In reissuing Blind Ambition, which spent six months on the New York Times bestseller list and has been out of print for over two decades, author John Dean has added a powerful new Afterword, an extended essay in which he explains with the new clarity why (and how) a bungled, conspicuously amateurish burglary at the Democratic National Committee unraveled a presidency, forcing Richard Nixon from office; he also provides definitive answers to the most persistent questions that have lingered about these events; and alerts us all to the deceitful and growing efforts by Nixon apologists and those out to make a fast buck to rewrite this tragic chapter of American history by reinventing it. Just as with Blind Ambition, this new material is brutally honest and strikingly revealing. Dean s perceptive new Afterword, when read with this now classic autobiographical work, truly closes the case on Watergate.
Blind Ambition: The End of the Story
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Review
Faust writes his own story. In the vast literature of those who came to Washington and lived to tell the tale there is nothing else like this. Blind Ambition is not only the best and most enduring book written from inside the Nixon White House, it is a classic of lost illusions. Now, in this new edition, John W. Dean, who has gained his understanding of the past through unsparing honesty, defends history itself from the charlatans and quacks who would distort it. --Sidney Blumenthal Journalist, political editor of The Daily Beast, and author of The Clinton Wars and The Permanent Campaign: Inside the World of Elite Political Operatives
Blind Ambition uniquely takes the reader inside the Nixon White House, of particular interest as the Nixon administration crumbled under the impact of Watergate. Blind Ambition was a classic of its kind. Now Blind Ambition has been re-issued with an indispensable Afterword providing further valuable information. --Jeffery Hart, Professor Emeritus of English, Darthmouth College, longtime editor of the National Review
John Dean's Blind Ambition happily is available again - and with a brilliant Afterword that provides an up-to-date account of the Watergate affair, using new documentation. Dean's memoir reminds us again of his crucial role in laying bare the sordid facts of Richard Nixon and all the President's men. He offers a unique accounting of the events and his own role in them. Rare indeed is a memoir so utterly lacking in self-righteousness, false piety, and special pleading. It is a sobering reminder of the perils of ambition. --Stanley Kutler, historian & author of The Wars of Watergate and Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes
Blind Ambition uniquely takes the reader inside the Nixon White House, of particular interest as the Nixon administration crumbled under the impact of Watergate. Blind Ambition was a classic of its kind. Now Blind Ambition has been re-issued with an indispensable Afterword providing further valuable information. --Jeffery Hart, Professor Emeritus of English, Darthmouth College, longtime editor of the National Review
John Dean's Blind Ambition happily is available again - and with a brilliant Afterword that provides an up-to-date account of the Watergate affair, using new documentation. Dean's memoir reminds us again of his crucial role in laying bare the sordid facts of Richard Nixon and all the President's men. He offers a unique accounting of the events and his own role in them. Rare indeed is a memoir so utterly lacking in self-righteousness, false piety, and special pleading. It is a sobering reminder of the perils of ambition. --Stanley Kutler, historian & author of The Wars of Watergate and Abuse of Power: The New Nixon Tapes
About the Author
John W. Dean served as the Counsel to the President under Richard Nixon. Over the years, he has become one of the nation s most respected political commentators and has written extensively on law, government and politics. Before becoming White House Counsel in July 1970 at age thirty-one, Dean was Chief Minority Counsel to the Judiciary Committee of the United States House of Representatives, the Associate Director of a law reform commission, and Associate Deputy Attorney General of the United States. He served as Nixon's White House lawyer for a thousand days. The author of ten non-fictions works, Dean s most recent NY Times best selling books include, Worse Than Watergate, Conservatives Without Conscience and Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
16 of 16 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Perhaps the greatest book on Watergate - reissued,
By
This review is from: Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (Paperback)
John Dean was 31 years old when Richard Nixon appointed him White House Counsel. Blind Ambition is clearly one of a handful of the most incisive, insightful books to have arisen from the Watergate Crisis. It has been reissued with a wonderful addendum after decades of being out of print. It is beautifully written, strikingly transparent - a brutally self-revelatory vision from a key player inside Nixon's White House.
Dean was the first major participant in Watergate to go to the prosecutors and testify about Watergate. He was hero to a few, vilified by many. The book reveals a character of great depth, complexity and reflection. The book serves not only as a fascinating chronicle of Watergate (with appearances by all the big characters in the Watergate drama, including Mark Felt, Assistant FBI Director "Deep Throat"), but also an astute psychological profile of a complex system, highlighting drives to power, ambition, recognition, delving into agonies of pain, paranoia, and an ultimate restructuring of an ethical sense. Dean's Blind Ambition transcends the Watergate genre. Most of the early treatments by the primary characters are staggeringly self-serving. Dean's more subtle reflections increase the general applicability of the book.
10 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Great recap of history...still unchallenged,
By clutchhitter (Boca Raton, FL USA) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (Kindle Edition)
I have to laugh as each conspiracy book comes out and defends Nixon as a victim of Dean.
Throw out everything and listen to the Watergate tapes....Dean is completely vindicated. Gordon Liddy, James Rosen and other wingnuts all twist the meaning of what was said into some kind of warped alternate history. Nixon knew he was recorded, Dean only figured it out later...given that simple premise, it's logical to conclude Dean was trying to help Nixon get out of the mess. But, wingnuts being wingnuts...nothing is their own fault, everything is a left-wing plot and, once again, liberals are destroying the country. You know what? Sometimes people like Nixon are just arrogant politicians who get themselves in trouble. It's really simple and alternate versions of history are just excuses to sell books...the power of the dollar over the power of a recorded conversation.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Slaughterhouse,
This review is from: Blind Ambition: The End of the Story (Paperback)
Slaughterhouse is the best adjective to describe the inner workings of the Nixon Administration as portrayed in John Dean's superlative account. I was a young man when the Watergate hearings were broadcast in 1973 and very much remember John Dean's testimony before Congress. Sadly, it has taken me this long to actually read his book but I am much more mture at 59 than at 21. At that time I believed justice had been done; that the 'system' worked--I no longer believe this myth. While Richard Nixon was a somewhat unusual president, considering his odd quirky nature, and had a stellar cast of misfits as his chief operatives-Colson, Haldeman, and Ehrlichman-I do not think he was really out of the ordinary in his operational tactics. What Dean's book does is illuminate the reality of American politics-then, and now; there is no essential difference.
John F. Kennedy once wrote that he considered politics a noble and essential activity. I have long since abandoned this belief and baldly state that politics is strictly for either the naive or the self-serving--it is, in fact, ignoble and dishonest. It enriches the few and solves nothing. I cannot but help view all politicians as a lesser breed--ill-educated buffoons(legal training hardly qualifies as an education in the broad sense)who lack imagination and are ethically challenged. They are Untermenschen who deserve our contempt. They would better serve the public in a labor camp. I admire Dean for his honesty and as a amateur historian with a fascination for Richard Nixon I highly recommend his book. Consider it a manual of what NOT to pursue as a career. (This is a review of the Kindle version of this book.)
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