William Edger Colby. "And all she said to me was, 'We both loved him. With heavy hearts, we announce the death of William Colby of Price, Utah, born in Huntington, Utah, who passed away on December 31, 2020 at the age of 74. William E. Colby: A Highly Suspicious Death This was Saturday, April 27, 1996. It would have muddled the story.. In recent months, Mr. Colby became senior editor of Strategic Weekly Briefings, a faxed newsletter, and embarked on a quintessential post-cold-war endeavor: marketing a computer CD-ROM game about espionage and counter-terrorism he created with Oleg Kalugin, a former top Soviet intelligence officer. We are a participant in the Amazon Services LLC Associates Program, an affiliate advertising program designed to provide a means for us to earn fees by linking to Amazon.com and affiliated sites. The original work is not included in the purchase of this review. RHODRI JEFFREYS-JONES. Although "The Man Nobody Knew" features an extensive interview with his biological mother, Barbara H. Colby, and more than 30 journalists, ex-CIA officials and other dignitaries, Carl did not ask his three siblings to be interviewed. In 1977 Colby founded a D.C. law firmColby, Miller & Hanes, with Marshall Miller, David Hanes, and associated lawyers, and worked on public policy issues. He loved music and could play piano, accordion and guitar. Mrs. Colby found herself a beneficiary of that legislation when she and her husband, who had supported the campaign on behalf of the ex-spouses, were divorced. In an interview, Jonathan Colby, who lives in Chevy Chase, Md., said he does not understand why Carl implies that his dad committed suicide. For the Colby family, the movie is yet one more turbulent moment stemming from the career of their patriarch, The CIAs 10th director was best known for revealing the family jewels. 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. William Edger Colby. Sally Shelton-Colby, William Colby's second wife and a foreign policy professor at American University, is unhappy with the way her late husband is portrayed in her stepson's film. She wasnt forthcoming about any insights into his character, Carl said. 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. Earlier this year, when Paul was shown the film, he told Carl that it would be "unethical" to keep it as is. And, most recently, a Salem teens film wins L.A. Indie Short Fest honors. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. And she, too, had been in a tired marriage to a Mexican ambassador that fell apart. [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. Carl paints his father as a mysterious family man more occupied with the agency's mission against communism and less concerned about his wife Barbara and their five kids. 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. The old dad taught me how to sacrifice. [10] The CORDS model and its approach influenced U.S. strategy and thinking on counterinsurgency in the 2000s in Iraq and Afghanistan.[12]. On the other, Carl admired his dads public service and seems most proud of his disclosures to Congress about the CIAs past misdeeds. 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. William Colby, Man of Contradictions, Found Dead at 76 HARRY F. ROSENTHAL May 6, 1996 WASHINGTON (AP) _ William E. Colby was a professional spy The new dad . Giraudo, the daughter of William Egan Colby of Washington and Barbara Heinzen Colby of Arlington, Va., is an account executive at the New York public relations firm of Hill & Knowlton. After she identified the body on Monday, she thanked the searchers and said her husband had left the world a better place. Carl didn't know his father. 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. Bill and Barbara were still married, but their relationship was deteriorating. Mr. Colby's marriage to the former Barbara Heinzen ended in divorce. The film concerned a dead man shes still in love with. The William E. Colby Military Writers Symposium, Deputy Director of Central Intelligence for Operations, Deputy Assistant For National Security Affairs, Learn how and when to remove this template message, United States Permanent Representative to NATO, "Surrender -- French Policy toward the Spanish Civil War", "Interview with William Egan Colby, 1981. She admits to feeling jealous of another CIA wife whose husband talked more about his job. My dads shoes were off when they found his body, usually a sign of a drowning victim fighting to live, he said. 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. And the movie was made by someone she rarely ever speaks to. Robert M. Gates, the Director of Central Intelligence from 1991 to 1993, recalled that 1975 was the worst year in the agency's history. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. I would have been closer to him.. He married Barbara Heinzen (19202015) in 1945 and they had five children. After long-time DCI Richard Helms was dismissed by President Nixon in 1973, James Schlesinger assumed the helm at the Agency. He then joined the Manhattan law firm then known as Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Lombard, run by the founder of the Office of Strategic Services, William J. Donovan. He fit this published description: ``Mr. Colby never seems to have a hair or an emotion out of place., Even Colby said, in his 1978 memoir, that he was ``the traditional gray man, so inconspicuous that he can never catch the waiters eye in a restaurant.. 