America is about to be reintroduced to John Dean, the man whose cool, calm and controversial testimony in the Watergate investigation began the public demolition of President Richard Nixon.

As he spoke to the Senate's special investigating committee on June 25, 1973, Dean and his owlish glasses were imprinted on the national consciousness, his appearance carried live on all three TV networks and watched by tens of millions.

Dean had been the White House counsel when he had warned Nixon there was "a cancer growing on the presidency" that could prove fatal. Dean's diagnosis was based on his own involvement, and by turning against his boss, he was helping his prognosis come true as well.

Dean will be back on Capitol Hill Monday, called by the House Judiciary Committee, where he briefly worked as junior staffer for the Republican members more than 50 years ago.

That was before he worked for Nixon, and before the scandal that would send Dean to prison and create a lifetime of curious notoriety. Before the 1970s were over, Dean's memoir (Blind Ambition) had spawned a TV miniseries in which Dean was played by a young Martin Sheen.