CHARLES W. COLSON is a native of Boston and holds degrees from Brown University and George Washington Law School. From 1969 to 1973 he served as special counsel to President Richard M. Nixon. During the Watergate investigation Colson was indicted on a charge unrelated to Watergate. He had nothing to do with either the planning of or the cover-up of the Watergate break-in but felt compelled to admit his wrongdoing in a related break-in – the burglary of psychiatrist Daniel Ellsberg's office. He was indicted for smearing the name of Ellsberg (which the administration had claimed had been necessary on the grounds of national security) and served seven months in prison.

Rather than hardening him, Colson’s time in prison gave him a greater love for people. Following his conversion to Christianity, not only did old political enemies become friends, but while in prison new friendships were forged with those who might have become enemies.

Presently, Colson is chairman of Prison Fellowship, a ministry he founded in 1976, which makes its headquarters in Washington, D. C. He is also the author of Born Again, Life Sentence, Loving God, and the recently released Kingdoms in Conflict. Here is his story, told in his own words, as taken from Loving God, ©1983 Zondervan Publishing House, and from Born Again, ©1976 Fleming H. Revell Company.

Saturday, June 17, 1972, was warm and oppressively humid, typical of summer in Washington, D.C. As special counsel to the president of the United States, I was on call day and night, leaving little time for myself or my family. But this Saturday we were enjoying a rare, uninterrupted family day at our suburban McLean, Virginia, home.

Patty and the kids were stretched out by the pool, and I was starting up the grill for a cookout, when the phone with the direct line to the White House switchboard rang. It was John Ehrlichman, one of the president's senior assistants. Without explanation he brusquely asked what seemed like a ridiculous question: "Where is your friend Howard Hunt?"

Hunt was a shadowy ex-CIA agent I'd known casually and had recommended for a minor White House job investigating leaks of government documents. But it had been months since I'd seen him or heard from him. So I pressed Ehrlichman. What in the world was so important about Howard Hunt's whereabouts as to interrupt my quiet Saturday afternoon?

It was then I learned for the first time that a group of ex-Cuban freedom fighters had been arrested while breaking into the Democratic National Committee offices in the Watergate hotel. One of the men had had a piece of paper in his pocket with Hunt's name on it. I can still remember my distracted thoughts as I hung up the phone: Hunt's no amateur. He wouldn't get involved in a common burglary. Yet if he had been...I know him...my name could be dragged in.

Then I shrugged and dismissed these foreboding thoughts, went back to the pool and steamy sunshine, and grilled some hamburgers.

That was how Watergate began for me.

WHAT THE WATERGATE SCANDAL SHOWED ME

     During the following weeks I was comforted by my belief that no one in the White House or the Nixon campaign would be so stupid as to think they could find anything of value at the headquarters of a bankrupt party being ignored by its own candidates. This was no moral judgment, just practical politics. Even as the burglars' connection to Howard Hunt and his compatriot G. Gordon Liddy was uncovered, it was dismissed; both men had been part-time White House consultants but had been removed from the rolls months earlier.

Though the break-in was a burglary under D.C. law, it seemed at the time to be nothing more than campaign spying to me – like stealing the signals out of the other team's huddle. Certainly it was nothing much more than things I had done or others had done to me in my twenty years of political campaigns. (It was not until two years later, in the summer of 1974, when the infamous "smoking gun" tape was released, that the world as well as some of us on the inside learned that in the early days after the break-in the president was involved in attempting to sidetrack the FBI's investigation. That would later become the cover-up.)

In light of what happened later it sounds naive, but at the time I believed nothing more was at stake than surviving the political brick-throwing through the November elections. The whole affair would then be neatly buried beneath the electoral landslide, and we would get on with the more important business of governing the country – or so I thought.

In the post-election euphoria that November, no one paid much attention to Watergate. I recall only occasional discussions about it with the president, who was consumed with the frustrating negotiations to end the war in Vietnam. Henry Kissinger was shuttling back and forth to the Paris peace talks. But Haldeman, chief of staff, and John Ehrlichman were busy reorganizing the bureaucracy for the second term. John Mitchell, former attorney general and campaign manager, had moved back to his lucrative law firm in New York. And l was packing up my office preparing to return to my own Washington law practice.

Then in January of 1973 Watergate, at least from my perspective, began to take on new implications. Howard Hunt, fearing imprisonment, sent his lawyer to see me. As the attorney demanded assurance of clemency for Hunt (which I refused to give him), I learned for the first time that the Watergate burglars were being given funds for support and legal fees.

