John Dean
John Dean, May 7, 1972
13th White House Counsel
In office 1970–1973
President	Richard Nixon
Preceded by	John Ehrlichman
Succeeded by	Leonard Garment
Personal details
Born	John Wesley Dean III (1938-10-14) October 14, 1938 (age 73) Akron, Ohio
Political party	Independent
Alma mater	Colgate University The College of Wooster American University's Washington College of Law
Profession	Lawyer

John Wesley Dean III (born October 14, 1938) is an American lawyer who served as White House Counsel to United States President Richard Nixon from July 1970 until April 1973. In this position, he became deeply involved in events leading up to the Watergate burglaries and the subsequent Watergate scandal cover-up. He was referred to as "master manipulator of the cover up" by the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI).^[1] He pleaded guilty to a single felony count in exchange for becoming a key witness for the prosecution. This ultimately resulted in a reduced prison sentence, which was served at Fort Holabird outside Baltimore, Maryland.

Dean is currently an author, columnist, and commentator on contemporary politics, strongly critical of conservatism and the Republican Party, and a registered Independent who supported the impeachment of President George W. Bush.^[2]

Early years and education[link]

Dean was born in Akron, Ohio and lived in Marion, the hometown of former President Warren Harding. Thereafter, his family moved to Flossmoor, Illinois where he attended grade school through the eighth grade. For high school, he was sent off to Virginia's Staunton Military Academy. He initially attended Colgate University but left because of bad grades. He then attended The College of Wooster in Ohio where he obtained his B.A. He received a Juris Doctor (J.D.) from the Washington College of Law at American University in 1965.^[3]

Washington lawyer[link]

After graduation, he joined a law firm in Washington, D.C.. Having gone to prep school with the son of Barry Goldwater, he was a close friend of the senator and his family. Dean was subsequently employed as the chief minority counsel to the Republican members of the United States House Committee on the Judiciary. A National Commission on the Reform of Federal Criminal Law was created in 1967. Dean was appointed its associate director.

Joins Nixon campaign, administration[link]

Dean volunteered to write position papers on crime for Richard Nixon's presidential campaign in 1968. The following year he became an Associate Deputy at the office of the Attorney General of the United States in the Nixon administration, serving under Attorney General John N. Mitchell, with whom he was on friendly terms.^[4] In July 1970 he became counsel to the president, responding to a request from the White House to take the job, after the previous holder of this post John Ehrlichman became the president's chief domestic adviser.^[4]

From "master manipulator" to star witness[link]

The start of Watergate[link]

Dean, then White House Counsel, met with Jeb Magruder (Deputy Director of Committee for the Re-Election of the President, or CRP) and John N. Mitchell (Attorney General of the United States, and soon-to-be Director of CRP) for a presentation by G. Gordon Liddy (counsel for CRP and a former FBI agent) on January 27, 1972, in Mitchell's office. At that time, Liddy presented a preliminary plan for intelligence gathering operations during the campaign year 1972. Reaction to Liddy's plan was highly unfavorable; Liddy was ordered to scale down his ideas, and he presented a revised plan to the same group on February 4, which was, however, left unapproved at that stage.^[5] A scaled-down plan would be approved by Mitchell in late March of that year in Florida.

This scaled-down Liddy plan would lead eventually to attempts to eavesdrop on the Democratic National Committee (DNC) headquarters at the Watergate Complex in Washington, D.C., and to the Watergate scandal. The burglar's first break-in attempt, in late May, 1972, had been successful, but several problems had arisen with poor-quality information from their bugs, and they wanted to photograph more documents. Specifically, the burglars were interested in information they thought was held by Lawrence F. O'Brien, head of the DNC. On their second attempt to break in, on the night of June 16-17, 1972, the burglars were discovered by hotel security. After the arrests of the burglars, Dean took custody of evidence and money from the White House safe of E. Howard Hunt, Jr., who had been supervising the Watergate burglaries, and later destroyed some of the evidence before it could be found by investigators.^[6]

Linked to cover-up[link]

On February 28, 1973, Acting FBI Director L. Patrick Gray testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee regarding his nomination to replace J. Edgar Hoover as Director of the FBI. Armed with newspaper articles indicating the White House had possession of FBI Watergate files, the committee chairman, Sam Ervin, questioned Gray as to what he knew about the White House obtaining the files. Gray stated he had given FBI reports to Dean, and had discussed the FBI investigation with Dean on many occasions. It also came out that Gray had destroyed important evidence entrusted to him by Dean. Gray's nomination failed, and now Dean was directly linked to the Watergate cover-up.

White House Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman claimed that Dean was appointed by Nixon to take the lead role in coordinating the Watergate cover-up from an early stage, and that this cover-up was working very well for many months. Certain aspects of the scandal had come to light before the 1972 elections, but the election still resulted in Nixon being returned for a second presidential term by a dominant margin.^[7]

Cooperates with prosecutors[link]

On March 23, 1973, the five Watergate burglars, along with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt, were sentenced with stiff fines and prison time. Dean hired an attorney and began his cooperation with Watergate investigators on April 6, while continuing to work as Nixon's Chief White House Counsel, not disclosing this obvious conflict to President Nixon until some time later. Dean was also receiving advice from the attorney he hired, Charles Shaffer, on matters involving vulnerabilites of other White House staff with the cover-up. On March 22, Nixon had requested that Dean put together a report with everything he knew about the Watergate matter, and even invited him to take a retreat to Camp David to do so. Dean did go to Camp David and performed some work on this report, but since he was one of the cover-up's chief participants, this report-writing task placed him in the difficult position of relating his own involvement, as well as that of others, and he concluded he was being fitted for the role of scapegoat in the cover-up by those higher up. Dean did not complete the report.^[8]

He continued to provide information to the prosecutors, who were able to make enormous progress on the cover-up case, which up until then they had virtually ignored, having concentrated on the actual burglary and events preceding it. Dean also appeared before the Watergate Grand Jury, where he took the Fifth Amendment numerous times, to avoid incriminating himself, in order to save his testimony for the Senate Watergate hearings.^[9]

Fired by Nixon[link]

Coupled with his sense of distance from Nixon's inner circle, "The Berlin Wall" of advisors H.R. Haldeman and John Ehrlichman, Dean sensed he was going to become the Watergate scapegoat and despite going to Camp David, he returned to Washington without having completed his report. Nixon fired Dean on April 30, the same date he also announced the resignations of Haldeman and Ehrlichman.

Dean had earlier asked Nixon for formal immunity from prosecution for any crimes he may have committed while serving as White House counsel; Nixon refused to grant this and this refusal led Dean to cooperate with the prosecutors very soon afterwards. Upon going to the prosecutors, Dean also requested immunity, which was not granted despite his many revelations.^[7]

Testifies at Senate Committee[link]

On June 25, 1973, Dean began his testimony before the Senate Watergate Committee, in which he implicated administration officials, including Nixon fundraiser and former Attorney General John Mitchell, Nixon and himself. Dean's testimony attracted very high television ratings, since he was breaking new ground in the investigation, and media attention grew apace, with more detailed newspaper coverage. Dean was the first administration official to accuse Nixon of direct involvement with Watergate and the resulting cover-up in press interviews. Such testimony against Nixon, while damaging to the president's credibility, had little impact legally, as it was merely his word against Nixon's. Nixon vigorously denied all accusations against him that he had authorized a cover-up, and Dean had no proof beyond various notes he had taken in his meetings with the president. It was not until information about secret White House tape recordings having been made by President Nixon (disclosed in testimony by Alexander Butterfield, in July 1973), the tapes subpoenaed, and analyzed, that Dean's accusations were substantiated. Dean had earlier had suspicions that Nixon was taping conversations, but had not known this for sure, and he tipped prosecutors to ask witnesses questions along this line, leading to Butterfield's revelations.

