Standing before U.S. District Judge William Bryant in Washington last week, Watergate Defendant Herbert Porter, 36, made a solemn promise: "1 am absolutely positive in my heart, down to my toes, that I will never get into trouble again." The judge presumably believed him. Porter received the lightest sentence handed out to a Watergate conspirator: 30 days in jail. But then, Porter had participated in only a minor way in the Watergate coverup.
When questioned about the disposition of $31,000 in campaign funds, he told the FBI that it had been paid to conservative students to infiltrate radical organizations and find out about their plans for anti-Nixon activities. As scheduling director of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President, he was aware that the money actually had been transferred to G. Gordon Liddy for dirty tricks, including the Watergate breakin. Strictly speaking, Porter had not committed perjury because he was not under oath, but he broke the law by lying to a federal agency in the course of an investigation. Porter thus becomes the 17th defendant to be convicted in the Watergate and related campaign scandals. There are likely to be still more convictions as the court calendars are filled in. Fourteen defendants are scheduled to go on trial, some for the second time, between May and September.