Sunday, January 16, 1977
THE MICHIGAN DAILY
Page Five
Sunday, January 16, 1977 THE MICHIGAN DAILY Page Five
SUNDAY MAGAZINE
BOOKS
The'
BLIND AMBITION, by John
Dean. New York: Simon and
Schuster, 415 pp. $11.95
By JEFF RISTINE
W HAT WOULD h a v e hap-
pened, had there been no
John Dean?
Questions of that nature have
been tossed around a lot in the
last four years, almost as if it
were luck that saw the United
States through the national
trauma called Watergate. What
would have happened if there
were no White House tapes?
What would have happened if
the burglars made it out of the
Democratic National Committee
headquarters safely that night?
What if Ben Bradlee had asisgn-
ed the story of the "caper" to
the Washington Post's summer
intern?
The answers, expressed in
jokes, shudders and serious po-'
litical commentaries, are al-
ways the same. They depict a
lonely, paranoid and ruthless
figure sitting behind a huge
desk in the Oval Office, smiling
because he and his men got
away with it, laughing at the
prospect of repealing the Bill of
Rights.
Watergate has given us plenty
of cause for cynicism toward
the men who lead our nation,
but not so much that John Dean
can be considered the product
of luck. As his book Blind
Ambition makes clear, Dean
might be thought of instead as
the driver of a car who con-
stantly comes to critical forks in
the road-call it, the road to
Jeff Ristine is managing edi-
tor of the Daily.
bind
Richard Nixon's fate, if you
want to be corny-and must
make continual decisions which
affect not only his own destiny
but that of virtually everyone
around him. The inevitable con-
clusion is that too many
'"wrong" turns on these forks
would have given us the now
unthinkable-29 more months of
President Nixon.
Dean has written an absorbing
acount of those forks he en-
countered as counsel to the
President, how he decided to
deal with them and what his
decisions meant for the rest of
us.-Blind Ambition suceeds be-
cause its author was firmly
committed to disclosing the
truth about the culpability of
the President, his palace guard
and their aides, his Cabinet
members and, of course, his
counsel in the Watergate break-
in and its ensuing cover-up.
THE BOOK'S primary value
lies in its rich detail. Dean
has applied his computer mem-
ory to give color and life to
dozens of familiar episodes, in-
cluding many of the infamous
White House conversations that
until now existed only in dry
transcript form. Dean takes us
inside his mind under the hot
klieg lights of the Senate Cau-
cus Room in the summer of
1973; to Camp David where he l
fruitlessly attempted to follow
orders to contain the Watergate
cancer with a less-than-truthful
"Dean Report"; in the offices
of prosecutors so obtuse they
had to be told by Dean's flam-
boyant lawyer how valuableI
their witness was; and in jailj
at Fort Holabird, Maryland, as
he rubbed elbows with formerI
leading the arnbitious
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comrades Jeb Magruder and
Charles Colson as well as a cast
of Mafia hit men.
For Dean, it wasn't just a
matter of deciding to tell the
truth. First he was forced to
acknowledge and abandon his
lust for upward mobility, pres-
tige and praise at the White
House. "Deep down, I knew I
was a m e e k, favor-currying
staff man, not hardboiled
enough to play the game I had
watched Ehrlichman and Mit-
chell play," he writes. "T h e
same mental predilections that
had propelled me to the White
House and into a leading role in
the cover-up now made it im-
possible for my mind, to ignore
the grave weaknesses of our
position." But in the end it was
fear, not courage, that drove
Dean to bring the stonewalls of
the Watergate cover-up crum-
bling down. For all his honesty
and his role in bringing Nixon's
corrupt career to an end, Dean
is still a difficult man to admire
or respect.
But a squealer is unwilling to
take any rap alone. Hardly any-
one, including his wife "Mo,"
enjoys a favorable image in this
book. Press Secretary Ron Zieg-
ler is listed in a famous hooker's
address book. CBS Reporter
Daniel Schorr is a liar. Senator
Howard Baker is a flunkey for
the White House. Gerald Ford
"might have some problems" if
there were an inquiry into cam-
paign contributions.
And Richard Nixon? As he
was in The Final Days, Nixon.isI
a sympathetic and comic figure
at points in Blind Ambition,
struggling to remove the cap
from a pen, hurriedly staging a
phony discussion on "budget
priorities" with Dean so that a
group of college newspaper edi-
tors visiting the White House
would see the President work-
ing with someone he thought
looked. "hippie." "He would
have bursts of lucidity and logi-
cal thinking," Dean says later,!
"but mostly he was rambling
and forgetful, and as I grew
used to talking with him I
nursed the heretical notion that
the President didn't seem very3
smart."
Womanwork'77
an exhibit of Michigan
Women Artists
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Join uh WEDNESDAY, JAN. 19
when the U-M Jewish community
brings you another
GRAD HAPPY HOUR
Popular Mixed Drinks 50c
Cheese and snacks-free
Everyone is Welcome
1429 HILL STREET
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Where would we be without John Dean?
Sunday. ay Discussions
An opportunity for discussion on ques-
tions of personal meaning. A brief
presentation on a different topic each
Sunday afternoon at 3, followed by dis-
cussion and a social hour.