Watergate trial[link]

Dean pled guilty to obstruction of justice before Watergate trial judge John Sirica on October 19, 1973. He admitted supervising payments of "hush money" to the Watergate burglars, notably E. Howard Hunt, and revealed the existence of Nixon's enemies list. Archibald Cox, Watergate Special Prosecutor, was interested in meeting with Dean, and planned to do so a few days later, but Cox was himself fired by Nixon the very next day, and it was not until some time later that Cox was replaced by Leon Jaworski. On August 2, 1974, Sirica handed down a sentence to Dean, of one to four years in a minimum-security prison. However, when Dean surrendered himself as scheduled on September 3, he was diverted to the custody of U.S. Marshals, and kept instead at Fort Holabird (near Baltimore, Maryland) in a special "safe house" holding facility primarily used for witnesses against the Mafia. He spent his days in the offices of the Watergate Special Prosecutor Jaworski, and testifying in the trial of Watergate conspirators Mitchell, Haldeman, Ehrlichman, Robert Mardian, and Kenneth Parkinson, which concluded on January 1, 1975. All except Parkinson were convicted, largely based upon Dean's evidence. Dean's lawyer moved to have his sentence reduced, and on January 8, Sirica granted the motion, adjusting Dean's sentence to time served, which wound up being four months. With his conviction for felony offenses, Dean was disbarred as a lawyer, so could no longer practice law.^[10]

Life after Watergate[link]

John Dean in 2008 at the annual conference of the Society of American Archivists.

Shortly after Watergate, Dean became an investment banker, author, and lecturer.

Dean chronicled his White House experiences, with a focus on Watergate, in the memoirs Blind Ambition (1976) and Lost Honor (1982). Blind Ambition would become the point of controversy for many years after its publication.

In 1992, he hired famed attorney Neil Papiano and brought the first in a series of defamation suits against G. Gordon Liddy for claims in Liddy's book Will, and St. Martin's Press for its publication of the book Silent Coup by Len Colodny and Robert Gettlin. Silent Coup alleged that Dean was the mastermind of the Watergate burglaries and the Watergate coverup, and the true target of the burglaries was to seize information implicating Dean and the former Maureen Elizabeth Kane Owen "Mo" Biner (his then-fiancée) in a prostitution ring. After hearing of Colodny's work, Liddy issued a revised paperback version of Will supporting Colodny's theory.^[11] This theory was subsequently the subject of an A&E Network Investigative Reports series program entitled The Key to Watergate in 1992.^[12] In the preface to his 2006 book, Conservatives Without Conscience, Dean strongly denied Colodny's theory, pointing out that Colodny's chief source (Phillip Mackin Bailley) had been in and out of mental institutions. Dean settled the defamation suit against Colodny and his publisher, St. Martin's Press, on terms which Dean stated in the book's preface he could not divulge under the terms of the settlement, other than stating that "the Deans were satisfied." In the footnote to this portion of the preface, Dean stated that the federal judge handling the case forced a settlement with Liddy.^[13]

Dean retired from investment banking in 2000 while continuing to work as an author and lecturer, becoming a columnist for FindLaw's Writ online magazine. He currently resides in Beverly Hills, California.

In 2001, Dean published The Rehnquist Choice, an exposé of the White House's selection process for a new Supreme Court justice in 1971, which led to the accession of William Rehnquist to the United States' highest court. Three years later, Dean authored a book heavily critical of the administration of George W. Bush, entitled Worse than Watergate, which called for the impeachment of Bush and Vice-President Dick Cheney for allegedly lying to the Congress.

His subsequent book, released in summer 2006, is titled Conservatives without Conscience, a play on Barry Goldwater's The Conscience of a Conservative. In it, he asserts that post-Barry Goldwater conservatism has been co-opted by people with authoritarian personalities and policies (citing data from Robert Altemeyer). According to Dean, modern conservatism, specifically in the Christian Right, embraces obedience, inequality, intolerance, and strong intrusive government, in stark contrast to Goldwater's philosophies and policies. Using Altemeyer's scholarly work, he contends that there is a tendency toward ethically questionable political practices when authoritarians are placed in positions of power, and that the current political situation is dangerously unsound because of it. Dean cites the behavior of key members of the Republican leadership — including George W. Bush, Dick Cheney, Tom DeLay, Newt Gingrich and Bill Frist — as clear evidence of a relationship between modern right-wing conservativism and this authoritarian approach to governance. He places particular emphasis on the abdication of checks and balances by the Republican Congress, and of the dishonesty of the conservative intellectual class in support of the GOP, as a result of the obedience and arrogance innate to the authoritarian mentality.

After it became known that George W. Bush authorized NSA wiretaps without warrants, Dean asserted that Bush is "the first President to admit to an impeachable offense".^[14] On March 31, 2006, Dean testified before the Senate Judiciary Committee during hearings on censuring the president over the issue. Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.), who sponsored the censure resolution, introduced Dean as a "patriot" who put "rule of law above the interests of the president." In his testimony, Dean asserted that Richard Nixon covered up Watergate because he believed it was in the interest of national security. This sparked a sharp debate with Republican South Carolina senator Lindsey Graham, who repeatedly asserted that Nixon authorized the break-in at Democratic headquarters. Dean finally replied, "You're showing you don't know that subject very well." Spectators laughed, and soon the senator was sputtering mad.^[15]

Dean's 2007 book Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches is, as he wrote in its introduction, the third volume of an unplanned trilogy. In this latest book, Dean, who has repeatedly described himself as a Goldwater conservative, built on Worse Than Watergate and Conservatives Without Conscience to argue that the Republican Party has gravely damaged all three of the branches of the federal government in the service of ideological rigidity and with no attention to the public interest or the general good. Dean concludes that conservatism must regenerate itself to remain true to its core ideals of limited government and the rule of law.

In 2008, Dean co-edited Pure Goldwater, a collection of writings by the 1964 Republican presidential nominee and former U.S. Senator from Arizona Barry Goldwater, in part as an act of fealty to the man who defined his political ideals. His co-editor was Goldwater's son Barry Goldwater, Jr..

In the 1979 TV mini-series, Blind Ambition, Dean was played by Martin Sheen. In the 1995 film, Nixon, directed by Oliver Stone, Dean was played by David Hyde Pierce. In the 1999 film Dick, Dean was played by Jim Breuer.

Dean frequently serves as a guest on the former MSNBC and Current TV news program, Countdown with Keith Olbermann, and The Randi Rhodes Show on Premiere Radio Networks.

In January 2009, a new controversy arose about Dean. Historian Stanley Kutler was accused of editing the Nixon tapes to make Dean appear in a more favorable light.^[16]

On September 17, 2009, Dean appeared on Countdown, with new allegations about Watergate in hand. He stated that he had found information via the Nixon tapes, that showed what the burglars were after: information on a kickback scheme involving the Democratic National Convention in Miami, Florida. Dean also asserts that Nixon did not directly order the break in, but that it was ordered by Ehrlichman on behalf of Nixon.^[17]

Bibliography[link]

• Dean, John W. (1976). Blind Ambition: The White House Years. New York: Simon and Schuster. ISBN 0-671-22438-7. 
• Dean, John W. (1982). Lost Honor. Los Angeles: Stratford Press. ISBN 0-936906-15-4. 
• Dean, John W. (2001). The Rehnquist Choice: The Untold Story of the Nixon Appointment that Redefined the Supreme Court. New York: Free Press. ISBN 0-7432-2607-0. 
• Dean, John W. (2002). Unmasking Deep Throat. [S.l.]: Salon Media. ISBN 0-9721874-1-3. 
• Dean, John W. (2004). Warren G. Harding (The American Presidents). New York: Times Books. ISBN 0-8050-6956-9. 
• Dean, John W. (2004). Worse than Watergate: The Secret Presidency of George W. Bush. New York: Little, Brown. ISBN 0-316-00023-X. 
• Dean, John W. (2006). Conservatives without Conscience. New York: Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-03774-5. 
• Dean, John W. (2007). Broken Government: How Republican Rule Destroyed the Legislative, Executive and Judicial Branches. New York: Viking Adult. ISBN 0-670-01820-1. 
• Dean, John W.; Barry M. Goldwater, Jr. (2008). Pure Goldwater. New York: Palgrave Macmillan. ISBN 1-4039-7741-0. 
• Dean, John W. (2009). Blind Ambition: The Updated Edition: The End of the Story. New York: Polimedia. ISBN 0-976-86175-5. 

