Excerpt from the Nixon Library's Oral History with Charles Colson

hi I'm Tim Naftali director of the Richard Nixon Presidential Library Museum today is August 17 2007 I'm here with the Reverend Charles Colson actually just Chuck Colson because I'm not ordained Emma layman working full time in ministry okay well then it's women it's my pleasure to be with chuck Colson in Naples Florida lovely boys thank you for joining us to participate in the Richard Nixon Presidential History Program happy to do it I'd like to start in Massachusetts I'd like to ask you a little bit about your political education working with Leverett Saltonstall well when I came out of the Marines I came right to Washington to go to law school nights and met one of the Senators assistants and so by a remarkable set of circumstances I ended up at age 25 in the office of United States Senator the number new job in the office and two years later became his administrative assistant I was certainly on the fast track I loved politics I had studied political philosophy at Brown University that was my undergraduate degree I was going to law school an emphasis on constitutional law so I was fascinated by government as a kid I'd handed out leaflets on street corners back home in Massachusetts and really had a dream that someday I might be able to do something significant in politics not because at that stage at least I thought I was looking for power I really loved the satisfaction of seeing things done that changed the way people live and I had a wonderful five years of working here four and a half he was working with love results though he was a distinguished public servant he really cared about the common good he was not partisan he was a very bipartisan in his approach I was the partisan my job as his administrative assistant was to get him reelected in 1960 and it was a formidable task first I'd never run a Kaplan secondly John Kennedy was on the ticket from Massachusetts the same year we were running as Republicans on the other side of the ticket and the polls showed us way behind so I started out the campaign having a door experience at it figuring out what turned out to be some pretty good strategies and we ended up winning it with an 800,000 vote split between Kennedy and Nixon between Kennedy and the saltonstone so that was my introduction to politics that was a baptism by fire during that period to tell him I got to know Richard Nixon he was vice president and I would take things too and periodically so instead of being a senior senator Nixon being vice president they would have a lot of occasion to deal with one another so I had a good fair amount of personal face-to-face contact with Nixon I was dazzled by the man I found to be extraordinarily well motivated a very idealistic very keen wonderful mind uncommon intellect and we became friends of sorts I mean I got the acquaintances I would say politically and after I left to son of the Sultan Zola's office to practice law ended up in 1962 and Richard Nixon's I'm sorry can I stop that you're on digital lunch okay go ahead just just ended up in 1964 sitting in Richard Nixon's law office in New York plotting how he might get the nomination that year so I ever really left politics I was practicing law but I never really loved it I asked you but before we move to 64 because I know something very interesting happened then what was a Massachusetts Republican how would you describe both of Massachusetts from home well there were would tend to be more liberal middle-of-the-road certainly than the Orange County crowd or the then burgeoning conservative movement probably bridging is the wrong word it was emerging from Barry Goldwater and the new guard as opposed to the old country club Christian the only country club Republicans which would be the case for Massachusetts I was a misfit because I was a bit of an ideologue conservative having studied Russell Kirk and Edmund Burke in college and in really interested I really got very involved with Barry Goldwater and with some of the young at that time conservative activists on Capitol Hill so I was very much at home with the Orange County crowd and very much at home with Richard Nixon even though I came from that bastion of the liberal elite which Nixon so disdained so at 64 and you write him a memorandum I did I realize Goldwater was gonna get the nomination but anything he could win I didn't want to see a Liberal candidate beat him I thought Nixon was the one candidate who would have the credentials to debate and possibly beat Lyndon Johnson and so I wrote a memorandum in the spring telling him why I thought he should run why I thought he should step in why if the convention would a deadlock he would be the perfect candidate why he should be maneuvering himself to get in position to run if he could and he invited me to New York we spent some time together walked to his apartment one evening he talked about his vision for foreign policy and his ideas about NATO and the North Atlantic alliances and the emerging alliances in the world the dangers of communism was a fascinating evening and he said to me he riding in his car he said you know if I get in this campaign to to run for president he said I just can't face all those same tired pedestrian faces that hung around me in 1960 he said I need some