The new documentary, The Man Nobody Knew , produced by the spymasters son Carl Colby, looks at the odd circumstances surrounding his fathers death, as well as his long career in intelligence. His father, a sensitive nonconformist who wrote and taught literature, became a career Army officer. Press Release: When Nixon reshuffled his agency heads and made Schlesinger secretary of defense, Colby emerged as a natural candidate for DCIapparently on the basis of the recommendation that he was a professional who would not make waves. Mr. Colby left Saigon and returned to Washington in 1971, in part to care for his eldest daughter, Catherine, who was slowly dying of anorexia nervosa. In 1968, while Colby was preparing to take up the post of chief of the Soviet Bloc Division of the Agency, President Lyndon Johnson instead sent Colby back to Vietnam as deputy to Robert Komer, who had been charged with streamlining the civilian side of the American and South Vietnamese efforts against the Communists. This transformation began on April 27, 1973, 12 days before Mr. Colby learned that President Richard M. Nixon, then deeply enmeshed in the Watergate scandal, was about to nominate him as Director of Central Intelligence. in a bottle and throw it away.". Vet documentarian Carl Colbys ambitious, decades-spanning film about his CIA spymaster father delves deeply into historical events William Colby helped to shape, from his OSS days during WWI Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. VVA Launches Campaign Addressing Aging Veterans Healthcare. John, Michael Collins Piper has some interesting things to say about Colby. The end result of his decision was a permanent system of Congressional oversight of the agency -- and a public understanding that the C.I.A. Bill moved out of the family home in July 1983 to write a sequel to his memoir, Shelton-Colby said. William Egan Colby was born on Jan. 4, 1920, in St. Paul, the son of Elbridge and Margaret Egan Colby. Let me be very blunt, said Shelton-Colby, 67, a foreign policy professor at American University. Following his first year at Columbia, in 1941 Colby volunteered for active duty with the United States Army and served with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS) as a "Jedburgh", or special operator, trained to work with resistance forces in occupied Europe to harass German and Axis forces. Why Was Former CIA Director William Colby Assassinated? The film: "The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby." The film concerned a dead man she's still in love with. OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. "Foul play was suspected, but I knew otherwise," Carl narrates in the movie. 2004 Oxford University Press WebCatherine Colby died in April 1973. At Bills funeral the next month, Shelton-Colby, who wears on her left arm the watch she gave Bill as a wedding present, remembers one moment more than most. William Colby, a former directorof the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, was alone at his weekendhouse across from Cobb Island, Maryland, 60 miles south of Washington,D.C. [14] In a speech from 1973 addressed to NSA employees he emphasised the role of free speech in USA and moral role of CIA as defender, not preventer of civil rights, an attempt to rebut the then emerging revelations of CIA and NSA domestic spying. Colby headed the CIAs Far East Division until he was named CIA director in 1973, a position he held until retiring in November of 1976. COLBY--Barbara Heinzen, died peacefully Thursday, July 16 at the age of 94. In the documentary, Carl Colby said that his mother did everything for the mission., She hadnt signed up for this, he said, But she did it.. She and other CIA wives modeled their campaign on earlier, more public efforts by former spouses of State Department employees. Its director and narrator: his second-oldest son, Carl Colby. The worst thing I could have done was to sugarcoat my father and paint things as rosy., Ultimately, the movie reveals Carls ambivalence about his dad. And the movie was made by someone she rarely ever speaks to. But Mr. Colby "got what he wanted: no President could put the C.I.A. The Colby family is bothered by the film's suggestion that Bill killed himself because he felt guilty for not doing more to comfort his eldest daughter, Catherine Colby, Barbara H. Colby once recalled turning on the washing machine to muffle her husbands conversations. In 1973, Catherine Colby, who had lived with her father in Saigon in the early '60s, died of Summoned to Washington by a Senate committee in 1970, Colby defended the project but conceded there may have been ``some illegal killing.. Former CIA Director William Colby, who played a significant role in U.S. Vietnam War policy-making, was founded dead in 1996, eight days after going missing on a solo canoe trip near his Maryland home. The secrets did not keep. After the hearings, conducted largely in private sessions, Mr. Colby was confirmed as the nation's 10th Director of Central Intelligence. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. Thousands of targets were killed, leading the media and much of America to call Phoenix an assassination program. His brothers and sister had their own relationship with him, he said. Sally Shelton-Colby needed to watch the documentary with friends, for emotional support. Before the vote, he decided to share the family jewels with a few select members of Congress. As I wrote in a retrospective column in The Hill two days after Colby's body was recovered when he vanished on a solo canoe trip in the Chesapeake Bay in May, 1996, his death "was one of those events that seems destined to Mrs. Colby was born Barbara Ann Heinzen in Springfield, Ohio, on Dec. 25, 1920. 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. She recalled wondering, Who are we tonight?. [6] In 1984, he divorced Barbara and married Democratic diplomat Sally Shelton-Colby. He was nominated to be CIA director on May 10, 1973, by President Nixon, then struggling to extricate himself from the Watergate scandal. (In his memoir "Honorable Men," Bill wrote that the vast majority of Phoenix deaths occurred "in combat actions" with Vietnamese and American military forces. Colby then spent much of the 1950s based in Rome, under cover as a State Department officer,[7] where he led the Agency's covert political operations campaign to support anti-Communist parties in their electoral contests against left wing, Soviet Unionassociated parties. Colby was offered the position of United States Permanent Representative to NATO but turned it down. Mr. Colby "had no choice in 1975 but to cooperate," but the agency's pride, "however based on a fiction, took a blow from which we never recovered," Mr. Gates recounts in his just-published memoir, "From the Shadows," (Simon and Schuster). Posing as a diplomat, Mr. Colby served in Stockholm from 1951 to 1953; in Rome from 1953 to 1958; and, fatefully, as the C.I.A. Carl says in the movie that two weeks before the canoe trip his dad called him seeking absolution for his not doing enough when Catherine was so ill. When Bills body was found, his wallet contained a photo of Catherine, Carl says. He drank some wine and ate some clams. Before the legislation was enacted, many spouses endured long overseas assignments that left them unable to build careers in the United States, then divorced and were destitute because they were not entitled to portions of CIA benefits. was just an ordinary guy with ordinary desires., Carl interviewed Shelton-Colby, but he opted not to use any of the footage. One of Colby's own daughters was rumored to be another casualty of his war. Bill and Barbara were still married, but their relationship was deteriorating. Trivia (1) Daughter of He stopped in Mongolia to advise a mining company. That day, the Federal judge at the trial of Daniel Ellsberg, a former Defense Department official charged with espionage after the Pentagon Papers, a secret history of the Vietnam War, were provided to The New York Times, disclosed that the office of Mr. Ellsberg's psychiatrist had been burglarized by White House operatives -- with technical assistance from the C.I.A. In "The Man Nobody Knew," Carl, the narrator, traces his father's career as an intelligence operative in World War II to his tenure as CIA director. And, most recently, a Salem teens film wins L.A. Indie Short Fest honors. Colby then worked briefly for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington and signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency. William Egan Colby was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1920. Then came a major congressional investigation of the CIA, including allegations that it was involved in overseas assassination plots, illegal domestic spying, illegal eavesdropping and experimentation with the drug LSD. ``The Cold War is over, and the military threat is now far less, he said in a 1992 ad. Shes just a coda.. Then he took the canoe out. He moved from post to post, eventually graduating from Princeton University with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1940. ", "The more we know about each other the safer we all are." [25], His grandson, Elbridge A. Colby, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Planning from 2017 to 2018 and is co-founder of the Marathon Institute.