Following the visit of Hunt's lawyer, I consulted my law partner, Dave Shapiro, a two-fisted trial veteran who had scrapped his way up from the streets of Brooklyn. Together we broke out the law books. It was then, late in January 1973, as we reviewed the tight columns of fine print in the criminal statutes, that I began to understand the possible criminal implication for the White House.

So in mid-February, with the Vietnam War finally over, I summoned up the courage to confront the president. It was during our last meeting in the Oval Office before I returned to my private law practice that I gave President Nixon the painful advice: "Whoever did order Watergate, let it out...let's get rid of it now. Take our losses."

The president had been leaning back in his chair, legs crossed and feet propped up on his massive mahogany desk. The words were barely out of my mouth when he dropped his feet and came straight up in his chair. "Well, who do you think did this?...Mitchell? Magruder?" He was angry, righteously so, I supposed, that I would suggest putting the finger on a loyal aide. He was also, I still believe today, oblivious of the possible criminal implications, even as the net was being drawn increasingly tighter around us all.

THE COVER-UP BEGINS

According to the exhaustive records compiled from tape recordings, mountains of documents, endless congressional hearings, and massive volumes of testimony, the first serious Oval Office discussion of likely criminal involvement took place the morning of March 21, 1973; that was the fateful meeting when John Dean warned the president of the "cancer on his presidency."

    Later on March 21 (the specific dates are important), Haldeman called Mitchell in New York, and Mitchell, in turn, told Jeb Magruder, his campaign assistant, he would "assist" him if he went to jail. That was also the day $75,000 in additional money was dispatched to Hunt for "lawyer's fees." The president conferred again with Haldeman and Ehrlichman and Dean. And that same evening the president, without disclosing anything that had gone on that busy day, called me at home for a thirty-one-minute conversation.

    Though I had officially left his staff, it was not surprising to receive a call from the president; he had told me he wanted to continue to call on me for advice. What was surprising was the president's impatient, almost distracted voice. I had spent countless hours across a desk from him or on the phone and could almost always read his mood. When big issues were on his mind, like Vietnam bombings or dealings with China, the president was remarkably cool. When little things came to his attention, like sniping in the press, he seemed the most unnerved.
 

The evening of March 21 he quickly dispensed with small talk and plunged into Watergate.

"What's your judgment as to what...what ought to be done now...whether, uh, there should be, uh, a, uh, report made or something, you know, or just hunker down and take it or what?"

    The official transcripts show my reply. "The problem I foresee in this is not what has happened so far – that is, the mystery of the Watergate. I don’t know whether somebody else higher up in the Committee for the Re-election is gonna get named or not but, uh, to me that isn't of any great consequence to the country if it happens. The thing that worries me is that, is the possibility of somebody, uh, charging an obstruction of justice problem – in other words, that the subsequent actions would worry me more than anything."

I then went on to suggest that the president remove Dean and appoint an independent special counsel to handle Watergate for him. Though I wasn't aware then of earlier meetings with Dean and the others, it was, as hindsight confirms, good advice. But those chilling words "obstruction of justice" must have made the president's day. No wonder he didn't call me again for two weeks.

    After March 21 everything changed – it was all downhill, and fast. Conversations grew thick and heavy the next week: talk of perjury, “stonewalling," obstruction of justice, the kind of stuff that gives grown men weak knees and sweaty palms.

    On March 23 Judge Sirica released a letter from one of the Watergate burglars who had made a deal; he would tell all in exchange far a lighter sentence. That afternoon Haldeman called me with a series of questions: Had I promised clemency to Howard Hunt? Had I urged the campaign people to get intelligence on the Democrats? Bob's voice was cool, as always, but from the way he repeated my answers, I was certain someone else was in the room with him – the president. His questions also revealed what was happening behind the massive iron gates of 1600 Pennsylvania Avenue. The occupants were stocking the bunkers for what they now realized would be a bloody siege. Increasingly distrustful of my colleagues and sensing that all was not well, I dictated a memorandum of our conversation as soon as I hung up the phone.

PANIC SPREADS

Thinly disguised panic began to sweep the plush offices of the stately old building that houses the most influential and powerful men in the world. Events escalated so fast that there was no way to keep track of them. As the press bantered allegations that campaign officials had ordered the break-in, Dean rushed off to Camp David to write a "report."

On March 26 the grand jury reconvened to hear new charges from one of the original burglars. That same day Dean called Magruder and taped his conversation.

On March 27 Haldeman and Ehrlichman discussed the crisis for two and a half hours with the president. Also, Mitchell met with Magruder to discuss clemency, while Mitchell's wife, Martha, made one of her legendary calls to the New York Times, charging that someone was trying to make a "goat" of her husband.

