William Colby
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William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920 – April 27, 1996) spent a career in intelligence for the United States, culminating in holding the post of Director of Central Intelligence from September, 1973, to January, 1976.
During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strategic Services. After the war he joined the newly created CIA. Before and during the Vietnam War, Colby served as Chief of Station in Saigon, Chief of CIA's Far East Division, and head of the Civil Operations and Rural Development effort; he was responsible for the Phoenix Program. After Vietnam, Colby became Director of Central Intelligence and during his tenure revealed a large amount of information about U.S. intelligence activities to the Church Committee. Colby served as DCI under President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford and was replaced by future President George H.W. Bush on January 30, 1976.
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[edit] Early life and family
William Egan Colby was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1920. His father, Elbridge Colby, was a professor of English and an Army officer who served in the Army and in university positions in Tientsin, China; Georgia; Vermont; and Washington, DC. His grandfather, Charles Colby, had been a professor of chemistry at Columbia University but had died prematurely. William Colby attended public high school in Burlington, Vermont and then Princeton University, graduating in 1940 and entering Columbia Law School the following year.
Colby's first job out of law school was as an associate attorney for the New York City firm of Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine, headed by William J. Donovan, the OSS director during World War II. After about two years, Colby desired experience in government litigation, and accepted an associate position with the National Labor Relations Board in Washington, D.C.[1]
Colby was for most of his life a staunch Roman Catholic.[2] He was often referred to as "the warrior-priest." He married Barbara Heinzen in 1945 and they had five children. In 1984 he divorced her and married Democratic diplomat Sally A. Shelton.
[edit] Career
[edit] Office of Strategic Services
Colby volunteered for the Army and served with the Office of Strategic Services during World War II, parachuting behind enemy lines twice and earning the Silver Star as well as commendations from Norway, France, and Great Britain. In his first mission he deployed to France as a Jedburgh commanding Team BRUCE, in mid-August 1944, and operated with the Maquis until he joined up with Allied forces later that fall. In April of 1945, he led the NORSO Group into Norway on a sabotage mission designed to tie down German forces in Norway from reinforcing the final defense of Germany. After the war, Colby graduated from Columbia Law School and then briefly practiced law in William Joseph Donovan's New York firm. Bored by the practice of law and inspired by his liberal beliefs, he moved to Washington to work for the National Labor Relations Board.
[edit] Central Intelligence Agency
Shortly thereafter, an OSS friend offered him a job at the CIA, and Colby accepted. Colby spent the next twelve years in the field, first in Stockholm, Sweden. There, he helped set up the stay-behind networks of Gladio, a covert paramilitary organization organized by the CIA to make any Soviet occupation more difficult, as he later described in his memoirs.[3]
Colby then spent much of the 1950s based in Rome, where he led the Agency's covert political operations campaign to support anti-Communist parties in their electoral contests against left wing, Soviet Union-associated parties. The Christian Democrat and allied parties won several key elections in the 1950s, preventing a takeover by the Communist Party.
[edit] Vietnam
In 1959, Colby became the CIA's Deputy Chief and then Chief of Station in Saigon, Vietnam, where he served until 1962. In 1962 he returned to Washington to become the Deputy and then Chief of CIA's Far East Division. During these years he was deeply involved in Washington's policies in East Asia, particularly with respect to Vietnam, as well as Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and China. He was deeply critical of the Kennedy Administration's decision to abandon support for Republic of Vietnam President Ngo Dinh Diem, and believed this played a material part in the weakening of the South Vietnamese position in the years following. In 1968, despite preparing to take up the post of Chief of Station Moscow, President Johnson sent Colby back to Vietnam as Deputy to Robert Komer, who had been charged with streamlining the civilian side of the American efforts against the Communists. Shortly after arriving Colby succeeded Komer as head of the U.S./South Vietnamese rural pacification effort. This was an attempt to quell the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Part of the effort was the controversial Phoenix Program, an initiative designed to identify and attack the "Viet Cong Infrastructure". There is considerable debate about the merits of the program, which has been alleged to have involved assassination and torture. Along with Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and MACV Commander General Creighton Abrams, Colby was part of a leadership group that worked to apply a new approach to the war. Some, including Colby later in life, argue that this approach succeeded in quelling the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, but that South Vietnam, abandoned by the United States after the 1973 peace accords, was ultimately overwhelmed by a conventional North Vietnamese assault.
[edit] CIA Director
Colby returned to Washington in 1971 and became Executive Director of CIA. After long-time DCI Richard Helms was dismissed by President Nixon in 1973, James Schlesinger assumed the helm at the Agency. A strong believer in reform of the CIA and the Intelligence Community more broadly, Schlesinger had written a 1971 Bureau of the Budget report outlining his views on the subject. Colby, despite a career spent in the DDP, agreed with Schlesinger's reformist approach and Schlesinger appointed him head of the clandestine branch in early 1973. When Nixon reshuffled his agency heads and made Schlesinger Secretary of Defense, Colby emerged as a natural candidate for DCI--apparently based on the recommendation that he was a professional who would not make waves.
Colby's tenure as DCI, which lasted two and a half tumultuous years, was overshadowed by the Church and Pike congressional investigations into alleged U.S. intelligence malfeasance over the preceding twenty-five years, including 1975, the so-called "Year of Intelligence." Colby cooperated, not out of a desire for major reforms, but in the belief that the actual scope of such misdeeds — encapsulated in the so-called "Family Jewels" — was not great enough to cause lasting damage to the CIA's reputation. He believed that cooperating with Congress was the only way to save the Agency from dissolution. Colby also believed that the CIA had a moral obligation to cooperate with the Congress and demonstrate that the CIA was accountable to the Constitution. This caused a major rift within the CIA ranks, with many old-line officers such as former DCI Richard Helms believing that the CIA should have resisted congressional intrusion.
Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. Shortly after he assumed leadership, the Yom Kippur War broke out, an event that surprised not only the American intelligence agencies but also the Israelis. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon Administration. Meanwhile, after many years of involvement, South Vietnam fell to Communist forces in April 1975, a particularly difficult blow for Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there. Events in the arms control field, Angola, the Middle East, and elsewhere also demanded attention.
Colby also focused on internal reforms within the CIA and the Intelligence Community. He attempted to modernize what he believed to be some out-of-date structures and practices, including by disbanding the Board of National Estimates and replacing it with the National Intelligence Council.[4]
President Ford, advised by Henry Kissinger and others concerned by Colby's controversial openness to Congress and distance from the White House, replaced Colby late in 1975 with George H. W. Bush during the so called "Halloween Massacre" in which Secretary of Defense Schlesinger was also replaced (by Donald Rumsfeld). Colby was offered the position of U.S. Permanent Representative to NATO but turned it down.
[edit] Post-CIA career
In later life, and in consonance with his long-held liberal views, Colby became a supporter of the nuclear freeze and of reductions in military spending. He practiced law and advised various bodies on intelligence matters. He also wrote two books, one of memoirs entitled Honorable Men, the other on Vietnam, called Lost Victory. In the latter, Colby argued that the U.S.-RVN counterinsurgency campaign in Vietnam had succeeded by the early 1970s and that South Vietnam could have survived had the U.S. continued to provide support after the Paris Accords. Though the topic remains open and controversial, some recent scholarship, including by Lewis "Bob" Sorley, supports Colby's arguments.
Colby also lent his expertise and knowledge, along with Oleg Kalugin, to the Activision game Spycraft: The Great Game, which was released shortly before his death. Both Colby and Kalugin played themselves in the game.
Colby assisted author, attorney and former CIA aide John DeCamp in his investigation of the Franklin child abuse allegations.
[edit] Death
On April 27, 1996, Colby died in an apparent boating accident near his home in Rock Point, Maryland, although his body was actually found, underwater, on May 6, 1996. The subsequent inquest found that he died from drowning and hypothermia after collapsing from a heart attack or stroke and falling out of his canoe, and there was no further investigation.
[edit] Theories about death
Although the inquest into Colby's death found he had died of natural causes, there were some suspicious circumstances: he rarely went canoeing at night; he had not spoken to his wife of any plans to go canoeing; his house was unlocked, with the radio and computer on and the remains of a meal on the table; there was no sign of the life-jacket his friends said he usually wore; and his body was found approximately 20 yards from the canoe (itself found 100 yards from the house) after the area had been thoroughly searched several times. Some allegations that Colby was murdered have been made:
- Dr. Deko Dekov asserts that the former FBI Director Louis Freeh killed Colby. [1]
- Dr. Steven Greer, alleges that the U.S. government killed Colby because of his knowledge of extraterrestrial technology.[5]
- Kay Griggs, ex-wife of United States Marine Corps Colonel George Griggs, has alleged that Colby was murdered.[6]
- John DeCamp, who claims to have been a close friend of Colby, has stated in his book, The Franklin Coverup, that Colby was murdered because he knew too much about corruption in US politics.[7]
[edit] Quotes
- "South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon."
- "We disbanded our intelligence [after both world wars] and then found we needed it. Let's not go through that again. Redirect it, reduce the amount of money spent, but let's not destroy it. Because you don't know 10 years out what you're going to face."[8]
[edit] References
- ^ Biography of William Egan Colby
- ^ "Obituary: William Colby", The Daily Telegraph, 1996-05-07. Retrieved on 2007-09-07. Archived on personal website.
- ^ Colby, William; Peter Forbath (1978). Honourable Men: My Life in the CIA (extract concerning Gladio stay-behind operations in Scandinavia), London: Hutchinson. ISBN 009134820X. OCLC 16424505.
- ^ For further information on Colby's leadership of the Intelligence Community, see https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publications/books-and-monographs/directors-of-central-intelligence-as-leaders-of-the-u-s-intelligence-community/chapter_6.htm
- ^ Bassior, Jean-Noel. "UFOs: What the Government Really Knows", Hustler, November 2005. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ Strawcutter, Rick (1998). The Kay Griggs Interviews. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.
- ^ DeCamp, John (1996). The Franklin Cover-up: child abuse, Satanism, and murder in Nebraska. Lincoln, Neb.: AWT, 389. ISBN 0963215809. OCLC 25719868.
- ^ "A Spymaster Assessment" (1991-12-02). Newsweek CXVIII (23): 56.
[edit] Additional sources
- Colby, William; James McCargar (1989). Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of Americas Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam. Chicago: Contemporary Books. ISBN 0809245094. OCLC 20014837.
- Prados, John (2003). Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 0195128478. OCLC 49493468.
- William Colby: Retrospect. Central Intelligence Agency (2007-05-08). Retrieved on 2007-09-07. Evaluation of his tenure by CIA historian/official.
[edit] External links
- William Colby at Find A Grave Retrieved on 2008-02-11
- William Colby: Midnight Canoeist. Rotten.com.
| Preceded by James R. Schlesinger |
Director of Central Intelligence September 4, 1973 - January 30, 1976 |
Succeeded by George H. W. Bush |
