COLBY OF CIA--CIA. OF COLBY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP75B00380R000600010023-4
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 7
• Document Creation Date: December 12, 2016
• Document Release Date: March 25, 2002
• Sequence Number: 23
• Publication Date: July 1, 1973
• Content Type: NSPR

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ffhe New York Times Magazine/July 1, 1973
Dark side up
CoBby of . %;WZMAM~CMIZOAM ca C
By David Wise
A few weeks ago, a Norwegian who had served
In the anti-Nazi underground saw a newspaper
photograph and thought he recognized an Ameri-
can O.S.S. officer he had worked with during the
war and had known only as "No. 96."
The photograph was that of William Egan Colby,
53, a career covert operator for the Central Intel-
ligence Agency, and chief of its supersecret Direc-
torate of Operations, sometimes known as the
"Department of Dirty Tricks." As part of the high-
level game of musical chairs touched off by Water-
gate, President Nixon had just named Bill Colby
to he head of the C.I.A.
David Wise is the author of "The Politics of
Lying: Government Deception, Secrecy, and Power."
And there is an interesting fact about Colby in
the files at C.I.A. headquarters in Langley, Va. His
official C.I.A, biography relates that he served in
the O.S.S. during World War II and contains this
sentence: "Shortly before the end of the war in
1945, lie led a team dropped in northern Norway
to destroy a rail line used for transporting German
reinforcements." The Norwegian man who read
about Colby's appointment and thought he recog-
nized his picture got in touch through an inter-
mediary with an American woman who lives in
Kensington, Md., and who is a close friend of the
Colbys, particularly of Colby's wife, Barbara.
Could the woman find out whether Colby was his
old comrade in arms, No. 96?
"I tried to find out," the woman in Kensington
told me. "And I'm still trying. Bill wouldn't say,
and Barbara doesn't know, or at least she says she
doesn't know."
The story illustrates something about Colby that
should not be entirely surprising in a man who
has spent most of his adult life as-well-a spy.
A State Department official who had worked with
Colby in Vietnam put it this way: "He's soft-
spoken, with a casual style. He has a forthright
manner, but there's also a private Bill Colby. He's
a very private person."
Indeed, there are really two Bill Colbys; given
his covert background there would almost have to
be. There is William Egan Colby, the quiet, young
"Foreign Service officer" in the American Embassy
in Stockholm and Rome in the nineteen-fifties, who
was simultaneously William Egan Colby of the
C.I.A., an up-and-coming "black" (that is, secret)
operator working in the C.I.A.'s Clandestine Serv-
ices under State Department cover. Later, there
was Bill Colby in Saigon in 1959, listed in the
official Biographic Register of the Department of
State as a "political officer," and later as "first
secretary" of the embassy. In fact, he became
Saigon station chief for "the Agency" during this
period. Then, in 1962, he turned up at Langley as
chief of the Far East Division of C.I.A.'s covert side.
There was Bill Colby back in Vietnam again in
1968, heading the "pacification" program, building
roads and schools and performing good works.
There was also Bill Colby who supervised the
Phoenix program, designed to "neutralize" the Viet-
cong, which its critics have charged was a program
of systematic assassination, murder and torture---
an accusation that Colby has vigorously denied,
under oath. According to figures Colby. provided
to a House subcommittee in 1971, however, the
Phoenix program killed 20,587 persons between
1968 and May, 1971. That's right: 20,587.
Now there is Bill Colby in 1973, a devoted
family man, a good husband and father of four
children, a devout Roman Catholic who regularly
attends mass at' the Little Flower Roman Catholic
Church in Bethesda, Md., and who lives in an
unpretentious white-brick house in Springfield, Md.,
a Washington suburb that is not as fancy as, say,
Chevy Chase. Bill Colby? Why, he was neighbor-
hood chairman of the Boy Scouts.
"Bill's always been involved in the Boy Scouts,"
his wife said. Had he actually b'"'n one? "Fie was
a Boy Scout in China when his rather was assigned
there as an Army officer."
It is a long way from the Boy Scouts to the
C.I.A.'s Directorate of Operations, a euphemism
that encompasses "dirty tricks," although perhaps
there are some similarities, too, if one is to judge
by the activities and style of E. Howard Hunt Jr.,
the most famous recent graduate (if he did grad-
uate) of the C.I.A.'s covert division.
