30 Facts About William Colby

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

William 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 US Army and in university positions in Tianjin, 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 William Colby, had been a professor of chemistry at Columbia University but had died prematurely and left his family largely without money.

William Colby then studied at Columbia Law School the following year.

William 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 who was based at Fort Benning.

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

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

William Colby was a vocal advocate within the CIA and the United States government for engaging the non-Communist left wing parties in order to create broader non-Communist coalitions capable of governing fractious Italy.

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

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

In 1968, while William Colby was preparing to take up the post of chief of the Soviet Bloc Division of the Agency, US President Lyndon Johnson instead sent William 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.

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

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

William 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, William 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.

William 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 William Colby, who had dedicated so much of his life and career to the American effort there.

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

William 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.

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

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

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

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

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

At the time of the Senate hearings to confirm his appointment, William Colby was relentlessly grilled about The Family Jewels, a secret 693-page report ordered by Schlesinger, directed by William Colby, and compiled by CIA's own Inspector General's Office.

William Colby's canoe was found the following day on a sandbar in the Wicomico River, a tributary of the Potomac, about 0.25 miles from his home.

William Colby's death triggered conspiracy theories that his death had been caused by foul play.

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

William Colby's grandson, Elbridge A Colby, served as Deputy Assistant Secretary of Defense for Strategy and Force Planning from 2017 to 2018 and is a co-founder of the Marathon Institute.