Who Is John Dean?

“If she’d been a call girl, surely something about that would have come out during Watergate.”

Who do you think would have been eager to reveal that? Her clients? The DNC office arranging the “dates”? The same Washington press corp had covered up JFK and LBJ’s philandering?

Call girls aren’t exactly rare in Washington DC. And unless Mo Biner was arrested during the break-in it wouldn’t have interested the investigators.

“And really, if she was a high-end prostitute and Watergate was all about her, what was she doing sitting there through all the hearings? “

She was John Dean’s wife. He married her four months after the break-in.

“Dean would have been clever enough, or scared enough, not to run the risk of people finding out the real story.”

How exactly would Mo Dean attending the hearings be a risk? She wasn’t testifying, John was.

“And if the Deans have been living a lie all these years, wouldn’t it have put a strain on their marriage? “

Why? Even Mafia families have long marriages. Dean was convicted of a felony. I don’t think lying upsets him. And Mo knew he was shady when she married him.

” Was he really going to stick around with an ex-prostitute?”

He would have been well aware of her past when he married her.

“If Liddy didn’t know what Watergate was really about before hearing about the book - if he’d been utterly clueless for twenty years - what does that say for his knowledge and his judgment? “

It means that Liddy believed Dean when Dean told him that Nixon had ordered the burglary.

“So far as I know, Liddy never said that Maureen Dean had been a prostitute. “

Liddy wouldn’t have known anything about Mo Biner at the time of the burglary. Do you think that Dean would have told the burglars information that there was no need for them to know?

“But this “Silent Coup” story has far too much speculation and too many assumptions for it to be taken for the truth.”

It seems to me that you have a limited knowledge of what’s in the book.

How exactly would Mo Dean attending the hearings be a risk?

Somebody would recognize her and spread the story. Also, if Watergate really was all about her, Dean would be made more nervous, rather than reassured, by having her there.

He would have been well aware of her past when he married her.

Actually, that "call girl" thing isn't what the original theory was. It's how the Internet has embellished it.

It means that Liddy believed Dean when Dean told him that Nixon had ordered the burglary.

That's questionable. Any president wants plausible deniablity.

But if Liddy he had to read a book to find out that Nixon didn't order the surveillance he's probably not an expert on what was going on.

It seems to me that you have a limited knowledge of what’s in the book.

It's long on speculation and short on actual evidence. But people don't see that when they really want to accept a theory.

“Somebody would recognize her and spread the story.”

The only people who would recognize Mo Dean as a call girl were people who would implicate themselves if they had talked about it.

“Actually, that “call girl” thing isn’t what the original theory was. It’s how the Internet has embellished it.”

Actually it is. Apparently you didn’t read Silent Coup.

“That’s questionable. Any president wants plausible deniablity.”

Liddy himself says that’s what he believed. You don’t seem very familiar with this stuff.

“But if Liddy he had to read a book to find out that Nixon didn’t order the surveillance he’s probably not an expert on what was going on.”

Liddy would only be an expert on the parts of Watergate that he himself participated in. Which didn’t include the planning. But he did know what Dean had told him. And he could compare what he knew with what Colodny and Gettlin uncovered in their research.

“It’s long on speculation and short on actual evidence. But people don’t see that when they really want to accept a theory.”

Speaking of long on speculation and short on actual evidence, I don’t think that you’ve ever read Silent Coup. You appear to be regurgitating opinions second hand. The book is loaded with evidence which you’d know if you had read it.

I’d argue Dean was even worse than McCain. Even the likes of McCain at least had enough respect for the veterans of Vietnam to participate in Television’s Vietnam and actually speak out against the media’s treatment of Vietnam Veterans, which is far more than what John Dean’s done, where he sold out everyone he could find.

Yeah, no kidding, and on the subject of framing Nixon, that also essentially made him responsible for Lucas basing Palpatine on the more demonized image of Nixon, and while Nixon was already rooting for the Vietcong before Watergate happened, it certainly made him even MORE determined to trash America through Star Wars in a subtle manner (ironically, Finis Valorum, the guy Palpatine succeeded and who actually could be more comparable to Nixon in reality, ended up modeled after Bill Clinton per Lucas’s own words.).