As the agency's Deputy Director for Operations,
Colby--when tapped by Nixon to be C.I.A. chief-
was the man directly in charge of America's global
espionage and dirty tricks. C.I.A. is a bivalve; one
half, the Directorate of Operations, collects informa-
tion and engages in secret political operations. These
are the spooks. The other hailf, the Directorate of
Intelligence, staffed by scholarly types, analyzes
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what comes in. Colby's counterpart there was Ed-
ward W. Proct r, an economist.
It is the operations directorate, the cloak-and-
dagger side, where Colby has spent his entire C.I.A.
career, that o.t occasion overthrows governments,
bankrolls foreign political parties and guerrilla
movements, has subsidized foundations it the
United States, and, so it is rumored, has even
engaged in the assassination of foreign political
leaders. It is covert political operations that have
gotten C.I.A. nto hot water over the years, from
the Bay of P gs to the "technical support" pro-
vided to the turglars of Daniel Ellsberg's psychia-
trist. The Directorate of Operations is the foreign
political-action and espionage arm of the United
States Government: until this year, it was known
as the Directorate of Plans. Colby, of course, is not
that "demmed elusive" Scarlet Pimpernel; he has
chiefly dealt with Vietnam during the past 15 sears,
and. as Deputy Director of Operations for only three
months, he can hardly be held accountable for
everything that the Department of Dirty Tricks has
been up to since 1948. The C.I.A. was created by
Congress in 1947, but secret political action was
not approved by the National Security Council until
the following year. Since -then, the operations di-
rectorate has, among other things:
? Air-dropped agents into Communist Chia in
in the early nineteen-fifties, Two C.I.A. agents
captured in 1952, Richard G. Fecteau and John
T. Downey, have now been released; Downey was
freed by Peking in March after more than 20 years
in Chinese prisons.
? Overthrown the Government of Premier
Mohammed Mossadegh of Iran in 1953, thareby
keeping the Shah on his throne. Not accidentally,
when Nixon rsplaced Richard Helms as C.LA. di-
rector in December, 1972, he sent him out as his
Ambassador to Iran, one of the few countries in
the world where a former C.I.A. chief could com-
fortably serve as ambassador.
? Toppled the. Communist-dominated Govern-
ment of President Jacobo Arbenz 'in Guatemala
in 1954.
? Attemptec, unsuccessfully, to overthrow
President Sukarno in Indonesia in 1958 with C.I.A.
pilots and B-26 bombers. One of the C.I.A. pilots,
Allan Lawrence Pope, was captured, imprisoned,
and later released through the intervention of
Robert F. Kennedy.
? Flown hil,h-altitude U-2 spy planes one- the
Soviet Union to photograph strategic missiles, an
operation that came to a crashing halt when
C 1.A. pilot Francis Gary Powers was shot town
on May 1, 1930. A summit meeting in Paris be-
tween President Eisenhower and Soviet Premier
Nikita S. Khrushchev collapsed after the U-2 affair,
p Invaded Cuba at the Day of Pigs in 1901 with
a brigade of Cuban exiles in an attempt to over-
throw Fidel Castro. Nearly 300 Cubans and four
American pilots flying for the C.I.A. died and some
1,2110 men were captured. It was the Kennedy Ad-
ministration's worst disaster.
? Set up a secret base at Camp Hale, 10,000
feet. high in the Rocky Mountains of Colorado,
where Tibetans were trained to return home and
fight against Communist China. The operation, be-
gun in 1953, almost surfaced in December, 1961,
when armed troops protecting the C.I.A.'s 'Tibetans
roughed up some civilians at gunpoint.
? Advised and worked closely with the generals
who staged a ccup against President Ngo Dinh
Diem of South Vietnam in 1963. (While there is no
evidence that President Kennedy or the C.I.A. ex-
pected Diem to be killer, on this point, Gen. Max-
well D. Taylor ha,, declared: "... the execution of
a coup is not like organizing a tea party; it's a very
dangerous business. So I didn't think we had any
right to be surprised when--when Diem and his
brother were murtered.")
o Spent tens of thousands of dollars-some re-
parts say millions-in Chile in 1964 to elect
Eduardo Frei, the Christian, Democratic, candidate
over Marxist candidate Salvador Allende. Negoti-
aLed with I.T,T., and made some unsuccessful ef-
forts to prevent Allende from becoming President
in 1970.
o Trained and supported a secret army in Laos
of at least 30,000 men-a figure acknowledged by
the C.1 A. in August, 1971-at a cost of more than
$300-million a year.
