Charles Colson's Life Redeemed

By Scott L. Glabe | Thursday, September 22, 2005

BOOK REVIEW

Charles Colson: A Life Redeemed
Jonathan Aitken
Doubleday, 2005

A powerful young political figure nearing the pinnacle of success is confronted by allegations of dirty deeds and prosecuted for covering them up. He is pilloried by the media and becomes a man his county loves to hate, but he emerges from prison an evangelical Christian and devotes his life to ministering to those he met on the inside. This is the story not just of former Nixon hatchet man Charles Colson but also, remarkably enough, that of his biographer as well.

Jonathan Aitken, a former Conservative Member of Parliament and minister whom some believed was destined for party leadership, fell from grace and power after lying about who paid for a hotel stay while he was Minister of Defense Procurement in 1993. The Guardian claimed it was an Arab businessmen, Aitken denied it and sued for libel, and the subsequent investigation revealed that Aitken was not only lying but had been involved in an arms deal scam with murky links to the Saudi Arabian government.

Aitken served seven months in jail, just as Colson had some three decades before in the wake of Watergate. As had Colson, Aitken became a born-again Christian shortly before entering prison. He was influenced in his conversion by Colson himself, whom Aitken had met some years before while writing his 1993 biography of Richard Nixon, and now sits on the board of Prison Fellowship, the ministry Colson founded in 1976.

The similarities and friendship of Colson and Aitken suggest an uncharacteristically subjective relationship between biographer and subject. "I recognize that our shared experiences have given me, as an author, some unusual, possibly unique insights into Colson's story," Aitken writes in the prologue. "As a result, it is told in the ensuing pages by a kindred spirit–although not by an uncritical one." The biography is an authorized one–Aitken even has access to Colson's annotated study Bible and letters he wrote to his first wife while serving in the Marines–but mostly delivers on its promise to be "warts and all"–an anecdote in the prologue makes a point of detailing how the born-again Colson remains an impatient micro-manager.

Especially in telling Colson's tale before 1976, A Life Redeemed is uncompromising in its candidness. An acquaintance of mine who works for Prison Fellowship said she hadn't read the book but has heard around the office that it contains a "lot of dirt," and indeed it does. For instance, Aitken recounts how Colson's first wife was once forced to hit him over the head with a frying pan when he was overly inebriated. And, while it understandably handles the ministry in which both Colson and Aitken are currently involved with more delicacy, the book does not avoid the controversies and criticisms that have confronted Prison Fellowship. Aitken's portrait of both periods reflects Colson's own view: talented yet fallen sinner before his conversion, doing God's work as best he can ever since.

A Life Redeemed, then, tells the story from Colson's point of view but with the perspective of a third-party. It is remarkably effective in doing so, making for a gripping narrative and allowing us into the mind of one of the twentieth century's most fascinating public figures. Colson's story can be roughly divided into four movements: his youth and eventual movement to Washington, his meteoric rise to become President Richard Nixon's special counsel, his precipitous fall and conversion to Christianity, and his post-prison days as a prison minister and leading evangelical public figure.

The biography is superb throughout, but its first quarter best demonstrates Aitken's gift for his craft. He somehow manages to turn Colson's background as a child in Massachusetts, student at Brown University, lieutenant in the Marine Corps, staffer for Senator Leverett Saltonstall, and lawyer in his own firm–the part of a subject's life that is usually simply gotten past rather than told–into a compelling narrative, without retroactively imbuing it with false importance and foreshadowing, as some biographers are wont to do. The devil, as they say, is in the details, and so is Aitken: letting us into the specificities of Colson's life while managing not to bore.

The second part of Colson's story would be intriguing even if told by a biographer far inferior to Aitken. Colson parlayed his position as co-director of the Key Issues Committee on the 1968 Nixon campaign–Colson had been a Nixon fan since his days on the Hill and urged the former vice president to run for president four years earlier–into a newly-created position as Special Counsel to the President. (Every administration since has had an Office of the Public Liaison, which was Colson's ostensible responsibility.)

The view Aitken provides of the Nixon administration is decidedly Colson's, and he focuses on how the new Special Counsel used his reputation for reliability and aggression to become an indispensable adviser (critics would say lapdog) to the president, over the constant objection of Chief of Staff H.R. Haldeman and Special Assistant for Domestic Affairs John Ehrlichman. Haldemann and Ehrlichman were understandably jealous of Colson's sudden proximity to the President–influence he garnered almost solely from his own dogged efforts. Colson was a brilliant strategist, and Aitken offers an accounting of his oft-forgetting role in making the "Emerging Republican Majority" a reality through his relations with labor leaders and other instances of coalition-building.

