May 6, 1991:Silent CoupAllegations of Prostitution Rings Absolutely False, Dean Concludes

Former White House counsel John Dean, shocked by allegations that he was behind the Watergate burglary in an attempt to prove that Democrats were involved in a prostitution ring (see May 6, 1991), calls Hays Gorey, a reporter with Time magazine who co-authored a book with Dean’s wife Maureen about her experiences during Watergate. Gorey is shocked that Time is considering running an article on the allegations without conferring with him, as Gorey had anchored much of Time’s Watergate coverage at the time. Both he and Dean are stunned to see that Maureen Dean is accused of being connected to the so-called prostitution ring; Gorey calls the allegations complete fantasy. Gorey learns that Time has secured the rights to print portions of the not-yet-published book making the allegations, Silent Coup. Dean later writes that his wife finds the allegations “laughable,” and is completely certain that her former roommate, Heidi Rikan, never ran any prostitution ring, as the book alleges. She has no knowledge of an attorney named Philip Macklin Bailey, whom, the book’s authors claim, was connected to the supposed prostitution ring, and had her name as well as Dean’s in his address book. By the end of the day, the producers of CBS’s 60 Minutes have decided not to air a segment on the book, as neither the authors nor the book’s publisher can provide any proof of their allegations. Bailey is “unavailable” and the authors either cannot or will not provide any documentation to back up their claims. Time, however, still intends to publish an excerpt from the book and a review. Time’s editors ask Gorey to interview Dean for a sidebar article; by this point, Gorey has talked to numerous members of the Democratic National Committee (DNC) from 1972, and they all say that the allegation of the DNC either operating or patronizing a prostitution ring is absolute fiction. (One former DNC official tells Gorey that had the committee patronized such a ring, he would have been a regular customer.) Gorey loans Dean his advance copy of the book, and after skimming over it, Dean, writing in 2006, concludes that the book is “filled with false or misleading information. All the hard evidence (the information developed by government investigators and prosecutors) that conflicted with this invented story was simply omitted.” Dean and Gorey both wonder why St. Martin’s Press and Time believe they can publish such outlandish accusations without facing lawsuits. [Dean, 2006, pp. xvii-xviii]