William Colby

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""The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media." -- William Colby, former CIA Director, quoted by Dave Mcgowan in his book, Derailing Democracy

CIA Funding and Manipulation of the U.S. News Media

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8_FckHV3T8&feature=youtu.be">http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i8_FckHV3T8&feature=youtu.be</a></p>

<h1 class="firstHeading" id="firstHeading">William Colby</h1>

<h3 id="siteSub">From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia</h3>

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<div class="dablink">For the first secretary of the Sierra Club, see <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Edward_Colby" title="William Edward Colby">William Edward Colby</a>.</div>

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<div class="imagemap-inline">William E. Colby</div>

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<div >10th <a title="Director of Central Intelligence" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_Central_Intelligence">Director of Central Intelligence</a></div>

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<td colspan="2" ><b>In office</b>

<a title="September 4" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/September_4">September 4</a>, <a title="1973" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1973">1973</a> – <a title="January 30" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_30">January 30</a>, <a title="1976" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1976">1976</a></td>

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<th>President</th>

<td><a title="Richard Nixon" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon">Richard Nixon</a>

<a title="Gerald Ford" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford">Gerald Ford</a></td>

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<th>Preceded by</th>

<td><a title="James R. Schlesinger" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_R._Schlesinger">James R. Schlesinger</a></td>

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<th>Succeeded by</th>

<td><a title="George H. W. Bush" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H.W.Bush">George H. W. Bush</a></td>

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<td>January 4, 1920(1920-01-04)

<a title="St. Paul, Minnesota" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.Paul,Minnesota" class="mw-redirect">St. Paul, Minnesota</a></td>

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<td>April 27, 1996 (aged 76)

<a title="Rock Point, Maryland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Point,_Maryland">Rock Point, Maryland</a></td>

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<th>Political party</th>

<td><a title="Republican Party (United States)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Republican_Party_%28United_States%29">Republican</a></td>

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<th>Spouse</th>

<td>Barbara Heinzen (1945–div. 1984)

<a title="Sally Shelton-Colby" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Shelton-Colby">Sally Shelton-Colby</a> (1984–death 1996)</td>

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<th>Children</th>

<td>5 children w/ Heinzen</td>

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<th>Religion</th>

<td><a title="Roman Catholic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic" class="mw-redirect">Roman Catholic</a></td>

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<p><b>William Egan Colby</b> (<a title="January 4" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/January_4">January 4</a>, <a title="1920" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1920">1920</a> – <a title="April 27" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/April_27">April 27</a>, <a title="1996" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996">1996</a>) spent a career in <a title="Intelligence" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intelligence">intelligence</a> for the United States, culminating in holding the post of <a title="Director of Central Intelligence" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Director_of_Central_Intelligence">Director of Central Intelligence</a> (DCI) from September, 1973, to January, 1976.

During <a title="World War II" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_II">World War II</a> Colby served with the <a title="Office of Strategic Services" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services">Office of Strategic Services</a>. After the war he joined the newly created <a title="CIA" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/CIA" class="mw-redirect">CIA</a>. Before and during the <a title="Vietnam War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War">Vietnam War</a>, Colby served as Chief of Station in <a title="Saigon" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon" class="mw-redirect">Saigon</a>, Chief of CIA's Far East Division, and head of the Civil Operations and Rural Development effort; he was responsible for the <a title="Phoenix Program" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program">Phoenix Program</a>. 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 <a title="Church Committee" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Church_Committee">Church Committee</a>. Colby served as DCI under <a title="President of the United States" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/President_of_the_United_States">President</a> <a title="Richard Nixon" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Nixon">Richard Nixon</a> and President <a title="Gerald Ford" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gerald_Ford">Gerald Ford</a> and was replaced by future President <a title="George H. W. Bush" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/George_H.W.Bush">George H. W. Bush</a> on January 30, 1976.</p>

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<h2>Contents</h2>

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<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Early_life_and_family">1 Early life and family</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Career">2 Career</a>

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<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Office_of_Strategic_Services">2.1 Office of Strategic Services</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Central_Intelligence_Agency">2.2 Central Intelligence Agency</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Vietnam">2.3 Vietnam</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#CIA_Director">2.4 CIA Director</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-2"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Post-CIA_career">2.5 Post-CIA career</a></li>

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<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Death">3 Death</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Quotes">4 Quotes</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#References">5 References</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#Additional_sources">6 Additional sources</a></li>

<li class="toclevel-1"><a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#External_links">7 External links</a></li>

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<h2>Early life and family</h2>

<p><b>William Egan Colby</b> was born in <a title="St. Paul, Minnesota" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/St.Paul,Minnesota" class="mw-redirect">St. Paul, Minnesota</a>, 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 <a title="Tientsin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tientsin" class="mw-redirect">Tientsin</a>, 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 <a title="Princeton University" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Princeton_University">Princeton University</a>, graduating in 1940 and entering <a title="Columbia Law School" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Columbia_Law_School">Columbia Law School</a> the following year.

