White House counsel John Dean ordered the Watergate break-in that ended up bringing down his own president, according to a new book on the political bungle of the century. Author James Rosen, Fox News Washington correspondent, said he reached that conclusion after extensive research for his book, The Strong Man: John Mitchell and the Secrets of Watergate. Dean dismissed the claim as "pathetic."
"I hope this book is being sold as fiction, for if it is not, readers are being defrauded," Dean told Reuters. (More Watergate stories.)