Charles Colson

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Charles Wendell "Chuck" Colson (born October 16, 1931) was the chief counsel for President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973 and was one of the Watergate Seven, jailed for Watergate-related charges.

His later life has been spent working with his non-profit organization devoted to prison ministry called Prison Fellowship. Colson is also a public speaker and author. He is founder and chairman of the Wilberforce Forum, which is the "Christian worldview thinking, teaching, and advocacy arm of" Prison Fellowship, and includes Colon's daily radio broadcast, BreakPoint, now heard on a thousand outlets. The ministry conducts justice reform efforts through Justice Fellowship.^[1]

Colson has received fifteen honorary doctorates and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize, the world's largest cash gift (over $1 million), which is given each year to the one person in the world who has done the most to advance the cause of religion. He donated this prize, as he does all speaking fees and royalties, to further the work of Prison Fellowship.

1 Early life
2 Nixon Administration
3 Career after prison
4 References
5 Notes
6 External links

[edit] Early life

Colson was born in Boston, Massachusetts in 1931.

During World War II when he was at about age 12, Colson organized fund-raising campaigns in his school for the war effort that raised enough money to buy a Jeep for the army.^[2]

In 1948, Colson volunteered in the campaign to re-elect then-Governor of Massachusetts, Robert Bradford.

After attending Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge in 1949, he earned his B.A., with honors, from Brown University in 1953, and his J.D., with honors, from George Washington University in 1959.

Colson served in the United States Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955, reaching the rank of Captain. From 1955 to 1956, he was Assistant to the Assistant Secretary of the Navy (Material). He then worked on Leverett Saltonstall (R, MA)'s successful 1960 campaign for the US Senate and was his Administrative Assistant from 1956 to 1961.

In 1960, Colson was honored as Outstanding Young Man of Boston by the Boston Chamber of Commerce.

From 1961 to 1969, Colson practiced law and was Partner in the law firm of Gadsby and Hannah in Washington, D.C..

Colson's first marriage with Nancy Billings in 1953 ended in divorce in 1964. He married Patricia Ann Hughes on April 4, 1964, and has three children: Christian Billings (born 1956), Emily Ann (born 1958) and Wendell Ball II (born 1964).

[edit] Nixon Administration

Booking photos of Charles Colson, 1974.

In 1968, Colson served as counsel to presidential candidate Nixon's Key Issues Committee.^[3]

On November 6, 1969, Colson was appointed as Special Counsel to President Nixon.^[3]

Colson was responsible for inviting influential private special interest groups into the White House policy-making process and winning their support on specific issues. His office served as the President's political communications liaison with organized labor, veterans, farmers, conservationists, industrial organizations, citizen groups, and almost any organized lobbying group whose objectives were compatible with the Administration's. Colson's staff broadened the White House lines of communication with organized constituencies by arranging Presidential meetings and sending White House news releases of interest to the groups.^[3]

In addition to his liaison and political duties, Colson's responsibilities included: performing special assignments for the President, such as drafting legal briefs on particular issues, reviewing Presidential appointments, and suggesting names for White House guest lists. His work also included major lobbying efforts on such issues as construction of an antiballistic missile system, the President's Vietnamization program, and the Administration's revenue-sharing proposal.^[3]

Colson was known as President Nixon's hatchet man. Slate magazine writer David Plotz described Colson as "Richard Nixon's hard man, the 'evil genius' of an evil administration."^[4] Colson has written that he was "valuable to the President ... because I was willing ... to be ruthless in getting things done"^[5] Colson authored the 1971 memo listing Nixon's major political opponents, later known as Nixon's Enemies List. A quip that "Colson would walk over his own grandmother if necessary" mutated into claims in news stories that Colson had boasted that he would run over his own grandmother to re-elect Nixon.^[5] Plotz reports that Colson sought to hire Teamsters thugs to beat up anti-war demonstrators.^[4] John Dean maintains that Colson proposed firebombing the Brookings Institution and stealing politically damaging documents while firefighters put the fire out.^[6]^[7]

