Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal - 50th Anniversary Program with John Dean
Press Release · Thursday, May 19, 2022

Washington, DC

On Wednesday, June 1, at 7 p.m. ET, the National Archives marks the 50th anniversary of the Watergate break-in with an in-person screening and discussion of the premiere episode of the new CNN original series Watergate: Blueprint for Scandal. Conversation to follow with special guest John Dean, former Nixon White House Counsel.

This special event marks the first live event/return to in-person programming since March 2020. The program is free and open to the public and will be held in the William G. McGowan Theater of the National Archives Museum in Washington, DC. Presented in partnership with CNN Original Series.

Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal (CNN Original Series) examines the Watergate affair and the anatomy of the infamous break-in that started it all—this time told firsthand by John Dean, former White House Counsel to President Richard Nixon. Featuring rich archival footage and interviews with key insiders who had a front row seat to the biggest Presidential scandal of the 20th century, Watergate: Blueprint for a Scandal questions if America has learned anything since Watergate, or if we, as a nation, are destined to repeat the past. 

John Dean served as Counsel to President Richard Nixon from July 1970 to April 1973. Previously he was the chief minority counsel to the House Judiciary Committee, an associate director of a law reform commission, and an associate deputy attorney general at the Justice Department. He’s written three books about his Nixon White House and Watergate experiences: Blind Ambition (1976), Lost Honor (1982) and The Nixon Defense: What He Knew and When He Knew It (2014). He returned to writing and lecturing after a long business career and is now a CNN contributor. Using his experience as a case study, he teaches The Watergate CLE, a continuing legal education series that explores a lawyer's ethical obligations when confronted with organizational crime or fraud.

Attendees should use the Special Events entrance on Constitution Avenue at 7th Street, NW.  Metro accessible on the Yellow and Green lines, Archives/Navy Memorial/Penn Quarter station. Reservations are recommended and can be made online. For those without reservations, seating is on a first-come, first-served basis. The theater doors will open 45 minutes prior to the start of the program. Late seating will not be permitted 20 minutes after the program begins.