Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (54 page)

He relaxed. “When the minister began his sermon he was very nervous, and he had a rough time getting it together for about ten minutes. But once he got going it was a good sermon. I guess he was worried about what he had to say with the President there. Anyway, I kept thinking if the President only had the moral courage to admit his wrongs, this thing wouldn’t have gone as far as it has.”

Amen. We all agreed, and the conversation rambled on about the tapes, my grand-jury appearance, his able staff, my memory. Finally Jill said she had to get back to work, and the meeting ended. On the way back to Rick’s office, I asked him whether Jaworski
often used hip phrases like “getting it together.” Rick only rolled his eyes. I asked whether Jaworski
would permit the grand jury to indict President Nixon.

“What do you think?” Rick retorted.

“No.”

He smiled. “You know I can’t discuss that with you, but you’ve got a pretty good batting average for predicting what’ll happen.”

February 14, 1974

The deputy United States marshal stood near attention in front of the door to the grand-jury room. Usually he dozed in the chair beside the door. Something was happening inside. After about ten minutes, Jaworski
emerged and nodded a greeting, but walked quickly by. Shortly, I learned what had happened. He had been concerned that the testimony I was to give concerning the President would precipitate the grand jurors into hasty action—a runaway grand jury, out of the Special Prosecutor’s control, that would indict a sitting President.
4
*

March 9, 1974

“I think you ought to have protection again,” Charlie said.

“Why? Have you heard more threats?” I asked.

“Not directly. I don’t believe in that fortunetelling crap. But some woman who claims she’s never been wrong, which I doubt, wrote a letter to her senator telling him that your life is in serious danger. I don’t have the details, but I talked with the fellows down in the Special Prosecutor’s office. They would like you to have some protection, too, because you’re going to be back in the public eye when you testify in the Mitchell-Stans trial in New York and the Chapin trial.”

“Do you really think it’s necessary? It’s a hell of a note having a couple of marshals around all the time.”
**

“I do. Otherwise I wouldn’t suggest it.”

When I flew back to New York for the Mitchell-Stans trial, I was met by two deputy marshals. A protective detail was assigned to me in New York, Washington, and California. For the next six months, two marshals were with me wherever I went: out to dinner with Mo, to the supermarket, to courtrooms and hearing rooms, even to men’s rooms.

April 4, 1974

“Excuse me, John,” the deputy marshal said, “there’s a girl at the door who’d like to talk with you.”

“Who is she?” Mo and I had sold our house, and I was packing for the move to California. “Is she with the press?”

“I don’t think so. I’ve never seen her before, and I know most of those press people. I should have asked, but I figured she must know you.”

I went down to the front door, where an attractive dark-haired woman whom I didn’t recognize was standing silently. Another deputy stood guard. As I approached, she became visibly nervous and began biting her lower lip.

“Can I help you?” I asked.

She seemed stunned. Her eyes blinked, and she could not get out whatever it was she wanted to say. Finally she asked me haltingly, “Are you my mummy?”

“I beg your pardon?”

“Are you my mummy?” she repeated.

What in hell was she talking about? She looked perfectly normal, but she was either crazy or putting me on. I wasn’t sure. I answered politely, “I’m sorry, you must have the wrong house.”

“No, I don’t,” she said, slightly peevish, then turned and walked away.

The deputy marshals didn’t like what they’d just heard and seen. They followed her. She got into a late-model car and drove away. It was too dark to get her license number. They were agitated. “John, you’ve got to watch out for the nuts like her,” one said. And for a few weeks the marshals tightened security. Such weird episodes dotted the months ahead.

April 15, 1974

“Have you seen this, John?” asked the assistant U.S. attorney excitedly. I was in New York preparing for my testimony in the Robert Vesco
influence-peddling case against Mitchell and Stans. The prosecutor handed me a newspaper, which was opened to an article on the latest Harris
poll. Harris had sampled public opinion about the conflicts between my Watergate statements and President Nixon’s. Overall, he found twenty-nine percent support for the President, forty-six percent for me, with the rest undecided.

“Very interesting,” I murmured, trying to appear nonchalant. I was noting the breakdown. The President scored highest among Southeners, while I ran away with Jews and young adults.

“Interesting?” he exclaimed. “I think it’s fantastic! Hell, you’re more credible than the President of the United States! This makes me think you’re going to be a better witness than I thought you were going to be. I sure wish I could figure out some way to slip this in on the jury.”

My ego was getting a welcome boost.

April 25-27, 1974

Three days spent in Jaworski
’s office listening to the White House tapes for the first time. I sat down in front of the recorder, put the cushioned earphones on, and closed my eyes. I could see the meetings in my mind; the tapes provided the sound track. My senses synchronized, I floated back through time.

I felt excitement and anger as I listened, but the prevailing feeling was a fierce kind of embarrassment. It reminded me of being a teenager, when the thought of last month’s wisecrack made me shudder at how childish and out of style I’d been. I winced when I heard myself brown-nosing the President on September 15, and I was shamed by my weakness in the March meetings.