See also[link]

• Watergate scandal
• Phone hacking scandal comparisons with Watergate

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Sussman, Barry (1992). The Great Coverup: Nixon and the Scandal of Watergate (Third ed.). Seven Locks Press. ISBN 0-929765-09-5. 
• "The Watergate Files". The Gerald R. Ford Museum & Library. http://www.fordlibrarymuseum.gov/museum/exhibits/watergate_files/. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 
• "The Key To Watergate". Barbara Newman Productions. 1992. http://www.NixonEra.com/library/watergate.asp. Retrieved 19 July 2011. 

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: John Dean

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: John Dean

• Worse Than Watergate: Former Nixon Counsel John Dean Says Bush Should Be Impeached Democracy Now!, April 6, 2004, interview with John Dean
• Doing Legal, Political, and Historical Research on the Internet Using Blog Forums, Open Source Dictionaries, and More John Dean, Findlaw, September 9, 2005
• Video of John Dean interview by Keith Olberman on Countdown with Keith Olbermann about Dean's book Conservatives Without Conscience on July 11, 2006, at Crooks and Liars, YouTube
• Spartacus Educational Biography
• Booknotes interview with Dean on Warren G. Harding, March 14, 2004.
• In Depth interview with Dean, April 4, 2010

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Daniel Ellsberg
Daniel Ellsberg in 2006
Born	(1931-04-07) April 7, 1931 (age 81) Chicago, Illinois
Education	Harvard University (PhD) Cambridge University
Employer	RAND Corporation
Known for	Pentagon Papers, Ellsberg paradox
Children	Robert, Mary (1st marriage) Michael Ellsberg (2nd marriage)
Website
"Daniel Ellsberg's Website"

Daniel Ellsberg, PhD, (born April 7, 1931) is a former United States military analyst who, while employed by the RAND Corporation, precipitated a national political controversy in 1971 when he released the Pentagon Papers, a top-secret Pentagon study of U.S. government decision-making in relation to the Vietnam War, to The New York Times and other newspapers. He was awarded the Right Livelihood Award in 2006. He is also known for a fundamental contribution to decision theory, the Ellsberg paradox.

Early life and career[link]

Ellsberg was born in Chicago, Illinois, in 1931, the son of Adele D. (née Charsky) and Harry Ellsberg.^[1] His parents were Jewish and had converted to Christian Science, and he was raised in a Christian Science atmosphere. He grew up in Detroit, Michigan, and attended Cranbrook Kingswood School. His mother had wanted her son to be a concert pianist but he stopped playing in July 1946 when she was killed in a car crash, together with his sister, after his father fell asleep at the wheel of the car in which the family was traveling and crashed into a culvert wall.^[2]

Ellsberg attended Harvard University on a scholarship, graduating with A.B. in economics in 1952, summa cum laude. He then studied at the University of Cambridge on a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and one year later he returned to Harvard for graduate school. In 1954, he left Harvard for the U.S. Marine Corps.^[3] He served as a platoon leader and company commander in the Marine 2nd Infantry Division, and after satisfying his two year Reserve Officer commitment was discharged from the Corps as a first lieutenant in 1957.^[3] He rejoined Harvard as a Junior Fellow in the Harvard Society of Fellows for two years, until 1959. He then began as a strategic analyst at the RAND Corporation, where he concentrated on nuclear strategy.^[3]

He completed his PhD in Economics from Harvard in 1962.^[3] Ellsberg's dissertation in the field of decision theory was based on a set of experiments that showed that, in general, decisions under conditions of uncertainty or ambiguity may not be consistent with well defined subjective probabilities. This finding, now known as the Ellsberg paradox,^[4] formed the basis of a large literature that has developed since the 1980s, including such approaches as Choquet expected utility and info-gap decision theory.

Ellsberg served in the Pentagon from August 1964^[5] under Secretary of Defense Robert McNamara (and, in fact, was on duty on the evening of the Gulf of Tonkin incident, reporting the incident to McNamara). He then served for two years in Vietnam working for General Edward Lansdale as a civilian in the State Department.

After serving in Vietnam, Ellsberg resumed working at RAND. In 1967, he contributed to a top-secret study of classified documents regarding the conduct of the Vietnam War that had been commissioned by Defense Secretary McNamara.^[6] These documents, completed in 1968, later became known collectively as the Pentagon Papers. It was because Ellsberg held an extremely high-level security clearance and desired to create a further synthesis from this research effort that he was one of very few individuals who had access to the complete set of documents.^[7]

Disaffection with Vietnam War[link]

By 1969 Ellsberg began attending anti-war events while still remaining in his position at RAND. He experienced an epiphany attending a War Resisters League conference at Haverford College in August 1969, listening to a speech given by a draft resister named Randy Kehler, who said he was "very excited" that he would soon be able to join his friends in prison.^[8]

Ellsberg described his reaction:

And he said this very calmly. I hadn't known that he was about to be sentenced for draft resistance. It hit me as a total surprise and shock, because I heard his words in the midst of actually feeling proud of my country listening to him. And then I heard he was going to prison. It wasn't what he said exactly that changed my worldview. It was the example he was setting with his life. How his words in general showed that he was a stellar American, and that he was going to jail as a very deliberate choice—because he thought it was the right thing to do. There was no question in my mind that my government was involved in an unjust war that was going to continue and get larger. Thousands of young men were dying each year. I left the auditorium and found a deserted men's room. I sat on the floor and cried for over an hour, just sobbing. The only time in my life I've reacted to something like that.^[8]

Decades later, reflecting on Kehler's decision, Ellsberg said;

Randy Kehler never thought his going to prison would end the war. If I hadn't met Randy Kehler it wouldn't have occurred to me to copy [the Pentagon Papers]. His actions spoke to me as no mere words would have done. He put the right question in my mind at the right time.^[8]

The Pentagon Papers[link]

In late 1969—with the assistance of his former RAND Corporation colleague Anthony Russo and the staff of Senator Edward Kennedy—Ellsberg secretly made several sets of photocopies of the classified documents to which he had access; these later became known as the Pentagon Papers. They revealed that the government had knowledge, early on, that the war could most likely not be won, and that continuing the war would lead to many times more casualties than was ever admitted publicly. Further, as an editor of the New York Times was to write much later, these documents "demonstrated, among other things, that the Johnson Administration had systematically lied, not only to the public but also to Congress, about a subject of transcendent national interest and significance".^[9]

Shortly after Ellsberg copied the documents, he resolved to meet some of the people who had influenced both his change of heart on the war and his decision to act. One of them was Randy Kehler. Another was the poet Gary Snyder, whom he'd met in Kyoto in 1960, and with whom he'd argued about U.S. foreign policy; Ellsberg was finally prepared to concede that Gary Snyder had been right, about both the situation and the need for action against it.^[10]

Throughout 1970, Ellsberg covertly attempted to persuade a few sympathetic U.S. Senators — among them J. William Fulbright, chair of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, and George McGovern, a leading opponent of the war — to release the papers on the Senate floor, because a Senator could not be prosecuted for anything he said on the record before the Senate. Ellsberg told U.S. Senators that they should be prepared to go to jail in order to end the Vietnam War.^[11]

Ellsberg allowed some copies of the documents to circulate privately, including among scholars at the Institute for Policy Studies (IPS). Ellsberg also shared the documents with New York Times correspondent Neil Sheehan under a pledge of confidentiality. Sheehan broke his promise to Ellsberg, and built a scoop around what he'd received both directly from Ellsberg and from contacts at IPS.^[12]

