Blind Ambition

The White House Years

By: John W. Dean

Narrated by: George Newbern

This New York Times best seller is an insider's account of the fall of Richard Nixon, and has remained an indispensable source into Nixon's presidency. Blind Ambition is an autobiographical account of a young lawyer who accelerated to the top of the Federal power structure to become Counsel to the President at 30 years of age, only to discover that when reaching the top, he had touched the bottom. Most striking in this chronicle is its honesty. Dean spares no one, including himself. But, as Time noted, Dean survived, despite the opposition of powerful foe, because he had no false story to protect and he had an amazing ability to recall the truth.

©1979 John Dean (P)2016 Dreamscape Media, LLC

Watergate Memoir

Required reading to understand what happened during the Watergate era. Dirty tricks were afoot back then, too.

Loved it

Answered a lot of my questions about Watergate. Narrator did a good job, especially in reading conversations between multiple people.

A Good Watergate Fix

I'm hooked on learning more about the Pentagon Papers and Daniel Ellsberg, listening on YouTube to John Dean's Watergate Hearings Testimony, and now that I'm finished with this book, I'm looking forward to reading his other book, The Nixon Defense.

[I'm also trying to weigh in on the Nixon Conspiracy, which is trying to cause its own conspiracy. As authors, I have not found Geoff Shepard as authoritative, knowledgeable or as well-written as John Dean. Seems like his goal is to punch holes in the Watergate story, which he hasn't done very convincingly, but he's entitled to his opinion.]

I was elated listening to the end of this book and was disappointed when it suddenly was over.
Gotta get my next Watergate fix!

Great book, unfortunate narration

Would you consider the audio edition of Blind Ambition to be better than the print version?

It's a great book, but unfortunately the narrator doesn't know how to pronounce the names of some of the principal characters - for instance, Judge John Sirica he pronounces as "CYR-i-cuh" rather than the proper "sur-IH-cuh". Gets very distracting.

Insightful Historical Window

Preoccupied, just getting my footing asvan adult, Watergate settled in my memory as a national tragedy. Names of key players were a jumble of familiar sounds and, oh, there are so many names. While listening, I found it helpful to pause and quickly search the Internet to learn a person's significance. The Reader's vocal variety made this production engaging and worthy of my investment.