fresh boy would you come in and help run the campaign and of course I been at that immediately because I would love to die at that point would have loved to fork or index but I did some surveying which he asked me to have congressman and political leaders and got few takers I think the Goldwater machine had it pretty well locked up so it was a an idea that was fell short we hadn't he obviously did not run how many of the inner circle shared they shared this optimism that perhaps it could be a brokered convention in 64 Buchanan was one of them he was in the Nixon office the law office and working with him I don't think Haldeman and Ehrlichman at least if they did I had no contact with him I don't know I don't think they were very many but so from 1964 on he sees you as someone he can bat ideas around with yeah he did not much until 68 in when he formed his campaign which was very successful to go out and win congressional friends in the 66 election I was not involved I got some invitations to be involved but I just that was a difficult time I was building my law practice and I didn't I would have gotten into our presidential campaign but didn't get into that so I didn't have that much contact with them until the 68 campaign when I assisted working through Bryce Harlow and a few others on the campaign that I knew well Bob Ellsworth assisted in some of the issue papers I then ended up taking a leave of absence from our law firm for four months and working full time at it sharing an office in New York at the headquarters with of all people alan greenspan who was doing domestic policy and dick ellen how confident were you in 68 that he'd be elected not at all we'd seen what happened in nineteen sixties aliy the lead could evaporate I cross swords for the first time and not the last in the 1968 campaign with John Mitchell John Mitchell felt he had a lead he wanted to sit on it and I thought that was dumb politics because momentum is everything in political campaigns you are either rising or you're falling you're not sitting still and I thought it was important that Nixon make a really concerted push and I particularly saw an opportunity to do what Truman had done so effectively in 1948 and that's put a coalition together of particular interest groups that felt left out by the Democratic Party and to form what I saw in 68 and then articulated 70 and 72 this new emerging conservative majority in America so I got into some squabbles with Mitchell over that you know I was a bit on the outside because Mitchell had pretty well cornered Nixon's ear and so he won that battle and we went down to the wire is we all know now rescued we're gonna lost campaign by Nixon's I believe by Nixon's election eve performance were the questions and answers he was absolutely virtuoso do you think that's what turns oh that's what saved I watched the polls that weekend and saw them vastly back and forth I think the big push came on election eve when Nixon did such a superb job you you have had a sense for politics was this from your experiences in Massachusetts was it from real reading I mean you you you you're at your young pop and young pop telling people what they should be doing right where does this come from I was well I was a Marine officer at captain I in the infantry I'd always been in charge of things I been editor of the school newspaper one when I was in prep school yeah it got to be Championship debater I was always running things it just came naturally to me and I loved politics I loved the intrigue of it I love the way you're mobilizing public opinion and I was something of a student of it just from my undergraduate studies and my own personal interest so I think I was I think I had a pretty good nose for it I'd been hanging around a lot of politicians in Washington learning a lot and so when I was in the 68 campaign I would have been 37 years old young but I had some strong passionate ideas had you learned anything from watching the Kennedys from watching the candidates Kennedy's from one of the Kings oh my well yeah John Kennedy was the junior senator from the from Massachusetts when Leverett Saltonstall was the senior senator and it was interesting because saltonstone called him John and John Kennedy always called Leverett Saltonstall senator most of the time when John Kennedy wanted to deal with senator so-and-so he would call me I dealt with Kennedy a great deal Kennedy's staff were all friends of mine we were buddies even though we were on opposite sides of the political aisle and they showed me some of the tricks of the trade that in fact I learned some things from Ted ridden who was one of Kennedy's assistants about helping won their last statewide senatorial election and I copied some of their good ideas politically I also organized a major mailing in the 1960 election of Massachusetts of Democrats for Kennedy and salt Stowe and we nailed that to every Irish name we could read in the phonebook organized a major mailing it was a Chris Paul secret until the last minute until it was mailed but it peeled off a lot of Democratic votes it was obviously not helping Nixon but Nixon didn't have a chance of carrying Massachusetts he heard that off he'd been there in the campaign I talked to them and he knew we didn't have any chance to win it he thought he could engage