On Sunday, June 13, 1971, the Times published the first of nine excerpts and commentaries on the 7,000 page collection. For 15 days, the Times was prevented from publishing its articles by court order requested by the Nixon administration. Meanwhile, Ellsberg leaked the documents to The Washington Post and 17 other newspapers.^[13][14] On June 30, the Supreme Court ordered publication of the Times to resume freely (New York Times Co. v. United States). Although the Times did not reveal Ellsberg as their source, he went into hiding for 13 days afterwards, suspecting that the evidence would point to him as the source of the unauthorized release of the study.^[15]

On June 29, 1971, U.S. Senator Mike Gravel of Alaska entered 4,100 pages of the Papers into the record of his Subcommittee on Public Buildings and Grounds—pages which he had received from Ellsberg via Ben Bagdikian—then an editor at the Washington Post. These portions of the Papers were subsequently published by Beacon Press.^[16]

Fallout[link]

The release of these papers was politically embarrassing not only to those involved in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations but also to the incumbent Nixon administration. Nixon's Oval Office tape from June 14, 1972, shows H. R. Haldeman describing the situation to Nixon:

"Rumsfeld was making this point this morning... To the ordinary guy, all this is a bunch of gobbledygook. But out of the gobbledygook comes a very clear thing.... It shows that people do things the president wants to do even though it's wrong, and the president can be wrong."^[17]

John Mitchell, Nixon's Attorney General, almost immediately issued a telegram to the Times ordering that it halt publication. The Times refused, and the government brought suit against it.

Although the Times eventually won the trial before the Supreme Court, prior to that, an appellate court ordered that the Times temporarily halt further publication. This was the first time the federal government was able to restrain the publication of a major newspaper since the presidency of Abraham Lincoln during the U.S. Civil War. Ellsberg released the Pentagon Papers to seventeen other newspapers in rapid succession.^[18] The right of the press to publish the papers was upheld in New York Times Co. v. United States. The Supreme Court ruling has been called one of the "modern pillars" of First Amendment rights with respect to freedom of the press.^[19]

As a response to the leaks, the Nixon administration began a campaign against further leaks and against Ellsberg personally.^[20] Aides Egil Krogh and David Young, under the supervision of John Ehrlichman, created the "White House Plumbers", which would later lead to the Watergate burglaries.^{[citation needed]}

Fielding break-in[link]

In August 1971, Krogh and Young met with G. Gordon Liddy and E. Howard Hunt in a basement office in the Old Executive Office Building. Hunt and Liddy recommended a "covert operation" to get a "mother lode" of information about Ellsberg's mental state in order to discredit him. Krogh and Young sent a memo to Ehrlichman seeking his approval for a "covert operation [to] be undertaken to examine all of the medical files still held by Ellsberg’s psychiatrist." Ehrlichman approved under the condition that it be "done under your assurance that it is not traceable."^[21]

On September 3, 1971, the burglary of Lewis Fielding's office – titled "Hunt/Liddy Special Project No. 1" in Ehrlichman's notes — was carried out by Hunt, Liddy and CIA officers Eugenio Martinez, Felipe de Diego and Bernard Barker. The "Plumbers" failed to find Ellsberg's file. Hunt and Liddy subsequently planned to break into Fielding's home, but Ehrlichman did not approve the second burglary. The break-in was not known to Ellsberg or to the public until it came to light during Ellsberg and Russo's trial in April 1973.

Trial and mistrial[link]

On June 28, 1971, two days before a Supreme Court ruling saying that a federal judge had ruled incorrectly about the right of the New York Times to publish the Pentagon Papers,^[6] Ellsberg publicly surrendered to the United States Attorney's Office for the District of Massachusetts in Boston. In admitting to giving the documents to the press, Ellsberg said:

I felt that as an American citizen, as a responsible citizen, I could no longer cooperate in concealing this information from the American public. I did this clearly at my own jeopardy and I am prepared to answer to all the consequences of this decision.^[6]

He and Russo faced charges under the Espionage Act of 1917 and other charges including theft and conspiracy, carrying a total maximum sentence of 115 years. Their trial commenced in Los Angeles on January 3, 1973, presided over by U.S. District Judge William Matthew Byrne, Jr.

On April 26, the break-in of Fielding's office was revealed to the court in a memo to Judge Byrne, who then ordered it to be shared with the defense.^[22][23]

On May 9, further evidence of illegal wiretapping against Ellsberg was revealed in court. The FBI had recorded numerous conversations between Morton Halperin and Ellsberg without a court order, and furthermore the prosecution had failed to share this evidence with the defense.^[24] During the trial, Byrne also revealed that he personally met twice with John Ehrlichman, who offered him directorship of the FBI. Byrne said he refused to consider the offer while the Ellsberg case was pending, though he was criticized for even agreeing to meet with Ehrlichman during the case.^[23]

Due to the gross governmental misconduct and illegal evidence gathering, and the defense by Leonard Boudin and Harvard Law School professor Charles Nesson, Judge Byrne dismissed all charges against Ellsberg and Russo on May 11, 1973 after the government claimed it had lost records of wiretapping against Ellsberg. Byrne ruled: "The totality of the circumstances of this case which I have only briefly sketched offend a sense of justice. The bizarre events have incurably infected the prosecution of this case."^[23]

As a result of the revelation of the Fielding break-in during the trial, John Ehrlichman, H R Haldeman, Richard Kleindienst and John Dean were forced out of office on April 30, and all would later be convicted of crimes related to the Watergate scandal. Egil Krogh later pleaded guilty to conspiracy, and White House counsel Charles Colson pleaded no contest for obstruction of justice in the burglary. "The court concluded that Nixon, Mitchell, and Haldeman had violated the Halperins' Fourth Amendment rights, but not the terms of Title III. The Halperins were awarded $1 in nominal damages in August 1977."^[25][26]

Ellsberg later claimed that after his trial ended, Watergate prosecutor William H. Merrill informed him of an aborted plot by Liddy and the "plumbers" to have 12 Cuban-Americans who had previously worked for the CIA to "totally incapacitate" Ellsberg as he appeared at a public rally, though it is unclear whether that meant to assassinate Ellsberg or merely to hospitalize him.^[27][28] In his autobiography, Liddy describes an "Ellsberg neutralization proposal" originating from Howard Hunt, which involved drugging Ellsberg with LSD, by dissolving it in his soup, at a fund-raising dinner in Washington in order to "have Ellsberg incoherent by the time he was to speak" and thus "make him appear a near burnt-out drug case" and "discredit him". The plot involved waiters from the Miami Cuban community. According to Liddy, when the plan was finally approved, "there was no longer enough lead time to get the Cuban waiters up from their Miami hotels and into place in the Washington Hotel where the dinner was to take place" and the plan was "put into abeyance pending another opportunity".^[29]

Later activism and views[link]

Video interview with Daniel Ellsberg at Roskilde Universitets Center, Denmark, 2004-10-26. (Unedited, the first 10 seconds are black.)

Reflecting on his time in government, Ellsberg has said the following, based on his extensive access to classified material:

The public is lied to every day by the President, by his spokespeople, by his officers. If you can't handle the thought that the President lies to the public for all kinds of reasons, you couldn’t stay in the government at that level, or you’re made aware of it, a week. ... The fact is Presidents rarely say the whole truth—essentially, never say the whole truth—of what they expect and what they’re doing and what they believe and why they’re doing it and rarely refrain from lying, actually, about these matters.^[30]

Since the end of the Vietnam War, Ellsberg has continued his political activism, giving lecture tours and speaking out about current events. During the runup to the 2003 invasion of Iraq he warned of a possible "Tonkin Gulf scenario" that could be used to justify going to war, and called on government "insiders" to go public with information to counter the Bush administration's pro-war propaganda campaign, praising Scott Ritter for his efforts in that regard.^[31] He later provoked criticism from the Bush administration for supporting British GCHQ translator Katharine Gun and calling on others to leak any papers that reveal government deception about the invasion.^[32] Ellsberg also testified at the 2004 conscientious objector hearing of Camilo Mejia at Fort Sill, Oklahoma.^[32]

He is a member of Campaign for Peace and Democracy.

