July 12, 1991: Liddy Publicly Dares Dean to Sue overSilent Coup

To promote the book Silent Coup (see May 6, 1991 and May 9, 1991 and After), convicted Watergate burglar G. Gordon Liddy “calls out” fellow Watergate defendant John Dean on a Cleveland radio show. Liddy dares Dean, the former White House counsel, to file a lawsuit against the book, as Dean has threatened (see May 7, 1991). On the air, Liddy leaves a message on Dean’s home answering machine, saying: “You have promised to sue me and Len Colodny and Bob Gettlin [the authors of the book]. Let’s get this suit started, John. We want to get you on the stand, under oath, yet again (see June 25-29, 1973).… Come on, John, I’m publicly challenging you to make good on your promise to sue.” On the same message, radio host Merle Pollis makes a veiled sexual innuendo about Dean’s wife Maureen, who according to the book, was involved in a prostitution ring: “[T]his new book, however, reveals some things about Maureen that irk me. I didn’t want to think of her in that way, and it makes me very sad, and it also makes me feel, well, never mind.” Before Liddy goes off the air, he gives out Dean’s home phone number to Pollis’s radio audience, resulting in a storm of phone calls that drive Dean to disconnect the phone. Maureen Dean screams aloud when she plays back the message and hears Liddy’s voice. The Deans decide that they will indeed sue Liddy, the authors, and the publisher of the book, “but,” Dean will later write, “on our terms, not theirs.” Dean refuses to respond to Liddy’s baiting, and instead will “spend the next eight months collecting evidence and preparing the case.” [Dean, 2006, pp. xxiv-xxv]