JANUARY 16: THE NATURE OF LOVE
Marry Me: What
happens to, love?
Dean almost seems to be tell-.
ing us, in fact, that Watergate!
can be blamed at least in part
on the goals of roughly a dozen'
men who unfortunately weren'ta
very smart. They lacked the in-
telligence to appreciate the na-!
tion's laws, they were too dumb
to cope with defeat, too inept to
halt their disastrous cover-up,
until one bright man did it for
them.
In painting that style of pic-
ture, even as only a partial ex-
planation of Watergate, Blind
Ambition leaves us with that
chilling question:
What would have happened
had there been no John Dean?
THE COLLABORATIVE
Winter Art and Craft Classes
BATIK
Chinese Brush Painting
Contemporary Quilting
Design with Natural Material
Drawing
Jewelry
Leaded Glass
Macrame and Fiber Baskets
Native American Design
_ ...._ .
-- - w r
I
JANUARY 23:
JANUARY 30:
ANDROGNY-TH.E
INTEGRATION OF,
FEMININE AND
MASCULINE PRINCIPLES
GAYNESS AND
ISOLATIONISM
MARRY ME, by John Up-
dike. Knopf: New York, 303
pp., $7.95.
By DAVID KOSS
T M WORD "adultery" has a
funny ring to it. One hears'
the Ten Commandments being
invoked, or, Csee Hester Prynne'
with a scarlet 'A' sewn to her
dress, her daughter at her side.
"Extra-marital affair" doesn't
sound right, either; it's too clin-
ical, too antiseptic. Bnt no mat-
ter what you call it, it's a com-
mon occurence in modern life
and John Updike, in his novel
Marry Me, focuses on virtually
nothing else. A concise, unpre-
tentious novel, it examines
clearly and realistically what
happens to a man and woman
who love each other while mar-
ried t6 others.
Marry Me is not an elaborate
novel by any means. The four
characters - Jerry, Sally, Ruth
and Richard - dominate the
novel, and do so to the exclusion
of any other characters. The
theme is adultery among con-
temporary Americans and what
it does to them emotionally and
what it might mean for. them
philosophically. And within that
framework, the novel is a suc-
cess.
Jerry Conant is a frustrated
cartoonist t n r n e d advertising
agency artist. Sally Mathias is
a sexy blonde neighbor of his in
1962 Connecticut. Both are mar-
ried, thirtyish, and have kids.
When they commence an affair
of their own, neither knows
that their respective spouses
oncehad an affair of their own,
but broke it off some time ago.
So the summer of '62 drags on,
with Jerry finally telling his
wife "I think I'm in love"-and
not with her. Nevertheless, he
stays with his wife and leaves
us to wonder whether he does
so out of cowardice or out of
love. If it's out of cowardice, is
that necessarily more moral,
more right than leaving?
Marry Me is not set in 1962
accidentally. Reading the novel
we remember that time as be-
ing the era of John Kennedy
and Camelot, and Updike wants'
us to think of it as "the twilight
of the old morality." Whether
he's right is not important. He
succeeds in making us think
about those things. And, finally,
we think about the dream of
ideal love, a love that the reali-
ties of life make impossible
for Jerry and Sally to have, but
a love Jerry can imagine.
ASIAN M~ARTIAL ARTSrUDto'
217' Fi. Wr V41 4woN * ANN ?ARBOR- IAle IfyCN
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David Koss is an English
major at the University.1H
AIKWQO
MARTIAL ART OF SELF DEFENSE
DEMONSTRATION BY
TAKASHI KUSHIDA, 7th don
CHIEF INSTRUCTOR, NORTH AMERICA
TUESDAY, January 18-5:00 p.m.
I.M. BUILDING WRESTLING ROOM
Call Tom O'Bryan, 994-5533 for information
WHAT IS AIKIDO?
The word- Aikido comes from a combination of the three
JAdpanese worssmeaning 'Harmony," "Mind, and "way." It
is then, a way of harmony of the mind and as this explanation
would indicate it is a study which is? as deep as the student
has time or patience to pursue, because it involves a study of
the mind and the working of the human body with all its
weakness, and yet with all its strength.
THE STRENGTH?
The first thing which the student is taught is the fact that
in understanding an opponent, and in fact subduing him, no
force or brute strength is necessary. The strength used, if
any, is tht strength of the opponent-not your own, and his
body is led by the way of the lines of least resist ance to a
point of no return-a point where he loses his balance and of
his own accord is rendered helpless or harmless.
THE ATTITUDE:#
The martial arts begin with gratitude and end withagratitude.
If there is an error at the important starting point, the marital
arts can become dangerous to others and merely brutal fight-
ing arts.
Civilization then ecomes a murderous weapon with which
one nation threatens another. AIKIDO strives truly to under-
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Gerry Peirce
You never seem to hear about the people who are
cured of cancer. I am one of them.
My cancer was discovered early. Because I went for a
PAP test regularly.
I want you to have a PAP test. Make an appointment
for one right now. And keep having the test regularly
for the rest of your life.
The rest of your life may be a lot longer if, you do.
I knew . Ih acancer and 1li;ed