Ellsberg was arrested, in November 2005, for violating a county ordinance for trespassing while protesting against George W. Bush's conduct of the Iraq War.^[33]

In September 2006, Ellsberg wrote in Harper's Magazine that he hoped someone would leak information about a potential U.S. invasion of Iran before the invasion happened, to stop the war.^[34] Subsequently, information on the acceleration of U.S.-sponsored anti-government activity in Iran was leaked to journalist Seymour Hersh. In November 2007, Ellsberg was interviewed by Brad Friedman on his Bradblog in regard to former FBI translator turned whistleblower Sibel Edmonds. "I'd say what she has is far more explosive than the Pentagon Papers", Ellsberg told Friedman.

In a speech on March 30, 2008 in San Francisco's Unitarian Universalist church, Ellsberg observed that House Speaker Nancy Pelosi doesn't really have the authority to declare impeachment "off the table". The oath of office taken by members of congress requires them to "defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic". He also argued that under the U.S. Constitution, treaties, including the United Nations Charter, become the supreme law of the land that neither the states, the president, nor the congress have the power to break. For example, if the Congress votes to authorize an unprovoked attack on a sovereign nation, that authorization wouldn't make the attack legal. A president citing the authorization as just cause could be prosecuted in the International Criminal Court for war crimes, and it is the duty of congress to impeach the offending president regardless of any agreements that may have been made.^[35]

On June 17, 2010, Ellsberg was interviewed by Amy Goodman and Juan Gonzalez on the Democracy Now! program regarding the parallels between his actions in releasing the Pentagon Papers and those of Pfc. Bradley Manning, who was arrested by the U.S. Military in Kuwait after allegedly providing to the WikiLeaks web site a classified video showing U.S. military helicopter gunships strafing and killing Iraqis alleged to be civilians, including two Reuters journalists. Manning reportedly claims to have provided WikiLeaks with secret videos of additional massacres of alleged civilians in Afghanistan, as well as 260,000 classified State Department cables. Ellsberg has said that he fears for Manning and for Julian Assange, as he feared for himself after the initial publication of the Pentagon Papers. WikiLeaks initially said it had not received the cables, but did plan to post the video of an attack that may have killed 140 Afghan civilians in the village of Garani. Ellsberg expressed hope that either Assange or President Obama would post the video, and expressed his strong support for Assange and Manning, whom he called "two new heroes of mine".^[36][37]

On December 9, 2010, Ellsberg appeared on the Colbert Report where he commented that the existence of WikiLeaks helps to build a better government.^[38]

On March 21, 2011, Ellsberg along with 35 other demonstrators were arrested during a demonstration outside the Marine Corps Base Quantico, in protest of Manning's current detention at Marine Corps Brig, Quantico.^[39]

On November 16, 2011 Ellsberg camped on the UC Berkeley Sproul Plaza as part of an effort to support the Occupy Cal movement.^[40]

Awards and honors[link]

Ellsberg is the recipient of the Inaugural Ron Ridenhour Courage Prize, a prize established by The Nation Institute and The Fertel Foundation.^[41] In 1978 he accepted the Gandhi Peace Award from Promoting Enduring Peace. On September 28, 2006 he was awarded the Right Livelihood Award.^[42]

Personal life[link]

Ellsberg has been married twice. His first marriage, to Carol Cummings, the daughter of a Marine Corps Brigadier General, lasted 13 years before ending in divorce (at her request, as he has stated in his memoirs titled "Secrets"). Two children (Robert and Mary) were born of this marriage. In 1970, he married Patricia Marx, whom he had dated earlier; they have one son, Michael Ellsberg, who is an author and journalist.^[43][44]

Books[link]

• Daniel Ellsberg. 2002. "Secrets: A Memoir of Vietnam and the Pentagon Papers." New York: Viking Press. ISBN 0-670-03030-9
• Daniel Ellsberg. 2001. 978-0-8153-4022-5 "Risk Ambiguity
• "Dissent: Voices of Conscience"-(publishers catalog P.1) by Ann Wright, Susan Dixon (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, January 2008 – Publisher: Koa Books
• "Flirting with Disaster: Why Accidents are Rarely Accidental" by Marc S. Gerstein, Michael Ellsberg, (Foreword by) Daniel Ellsberg, June 2008 – Publisher: Sterling Publishing
• "Made Love, Got War: Close Encounters with America's Warfare State" By Norman Solomon, Foreword by Daniel Ellsberg, September 2007 – Publisher: Polipoint Press
• "Protest and Survive" by E. Thompson, Dan Smith, Introduction by Daniel Ellsberg, 1981 – Publisher: Monthly Review Press

Movies[link]

• The Pentagon Papers (2003) is a historical film directed by Rod Holcomb about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg's involvement in their publication. The movie, in which he is portrayed by James Spader, documents Ellsberg's life, starting with his work for RAND Corp and ending with the day on which the judge declared his espionage trial a mistrial.
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers (2009) documentary by Judith Ehrlich and Rick Goldsmith.^[45]

See also[link]

Biography portal

• Jack Anderson
• Thomas Andrews Drake

References[link]

Further reading[link]

• Official name of the Pentagon Papers: "History of United States Decision-Making Process on Vietnam Policy, 1945–1967".

• The New York Times version of Pentagon Papers: June 13, 14, 15 and July 1, 2, 3, 4 and 5, 1971. Late in this year this edited version was published in the book "The Pentagon Papers as published by N.Y. Times", Bantam Books, Toronto – New York – London, 1971.

• "United States-Vietnam Relations 1945–67, Department of Defense Study", 12 vols., Government Printing Office, Washington, 1971. This is the official and complete edition of the Pentagon Papers, published by the Government after the release by the press.

• UNGAR, Sanford, "The Papers and the Papers. An account of the legal and political battle over the Pentagon Papers", E.P. Dutton & Co, New York, 1972.

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Daniel Ellsberg

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Daniel Ellsberg

• Official website
• The Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, official website of the documentary film (Nominated for Academy Award 2010 – Best Documentary Feature)
• Zinn Education Project: A Teaching Guide for the Most Dangerous Man in America
• Daniel Ellsberg at IMDB
• The Truth-Telling Project – Project formed by Ellsberg for whistleblowers
• Travels of John Interview – More Dangerous Than Julian Assange?
• Reason Magazine Interview – June 1973
• "Top Secret: Battle for the Pentagon Papers" a resource site that supports a currently-playing docu-drama about the Pentagon Papers. The site provides historical context, time lines, bibliographical resources, information on discussions with current journalists, and helpful links.
• Democracy Now! Special: "How the Pentagon Papers Came to Be Published by the Beacon Press: Mike Gravel and Daniel Ellsberg (audio/video and transcript)
• 2006 Right Livelihood Award Recipient Daniel Ellsberg
• Daniel Ellsberg/William Kristol debate Iraq war in 2003 on C-Span
• NNDB page on Daniel Ellsberg
• Pentagon Papers Whistleblower on President Obama and the Wars in Afghanistan and Iraq
• Daniel Ellsberg on Wikileaks Iraq War Docs (YouTube)
• Daniel Ellsberg: "Julian Assange is Not a Terrorist" – video report by Democracy Now!

William "Bill" Boggs III (born July 11, 1946) is an Emmy Award–winning American television presenter and journalist.

Boggs was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and graduated from the University of Pennsylvania. He is currently the celebrity correspondent for the syndicated My Generation television show airing on PBS, featuring interviews inspired by his 2007 HarperCollins book, Got What it Takes?: Successful People Reveal How They Made It to the Top. The book includes interviews with Renée Zellweger, Donald Trump, Sir Richard Branson, Clive Davis, Joe Torre, and others. He has also published a novel, At First Sight, with Grosett and Dunlap publishers.^{[citation needed]}

A former news anchorman for WNBC in New York, Boggs also presented several game shows for CBS. He created the first national restaurant review show, TV Diners, for the Food Network, and spent many years hosting the network's first non-cooking show, the celebrity interview show, Bill Boggs' Corner Table. Boggs co-executive produced and hosted TV's first syndicated stand up comedy series, Comedy Tonight in the late 1980s.^{[citation needed]}

Boggs appeared in several film and television dramas including Oz and Miami Vice. In New York City, he is also known for his stint in the 1970s as host of Midday Live on WNEW (now WNYW), succeeding Lee Leonard.^[1]

He debuted a solo stage show called Talk Show Confidential in 2003. The show, which includes stories and rare video clips from his years as a television talk show host, is currently running at the Triad Theatre in New York City.^[2]

Personal life[link]

He was briefly married to Canadian actress Linda Thorson; the couple have a son.