Colby's first job out of law school was as an associate attorney for the New York City firm of <a title="Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Donovan,Leisure,Newton%26_Irvine">Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine</a>, headed by <a title="William J. Donovan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_J.Donovan" class="mw-redirect">William J. Donovan</a>, the OSS director during World War II. After about two years, Colby desired experience in government litigation, and accepted an associate position with the <a title="National Labor Relations Board" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board">National Labor Relations Board</a> in Washington, D.C.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_note-0"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-0">[1]</sup></a>

Colby was for most of his life a staunch <a title="Roman Catholic" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roman_Catholic" class="mw-redirect">Roman Catholic</a>.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_note-1"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-1">[2]</sup></a> 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 <a title="Sally Shelton-Colby" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sally_Shelton-Colby">Sally Shelton-Colby</a>.

<h2>Career</h2>

<h3>Office of Strategic Services</h3>

<p>Colby volunteered for the Army and served with the <a title="Office of Strategic Services" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Office_of_Strategic_Services">Office of Strategic Services</a> as a Paramilitary Officer in the component that today is called the <a title="Special Activities Division" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special_Activities_Division">Special Activities Division</a>. During World War II, he parachuted behind enemy lines twice and earned the Silver Star as well as commendations from Norway, France, and Great Britain. In his first mission he deployed to <a title="France" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/France">France</a> 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 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 <a title="William Joseph Donovan" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Joseph_Donovan">William Joseph Donovan</a>'s New York firm. Bored by the practice of law and inspired by his liberal beliefs, he moved to Washington to work for the <a title="National Labor Relations Board" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/National_Labor_Relations_Board">National Labor Relations Board</a>.

<h3>Central Intelligence Agency</h3>

Central Intelligence Agency Director William Colby discusses the situation in Vietnam with Vice President Nelson A. Rockefeller and Deputy Assistant For National Security Affairs Brent Scowcroft during a break in a meeting of the National Security Council., 04/24/1975</div>

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William Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, briefs President Ford and his senior advisors on the deteriorating situation in Vietnam, April 28, 1975. (clockwise, left to right) Colby; Robert S. Ingersoll, Deputy Secretary of State; Henry Kissinger; President Ford;James Schlesinger, Defense Secretary; William Clements, Deputy Secretary of Defense; Vice President Rockefeller; and General George S. Brown, Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff.</div>

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William Colby, outgoing Director of Central Intelligence, with President Ford and incoming DCI George Bush, 1975.</div>

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<p>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 <a title="Stockholm" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stockholm">Stockholm</a>, <a title="Sweden" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sweden">Sweden</a>. There, he helped set up the <a title="Stay-behind" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stay-behind">stay-behind</a> networks of <a title="Gladio" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Gladio" class="mw-redirect">Gladio</a>, a covert paramilitary organization organized by the CIA to make any Soviet occupation more difficult, as he later described in his memoirs.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_note-2"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-2">[3]</sup></a>

Colby then spent much of the 1950s based in <a title="Rome" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rome">Rome</a>, where he led the Agency's covert political operations campaign to support <a title="Anti-Communist" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Communist" class="mw-redirect">anti-Communist</a> parties in their electoral contests against <a title="Left wing" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Left_wing" class="mw-redirect">left wing</a>, <a title="Soviet Union" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Soviet_Union">Soviet Union</a>-associated parties. The Christian Democrat and allied parties won several key elections in the 1950s, preventing a takeover by the <a title="Italian Communist Party" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Italian_Communist_Party">Communist Party</a>.

<h3>Vietnam</h3>

<p>In 1959, Colby became the CIA's Deputy Chief and then Chief of Station in <a title="Saigon" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saigon" class="mw-redirect">Saigon</a>, <a title="Vietnam" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam">Vietnam</a>, 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 <a title="Phoenix Program" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phoenix_Program">Phoenix Program</a>, an initiative designed to identify and attack the "<a title="Viet Cong" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Viet_Cong">Viet Cong</a> Infrastructure". There is considerable debate about the merits of the program, which has been alleged to have involved <a title="Assassination" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Assassination">assassination</a> and <a title="Torture" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Torture">torture</a>. 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.

