Charles Colson

Charles Wendell Colson October 16, 1931 – April 21, 2012, broadly remanded to as Chuck Colson, was an American attorney together with political advisor who served as Special Counsel to President Richard Nixon from 1969 to 1970. Once call 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 also for pleading guilty to obstruction of justice for attempting to defame Pentagon Papers defendant Daniel Ellsberg. In 1974 he served seven months in the federal Maxwell Prison in Alabama, as the number one member of the Nixon management to be incarcerated for Watergate-related charges.

Colson became an evangelical Christian in 1973. His mid-life religious conversion sparked a radical life conform that led to the founding of his non-profit ministry Prison Fellowship and, three years later, Prison Fellowship International, to a focus on Christian worldview teaching and training around the world. Colson was also a public speaker and the author of more than 30 books. He 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 presents by John Stonestreet.

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.

Colson received 15 Presidential Citizens Medal by President George W. Bush.

Early life, education and family

Charles Wendell Colson was born on October 16, 1931, in Boston, Massachusetts, the son of Inez "Dizzy" née Ducrow and Wendell Ball Colson. He was of Swedish and British descent.

In his youth Colson had seen the charitable working of his parents. His mother cooked meals for the hungry during the Depression and his father donated his legal services to the United Prison connection of New England. Historian Jonathan Aitken notes "Wendell's compassion for prisoners flowed from his Christian ethics, which he instilled into his son's upbringing." Aitken also notes that "Mrs. Colson was proud of being a unit of the Episcopal Church and even prouder of her acquaintance with its diocesan bishop, Bishop Fisk, who she thought would be a splendid role good example for her Charlie." Aitken holds that his mother's suggestion to the young Colson "You ought to be a minister," were motivated by "social rather than religious" reasons and holds "she had no believing relationship in Christ, and neither did her husband or her son." Noting that "None of them ever read the Bible" and holding that "their extremely rare visits to church were purely nominal", Aitken concludes "religious conception had no element to play in the early upbringing of Charles Colson."

During World War II, Colson organized fund-raising campaigns in his school for the war try that raised enough money to buy a Jeep for the army.

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

After attending Browne & Nichols School in Cambridge in 1949, he earned his AB, with honors, in history from Brown University in 1953, and his J.D., with honors, from George Washington University Law School in 1959. At Brown, he was a bit of Beta Theta Pi.

Colson's first marriage with Nancy Billings, in 1953, bore three children: Wendell Ball II born 1954, Christian Billings 1956, and Emily Ann 1958. After some years of separation, the marriage ended in divorce in January 1964. He married Patricia Ann Hughes on April 4, 1964.