TRIALS: The Defense Attacks

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He was to have been the Government's star witness, the person characterized by the prosecutors as "more or less the middleman in this whole affair."

He had in fact been indicted with the others, but the Government wanted his help so badly that it had granted him immunity in exchange for his cooperation.

But the more Harry Sears testified last week in a crowded Manhattan courtroom, the more he sounded like a witness for—instead of against—former U.S. Attorney General John Mitchell and former Secretary of Commerce Maurice Stans.

Sears in his previous testimony had spun a strong web of circumstantial evidence to support the Government's charge that Mitchell and Stans illegally tried to ease the tangled problems of Financier Robert Vesco with the Securities and Exchange Commission. As his part of the deal, claimed the prosecutors, Vesco made a secret contribution of $200,000 to President Nixon's campaign in 1972. But then Sears, 54, lawyer, former G.O.P. leader in the New Jersey senate and political handyman for Vesco, turned to Play-Doh in the skillful hands of Peter E. Fleming Jr., Mitchell's top defense attorney.

Front Row Seat. Sears made the whole Vesco affair sound like the everyday fraternizing of friends in high places rather than a plot to trade political influence for a campaign contribution. When Sears said he had introduced Vesco to his friend Mitchell on March 12, 1971, the defense pointed out that the date was 13 months before the financier made his gift and six days before the SEC even began looking into Vesco's mutual-fund operations overseas.

A main point in the Government's case against Mitchell is the claim that on the very day—April 10, 1972—that Vesco made his contribution, doors that had been closed to the financier began opening. But Sears admitted that Mitchell had been trying for a month before the donation to get a date for Sears with SEC Chairman William J. Casey. Sears further contended that when he did meet with Casey he simply requested that Vesco be allowed to tell his side of the story. Asked Fleming: "Did you ever ask Mr. Mitchell to fix the Vesco case?"

Sears: "Never." Sears later added: "I know of absolutely no attempts that were ever made to 'fix' the SEC matter."

The Government then produced Laurence B. Richardson Jr., former president of Vesco's International Controls Corp., the company that ran the suspect mutual-fund operations. Richardson, 52, broke with Vesco in 1973 over company policies and went to the Government with the story of his former boss's contribution to the Nixon campaign. He testified about attending a meeting with Vesco on March 8, 1972, in Stans' Washington office. According to Richardson, Vesco told Stans that he wanted to make a donation to the Nixon campaign but that he had a problem —the SEC investigation. Vesco claimed that the probe was really an SEC vendetta against him and his company.