While at Camp David on March 27, John Dean had secretly contacted an old law school classmate for advice on the best criminal lawyer he could hire. Five days later he retained a tough ex-Kennedy administration prosecutor, Charles Schaeffer. Then on April 8, 1973, Dean met with Watergate prosecutors to bargain his testimony for immunity and save his own hide, as he acknowledged with refreshing candor in his memoirs.

Within hours the cover-up collapsed. Magruder, already in contact with the prosecutors, began negotiations in earnest. Dave Shapiro, sensing it was now "every man for himself," coaxed me into taking a lie detector test to establish my innocence, then gave the results to the New York Times. The prosecutors called me; I offered to testify.

The White House was like a frontline command post under heavy shelling. Though men like Ehrlichman and Haldeman put on a brave front, they trusted no one and were taping every phone conversation.

Daily headlines fed the public fresh tidbits, mostly from stories leaked by aides or their lawyers seeking to clear their skirts or entice the prosecutors into a better deal. Meanwhile, the prosecutors were so busy with White House officials offering testimony that they couldn't handle the traffic in and out of their offices. Suddenly Watergate was a three-ring circus.

History reveals that after the criminal investigation of the White House began – as it did with Dean's April 8 meeting with the prosecutors – the end of Mr. Nixon's presidency was only a matter of time. The cover-up was discovered – and doomed – and this is why the dates are so important For though the cover-up technically dated back to the June 1972 break-in, the serious cover-up – the part everyone knew or should have known was criminal – really began March 21, 1973. And it ended April 8, 1973.

BY NATURE, CONSPIRACIES COLLAPSE

With the most powerful office in the world at stake, a small band of handpicked loyalists – no more than ten of us – could not hold a conspiracy together for more than two weeks.

Think of what was at stake: Each of us involved – Ehrlichman, Haldeman, Mitchell, and the rest – believed passionately in President Nixon. To enter government service for him we had sacrificed very lucrative private law practices and other endeavors; we had sacrificed our family lives and privacy; we had invested our whole lives in the work, twenty-four hours a day if necessary. Only a few months earlier the president had been re-elected in a historic landslide victory; the ugly Asian war was finally over; we were riding the crest in every way.

Think of the power at our fingertips: A mere command from one of us could mobilize generals and cabinet officers, even armies; we could hire or fire personnel and manage billions in agency budgets.

Think of the privileges: A call to the military aide's office would produce a limousine or jet airplane; the National Gallery delivered classic paintings to adorn our office walls; red-jacketed stewards stood in waiting to serve food and drink twenty-four hours a day; private phones appeared wherever we traveled; secret service men were always within sight – as many as we wanted.

Yet even the prospect of jeopardizing the president we'd worked so hard to elect, of losing the prestige, power, and personal luxury of our offices was not enough incentive to make this group of men contain a lie. Nor, as I reflect today, was the pressure really all that great; at that point there had certainly been moral failures, criminal violations, even perjury by some. There was certain to be keen embarrassment; at the worst, some might go to prison, though that possibility was by no means certain. But no one was in grave danger; no one's life was at stake.

Yet after just a few weeks the naturally human instinct for self-preservation was so overwhelming that the conspirators, one by one, deserted their leader, walked away from their cause, and turned their backs on the power, prestige, and privileges.

THE IMPLICATIONS FOR CHRIST’S RESURRECTION

So what does all this have to do with resurrection of Jesus Christ and Christianity? Simply this: First, God used the tragedy of Watergate to bring me to faith in the resurrected Christ. Watergate revealed how fleeting power and prestige were, and how meaningless they could be in the face of personal loss. Power and prestige had been what I sought, yet they left me personally unfulfilled and both personally and professionally exhausted. I came to find out that Jesus Christ offered what power and prestige never could.

Second, Watergate offered an excellent historical example that, oddly enough, provides compelling evidence for the validity of the resurrection of Jesus Christ and the truth of Christianity. I would like to look at this a little more closely, beginning with my personal experience and then tracing the parallels between the Watergate scandal and the Resurrection.

NO RELIGIOUS INTEREST

While growing up, I had never really been a religious person. All my life had been spent trying to find personal and material security , trying to be a success in all that I did. I grew up in America in the Great Depression years. I recall how terrible it was for people to stand in bread lines, people without enough food to eat. I was the grandson of immigrants, and came from a family that had never sent anyone to college. I remember thinking, if I could just get a scholarship to college, that would be security. I'd find meaning, purpose in life, that's all I'd need.

