Once known as President Nixon's "hatchet man", Colson gained notoriety at the height of the Watergate scandal, for being named as one of the Watergate Seven, and for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg.
59 Facts About Charles Colson
2.
Charles Colson was a public speaker and the author of more than 30 books.
3.
Charles Colson was the founder and chairman of The Chuck Colson Center for Christian Worldview, which is a research, study, and networking center for growing in a Christian worldview, and which produces Colson's daily radio commentary, BreakPoint, heard on more than 1,400 outlets across the United States currently presented by John Stonestreet.
4.
Charles Colson was a principal signer of the 1994 Evangelicals and Catholics Together ecumenical document signed by leading Evangelical Protestants and Roman Catholic leaders in the United States.
5.
Charles Colson received 15 honorary doctorates, and in 1993 was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest annual award in the field of religion, given to a person who "has made an exceptional contribution to affirming life's spiritual dimension".
6.
Charles Colson donated this prize to further the work of Prison Fellowship, as he did all his speaking fees and royalties.
7.
Charles Wendell Colson was born on October 16,1931, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Inez "Dizzy" and Wendell Ball Colson.
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Charles Colson's mother cooked meals for the hungry during the Depression and his father donated his legal services to the United Prison Association of New England.
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In 1948, Charles Colson volunteered in the campaign to re-elect the Governor of Massachusetts, Robert Bradford.
10.
Charles Colson married Patricia Ann Hughes on April 4,1964.
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Charles Colson served in the United States Marine Corps from 1953 to 1955, reaching the rank of captain.
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Charles Colson then worked on the successful 1960 campaign of Leverett Saltonstall, and was his Administrative Assistant from 1956 to 1961.
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Charles Colson left the firm to join the Richard Nixon administration in January 1969.
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In 1968, Charles Colson served as counsel to Republican presidential candidate Richard Nixon's Key Issues Committee.
15.
On November 6,1969, Charles Colson was appointed as Special Counsel to President Nixon.
16.
Charles Colson was responsible for inviting influential private special interest groups into the White House policy-making process and winning their support on specific issues.
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Charles Colson's 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.
18.
Charles 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.
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Charles Colson's work 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.
20.
Charles Colson authored the 1971 memo listing Nixon's major political opponents, later known as Nixon's enemies list.
21.
Two weeks after the Hard Hat Riot, Colson arranged a White House ceremony honoring the union leader most responsible for the attack, Peter J Brennan, president of the Building and Construction Trades local for New York City.
22.
Charles Colson proposed firebombing the Brookings Institution and stealing politically damaging documents while firefighters put the fire out.
23.
Charles Colson turns out to be really quite a phony.
24.
Charles Colson attended some meetings of the Committee for the Re-Election of the President.
25.
Charles Colson hoped that revelations about Ellsberg could be used to discredit the anti-Vietnam War cause.
26.
Charles Colson admitted to leaking information from Ellsberg's confidential FBI file to the press, but denied organizing Hunt's burglary of Ellsberg's office.
27.
On March 1,1974, Charles Colson was indicted for conspiring to cover up the Watergate burglaries.
28.
On June 21,1974, Charles Colson was given a one-to- three-year sentence and fined $5,000.
29.
Charles Colson was disbarred in the District of Columbia, with the expectation of his being prohibited from using his licenses from Virginia and Massachusetts.
30.
At the time that Gesell ordered his release, Charles Colson was one of the last of the Watergate defendants still in jail: only Gordon Liddy was still incarcerated.
31.
Egil Krogh had served his sentence and been released before Charles Colson entered jail, while John Dean, Jeb Magruder, and Herb Kalmbach had been released earlier in January 1975 by Judge John Sirica.
32.
Charles Colson became convinced that he was being called by God to develop a ministry to prisoners with an emphasis in promoting changes in the justice system.
33.
Charles Colson worked to promote prisoner rehabilitation and reform of the prison system in the United States, citing his disdain for what he called the "lock 'em and leave 'em" warehousing approach to criminal justice.
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Charles Colson helped to create prisons whose populations come from inmates who choose to participate in faith-based programs.
35.
In 1979, Charles Colson founded Prison Fellowship International to extend his prison outreach outside the United States.
36.
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 Carol Vance Unit prison facility of the Texas Department of Criminal Justice in Fort Bend County, Texas.
37.
Charles Colson led a small group that includes Dr Byron Johnson of the University of Pennsylvania, who was the principal researcher of the InnerChange study, a few staff members of Prison Fellowship and three InnerChange graduates to the meeting.
38.
Charles Colson maintained a variety of media channels which discuss contemporary issues from an evangelical Christian worldview.
39.
Charles Colson argued against evolution and in favor of intelligent design, and asserted that Darwinism led to forced sterilizations by eugenicists.
40.
Charles Colson was an outspoken critic of postmodernism, believing that as a cultural worldview, it is incompatible with the Christian tradition.
41.
Charles Colson debated prominent post-evangelicals, such as Brian McLaren, on the best response for the evangelical church in dealing with the postmodern cultural shift.
42.
Charles Colson came alongside the creation care movement when endorsing Christian environmentalist author Nancy Sleeth's Go Green, Save Green: A Simple Guide to Saving Time, Money, and God's Green Earth.
43.
Charles Colson was a member of the Family, described by prominent evangelical Christians as one of the most politically well-connected fundamentalist organizations in the US.
44.
In November 2009, Charles Colson was a principal writer and driving force behind an ecumenical statement known as the Manhattan Declaration calling on evangelicals, Catholics and Orthodox Christians not to comply with rules and laws permitting abortion, same-sex marriage and other matters that go against their religious consciences.
45.
Charles Colson previously had ignited controversy within Protestant circles for his mid-90s common-ground initiative with conservative Roman Catholics Evangelicals and Catholics Together, which Colson wrote alongside prominent Roman Catholic Richard John Neuhaus.
46.
Charles Colson was a proponent of the Bible Literacy Project's curriculum The Bible and Its Influence for public high school literature courses.
47.
Charles Colson has said that Protestants have a special duty to prevent anti-Catholic bigotry.
48.
In 1988, Charles Colson became involved with the Elizabeth Morgan case, visiting Morgan in jail and lobbying to change federal law in order to free her.
49.
On October 3,2002, Colson was one of the co-signers of the Land letter sent to President George W Bush.
50.
On June 1,2005, Colson appeared in the national news commenting on the revelation that W Mark Felt was Deep Throat.
51.
Charles Colson expressed disapproval in Felt's role in the Watergate scandal, first in the context of Felt being an FBI employee who should have known better than to disclose the results of a government investigation to the press, and second in the context of the trust placed in him.
52.
Charles Colson signed his name to a full-page ad in the December 5,2008 The New York Times that objected to violence and intimidation against religious institutions and believers in the wake of the passage of Proposition 8.
53.
From 1982 to 1995, Charles Colson received honorary doctorates from various colleges and universities.
54.
In 1993, Charles Colson was awarded the Templeton Prize for Progress in Religion, the world's largest cash gift, which is given each year to the one person in the world who has done the most to advance the cause of religion.
55.
Charles Colson donated this prize, as he did all speaking fees and royalties, to further the work of Prison Fellowship.
56.
In 1994, Charles Colson was quoted in contemporary Christian music artist Steven Curtis Chapman's song "Heaven in the Real World" as saying:.
57.
In 2008, Colson was presented with the Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W Bush.
58.
On March 31,2012, Charles Colson underwent surgery to remove a blood clot from his brain after he fell ill while speaking at a Christian worldview conference.
59.
Charles Colson had a long list of publications and collaborations, including over 30 books which have sold more than 5 million copies.