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. [7] While in Vietnam, Colby focused intensively on building up Vietnamese capabilities to combat the Viet Cong insurgency in the countryside. Though a career officer, Elbridge Colby's professional pursuits focused less on strictly military activities and more on intellectual and scholarly contributions to military and literary subjects. She and other CIA wives modeled their campaign on earlier, more public efforts by former spouses of State Department employees. Discharged in 1945 with the rank of major, Colby got his law degree from Columbia, then practiced two years with a New York law firm headed by his former OSS commander, William J. Donovan. Mr. Colby told Congress in 1971 that these deaths included "illegal killing." Carl paints his father as a mysterious family man more occupied with the agencys mission against communism and less concerned about his wife Barbara and their five kids. His daughter, Christine, was presented as a debutante to high society in 1978 at the International Debutante Ball at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. After that posting, the family returned to the United States and William Colby went back alone to South Vietnam. During World War II Colby served with the Office of Strategic Services. . Colby was divorced in 1984 from the former Barbara Heinzen and married Sally Shelton. 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. They were just teenagers. Mr. Colby's marriage to the former Barbara Heinzen ended in divorce. [24] | Resources, New Doc on the Mysterious Death of William Colby, VVA Launches Campaign Addressing Aging Veterans Healthcare, Veterans Incarcerated and in the Justice System, Vietnam War post-traumatic stress disorder, Leadership Conference & Planning Committee. The apparent cause was a heart attack, her son Paul said. Steven Greer (from disclosureproject.org) reveals to Art Bell the circumstances surrounding William Colby's death. On her nightstand by her bed, a photo shows the couple in Venice, seated in a gondola draped in flowers, yellow and white. One of the five children from his first marriage, Catherine, died in 1974. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. "I think Carl portrayed his father in the way he did to sell his film. 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. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Bored by the practice of law and inspired by his liberal beliefs, he moved to Washington to work for the National Labor Relations Board. Seated in a Washington movie theater in October, she flipped open a notepad and, as the movie played, jotted down her thoughts. 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. I would have been closer to him.. During a posting in Stockholm in the early 1950s, her husbands cover was as a Foreign Service officer. In April 1996, Bill set off on a worldwide consulting trip. She writes about extraordinary lives in national and international affairs, science and the arts, sports, culture, and beyond. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon administration. He was said to have been too candid in testimony to congressional investigators; he had long ago aroused the ire of the agencys old guard for trying to channel more effort into the gathering, evaluation and analysis of information and less into covert operation. [11] Some, including Colby later in life, argue that this approach succeeded in reducing the Communist insurgency in South Vietnam, but that South Vietnam, without air and ground support by the United States after the 1973 Paris Peace Accords, was ultimately overwhelmed by a conventional North Vietnamese assault in 1975. For terms and use, please refer to our Terms and Conditions He feels his father left his wife isolated and eschewed real father-son bonds. 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. Events in the arms-control field, Angola, Australia,[13] the Middle East, and elsewhere also demanded attention. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. Colby served as DCI under President Richard Nixon and President Gerald Ford until January 30, 1976; he was succeeded at the CIA by George H. W. Bush. Naturally, the CIA director's death on a canoe ride triggered murder conspiracy theories. [16][18] After an autopsy, Maryland's Chief Medical Examiner John E. Smialek ruled his death to be accidental. At headquarters, he took on desk jobs that led two years later to the directorship. "The coroner's report listed the cause of death as a drowning, brought on by a stroke or heart attack. At their Georgetown home, after dinner, they had their rituals. During and after her husbands tenure as director, she was regarded inside the agency as a charismatic advocate for CIA families. Mr. Colby's confirmation hearings that summer were excruciating, in part because of his past in Vietnam. The CIAs 10th director was best known for revealing the family jewels a compilation of the agencys assassination attempts, drug testing on unwitting humans and eavesdropping on war protesters. 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). The film is about the oldest question: Who are your father and mother? After long-time DCI Richard Helms was dismissed by President Nixon in 1973, James Schlesinger assumed the helm at the Agency. On the one hand, Carl comes off as bitter that his father was so immersed in his work. Elbridge's father, Charles Colby, had been a professor of chemistry at Columbia University but had died prematurely, leaving his family largely without money. Carl Colby, whose documentary opened in September and is playing in theaters nationwide, declined to discuss his familys reactions to his film. | Veteran Collectibles And even though Shelton-Colby, the spymaster's second wife, has been kept at a distance by most of Colby's biological children, their grievances with the film have united them, at least in principle. In 1992, she received a masters degree in humanities from Georgetown University. Died: April, 1973 (Complications from