References[link]

External links[link]

• Bill Boggs at the Internet Movie Database
• Personal Website

Thom Hartmann
Thom Hartmann on set of his television program "The Big Picture".
Born	(1951-05-07) May 7, 1951 (age 61) Grand Rapids, Michigan, U.S.
Occupation	Radio/TV host, political commentator, author, former psychotherapist, former entrepreneur
Spouse	Louise Hartmann
Website
thomhartmann.com

Thom Hartmann (born May 7, 1951) is an American radio host, author, former psychotherapist and entrepreneur, and progressive political commentator. His nationally-syndicated radio show, The Thom Hartmann Program, airs in the United States and has 2.75 million listeners a week.^[1] In 2008, 2009, and 2010, Talkers Magazine named Hartmann the tenth most important talk show host in America,^[2] and number 8 in 2011 defining him as the most important liberal host for four years in a row (the ones above Hartmann are conservatives).

Hartmann's article "Talking Back To Talk Radio" became part of the original business plan of Air America Radio. He replaced Al Franken on the network on February 19, 2007. On March 1, 2009, Hartmann moved syndication of his show from Air America to the former Jones Network, now owned by Dial Global (which also syndicates Neal Boortz, Ed Schultz, Michael Smerconish, Bill Press, Stephanie Miller, and Clark Howard). In the summer of 2009, his program began to also be offered to nonprofit stations via the Pacifica Radio network, and some community/nonprofit stations in the US are also carrying his show. The radio program is also simulcast as a TV program by Free Speech TV^[3] on Dish Network and DirecTV. Additionally, he stars in a one-hour daily TV show which his production company records at the studios of and licenses to the RT news network, The Big Picture; that TV show is also syndicated by Free Speech TV and carried on both Dish Network and local cable TV stations.

Hartmann is a lay scholar of the history and textual analysis of the United States Constitution; attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD); Thomas Jefferson; the Assassination of John F. Kennedy; the Federalist Papers; electronic voting rigging; and environmental issues like global warming. He has authored many books on political topics and ADHD. He is the inventor of the Hunter vs. farmer theory of the condition.

Early life[link]

Hartmann was born in Grand Rapids, Michigan, the son of a staunch conservative Republican, atheist father and a Christian mother,^[4] and grew up in nearby Lansing. His paternal grandparents were from Norway.^[5] Interested in politics from a young age, he campaigned for Barry Goldwater during the 1964 presidential election when he was 13.^[6] By 1968, Hartmann was studying at Michigan State University and working as a part-time news announcer at local country music station WITL while protesting the Vietnam War with Students for a Democratic Society (SDS).^[7]

Beliefs[link]

Hartmann is considered to have progressive/liberal politics (although he describes himself as part of the radical middle).^[8] He is the author of numerous books including Unequal Protection: The Rise of Corporate Dominance and the Theft of Human Rights, in which he argues that the 1886 U.S. Supreme Court decision in Santa Clara County v. Southern Pacific Railroad Company (118 U.S. 394) did not actually grant corporate personhood, and that this doctrine derives from a mistaken interpretation of a Supreme Court clerk's notes. Hartmann considers this a clear contradiction of the intent of the Founding Fathers of the United States.^[9] He has also written on the separation of church and state, drawing upon the Federalist Papers to argue that the Founding Fathers warned against the notion of the United States being a Christian nation. He contends that the 2000 American election and 2004 American election were stolen through electronic tampering, denial of the voting franchise by rigged voting lists, and limiting availability of voting machines in selected precincts. He also accuses the Bush administration of eroding democracy and individual freedoms.

Hartmann is also a vocal critic of the effects of neoliberal globalization on the U.S. economy, claiming that economic policies enacted during and since the presidency of Ronald Reagan have led, in large part, to many American industrial enterprises' being acquired by multinational firms based in overseas countries, leading in many cases to manufacturing jobs' – once considered a major foundation of the U.S. economy – being relocated to countries in Asia and other areas where the costs of labor are lower than in the U.S.; and the concurrent reversal of the United States' traditional role of a leading exporter of finished manufactured goods to that of a primary importer of finished manufactured goods (exemplified by massive trade deficits with countries such as China). Hartmann argues that this phenomenon is leading to the erosion of the American middle class, whose survival Hartmann deems critical to the survival of American democracy. This argument is expressed in Hartmann's 2006 book, Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class and What We Can Do About It. One of the book's main arguments is that media deregulation leads to corporate media's shifting the American consensus towards the acceptance of privatization and massive corporate profits – which causes the shrinking of the middle class.

In the book Ultimate Sacrifice, he and co-author Lamar Waldron argue that President John F. Kennedy's assassination resulted from a conspiracy by two mafia godfathers (Carlos Marcello and Santo Trafficante, Jr.) who took advantage of a proposed 1963 USA-sponsored coup (against Cuba's Fidel Castro) to kill the President and then hide their tracks in the resulting cover-up of the top-secret coup plans. Gore Vidal, in his recent autobiography "Point To Point Navigation" devotes much of the final two chapters of his book to praising Hartmann's and Lamar Waldron's scholarship in "solving" the JFK case (JFK was a friend of Vidal's).

Talk radio career[link]

Thom Hartmann doing his radio show, the Thom Hartmann Program.

Hartmann started in radio as a DJ (country, rock, progressive overnight) in 1968 in Lansing, Michigan, (on WITL, WVIC, WFMK) and program director at WNBY and worked full or part-time in radio while also attending school and/or running businesses in Michigan for a decade. He returned to radio in February 2003 with a show on a local station in Vermont, then a month later picked up the noon-3 PM ET slot on the i.e. America Radio Network and Sirius Satellite Radio. In 2005, he moved from Vermont to Oregon and, in addition to continuing his national show, also co-hosted a local talk show in Portland, Oregon (with Carl Wolfson, the late Heidi Tauber, and later Christine Alexander), from 2005 until early 2007 on KPOJ, initially an affiliate of Air America Radio owned by Clear Channel Communications. The KPOJ local morning 6 – 9 AM PT is now hosted by Carl Wolfson. In late 2010 Hartmann moved his show from Portland to Washington D.C.^{[citation needed]}

Hartmann's national program, on the air since 2003 and now in the 3PM to 6PM ET daypart, was chosen by Air America to replace Al Franken on most Air America affiliates in 2007.^[10] Some stations, such as The Quake in San Francisco, had already dropped or moved Franken for Hartmann, who now is, according to Talkers Magazine, America's most important liberal talker. As of March 2012, the show was carried on 81 terrestrial radio stations in 34 states as well as on Sirius and XM satellite radio. A community radio station in Africa, Radio Builsa in Ghana, also broadcasts the show. Various local cable TV networks simulcast the program.

According to his syndicator Dial Global, more people listen to Hartmann's show on more stations than any other progressive talk show in America. The Thom Hartmann Show is estimated by industry magazine Talkers to have 2.75 million unique listers per week. In addition to Dial Global, a subsidiary of Triton Media Group, the show is now also offered via Pacifica Audioport to non-profit stations in a non-profit compliant format and is simulcast on Dish Network Channel 9415 via Free Speech TV Network.

