Free Republic

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A new book on the scandal that brought down President Richard Nixon alleges that White House counsel John Dean ordered the infamous Watergate break-in in 1972, a charge Dean strongly rejected. James Rosen, a Fox News Channel correspondent in Washington, made the charge based on interviews and an exhaustive review of documents for "The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate." Dean called Rosen's assertion "pathetic." Rosen quoted from a 1990 interview from another central Watergate figure, Jeb Magruder, that "the first plan that we got had been initiated by Dean." To help build his...

HOW AN OUT-OF-CONTROL MEDIA INDICTED NIXON WITHOUT A TRIAL May 18, 2008 -- Swarmed by photographers, former Attorney General John Mitchell - once President Nixon's closest adviser, an awesome figure, with his wintry demeanor and trademark pipe, throughout the capital - emerged shaken and unsmiling from a three-hour grilling before the grand jury. It was April 20, 1973, and the Watergate cover-up was fast unraveling. Federal prosecutors and reporters smelled blood. "Mitchell had good reason to be grim," reported Daniel Schorr. "CBS News learns Mitchell admitted to the grand jury that he authorized payment of legal fees and expenses for...

Will Bush exit – or escalate? Posted: November 19, 2003 1:00 a.m. Eastern © 2003 Creators Syndicate, Inc. "Watch what we do, not what we say," was the retort of Attorney General John Mitchell to reporters questioning Nixon's commitment to desegregation. Though mocked for cynicism, Mitchell was right. Even as Nixon's men were railing at the radical idiocy of forced busing for racial balance, they were desegregating six times as many schools as LBJ. Bush's tough talk, too, about staying the course – "We're not leaving until the job is done, pure and simple" – may not be a smokescreen...