C-SPAN: BookNotes: How Watergate Was Uncovered and Caused Richard Nixon's Downfall (1991)

Source:The New Democrat

I’ll tell you how Watergate was uncovered. Ask John Dean, nah, just kidding, but John Dean is how Watergate broke. I’m not saying that Watergate wouldn’t have broken without John Dean. And I’m not talking about the Washington Watergate burglary itself, which is a local Washington police story a point that I’ve made before. The Watergate scandal that I’m talking about really needs a new name for the scandal that it was. Because the real scandal in the Nixon White House was not the Watergate burglary, because President Nixon didn’t order or organize that. And it wasn’t the coverup either.

The real scandal in the Nixon White House was what Len Colodny said in this video which was the Nixon secret government. The criminal operations inside of the Nixon White House. The plumbers really and what that unit inside of the Nixon White House and what they were doing. The illegal break ins and intelligence operations done by this group to get intelligence on Dick Nixon opponents and even enemies. And opponents of the Nixon Administration itself.

Where John Dean comes in as White House counsel up until the summer of 1973 when Congress started looking into this story with the Senate Watergate hearings, is that Dean broke what was going on in the Nixon White House. He was in charge of the Watergate coverup, but also knew about the plumbers and everything they were doing. And without John Dean, we not only don’t know what President Nixon knew and when he knew it. But we also don’t know about the criminal operations that were going on inside of the Nixon White House. Because Congress was asleep and not doing their proper oversight of the Nixon White House.