Many guests appear on the show purporting points of view on diverse social and political topics. Some guests proffer progressive views similar to Hartmann's, but more than half are conservatives, libertarians, or Ayn Rand Institute members^[11] who espouse opposing views. A vigorous debate with the host usually ensues. There are four regular guests on the program, and they are sympathetic to Hartmann's political views. Sen. Bernie Sanders (Ind.-VT) appears every Friday during the first hour of the show titled "Brunch with Bernie". Ellen Ratner of the Talk Radio News Service provides Washington commentary daily. Victoria Jones who is the White House correspondent for Talk Radio News Service appears occasionally as does Dr. Ravi Batra an economics professor at SMU.

Like all talk radio shows, The Thom Hartmann Program takes calls from listeners. When callers asked Thom how he was, he used to reply, "I'm great, but I'll get better." But after a time callers would regularly try to elicit this response so he's stopped replying this way routinely. Hartmann ends each show with the phrase, "Activism begins with you, democracy begins with you. Get out there, get active! Tag, you're it!"

TV program[link]

Hartmann produces a one hour daily TV show, The Big Picture with Thom Hartmann, which is seen worldwide on the Russian-based RT news channel, as well as on Free Speech TV; through Free Speech TV it is also seen on selected local-origination and Public-access television cable TV channels.

Business career[link]

Hartmann began his business career in the early 1970s while in his 20s, co-founding The Woodley Herber Company. Woodley Herber sold herbal products, potpourris and teas, and operated until 1978. It was during this time that Hartmann obtained three degrees in herbology and homeopathic medicine, one of which was from a diploma mill. Thereafter Hartmann moved to New Hampshire to begin The New England Salem Children's Village,^[12] which still operates in Rumney, New Hampshire. He was Executive Director of NESCT for five years, and on its board for over 25 years. NESCT's child-care model was based on that of the German Salem International organization, and through his affiliation with that group he helped start international relief programs in Uganda, Colombia, Russia, Israel, India, Australia, and several other countries between 1979 and today.

Hartmann founded International Wholesale Travel and its retail subsidiary Sprayberry Travel in Atlanta in 1983, a business which in the intervening years^{[clarification needed]} has generated over a quarter of a billion dollars in revenue.^{[citation needed]} According to their website, Sprayberry Travel was lauded by the Wall Street Journal in 1984 for being one of the early adopters of frequent travel programs analogous to the recently initiated frequent flyer programs of the airline industry.^[13] He sold his share in the business in 1986 and retired with his family to Germany to work with the international relief organization Salem International.^[14] In the late 1970s, he had been a trainer in advertising and marketing for The American Marketing Centers (now defunct), and in 1987 after returning from Germany founded the Atlanta advertising agency Chandler, MacDonald, Stout, Schneiderman & Poe, Inc., which did business as The Newsletter Factory.^[15] He sold his interest in that company in 1996 and retired to Vermont.

Other areas of notability[link]

Hartmann is a writer who has published more than twenty books on diverse topics. The title which won the most critical acclaim is The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. In 1999 he was invited by the Dalai Lama to spend a week in Dharamsala after the Dalai Lama finished reading this book. Hartmann won the Project Censored Award in 2004 for Unequal Protection. As a result of a book on spirituality, The Prophet's Way, he was invited in 1998 to meet Pope John Paul II.

Trained in the 1970s in Neuro-Linguistic Programming by Richard Bandler (Hartmann is licensed by Bandler's Society of NLP as both an NLP Practitioner and an NLP Trainer, and Bandler wrote the foreword to his book "Healing ADD"), Hartmann popularized some of its concepts in Cracking the Code (2007), which argues that Newt Gingrich and Frank Luntz made use of them in the 1980s and 1990s for Republican Party causes and advocates using them to advance liberalism. His book "Healing ADD" also leans heavily on NLP techniques. His book on the JFK Assassination (written with Lamar Waldron) titled "Ultimate Sacrifice" is cited extensively in the last two chapters of Gore Vidal's recent autobiography as having "finally solved" that case.

Hartmann was one of several contributors to Air America, the Playbook, a 300 plus page collection of essays, transcripts, and interviews by liberal radio personalities. It was published shortly before the 2006 Congressional elections and was on The New York Times Best Seller list for October 8, 2006.^[16]

Leonardo DiCaprio made a web movie titled "Global Warning" that was inspired by The Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Hartmann appears in DiCaprio's 2007 documentary The 11th Hour, as well as the feature documentary film Dalai Lama Renaissance (with Harrison Ford), and Crude Impact.

Attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder[link]

Hartmann has authored in the area of attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD) and adult attention-deficit disorder (AADD) and is the creator (first proposed by him in 1978, first published nationally in 1992) of the now well-known hunter vs. farmer theory that ADD is an expected evolutionary adaptation to hunting lifestyles. These individuals have the ability of rapidly shifting their focus and external attention and of holding multiple trains of thought. This ability causes difficulties when they must live and work in cultures in which "farming" – well-planned, predictable, organized and repetitive behaviors – is typical. His first book on the disorder, Attention Deficit Disorder: a Different Perception was described by Scientific American as "innovative and fresh".^[17] Hartmann has established specialized schools^[quantify] for children with ADHD, such as The Hunter School in Rumney, New Hampshire,^[18] which he co-founded with his wife Louise.

He also operated the "ADD Forum" and "DeskTop Publishing Forum", along with several others, on CompuServe.^[19]

Bibliography[link]

• 2011: Rebooting the American Dream: 11 Ways to Rebuild Our Country. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 978-1-60509-706-0. 
• 2010 (second edition): Unequal Protection: How Corporations Became "People" – And How You Can Fight Back. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 1-60509-559-1. 
• 2009: Threshold: The Crisis of Western Culture. Viking. ISBN 0-670-02091-5. 
• 2008: Legacy of Secrecy: The Long Shadow of the JFK Assassination (by Lamar Waldron with Thom Hartmann). Counterpoint. ISBN 1-58243-535-9. 
• 2007: Cracking The Code: How to Win Hearts, Change Minds, and Restore America's Original Vision. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 978-1-57675-458-0. 
• 2006: Screwed: The Undeclared War Against The Middle Class and What We Can Do About It. Berrett-Koehler. ISBN 1-57675-414-6. 
• 2006: Walking Your Blues Away: Practical Bilateral Therapies for Healing the Mind and Optimizing Emotional Well-Being. Park Street Press. ISBN 1-59477-144-8. 
• 2005: Ultimate Sacrifice: John and Robert Kennedy, the Plan for a Coup in Cuba, and the Murder of JFK. Carroll & Graf. ISBN 0-7867-1441-7.  by Lamar Waldron, with Thom Hartmann
• 2004: What Would Jefferson Do?. Harmony Books. ISBN 1-882109-38-4. 
• 2004: We the People: A Call to Take Back America. Coreway Media, Inc.. ISBN 1-4000-5208-4. 
• 2004 (revised ed.): Unequal Protection. Rodale Books. ISBN 1-57954-955-1. 
• 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1998): The Prophet's Way. Park Street Press. ISBN 0-89281-198-6. 
• 2004 (revised ed. – first ed. 1997): Last Hours of Ancient Sunlight. Three Rivers Press. ISBN 1-4000-5157-6. 
• 2003: The Edison Gene. Park Street Press. ISBN 0-89281-128-5. 
• 2000: Thom Hartmann's Complete Guide to ADHD: Help for Your Family at Home, School and Work. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-52-0. 
• 2000: The Greatest Spiritual Secret of the Century. Hampton Roads. ISBN 1-57174-166-6. 
• 1998: Healing ADD. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-37-7. 
• 1996: Beyond ADD. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-12-1. 
• 1996: Think Fast!. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-08-3.  by Thom Hartmann and Jane Bowman, with Susan Burgess
• 1995: ADD Success Stories. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-03-2. 
• 1994: Focus Your Energy: Hunting for Success in Business. Pocket Books. ISBN 0-671-51689-2. 
• 1994: ADHD Secrets of Success: Coaching Yourself to Fulfillment in the Business World. Select Books. ISBN 1-59079-017-0. 
• 1992 (first edition): ADD: A Different Perception. Underwood Books. ISBN 1-887424-14-8. 

