Confidential: The Secret Life of J. Edgar Hoover alleged that Novel said he was shown the photo by CIA counterintelligence chief James Jesus Angleton. Watergate In 1974, columnist Jack Anderson wrote that Charles Colson consulted Novel on the possible use of a degaussing device that could erase copies of the Watergate tapes stored in at the White House and the CIA from a distance. Eventually, Colson and Novel mutually decided not to do this, because of its danger to other national security tapes and computers. According to Colson, the plan never came close to development. New Orleans firebomb case Jim Garrison's successor to the seat of district attorney Harry Connick Sr. brought charges against Novel for conspiracy to firebomb part of New Orleans by balloons on behalf of a world's fair Novel was promoting. After three previous prosecutions, that included a hung jury, a mistrial and a conviction with three-year sentence, the conviction was overturned due to "tremendous conflicts" in government testimony. Columnist Jack Anderson reported that "Eminent legal scholars say a fourth prosecution in a non-capital case is virtually unprecedented, and raises the issue of retaliatory prosecution". Connick denied there was intention to "persecute" Novel. DeLorean Novel worked as private investigator to the DeLorean Motor Company chairman John DeLorean in 1982, and subsequently became a business partner. DeLorean claimed there was a conspiracy between Britain's Conservative Party and U.S. and British intelligence agents to close DeLorean's manufacturing plant in Northern Ireland. DeLorean's claims relied on Gordon Novel's investigation and resulting evidence. The alleged conspiracy included an attempt to frame/entrap DeLorean for cocaine trafficking, against which DeLorean eventually successfully defended himself in the resulting lawsuit. Part of the defense was an audiotape, which was made public by Hustler magazine publisher Larry Flynt, which revealed DeLorean was the victim of a sting operation. When Flynt refused to name Novel as the supplier of the tape, he was charged and convicted to a 5 month sentence for contempt of court. Waco Novel was hired as chief investigator by former U.S. Attorney General Ramsey Clark, in the aftermath of the Waco Siege of 1993. Ramsey Clark provided legal counsel for some of the surviving members of Branch Davidian, as well as more than a hundred family members of those who had died or were injured in the confrontation. Novel has stated that his analysis of a FLIR tape, made by a Nightstalker aircraft,