The Nixon Defense
What He Knew and When He Knew It
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The Nixon Defense
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Narrated by:
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Joe Barrett
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By:
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John W. Dean
About this listen
Based on Nixon’s overlooked recordings, New York Times best-selling author John W. Dean connects the dots between what we’ve come to believe about Watergate and what actually happened Watergate forever changed American politics, and in light of the revelations about the NSA’s widespread surveillance program, the scandal has taken on new significance. Yet remarkably, four decades after Nixon was forced to resign, no one has told the full story of his involvement in Watergate.
In The Nixon Defense, former White House Counsel John W. Dean, one of the last major surviving figures of Watergate, draws on his own transcripts of almost a thousand conversations, a wealth of Nixon’s secretly recorded information, and more than 150,000 pages of documents in the National Archives and the Nixon Library to provide the definitive answer to the question: What did President Nixon know and when did he know it?
Through narrative and contemporaneous dialogue, Dean connects dots that have never been connected, including revealing how and why the Watergate break-in occurred, what was on the mysterious 18 1/2 minute gap in Nixon’s recorded conversations, and more. In what will stand as the most authoritative account of one of America’s worst political scandals, The Nixon Defense shows how the disastrous mistakes of Watergate could have been avoided and offers a cautionary tale for our own time.
©2014 John W. Dean (P)2014 Penguin AudioListeners also enjoyed...
Critic reviews
“Mr. Dean’s book will remind people of why Nixon deserves so unflattering a historical reputation.... It should also serve as a renewed cautionary tale about elevating politicians with questionable character to high office.... Dean’s resolve to reconstruct this dismal tale of high crimes and misdemeanors is commendable.... In addition to creating a definitive historical record of how the Watergate scandal unfolded, The Nixon Defense resolves some major unsettled questions.” (Robert Dallek, The New York Times)
“Dean, as always the model of precision and doggedness, has performed yeoman service...even for someone who has covered Watergate for 42 years, from the morning of the burglary through the investigations, confessions, denials, hearings, trials, books and attempts at historical revisionism, Dean’s book has an authoritative ring.” (Bob Woodward, The Washington Post)
“The most intimate, detailed, complex and nuanced portrait of a president and his courtiers that we have ever seen in print.... Dean is scrupulously fair, but Nixon is undone by his own words. To read them is to be a fly on the wall in the palace court of the Nixon White House, to observe history close up as we have never seen it before...the closest we will ever come to knowing the real Richard Nixon. It is a fascinating and very important piece of history, and the stuff of great drama.” (Huffington Post)
What listeners say about The Nixon Defense
Average customer ratingsReviews - Please select the tabs below to change the source of reviews.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Mr
- 31-07-17
would recommend to Nixon buffs
Having listened twice to this I would recommend it to people interested in having a deep understanding of how Nixon's lies compounded and eventually ruined him. I've listened to pretty much every Nixon or 1970 book on Audible, this one I recommend as the most thoroughly researched, in this audio book we get a narrative of Nixon's attempts to shut the Watergate investigations down, in the form of summaries of dozens of recorded conversations in chronological order. The author was the Nixon aide initially involved in the actual coverups paying bribes to the men caught in the Watergate burglary, ended up top of Nixon's enemy list, so it's mandatory to get this perspective. This is not a hit piece, it's basically a scholarly analysis of the tapes, plus a little commentary. Voice actor is superb and the production is faultless. SUMMARY: do not buy if this is your first or only Nixon book (get Robert Dalek on Nixon and Kissinger), however if you ever want to really understand Nixon's presidency or the Watergate scandal then this is required reading.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Greenflyer
- 06-03-23
Superb book, brilliantly read.
With this book Dean brings the listener inside Nixon’s White House throughout the Watergate cover-up. It provides a fascinating insight into the mind and working methods of that most fascinatingly flawed President. The performance of the book by Joe Barrett is equally notable, subtly creating individual voices for the myriad characters. Highly recommended, along with Dean’s Blind Ambition, for anyone wanting to go deeper into the Watergate story.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Michael
- 30-05-15
awesome
Nixon was so naive - his men around him were crooked and vague and hardly were advisors - yes men I think - and whilst I respect Nixon for his foreign policy work - this was super shambolic even down to why he didn't destroy the tapes.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Arthur Pendragon
- 20-05-15
So now we know
Engrossing you have to listen to the next section and then the one after that. A good explanation of how they were drawn into the cover up.
Well read and well written, though don't forget Dean is telling his story.
I had no idea that they realised and at such an early stage, that Mark Phelps (Deep Throat) was leaking the information from the FBI.
Now we know, with all but certainty, what was on the erased 18 minutes. We are left to guess who did the erasing. But, for technical reasons, Rose Mary Woods could not have done it in the way she testified.
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Overall5 out of 5 stars
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Performance5 out of 5 stars
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Story5 out of 5 stars
- Fulcrum83
- 10-04-18
Epic stuff
A fascinating story of a key turning point in history, well written by a key participant and with a strong moral lesson. So many parallels to current events and situations that it often seems less like a historical account and more of a specific warning.
Narration is excellent throughout, with a subtle and non-distracting impression of Richard Nixon's distinctive voice as my personal highlight. Overall, a really top notch audio book (in a catalogue of hundreds, I return to this again and again as it's so vast and enjoyable). Fully recommended to anyone with even a passing interest in American history and/or politics.
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