? Subsidized the National Student Association,
the nation's largest student group, and many other
business, labor, church, university and cultural
organizations through dozens of willing foundation
conduits-a scandal that erupted in 1967.
o Provided Watergate star E. Howard Hunt Jr.
with his famous red wig (invariably described in
the press as "ill-:'itting"), his miniature Tessina
camera in a tobacco pouch, his false credentials
and "a speech alteration device," which, according
to those who have seen it, resembles a set of
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02 C.I.A111
(Continued from Page 9)
dentures. The equipment was
provided by the Technical
Services Division of the
C.I.A., and the C.I.A. claims it
had no idea that Hunt would
use it to.burglarize the office
of Ellsberg's psychiatrist.
This listing of accomplish-
ments is necessarily incom-
plete, both for reasons of
space and because the direc-
torate's work is not always
well-publicized. The Director-
ate of Operations does not
covet publicity, except about
feats like the Berlin Tunnel,
which enabled the C.I.A. to
wiretap conversations in 1955
between Moscow and the
headquarters in East Germany
.of the Russian Army and the
K.G.B., the. Soviet secret in-
telligence organization.
But the list could also in-
clude C.I.A. operations in Al-
bania, Singapore, the Congo,
Vietnam, Egypt and several
other places. The C.I.A.'s
black operators helped to
spirit Svetlana Alliluyeva out
of India, and, according to for-
mer agent Patrick J. McGar-
vey, they stole the Soviet
sputnik for three hours while
it was on a world tour, dis-
mantled it, photographed it
and put it back together with-
out the Russians finding out.
The operations directorate
is no small-beer enterprise: It
has its own air force in Indo-
china, known as Air America;
it had its own navy during
the Bay of Pigs (five ships
leased from the Garcia Line
Corporation in Manhattan); it
has had its own radio sta-
tions (Radio Free Europe and
Radio Swan, to mention two
of the better-known ones),
and it does a bit of book
publishing on the side. For
example, the publishing firm
of Frederick A. Praeger said
in 1967 it had published "15
or 16 books" at the sugges-
tion of the C.I.A.
Under James R. Schlesinger,
who succeeded Helms as C.I.A.
head (and ? under Helms as
well), word was put out in
Washington that the C.I.A.
was trimming down its covert
political operations. The hu-
man spy is being replaced by
reconnaissance satellites, elec-
tronic intercepts and technol-
ogy. Black operations are no
longer very important, or so
it is said. As a result, Nixon's
designation of Colby to a post
requiring Senate confirmation
raises the question of whether
a career clandestine operator
is the appropriate choice to
head the C.I.A. at a time when
-so it is claimed-covert po-
litical action is becoming a
less significant tool of Ameri-
can foreign policy. The Direc-
tor of . Central Intelligence
wears two hats. He is
director of the C.I.A. (at
$42,500 a year) but he is
also chairman of the board
and coordinator of all United
States intelligence agencies,
including the Pentagon's
powerful Defense intelligence
Agency, the F.B.I. and the
ultrasecret National Security
Agency, which eavesdrops on
worldwide communications
and makes and breaks codes.
The purpose of this vast intel-
ligence "community" is to
provide the President with the
information and assessments
he needs to make foreign-
policy decisions, The Director
of Central Intelligence basi-
cally serves as a manager and
analyst. One of his most im-
portant functions is to inter-
pret intelligence to estimate
the course of future events.
These are responsibilities that
do not necessarily require
skill in , clandestine political
operations.
Another question might be
asked about whether Col-
by, who has himself fig-
gored at least peripherally in
the Watergate investigations,
is the proper man to head the
C.I.A. at a time when the
C.I.A. itself-and particularly
its covert side-has been en-
snared in various aspects of
Watergate. The C.I.A.'s en-
tanglements are complex and
varied, but. they include the
fact that both Howard Hunt
and James W. McCord Jr.
worked for the C.I.A. for more
than 20 years; that the Cubans
caught inside Democratic Na-
tional Committee offices in
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the Watergate building also
have ties to C.I.A.; that Frank
Sturgis, one of those arrested
in the Watergate, had C.I.A-
credentials that had belonged
to Hunt in the name of "Ed-
ward V. Hamilton"; that the
C.I.A. provided the disguises
and equipment used in the
burglary of Dan Ellsberg's
doctor's office; that the C.I.A.
prepared a "psychiatric pro-
file" of Ellsberg-and, finally,
the disputed accounts of how
the White House sought to en.
list the C.I.A. in the Watergate
cover-up.
