Word: colsons
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Since the original Watergate break-in trial, only one defendant, Dwight Chapin, has been prosecuted all the way to a guilty verdict (he was convicted of perjury). Meanwhile, one by one, Frederick LaRue, Jeb Magruder, Donald Segretti, John Dean, Egil Krogh, Herbert Porter, Herbert Kalmbach, Richard Kleindienst and Charles Colson have all made bargains with the special prosecutor's office and pleaded guilty to reduced offenses. If nothing else, their pleas have raised doubts among both civil libertarians and law-and-order hardliners: Were the deals really necessary...
...good. But just how hard has Jaworski's office been bargaining? Both Krogh and Colson were apparently allowed to enter pleas without first telling the prosecutors what they know. Recalling the deals he made as a federal prosecutor, Columbia Law Professor Abraham Sofaer says, "I always made sure what the evidence was. The individual involved has to become an ally of the Government in all respects...
...hoped his testimony would help to hold down his own sentence; the jury consequently discounted most of what he said. Jaworski's office now seems to have decided that it is wiser to have sentences meted out before trying to use a bargained witness. So this week Colson will get his-as much as five years in prison plus up to a $5,000 fine...
Some of his ploys worked often enough to keep a newly reformed Chuck Colson repentant for a long time to come. Ironically, Colson had planned to leave the White House soon after Nixon's reelection to become "the Republican Clark Clifford" -the lawyer with the "in" at the White House to whom clients would flock. Now, at 42, he is just another Watergate felon awaiting sentence, disbarment and learning the virtues of softball...
Thus it is interesting that part of the force now pushing Richard Nixon against the wall is the voice of a religion that he so assiduously cultivated over the years. The remarkable conversion to Christ of Charles Colson is considered a cloud of unknown proportions over Nixon's presidency. After weeks of inner anguish and a night of prayer, Colson confessed to a Watergate crime with which he had not even been charged. According to his spiritual mentor, Senator Harold Hughes, he will now tell all the truth he knows...