<h3>CIA Director</h3>

<p>Colby returned to Washington in 1971 and became Executive Director of CIA. After long-time DCI <a title="Richard Helms" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Helms">Richard Helms</a> 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 "<a title="Family jewels (Central Intelligence Agency)" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Family_jewels_%28Central_Intelligence_Agency%29" class="mw-redirect">Family Jewels</a>" — 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 <a title="Yom Kippur War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yom_Kippur_War">Yom Kippur War</a> 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.<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_note-3"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-3">[4]</sup></a>

President Ford, advised by <a title="Henry Kissinger" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Kissinger">Henry Kissinger</a> 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 "<a title="Halloween Massacre" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Halloween_Massacre">Halloween Massacre</a>" 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.

<h3>Post-CIA career</h3>

<p>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 <i>Honorable Men</i>, the other on <a title="Vietnam War" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vietnam_War">Vietnam</a>, called <i>Lost Victory</i>. 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 <a title="Oleg Kalugin" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Oleg_Kalugin">Oleg Kalugin</a>, to the <a title="Activision" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Activision">Activision</a> game <a title="Spycraft: The Great Game" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spycraft:_The_Great_Game"><i>Spycraft: The Great Game</i></a>, which was released shortly before his death. Both Colby and Kalugin played themselves in the game.

Colby assisted author, attorney and former CIA aide <a title="John DeCamp" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/John_DeCamp">John DeCamp</a> in his investigation of the <a title="Franklin child abuse allegations" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Franklin_child_abuse_allegations" class="mw-redirect">Franklin child abuse allegations</a>.

<h2>Death</h2>

<p>On Saturday, April 27, 1996, Colby died in an apparent boating accident near his home in <a title="Rock Point, Maryland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_Point,_Maryland">Rock Point</a>, <a title="Maryland" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maryland">Maryland</a>. His body was found, underwater on Monday, May 6, 1996. The subsequent inquest found that he died from drowning or hypothermia after collapsing from a heart attack or stroke and falling out of his canoe.

<h2>Quotes</h2>

<ul>

<li>"South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon."<sup class="noprint Template-Fact">[<a title="Wikipedia:Citation needed" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Citation_needed"><i>citation needed</i></a>]</sup></li>

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<li>"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."<a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_note-4"><sup class="reference" id="cite_ref-4">[5]</sup></a></li>

</ul>

<h2>References</h2>

<li id="cite_note-0"><a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_ref-0"><b>^</b></a> <a title="http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/eadGetDoc.xq?id=/ead/mudd/publicpolicy/MC113.EAD.xml" href="http://diglib.princeton.edu/ead/eadGetDoc.xq?id=/ead/mudd/publicpolicy/MC113.EAD.xml" class="external text" rel="nofollow">Biography of William Egan Colby</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-1"><a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_ref-1"><b>^</b></a> <cite class="news" >"<a title="http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ETnew/wcolb107.html" href="http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ETnew/wcolb107.html" class="external text" rel="nofollow">Obituary: William Colby</a>". <a title="The Daily Telegraph" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Daily_Telegraph"><i>The Daily Telegraph</i></a>. <a title="1996" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1996">1996</a>-<a title="May 7" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_7">05-07</a>. <a title="http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ETnew/wcolb107.html" href="http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ETnew/wcolb107.html" class="external free" rel="nofollow">http://nick.assumption.edu/WebVAX/ETnew/wcolb107.html</a>. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.</cite>  Archived on personal website.</li>

<li id="cite_note-2"><a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_ref-2"><b>^</b></a> <cite class="book" id="CITEREFColbyPeter_Forbath1978" >Colby, William; Peter Forbath (1978) (extract concerning Gladio stay-behind operations in Scandinavia). <a title="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/colby.pdf" href="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/colby.pdf" class="external text" rel="nofollow"><i>Honourable Men: My Life in the CIA</i></a>. London: Hutchinson. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/009134820X" class="internal">ISBN 009134820X</a>. <a title="Online Computer Library Center" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Computer_Library_Center">OCLC</a> <a title="http://worldcat.org/oclc/16424505" href="http://worldcat.org/oclc/16424505" class="external text" rel="nofollow">16424505</a>. <a title="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/colby.pdf" href="http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/colby.pdf" class="external free" rel="nofollow">http://www.isn.ethz.ch/php/documents/collection_gladio/colby.pdf</a>.</cite> </li>

<li id="cite_note-3"><a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_ref-3"><b>^</b></a> For further information on Colby's leadership of the Intelligence Community, see <a title="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" href="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" class="external free" rel="nofollow">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</a></li>

