Falwell Asked Watergate Criminal Colson to Head PTL

FORT MILL, S.C. — The Rev. Jerry Falwell revealed today that he asked Watergate criminal Charles Colson, who once said he’d run over his own grandmother for his boss, President Richard M. Nixon, to take over the PTL ministry.

But Falwell, who called the PTL scandals the “Watergate of Christianity” in his resignation speech Thursday, said Colson, 56, who became a “born-again” Christian in prison, turned him down.

“He would have been an excellent chairman,” Falwell said from his home in Lynchburg, Va. “But Chuck’s health and other factors dissuaded him, and I certainly understood that.”