Liddy and Dean Fight to a Draw

0 Comments | Insight on the News, August 21, 2000 | by Mark Davis

"The only victory for either side would be to go to trial and fight it out," Colodny says. So he plans to do the next best thing: "We're going to have a trial on the Internet," he says. "The people will become jurors." Working with the University of South Florida, or USF, Colodny plans to launch an Internet site called the USF Research Collection on the Nixon Presidency. The Website, www.watergate.com, is set to debut Aug. 1 and eventually will contain every document from John Dean's defamation lawsuits. It also will present all the raw data from Colodny's hundreds of Watergate-related interviews, including those with many now-deceased advisers to Nixon.

Colodny, who also will teach a course on Watergate at USF, says he's excited to let the public decide what really happened. "The Internet will be the courtroom that decides this for history," he says. "It will have every document we have."

But Liddy isn't willing to settle for an Internet trial. He has been sued by Wells, the secretary Liddy says had a nude photograph of Maureen Dean, and says he'll get his trial in that lawsuit. "This will all come up in the Wells matter," he says. "I'll get my trial anyway."