Conservatives Without Conscience by John W. Dean Page B

have summarized: (1) Colson’s testimony that he had no knowledge regarding the recruitment of homosexuals to support McGovern, and the fact that his top aide Bill Rhatican contradicts this. (2) Colson’s claim that he never instructed Jack Caulfield to firebomb the Brookings Institution; rather, he claimed that Ehrlichman instructed him to have Caulfield obtain the Brookings documents. Ehrlichman denied giving Colson such an instruction. Caulfield and this author testified that not only did Colson give such instructions, but I had to fly to California to turn them off. (3) Colson denied discussing phony State Department cables with Howard Hunt, or having knowledge that Hunt had prepared such, that would have shown an involvement of the Kennedy administration in the assassination of South Vietnam leader Diem. Hunt contracted Colson’s denials, as did secretaries.(4) Colson’s own memorandum, obtained by the prosecutors, contradicted his testimony about whether Dan Ellsberg should be criminally prosecuted.(5) Evidence of Colson’s role in the break-in of the office of Dr. Fielding, Ellsberg’s psychiatrist, for which Colson would later be indicted. (6) Colson’s contradictory testimony about when he learned of the Ellsberg break-in. (7) Colson’s possible destruction of evidence, since he walked out of the White House with his files, returning only some of them after he left, with the omissions being conspicuous. The prosecutors believed “Colson mayhave sanitized his files.” (8) Evidence that Colson orchestrated a physical assault on Dan Ellsberg and others when they were demonstrating in May 1972. (9) The suspicion of the prosecutors that Colson had suborned perjury of several people.
    4. This $14 million figure was given in open court by an attorney for one of the insurance companies involved. We believe it is a conservative number, and, in fact, the actual amount may have exceeded $18 million. Not long after we filed our lawsuit, and had defeated the early motions to get the case dismissed, St. Martin’s general counsel, David Kaye, boasted to a group of attorneys at a bar association meeting that they were going to employ a scorched-earth spending policy—endless motions, depositions, etc.—that would make us regret having filed the suit, and force us to drop it. It is a very small world, for Kaye’s remarks got back to me within days of his making them. While we could not outspend an insurance company, we simply planned accordingly, husbanding and marshaling our resources, and making our own preemptive moves. One day I will write about this lawsuit, for I believe public figures—who find defamation law stacked against them—should hold others responsible for false and harmful statements.
    5. My Los Angeles attorneys (Doug Larson and John Garrick of Iverson, Yoakum, Papiano & Hatch) had cleared their calendars for a trial against Liddy back in Washington, and, in fact, we were packing up files and making plans to return to Washington, when the federal judge handling the case, U.S. District Court Judge Emmett Sullivan, forced a settlement with Liddy. That was fine by me, because it was not really fair to our lawyers, given that Liddy’s assets were hidden in his wife’s name; it would take years to unwind his affairs, and we wished his wife, Frances, no ill. More important, my Washington-based attorney, David Dorsen, was very interested in keeping Liddy busy for a few more years. David told me that he had offered to represent Maxie Wells (whose telephone had been wiretapped in 1972) in a lawsuit against Liddy, for Liddy was also defaming her based on Phillip Bailley’s fantasies, and she was ready to file an action. I told David we would assist in any way we could. But Liddy got lucky when Maxie sued him. The case landed with a federal judge in Maryland, where Liddy resided, who could not have been friendlier to him. The judge threw the case out, claiming Ms. Wells was a public figure, and that she could