Categories: Legal History Legal Profession

Instructor(s)

Tuerkheimer, Frank

Course Data

Pass/Fail: Yes

Course Description

This year marks the 40th anniversary of the Saturday Night Massacre, an historic event generally seen as a critical turning point in the viability of the Nixon Presidency. It is for that reason that we have asked John Dean to present the annual Kastenmeier Lecture, to be held at 4:00 pm on Friday, October 4, 2013.
The Watergate course is a one credit course is tied in to John Dean’s talk. John Dean was central in the conspiracy to obstruct justice which ultimately led to the resignation of the President, the only such event in U.S. history.

The course will meet for four two hour sessions in the period before the Dean lecture and one the week after the lecture. Naturally, attendance at the Dean lecture is required. The course is for one credit.

The basic reading for the course will consist of three books, Dean’s Blind Ambition, Woodward and Bernstein’s The Final Days and Ben-Veniste and Framton’s Stonewall: The Story Behind the Watergate Prosecution Some of these may not be readily available in bookstores but they are available through Amazon. Students may wish to begin the readings during the summer. These books tell a story and Dean’s book should be read before the Woodward and Bernstein book as the latter picks up the Watergate story approximately where Dean’s leaves off. Stonewall should be read last.

The course is taught by Frank Tuerkheimer who has been on the law faculty at Wisconsin since 1970 and presently is Emeritus Professor of Law. He is a Visiting Professor of Law at the New York Law School where he has taught Evidence each spring for the past five years. He was an Associate Special Prosecutor on the Watergate Special Prosecution Force from 1973 to 1975.

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