Watergate Witness John Dean, 40 Years After Richard Nixon’s Fall

Dean, 75, lives in Beverly Hills with wife Maureen (“Mo”) and three dogs, including Daisy, above. Photograph by David Cason.

37: Conversations with Nixon about Watergate. Conversations with Nixon after being fired on April 30, 1973: 0.

4: Months served at Maryland’s Fort Holabird for conspiracy to obstruct justice, in a reduced sentence for cooperating with prosecutors.

540: Days spent in the US Marshals Service’s witness-protection program during Watergate. (Marshals guarded his home in Old Town.)

1,005: Conversations transcribed for his new book, The Nixon Defense. He still wants to know: “How could anyone as savvy as Richard Nixon make the mess of his presidency that he did? It doesn’t fit.”

30: Hours testifying before the Watergate Committee, despite which the FBI branded him the “master manipulator of the cover-up.”

80 milion: Approximate TV audience for Dean’s weeklong Watergate testimony.

5: Books Dean has published on Watergate, out of ten total. Following disbarment, he became an investment banker and popular speaker.

Find Rebecca Nelson on Twitter @rebeccarnelson. This article appears in the August 2014 issue of Washingtonian.

Rebecca Nelson