Of all the assorted characters in the sordid Watergate cast, Charles Colson was widely viewed in Washington as the wiliest, the slickest operator and thus the least likely to be charged with a crime. So quick to deny any personal wrongdoing, so voluble in defending the innocence of the President, Colson often seemed to be protesting too much. Federal prosecutors apparently thought so too. TIME has learned that the former White House special counsel not only may be among the first former officials to be indicted by Special Prosecutor Archibald Cox's grand jury but that he is under investigation as the possible source of the White House pressure that kept the Watergate wiretapping plan alive until it was finally approved.
Fully Aware. When the indictment comes, possibly this week, it most likely will charge Colson with involvement in the burglary of the office of Dr. Lewis Fielding, the psychiatrist who had treated Daniel Ellsberg. But the federal prosecutors are determined to seek confirmation of their suspicions that Colson (who had arranged for the White House hiring of Plumber E. Howard Hunt and was close to Hunt's partner G. Gordon Liddy) was a power behind the Liddy-Hunt wiretapping.
Colson has admitted to investigators that he met with Hunt and Liddy in early 1972 to discuss a political-intelligence-gathering plan after the then Attorney General John Mitchell had twice rejected it. He has also admitted telephoning Jeb Stuart Magruder, then deputy director of Nixon's re-election committee, to urge that the plan be approved. But he claims that he did not know that the scheme involved illegal wiretapping of Democratic National Headquarters. The prosecutors are pursuing the possibility that Colson was fully aware of the nature of the project.
The evidence implicating Colson in the Fielding office burglary is more complete. Investigators have acquired the transcript of a telephone call between Hunt and Colson on July 1, 1971 (which Colson had secretly recorded), in which they discussed the need to "nail" Ellsberg. Hunt was hired by the White House as a consultant one week later. Hunt then wrote a memo to Colson detailing ways to injure Ellsberg's public reputation. It suggested gaining access to the psychiatrist's Ellsberg file. Colson reportedly relayed the memo to Egil Krogh and David Young, the White House plumbers assigned to plug news leaks, and urged its implementation. Finally, Colson has admitted raising the private funds (he says $2,000; other sources say $5,000) to finance the Hunt-Liddy trip to Fielding's office, although Colson insists that he did not know the money was to be used for that purpose.
Colson will be in familiar company when the Cox indictments are returned, since Krogh and the plumbers' supervisor, John Ehrlichman, are expected to be charged in connection with the Fielding raid. Young has been granted partial immunity. Krogh, Ehrlichman and Young were indicted on burglary charges by a local grand jury in Los Angeles. But Cox is expected to level a more serious charge, probably conspiracy to violate the civil rights of Ellsberg, and the California authorities will presumably allow the federal prosecution to take precedence.