So I earned a scholarship to an Ivy League university and graduated with academic honors. But I found that wasn't enough. I was then commissioned as an officer in the Marine Corps during the Korean War. I remember pinning those bars on as a marine lieutenant, hoping that would be my identity .

After the war, I earned my law degree and became the youngest administrative assistant in the United States Senate. And I can remember working my way up that ladder thinking: I am going to find security; I am going to find meaning; I'm going to find purpose out of the things of this world.

When I was just thirty-nine, the president of the United States asked me to come and to work with him. I was given an office right down the hall. The White House and politics are just like the business community. The closer you are to the president, the more powerful your position, and soon I had an office immediately next to the president

One day I remember looking out over the south lawn of the White House, those beautifully manicured grounds, and thinking to myself, My dad used to tell me in the depression that if you work hard and strive to get ahead you can do anything in America. I remember thinking, That's right, it's true. All those years I wanted that security, I wanted success and power and achievement, and now I've got it all.

SUCCESS LIKE SOAP BUBBLES – BEAUTIFUL UNTIL GRASPED

But the amazing paradox: When I left the White House (choosing to go back into private practice shortly after President Nixon's second inauguration – before, really, the darkest days of Watergate and before I thought I was in trouble myself), I walked out with really everything a person could want in life, but I felt absolutely empty, dead, and hollow inside. All those things I thought would give me security and meaning, did not.

    I then returned to what was now a very prestigious and lucrative law firm that I had helped found. Upon my return, clients were lining up at the doors, the result of a rash of articles like the feature piece in the New York Times describing me as "the first bona fide member of the president's inner circle – well on his way to becoming one of the busiest and best paid lawyers in Washington." All of this – warm welcome, plenty of money – surely, I thought, this will give me a new thrust.

    A few short weeks after my return to law practice I was in New York to meet with the producers of a promising TV system which might in time give the networks tough competition. We met in the offices of one of New York's old-line investment banking houses. Soon the company's president, chairman of the board, three vice-presidents, and two bankers were seated around a long boardroom table, peppering my associate with facts, figures, statistics, and information about their plans for multimillion-dollar investments. My associate was eagerly taking notes. I could not. For the first time in my life I was not able to concentrate in a meeting; it was all I could do to appear interested, nodding, I hoped, at the right times.

Am I having a blackout? I asked myself. Something serious must be wrong with me physically; I can't still be tired. Once I imagined that someone had drawn a soundproof glass window right across the table, leaving the mouths on the other side moving soundlessly. Finally, the meeting was over. We closed the deal, a healthy six-figure amount, and they flew us home in their corporate jet.

On the return trip I settled back into my plush seat of the private Gulfstream II and tried to shut out the world. I stared out the window, alone again with the same doubts and worries that had been my unwelcome companions for five months. In the old days, landing a big account was exhilarating – reason to take Patty to dinner to celebrate. Where is the old competitive zest? I asked myself. I finally concluded that the decompression from the tension – packed White House years to law practice was an adjustment that simply would take time, although time did not seem to be solving the problem.

CHANGE IN AN OLD FRIEND

There was one client I'd represented before whose return I welcomed: the Raytheon Company, an electronics manufacturer and the largest employer in New England. I was again to be their general counsel. In mid-March I flew to Boston for all-day meetings with the company's top executives. The executive vice-president, Brainerd Holmes, who once headed the government's manned- space program, was an old friend. His boss, Tom Phillips, the company's president, had climbed to the top by sheer wits and raw ability.

I met Brainerd first in the company's modern brick and glass headquarters overlooking Route 128, the busy beltway around Boston. Holmes, enthusiastic about Raytheon's new programs, scheduled me for several meetings with engineers and vice-presidents. Later in the day Tom Phillips left word that he, too, wanted to see me before I departed.

As I started for the president's office, Brainerd stopped me. "Chuck, maybe there's something I should tell you about Tom before you go in there. He's had quite a change – some kind of a religious experience." Brainerd paused, searching for the right words to explain it. "I don't really understand it, but it is quite important to him. He – he might come on – well, you know, maybe a little strong." Brainerd concluded with an embarrassed smile.

This was surprising news. Tom Phillips had always been such an aggressive businessman; it was hard for me to see him teaching Sunday school. I thought that was for little old ladies. Once he'd told me he was Congregational in the same way I labeled myself Episcopalian. Nothing important – just another membership. I thought that he might be involved in church fund-raising, as the top executive of the state's biggest company would be expected to do for church and community.

