Ohio University - Athena Yearbook (Athens, OH)

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The Aftermath of One Man ' s Watergate BY JOHN KIESEWETTER On an icy Sunday night, March 2, about 5,000 people trudged to the Convo to hear one of the most controversial figures of the decade, the man whose confession instigated the erosion of the Nixonian dynasty: John W. Dean III. Flanked only by Kennedy Lecture Series member Greg Hill, the former White House counsel seemed dwarfed by the wooden stage contructed in the center of the huge auditorium floor. He faced an apprehensive, yet courteous gallery, a familiar setting for Dean ever since he faced the intense questioning of the Senate Watergate Committee on national television in the summer of 1973. Dean himself noted the similarity, referring to the half dozen student photographers sprawling and crawling before him. I knew it would be lonely out there, he commented, because my testimony had to be that which would tarnish the office of the president. OU was one of series of college campuses hosting the convicted Watergate conspirator for a fee, an issue in itself during Dean ' s lecture tour. Although he was paid the smallest sum here, $2,760, about 50 protestors peacefully boycotted at the front doors of the Convo. Rob Engelhardt ABOVE Dean told his audience that whoever had caused the famous 18-mmute gap in one of the tapes must have been someone who had not driven a car or operated any machinery for quite some time. 24

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The Watergate Gang On Trial AP Wirephoto. courtesy of the Athens Messenger ABOVE: John W Dean III. former White House aide. UPI Wirephoto courtesy of the Athens Messenger ABOVE: US District Judge John Sirica said, and definitely couldn ' t leave his home before the first of the year. Sirica, who had hoped to end the trial by Christmas, realized that waiting for Nixon to regain enough strength to testify would force the trial into the spring. He ordered the trial to continue without Nixon ' s appearance. I can ' t recall. I don ' t have the slightest idea, your Honor. I have no recollection. On the stand Mitchell seemed listless and weak. Haldeman responded, I don ' t recollect, 18 times in one hour. Ehrlichman was defensive and arrogant and Mardian made petty attempts at discrediting government lawyer Jill Vollner during his questioning. Parkinson claimed to have been just a gullible go-between. John Dean, summoned as a government witness from prison where he was serving a one to four year term for his part in the scandal, displayed the same calm self assuredness he had at the Senate Watergate hearings the previous summer. The members of the jury later recalled that his incredible memory for detail and conversation had a great impact on them. After eight weeks, lawyer James Neal rested the prosecution ' s case. He, Richard Ben-Veniste and Vollner had presented what most legal experts considered a devastating case against the five men on trial. They had called 30 witnesses, played 20 hours of tapes, and presented 130 documents. It began to seem that the only hope the defendants might have would be a hung jury. The jurors were a mixed lot. Their average age was 52, and there were eight blacks and four whites. Occupations ranged from hotel doorman to Department of Agriculture official. There were nine women and three men. Since the trial lasted through the holiday season, jurors Christmas shopped accompanied by federal marshals. During the fourth quarter of a tense Rose Bowl game on New Year ' s Day, the bulletin flashed on the screen — the Watergate jury had reached its verdicts. H.R. Haldeman, former White House chief of staff — guilty; John Ehrlichman, former domestic affairs advisor — guilty; John Mitchell, former attorney general — guilty; Robert Mardian, former internal security chief of the Justice Department — guilty; Kenneth Parkinson, former Nixon re-election committee lawyer — not quilty. Haldeman and Mitchell faced the stiffest sentences — possible maximums of 25 years each. The guilty verdicts returned for all of his associates seemed to declare former President Nixon guilty as well. His health, which had prevented his testimony, had saved him from what no doublt would have been a grueling, humiliating examination during the trial. His pardon had saved him from prison. Lawyers for each of the guilty men immediately began taking the initial steps in the appeal process. The defendants still stubbornly protested their innocence. They claimed that pre-trial publicity prejudiced the jury and the defendants apparently hoped that the appeal process would keep them out of prison for at least the next two years. Two months after the initial verdict, Sirica sentenced the four guilty men. Ehrlichman, Mitchell and Haldeman each got two and one-half to eight years, while Mardian received a lighter sentence of 10 months to three years. Shortly after the trial ended, Sirica freed three of the witnesses, John Dean, Jeb Magruder and Herbert Kalmbach from serving out the rest of their prison terms. Though he would not elaborate on the reason for this action, the assumption was that Sirica felt the men had been manipulated by the top three (Haldeman, Ehrlichman and Mitchell) and had suffered enough for their transgressions. 23

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OPPOSITE PAGE Facing an attentive and curious crowd, Dean devoted most of his lecture time tc answering the many questions he was asked about Watergate and the Nixon White House. ABOVE: Outside the Convo a smal group of students protest against the convicted conspirator being paid for his speech LEFT: While being introduced, Dean finds himself in the center of a huge arena, before an audience of which he asked, Do you want to talk about fees, or do you want to talk about Watergate? Rob Engelhardt Dean calculatingly detoured any discussion on his stipend by stating his financial status. If I could speak for free, I would, he said. It ' s just unfortunate that I can ' t come and speak for free. I have to make the best living I can for my family. He then asked, Do you want to talk about fees or do you want to talk about Watergate? The audience lethargically murmured, talk about Watergate, so Dean continued. But an almost subliminal intensity penetrated the arena as did Dean ' s resonant voice, that infamous voice from the tapes, which first warned Nixon that a cancer was growing on the presidency. Dean, a native of Akron, said little here that he had not repeated on the preceding string of campuses where shouts and demonstrations had interrupted or curtailed his remarks. The American tragedy called Watergate that preoccupied the nation for two years and eventually brought down its highest elected official was the worst Rob Engelhardt experience of my life, and possibly one of the best, said Dean. What would my perception of the government be, had we been successful with the cover-up? he asked. Explaining the frame of mind that led the Nixon White House astray, the 35-year-old former aid said, I got blinded by my own ambitions. Dean, released from a federal minimum security prison after four months behind bars, touched briefly on the inner workings of the Oval Office, H.R. Bob Haldeman, Ronald Ziegler, John Mitchell, the White House taping system and his former boss. In one anecdote, Dean told how Nixon called him in for a staged conference on the budget for a group of college newspaper editors because the president thought the short-haired Dean looked like a hippie. Answering a question about a recorded converstation with Nixon about getting enemies of the administration, the former counsel said he was simply kissing ass. Dean previously had been scheduled to appear mid-February, but postponed all engagements when his mother-in-law died in California. At the conclusion of his tour, he returned to his west Coast home to write a book and several magazine articles. Now disbarred. Dean said he would like to pursue a career as an author while working to improve the nation ' s judicial system and other areas of concern. What I learned in prison were the injustices of the criminal justice system, he said. A young person was serving 10 years for possession of one ounce of marijuana, and I got four months. That is injustice. Dean said his brief incarceration had little effect on his reasoning for not wanting to see a president behind bars. President Ford already eliminated the possibility by pardoning his predecessor, without so much as extracting an ounce of truth from Richard Nixon. But who could wish any man to go to prison? Dean asked. I couldn ' t. Kiesewetter, a 1975 graduate, was editor of The Post from February through June, 1975 and managing editor from September 1974 to February 1975. — ed. 25