His son, Carl Colby, released a documentary on his father's professional and personal life, The Man Nobody Knew, in 2011. 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. [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. ", This page was last edited on 20 January 2023, at 14:13. COLBY, William H. "Colby" - Of Flint, age 60, died Saturday, August 4, 2007 at Hurley Medical Center. Many such land mines existed, but no one knew how many, or how explosive they were. He argued that "the key to the war in Vietnam was the war in the villages. | Credits 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. He also mentioned a number of reforms intended to limit excessive classification of governmental information.[15]. To preserve these articles as they originally appeared, The Times does not alter, edit or update them. He enrolled in Princeton University in 1937 and graduated in 1940 with a liberal education and outlook, a Phi Beta Kappa key, R.O.T.C. She and other CIA wives modeled their campaign on earlier, more public efforts by former spouses of State Department employees. I preferred the old dad, not the new, he said. Please join us in Loving, Sharing and Memorializing Frederick William Colby Sr on this permanent online memorial. Bill moved out of the family home in July 1983 to write a sequel to his memoir, Shelton-Colby said. Colby then worked briefly for the National Labor Relations Board in Washington and signed on with the Central Intelligence Agency. Quoting his book "Final Judgement" (pp353-357): "The August 20, 1996 issue of The Sun, Even though the movie shows Bill testifying before Congress, saying that he issued an order against assassination, Paul, the youngest brother, said he still believes the film slams their father as a "mass assassin." ), Paul, who lives in Alexandria, Va., also hates how the movie splices images of their dad with violent archival footage - rows of Vietnamese corpses and a notorious clip of a Vietnamese prisoner being shot in the head. ``The Cold War is over, and the military threat is now far less, he said in a 1992 ad. PRICE William Edger Colby (AKA) Gummer, 74, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Price on December 31, 2020. WebCatherine Colby died in April 1973. Earlier this year, when Paul was shown the film, he told Carl that it would be unethical to keep it as is. The coroners report listed the cause of death as a drowning, brought on by a stroke or heart attack. Carl Colby, whose documentary opened in September and is playing in theaters nationwide, declined to discuss his familys reactions to his film. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. He was born 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, however, consistently insisted that such tactics were not authorized by or permitted in the program. Call it whatever you like. Colby, who had had a somewhat unorthodox career in the CIA focused on political action and counterinsurgency, agreed with Schlesinger's reformist approach. One of the five children from his first marriage, Catherine, died in 1974. ", Carl kept the wrenching footage to bolster the film's credibility, he said. Mr. Schlesinger ordered all agency employees and veterans who knew about such activities to report them -- and then departed to become Defense Secretary. 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. And a Surround Sound system for my TV. [17] On May 6, Colby's body was found in a marshy riverbank lying face down not far from where his canoe was found. In 1944, he parachuted behind German lines to link up with a French resistance group. The film is about the oldest question: Who are your father and mother? TimesMachine is an exclusive benefit for home delivery and digital subscribers. [21][22], Colby was the subject of a biography, Lost Crusader, by John Prados, published in 2003. As bullets whined through the windows of their home, William Colby recalled, he barricaded his wife and children upstairs. "It would have muddled the story.". Shelton-Colby was in Houston, visiting her ailing mother. geogaddi000 [16][18] After an autopsy, Maryland's Chief Medical Examiner John E. Smialek ruled his death to be accidental. 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. Ian Shapira is a features writer on the local enterprise team. During these years Colby was deeply involved in Washington's policies in East Asia, particularly with respect to Vietnam, as well as Indonesia, Japan, Korea, and China. Bill and Barbara were still married, but their relationship was deteriorating. 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.. 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. He was CIA station chief in Saigon from 1959-62, was deputy director of the CORDS program in 1968, andmost famously (or infamously)ran the controversial Phoenix program in 1969. They were later On April 27, 1996, Colby set out from his weekend home in Rock Point, Maryland, on a solo canoe trip. He married Barbara Heinzen (19202015) in 1945 and they had five children. She also came to realize, after her husband asked her for a divorce, that she didnt know him as well as she thought. Paul said the Vietnamese prisoner's killing was not part of Phoenix, that his dad wasn't even in Vietnam at the time of the shooting and that the footage is a "total smear of my father. (In his memoir "Honorable Men," Bill wrote that the vast majority of Phoenix deaths occurred "in combat actions" with Vietnamese and American military forces. His brothers and sister had their own relationship with him, he said. The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her son Paul Colby. William Edger Colby. 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. 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. Capture a web page as it appears now for use as a trusted citation in the future. did business with the legislative branch in those days. 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. Note: This article is a review of another work, such as a book, film, musical composition, etc. ", 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, before her death in 1973 from epilepsy and anorexia. 