Overview

Charles Wendell Colson (1931-2012) served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1973 and was widely regarded as one of the most ruthless political operatives in the Nixon White House. Known as Nixon's "hatchet man," Colson was responsible for developing the administration's "enemies list" and orchestrating aggressive political tactics against perceived opponents. Colson was deeply involved in the political dirty tricks and cover-up operations that defined the Watergate era. He helped recruit E. Howard Hunt into the White House Special Investigations Unit (the "Plumbers"), and he was involved in efforts to discredit Daniel Ellsberg after Ellsberg leaked the Pentagon Papers. Colson proposed firebombing the Brookings Institution to retrieve documents he believed were damaging to the administration, though the plan was never carried out. In June 1974, Colson pleaded guilty to obstruction of justice in connection with the effort to defame Daniel Ellsberg, specifically for devising a scheme to influence the outcome of Ellsberg's trial. He was sentenced to one to three years in prison and served seven months at Maxwell Federal Prison in Alabama. During his imprisonment, Colson experienced a religious conversion and founded Prison Fellowship Ministries in 1976, which became the largest prison outreach program in the world. He spent the rest of his career as an evangelical Christian leader and prison reform advocate. Colson died in 2012 at age 80.

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Related Investigations (1)

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Sources & Documentation

3 documented sources from official records, investigations, and reports