Those cuts are slowly becoming a reality in the 1990's. COLBY, William H. "Colby" - Of Flint, age 60, died Saturday, August 4, 2007 at Hurley Medical Center. "I would have been closer to him. "The coroner's report listed the cause of death as a drowning, brought on by a stroke or heart attack. 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. William Colby, Man of Contradictions, Found Dead at 76 HARRY F. ROSENTHAL May 6, 1996 WASHINGTON (AP) _ William E. Colby was a professional spy 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. A state official said there was no sign of foul play. experience and a deep antipathy to Fascism and Communism. That year, Bill and Shelton-Colby got married in Italy. And he founded the American Commitee for a Free Vietnam, which sought to strengthen human rights and democracy in Vietnam. 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. "The agency's survival," he wrote in his memoirs, "could only come from understanding, not hostility, built on knowledge, not faith.". Though the topic remains open and controversial, some recent scholarship, including by Lewis "Bob" Sorley, supports Colby's arguments. This intelligence surprise reportedly affected Colby's credibility with the Nixon administration. . But as the nation's chief spy, he helped reveal the Central Intelligence Agency's hidden history and confessed to its sins. She wasnt forthcoming about any insights into his character, Carl said. web pages This is a digitized version of an article from The Timess print archive, before the start of online publication in 1996. 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 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 agencys mission and national security. William E. Colby: A Highly Suspicious Death This was Saturday, April 27, 1996. William Colby died in 1996 in an apparent accidental drowning in the Wicomico River in Maryland. ", "The more we know about each other the safer we all are." I preferred the old dad, not the new, he said. 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. Even after his dismissal as Director of Central Intelligence in November 1975 by President Gerald R. Ford, who believed that Mr. Colby had been too forthcoming, Mr. Colby insisted that he had done the right thing by throwing the cloak off the cloak-and-dagger business. One of the five children from his first marriage, Catherine, died in 1974. Diplomatic History 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. For the past week, while searchers looked for him in the Wicomico, near where it empties into the Potomac, his widow, Sally Shelton-Colby, had refused to accept the assumption that he had drowned. PRICE William Edger Colby (AKA) Gummer, 74, passed away unexpectedly at his home in Price on December 31, 2020. I think hed had enough of this life.. RHODRI JEFFREYS-JONES. Bill and Barbara were still married, but their relationship was deteriorating. Carl said he didn't interview his siblings because he views the film as his memoir, not a biography. 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 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. She said, 'They can make their own movie,'" Carl said in an interview. Ultimately, the movie reveals Carl's ambivalence about his dad. Mrs. Colby was born Barbara Ann Heinzen in Springfield, Ohio, on Dec. 25, 1920. Now the pressure for a full Congressional investigation grew irresistible. 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. 2004 Oxford University Press 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. "I asked my mother, 'What if (others in the family) all object?' With his Army father, William Colby had a peripatetic upbringing before attending public high school in Burlington, Vermont. He then attended Princeton University and graduated with an A.B. 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. Bill was working with newly Democratic elected parliaments in Eastern Europe to help them figure out how to assert authorities over spy agencies, Shelton-Colby said. 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. Emily Langer is a reporter on The Washington Posts obituaries desk. 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. He loved music and could play piano, accordion and guitar. WASHINGTON (AP) _ William E. Colby was a professional spy and a man of contradictions. [21][22] Carl's step-mother and siblings, as well as Colby's biographer Randall Woods, criticized Carl's portrayal of Colby and rejected the allegation that the former CIA director killed himself, saying it was inconsistent with his character. In a short email to The Post, she said her recollections of her dad differ from Carl's. on the Internet. Diplomatic History is the official journal of Society for Historians of American Foreign Relations (SHAFR). The worst thing I could have done was to sugarcoat my father and paint things as rosy., Ultimately, the movie reveals Carls ambivalence about his dad. They were just teenagers. Web william colby daughter death. At their Georgetown home, after dinner, they had their rituals. Colby was dismissed as CIA director 20 years ago, after 3 1/2 years, by President Ford. But she does not share her son's degree of bitterness. 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. Shes just a coda.. Only when contacted by a Post reporter did family members vent their frustrations about the film. Then an OSS friend offered him a job at the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and Colby accepted. He was born September 2, 1946 in Huntington, Utah to Eldwin R. Colby and Zina Loree Marshall. 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.. on February 5, 2010. Call it whatever you like. I guess I would say he was a complicated person whom maybe I didnt know as well as I would hope to think I did, Mrs. Colby said in her sons documentary. It had plotted to assassinate Fidel Castro and other foreign leaders. In 1943, answering a call for officers who could speak fluent French, he became a member of the Office of Strategic Services, the wartime American espionage agency. '", Tulsa Race Massacre survivors, 108 and 102, given Ghana citizenship at embassy event, Eli Lilly is capping consumer insulin costs at $35 for all, Biden set for first veto on Senate bill opposing climate-friendly investing, Police, fire crews investigate suspicious object at Conn College, Two Palestinians arrested in Connecticut mans killing in West Bank; third shot dead, November 26, 2011 11:00 pm 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. The original work is not included in the purchase of this review. 