Kennedy but his engagements with Kennedy whether he's in Massachusetts or anywhere else we're not helping him because Kennedy came off better in the debates usually not not in terms of content so yeah I learned a lot from the Kennedys Lord lot for watching Massachusetts politics uh we're gonna talk a lot more about Richard Nixon but let's spend a minute on John Kennedy you interacted with him a lot just give us give us a word picture what was he like what was that charming guy he's a very nice fellow to work with he was smart in the sense that he knew how to use people effectively and where to get the resources he was charismatic and could draw the best out of people yeah he was a good leader I never thought he had the depth of experience or feeling about the world the Nixon head and most of his experience had been simply as a senator in Massachusetts so that was to be expected I was with him a few times when he was president and watched him as I've watched every president but I've known which now goes back to Eisenhower grow enormous Lee in the job I mean Kennedy took on the responsibilities and never had a chance tragically to really develop a major thrust to his own presidency but he certainly grew in that job sixty-eight you're working on the key issues committee right which on tower I think John taro was the chairman and Brad Morse my pal from Massachusetts congressman was the vice chairman which is how I got involved how are your thoughts about the Great Society well I thought I'd been a failure in the sense that it was promising something that couldn't be achieved by government basically and it was even in those days I've come to believe this more deeply today with good evidence to support it it was eroding a sense of responsibility among people for handling their own lives and I've seen that now working the last 30 years in prisons the fact that criminals today feel like victims we created the victim mentality in the Great Society I also was a small government conservative which meant cut back the size of government which is one reason I like Nixon so much and the Great Society was the precise reverse it was government taking over all aspects of life so I was pretty strongly opposed to it Richard Nixon wins but you don't you don't go into the government immediately well I had some other tations - John Vokey became Secretary of Transportation he was an old friend of mine from Massachusetts politics had been governor and we were very close and he asked me to come in and be general counsel of the Department of Transportation that I refused he asked me if I'd be undersecretary I said I would consider it but I really wasn't very excited about that and then Elliot Richardson who was then Assistant Secretary of State under secretary of state Elliot Richardson who was under sectors they called me one day and asked me if I would come over and meet with him and Elliot and I had worked very closely together in Massachusetts about respect for one another and he asked me if I'd the Assistant Secretary of State for handling the legislative affairs of the State Department and I got intrigued with that ironically I had been opposed to getting into Vietnam I thought it was a mistake I thought we would be in a you know quagmire I thought Eisenhower had been right in the late 50s when he said don't get into a land warfare in Southeast Asia because you can't win it and so I had written some actually written some statements forgery for and he was Republican leader saying that we shouldn't rise to the bait we shouldn't get into Vietnam here's a Lee Richardson saying when you can help defend the Vietnam War on the hill and I told Elliot I didn't think I could do it as a matter of guy didn't believe in it he's and he he made a very persuasive argument that we should be at least able to give the Vietnamese people a chance to help themselves live their own lives and leave honorably he articulated this was in the middle of 1969 he articulated the Nixon policy which Nixon then later spoke about at Guam and I was impressed by that I thought we're in this thing it's a mess and Elliott appealed to my better instincts and I told him I would seriously considerate of Bill Rogers wanted me to do it took me on the meatball Rodgers and I guess they put my name forward to clear it at the White House for appointment as assistant secretary of state Bryce Harlow would have to clear that name I got a call from Bryce Harlow an old friend it worked for Eisenhower and he said I think I understand you're considering going over with a striped pants crowd at the State Department foggy bottom and I said yeah because my old friend Elliott has asked me to do what he said you're not going to anywhere in government except here and come over and see me so I went over pan to the White House had some meetings with Bryce he told me frankly that the old man as he called him was feeling strangled by the Berlin wall by Haldeman and Ehrlichman he needed somebody who could break him out of that get him in touch with the broader world who knew Washington who could get him in touch with the power bases of the city of Washington and help him politically because he wasn't getting that from Paula Bennett Ehrlichman I'm sure it's hard to talk about this now that was obviously in great confidence and he told me that