The bullet that killed him was fired behind his left ear, which is odd for a suicide. "My father saw how the country was changing after Watergate, with a weak White House and a powerful Congress, and he believed that a covert intelligence agency could exist with congressional oversight," Jonathan said. 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 Just a correction: John DeCamp worked on uncovering the child prostitution and blackmail ring out of Omaha, Nebraska. Was the CIA Behind the Jonestown Massacre? Great story. John, Michael Collins Piper has some interesting things to say about Colby. A lifetime of espionage meant Colby had enemies from Baltimore to Bali, and conspiracy theories about his death still circulate between Georgetown mansions and CIA headquarters in Langley, Va., today, despite an official ruling of accidental death. ``The Cold War is over, and the military threat is now far less, he said in a 1992 ad. WebCatherine Colby died in April 1973. Sister of documentary filmmaker Twitter; Facebook; Google + LinkedIn; YouTube; Weibo WebTheir daughter, Margaret Colby, born 1556 and died 1626 at age 60, in Worcestershire, married Richard Pace of London. He was born September 2, 1946 in Huntington, Utah to Eldwin R. Colby and Zina Loree Marshall. He was baptized on 3 AUG 1735 in Amesbury, Essex County, Massachusetts. Having grown up in a military family, he was neat and immaculate in how he kept his house and extremely prudent. He died after 1791 at Weare, Hillsborough County, New Hampshire. [3], Colby had also supervised the CIAs secret war in Laos, where the Agency had organized a clandestine army among the Indigenous Hmong to fight the pro-communist Pathet Lao.[4]. Survivors include four children, Jonathan Colby of Jupiter Island, Fla., Carl Colby and Christine Colby Giraudo, both of Washington, and Paul Colby of Alexandria, Va.; eight grandchildren; and three great-grandchildren. 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). 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. This Colby guy hit the nail on the head, when he said, if its done right, no one will know, or why thats America now! Those cuts are slowly becoming a reality in the 1990's. William H. Macy Sued By Neighbor For $600k for Cutting Down Trees William H. Macy Neighbor Files Massive, $600k Lawsuit You Slaughtered My Trees and Now I'm a Wreck!!! As a result, we neglected our schools and cities, our health-care system, our roads and bridges, and parks. A lifelong Democrat fashioning himself a liberal anti-communist, Colby in the 1970s and 1980s favored nuclear disarmament and dtente, though continued to favor large budgets for covert action which he felt could forestall much more serious problems later. Woods, Shadow Warrior, 471, 472, 476. One of Colby's own daughters was rumored to be another casualty of his war. He From 1968 to 1971, under the aegis of the Agency for International Development, Mr. Colby had run programs that included Operation Phoenix. She was 44. On May 7, 1996, the Charles County Sheriffs Office found the body of former CIA Director William E. Colby, 76, washed up on the shore of the Wicomico River near his canoe, about a quarter mile from his country home on Cobb Island, Maryland. Like Colbys canoe, Paisleys sailboat, Brilligwhich possessed sophisticated communications equipmenthad been found abandoned and partly submerged. Occasionally the digitization process introduces transcription errors or other problems; we are continuing to work to improve these archived versions. Colbys body was not found for nine days, despite a massive search effort the day after his disappearance involving a dozen Navy divers aided by two helicopters and more than 80 volunteers. At headquarters, he took on desk jobs that led two years later to the directorship. On May 7, 1996, the Charles County Sheriffs Office found the body of former CIA Director William E. Colby, 76, washed up on the shore of the Wicomico River near his canoe, about a quarter mile from his country home on Cobb Island, Maryland. In Saigon, she protected her young children during a coup mounted against their neighbor, President Ngo Dinh Diem. [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 . U.S. distribution rights were acquired by First Run Features. Another clue Jonathan pointed out was the fact that Colby's body was found without his shoes, likely the result of his kicking the water, and largely inconsistent with suicide, he said. [10], According to a culinary expert, the clams would have taken at least 20-30 minutes to cook. By using this site, you agree to these terms above. They portray him as a straightforward, unrepentant soldier who did what he felt was necessary without agonizing too much over the costs. He earned the U.S. Silver Star and the French Croix de Guerre. The Scotfree | Death at the Chesapeake: Who Whacked CIA Spy Chief William Colby? in 1950. Colby admitted that the CIA had violated its charter by spying on Americans, tapping their telephones, reading their tax returns and opening their mail. 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. The CIA women worked behind the scenes, as not to out the spouses still employed there. Colby; his daughter, Barbara E. (Thomas) Alexander of Austin, TX; four Was he quietly investigating? Asked whether he believes his father committed suicide, Carl was cryptic, though his movie carries strong implications. 00, arrived on Mayflower Hill in 1979 with their three children, David, Deborah, and Elizabeth, who they raised on campus. 