Colby's name first cropped
up, virtually unnoticed, in the
Watergate investigation on
May 15 when Senator Stuart
Symington issued a long state-
ment about various conversa-
tions among the C.I.A.'s Dep-
uty Director, Lieut.Gen. Ver-
non A. Walters, Helms, H. R.
Haldeman, John Ehrlichman
and Patrick Gray. Walters has
claimed the White House
wanted him to block the F.B.I.
investigation of the Watergate
burglary and of the campaign
funds laundered in Mexico, on
the grounds that the investi-
gation would compromise
C.I.A. operations in Mexico.
Symington summarized Walt-
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ers's testimony on this point.
Symington also said Walters
had testified that in Febru-
ary, 1973, ohn Dean called
C.I.A. Director James Schles-
Inger and asked whether the
C.I.A. could retrieve a "pack-
age" of documents from the
F.B.I.. The documents spelled
out, in embarrassing detail,
the espionage equipment given
to Hunt and used in the Ells-
berg break-,n in 1971. "He
[Walters] testified that he,
Mr. Colby ar,d Dr. Schlesinger
discussed the matter and
agreed there was no way this
could be done," Symington
declared. Colby, in other
words, by this account, sat in
on a top-level C.I.A. meeting
at which. it was considered
whether the agency's duties
might extend to snatching
back a packe:ge of incriminat-
ing documents from the F.B.I.,
at the behest of the White
House. Wafters testified that
the C.I.A. would not play.
That seemed to be a rela-
tively marginal involvement
of Bill Colby, but two weeks
later, a little disagreement
developed between Gen. Rob-
ert E. Cushman Jr., former
Deputy Director of the C.I.A.,
and John Ehrlichman, con-
cerning just who had asked
the C.I.A. to provide Howard
Hunt with that wig and cam-
era before the Ellsberg bur-
glary.
In a sworn affidavit exe-
cuted on May 11, General
Cushman, who left the C.I.A.
at the end of 1971 to become
Marine Corps Commandant,
said that "about July 7, 1971,
Mr. John Etrlichrnan of the
White House called me and
stated that Toward Hunt . .
would come to see roe and
request assistance which Mr.
Ehrlichman requested that I
give." But on May 30, Ehr-
lichman, said he could remem-
ber making no such telephone
call to Cushman. He did not,
Ehrlichman said, have even
"the faintest recollection" of
placing the call.
but Cushman said at his press
conference. that he sent the
memo to John Ehrlichman,
which seemed an odd route
to get it to Silbert, who had
asked for it in the first place.
Moreover, Cushman said he
sent the memo to Ehrlichman
at the suggestion of an offi-
cial of the C.I.A.
Cushman's office said it had
a tape recording of the press
conference, but parts were
not clear, and they could
provide only an unofficial
transcript. But this transcript
includes the following ques-
tions t.nd answers:
Q. f,nd the C.I.A. suggested
to yot that you first submit
that memo to Mr. Ehrlichman?
A. I think yes, but I don't
know vhy. You'll have to ask
them (unintelligible]. . . .
Q. Did you at any time
commi nicate directly with
the prosecutor?
A. I don't think I've ever
talked to the prosecutor, no.
Q. So you submitted the
paper work for the prosecutor
throug t Mr. Ehrlichman?
A. I think I did.. . .
Q. Who in the agency sug-
gested that you submit the
memo to Mr. Ehrlichman?
A. Mr. Colby, as I recall.
Q. Bill Colby?
A. Yes.
Cushman said Ehrlichman
asked him to tear up the
memo >ecause he, Ehrlichman,
did not recall making the
phone call about Hunt. Since
his own memorj was hazy,
Cushman said (he had appar-
ently not yet discovered the
minutes of the .luly 8 meet-
ing) he and Ehrlichman agreed
that it would. "not be very
fair" to name Ehrlichman in
the memo. Cushman said he
agreed to write another memo,
which he did, omitting Ehr-
lichman's name.