I should write up my own job description of what I thought I could accomplish the idea being to help Nixon solidify himself politically with interest groups and political centers of power and outside constituencies which I did and ended up sitting with Bob Haldeman one night who went through it all and said he thought that might be a workable thing coming out next thing I know I had a caller come over and see xyn and asked me to come in and be a special counsel which I did in November of 69 you John Whittaker let me look at the interview did with him and you described in this interview with John Whittaker you say that when you saw Nixon in 69 right he seemed worn down well I got there right after the I got there that weekend or the week after a lot of the protests and demonstrations that surrounded the White House quarter of a million people I also hadn't seen Nixon since the campaign and accepted public events and it hadn't sat down with him I'm not sure the first time it that I really spent any time with him it was over the first few months I was in the White House when he called me in for a specific purpose but he seemed frustrated and he seemed tired and beleaguered and you could tell what that first year had done to him you could also tell what the opposition was doing to him every day and that's what every president discovery is is it you go in and it's a great glamorous moment and hail to the chief has played and music he loved to hear and now all of a sudden you discover all the problems you got to deal with the bureaucracy that is intractable the White House staff that doesn't do what you tell him to do and the press in Nixon came into a terrible reception in Washington I remember the Washington Post article by I think by Selleck when signing the Nixon crowd coming from Orange County to Washington is like Hitler occupying Paris there was some pretty mean stuff said that was it and it was that there were poor relations right from day one with the Nixon administration so I saw this next and I saw how did Howard the tour they take it on what were the first campaign the first issues that you worked with did you work on the ABM oh yeah you know maybe my husband I guess I was in charge of that campaign in the way does the first thing that ever happened I've written about it in my book because it was kind of colorful Bryce Harlow had said to me one of these days we are going to see a large mushroom cloud erupt over the Oval Office because the old man is not getting what he wants from his staff well the first time Nixon called me and it was on a Friday afternoon I've just been there a short period of time and he had hauled him on your Oldman in the office and he said Chuck he said tell me what you think about these Catholic voters you keep talking about one of one of what you would be doing so I told him some of the issues that I thought were important to the Catholic constituency and particularly school aid for parochial schools there was a case going on in the court so there was a debate about whether the government would get involved whether the administration would get in vote and excellent looks at Haldeman Ehrlichman and says we're gonna do this bank it's the desk I want an executive order I want a the Justice Department into this I want to get us involved and helping get aid to parochial schools I believe in that so he turns to million points his finger and said okay it's Friday afternoon have it on my desk Monday morning and then he said to me I guess hauled him in her open and just left the room that's whatever Oliver no we're going to just walked out of it and he turned him in he said you understand what I want to do don't you and I said yesterday he said okay get me an executive order on my desk Monday morning I said yes sir and he said don't pay any attention to haul him in Ehrlichman there Christian Scientists they don't understand this that thought was humorous Sienna he'd already figured out how their own religious beliefs affected what they were gonna do policy wasn't it it did frequently in in the White House he and Nixon saw this shrewdly anyway that led to a absolutely explosive weekend when I got bill Rehnquist later Chief Justice of Supreme Court said he was then the assistant attorney general for the Office of Legal Counsel I said Bill you know executive order year by Monday for me and he got ahold of her LaVon who was somewhere on a counter for a ski weekend or weekend away from the White House and heroic Minh said tell him to forget it and well we got it I wrote parts of it myself brought it into the president of course there was absolute pure evil men from that day on I was toxic with them because Nixon would do this frequently and if he couldn't get them to do what he wanted what he wanted them to do he would give it to me to do order me to get it done I would and all I did was create a a white house of constant friction he did this with Haldeman and Ehrlichman and they frequently he did it with me occasionally with Kissinger so there were always those moments where I was viewed as the loose cannon and to some extent I was as far as the White House bureaucracy was concerned but that was at the direct bidding of the president United States he warned it that way did he chose to have contestation and friction because it meant better