When I entered his office, he was the same old Tom, jet-black hair, athletic build, stripped down to shirt sleeves, as always. But the smile was a lot warmer, radiant, in fact, and he looked more relaxed than I had ever seen him.

“Tell me about yourself, Chuck. How have you been doing?" he began.

An honest answer would have been that I felt rotten, but Tom was an important client, so I told him, "I feel fine, a little tired."

"You really should get some rest, Chuck. It's important after what you've been through," he said, and I had the curious sensation that rather than making small talk, he genuinely meant it.

We reminisced about old times, then it was back to me. "About this Watergate business, Chuck, are you okay? It looks to me like people are trying to drag you into it."

I told Tom I had no direct or indirect involvement in the burglary – despite the heat from the press. I was launching into a lengthy defensive explanation when Tom cut me off. "Don't explain. If you tell me you weren't responsible, that's all I need to hear."

TELL ME ABOUT IT

We had talked for twenty minutes, and nothing at all had been said about religion. Yet Tom was different. There was a new compassion in his eyes and a gentleness in his voice. "Uh – Brainerd tells me that you have become very involved in some religious activities," I said at last.

"Yes, that's true, Chuck. I have accepted Jesus Christ. I have committed my life to Him, and it has been the most marvelous experience of my whole life."

My expression must have revealed my shock. I struggled for safe ground. "Uh, maybe sometime you and I can discuss that, Tom." If I hadn't restrained myself I would have blurted out, "What are you talking about? Jesus Christ lived two thousand years ago, a great moral leader, of course, and doubtless divinely inspired. But why would anyone 'accept' Him or 'commit one's life' to Him as if He were around today?"

The conversation turned to more comfortable subjects, and then Tom walked me to the door of his office, his long arm around my shoulder. "I'd like to tell you the whole story someday, Chuck. I had gotten to the point where I didn't think my life was worth anything. Now everything is changed – attitude, values, the whole bit."

Phillips was boggling my mind. "Life wasn't worth anything," he'd said. When you're president of the biggest company in the state, have a beautiful home, a Mercedes, a great family, probably a quarter million-a-year salary...

THE EMPTY LIFE

            But he had struck a raw nerve – the empty life. It was what I was living with, though I couldn't admit that to Tom. I went back to Washington to struggle with my inner malaise – and Watergate – and Phillips' astonishing words.

Following my time with Tom came what I've called "the long hot summer." During the summer of 1973 the story about the Nixon tapes broke, the television hearings with the Ervin committee reached a crescendo, tempers were flaring, and political morality had been reduced in Washington to the level of bayonet warfare. Being personally attacked both in print and on the air, and being falsely accused of smearing a senator's name, were very unpleasant experiences. Following the summer my feeling of emptiness was still there, the questions about myself, my purpose, what my life was all about The doubts that had invaded my consciousness last February hung over me like a shroud.

The meeting in March with Phillips, meanwhile, had remained vivid in my memory. I recalled his warmth, his kindness, the serenity of his face, and the startling words, "I have accepted Jesus Christ and committed my life." I hadn't understood them, but they had a ring of simple, shameless sincerity. Tom represented everything that Watergate and Washington were not: decency, openness, truth. I thought often of Tom's words during this stormy time; even more often I recalled the expression on his face, something radiant, peaceful, and very real. I envied it, whatever it was. Finally , I decided to give Tom a call.

I arrived at Tom's home, and at his insistence, first the dark gray business-suit jacket, then my tie came off. He, fresh from playing tennis with his teenagers, pulled a wrought-iron ottoman close to the comfortable outdoor settee I sat on.

“Tell me, Chuck," he began, "are you okay?" It was the same question he had asked in March.

As the president's confidant and so-called big-shot Washington lawyer, I was still keeping my guard up. "I'm not doing too badly, I guess. All of this Watergate business, all the accusations – I suppose it's wearing me down some. But I'd rather talk about you, Tom. You've changed and I'd like to know what happened."

Tom drank from his glass of iced tea and sat back reflectively. Briefly he reviewed his past, the rapid rise to power at Raytheon: executive vice-president at thirty-seven, president when he was only forty. He had done it with hard work, day and night, nonstop.

"The success came, all right, but something was missing," he mused. "I felt a terrible emptiness. Sometimes I would get up in the middle of the night and pace the floor of my bedroom or stare out into the darkness for hours at a time."

"I don't understand it, " I interrupted. "I knew you in those days, Tom. You were a straight arrow, had a good family life, were successful; in fact everything was going your way."