References[link]

External links[link]

• ThomHartmann.com Official site. Includes information on and streaming of the radio and TV shows, essays, chatroom, and a discussion board.
• Past episodes of The Big Picture on YouTube
• Various video clips at BigPicture.tv Hartmann speaking on various topics.
• Screwed: The Undeclared War Against the Middle Class and What We Can Do About It, Hartmann talks about his book in a video at Fora TV.
• Thom Hartmann with the Dalai Lama Videos made during the filming of the documentary Dalai Lama Renaissance.
• "When Democracy Fails" Podcast on Google Video.
• C-SPAN Q&A interview with Hartmann, February 7, 2010

Dick Cheney
46th Vice President of the United States
In office January 20, 2001 – January 20, 2009
President	George W. Bush
Preceded by	Al Gore
Succeeded by	Joe Biden
17th United States Secretary of Defense
In office March 20, 1989 – January 20, 1993
President	George H. W. Bush
Deputy	Donald J. Atwood, Jr.
Preceded by	Frank Carlucci
Succeeded by	Les Aspin
15th House Minority Whip
In office January 3, 1989 – March 20, 1989
Leader	Robert H. Michel
Preceded by	Trent Lott
Succeeded by	Newt Gingrich
Member of the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming's At-large district
In office January 3, 1979 – March 20, 1989
Preceded by	Teno Roncalio
Succeeded by	Craig L. Thomas
7th White House Chief of Staff
In office November 21, 1975 – January 20, 1977
President	Gerald Ford
Preceded by	Donald Rumsfeld
Succeeded by	Hamilton Jordan
Personal details
Born	Richard Bruce Cheney (1941-01-30) January 30, 1941 (age 71) Lincoln, Nebraska, U.S.
Political party	Republican
Spouse(s)	Lynne Cheney (m. 1964–present)
Children	Elizabeth Cheney Mary Cheney
Residence	McLean, Virginia Jackson, Wyoming
Alma mater	Yale University University of Wyoming (BA, MA) University of Wisconsin-Madison
Profession	Politician Businessman
Religion	Methodist
Signature

Richard Bruce "Dick" Cheney^[1] (born January 30, 1941) served as the 46th Vice President of the United States (2001–2009), under George W. Bush.

Born in Lincoln, Nebraska, Cheney was primarily raised in Sumner, Nebraska, and Casper, Wyoming.^[2] He began his political career as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger, eventually working his way into the White House during the Nixon and Ford administrations, where he served the latter as White House Chief of Staff. In 1978, Cheney was elected to the U.S. House of Representatives from Wyoming; he was reelected five times, eventually becoming House Minority Whip. Cheney was selected to be the Secretary of Defense during the presidency of George H. W. Bush, holding the position for the majority of Bush's term. During this time, Cheney oversaw the 1991 Operation Desert Storm, among other actions.

Out of office during the Clinton presidency, Cheney was chairman and CEO of Halliburton Company from 1995 to 2000.

Early life and education[link]

Cheney was born in Lincoln, Nebraska, the son of Marjorie Lorraine (née Dickey) and Richard Herbert Cheney. He is of predominantly English, as well as Welsh, Irish, and French Huguenot, ancestry; Cheney's 8th great-grandfather, William Cheney, immigrated from England to Massachusetts in the 17th century.^[3][4][5] Although not a direct descendant, he is collaterally related to Benjamin Pierce Cheney (1815–1895), the early American expressman. Cheney is a very distant cousin of both Harry S. Truman and Barack Obama; the three share a common ancestor in Mareen Duvall, a Huguenot who fled from France to England in the 17th century and later settled in Maryland.^[6] His father was a soil conservation agent for the U.S. Department of Agriculture and his mother was a softball star in the 1930s;^[7] Cheney was one of three children.

He attended Calvert Elementary School^[8][9] before his family moved to Casper, Wyoming,^[10] where he attended Natrona County High School.

He attended Yale University, but by his own account had problems adjusting to the college, and flunked out twice.^[11] Among the influential teachers from his days in New Haven was Professor H. Bradford Westerfield, whom Cheney repeatedly credited with having helped to shape his approach to foreign policy.^[12] He later attended the University of Wyoming, where he earned both a Bachelor of Arts and a Master of Arts in political science. He subsequently started, but did not finish, doctoral studies at the University of Wisconsin–Madison.^[13]

In November 1962, at the age of 21, Cheney was convicted of driving while intoxicated (DWI). He was arrested for DWI again the following year.^[14] Cheney said that the arrests made him "think about where I was and where I was headed. I was headed down a bad road if I continued on that course."^[15]

In 1964, he married Lynne Vincent, his high school sweetheart, whom he had met at age 14.

When Cheney became eligible for the draft, during the Vietnam War, he applied for and received five draft deferments.^[16][17] In 1989, The Washington Post writer George C. Wilson interviewed Cheney as the next Secretary of Defense; when asked about his deferments, Cheney reportedly said, "I had other priorities in the '60s than military service."^[18] Cheney testified during his confirmation hearings in 1989 that he received deferments to finish a college career that lasted six years rather than four, owing to sub-par academic performance and the need to work to pay for his education. Initially, he was not called up because the Selective Service System was only taking older men. When he became eligible for the draft, he applied for four deferments in sequence. He applied for his fifth exemption on January 19, 1966, when his wife was about 10 weeks pregnant. He was granted 3-A status, the "hardship" exemption, which excluded men with children or dependent parents. In January 1967, Cheney turned 26 and was no longer eligible for the draft.^[19]

Early White House appointments[link]

White House Chief of Staff Donald Rumsfeld (left) and his assistant Cheney (right) meet with President Gerald Ford at the White House, April 1975

Cheney's political career began in 1969, as an intern for Congressman William A. Steiger during the Richard Nixon Administration. He then joined the staff of Donald Rumsfeld, who was then Director of the Office of Economic Opportunity from 1969–70.^[14] He held several positions in the years that followed: White House Staff Assistant in 1971, Assistant Director of the Cost of Living Council from 1971–73, and Deputy Assistant to the president from 1974–1975. As deputy assistant, Cheney suggested several options in a memo to Rumsfeld, including use of the US Justice Department, that the Ford administration could use to limit damage from an article, published by The New York Times, in which investigative reporter Seymour Hersh reported that Navy submarines had tapped into Soviet undersea communications as part of a highly classified program, Operation Ivy Bells.^[20][21]

Cheney was Assistant to the President under Gerald Ford. When Rumsfeld was named Secretary of Defense, Cheney became White House Chief of Staff, succeeding Rumsfeld.^[14] He later was campaign manager for Ford's 1976 presidential campaign.^[22]

U.S. House of Representatives[link]

Elections[link]

In 1978, Cheney was elected to represent Wyoming in the U.S. House of Representatives and succeed retiring Congressman Teno Roncalio, having defeated his Democratic opponent, Bill Bailey. Cheney was re-elected five times, serving until 1989.

Tenure[link]

Leadership

In 1987, he was elected Chairman of the House Republican Conference. The following year, he was elected House Minority Whip.^[23][23] He served for two and a half months before he was appointed Secretary of Defense instead of former U.S. Senator John G. Tower, whose nomination had been rejected by the U.S. Senate in March 1989.^[24]

Votes

Cheney meets with President Ronald Reagan, 1983

He voted against the creation of the U.S. Department of Education, citing his concern over budget deficits and expansion of the federal government, and claiming that the Department was an encroachment on states' rights.^[25] He voted against funding Head Start, but reversed his position in 2000.^[26]

Cheney supported Bob Michel’s (R-IL) bid to become Republican Minority Leader.^[27] In April 1980, Cheney endorsed Governor Ronald Reagan for President, becoming one of Reagan's earliest supporters.^[28]

In 1986, after President Ronald Reagan vetoed a bill to impose economic sanctions on South Africa for its policy of apartheid, Cheney was one of 83 Representatives to vote against overriding Reagan's veto.^[29] In later years, he articulated his opposition to unilateral sanctions against many different countries, stating "they almost never work"^[30] and that in that case they might have ended up hurting the people instead.^[31]