Perhaps the most trouble-
some, recurring problem in
Bill Colby's long career, how-
ever, is the Phoenix program,
which keeps rising, Phoenix-
like, to haunt him. if there
are two Bill Colbys, it is also
true that there were two pac-
ification programs in Vietnam.
The very word "pacification,"
of course, has rather ominous,
Orwellian overtones. It is part
of the loathsome jargon of
the Vietnam war--a war that
did violence to the English
language, as well as to human
beings. Phoenix flapped into
Colby's life through the win-
dow of "pacifica?ion."
The link to both programs
was Robert W. Komer, a for-
mer C.I.A. man (from the In-
telligence side) whom Lyndon
Johnson sent to Vietnam in
May, 1967, to head up the
pacification effort. Komer is a
voluble Colby booster.
"I caught a rare tropical
disease in Vietnam," Komer
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General Cushman, who
served for four years as Vice
President Richard M. Nixon's
national security aide, then
held a press conference on
May 31 to announce that
minutes of a high-level C.I.A.
meeting on July 8, 1971,
showed that he had specifi-
cally named Ehrlichman as
having called on Hunt's behalf
the day befo:-c. In December,
1972, Cushman explained,
Earl J. Silbert, the Watergate
prosecutor, asked if he would
be kind enough to write a
memo descr.bing just. how
Howard Hunt had come to
his attention. In the memo,
Cushman fingered Ehrlichman. Colby testifying before Congress in 1971. Did his Vietnam
Here things get a little fuzzy, "pacification" program entail murder or torture? No, he said.
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going, because his kids bought killed, according to the fig-
(Continued from Page 30) him a fur hat. ures Colby provided in 1971
says, foI started'
Am Ama looking
i- it was of little use in Sai- to the House Foreign Opera-
can I for
could the find ablest blto to replace i gon. Colby had broken an tions and Government Infor-
me." As a special assistant ice-skating on the canal mation Subcommittee, headed
Johnson n in the White House, stHt to that runs along the Potomac, by Rep. William S. Moorhead.
Komer had been impressed but by March, 1968, after the Earlier, in February, 1970, with Colby during their fre- Tet offensive, he was in Sai- Colby had tried to explain
quent contacts in 1966, when gon as Kamer's deputy in Phoenix to the Senate Foreign
Colby was the C.LA.'s top CORDS, the over-all pacifica- Relations Committee. Chair-
covert official in Washington trop program for South Viet- man J. W. Fulbright asked
nam.. In November of that whether captured Vietcong
for the Far East. year, Colby took over the top were "executed," prompting
On a trip back from Saigon job; Komer was dispatched as the following exchange:
in November, 1967, Komer re- ambassador to Turkey. MR. COLBY: Well, let me say me, 'What lated, do yo.want? asking What d do o One of Colby's former dep- they are not legally executed,
I said I wanted a sties in the pacification pro- no...Now, I would not want
you need?' d you
deputy in Saigon. 'Who do gram said - gagging only to say here that none has
you want.' Johnson asked. 1slightly over the phrase-that ever actually been executed, said, 'Mr. President, I have it was designed "to win the but.. .the Government's pol-
my eye on a fellow named hearts and minds of the peo- icy and its directives are that Bill Colby." pie." The task was, of course, these people when captured
enormously complicated by are placed in detention cen-
As Romer tells it, Johnson the fact that American planes ters....
picked up the telephone and and troops were simultane- SENATOR CASE: This is not
called Walt W. Rostow, his ously destroying the country. properly then defined in fact
assistant for national security. But, said the aide, "we had a as a counterterror operation?