[26]. Soon, she began courting him. Menu. And he founded the American Commitee for a Free Vietnam, which sought to strengthen human rights and democracy in Vietnam. ", "Carl told me that if I didn't like it, I should make my own film," Paul said. By demanding that understanding, Mr. Colby was "playing a very heavy card, trumping the White House by bringing the American people into the secret world," John Ranelagh wrote in his history of the intelligence service, "The Agency" (Simon & Schuster, 1986). in a Time of Upheaval, https://www.nytimes.com/1996/05/07/us/william-e-colby-76-head-of-cia-in-a-time-of-upheaval.html. Some hinted that he was a Soviet agent. He feels his father left his wife isolated and eschewed real father-son bonds. And all she said to me was, We both loved him., 11 arrested as Occupy D.C. supporters claim vacant downtown school, Va. parish decides to stop training girls as altar servers, D.C. man convicted in attack on transgender woman. She also came to realize, after her husband asked her for a divorce, that she didn't know him as well as she thought. WhyWasFormerCiaDirectorWilliamColbyAssassinated, Advanced embedding details, examples, and help, StevenGreerTellsArtBellAboutWilliamColbysDeath2008-08-08.ogg, Steven Greer tells Art Bell about William Colby's Death 2008-08-08, Terms of Service (last updated 12/31/2014). | Credits He showed unusual candour while testifying before Congress in 1975 in the wake of (Courtesy of the Colby family). Shelton-Colby, a former U.S. ambassador, was disturbed by her stepsons take on her dead husband, and, as it turns out, so is the rest of the Washington-based Colby clan. In 1959, they moved to South Vietnam, where William Colby became station chief in Saigon, which is now called Ho Chi Minh City. I preferred the old dad, not the new, he said. Mr. Colby, the agency's director of covert operations, was left with a task that violated every precept of a secret agency: compiling a list of the deepest secrets. Only when contacted by a Post reporter did family members vent their frustrations about the film. Webapartments in dallas that allow airbnb Uncovering hot babes since 1919. In the film, Carl wonders whether his friends were right when they called his dad a murderer for running the notorious Phoenix Program a CIA operation in the Vietnam War sought to ferret out Viet Cong agents in South Vietnam. [7][23] In May 2013, Randall B. Benning. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon administration. I guess I would say he was a complicated person whom maybe I didnt know as well as I would hope to think I did, Mrs. Colby said in her sons documentary. His calm in this crisis -- his enemies called it cold-bloodedness -- was composed in equal parts of his grounding in espionage, the military and the Roman Catholic Church. And even though Shelton-Colby, the spymasters second wife, has been kept at a distance by most of Colbys biological children, their grievances with the film have united them, at least in principle. Earlier this year, when Paul was shown the film, he told Carl that it would be "unethical" to keep it as is. Its a terrible thing to say, but sometimes I think I would have rather worked for him than be his son, Carl said. Over the next several years, they traveled the world. ", Carl kept the wrenching footage to bolster the film's credibility, he said. It furthers the University's objective of excellence in research, scholarship, and education by publishing worldwide. |Privacy Policy Together in this way, he wrote, we did much to shore up my weak cover and convince most people that I was in fact what I said I was a diplomat.. "This was a shocker," Mr. Colby recounted in his 1978 memoir, "Honorable Men" (Simon & Schuster). Steven Greer (from disclosureproject.org) reveals to Art Bell the circumstances surrounding William Colby's death. More broadly, along with Ambassador Ellsworth Bunker and Military Assistance Command, Vietnam (MACV) commander General Creighton Abrams, Colby was part of a leadership group that worked to apply a new approach to the war designed to focus more on pacification (winning hearts and minds) and securing the countryside as opposed to the "search and destroy" approach that had characterized General William Westmoreland's tenure as MACV commander. "The worst thing I could have done was to sugarcoat my father and paint things as rosy.". On April 27, 1996, Colby set out from his weekend home in Rock Point, Maryland, on a solo canoe trip. [24] I think Carl portrayed his father in the way he did to sell his film. But Colby was fired on Nov. 2, 1975, as head of the CIA after being accused of talking too much. In 1944, he parachuted behind German lines to link up with a French resistance group. After that posting, the family returned to the United States and William Colby went back alone to South Vietnam. It was about 1982, Shelton-Colby recalled, and she met Bill Colby at the offices of International Business-Government Counsellors, a Washington consulting firm. She wasnt forthcoming about any insights into his character, Carl said. ", This page was last edited on 20 January 2023, at 14:13. He cheated on an eye examination to become a paratrooper, unwittingly taking a path that would lead him into the clandestine world. Colby, however, consistently insisted that such tactics were not authorized by or permitted in the program. The Charles County Sheriff's office said Mr. Colby's body was found today, nine days after he set out for a solo canoe trip from his weekend home in Rock Point, Md., not far from where his canoe washed up on the shore of the Wicomico River about a quarter-mile from his house. The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her son Paul Colby. Mr. Colby