ideas no no he let me control people both it was both his desire that was the way he operated he he would love to hear the clash of ideas he didn't love a good debate he actually everybody had the idea you should be a yes-man to Richard Nixon that's not true he he liked hearing good arguments if they were well reasoned and he was very bright he could get this in a hurry he also realized that there was a natural process of lethargy that sets in to a White House or any or any bureaucracy any institution and the people will kind of do what they feel like doing they'll do what's urgent what they have to do and he was seeing a lot of his good stuff mired down in his own operation all of his job was to kick everybody's butt and get it done but Holda know if it wouldn't do that because he was much more wired into the structure it was his structure he had created it so Nexen use me in that play but I I think it was his way of getting things done but it was also his way of flushing out ideas he didn't like to like the final decision without listening to everybody's argument and he would get a position paper and rebate chopped off on it he'd want to hear the other side of it if I can take a play devil's advocate often with many of us in the White House to have some some people didn't realize what he was doing but he was forcing you to flush out the arguments make a lawyer yeah like a lawyer exactly like preparing for a case tell tell me about what you did on ABM how did you how did you create support for this well we created an outside committee safeguard America Committee which was a wonderful play on names and I raised some money from outside interest groups to back this committee we got some prestigious people on its former blonde policy experts and I was put in charge Haldeman called me in one day and he said the president wants you to do this and the president talked to me about it three or four times you coordinate everything going on in the White House so I coordinated the legislative liaison and the public campaign the public campaign was very significant because we were able herb Klein and I flew up one day to visit Henry Cabot Lodge at his home in Beverly Mass and got him to write an article we got the writer which was published in Reader's Digest on Weiss the safeguard America campaign the ABM was vital to our security and I was personally deeply convinced it was an essential bargaining chip in the salt agreement process absolutely could not have achieved what was achieved in our arms limitation without it so for me it was not just a political victory it was a labor of deep conviction two three things proved decisive the number of gray-haired foreign policy eminences that I was able to recruit to support us who then went up on Capitol Hill and did some lobbying number one number two a long talk I had with an old friend but also someone who could be very treacherous at times to be a friend of because she was personally vindictive was Margaret chase Smith Margaret chase Smith I'd known since I came to Washington she was close to Leverett Saltonstall and I went back and cashed in every chip I head making the case to her and I can honestly say from the discussion that I had with it which was a long one that it was the arguments on the merits that switched her vote her vote was the critical one we needed and used to win the other thing that helps a lot was an advertisement that I did for the newspaper as a funny story to this but I raised the money to put a full-page ad in The Washington Post safeguard America a sign of a picture of a huge mushroom cloud atomic explosion saying save America from this safe garden and all these distinguished names signing it that came out the week before the vote and created a huge stir in town and that very afternoon I got called in by Nixon he told me thought was the best dad he'd ever seen and he wrote on it on this news summary the next morning he said da Dada is the best thing I've seen we need more ad writers like that well I'd done it my own office it absolutely it wrinkled it called him own about as much as anything that ever happened because Haldeman came from the advertising world he considered himself an advertising marketing genius he considered me a political lawyer and I wrote so well I got a copy of the news summary with Nixon's marks on as I sent it back to him and I said David come you want this old Washington lawyer writing your ads let me know I can work for you a wallet Thompson later but we would even rub it in with each other that way but that that would prove to be a very successful use of outside resources to get a significant foreign policy objective achieved dead we interviewed Mel Laird and he said he played a role so in getting those folks he did know it was a very effective lobbyist on the hill I would say that there were two or three others who who carried a lot of weight up there I'll think of the names as we go along I don't think bill Rogers did not do much it was not able to do what you just didn't have that credibility in that area but a few people were able to make significant inroads we started out with behind by several votes you

Channel: Richard Nixon Presidential Library

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Length: 30min 53sec (1853 seconds)

Published: Wed Apr 18 2012