It was on 21 March, 1973, that White House Counsel John W. Dean III (pictured above) informed President Nixon that “there is a cancer on the Presidency” in reference to the expanding nature of the Watergate Cover-Up. Dean informed the President that the Watergate burglars were demanding more money for their silence and it could cost as much as a million dollars over the next two years, to which the President responded, “We can get that. You could get a million dollars. And you could get it in cash. I, I know where it could be gotten.”
On October 19, 1973, Dean pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica. University of Wisconsin Law Professor Frank Tuerkheimer served as associate special prosecutor with the Watergate Special Prosecution Force and now considers Dean a colleague and friend.
John Dean would visit the UW-Madison campus in October of 2013 to deliver the University of Wisconsin Law School’s ‘Kastenmeier Lecture’ at the Gordon Dining and Event Center.