WILLIAM EGAN COLBY
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060004-2
Release Decision:
RIFPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
1
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
May 11, 2012
Sequence Number:
4
Case Number:
Content Type:
BIO
File:
Attachment | Size |
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Body:
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060004-2
WILLIAM EGAN COLBY
Mr. William E. Colby was born in St. Paul, Minnesota, in
1920. The son of an Army officer, his early life was spent
in various posts, including a three-year period in Tientsin, China.
In 1940 he was graduated from Princeton University and
in 1941 joined the United States Army, serving in the Parachute
Field Artillery. When the Office of Strategic Services put
out a call for French speakers in 1943, Mr. Colby volunteered
and in 1944 was parachuted behind enemy lines in north
central France to work with a resistance unit. Shortly before
the end of the war in 1945, he led a team dropped in
northern Norway to destroy a rail line used for transporting
German reinforcements.
Following the war, Mr. Colby obtained his law degree from
Columbia Law School and joined a New York law firm headed by
William J. Donovan, former head of OSS. He is a member of the
New York State and U. S. Supreme Court bars.
In 1949 Mr. Colby accepted his first U. S. Government
position as an attorney for the National Labor Relations Board
in Washington. In 1951 he joined the staff of the American
Embassy in Stockholm and from 1953 to 1958 served in the
American Embassy in Rome, Italy.
Mr. Colby became First Secretary of the American Embassy
in Saigon in 1959, leaving in 1962 for an assignment as Chief
of the Far East Division of the Central Intelligence Agency
in Washington, D. C.
In March 1968 Mr. Colby joined the Agency for International
Development and was posted to Saigon to assume the post of
Assistant Chief of Staff and in November 1968 of Deputy to the
Commander of MACV for the CORDS program of support to the
Government of Vietnam's pacification campaign, with the
personal rank of Ambassador. Tie was reassigned to the
Department of State on 30 June 1971. On September 5, 1971
he returned to CIA as a staff officer in the Office of the
Director.
On 10 January 1972 Mr. Colby was appointed Executive
Director-Comptroller of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Mr. Colby was appointed Deputy Director for Operations
effective 3 March 1973.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060004-2