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.

Career

Office of Strategic Services

Colby 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 as part of Operation Jedburgh to support the French resistance, 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.

Related Topics:
Office of Strategic Services - France - Norway - Operation Jedburgh - Silver Star - National Labor Relations Board

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Central Intelligence Agency

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.

Related Topics:
Stockholm - Sweden - Rome

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Vietnam

In 1959 Colby 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, and shortly thereafter succeeded him 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 Phoenix Program - an initiative designed to identify and attack the "Viet Cong Infrastructure". There is considerable debate about the merit of the program, which included Assassination and Torture. However 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.

Related Topics:
Saigon - Vietnam - Phoenix Program - Viet Cong - Assassination - Torture - North Vietnamese Army

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CIA Director

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.

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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.

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Colby's time as DCI was also eventful on the world stage. Shortly after he assumed leadership, the Yom Kippur War broke out, an event that surprised not only American intelligence agencies, but Israelis as well. 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.

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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.

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Post CIA Career

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.

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