Colson's voice, archives from April 1969, was heard in the 2004 movie Going Upriver deprecating the anti-war efforts of John Kerry. Colson's orders were to "Destroy the young demagogue before he becomes another Ralph Nader."^[8]^[9] In a phone conversation with President Nixon on April 28, 1971, Colson said, "This fellow Kerry that they had on last week. ... He turns out to be really quite a phony."^[8]^[9]

Colson also became involved in the Committee to Re-elect the President (CRP or CREEP). At a CRP meeting on March 21, 1971, it was agreed to spend $250,000 on "intelligence gathering" on the Democratic Party. Colson and John Ehrlichman appointed E. Howard Hunt to the White House Special Operations Unit (the so-called "Plumbers") which had been organized to stop leaks in the Nixon administration. Hunt headed up the Plumbers' burglary of Pentagon Papers-leaker Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in September 1971. The Pentagon Papers were military documents about the Vietnam War which helped increase opposition to the war. Colson hoped that revelations about Ellsberg could be used to discredit the anti-Vietnam War left. Colson admitted to leaking information from Ellsberg's confidential FBI file to the press, but denied organizing Hunt's burglary of Ellsberg's office.^[5] He expressed regret for attempting to cover up this incident in his 2005 book, The Good Life.^{[citation needed]}

As Colson was facing arrest, his close friend Tom Phillips gave him a copy of Mere Christianity by C.S. Lewis, which led Colson to become an evangelical Christian. Several U. S. newspapers, as well as Newsweek and Time, ridiculed the conversion, claiming that it was a ploy to reduce his sentence.^{[citation needed]}

On March 10, 1973, Colson resigned from the White House to return to the private practice of law, as Senior Partner at the law firm of Colson and Shapiro, Washington, D.C..^[10]

On March 1, 1974, Colson was indicted for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglary.^[3]

In 1974, Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in the Ellsberg case. On June 21, 1974, he was given a one-to-three year sentence, fined $5,000, and disbarred.^[3] He served seven months in Maxwell Correctional Facility in Alabama,^[11] and he was released early, on January 31, 1975, by the sentencing judge because of family problems.^[12]

[edit] Career after prison

Charles Colson on the cover of one of his books.

After his release from prison, Colson founded Prison Fellowship. Colson has worked to promote prisoner rehabilitation and reform of the prison system in the United States. He disdains the "lock 'em and leave 'em" warehousing approach to criminal justice. He led the effort that released Elizabeth Morgan from prison. He has helped to create faith-based prisons whose populations come from inmates who choose to participate in them. All of Colson's book royalties are donated to Prison Fellowship.

Colson's religious conversion and prison term were the subject of a 1978 drama film, Born Again, starring Dean Jones as Colson, Anne Francis as his wife, and Harold Hughes as himself.

Colson also maintains a variety of media channels which discuss contemporary issues from an Evangelical Christian worldview. Colson's views are typically consistent with a politically conservative interpretation of evangelical Christianity. In his Christianity Today columns, for example, Colson has opposed same-sex marriage,^{[citation needed]} argued that Darwinism is used to attack Christianity,^[13] and claimed that the Enron accounting scandals were a consequence of secularism.^{[citation needed]} He has also argued against Darwinism and in favor of intelligent design,^[14] saying Darwinism helped cause forced sterilizations by eugenicists.^[15]

Colson has been an outspoken critic of postmodernism, believing that as a cultural worldview it is incompatible with the Christian tradition. He has debated other prominent Evangelicals, such as Brian Mclaren, on the best response for the Evangelical church in dealing with the postmodern cultural shift.

In the early 1980s, Colson was invited to New York by David Frost's variety program on NBC for an open debate with Madalyn Murray O'Hair, the famous atheist who in 1963 brought the court case (Murray v. Curlett) that eliminated official public school prayers.^[16]

From 1982 to 1995, Colson received Honorary doctorates from various colleges and universities.^[11]

In 1990, the Salvation Army recognized Colson with its highest civic award, the 'Others' Award. Previous recipients of the award include Barbara Bush, Paul Harvey, US Senator Bob Dole and the Meadows Foundation.^[17]

On April 4, 1991, Colson was invited to deliver a speech as part of the Distinguished Lecturer series at Harvard Business School. The speech was titled "The Problem of Ethics," where he argued that a society without a foundation of moral absolutes cannot long survive.^[18]

In 1993 Colson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest cash gift (over $1 million), which is given each year to the one person in the world who has done the most to advance the cause of religion. He donated this prize, as he does all speaking fees and royalties, to further the work of Prison Fellowship.