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. in 1950. [17] On May 6, Colby's body was found in a marshy riverbank lying face down not far from where his canoe was found. Carl Colby, whose documentary opened in September and is playing in theaters nationwide, declined to discuss his family's reactions to his film. And a Surround Sound system for my TV. Norwich University hosts an annual writers symposium named in his honor. 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. It had conducted LSD experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs. When Bill's body was found, his wallet contained a photo of Catherine, Carl says. Senior agency officers called him a traitor. See the article in its original context from. She admits to feeling jealous of another CIA wife whose husband talked more about his job. The secrets did not keep. He feels his father left his wife isolated and eschewed real father-son bonds. Both Colby and Kalugin played themselves in the game. What do they mean to you?". The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her son Paul Colby. The Christian Democrats and allied parties won several key elections in the 1950s, preventing a takeover by the Communist Party. During and after her husbands tenure as director, she was regarded inside the agency as a charismatic advocate for CIA families. Colby spent the next 12 years in the field, first in Stockholm, Sweden. In Rome, where William Colby was posted from 1953 to 1958, Mrs. Colby immersed herself in the countrys language and religious and artistic heritage while her husband helped lead efforts to prevent a Communist victory in Italian elections. Uploaded by There is considerable debate about the merits of the program, which was subject to allegations that it relied on or was complicit in assassination and torture. [21][22] In his 2011 documentary The Man Nobody Knew, Colby's son Carl suggested that his father suffered from guilt over his failings as a father to one of his daughters and committed suicide. The film has drawn criticism from family members. They are especially upset with the films suggestion that the former spymaster spent his retirement in deep regret and killed himself on a canoeing trip in the mid-1990s. The contradictions followed him to the end. Early on the morning of Feb. 19, William G. (Bill) Armstrong, 89, passed away surrounded by his loving family at this Tamarack Lane home. William's mother, Margaret Egan, was from an Irish family in St. Paul active in business and Democratic politics. Died: April, 1973 (Complications from epilepsy and anorexia) Mini Bio (1) Catherine Colby died in April 1973. We all have our own relationships. As the confirmation hearings convened in July 1973, antiwar protesters plastered Washington with wanted posters emblazoned with Mr. Colby's face, a skull and crossbones and the ace of spades, a symbol of death, his home telephone, which he insisted remain listed, rang with angry calls throughout the night. He was born May 2, 1921, in Amboy, OH, and was a son of Earl L. and Dorothy L. (Frary) Colby. on the Internet. Earlier this year, when Paul was shown the film, he told Carl that it would be unethical to keep it as is. The Cosby Family thanks many people for their In 1975, 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. Before and during the Vietnam War, Colby served as chief of station in Saigon, chief of the CIA's Far East Division, and head of the Civil Operations and Rural Development effort, as well as overseeing the Phoenix Program. The film is about the oldest question: Who are your father and mother? Mrs. Colby supported her husband when, after his testimony about the family jewels, he was removed from office by President Gerald R. Ford. Few outsiders understood them -- "possibly because Angleton's explanations were impossible to follow, or possibly because the evidence just didn't add up," Mr. Colby wrote in his memoir. 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. Colby, who had had a somewhat unorthodox career in the CIA focused on political action and counterinsurgency, agreed with Schlesinger's reformist approach. Christine Colby Giraudo of Northwest Washington declined to be interviewed. [21][22], Colby was the subject of a biography, Lost Crusader, by John Prados, published in 2003. And the movie was made by someone she rarely ever speaks to. Mr. Colby spent the year testifying before Congressional committees, and the essence of his testimony became public: the assassination plots, the coups and the spying on Americans. 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 accompanied him on a road trip in Scandinavia, purportedly to visit castles but in fact so that he could supply anti-communist operatives with radio devices hidden in the cars trunk. . OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. 