"All that may be true, Chuck, but my life wasn't complete. I would go to the office each day and do my job, striving all the time to make the company succeed, but there was a big hole in my life. I began to read the Scriptures, looking for answers. Something forced me to search, made me realize I needed a personal relationship with God."

MY NUMBER WAS UP

A prickly feeling ran down my spine. Maybe what I had gone through in the past several months wasn't so unusual after all – except I had not sought spiritual answers. I had not even been aware that finding a personal relationship with God was possible. I pressed him to explain the apparent contradiction between the emptiness inside while seeming to enjoy the affluent life.

"It may be hard to understand," Tom chuckled. "But I didn't seem to have any- thing that mattered. It was all on the surface. All the material things in life are meaningless if a man hasn't discovered what's underneath them. One night I was in New York on business and noticed that Billy Graham was having a Crusade in Madison Square Garden," Tom continued. "I went – curious, I guess – hoping maybe I'd find some answers. What Graham said that night put it all into place for me. I saw what was missing: the personal relationship with Jesus Christ, the fact that I hadn't ever asked Him into my life; I hadn't turned my life over to Him. So I did it – that very night at the Crusade."

Tom explained that after inviting Christ to come into his life that he could feel His presence and His peace. He also explained that accepting Christ simply meant asking. To me, Jesus had always been an historical figure, but Tom explained that you could hardly invite Him into your life if you didn't believe that He is alive today, that the Resurrection is a reality, and that His Spirit is a part of today's scene.

With any other man, the notion of relying on God would have seemed to me to be pure Pollyanna. Yet I had to be impressed with the way this man ran his company in the equally competitive world of business: ignoring his enemies, trying to follow God's ways and not the often cutthroat ethics of corporate business. And since his conversion Raytheon had never done better. Maybe there was something to it.

"Chuck, I don't think you will understand what I'm saying about God until you are willing to face yourself honestly and squarely. This is the first step." Tom reached to the comer table and picked up a small paperback book. I read the title: Mere Christianity by C. S. Lewis.

"I suggest you take this with you and read it while you are on vacation." Tom started to hand it to me, then paused. "Let me read you one chapter."

THE VICE OF PRIDE

I leaned back, still on the defensive, my mind and emotions whirling.

There is one vice of which no man in the world is free; which every one in the world loathes when he sees it in someone else; and of which hardly any people, except Christians, ever imagine that they are guilty themselves. I have heard people admit that they are bad-tempered, or that they cannot keep their heads about girls or drink, or even that they are cowards. I do not think I have ever heard anyone who was not a Christian accuse himself of this vice....There is no fault...which we are more unconscious of in ourselves. And the more we have it ourselves, the more we dislike it in others.

The vice I am talking of is pride or self-conceit...Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.

As he read, I could feel a flush coming into my face and a curious burning sensation that made the night seem even warmer. Lewis's words seemed to pound straight at me.

...it is pride which has been the chief cause of misery in every nation and every family since the world began. Other vices may sometimes bring people together: you may find good fellowship and jokes and friendliness among drunken people or unchaste people. But pride always seems enmity – it is enmity. And not only enmity between man and man, but enmity to God.

In God you come up against something which is in every respect immeasurably superior to yourself. Unless you know God as that – and, therefore, know yourself as nothing in comparison – you do not know God at all. As long as you are proud you cannot know God. A proud man is always looking down on things and people: and, of course, as long as you are looking down, you cannot see something that is above you.

Suddenly I felt naked and unclean, my bravado defenses gone. I was exposed, unprotected, for Lewis's words were describing me. As he continued, one passage in particular seemed to sum up what had happened to all of us at the White House: "For pride is spiritual cancer: it eats up the very possibility of love, or contentment, or even common sense."

Tom finished the chapter on pride and shut the book.

That one chapter ripped through the protective armor in which I had unknowingly encased myself for forty-two years. I had never thought of anything being "immeasurably superior" to myself, or if I had in fleeting moments thought about the infinite power of God, I had not related Him to my life. In those brief moments while Tom read, I saw myself as I never had before. And the picture was ugly.

"How about it, Chuck?" Tom's question jarred me out of my trance. I knew precisely what he meant. Was I ready to make the same decision about Christ as he had made in New York?

"Tom, you've shaken me up. I'll admit that. But I can't tell you I'm ready to make the kind of commitment you did. I've got to be certain. I've got to learn a lot more, be sure all my reservations are satisfied. I've got a lot of intellectual hang-ups to get past."

Tom paused, then he smiled, saying, "I understand, I understand."

