WILLIAM EGAN COLBY
Document Type:
Collection:
Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST):
CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060005-1
Release Decision:
RIFPUB
Original Classification:
K
Document Page Count:
3
Document Creation Date:
December 22, 2016
Document Release Date:
May 11, 2012
Sequence Number:
5
Case Number:
Publication Date:
January 10, 1972
Content Type:
BIO
File:
Attachment | Size |
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Body:
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060005-1
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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 Develop-
ment 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. He was reassigned to the Department of
State on 30 June 1971.
On 10 January 1972 Mr. Colby was appointed Executive Director-Comp-
troller of the Central Intelligence Agency.
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060005-1
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Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060005-1
Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/11 : CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060005-1