William Colby

William Egan Colby (January 4, 1920–April 27, 1996) became Director of Central Intelligence on September 4, 1973, after James R. Schlesinger. It was Colby who launched the Accelerated Pacification Campaign during the Vietnam War. He later would reveal a large amount of information to Congress, such as CIA attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro. He was fired by President Gerald Ford and replaced with George H.W. Bush on January 30, 1976.

Colby was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in 1920. His father, Elbridge Colby, was a professor of English and Army officer who raised his son in a peripatetic manner, including a stint in Tientsin, China. William attended Princeton University, graduating in 1940 and entering Columbia Law School the following year. He volunteered for the Army in 1941 and served with the Office of Strategic Services during the war, parachuting behind enemy lines in France and Norway and receiving the Silver Star for his efforts.

After finishing Columbia Law School, Colby briefly practiced law in New York and then, inspired by his liberal beliefs, moved to Washington to work for the National Labor Relations Board. Shortly thereafter, an OSS friend offered him a job at CIA, and Colby accepted.

Colby spent the next twelve years in the field, first in Stockholm, Sweden. He then spent much of the 1950s based in Rome, where he led the Agency's covert political operations campaign to support moderate anti-Communist parties. In 1959 he became the CIA's Chief of Station in Saigon, Vietnam, where he served until 1962, when he returned to Washington to become the Chief of CIA's Far East Division. In 1968 he returned to Vietnam as Deputy to Robert Komer, head of the U.S./South Vietnamese rural pacification effort, and shortly thereafter succeeded him. This program, elements of which constituted the controversial "the Phoenix Program"--an initiative designed to identify and attack the "Viet Cong Infrastructure"--, was an attempt to quell the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam. Though there is considerable debate about the merits and success of the program, it does appear to have had some effect in reducing the level of insurgent strength--as opposed to North Vietnamese Army strength--in South Vietnam.

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 characterized chiefly by the Church and Pike Congressional investigations into alleged U.S. intelligence malfeasance over the preceding twenty-five years. Colby's view was that revealing such misdeeds--encapsulated in the so-called "Family Jewels"--was both advisable and right. Colby believed that the actual scope of such misdeeds was not actually that great, and that Congress and the American people would recognize that fact, do what was necessary to ensure such things did not happen again, and move on. Supporters of Colby's method argue that he saved the Agency from destruction by showing that it was accountable and an instrument of the Constitution rather than a "rogue elephant." Detractors say Colby gave away too much or did not understand that he was only feeding the fire of politicized congressional witch hunts. In either case, President Ford, advised by Henry Kissinger, dismissed Colby in late 1975 because he had become too politically damaging to the Administration. He was replaced by George H. W. Bush.

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.

After reportedly going out canoeing in the middle of the night, Colby died near his home in Rock Point, Maryland. He reportedly did not mention any canoeing plans to his wife, nor was it normal for him to go boating at night. Colby's body was not immediately located, but later found underwater—close to where his canoe was. The cause of death was reportedly an aneurism, which caused him to drown, resulting in hypothermia. He was laid to rest at Arlington National Cemetery on May 13, 1996.

Quotes

• South Vietnam faces total defeat, and soon.

Sources

• http://www.rotten.com/library/bio/usa/william-colby/
• William Colby and Peter Forbath, Honourable Men: My Life in the CIA, London: Hutchinson & Co., 1978
• William Colby and James McCargar, "Lost Victory: A Firsthand Account of Americas Sixteen-Year Involvement in Vietnam", Chicago: Contemporary Books, 1989