Van Deerlin: Column Cast a ‘Pall’ on Family

Former San Diego Congressman Lionel Van Deerlin testified Friday that a newspaper column reporting charges that he used drugs cast such a “pall” over his family that his son questioned his innocence and his wife used an assumed name when she went to the beauty parlor.

“You can’t imagine how difficult it has been,” Van Deerlin testified during the second day of his libel trial in federal court against syndicated columnist Jack Anderson.

The 1983 column--written exactly “two years and three months” ago today, Van Deerlin recalled in court--appeared in Anderson’s “Washington Merry-Go-Round.” It said that Van Deerlin was one of nine congressmen “accused of violating narcotics laws” and buying drugs from a Capitol Hill drug ring.

Van Deerlin, a San Diego County resident, represented the 41st Congressional District for 18 years.

Soon after the story appeared, Van Deerlin found his wife, Mary Jo, in the kitchen weeping. “And recently she called from the beauty shop and said that she needed some money,” he said. “She said to ask for Mrs. Elliot. I said, ‘Why, what do you mean?’ And she said, ‘The first time I started coming here was right after the Anderson column, and they know me as Mary Elliot.’

“At first I thought it was funny,” Van Deerlin said. “But then later, I thought how terrible to have this pall hanging over my family.”

The former congressman said his youngest son, Jeff, asked, “It isn’t true, is it Daddy?” after the column appeared.

Van Deerlin, 71, sternly and repeatedly answered “No” when asked whether he used cocaine or other drugs.

But Anderson, the renowned Washington muckraker, stood by his original story when he took the witness stand Friday for the second time in the trial.

“All I reported was that he has been accused, and that has been proven by the documents,” Anderson said.

The column implicating Van Deerlin was based on a handwritten police memo that said in part: “more than one source has indicated the following members of Congress may be using controlled substances.” Van Deerlin was then listed, along with eight other congressmen.

“If we can’t write stories based on government reports, then what can we write?” Anderson asked reporters earlier.

Van Deerlin was taken to task for his own journalistic methods by David Branson, Anderson’s lawyer. The former congressman admitted under questioning that he once used a police report from the New York Times as the basis for a column he wrote in the Tribune.

“How could you publish this (column) based solely on the New York Times story and then accuse Mr. Anderson of libel, after he had talked to a police detective (for his story),” Branson said.

Judge Neilsen said the question wasn’t applicable and ordered it excised from the trial record.

Michael Aguirre, Van Deerlin’s attorney, has claimed that Anderson and his reporters did not properly check the police memo to verify that those listed were being investigated. Aguirre is also trying to introduce into evidence a statement by Detective Michael Hubbard that the memo he wrote was “raw, unsubstantiated and unprovable.”

Branson has objected to the statement because, he contends, Hubbard read the column before it was published and did not find fault with it. Neilsen has not yet ruled on Aguirre’s motion.

Both sides said they expect the non-jury trial to end Tuesday. A ruling is expected about two weeks later.

The trial will be shorter than expected because several witnesses have not appeared, Aguirre said. Those who have not testified include Anderson’s reporters, Jack Mitchell and Indy Badhwar, and Hubbard. The three were not ordered to testify because San Diego’s federal court has no jurisdiction over people in the District of Columbia. Lawyers for the two sides disagree as to whether the reporters and detective had volunteered to appear. Depositions from each have been tediously read into the court record.

During the trial Friday, Van Deerlin received pats on the back and words of confidence from about half a dozen supporters, including former political foe Bob Wilson.

Wilson, a Republican, defeated Van Deerlin for a San Diego congressional seat in 1958, four years before Van Deerlin was first elected to another local seat in Congress. Wilson said the two are friends although they often differ politically.

Van Deerlin lives on an avocado ranch in Vista and writes a column twice a week for the San Diego Tribune. He said that income from speaking engagements has dried up since Anderson’s column and, although he has tried to appear unconcerned in public, he acknowledged that he has had problems sleeping.

He said it was also difficult to teach his classes at San Diego State University.

“I knew the (students) were thinking here is a man pretending to be and do one thing, and doing quite another,” he said.

Van Deerlin’s suit claims that he was also libeled by an earlier Anderson column, although the first column on the drug ring did not mention any congressmen by name. Aguirre tried to raise the connection between the first and second columns Friday but was rebuffed by the judge.

“You’re not going to get anywhere with that argument,” Neilsen said.