And quite frankly, it’s thanks to Dean and Felt and the others that Communism is spread throughout Southeast Asia. They should be condemned.

The only people who would recognize Mo Dean as a call girl were people who would implicate themselves if they had talked about it.

I see that however old you are you haven't yet come across the phrase "anonymous sources." If reporters come up with enough of them, they run the story. Moreover, given that the statute of limitations has expired and given what the culture has become, it wouldn't have been hard for somebody to have come forward and confirm the story if it were true.

The rumor that Maureen Dean had been a prostitute wasn't so far as I'm aware part of the original story. Maybe Colodny and Gettlin were hinting at it and wanted the public to conclude that, but if I remember correctly they were careful about not coming out and saying that. So you had John Dean for some reason ordering a break-in to get documents about a prostitution ring either because he wanted to use the documents for blackmail or because his wife's name had somehow become included in the documents. It took anonymous internet posters to make the Maureen Dean prostitute theme a meme.

It's a fact that Maureen Dean knew Heidi Rikan and John Dean must have been aware of her existence, but there's no real evidence for the rest of the story -- that there was a prostitution ring connected with the DNC, that Rikan ran a prostitution operation, that it was connected to the DNC, that Ida Wells was the contact between the DNC and the prostitutes, that she kept photos in her desk, that Maureen Dean's picture or phone number was there, that she worked as a prostitute, that John Dean arranged the Watergate break in to get those pictures or documents -- all that is unproven speculation.

Some of it may be true, but the connections come from Phillip M. Bailley, a lawyer with ethical and mental problems who also claimed Diane Sawyer was part of the same prostitution ring.

According to an article in Time, Bailley graduated from Catholic University Law School in 1969 after being voted “most likely to be disbarred” by his classmates. Bailley spent his first few years out of school cultivating a practice based largely on “defending the indigent,” Time says. By 1972, the year the article came out, Bailley had been charged with “inducing into prostitution secretaries and office workers on Capitol Hill.” He pleaded guilty, was sent to St. Elizabeths Hospital for mental-health observation, and was disbarred, Murray says.

The man knew about prostitution, I guess, but he doesn't sound like somebody I'd trust to tell the truth. The way that Colodny and Gettlin jumped to the conclusion that Alexander Haig was "Deep Throat" is another indication that they haven't written the best or truest book about Watergate.

Gordon Liddy wants to believe that John Dean was responsible for Watergate and that it had something to do with his wife. In Liddy's mind that may let him off the hook for all the other stuff he was willing to do to get Richard Nixon reelected. Others support the theory because they think it somehow clears Nixon and the rest of the staff of wrong-doing. Still other people like to (or need to) call people whores. Those who don't have such compulsions will be justifiably skeptical of Silent Coup's wacky theory. I can't definitively say that it isn't true or couldn't be true, but people shouldn't be acting like it's proven - or even likely to be true.

“The rumor that Maureen Dean had been a prostitute wasn’t so far as I’m aware part of the original story. Maybe Colodny and Gettlin were hinting at it and wanted the public to conclude that, but if I remember correctly they were careful about not coming out and saying that.”

Well of course you’re not aware of it- your idea that Colodny and Gettlin merely “hinted at” Mo Biner being a call girl reveals that you’ve never bothered to read Silent Coup, and you have no idea what is actually in it.

Which makes all of your commentary about it’s supposed shortcomings a farce.

The book was published over a quarter century ago. I looked through it when it came out and later. It grows less and less convincing over the years. You believe what you feel you have to believe. I’ll stick with the facts.

“The book was published over a quarter century ago. I looked through it when it came out and later. It grows less and less convincing over the years. “

And yet after 25 years it’s content remains a mystery to you.

You couldn’t possibly know if the book is “less convincing” because you obviously have never read it.

It’s been obvious from your comments that you don’t know what’s in it.

“You believe what you feel you have to believe. I’ll stick with the facts.”

Best irony of the day. Thanks for the laugh.