zone in a conversation with john dean (202) 737-0002. wayne is joining us from florida. >> caller: i would like to ask mr. dean what was the first 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 early one monday morning, asking me if i knew i was in the middle of a new book coming out that explained that i had actually, unbeknownst to the fbi, unbeknownst to the watergate prosecutor, unbeknownst to the watergate senate committee, unbeknownst to the house impeachment committee, i ordered the water break country and wanted a break and. that's news to me. how did i do that the and he said that's why we're going to as an question before we go forward with the show. and he said you should understand what they are claiming is that you learned there was a call girl ring and the democratic national committee through your wife, who is associated with the madam of the call girl ring. and i said, that is ohlone. i can issue that's not too. he said we'd go on camera. i said of course i will. he said what you say me the book to explain how i know, you know,

how they reach all this conclusion. he said i can't. it is a saint martin's press book. we have done an agreement that we won't release the book. and where i'd a confidentiality agreement so i can pick he said i will tell you that "time" magazine is going to do a release on it. we will do our show on sunday night, of course. they are releasing monday. this was about two weeks before the show. he said you might get something from time. i agree to do the show. mike got off the line and i then called "time" magazine. i knew the principal watergate reporter from time, and i said what is the story? and he knew nothing about it. he said let me call new york and check. he called back and said sure enough we are doing an excerpt on this thing. he said i don't know how they could buy this without running it by the people who know it most. but apparently they signed a

coffee jelly agreement in new york. they won't send it to me. and about send it to carl bernstein, who of course is bob woodward partner for new much of about watergate is anybody. and he said this is raise, raise questions for me. hayes said i called all the people i knew, and i knew many because i covered the democratic national committee, to see if there could have been a call growing over there. and he said i talked to a number of guys come and they said you know, once said i was a bachelor that i would've been the number one customer of this place if it existed. so hayes says we have some doubts. and i'm not quite sure this is going to happen. make a long story short on that, i called build -- 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 get published that i put them on notice, and i learned very quickly, well, his

comment was, he said you have plenty of time to read this in the bookstores. so they were about -- they were not going to back down at all. i said, well you're going to have a lawsuit and he did. 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 an unfortunate position i literally shut down my business and go at this full-time. and i had two goals. one was to win the lawsuit. two was to get enough information to show for historical purposes that this was just cure fraud. and they had offered to settle very early. they wanted to license to

continue, 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, that was a confidential settlement. we are allowed to say we were satisfied and we were satisfied. >> host: let me go back to something we talk about in our first hour. the 18 and a half gap. this is an e-mail from one of the viewers who said during that meeting, was there a description of the attendees of the content and that fred fielding come your deputy, retrieve the night before? >> guest: was a what? >> host: going to me on june 20, 1972, did you describe for the attendees the content of what was in that? >> guest: i never saw the content at that point. and shortly not beforehand. what happened is, in fact, i just learned this yesterday and looking at a document. that the first person to find

out whether had had an office was walter minnick who is now in congress. he worked for ehrlichman at the time that he our fleet shared space in room 16 for the powers operated who 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 that have you seen had lately? have you talked to yes as a matter fact i talked to recently about international narcotics. he said will you find out if he has an office. and he said yes, i will. and he and another went out the staff, staff secretary, the safe was locked and they report this back to ehrlichman. ehrlichman in turn was the one who instructed to have the safe opened. it was my -- i was not around. i going to another meeting.

i had asked either out or friday just acted to go get the contents when they opened the safe. and then they were brought to me in boxes. we gave some of them to the fbi. we get 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 evolved into this? >> guest: it is interesting. i was an english lit american anglers lit, american ledger and undergraduate. i did a lot of creative writing as an undergraduate. >> host: at colgate? >> guest: and the college of first or. i know, my aunt reminded i wrote my first book at eight years of age. so there must've been some instinct. and answer, the short answer is

yes. and when i got in business i said, you know what i really like to do, i did "blind ambition," the first book, struggled how to do it right and what have you. did lost honor. from then on all them. don't don't research assistants. but enjoyed it tremendously and during those first two books, then went into business. and i were said to myself, when i retire, and i retired very 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: lo die. welcome to the program. >> caller: 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 down both sides of the letters showing 18 lines of copy on one side and 18 personal pronouns on the other side. it permanently covered 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 compulsive desire to win by a landslide. thank you. >> guest: you know, it's interesting. mcgovern who i have come to know over the years, met him first when i was doing a profile for rolling stone in 76 on the republican convention. went in to see him, and sitting there, he was wearing a blue suit and sitting in his chair. and i said you know this many, many regard to so much more presidential than the president i worked for. in recent come in the recent years he and i have shared a stage. he was out in california and i had an event. invited him to join me. he had an event and invited me to join him. and we have an awful lot of fun up there. we had no preplanned program and we seem to interact well, and i think he is 85?