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. December 4, 2022, at the age of 80. He is preceded in death by daughter Jennifer. Part of the effort was the controversial Phoenix Program, an initiative designed to identify and attack the "Viet Cong Infrastructure." On the one hand, Carl comes off as bitter that his father was so immersed in his work. He was not the cold, insensitive, unfeeling person that Carl portrayed in that film.". "We all have our own relationships. Over the next several years, they traveled the world. Aiden Rodgers of Salem has won an award from Indie Short Fest, a Los Angeles-based international film competition. Carl seemed less intrigued by his dad after he left the CIA in 1976. "Foul play was suspected, but I knew otherwise," Carl narrates in the movie. 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. Its director and narrator: his second-oldest son, Carl Colby. The couple bonded over their backgrounds in foreign policy. Column: Look out, the Copycat is on the prowl, trying to figure out the Costco Bisconie recipe. . was a tool of Presidential power, not a rogue elephant. 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. Carl said he didn't interview his siblings because he views the film as his memoir, not a biography. Carl Colby, whose documentary opened in September and is playing in theaters nationwide, declined to discuss his family's reactions to his film. [16] His canoe was found the following day on a sandbar in the Wicomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, about 0.25 miles (0.40km) from his home. That was how the C.I.A. The CIA's 10th director was best known for revealing the "family jewels" - a compilation of the agency's assassination attempts, drug testing on unwitting humans and eavesdropping on war protesters. [24] "The worst thing I could have done was to sugarcoat my father and paint things as rosy.". Family and friends are welcome to send flowers or leave their condolences on this memorial page and share them with the family. During and after her husbands tenure as director, she was regarded inside the agency as a charismatic advocate for CIA families. 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.. William E. Colby: A Highly Suspicious Death This was Saturday, April 27, 1996. Last Updated: November 23, 2011 8:25 pm. It currently publishes more than 6,000 new publications a year, has offices in around fifty countries, and employs more than 5,500 people worldwide. He feels his father left his wife isolated and eschewed real father-son bonds. Steven Greer (from disclosureproject.org) reveals to Art Bell the circumstances surrounding William Colby's death. On April 27, 1996, Colby set out from his weekend home in Rock Point, Maryland, on a solo canoe trip. There are four Colby children, three of them grown (a daughter, Catherine, died of anorexia nervosa and epilepsy in April 1973), a mother and father in their 80s who live in Washington. In August 1944, Colby parachuted into France to join a resistance group fighting to link up with advancing U.S. forces. Emily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Posts obituaries desk. In consonance with his long-held liberal views, Colby became a supporter of the nuclear freeze and of reductions in military spending. Seated in a Washington movie theater in October, she flipped open a notepad and, as the movie played, jotted down her thoughts. But Colby was fired on Nov. 2, 1975, as head of the CIA after being accused of talking too much. Oxford University Press is a department of the University of Oxford. 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. 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. . His family moved constantly, living everywhere from Tientsin, China, to Burlington, Vt. Christine Colby Giraudo of northwest Washington declined to be interviewed. He feels his father left his wife isolated and eschewed real father-son bonds. "[1] He then studied at Columbia Law School the following year. The pain and sadness of losing [my father] has now been intensified by my brother Carls inexplicable and unfounded attempt to debase the reputation and memory of a modest and decent man, a dedicated father, and an exemplary public servant., Carl kept the wrenching footage to bolster the films credibility, he said. On the other, Carl admired his dads public service and seems most proud of his disclosures to Congress about the CIAs past misdeeds. They thought she was dead, but called an ambulance anyway. Among those interviewed in the film are former National Security Adviser Brent Scowcroft, the journalists Seymour Hersh (who broke the My Lai story) and Bob Woodward, and former Defense Secretaries Robert Gates and Donald Rumsfeld. 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. It had plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. Menu. We all have our own relationships. 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. 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. In April 1996, Bill set off on a worldwide consulting trip. And he founded the American Commitee for a Free Vietnam, which sought to strengthen human rights and democracy in Vietnam. Then he took the canoe out. Redirect it, reduce the amount of money spent, but let's not destroy it. Diplomatic History is the official journal of Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). 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. As American involvement grew in Vietnam, Colby helped develop an unsuccessful strategic hamlet program and directed the organization of Montagnard tribesmen for service in the U.S. special forces. Paul said the Vietnamese prisoners killing was not part of Phoenix, that his dad wasnt even in Vietnam at the time of the shooting and that the footage is a total smear of my father., Carl told me that if I didnt like it, I should make my own film, Paul said. 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. |Privacy Policy 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). Sister had their own relationship with him, he parachuted behind German lines to link with... Of governmental information. [ 15 ] be unethical to keep it as.... Disclosures to Congress about the oldest question: who are your father and mother to Fidel! Talking too much because he views the film 's credibility, he said existed but. On earlier, more public efforts by former spouses of State Department.... 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