Several lawyers in the Special Prosecutor’s office seemed baffled that I didn’t get more of a charge out of the experience.

April 28, 1974

“I guess you’ve heard,” sighed the Southern District prosecutor. He was calling from New York, where the jury had just found Mitchell and Stans not guilty.

“Yeah, it’s on the radio down here,” I groused. “They’re playing me up big. They say the jury obviously didn’t believe Dean, star witness. Goddammit, I don’t know why they call me the star witness. I hardly knew anything about that damn case.”

“Well, for what it’s worth, we feel worse than you do,” the prosecutor replied. “It’s hard to take. The thing is, these juries are used to cops and judges getting cash under the table. We figure the jurors were impressed that Mitchell and Stans put Vesco
’s money in the campaign instead of in their own pockets. Anyway, we’re sorry it didn’t work out, John. I hope it doesn’t hurt you too much.”

“Thanks. I understand.” But I didn’t. The press had made me the star witness, which I wasn’t. Now they were saying that no one believed me.

Once again, the reporters and camera crews staked out my house.

April 29, 1974

I had long ago learned to expect an unpleasant time whenever the President went on television about Watergate, but his speech when he released the edited transcripts of his tapes was the worst yet. It was especially infuriating since I’d just listened to the tapes themselves and knew how phony his version was. I didn’t know that I was reaching the apogee of my anger toward him, but I felt I was getting near it. I smirked at the huge display he made of the transcripts, gagged on his quotations from Lincoln, and seethed at his personal attacks on me: “John Dean charged in sworn Senate testimony that I was fully aware of the cover-up at the time of our first meeting on September 15, 1972. These transcripts show clearly that I first learned of it when Mr. Dean himself told me about it in this office on March 21, some six months later. His revelations to me on March 21 were a sharp surprise, even though the report he gave to me was far from complete, especially since he did not reveal at that time the extent of his own criminal involvement...”

June 27, 1974

“You know, I ran into one of your old friends the other day,” I told Jim Neal during a break in our session.

I was in Neal’s Nashville law office, along with Charlie and Rick Ben-Veniste
. The meeting was tense. I knew Rick resented the fact that Neal had agreed to come back to the Special Prosecutor’s office and take back the reins of the cover-up case. And I resented having had to come all the way across the country just because Neal was worried that James St. Clair
might ruin me as a witness during my upcoming testimony before the House impeachment inquiry.

“Oh, yeah?” Neal drawled, seeming pleased to get into small talk. “Who’s that?”

“Jimmy Hoffa
,” I said. “I’ve been giving depositions in his suit against the government over his conditional pardon, and he showed up. It was a pretty weird deposition, I’ll tell you. Hoffa
’s lawyer is Leonard Boudin
, the guy who defended Ellsberg
and the Chicago Seven
. They’re quite a pair.”

“Good ole Jimmy Hoffa
.” Neal laughed, glancing at Charlie. “God, we had fun with him, didn’t we, Shaffer? Well, John, when you see Jimmy again, you just tell him I said hello. And you remind him that you’re a good friend of mine and that your lawyer is Charlie Shaffer. And I tell you what he might do. He might have his hands around your throat in about two seconds.”

“Well, I guess I won’t mention your name if you don’t mind,” I replied as Neal and Charlie chuckled over the good old days.

“I’ll never forget how Jimmy used to come into court,” Neal said. “He’d look over every morning and smile and nod good morning to me like I was his best friend. He’d have on that sweet face for everybody in the courtroom. And I’d look over at him and see his hands under the table. He’d be giving me the finger, just jabbing away as fast and furious as he could. Damn, he’s too much.”

July 11, 1974

After a week and a half of twelve-hour days reviewing my testimony, I appeared before the impeachment committee. It was almost like old home week for me. I was back at the House Judiciary Committee
, where I’d had my first government job nine years earlier as chief Republican counsel. Some of the same congressmen and staff were still there, and we joked about how times change.

The testimony was an anticlimax. St. Clair
, who had let it be known that he was eager to confront me for the first time, seemed tired, unprepared, and confused about facts and sequence. I felt a new confidence in handling him.
5
*

Mid-July 1974

Charlie demolished my lighter mood with the news that Judge Sirica planned to sentence me, and might send me to prison, before the cover-up trial began.

August 2, 1974

As I entered the courtroom, the clerk was announcing, “The Case of the United States versus John W. Dean. Criminal Number 886-73. Mr. James Neal for the government; Mr. Charles Shaffer for the defendant.” The chamber was filled with reporters; their faces were indistinct blurs to me. In fact, no one except Charlie seemed to have a human face. I was numb, the people seemed like machines, the sounds were far away, like echoes. Everyone was a prop, stereotyped for his role. The gravel voiced clerk was straight from Central Casting.

Judge Sirica was grave. “Mr. Shaffer, you have a motion pending. I will hear the motion first.”

Charlie went to the lectern and argued for a postponement of sentencing until the judge could have an opportunity to hear the new batch of tapes that the Supreme Court had just ordered the President to surrender. It was a long shot. We hoped Sirica would grow more lenient toward me with each tape he heard.