Columnist Expected to Testify : Anderson to Be Called in Libel Suit by Van Deerlin

Syndicated columnist Jack Anderson is expected to take the stand today at the U.S. District Court in San Diego to face a libel suit stemming from a 1983 column he wrote saying that former San Diego Rep. Lionel Van Deerlin was one of several legislators accused of buying drugs from a Capitol Hill narcotics ring.

Opening arguments are scheduled to begin at 9 a.m. before Judge Leland C. Neilsen. Van Deerlin’s lawyer, Michael Aguirre, said he plans to call Anderson as his first witness.

According to a lawsuit filed two years ago, Anderson’s 1983 column, and another story written nine months before, knowingly, maliciously and falsely stated that Van Deerlin used cocaine and was a customer of a Capitol Hill cocaine ring.

Anderson wrote the story even though he knew that members of his staff “fed” some of the allegations to a police detective and Rep. Robert Dornan (R-Garden Grove), Aguirre charged in a brief for the case. “Thus, Anderson published columns to 40 million people accusing Van Deerlin of a crime knowing the allegation came from his own staff,” the brief said.

The trial pits Anderson, renowned for his investigative stories on Washington politics, against Van Deerlin, who represented San Diego’s 41st Congressional District for 18 years before he was upset by Duncan Hunter in 1980.

Attempts to settle the case out of court have been unsuccessful, a source close to the case said.

“I’ve waited more than two years for the chance to straighten this out,” Van Deerlin said Wednesday. “I’m glad to have the opportunity.”

Van Deerlin, who turns 71 today, began his working life as a newspaper reporter and now writes a twice-weekly column for the San Diego Tribune. His hair is graying and his skin tanned from tending 2 1/2 acres of avocados at his Vista ranch.

“When 40 million people read an article and only about 800 or 1,000 of them know you personally, well then that’s a real smear,” Van Deerlin said.

Anderson’s column implicating Van Deerlin was published in April, 1983, nine months after another column that said 15 congressmen were customers of the cocaine ring. Anderson said he waited nine months until the charges were reported to the House Ethics Committee and a federal grand jury before he named the legislators.

Both columns libeled Van Deerlin, the suit alleges.

The second column quoted a police “investigative document,” that reportedly said, “More than one source has indicated the following members of Congress may be using controlled substances purchased through (the) distribution organization.” The story went on to say that Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.), Van Deerlin and seven others had been been implicated to police by informants.

Charges were never pressed against Van Deerlin or any of the others.

“We have the uphill battle, but I think we are going to win,” said Aguirre, acknowledging that the burden of proof will be on Van Deerlin’s side. “We have to show that the articles were false and defamatory and that he (Anderson) stated these things knowing they were false or with a high degree of awareness of probable falsity.”

The young lawyer, once himself a San Diego congressional candidate, said the gist of the case is that “Anderson says that (Van Deerlin) is a cocaine user, and Van Deerlin says he is not.”

But Anderson’s lawyers argue in a brief to Neilsen that the story did not say that Van Deerlin used cocaine, but only that he had been named by informants.

“He (Van Deerlin) may prove that he did not purchase or use illicit drugs, but that is immaterial,” the brief states. “Anderson never said otherwise. The gist or sting of the alleged libel is simply that Van Deerlin had been named by informants to police investigators as a potential purchaser or user of drugs.”

Anderson and two reporters on his investigative team wrote the stories strictly from police and congressional reports, according to the brief.

Aguirre will attempt to prove that Anderson’s researchers instigated the story by feeding allegations about Van Deerlin to a police detective and Congressman Robert Dornan (R-Garden Grove), who in turn wrote reports based on the information.

“He (Anderson) has refused to retract the story when confronted by the evidence and continues to damage Van Deerlin every day he continues to maintain the story is true,” according to a brief filed on Van Deerlin’s behalf.

Anderson has been sued for libel several times but never lost a case. He told lawyers in a deposition that he is an expert in libel law.

“I expect him to be very formidable and very difficult to score points on when he is on the stand,” Aguirre said of Anderson.