In 1994, Colson was famously quoted in contemporary Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman's song Heaven in the Real World as saying:

Where is the hope? I meet millions of people who feel demoralized by the decay around us. The hope that each of us has is not in who governs us, or what laws we pass, or what great things we do as a nation. Our hope is in the power of God working through the hearts of people. And that's where our hope is in this country. And that's where our hope is in life.

In 1999, Colson co-authored "How Now Shall We Live?" with Nancy Pearcey and published by Tyndale House. The book was winner of the 2000 Gold Medallion Book Award.

In 2000, Florida Governor Jeb Bush reinstated the rights taken away by Colson's felony conviction, including the right to vote.^[19]

On February 9, 2001, the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU) presented Colson with the Mark O. Hatfield Leadership Award at the Forum on Christian Higher Education in Orlando, Florida. The award is presented to individuals who have demonstrated uncommon leadership that reflects the values of Christian higher education. The award was established in 1997 in honor of US Senator Mark Hatfield, a long-time supporter of the Council.^[20]

On October 3, 2002, Colson was one of the co-signers of the Land letter sent to President Bush. The letter was written by Richard D. Land, president of the Ethics and Religious Liberty Commission of the Southern Baptist Convention. It was co-signed by four prominent American evangelical Christian leaders and Colson was among them. The letter outlined their theological support for a just war pre-emptive invasion of Iraq.

On June 18, 2003, Colson was invited by President George W. Bush to the White House to present results of a scientific study on the faith-based initiative, InnerChange, at the Texas Jester II (later renamed in honor of Carol Vance) prison facility. Colson led a small group that includes Dr. Byron Johson of the University of Pennsylvania, who was the principal researcher of the InnerChange study, a few staff member of Prison Fellowship and three InnerChange graduates to the meeting. In the presentation, Dr. Johnson explained that 171 participants in the InnerChange program were compared to a matched group of 1,754 inmates from the prison's general population. The study found that only 8 percent of InnerChange graduates, as opposed to 20.3 percent of inmates in the matched comparison group, became offenders again in a two-year period. In other words, the recidivism rate was cut by almost two-thirds for those who complete the faith-based program. Those who are dismissed for disciplinary reasons or who drop out voluntarily, or those who are paroled before completion, have a comparable rate of rearrest and incarceration.^[21]^[22]

On June 1, 2005 Colson appeared in the national news commenting on the revelation that W. Mark Felt was Deep Throat.^[23] Colson expressed disapproval in Felt's role in the Watergate scandal and suggested that if Felt could not remain loyal to President Nixon, then he should have simply resigned.

[edit] References

Charles W. Colson, Born Again, New Jersey: Chosen Books, Inc., 1976, ISBN 0-8007-9377-3.
Charles W. Colson, Loving God, New York: HarperPaperbacks, 1983, ISBN 0-06-104003-7.
William A. Dembski, Charles W. Colson, The Design Revolution: Answering the Toughest Questions About Intelligent Design, Inter Varsity Press, 2004, ISBN 0-8308-2375-1.
Burden of Truth: Defending the Truth in an Age of Unbelief (Tyndale House 1998) ISBN 0-8423-0190-9.
Life Sentence (Revell 1999) ISBN 0-8007-8668-8.
How Now Shall We Live? (Tyndale House 1999) ISBN 0-8423-1808-9.
The Body (W Pub. Group 1994) ISBN 0-8499-3579-2.
Being The Body (W Pub. Group 2003) ISBN 0-8499-1752-2.
Charles Colson, Harold Fickett, The Good Life (Tyndale House 2005) ISBN 0-8423-7749-2.

Note: Mr. Colson has a long list of publications, collaborations and has written forewords for several other books. Along with the Roman Catholic Richard John Neuhaus, he edited Evangelicals and Catholics Together : Toward a Common Mission, ISBN 0-8499-3860-0.