UPDATED WITH CORRECTED GENDER FOR ONE MAN, JOB DESCRIPTION FOR ANOTHER (THANK YOU, REV. TAYLOR).
Former Nixon White House counsel John Dean, whose June appearance drew 300 people to the Richard Nixon Presidential Library and Museum and the wrath of the private Richard Nixon Library N Birthplace Foundation, is returning to Orange County next month.
“The Fullerton Public Library proudly presents an author talk with John W. Dean, best-selling author of Worse Than Watergate,” states the flier from the cultural facility (which you can view after the jump). As he did during his first-ever visit to the Nixon Library, Dean will promote a new edition of his Watergate remembrances, Blind Ambition.
The Nixon Foundation pulled back $150,000 it had pledged for co-sponsorships at the Yorba Linda presidential museum after board members indicated they do not like the direction the public facility has gone since the federal government's National Archives took over operations from the private foundation two years ago.
Many Nixonites believe Dean was the real White House criminal mastermind and that he let his boss take the fall. Meanwhile, Robert Nedelkoff–who has worked for both while working with the Richard Nixon Foundation and was loaned an office at the National Archives in College Park, Maryland–recently posted on the pro-Dick TheNewNixon.org the very interesting “John Dean and the Tapes,” which alleges the former presidential counsel is now trying to censor those pointing out inconsistencies between what he's written in Blind Ambition and what he has said in taped interviews.
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Tim Naftali, the Nixon museum's executive director who splits his time between Yorba Linda and College Park, says he is striving to bring speakers and events to the museum that appeal to a spectrum of public opinion and not simply the narrow beliefs of Nixonites or partisan Republicans. Judging by the hundreds of people who had never been to the museum but came to the Dean event, he'd say the broader outreach is paying dividends.
But foundation board president Sandy Quinn said of Dean to the Orange County Register last month, “He's disgraced and has been disbarred. He's so controversial … and [Blind Ambition] is not a new book. It's 33 years old. It would have been more serving and non-partisan if it would [have been] point-counterpoint.”
She He also faulted Naftali for not first consulting with the foundation, which has presented (and still is presenting) such controversial conservative speakers as Ann Coulter, Dick Morris and Bill O'Reilly at the Nixon Library without consulting Naftali.
“The controversy about me coming here is petty,” Dean reportedly said before his Nixon Library debut. “I don't see what the benefit is. The foundation is reviving the dark side of Richard Nixon.”
He is scheduled to speak 7 p.m. Tuesday, Aug. 11, in the library's Osborne Auditorium. Admission is free. Doors open at 6 p.m. and seating is on a first come, first served basis. Visit FullertonLibrary.org or their Facebook page for more information.
Of course, the big question now is: Will the Friends of Fullerton Public Library stop donating to the library for bringing Dean back?
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.