"Call Helms," he harked at road program, a village im- MR. COLBY: No, it is not,
Rostow, "and get some y provement program, health Senator.
named Colby for Komer."gu programs, agriculture - we SENATOR CASE: You swear
Komer acids: "The next brought in new strains of to that by everything holy.
thing I heard was Dick Helms rice." Perhaps significantly, You have already taken your
blowing a fuse. Helms was however, Colby; as head of oath?
really p off. I don't CORDS, reported to the mill- MR. COLBY: I have taken
blame him. The first he had tary, to Gen. Creighton my oath.
heard about it was Rostow Abrams, not to Ambassador A bit later, Colby told the
calling for the President. But Ellsworth Bunker. Senators: ". . I would not
Dick calmed down later." Phoenix, the other face of want to testify that nobody
Until he was suddenly pacification, was also under was killed wrongly or exe-
tapped for Vietnam, Colby, it Colby. It had begun in its cuted in this kind of a pro-
was whispered in the cloak- earlier stages as a C.I.A. op-, gram. I think it has probably
rooms of Langley, was slated eration, and it was a joint happened, unfortunately."
for the hottest clandestine United States-South Vietnam- The following year, in testi-
field job of all-station chief ese program designed to iden- fying to the Moorhead sub-
in Moscow. In the operations tify and then "neutralize" the committee, Colby said that
directorate, that post is the Vietcong "infrastructure." The "the Phoenix program is not
major leagues; a C.LA. agent enemy was "neutralized" by a program of assassination."
putting his head in the bear's being killed, jailed, or "ral- The Vietcong, he said, were
mouth, as it were, operating lied," a word that meant per. killed as members of military
in the very midst of the Com- suaded to defect. During units, "or while fighting off
mittce for State Security, the Corby's period with the pacifi- arrest," although there had
Komitet Gosudarstvennoi Be- cation program, 28,978 per- been "some unjustifiable
zopasnosti, the K.G.B.! Colby sons were captured or jailed, abuses."
must have thought he was 17,717 "rallied" and 20,587 But one witness, K. Barton
Osborn, a former military-
intelligence agent, told the
subcommittee that suspects
caught by Phoenix were inter-
rogated in airborne helicop-
ters. Some prisoners, he said,
were pushed out, to persuade
the more important suspects
to talk. He said he had been
on two such flights and saw
two prisoners killed by being
thrown out the door. Interro-
gations in Vietnam, the wit-
ness testified, also included
"the use of electronic gear
such as sealed telephones
attached to the genitals of
both the women's vagina and
the men's testicles, and [the
interrogators] wind the mech-
anism and create an electrical
charge and shock them into
submission."
Osborn also described other
interrogations, which he said
he had personally witnessed:
"The use of the insertion of
the 6-inch dowel into the ...
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canal of one of my detainees'
ears and the tapping through
the brain until he died." The
witness also said a U.S. Army
captain shot and killed a Chi-
nese woman who had been
working as Osborn's inter-
preter. According to Osborn's
testimony, the officer said
"that the woman was only a
'slope' anyway, and it doesn't
matter."
Osborn declined to name
any individuals who had been
involved in these alleged epi-
sodes. The Pentagon investi-
gated his charges and sub-
mitted it classified report to
the Moorheal subcommittee
discounting the testimony.
Staff members of the House
panel were at tonished to find
that the document said Pen-
tagon investigators could find
no records of a. Chinese
woman killed during the time
period Osborn described. "Do
you really chink," a staff
member asked one of the
Pentagon officials, "that an
American Army officer who
shot a civilian under these
circumstances would report
it?"
A central aoint of contro-
versy over Phoenix is whether
Vietcong were killed during
capture, as Colby has sworn,
or during subsequent torture
and interrogation. Robert Ko-
mor says that "90 per cent of
the Vietcong infrastructure
were killed in- fire fights by
the South Vietnamese mili-
tary, in normal combat opera-
tions. Ten pet cent were killed
by police End the P.R.U.
[Provincial Reconnaissance
Units]." How many were
killed under interrogation? "I
would say relatively few. It
must have been way under
the 10 per cent figure," Ko-
mer replied. "The number
killed by torture would be
very, very little."
A second point in dispute
is whether suspected mem-
bers of the Vietcong were
killed resisting arrest, as
Colby testified, or whether
substantial numbers were
simply shot on the spot
as soon as they were found,
as Osborn has charged. In
a recent interview, Osborn
called Phoenix "an indiscrimi-
nate murder program."
Certainly there is evidence
that Phoenix claimed some
innocent victims. During Col-
by's te::timnny to the House
subcommittee, Representative
Ogden R. Rcid of New York
asked whether persons cap-
tured had the right to counsel.
No, said Colby, they did not.
Then it was a "kangaroo
trial"? Colby replied that
the interrogation procedure
"probably meets the techni-
calities of international law
but it certairly doe.-, not meet
our concepts of due process."