<li id="cite_note-4"><a title="" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Colby#cite_ref-4"><b>^</b></a> <cite class="" >"A Spymaster Assessment". <a title="Newsweek" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Newsweek"><i>Newsweek</i></a> <b>CXVIII</b> (23): 56. <a title="1991" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/1991">1991</a>-<a title="December 2" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/December_2">12-02</a>.</cite> </li>

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<h2>Additional sources</h2>

<ul>

<li><cite class="book" id="CITEREFColbyJames_McCargar1989" >Colby, William; James McCargar (1989). <i>Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of Americas Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam</i>. Chicago: Contemporary Books. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0809245094" class="internal">ISBN 0809245094</a>. <a title="Online Computer Library Center" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Computer_Library_Center">OCLC</a> <a title="http://worldcat.org/oclc/20014837" href="http://worldcat.org/oclc/20014837" class="external text" rel="nofollow">20014837</a>.</cite> </li>

<li><cite class="book" id="CITEREFPrados2003" >Prados, John (2003). <i>Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby</i>. New York: Oxford University Press. <a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Special:BookSources/0195128478" class="internal">ISBN 0195128478</a>. <a title="Online Computer Library Center" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Online_Computer_Library_Center">OCLC</a> <a title="http://worldcat.org/oclc/49493468" href="http://worldcat.org/oclc/49493468" class="external text" rel="nofollow">49493468</a>.</cite> </li>

<li><a title="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v40i5a01p.htm" href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v40i5a01p.htm" class="external text" rel="nofollow"><cite class="web" >"William Colby: Retrospect"</cite></a><cite class="web" >. <a title="Central Intelligence Agency" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Central_Intelligence_Agency">Central Intelligence Agency</a>. <a title="2007" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2007">2007</a>-<a title="May 8" href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/May_8">05-08</a>. <a title="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v40i5a01p.htm" href="https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v40i5a01p.htm" class="external free" rel="nofollow">https://www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kent-csi/docs/v40i5a01p.htm</a>. Retrieved on 2007-09-07.</cite>  Evaluation of his tenure by CIA historian/official.</li>

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<b>Autopsy finds Colby likely collapsed before falling out of canoe: May 11, 1996</b></p>

<p><b>Former CIA director William Colby died from drowning and hypothermia after apparently collapsing from a heart attack or stroke and falling out of his canoe, the state's medical examiner said Friday.</b>

<b>Colby's body was found Monday after an eight-day search that included helicopters, divers, dogs and sonar equipment. Colby, who disappeared April 27 while canoeing near his waterfront home in southern Maryland, was found lying facedown in a marshy riverbank.</b>

<b>An autopsy found that Colby, 76, had suffered from hardening of the arteries, Chief Medical Examiner John Smialek said in a statement.</b>

<b>The death was ruled accidental, rather than from natural causes, because even though there was evidence Colby was ill before falling out of the canoe, in the final analysis it was the drowning and hypothermia that killed him, said Jeannette A. Duerr, a spokeswoman for the Maryland Department of Health and Mental Hygiene. Hypothermia is a dangerous drop in body temperature.</b>

<b>No blood clots were found, although they could have dissolved during the week-long search for his body, the medical examiner said.</b>

<b>The autopsy also showed that Colby had died a short time after eating, and that he had a blood-alcohol level of 0.07 percent due to having wine with dinner. No drugs were found in his system, the medical examiner said.</b>

<b>Colby capped a long career in intelligence by serving as CIA chief from 1973 to 1976 in the Nixon and Ford administrations.</b></p>

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<p><b>A private funeral service was to be held Monday at Arlington National Cemetery where he will be buried with full military honors. A public memorial service is scheduled for Tuesday at Washington National Cathedral.</b></p>

<p><b> From  a contemporary press report:</b></p>

<b>Former CIA director William E. Colby wasn't the sort of fellow who liked to be addressed as "Mr. Colby."</b>

<b>"Call me Bill, please," he asked in his affable way.</b>

<b>In his last media interview April 23, four days before he collapsed and drowned while canoeing near his southern Maryland weekend retreat, the ex-spy chief appeared more youthful and vibrant than you might imagine a 76 year-old should look like who began his long intelligence career as a commando parachuting behind Nazi lines with the Office of   Strategic Services in WWII. Nor did Colby seem beaten up by his extensive experiences in both the Vietnam War and the Cold War, two terribly different yet impossibly intertwined American conflicts.</b>

<b>"I've been lucky," Colby said, smiling modestly, insufficiently summing up on the streets of Washington his life and CIA career. It was appropriate to chat with the retired spymaster over a cup of espresso at a sidewalk cafe near The White House; Colby would insist on paying, of course.</b>