epilepsy and anorexia) Mini Bio (1) Catherine Colby died in April 1973. I asked my mother, What if [others in the family] all object? She said, They can make their own movie, Carl said in an interview. Bill and Barbara were still married, but their relationship was deteriorating. Funeral service will be celebrated at Hodges Family Funeral Home, 114412 US Hwy 301, Dade City on Woods: William E. Colby and the CIA", William E. Colby Papers at the Seeley G. Mudd Manuscript Library, Princeton University, Oral History Interviews with William Colby, from the Lyndon Baines Johnson Library, Coroner's Report on William E. Colby's Death, National Coalition to Ban Handguns Letter to Sen. John Heinz, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_Colby&oldid=1134763619, United States Army personnel of World War II, Directors of the Central Intelligence Agency, People of the Office of Strategic Services, Recipients of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, CS1 maint: bot: original URL status unknown, Short description is different from Wikidata, Articles needing additional references from April 2017, All articles needing additional references, Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike License 3.0, "We disbanded our intelligence [after both world wars] and then found we needed it. It was about 1982, Shelton-Colby recalled, and she met Bill Colby at the offices of International Business-Government Counsellors, a Washington consulting firm. [7][23] In May 2013, Randall B. He answered a call for French-speaking volunteers and joined the Office of Strategic Services, the World War II American father of the CIA. 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. Keep supporting great journalism by turning off your ad blocker. The agency's clandestine officers called the list "the family jewels," or "the skeletons." He was responsible for all the agency's covert operations in Asia from 1962 to 1967, as the United States went to war in Vietnam. [21][22], Colby was the subject of a biography, Lost Crusader, by John Prados, published in 2003. When it trampled people, the blame was on the elephant rider: the President of the United States. The Colby family is bothered by the films suggestion that Bill killed himself because he felt guilty for not doing more to comfort his eldest daughter, Catherine Colby, before her death in 1973 from epilepsy and anorexia. 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. 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. Christine Colby Giraudo of Northwest Washington declined to be interviewed. Because you don't know 10 years out what you're going to face. The film is about the oldest question: Who are your father and mother? He argued that "the key to the war in Vietnam was the war in the villages. Former CIA Director William Colby comes off as cold, mysterious and ultimately suicidal in his son's documentary, The Man Nobody Knew. William Colby died in 1996 in an apparent accidental drowning 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. "Let me be very blunt," said Shelton-Colby, 67, a foreign policy professor at American University. [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 Colby family is bothered by the films suggestion that Bill killed himself because he felt guilty for not doing more to comfort his eldest daughter, Catherine Colby, He moved from post to post, eventually graduating from Princeton University with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1940. In 1984, Bill and Barbara divorced. When Bill's body was found, his wallet contained a photo of Catherine, Carl says. Colby said later that some of Fords advisers felt ``I was responding too willingly to Congress; I was giving them information when I should have stonewalled them and refused to give them information., The former CIA director maintained that it was necessary to own up about past CIA misdeeds, ``to get rid of them and to demonstrate that CIA, itself, had corrected those a year and a half before.. The day after he returned, he went to his Southern Maryland home. OUP is the world's largest university press with the widest global presence. 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. It has become familiar to millions through a diverse publishing program that includes scholarly works in all academic disciplines, bibles, music, school and college textbooks, business books, dictionaries and reference books, and academic journals. 2004 Oxford University Press In the latter book, 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. William E. Colby, 76, Head of C.I.A. Mrs. Colby served for many years on the CIAs Family Advisory Board, which represents the interests of agency family members, and in 2002 received the prestigious Directors Award from then-CIA Director George Tenet, recognizing her untiring efforts on the part of former Agency spouses and her constant concern for the welfare of Agency families., In a statement after Mrs. Colbys death, Tenet and his wife, Stephanie Glakas-Tenet, said that CIA Directors came and went, but Barbara was an indispensable foundation, serving the Agency for nearly 60 years.. 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. Let's not go through that again. But now, The Man Nobody Knew has set off a tense division between Carl, his stepmother and his otherwise low-key siblings: Jonathan Colby, 65, a managing director at the Carlyle Group, an investment firm; Paul Colby, 56, a government attorney; and Christine Colby Giraudo, 51, a public relations consultant. In a short email to The Post, she said her recollections of her dad differ from Carl's. After the war, Colby graduated from Columbia Law School and then briefly practiced law in William J. Donovan's New York firm, Donovan, Leisure, Newton & Irvine. She drew attention to the particular problems, including high divorce rates, that are shouldered by couples who must contend with the rigors of clandestine life. 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. 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