>> host: eighty-seven. >> guest: and may we all be half as sharp as he is at 87. so as i say, we had a pleasant friendship. >> host: in his book courage and consequence our world is working at the time for than rnc chair george walker bush in 1973 is asked about watergate. he said quote i found it increasingly difficult to defend nixon. what good could come from burglarizing the dnc? nixon had been way ahead in the democrat party was in disarray. their candidate was on way too enormous to be. so why? >> guest: the first time i heard the name karl rove was what was asked about the watergate special prosecutor? he was on the radar. he has a small file. and it had to do with his giving classes for young republicans. nothing really develop of it. but i think his perception is

right. karl has always been very politically perceptive. what they don't understand is that nixon wasn't calling the shots. as i finally got together in the appendix, i wrote for "blind ambition," the new addition, i was able to understand how the flow happened, how this happened, 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 is he wanted dirt on the democrats. and was constantly pushing them to get that dirt. and the way he pushed was a very few places they could get it. and then you 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 set up antitrust case, for hefty campaign contribution. it was untrue. there was a whole special investigation by the watergate prosecutor on the. didn't pan out that it didn't happen. but what happened, what's forgotten, and i put this together, the sequence the way it happened, his administration, his attorney general designate, as former attorney general are absolutely having the bejesus kicked out of them by the democrats. that's when he gets this idea of let's get some dirt on them and go after them. so it was a reactive in that sense. that's where this starts. and he had a tip, there is o'brien and the democrats were getting kickbacks in the convention, kevin phillips provided this tip. and they thought it was worth

exploring. and this is what they're looking for. >> host: a twitter question. >> guest: i should add one thing. even went ahead, let's make sure he is very and once that best landslide that. >> host: mr. dingell the future of the republican party be determined by moderates like yourself remaining active in the party? >> guest: well, i am of course an independent. i can't tell you how many friends of mine who are, were very good republicans, provide a lot of money to the republican party. they have decided they're not comfortable with republican politics anymore. it's too bad. a lot of people in the business community feel that the republicans are best for them. humor, i'm not sure that's true. there are many, many more now declined themselves independent and going where they think that they can best spend their money.

because politics does require money. it is required increasing amounts of money. i thought it was wonderful when obama was able to raise the amount of money he did through the internet. that's a great new resource. we will 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 that surprise you? did you have dinner interaction with the vice president? >> guest: i did have interactions with him. i saw him after the fact, and he was going on an up as good and i was on a down as clear in palm springs, where he retired. and he and i sat down and had -- uab to come back up. i did. we sat down for a while and we reminisced over our last visit, which was on one of the government small planes where we went, i think we're 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 very surprised that what happened to him. and, of course, the timing was awful. just another thing in that period. people today have understanding, can appreciate how things disintegrate with nixon. that was just part of the picture. >> host: why gerry ford, why was he elected? >> guest: the record indicates that he was the most strongly recommended by a broad spectrum of people. and i think nixon also thought he was a pretty good insurance policy. because there wouldn't be a push why he was competent to be president, there wouldn't be a push, to push nixon because he had so little experience in foreign affairs. so he was there that if nixon did hadley or did something happen to them, did happen to

him there was a competent man but there wouldn't want to shove him out just to get afford and. >> host: tonya from virginia beach. go ahead, please. tonya, are you with us? >> caller: yes. >> host: please go ahead. >> caller: so wonderful to talk to you, mr. dean. >> guest: thank you, when i watched watergate i was in my early '50s, but one thing that i haven't heard anything about is martha mitchell. 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 to? >> guest: know she was in california when the incident happened. i like martha. i knew her well. i knew her from my time at the 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 would get on the phone and she was troubled. and most of the things she said were kerry exaggerated, and that was the sad part. but she is well remembered and that's the nice part. >> host: oregon, please go ahead, please. >> caller: thank you, mr. dean for coming on c-span and also the time you spend going on the randy rocha. i appreciate that. but my question relates to your book. i often ask my friends, like you say, 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 the politics. the point to where, you know, i worry about them