31 Facts About Bill Colby

William Egan Colby was an American intelligence officer who served as Director of Central Intelligence from September 1973 to January 1976.

William Egan Bill Colby was born in Saint Paul, Minnesota, in 1920.

Bill Colby's 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, DC 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.

Elbridge's father, Charles Bill Colby, had been a professor of chemistry at Columbia University but had died prematurely, leaving his family largely without money.

Bill 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 US soldier based at Ft.

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Bill Colby married Barbara Heinzen in 1945 and they had five children.

Bill Colby spent the next 12 years in the field, first in Stockholm, Sweden.

Bill Colby then spent much of the 1950s based in Rome, under cover as a State Department officer, where he led the Agency's covert political operations campaign to support anti-Communist parties in their electoral contests against left wing, Soviet Union–associated parties.

In 1959 Bill Colby became the CIA's deputy chief and then chief of station in Saigon, South Vietnam, where he served until 1962.

Bill Colby was deeply critical of the decision to abandon support for Diem, and he believed this played a material part in the weakening of the South Vietnamese position in the years following.

In 1968, while Bill Colby was preparing to take up the post of chief of the Soviet Bloc Division of the Agency, President Lyndon Johnson instead sent Bill Colby back to Vietnam as deputy to Robert Komer, who had been charged with streamlining the civilian side of the American and South Vietnamese efforts against the Communists.

Bill Colby consistently insisted that such tactics were not authorized by or permitted in the program.

Bill Colby returned to Washington in July 1971 and became executive director of CIA.

Bill Colby, who had had a somewhat unorthodox career in the CIA focused on political action and counterinsurgency, agreed with Schlesinger's reformist approach.

When Nixon reshuffled his agency heads and made Schlesinger secretary of defense, Bill Colby emerged as a natural candidate for DCI—apparently on the basis of the recommendation that he was a professional who would not make waves.

Bill Colby participated in the National Security Council meetings that responded to apparent Soviet intentions to intervene in the war by raising the alert level of US forces to DEFCON 3 and defusing the crisis.

In 1975, after many years of involvement, South Vietnam fell to Communist forces in April 1975, a particularly difficult blow for Bill Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there.

Bill Colby focused on internal reforms within the CIA and the intelligence community.

Bill Colby attempted to modernize what he believed to be some out-of-date structures and practices by disbanding the Board of National Estimates and replacing it with the National Intelligence Council.

Bill Colby mentioned a number of reforms intended to limit excessive classification of governmental information.

Bill Colby was offered the position of United States Permanent Representative to NATO but turned it down.

In consonance with his long-held liberal views, Bill Colby became a supporter of the nuclear freeze and of reductions in military spending.

Bill Colby practiced law and advised various bodies on intelligence matters.

Bill Colby lent his expertise and knowledge, along with Oleg Kalugin, to the Activision game Spycraft: The Great Game, which was released shortly before his death.

William E Colby was a member of the National Coalition to Ban Handguns.

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Bill Colby's name appears on a note to Senator John Heinz dated July 5,1989 as a "National Sponsor".

Author Tim Weiner wrote that on April 27,1996, Bill Colby set out from his weekend home in Rock Point, Maryland, on a solo canoe trip.

Bill Colby's canoe was found the following day on a sandbar in the Wicomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, about 0.

Smialek's report said that Bill Colby was predisposed to having a heart attack or stroke due to "severe calcified atherosclerosis" and that Bill Colby likely "suffered a complication of this atherosclerosis which precipitated him into the cold water in a debilitated state and he succumbed to the effects of hypothermia and drowned".

Bill Colby's death triggered conspiracy theories that his death was due to foul play.

Bill Colby was the subject of a biography, Lost Crusader, by John Prados, published in 2003.