Watergate ‘Witness’

This article was originally published in the Jan. 26, 1976 issue of PAW.

The posters had announced that two well-known political figures, former “White House hatchetman” Charles Colson and former Senator Harold Hughes (D.-Iowa), were visiting Princeton to discuss “The American Spirit in the Aftermath of War and Watergate.” But the posters were a bit misleading. What Colson and Hughes did on the stage of Alexander Hall last month was what evangelists call “witnessing.” They explained how each came to God during a period of personal crisis and how they evolved from antagonists to spiritual “brothers,” and they attested to the benefits of their conversion, a recent one for Colson. 

“There I was,” Colson recalled. “White House tough guy and former Marine captain, and I was sitting in the driver’s seat unable to start my car because I was crying so hard I couldn’t put the keys in the ignition….I took a yellow legal pad and divided the page into two columns, ‘There is a God’ and ‘There isn’t a God.’ I decided there is.” 

Those who had expected a political discussion, if they hadn’t been tipped off by the tables selling religious literature in the vestibule of Alexander, were set straight as soon as the program began and Sue Haig ’76, head of the Chapel Fellowship, introduced Colson and Hughes, saying, “The essence of Christian faith lies in the individual and his encounter with God. It is for this reason these two individuals are here.” 

Earlier in the introduction, Ms. Haig had quoted news commentator Eric Sevareid’s reaction to Colson’s conversion: “Chuck Colson doesn’t exactly say he’s walking on water, but at least he’s stopped walking on grandmothers.” The audience, and Colson, laughed. In the back of the auditorium, Colson’s son, Wendell, Class of ’76, also laughed. 

Hughes spoke first, recounting how his experience with alcoholism had brought him to Christianity. The audience — about 300 students, faculty, and townspeople — was quiet while Hughes, looking like a paunchy country preacher as he leaned on the podium and gestured with one hand, explained that he “felt a peace settling over me” one day just as he had finished saying “the first honest prayer I’d prayed in years.” From that point on, he quit alcohol, eventually was elected governor of Iowa, and then to the Senate, deciding after his first term to step down. 

The Senator and the White House aide had opposed each other on the issues of Watergate, and Hughes said when he heard that Colson had found Christ, “My reaction was I didn’t believe it. I had not wanted this man to be my friend. I kept disliking him because I rather enjoyed it. A friend said that was not the attitude of a man of Christ. I said, ‘No it’s not–but he’s going to have to prove it.’ Now he is my brother. We are one in spirit. If God can bring together men like me and Chuck, then there’s hope for the world.” 

The audience applauded this statement, the end of Hughes’ talk, and the two men embraced before Colson began his speech. The former special counsel to the President also dwelt on the unlikeliness of his and Hughes’ friendship: “When it was decided I should meet with Hughes — well, you could hear the laughter halfway across the city. I wasn’t sure if I wanted to put Jesus Christ to the test of meeting Harold Hughes.” 

Colson said he began moving close to Christ because of a feeling after he left the White House that “there were no more mountains to climb….I would have liked to look back at those years” — in which he worked his way to a high-level White House position — “with smugness, but I couldn’t.” 

Colson did not mention his own role in Watergate, dismissing the subject by saying, “It doesn’t matter who was right and who was wrong.” “The hell it doesn’t,” one student near me whispered fiercely. I was mildly surprised that Watergate did not arise either in the speeches or in the question period and I asked several people why. 

Rob Freund ’75, former director of the Campus Crusade for Christ, commented as he was leaving the auditorium, “I really enjoyed hearing Colson’s and Hughes’ personal testimonies. The way to change lives is the way they’re doing, one-on-one through Christ, not through politics. It was almost inappropriate tonight to discuss politics.” 

The next day, Sunday, Colson and Hughes gave a “dialogue sermon" at the Chapel service. The two men mounted daisies at opposite sides of the chancel as the congregation was finishing singing “Angels from the Realms of Glory.” A middle-aged man remarked, “If there’s any man I detested, it was Colson. But now I think he’s sincere.” From the pulpit, Colson declared, “Christ makes possible the kind of love that heals all divisions.” 

After the service, Colson and Hughes attended a coffee hour in Murray-Dodge and then a luncheon with about 30 students and faculty. Before lunch, Colson was interviewed by a newspaper reporter who asked about Watergate. “Watergate represents the bankruptcy of the belief that better men will solve problems better,” Colson said. “If there’s one thing the Bible teaches us, it’s that men have an inherently good and evil nature. Man is fallible. The fear I have for this country is that we will feel by running out one fallible bunch of men we’ve solved all our problems. The tragedy of Watergate is that people believe by simply changing men we’re going to solve all our problems.” 

The reporter seemed satisfied, but I was intrigued by Colson’s view of “the tragedy of Watergate,” having waited to hear it all weekend. I wondered what he thought about the Watergate cover-up, the “dirty tricks,” the misuse of the CIA, and the IRS, wiretaps, illegal campaign contributions….I asked him, “Were these things morally wrong?” “Yes,” he answered. “But there was nothing done by the Nixon Administration that was not done by other presidents.” “Does that mean it was morally wrong to force Nixon to leave office?” I asked. “Yes,” Colson answered. “Did you do anything that you see now was morally wrong?” I asked. “The only thing I did that was wrong was to release derogatory information about Daniel Ellsberg while his trial was going on,” said Colson. 

I left the lunch feeling confused. If Colson were right, if the only “tragedy” of Watergate were that the American people hoped for better things from a post-Nixon administration, what did that say about the attitude that fostered Watergate? And what did that say about “the new Colson”? Not being a man of Christ myself, I let the question pass.