Colson was appointed Special Counsel to Richard Nixon in 1969 and quickly gained a reputation as the president's hatchet man. He authored the 1971 memo listing Nixon's major political opponents, later known as Nixon's Enemies List.

In 1971 the Committee to Re-elect the President agreed to spend $250,000 on "intelligence gathering" on the Democratic Party. Colson and John Ehrlichman appointed E. Howard Hunt to the White House Special Operations Unit (the "Plumbers") which had been organized to stop leaks in the Nixon administration. Hunt headed up the Plumbers' burglary of Pentagon Papers-leaker Daniel Ellsberg's psychiatrist's office in September 1971.

Colson was given a one-to-three year sentence, fined $5,000, and disbarred He served seven months and was released early by the sentencing judge because of family problems.

While Colson's direct involvement with the Watergate break-in and subsequent cover up was never proved, nor was he charged with it, it beggars belief that he did not have knowledge and involvement in some direct way. He was in the White House from 1969 to early 1973, was involved with the planning and operation of the "Plumbers" unit and had a proud reputation as Nixon's tough guy.

Since prison he's become a prominent evangelical Christian, although his infrequent statements about his Watergate history are the height of hypocrisy.

Stories of the Nixon White House read like the tales of a battle sieged bunker where public adminstration, hardcore politics, and domestic espionage roiled with no consideration for the lines that should be drawn between them. At the centre of all of the tales appears Charles Colson who was generally fabeld to be Nixons tough guy and fixer and the one who brought the spooks like Hunt and Liddy onto the team at CReeP. He was also one of the first fall guys. Hunter S. Thompson famously wrote that if he had his way Colson "should be tied by his testicles behind an Olds 88 and dragged down Pennsylvania Avenue".