<b>Besides his tenure as director of central intelligence in the early seventies, Colby may be best known as the head of the CIA's Far East Division during the hottest period of the war in Vietnam.</b>

<b>For nearly 15 years, starting in the late fifties, Colby ran the CIA's covert operations in Southeast Asia, including the notorious Phoenix Program, designed to ferret out the Communists' political infrastructure in South Vietnam. In later congressional testimony, Colby admitted the program had assassinated over 20,000 of these suspected agents.</b>

<b>"I've defended [Phoenix] as a necessary element of the war," Colby said. "The communists, curiously enough, say it was the most effective program ever used against     them... The Phoenix, I always thought, was not all that effective. But if you have a secret mafia inside your population you better find out who they are, and that was what Phoenix was all about, to identify who they were. And if so, [they should] either be captured, convinced to surrender, or in a fight, shot. It was a war."</b>

<b>In seeming contradiction to the bloody and corrupt tactics of that assassination spree, there is evidence to support the notion that Colby wanted to help the Vietnamese people. He supported the broader Pacification Program, which encouraged and helped villagers to protect their hamlets rather than live as refugees and see their homes destroyed by Viet Cong attacks — or American bulldozers.</b>

<b>"We would take people out of the refugee camps and put them back in their old villages, put some protection around them, give them some guns to protect themselves, begin to rebuild the village, or the bridge, or the irrigation ditch or whatever was necessary, and they would start up their lives; really decent lives. That was the strategy [of the Pacification Program]," Colby said.</b>

<b>After leaving the Republic of Vietnam and the battles that ultimately consumed the small nation, Colby continued to ascend the ranks of the CIA. The well-known architect of many of the Agency's dirtiest tricks became more and more open about them. When appointed director, he revealed so much to Congress that some of his colleagues whispered that Colby must be a KGB asset. President Gerald Ford soon dismissed him from the job after only two years, in order to appease the critics.</b>

<b>Of the nagging conspiracy theories suggesting CIA involvement in President John F. Kennedy's assassination — Colby was in Vietnam in November 1963 — the former director said: "Oliver Stone came to see me once to get the material released that the CIA had, and I said I believed in releasing it, maybe save the names of a couple of agents.</b>

<b>"Believe me, if the CIA had anything to do with the murder of our president I would have discovered it in the early seventies and I would have revealed it — I revealed a lot of other things."</b>

<b>Bill Colby was the perfect product of an age where honor meant honesty, and a  bone-crushing handshake meant more than just a simple greeting. It explained character.</b>

<b>Arguably, however, Cold War super-spies such as Colby helped to perpetuate the pop culture cliches which molded entertainment icons such as James Bond and Mission Impossible in the movies and on TV, and this in turn shaped how we think of the trenchcoat life. The champagne socializing, slicked-back hair and natty dress (intentionally a little plain in the case of Colby) all were perceived attributes of the high-profile Intel-operatives of his era.</b>

<b>And so, to some it was no surprise that the normally low-key Colby recently consulted on a project in which he also starred — a CD-ROM adventure game called Spycraft.</b>

<b>Colby said the game's plot was realistic and proved the need for good intelligence in the post-Cold War era.</b>

<b>"The premise [of the game] is, you are a CIA officer and you're told a Russian presidential candidate has just been assassinated," Colby explained. "The President of the United States is next on the hit parade." </b>

<b>A realistic scenario in 1996? American presidents have been assassinated before, Colby pointed out. "It could happen tomorrow."</b>

<b>For Spycraft, Colby teamed up with Major General Oleg Kalugin, the former chief of KGB foreign  counter-intelligence, who now lives in Washington. Both men portray themselves in the game, and each help the player in solving the mystery.</b>

<b>Greeting Kalugin at my office after the interview, Colby invited the Russian to "visit my dacha on the river. It's almost warm enough." It was from this dacha on Maryland's Wicomico River that Colby ate his last meal.</b>

<b>Regarding his conciliatory attitude toward a former Cold War adversary, Colby said: "We fought the British; we fought the Spanish; we fought the Germans; we fought the Japanese. Now they're our best allies. I'd like to see that kind of relationship develop with the Russians in the years ahead."</b>

<b>As I sat down with Kalugin, Colby wished everyone well and left. Moments later, I realized I had forgotten to ask him to autograph a copy of Spycraft and ran down a flight of stairs to intercept him. I ran out onto the streets again and looked for him up and down the empty blocks. But, true to his nature, the old spy had simply vanished into the day. </b></p>

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William Colby

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