0:10

And we continue with our American

0:12

stories. Often considered one of

0:14

the smartest men to pass through Washington,

0:17

d c. Political culture, Chuck

0:19

Coulson, who served as special counsel

0:22

to President Richard Nixon, served

0:24

seven months in the Federal Maxwell

0:26

Prison in Alabama in nineteen seventy

0:28

four, as the first member of the Nixon administration

0:31

to be incarcerated for Watergate

0:33

related crimes. This is that

0:36

story and its subsequent fallout,

0:38

told by the man himself. We'd

0:40

like to thank Chuck Coulson's dear friends at

0:43

the Acton Institute who graciously

0:45

provided us with this audio.

0:47

It was the last interview Chuck Coulson

0:50

granted any media organization

0:52

before passing at the age of

0:54

eighty. Let's begin with a

0:57

montage of clips summarizing

0:59

Coulson's word Agate trial, followed

1:01

by Chuck sharing his story.

1:15

I will say to you, mister Shore, what I've said publicly

1:18

to others, and that is that I had no knowledge

1:20

and no involvement in the Watergate incident of

1:23

any kind. That's I think all I should

1:25

say.

1:29

But no time did I engage in any

1:31

unlawful or illegal act in

1:33

connection with this matter. There

1:36

is much that the public has not been told

1:39

about the circumstances surrounding

1:41

this.

1:41

Matter, and a great.

1:43

Deal more I believe will be revealed

1:45

in the course of this proceeding.

1:47

Thank you.

1:52

There was an unexpected and important development

1:55

today in the Watergate investigations. Charles

1:57

Coulson has made an arrangement with this prosecutor

2:01

to tell all he knows about Watergate.

2:03

As a witness for the prosecutor.

2:07

I have watched, for the very heavy heart the country

2:10

I love being torn apart by

2:12

the most divisive and bitter controversy

2:14

in our nation's history. If this is

2:17

to be a government of laws and not of men,

2:20

and those men entrusted with enforcing the laws

2:22

must be held to account for the natural consequences

2:24

of their own actions.

2:28

Not only is it morally.

2:29

Right that I plead to this church, but I

2:31

fervently hope that this case

2:34

will serve to prevent similar abuses in

2:36

the future.

2:53

I did everything my

2:56

way, and

2:58

it crushed and bruned. I

3:03

was a driven guy. I had

3:05

grown up in the depression years, where

3:07

I saw a neighbor's standing

3:09

in breadlines. I

3:12

was going to get to the top no matter what, No

3:14

matter what, because

3:17

I wasn't going to ever be caught in the position that I

3:19

saw my parents in it. I

3:22

won't say I didn't have a conscience. I did. I

3:24

had almost

3:27

a self righteousness about me. Self

3:30

righteousness is the worst enemy of all because

3:33

you can't see your own sins. I

3:35

ended up going to prison because of that little

3:39

that I realized that my reward for being through nif

3:41

way that I'd end up in prison, but I did.

3:46

For me, going to prison was a shock.

3:48

You've thrown a pair of underpants with five

3:51

numbers tencil on him. I knew I was the sixth

3:53

person to get that pair of underpants.

3:56

So it's very dehumanizing and I felt

3:58

shame out in midfield. I

4:01

really have made a mess of it. I'd

4:04

always thought about prisons where they're hardened convicts

4:06

and you know they're breaking rocks,

4:08

that they're behind bars. Are they're violent

4:11

people? There were a lot of knights.

4:13

When I wake up it with this cold chill come

4:15

over me thinking, you know I can get beaten

4:17

up or abused. You know what

4:20

prisons are like. You know there's a lot of forced rape

4:22

in prisons. Are you going as

4:24

a high profile form of government official

4:26

working to you guys that want to

4:28

get to you. That's

4:30

a big drop. You couldn't

4:32

have made it without Christ in my life. I know that. But

4:35

and I couldn't have made it if there was in the back of my mind

4:38

a belief that God had a purpose for this. In

4:43

the White House, you're dealing with statistics and numbers

4:45

and sizes of prisons, and you see

4:48

justice as something that has to be administered

4:50

by the state, and if these

4:52

guys have broken the law, good

4:55

enough for them, they belong in prison. In

4:58

prison, I discovered a lot of human beings who had

5:01

committed crimes. You

5:03

had a mix of people for every

5:05

kind of crime you could imagine, every

5:08

stratter of life, and

5:12

I discovered they're all like I am. I

5:15

suddenly realized I'm not any different

5:18

than these guys. I'm not any better than these guys. I

5:21

committed a crime too. Mine was you

5:23

know, nobody got killed, but we

5:26

both prisoners. We had that

5:29

common identification.