Then this exchange occurred:
Ma. Rrro: My question is:
Are you certain that we know
a member of the VCI [Viet-
cong infrastructure) from a
loyal rrember of the South
Vietnam citizenry?
AMBISSADOR COLBY: No, Mr.
Congressman, I am not.
Congressman Reid observed
that. "...there is the possi-
bility that someone will be
captured, sentenced or killed
who leas been improperly
placed on a list." Colby did
not disagree; he said he would
like to see the legal pro-
cedures improved because "I
do not think they meet the
standards I would like to see
applied to Americans today."
Some months ago, Osborn
and a few other former intel-
ligence agents formed the
Comrniitee for Action/Re-
search on the Intelligence
Community. CARIC opposed
Colby's designation as C.I.A.
chief, calling his rise within
the intelligence agency "no-
thing more than rewards for
his having been the C.I.A.'s
apologist for Phoenix to Con-
gress." In language consid-
erably less polite than that
used by members of the
Moorhead committee, CARIC's
statement added: "Mr. Colby's
profess onal qualifications as
a mass murderer are not in
question here; his appoint-
ment t) a powerful Govern-
ment pDsition is."
While charges of torture in
the Phoenix program remain
unproved, it directive issued
in May 1970, to Phoenix per-
sonnel indicates that Phoenix
was not for the squeamish.
The directive, signed by Maj.
Gen. Ni. G. Dclvin, empha-
sized tic "desirability of ob-
taining these target individ-
uals al ve" and contained the
peculia- phraseology that
American personnel were
"specif tally unauthorized to
engage in assa'ssinaiions."
Flowev er, the directive said,
"if an individual finds the
police-type activities of the
Phoenix; prograin repugnant
to him, on his application, he
can he reassigned from the
program...." (italics added.)
Two Bill Colbys and two
pacification programs. Not
one or Collay's friends or
neighbors, or even his critics
on the Hill, would, in their
wildest imag:nation, conceive
of Bill Colby attaching electric
wires to a man's genitals and
personolly turning the crank.
"Not Pill Colby. . . . fie's a
Princeton man!"
But at the House hear-
ings, ongressman Paul N.
McCloskey Jr. kept ask-
ing niggling, Nuremberg-type
questions. "11ow far up in the
,command structure does the
intelligence - collection proce-
dure-how far up in the com-
mand structure is the torture,-
the brutality, the assassina-
tions fully known to those in
command and in charge of
completing the m ssion? Does
it go up to the captains, the
majors, the colonels, the gen-
erals, the Ambassador?"
These are very difficult
questions, and by mid-197t,
Colby no longer had to deal
with them in Vietnam. He
came back to Washington, in
part, friends say, to be with
his seriously ill daughter,
Catherine, who died this April
at the age of 23. Colby was
named Executive Director of
the C.I.A! by Dick Helms
early in 1972, rod became
head of the operations direc-
torate under Schlesinger a
year later.
"Bill behaves -,n a calcu-
latingly colorless manner,"
one covert operator who
worked with him for years
said. "It's the way he chooses
to deal with the world."
One former apsnt, Patrick
McGarvey, ruefully concedes
that he experienced firsthand
just how unobtrusive Colby
can be. McGarvey was work-
ing in the Saigon station.
"This guy walks in. An inno-
cent-looking little man with
glasses. Mr. Peepers. He asked
us what we do. 'Christ,' I
said, 'we spend eight hours a
day trying to figure that out.'
He sat down and we talked
about an hour and a half. I
really vent my spleen. I
bitched about all the Mickey
Mouse detail. Then he says,
'By the way, my name's Bill
Colby."' At the time, 1964,
Colby was chief o' the C.I.A.'s
Far East division, and there
were, McGarvey said, "quite
a few reverberations." (Later,
McGarvey quit the agency
and wrote a bcok, "C.I.A.:
The Myth and the Madness,"
which he submitted for clear-
ance and which the agency,
after some deletions, per-
mitted to he pubished.)
Most officials who have
known Colby, not only in the
C.I.A., give him very high
marks as a person, and for
his professional abilities.
