About this item
A six-month New York Times bestseller: "Not only the best Watergate book, but a very good book indeed" (The Sunday Times) .. As White House counsel to Richard Nixon, a young John W. Dean was one of the primary players in the Watergate scandal - and ultimately became the governments key witness in the investigations that ended the Nixon presidency. After the scandal subsided, Dean rebuilt his career, first in business and then as a bestselling author and lecturer. But while the events were still fresh in his mind, he wrote this remarkable memoir about the operations of the Nixon White House and the crisis that led to the presidents resignation. Called "fascinating" by Commentary, which noted that "there can be little doubt of [Deans] memory or his candor," Blind Ambition offers an insiders view of the deceptions and machinations that brought down an administration and changed the American peoples view of politics and power. It also contains Deans own unsparing reflections on the personal demons that drove him to participate in the sordid affair. Upon its original publication, Kirkus Reviews hailed it "the flip side of All the Presidents Men - a document, a minefield, and prime entertainment." Today, Dean is a respected and outspoken advocate for transparency and ethics in government, and the bestselling author of such books as The Nixon Defense, Worse Than Watergate, and Conservatives Without Conscience. Here, in Blind Ambition, he "paints a candid picture of the sickening moral bankruptcy which permeated the White House and to which he contributed. His memory of who said what and to whom is astounding" (Foreign Affairs) ..
About the Author
John Dean served as Counsel to the President of the United States from July 1970 to April 1973. Before becoming White House counsel at age thirty-one, he was the chief minority counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the US House of Representatives, and an associate deputy attorney general at the US Department of Justice. His undergraduate studies were at Colgate University and the College of Wooster, with majors in English Literature and Political Science; then a graduate fellowship at American University to study government and the presidency before entering Georgetown University Law Center, where he received his JD with honors in 1965.John recounted his days at the Nixon White House and Watergate in three books: Blind Ambition (Open Road 2016) , Lost Honor (1982) and The Nixon Defense (2014) . After retiring from a business career as a private investment banker doing middle-market mergers and acquisitions, he returned to full-time writing and lecturing, including as a columnist for FindLaw's Writ (from 2000 to 2010) and Justia's Verdict (since 2010) . Donald Trump's election and presidency resulted in John's 12th book by return to American authoritarianism, which he examined earlier New York Times best-sellers Conservatives Without Conscience (2006) , because authoritarianism is on the ballot in 2020. Thus his study with Bob Altemeyer, Authoritarian Nightmare: Trump and His Followers. John held the Barry Goldwater Chair of American Institutions at Arizona State University (academic years 2015-16) , and for the past decade and a half he has been a visiting scholar and lecturer at the University of Southern California's Annenberg School of Communications. John is a CNN News contributor and analyst, and teaches continuing legal education (CLE) programs examining the impact of the American Bar Association's Model Rules of Professional Conduct on select historic events from Watergate and the Trump presidency with surprising results - see www.WatergateCLE.com