5:34

It was a great eye opening

5:36

experience for me. I knew

5:39

them to be as good people as I've known in my

5:41

life anyway. I mean, it could be my neighbors, could

5:43

be my closest friends. I

5:46

felt a real burden for them because

5:49

I saw them with nothing to do. Most of them

5:51

they lie in their bunks and they'd stare into the emptiness

5:54

and they're rotting and the souls

5:56

are corroding. And

5:58

that's the worst part about prison, is

6:00

this feeling of you

6:03

have no purpose, you had no meaning, nobody cares

6:05

about you. So I

6:08

really found myself caring for them as human

6:10

things.

6:13

And while it was the most difficult experience

6:15

of my life, I can stand you tonight'd and honestly

6:18

say to you that I thank God

6:20

for it, because in prison I

6:22

truly found freedom.

6:24

When I was released from prison, I was forty two years old.

6:26

I'd had a very successful law firm. I

6:28

knew how to make money practicing law. I

6:31

could have gone back and done it, but I thought this

6:33

is the time in my life when I should take stock. And it

6:35

was during that period that I woke up in the middle of the night with

6:37

what seemed to me a vision of what God wanted.

6:40

Well, in less than a month, Minnesota will join three

6:42

other states turning to the church for help

6:44

and rehabilitating prisoners. The Department

6:47

of Corrections is teaming up with a Christian group

6:49

called Prison Fellowship.

6:52

I came to love man I came to know them

6:54

as brothers, men that before

6:56

in my life i'd have gone to any lengths to avoid

6:59

meeting or being with. But

7:01

above all, I saw the miracle of how

7:03

God works in the life of man.

7:09

Inmates have a capacity for

7:11

scoping you out faster than any

7:14

group of people ever. Remember it's

7:17

because they're con man, many of them,

7:19

and they've been conned by the best. And

7:21

they look at everybody through their

7:23

prison through their lens and

7:26

if you're sincere, if you're sincere.

7:29

They know like that.

7:35

People say to me, oh, well, you were the law and order

7:37

Nixon guy, and now you're soft on crime. You're

7:39

working with inmates. No, I'm not soft in crime.

7:42

I want to stop crime, but I want to stop it by the

7:44

only way to ever be stopped, and that's changing the human

7:46

heart.

7:47

The problem is not education, The problem is not poverty,

7:49

The problem is not race. The problem is

7:51

the breakdown of moral values in American life.

7:54

The criminal justice system can respond.

8:00

I've seen the moral loots to the criminal justice

8:02

problem, and I realize as a Christian what's

8:04

causing it. I've seen people

8:06

broken in that prison experience and come

8:09

out understanding the incarnation better

8:12

than people who haven't been to prison, perhaps

8:14

because they know what it is to be broken. They know

8:17

what Christ did for them on the cross, they

8:19

know what he took away. I've

8:27

often thought back about my time in the White House, and

8:29

I can't remember. I don't remember anybody

8:31

ever coming to me and saying what you

8:33

did with the president? With all these big

8:36

decisions affected my life.

8:39

That's what drew me into politics. I thought I could transform

8:41

people's lives, and I discovered I couldn't

8:43

do it. It's what we can

8:45

accomplish as we deal with people, and my greatest

8:47

satisfaction, the greatest thing I think

8:51

about is things I've been able to do for others.

8:55

Mister Charles Coulson on's the toughest

8:57

of the White House tough guys, believed

9:00

by many to be standing in the need of prayer

9:02

as well as a good defense lawyer. Mister

9:04

coulshn has made page one with the news of

9:07

his conversion to religion. A

9:09

good many people here, anxious to believe in something,

9:11

are quite willing to take Coulson's change of

9:13

heart is real.

9:15

I have admitted my life to Jesus Christ.

9:18

I can work for the Lord in

9:20

prison or out of prison. That's

9:23

how I want to spend my life.

9:26

If there are people in need, you've got to be meeting

9:28

in needs. If

9:30

you really feel what they're going through, if you can

9:32

really identify with that, then you

9:34

get a burden for it. That's

9:36

the root of compassion. You're living in that person's

9:39

world instead of your own. Now

9:42

that is necessary. You can identify with people

9:44

with compassion without having had

9:46

to experience that sharing

9:48

and the suffering is what gives you the common

9:51

bond. But having been there, it

9:53

was indelibly impressed upon me.

9:57

And a great job as always to Greg Hangler,

10:00

and again a special thanks to the Acting Institute

10:02

for providing us that audio of a

10:04

most extraordinary life

10:07

and those words that he just said. I

10:09

can work for the Lord in prison and out

10:11

of prison. That's how I want to spend

10:13

my life. A lot of people were skeptical when

10:16

Coulson announced that he'd found

10:18

God and wanted to serve his Lord.

10:21

But boy, after a lifetime of work, there were

10:23

no cynics and skeptics left, and

10:25

all of prison reform, all of modern

10:28

day prison reform, all of the talk

10:30

of compassion. It started with

10:32

a guy named Chuck Coulson A

10:34

real beauty, a real beauty about

10:37

God's grace here on

10:39

our American stories.