STONEWALL COLBY OF THE CIA

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020015-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: U
• Document Page Count: 4
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 9, 2011
• Sequence Number: 15
• Publication Date: October 5, 1974
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2011/08/09: CIA-RDP09T00207R001000020015-7
5 OCT 1474
'ONE L C L OF THE CIA
ROBERT SH?RRILL
Washington
Parade,. the- strange. supplement that 'accompanies Sunday
newspapers. into millions of homes- and often-* sounds as
if it were written by a government propagandist, -recently-,
carried' this-description of William Colby,-:director of the
A- practicing Roman Catholic, a pillar in community
affairs,:-a:. hard-working (Saturdays until 3- P.M.) civil
servant who earns $42,000' a year, a .good and under-
.landing father to his four surviving children-a fifth
died early this year of epilepsy-a loving and dutiful
husband, William Colby. has been.' a professional. in-
telligence officer for half his adult years.
The: United States is indeed fortunate- in having him..
As- a, lawyer he could be earning three times in civilian?
life what he earns in government service. "But it.
wouldn't give me the satisfaction," he says, "that I find
in this job." Colby wears : no flag pins in his lapel to
demonstrate his patriotism. It goes much deeper than
that.
Neither Colby himself nor his dedication nor his work
was seen in quite that way by the participants and spec-
tators at the recent Washington Conference on the Central
Intelligene_ Agency and Covert Action, sponsored by the
Center for National Security Studies and by its parent,
the Fund for Peace.
Colby was hissed; he was jeered, he was laughed at in
an unfriendly way, and he was asked a few questions that
might have been embarrassing only if he had been sub-
jected to torture sufficient to make him answer candidly.
As it was, Colby emerged from the conference in no
worse condition than he entered and perhaps even with a
couple of- minor credits simply for having come forward
to confront a group that-loathed him.
The hearing room was packed. It had been widely
anticipated that. something interesting might occur, since
Colby was surfacing just hours after it had been revealed,
via a leaked letter of Rep. Michael Harrington, that the
CIA had funneled $11 million into Chile: $3 million to
block Salvador Allende's try for the Presidency in 1964
and $8 million between 1970 and 1973 to "destabilize,"
it rot overthrow, his administration.
But the only thing of any real value that occurred at
the conference was the demonstration-if such is still
needed-that unless a bureaucrat of Colby's steel is threat-
ened at least with firing; and preferably with jail, he simply
STAT
will- not reveal his dirty work-, The panel couldn't lay a
glove on Colby. He was much .too smooth...
.peared:before eighteen committees on twenty-eight oc-
casions this .year