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. [4] He was often referred to as "the warriorpriest". "We all have our own relationships. Colby recounted that he took from his parents a desire to serve and a commitment to liberal politics, Catholicism, and independence, exemplified by his father's career-damaging protest in The Nation magazine regarding the lenient treatment of a white Georgian who had murdered a black U.S. soldier also based at Ft. In August 1944, Colby parachuted into France to join a resistance group fighting to link up with advancing U.S. forces. As Prados was writing a career chronicle, not a William Colby died in 1996 in an apparent accidental ", This page was last edited on 20 January 2023, at 14:13. He was nominated to be CIA director on May 10, 1973, by President Nixon, then struggling to extricate himself from the Watergate scandal. Though the topic remains open and controversial, some recent scholarship, including by Lewis "Bob" Sorley, supports Colby's arguments. They were just teenagers. Last Updated: November 23, 2011 8:25 pm. Mrs. Colby jumped into the job of the junior diplomats wife with her typical enthusiasm and charm, William Colby wrote in his 1978 memoir Honorable Men: My Life in the CIA, crediting her also with maintaining a normal family life. Mrs. Colby was born Barbara Ann Heinzen in Springfield, Ohio, on Dec. 25, 1920. His canoe was found the following day on a sandbar in the Wicomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, about 0.25 miles (0.40 km) from his home. 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.. Although The Man Nobody Knew features an extensive interview with his biological mother, Barbara H. Colby, and more than 30 journalists, ex-CIA officials and other dignitaries, Carl did not ask his three siblings to be interviewed. It was when Barbara came up to me, Shelton-Colby remembered. Its been 15 years since Bill Colby vanished on a solo canoe trip near his vacation home in Southern Maryland, only to be found dead days later, floating on the banks of the Wicomico River. He entered Columbia Law School, but left to join the Army and serve in World War II. Call it whatever you like. Menu. "I would have been closer to him. Two months after the firing, Ford honored Colby with the National Security Medal, citing his ``outstanding contribution in the field of intelligence.. Carl said he didn't interview his siblings because he views the film as his memoir, not a biography. The coroners report listed the cause of death as a drowning, brought on by a stroke or heart attack. 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. Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. He was 76. His father, a sensitive nonconformist who wrote and taught literature, became a career Army officer. William E. Colby, 76, Head of C.I.A. His family moved constantly, living everywhere from Tientsin, China, to Burlington, Vt. His father, Elbridge Colby, who came from a New England family with a history of military and public service, was a professor of English, an author, and a military officer who served in the Army and in university positions in Tientsin, China; Georgia; Vermont; and Washington, D.C. That year, Bill and Shelton-Colby got married in Italy. During a pause in the fighting, and with her husband by then occupied at the embassy, Mrs. Colby escorted her children to a safer location. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Call it whatever you like. There, he helped set up the stay-behind networks of Operation Gladio, a covert paramilitary organization organized by the CIA to make any Soviet occupation more difficult, as he later described in his memoirs.[8]. 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. The disclosures in 1975, historians believe, saved the CIA from destruction when members of Congress were eager for its death, but they made Colby a pariah to CIA officers who believed such transparency imperiled the agency's mission and national security. His brothers and sister had their own relationship with him, 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. Many such land mines existed, but no one knew how many, or how explosive they were. His son, Carl Colby, released a documentary on his father's professional and personal life, The Man Nobody Knew, in 2011. WebNancy Beth Cruzan was injured seriously in a one-car accident on January 11, 1983, on an isolated country road in southwest Missouri. They thought she was dead, but called an ambulance anyway. "It would have muddled the story.". William E. Colby was a member of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns. Connect with the definitive source for global and local news. There, he oversaw Operation Phoenix, a program designed to root out Communist Viet Cong agents in South Vietnam and that ultimately killed more than 20,000 Vietnamese. . Carl elaborated on his theory more in the interview, asserting that if his dad suffered a stroke or heart attack while canoeing, he may not have had the will to live. 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