"You see," I continued, "I saw men turn to God in the Marine Corps; I did once myself. Then afterward it's all forgotten and everything is back to normal. Foxhole religion is just a way of using God. How can I make a commitment now? My whole world is crashing down around me. How can I be sure I'm not just running for shelter and that when the crisis is over I'll forget it? I've got to answer all the intellectual arguments first, and if I can do that, I'll be sure."

"I understand," Tom repeated quietly.

A DAM BREAKS

We then headed for the door, Tom stopped to pray for me before I left. By the time I got to my car I was crying, mad at myself for feeling weak. As I drove out of Tom's driveway, the tears were flowing uncontrollably. I pulled off to the side of the road not a block from Tom's house. I forgot about machismo, about pretenses, about fears of being weak. And as I did, I began to experience a wonderful feeling of being released.

Then came the strange sensation that water was not only running down my cheeks, but surging through my whole body as well, cleansing and cooling as it went. They weren't tears of sadness and remorse, nor of joy – but somehow, tears of relief. That night, not knowing what I was asking, I asked God for His help. There alone, in the quiet of the dark night, I knew for the first time that I was no longer alone at all.

That week Patty and I took our vacation in a cottage in the lovely old fishing village of Boothbay Harbor along the New England coast. Patty wanted very much to relax and tune out the Watergate crisis for awhile. And I? I could hardly wait to get unpacked and dive into Lewis's book.

As I opened Mere Christianity I thought, Perhaps Lewis approaches God on the intuitive, emotional level. I did not know how wrong I was. Instead, I found myself face-to-face with an intellect so disciplined, so lucid, so relentlessly logical that I could only be grateful I had never faced him in a court of law. The central thesis of Lewis's book and the essence of Christianity is summed up in one mind-boggling sentence: "Jesus Christ is God." Not just part of God, or just sent by God, or just related to God. He was (and therefore, of course, is) God.

Over the course of the next few days I grappled and struggled with those words. I puzzled over both Lewis's book as well as my recent time at Tom's. I asked myself whether Christ could really change my life? What would it mean for my professional life if I accepted Christ? Was I sure that this was true? I questioned my motives. I wondered if I was not simply seeking a safe port in the storm, a temporary hiding place?

No, I knew the time had come for me: I could not sidestep the central question Lewis (or God) had placed squarely before me. Was I to accept without reservations Jesus Christ as Lord of my life? It was like a gate before me. There was no way to walk around it. I would step through, or I would remain outside. A "maybe" or an "I need more time" would be kidding myself.

NO MORE KIDDING MYSELF

And so early that Friday morning, while I sat alone staring at the sea I love, words I had not been certain I could understand or say fell naturally from my lips: "Lord Jesus, I believe You. I accept You. Please come into my life. I commit it to You."

With these few words that morning, while the briny sea churned, came a sureness of mind that matched the depth of feeling in my heart. There came something more: strength and serenity, a wonderful new assurance about life, a fresh perception of myself and the world around me. In the process, I felt old fears, tensions, and animosities draining away. I was coming alive to things I'd never seen before, as if God was filling the barren void I'd known for so many months, filling it to its brim with a whole new kind of awareness.

As a result of my conversion I began to see the Watergate crisis in a whole new light – both its gravity and its scandal. I saw the pride and the abuse of power. The pride that Lewis had talked about in Mere Christianity – the pride that seeks power to the exclusion of what is right, the pride that thrives on power, the pride that is often so hard to see and to admit, the pride that is enmity with God, and the pride that eats away love and contentment; that pride had led to the Watergate debacle. I knew that it was pride that had kept me from God, and pride that had led me down the wrong path. A pride that God said, and I came to realize, is within every person. I saw that truth clearly manifested in Watergate.

I came to realize that I had to do not only what I thought was best for the country, but also what was right. In the past I had always believed the answer was the same for both – that what we thought was best for the country was right. Now I knew different. I realized that how I now perceived the latter was often at odds with how others perceived the former. I realized the moral compromises of Watergate were simply not justified for any reason, least of all to protect the country.

Thus, my commitment to Jesus Christ changed my heart and mind, giving me new peace and freedom, as well as a new perspective and worldview. And not only did I perceive the whole Watergate scandal differently – but as I reflected on the conspiracy and the brevity of the attempted cover-up, I realized that Watergate does indeed offer a compelling argument for the resurrection of Jesus Christ

Let me explain.

THE LESSONS OF WATERGATE

Modern criticism of the historical truth of the Resurrection and Christianity boils down to three propositions:

·       First, that the disciples were mistaken (i.e., they never saw the resurrected Christ); or

·       Second, that the disciples knowingly perpetrated a myth (i.e., a lie) intended as a symbol;

        or

·       Third, the eleven disciples conceived a "Passover plot" – spirited the body of Christ out of the tomb and disposed of it neatly – and to their dying breaths maintained conspiratorial silence.