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. Holding an electrical engineering degree from the University of Chicago, Paisley also worked closely with CIA counterintelligence director James J. Angleton, who had recruited Paisley when he worked as a radio operator in Palestine before the founding of the State of Israel. "In terms of his emotional and psychological life, there's nothing else here than what you see," Woods told HuffPost. Since then, he had promoted a nuclear freeze and big cuts in the military budget. CovertAction Magazinedoes not receive corporate or government sponsorship. his parents, Eldwin R. Colby and Zina Loree Marshall; and his daughter Rachelle Colby. Twitter; Facebook; Google + LinkedIn; YouTube; Weibo As bullets whined through the windows of their home, William Colby recalled, he barricaded his wife and children upstairs. Bridge Colby, Jonathan's son, added that "the release of the family jewels was the only way he knew to save the agency, in effect showing Congress, 'Look, this is all we did, nothing more! Release. WILLIAM R. COLBY CONNEAUT William Rea Colby, 82, of Conneaut, OH, died Thursday morning, April 1, 2004, at his residence following a lengthy illness. He is survived by his wife, Sally Shelton-Colby, an assistant administrator for global programs at the Agency for International Development and a former Ambassador to Grenada, Barbados and eight other eastern Caribbean countries; his children from his first marriage, Jonathan, Carl, Paul and Christine, and six grandchildren. Yet, we hold a steadfast commitment to providing compensation for writers, editorial and technical support. , See Zalin Grant, Who Murdered the CIA Chief? 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.". For publication of CAMarticles in print or other forms including commercial internet sites, contact:info@CovertActionMagazine.com. WebFormer 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 He was 76 and lived in the Georgetown section of Washington. [13], Akers said that, if Colbys canoe had really gone down in this area, the body would have washed up ashore in a few days in the exact same spot as the canoe and not forty meters away because the current would have pushed the canoe in the direction of the body. In 1973, their daughter died at 23. Colbys death was ruled a drowning accident. His family moved constantly, living everywhere from Tientsin, China, to Burlington, Vt. They were here. Copyright 1978-2023 CovertAction Institute, Inc. All Rights Reserved. [15], A tow rope was also found on Colbys canoe, when no one had seen one on it before. The others are Jonathan, Carl, Paul and Christine. Crowley told author Gregory Douglas that he knew for a fact that some of the old ones, they are going to kill [Colby] for that. Schlesinger was replaced by a young Donald Rumsfeld, who would face the same challenge in Afghanistan post-9/11 as Colby and Schlesinger had in Vietnam: How to wage a guerilla war for the hearts and minds of rural villagers with an army designed for massive, scorched-earth combat ops. Mrs. Colby, 94, died July 16 in Washington. William E. Colby, who as Director of Central Intelligence chose to disclose some of the nation's darkest secrets to save the spy service he loved, drowned on April As Vladimir Rezun (aka Victor Suvorov) wrote in at least one of his books, the Soviet GRU (military intelligence) had a charming rule: Its a kopeck to get in, but a rouble to get out. [6], Sally Shelton said that Colby was known to occasionally take his canoe out around twilight, but on routes where he hugged the shoreline and stayed in shallow water. But 23 years after her death and two weeks before their father's final canoe trip, Carl Colby says his father called him "seeking absolution for his not doing enough when Catherine was so ill.", The film is dedicated to Catherine's memory, and the implication is that William Colby was wracked by guilt over her death. Subsequently, they suffocated Colby and put him on ice. [1] []. William H. Macy Sued By Neighbor For $600k for Cutting Down Trees William H. Macy Neighbor Files Massive, $600k Lawsuit You Slaughtered My Trees and Now I'm a Wreck!!! Trivia (1) Daughter of William Colby and Barbara Colby. You can read more aboutfair use and US Copyright Lawat the Legal Information Institute of Cornell Law School. It had conducted LSD experiments on unwitting human guinea pigs. But Colby had severe plaque buildup in his arteries, and not just any arteries: specifically the left, anterior descending artery -- known for producing heart attacks so massive that it's nicknamed the widow-maker. In "The Man Nobody Knew," Scowcroft, then the National Security Advisor, speculates that giving up the information was a form of penance Colby performed to absolve his "tortured soul" of sins he believed were committed during the war. Among historians, William Colby is best-remembered as the man who gave away the CIA's "family jewels," details about covert actions the agency carried out between 1950 and the end of the Vietnam War. [24] Later on, Paisleys body was identified in the bay, fitted with weighted divers belts around the waist. This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. In 1959, they moved to South Vietnam, where William Colby became station chief in Saigon, which is now called Ho Chi Minh City. Steven Greer (from disclosureproject.org) reveals to Art Bell the circumstances surrounding William Colby's death. He perfected the look of an invisible man: gray suits, graying hair, glasses with translucent frames the color of pale white skin. Again, exceptional reporting! One of the five children from his first marriage, Catherine, died in 1974. This Book Turns Everything You Thought You Knew About North Korea Upside Down, In Just Under Three Weeks, Ukrainian-Fired Prohibited Petal Mines Maim At Least 44 Civilians, Kill 2, in Donetsk Region, Repeating 70s Strategy of Grand Chess-Master Brzezinski: Biden Appears to Have Induced Russian Invasion of Ukraine to Bankrupt Russias Economy and Advance Regime Change, Manufacturing Consent for War: 70 Years of CIA Coups, Assassinations, False Flag Operations and Mass Murder, Commission Reveals that Trudeau Government Lied About Nature of Truckers Protests in Ottawa Last February to Justify Invocation of Emergencies Act. He moved from post to post, eventually graduating from Princeton University with a Phi Beta Kappa key in 1940. Another theory was that Paisley had become a Soviet spy and that the Chesapeake Bay incident had been contrived to disguise Paisleys defection. On Colbys canoe, when no one had seen one on it before Diem. 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