However, Haldemann and Ehrlichman mounted their most stringent objections to Colson's tactics, the "dirty tricks" for which he became notorious. For instance, a key component of this new alliance with labor was the AFL-CIO's neutrality in the 1972 election, which Colson obtained by ordering an aide to impersonate McGovern campaign manager Gary Hart and place a rude phone call to union president George Meany.

Of course, the tricks went too far, and the administration came crashing down. Cue to Colson's descent to the underworld, with Aitken at his side. In its telling, the twin story of Colson's internal and external transformation is fortified in the fires of suffering. The narrative is perhaps too focused on the former at the expense of the latter–the story of Colson's conversion has been told in his best-selling Born Again, and we might reasonably ask a little more analysis of external events than Aitken provides–but it is here that the biography is most compelling. One senses Aitken can relate perhaps better than he would like to the chaos of Colson's implosion, but his meticulousness in recounting a process rather than a moment demonstrates the earnestness–and the challenges–of Colson's conversion to Christianity.

Of course, Watergate serves as the hinge of Colson's professional and personal life, and, on this point, A Life Redeemed is not intended as a history text. Colson claims he had no knowledge of the break-in and only passed along the money that funded the break-in of Pentagon Papers leaker Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office–the incident that led to his conviction–without knowing what it was to be used for. As Aitken retells it, Colson pleaded nolo contedere to a novel charge which both he and the judge knew not to be a crime because he wished to avoid years of legal wrangling and he believed God had called him to do so.

Aitken makes no effort to present contrary accounts, but that is not his project. This is obviously what Colson believed, and still does, and questions about the earnestness of his contrition for his days as Nixon's dirty trickster–his conversion was originally the subject of widespread of mockery and skepticism–have long been silenced by his subsequent actions. Meanwhile, the story Aitken does tell, Colson's, not Watergate's, is an enthralling one as Colson's wrestles with the full meaning of his Christian transformation in the public eye, neglected by friends, vilified by the press, and buoyed only by his newfound brothers in Christ.

The subplot of Colson's friendship with Harold Hughes, "an abrasive ex-truck driver, ex-alcoholic, ex-governor of Iowa who, since 1968, had been the Corn State's liberal Democratic senator" is a telling one. "No, no, no! There isn't anyone I dislike more than Chuck Colson," Hughes initially told National Prayer Breakfast organizer Doug Coe when Coe asked him to "take part in a prayer group to support our new Christian brother." And with good reason: the anti-Vietnam Hughes was "high on the Nixon White House enemies list." Five months later, Hughes was Colson's closest confidant and prayed with him in the courtroom after his sentence was handed down.
While suspicion about Colson's motives for becoming a Christian have long since faded–for three decades, he has devoted himself to ministry and lived with astounding frugality–questions about his significance remain unanswered. Has Colson simply drank the Christian Kool-Aid, as many have alleged? On this point, readers might consider consulting the epilogue in lieu of the final four chapters. Aitken is at his best when he tells the tale of printing 1000 forged tickets to Colson's 1993 Templeton Prize speech at the notoriously liberal World Parliament of Religions, for instance, or that of the reconciliation between the Klu Klux Klan's Tommy Tarrants and Black Panther Eldridge Cleaver at a Prison Fellowship seminar. However, when Aitken lapses into description, the narrative bogs down, and some parts of the final chapters could be Prison Fellowship promotional materials.

However, Aitken's assessment of Colson's legacy in the epilogue is well-written and persuasive. The former prisoner has done more than good by ministering to inmates and giving Christmas presents to their children; he has transformed prison ministry, and the low-rates of recidivism in the Christian-run prisons he has pioneered hint that Colson may be on to something revolutionary. Moreover, Aitken's tale of Colson's intellectual development (and for this, you will need to the read the final four chapters) makes clear that his writings about worldview and his plea for cultural renewal are well-considered, not just the ravings of a dissatisfied fundamentalist.

Through an ecumenical organization–Evangelicals and Catholics Together, co-founded with First Things founder Richard John Neuhaus, and a think tank, the Wilberforce Forum, whose board includes Prof. Robert George and Michael Novak, Colson has associated himself with some of the most influential commentators on matters of religion and politics. Such co-operation is vital at a time when evangelicals are often chided for neglecting the mind and advocating an unconservative idealism. One might not agree with everything Charles Colson says and does today, but, after reading A Life Redeemed, it's difficult to remain cynical about him or his ministry.

Charles Colson's Life Redeemed

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