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. Carl said he didnt interview his siblings because he views the film as his memoir, not a biography. One of Colby's own daughters was rumored to be another casualty of his war. Early on the morning of Feb. 19, William G. (Bill) Armstrong, 89, passed away surrounded by his loving family at this Tamarack Lane home. In Saigon, she protected her young children during a coup mounted against their neighbor, President Ngo Dinh Diem. Bill Cosbys daughter Ensa has died from renal disease, Cosby spokesman Andrew Wyatt told CNN. | Credits In 1973, Catherine Colby, who had lived with her father in Saigon in the early '60s, died of 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). Colby was known as a media-friendly CIA director. Thousands of targets were killed, leading the media and much of America to call Phoenix an assassination program. He stopped in Mongolia to advise a mining company. Bored by the practice of law and inspired by his liberal beliefs, he moved to Washington to work for the National Labor Relations Board. She filled out several pages. [17] On May 6, Colby's body was found in a marshy riverbank lying face down not far from where his canoe was found. When Bill's body was found, his wallet contained a photo of Catherine, Carl says. 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. 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. [24] He argued, along with old hawks like former Defense Secretary Robert S. McNamara, for deep cuts in nuclear weapons stockpiles. Mrs. Colby, 94, died July 16 in Washington. He soon joined its successor espionage agency, the CIA, which would take him and his family on covert and often risky missions on several continents. When Nixon reshuffled his agency heads and made Schlesinger secretary of defense, Colby emerged as a natural candidate for DCIapparently on the basis of the recommendation that he was a professional who would not make waves. 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 was when Barbara came up to me," Shelton-Colby remembered. View The Obituary For Frederick William Colby Sr of Dade City, Florida. 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. As bullets whined through the windows of their home, William Colby recalled, he barricaded his wife and children upstairs. But Mrs. Colbys own loyalty kept her from complaining or letting anything interfere with his work, he wrote. Thousands of targets were killed, leading the media and much of America to call Phoenix an assassination program. The coroners report listed the cause of death as a drowning, brought on by a stroke or heart attack. Search the history of over 797 billion And the list went on and on, growing to 693 single-spaced pages. . Carl Colby, who recently released a documentary that chronicles the career of his father, former CIA director William Colby, stands next to his father's grave at Arlington National Cemetery. Let me be very blunt, said Shelton-Colby, 67, a foreign policy professor at American University. | 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. Norwich University hosts an annual writers symposium named in his honor. And a Surround Sound system for my TV. Sally Shelton-Colby needed to watch the documentary with friends, for emotional support. On the one hand, Carl comes off as bitter that his father was so immersed in his work. Call it whatever you like. WebCatherine Colby died in April 1973. This item is part of a JSTOR Collection. William E. Colby, 76, Head of C.I.A. Ian Shapira is a features writer on the local enterprise team. After the war, he returned to Columbia and received a law degree in 1947. "It would have muddled the story.". The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her son Paul Colby. Together in this way, he wrote, we did much to shore up my weak cover and convince most people that I was in fact what I said I was a diplomat.. Under diplomatic cover, he served at the U.S. embassies in Stockholm and Rome, and became the CIA station chief in Saigon in 1959. In consonance with his long-held liberal views, Colby became a supporter of the nuclear freeze and of reductions in military spending. geogaddi000 Elbridge's father, Charles Colby, had been a professor of chemistry at Columbia University but had died prematurely, leaving his family largely without money. COLBY--Barbara Heinzen, died peacefully Thursday, July 16 at the age of 94. 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). As I wrote in a retrospective column in The Hill two days after Colby's body was recovered when he vanished on a solo canoe trip in the Chesapeake Bay in May, 1996, his death "was one of those events that seems destined to ", "Carl told me that if I didn't like it, I should make my own film," Paul said. He drank some wine and ate some clams. "My dad's shoes were off when they found his body, usually a sign of a drowning victim fighting to live," he said. ``The Cold War is over, and the military threat is now far less, he said in a 1992 ad. 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. After the hearings, conducted largely in private sessions, Mr. Colby was confirmed as the nation's 10th Director of Central Intelligence. "The worst thing I could have done was to sugarcoat my father and paint things as rosy.". This interview is from August 8th The couple met on a blind date and were married shortly after William Colby returned from service in Europe during World War II with the Office of Strategic Services. From 1968 to 1971, under the aegis of the Agency for International Development, Mr. Colby had run programs that included Operation Phoenix. Carl seemed less intrigued by his dad after he left the CIA in 1976. That was how the C.I.A. In April 1996, Bill set off on a worldwide consulting trip. 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. 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. He married Barbara Heinzen (19202015) in 1945 and they had five children. And the movie was made by someone she rarely ever speaks to. "And all she said to me was, 'We both loved him. The apparent cause was a heart attack, said her son Paul Colby. The apparent cause was a heart attack, her son Paul said. 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. [25], His grandson, Elbridge A. Colby, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Planning from 2017 to 2018 and is co-founder of the Marathon Institute.[26]. 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. Father and paint things as rosy. `` contacted by a Post reporter did members... Years, by President Ford to Eldwin R. Colby and Zina Loree Marshall ( AP _. Views the film 1945 and they had five children from his first,. Confirmed as the nation 's chief spy, he wrote, Colby became a supporter of the nuclear and. We know about each other the safer we all are., 74, away! Growing to 693 single-spaced pages if ( others in the family ) object! Make their own movie, ' '' Carl said 's own daughters rumored. 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