Some, however, criticize him
as an inflexible cold warrior,
frozen in attitudes learned in
more than two decades as a
spook. By all accounts, he
was a true believer in Ameri-
can policy in Vietnam. (Al-
though not in every detail;
associates who served with
him in the C.I.A.'s "black"
Far Last division in the early
nineteen-sixties say that he
opposed the coup against
Diem and considered it a mis-
take.) One former covert
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Approved
agent complained that Colby
was' "an adequate technician
but not in a class with Allen
Dulles and Bedell Smith. The
agent added that C.I.A. per-
sonnel were fairly dancing
with delight when Schlesinger
left, "but I wonder if Bill
Colby is getting in over his
head."
Other associates strongly
defend Colby. as a persuasive,
articulate bureaucrat who in-
spires personal loyalty in his
subordinates. Although a
graduate of Princeton and
Columbia Law School, Colby,
unlike many of the Old Boys
who have traditionally domi-
nated the higher echelons of
the C.I.A., does not come from
a wealthy, upper-class back-
ground. He is not, as they say,
"St. Grottlesex"-he did not
attend one of the prestigious
Eastern prep schools. Rather,
he went to high school in
Burlington, Vt.
His Wife, the former Bar-
bara Heinzen, is a short, out-
going brunette who shares
her husband's Catholic faith.
Very unassuming, no airs, but
a well-educated, sophisticated
woman. Their oldest son,
John, 26, Is married, has
worked for Henry Kissinger
on the staff of the National
Security Council and, as a
classmate at Princeton of
Edward Finch Cox, was a
groomsman at Tricia Nixon's
White House wedding in 1971.
The Colbys have three other
children, Carl, 22, Paul, 17,
and Christine, 13.
Colby is the third chief of
"Dirty Tricks" to be named
head of the C.I.A.-the two
others being Allen Dulles and
Helms. Dulles was put in
charge of spying and covert
action in 1951. He was suc-
ceeded by the late Frank G.
Wisner, a tall, Mississippi-
Born, dedicated cold-war op-
erator who ran the coup in
Guatemala. Wisner was fol-
lowed by Richard M. Bissell,
one of the fathers of the U4
program and chief planner of
the Bay of Pigs invasion.
Beached after that, Bissell
was succeeded by Helms.
After President Johnson
named Helms C.I.A. director
in 1966; Desmond FitzGerald
took over the plans direc-
torate. He, died in 1967 and
was succeeded by the "black-
est" and least-known of the
operations directors, Thomas
Hercules Karamessines, a New
Yorker and Columbia grad-
uate who served in'the O,S.S.
and worked for the C.I.A. in
Athens, Vienna and Rome
under embassy cover. "Tom
K.," as he is known among
the operators, was retired last
March in the Schlesinger
shakeout, along with several
other big-name spooks, like
Bronson Tweedy and Archi-
bald B. Roosevelt Jr., both
former London station chiefs.
Very prestigious station, Lon-
don, and Cord Meyer Jr. has
been selected for the post.
That's fine, of course, for
Cord Meyer, but not so fine
for some of the old Gro-
tonians with the reversible
names who have been put out
to pasture while Bill Colby
made it to the top. Which
Bill Colby?
But the question is unfair.
Perhaps there has been, all
these years, only one Bill
Colby and two United States
Governments. One that pub-
licly adheres to the highest
moral principles in the con-
duct of its foreign affairs, and
another that uses dirty tricks
and Bill Colbys to fight what
Dean Rusk once called a
"back-alley" war.
With Colby designated di-
rector of the C.I.A. and mov-
ing out of the operations
directorate, the secret show
must go on. Along the intelli-
gence grapevine the word is
out that Colby's choice for
the new Deputy Director of
Operations would be William
Nelson, who until recently
was director of the C.I.A.'s
Far East division, the job
Colby used to have. When
Colby was named chief of
the operations directorate, he
moved Nelson up to be his
deputy. Like Colby, Nelson is
a career clandestine operator.
He is said to be of medium
height, with light brown
hair, and wears horn-rimmed
glasses. There is a William E.
Nelson listed in the State De-
partment's Biographic Regis-'
ter. He is 52, Columbia and
Harvard, and, it says, was a
researcher for "Dept of
Army," then a political offi-
cer in Tokyo in 1950, and
turned up in "Dept of Navy"
on Taiwan from 1959 to 1965.
It also says he has been back
at the State Department since
1968. But for some reason he
isn't listed anywhere in the
department's phone book. N
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