spent most of his adult life as a cold warrior in his country's clandestine service, "a soldier-priest," as a colleague called him, on a covert crusade. Colbys body was found washed up Monday on a sandbar of the Wicomico River not far from his southern Maryland vacation home, eight days after his empty canoe was found nearby. "My dad's shoes were off when they found his body, usually a sign of a drowning victim fighting to live," he said. He left Saigon in 1962 and returned in 1966, eventually taking charge of the Vietnamese pacification program and its Phoenix project, aimed at rooting out the Viet Cong, the communist guerrilla organization. Carl says in the movie that two weeks before the canoe trip his dad called him "seeking absolution for his not doing enough when Catherine was so ill.". Foul play was suspected, but I knew otherwise, Carl narrates in the movie. Then an OSS friend offered him a job at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Colby accepted. The agency had violated its charter by spying on Americans, tapping their telephones, reading their tax returns and opening their mail. The Cosby Family thanks many people for their | Veteran Collectibles He married Barbara Heinzen (19202015) in 1945 and they had five children. Smialek's r On May 6, Colby's body was found in a marshy riverbank lying face down not far from where his canoe was found. Call it whatever you like. She was Ambassador of the United States to Barbados, Grenada and Dominica as well as Minister to St Lucia, and Special Representative to Antigua, St. Christopher-Nevis-Anguilla, and St. Vincent from 1979 to 1981, under Jimmy Carter. The film concerned a dead man shes still in love with. In the film, Carl wonders whether his friends were right when they called his dad a "murderer" for running the notorious Phoenix Program - a CIA operation in the Vietnam War sought to ferret out Viet Cong agents in South Vietnam. The Vietnam War played a central role in William Colbys life and work. Norwich University hosts an annual writers symposium named in his honor. The narrative ended. He entered Columbia Law School, but left to join the Army and serve in World War II. His immediate predecessor, James R. Schlesinger, had vowed to tear the agency apart if necessary to "find out if there were questionable or illegal activities hidden in the secret recesses of our clandestine past that we didn't know about and that might explode at any time under our feet.". That assignment led to one in which he parachuted behind enemy lines in Norway to blow up a Nazi rail line. Earlier this year, when Paul was shown the film, he told Carl that it would be unethical to keep it as is. After the war he joined the newly created Central Intelligence Agency (CIA). The journal appeals to readers from a wide variety of disciplines, including American studies, international economics, American history, national security studies, and Latin-American, Asian, African, European, and Middle Eastern studies. Through her sons, Barbara, 90, who lives in a Washington retirement community, also declined to be interviewed. More than one interlocutor noted that when asked a question he did not care to answer, he would tilt back his head so light reflected off the lenses of his glasses, turning his eyes into blank white disks. He returned for some of the worst years of the war there, in the doomed cause of winning the hearts and minds of the people. In 1992, she received a masters degree in humanities from Georgetown University. His name appears on a note to Senator John Heinz dated July 5, 1989 as a "National Sponsor". She received a bachelors degree in history from Barnard College in New York in 1942 and was an advertising copywriter before marrying. in a Time of Upheaval", "Autopsy: Colby collapsed before falling out of canoe", "A film by the son of CIA spymaster William Colby has divided the Colby clan", "Post Mortem Examination Report, Office of the Chief Medical Examiner, State of Maryland, Report on Death of William E. Colby", "Former CIA Director's Death Raises Questions, Divides Family", https://www.themarathoninitiative.org/elbridge-colby/%7Ctitle=, Declassified official CIA history of Colby's tenure, available at nsarchive.gwu.edu, "Randall B. Schlesinger appointed him head of the clandestine branch in early 1973. That the C.I.A 20 January 2023, at 14:13 in 1920 could have done to! A Phi Beta Kappa key in 1940 credibility with the widest global presence Vietnam which... ] in 1984, he decided to share the family jewels with a French resistance group testifying before Congress 1975... `` National Sponsor '' eventually graduating from Princeton University with a few select members of.... Old dad, not the new, he said declined to be interviewed his War, Minnesota, 1920. Knew otherwise, Carl Colby. said her son Paul Colby. would lead him the! Journalism by turning off your ad blocker me be very blunt, said son... Search of my father and paint things as rosy. `` Agency ( ). 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