Let's consider each.

The first is the shakiest After all, a man being raised from the dead is a rather mind-boggling event – not the kind of thing people are likely to be vague or indecisive about The Scriptures state very honestly that the disciples were so staggered by Jesus' reappearance that at least one demanded the tangible proof of fingering the wounds in His hands and side. Jesus knew human nature, knew they needed physical evidence. Luke says, "He showed himself to these men and gave many convincing proofs that he was alive. He appeared to them over a period of forty days..." (Acts 1:3).The records of the event, written independently by various eyewitness reporters, belie the possibility that the disciples were mistaken.

But could it have been a myth? This second theory seems plausible at first since it was customary in the first century to convey religious truths through symbols. But this assumes that all the disciples understood that they were using a symbolic device. Even a cursory reading of the Gospels reveals not allegory or fable, but a straightforward, narrative account. Moreover, Paul, an intimate associate of the original disciples, shatters the myth theory altogether when he argues that if Jesus was not actually resurrected, Christianity is a hoax, a sham. Nothing in Paul's writings remotely suggests mythology .

The myth theory is as untenable as the mistake theory. So if one is to assail the historicity of the Resurrection and therefore the deity of Christ, one must conclude that there was a conspiracy – a cover-up if you will – by eleven men with the complicity of up to five hundred others (since that number of people are reported to have been eyewitnesses of the resurrected Christ).

To subscribe to this argument, one must also be ready to believe that each disciple was willing to be ostracized by friends and family, live in daily fear of death, endure prisons, live penniless and hungry, sacrifice family, be tortured without mercy, and ultimately die – all without ever once renouncing that Jesus had risen from the dead!

This is why the Watergate experience is so instructive for me. If John Dean and the rest of us were so panic-stricken, not by the prospect of beatings and execution, but by political disgrace and a possible prison term, one can only speculate about the emotions of the disciples. Unlike the men in the White House, the disciples were powerless people, abandoned by their leader, homeless in a conquered land. Yet they clung tenaciously to their enormously offensive story that their Leader had risen from His ignoble death and was alive-and was the Lord.

THE TRUE NATURE OF HUMANITY

The Watergate cover-up reveals, I think, the true nature of humanity. None of the memoirs suggest that anyone went to the prosecutor's office out of such noble notions as putting the Constitution above the president or bringing rascals to justice, or even moral indignation. Instead, the writings of those involved are consistent recitations of the frailty of man. Even political zealots at the pinnacle of power will save their own necks in the crunch, though it may be at the expense of the one they profess to serve so zealously.

Is it really likely, then, that a deliberate cover-up, a plot to perpetuate a lie about the Resurrection, could have survived the violent persecution of the apostles, the scrutiny of early church councils, the horrendous purge of the first-century believers who were cast by the thousands to the lions for refusing to renounce the lordship of Christ? Is it not probable that at least one of the apostles would have caved in and renounced Christ before being beheaded or stoned? Is it not likely that some "smoking gun" document might have been produced, exposing the "Passover plot?" Surely one of the conspirators would have made a deal with the authorities.

Blaise Pascal, the extraordinary mathematician, scientist, inventor, and logician of the seventeenth century, was convinced of the truth of Christ by examination of the historical record. In his classic, Pensιes, Pascal wrote:

The hypothesis that the apostles were knaves is quite absurd. Follow it out to the end and imagine these twelve men meeting after Jesus' death and conspiring to say that He had risen from the dead. This means attacking all the powers that be. The human heart is singularly susceptible to fickleness, to change, to promises, to bribery. One of them had only to deny his story under these inducements, or still more because of possible imprisonment, torture and death, and they would all have been lost.

As Pascal correctly observes, man in his normal state will renounce his beliefs just as readily as Peter renounced Jesus before the Resurrection. But as the same Peter discovered after the Resurrection, there is a power beyond man that causes him to forsake all. It is the power of the God who revealed Himself in the person of Jesus Christ.

TAKE IT FROM ME

Take it from one who was inside the Watergate web looking out, who saw firsthand how vulnerable a cover-up is: Nothing less than a witness as awesome as the resurrected Christ could have caused those men to maintain to their dying whispers that Jesus is alive and Lord.

This weight of evidence tells me the apostles were indeed telling the truth: Jesus did rise bodily from the grave; and He speaks today, as He did then, with the absolute authority of the all-powerful God.