IT WAS ROUGH SAILING, SAYS WILLIAM COLBY OF HIS YEARS AS C.I.A. SKIPPER

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100100003-8
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 3
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: May 29, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

I-STAT
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ARTICLE _APP ARED PEOPLE
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`: IN HIS OWN
No stranger to entanglements, weekend sail-
or Colby has more than his hands full on his
37-foot sloop Eagle Wing It.
"First it was Vietnam, then Watergate, "
recalls William Colby, a career agent
who served as director of the Central
Intelligence Agency between 1973 and
1976. "The CIA was Target No. 3, and
Congress would have torn us apart if I
hadn't cooperated. "During Senate
and House committee hearings in
1975, Colby was the man In the hot
seat, called on to explain assassination
plots, bribery, Mafia dealings, domestic
spyingeven drug experiments on
unsuspecting Americans. No one was
better qualified to field such difficult
questions than Colby, a Princeton-ed-
ucated Army brat whose World War it
service with the OSS included blowing
up railroads and working with resis-
tance fighters in France and Norway.
Over a quarter century he was a CIA
operative in Scandinavia, Italy and
Photographaby Mark Godfrey/Magnum
IT WAS ROUGH SAILING,
SAYS WILLIAM COL13Y OF HIS
YEARS AS C.I.A. SKIPPER
South Vietnam. Several ex-CIA em-
ployees-Including Philip Agee, Frank
Snepp and John Stockwell-have pub-
lished unauthorized books critical of
agency activities from Angola and Viet-,
nam to Chile and Cuba. Colby, 58,
comes to the agency's defense in his
new autobiography, Honorable Men:
My Life in the CIA (Simon & Schuster,
$12.95). Now a practicing attorney,
he commutes by bus from his home in
Bethesda to offices two blocks from
the White House. America's former su-
perspook talked with Christopher P.
Andersen of PEOPLE.
What do you think of former CIA agents
who are going public?
They must be punished. What Agee
did in revealing the identities of agents
and other information is totally repre-
hensible. He is the CIA's first real
defector. Snepp and Stockwell have
written books discussing subjects they
promised In writing not to discuss with-
out the express approval of the
agency. When an IRS agent makes an
Individual's tax'return public; he is Li-
able to criminal prosecution. Why not
the same for a former CIA agent
who does the same thing? The press
guards its own sources, and the CIA
should have that right as well.
What kind of punishmentdo you think is
appropriate?
A jail term. I don't approve of the gov-
ernment's current approach-suing
Snepp for violating his contract with the
CIA. There should be laws on the books
that treat these as criminal matters.
Unfortunately, there aren't now.
nAlan-r1RTi1i?71
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Threatening phone calls and this "Wanted"
poster put out.by radicals accompanied his
nomination "director in 1973.
Y
Before parachuting into France during Woild
War 14 junt4nnasterColby(standiig) led a
training drop over North Carolina.
WOrdsCoNTINUED
Did you submit thv ipt of your
book to the CIA for approval?
Yes, and they asked for several de-
letions. One dealt with the Glomar
Explorer Project, another with satellite
photography-which is a relatively new
and sensitive area -and another with
the name of a CIA agent whose cover
had been changed when he retired.
I don't feel that any of this should be
kept secret. But 28 years ago I signed
an agreement promising not to publish
anything without the director's con-
sent, and I'm going to keep my word
-unlike some others.
What makes a good spy?
As I've said before, a good spy is
someone so gray a waiter wouldn't no-
tice him in a restaurant.
What was the toughest part of being a
CIA agent for you?
The double life. Obviously I could
never tell my wife or children what was
really going on. So a barrier was thrown
up between me and my family. You
have to have an awfully understanding
wife to put up with this, and I do.
Have you everkilled anyone?
During World War II, of course. I was
shooting at them and they were shoot-
ing at me. But no, I have never been
called upon to kill someone by the CIA.
C What CIA assassination attempts are
youawareof?
During my tenure as director, assas-
sination was not an alternative. On one
occasion In 1963, however, two high-
From his law office window, Colby cooks out
on Washington-and a career In Intelligence
that spanned more than 25 years.
suggested that we should dispose of
Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem's
powerful brother Ngo Dinh Nhu. I turned
that conversation off immediately. At
about the same time, I was to learn
years later, we were busy trying to as-
e~ceinat r!ftntrn
The CIA's man in Vietnam for seven years,
Colby inspected a "Rurat Dwefopm. nt Cad-
re" before It took up positions in 196$.
Did John Kennedy directly order Ca a-
tro's assassination?.
In the same way that Henry 11's re-
mark "Who will deliver me from this
meddlesome priest?" led to Becket's
death in Canterbury Cathedral, Kenne-
dy's vague comments about Castro
were clearly taken as an order to kill.
Was Kennedy obsessed with Castro?:
Well, Kennedy and his brother Bob-
by, who was then Attorney General,
were obsessed with getting revenge on
Castro for the Bay of Pigs. That fiasco
was the biggest setback for the CIA's
Image, but It was the President's
fault-not the CIA's-because he
chose not to order a second air strike
in support of the invasion. Kennedy
knew he was to blame and he wanted
to get back at Castro.
Could theCIAhave beerlnvolved InKenr-
nedy's assassination?
The CIA could not have had a better
friend than John Kennedy. He under-
stood the agency and reveled in using
it. This country would have been
better off had he lived, because he
could have utilized the CIA more ef-
fectively and not gotten us bogged
down in full-scale war in Vietnam. John=
son inherited a mess, but he was too
quick to resort to a big military effort.
How did eachof the Presidents you
worked forhandle theC/A? :
Eisenhower had a military staff sys-
tem; by the time anything reached his
desk the decision had already been.
made. Kennedy would get about 30
people in a room and listen to each
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pared that group down to about 11, but
he only -.ally understood military
force. Nixon was a very serious stu-
dent. He would read the papers I gave
him very carefully and then would make
the decisions by himself-alone. At Na-
tional Security Council meetings Ford
was always much more open to differ-
ent points of view. But he was no
dummy.
Did you agree with the Nixon adminis-
tration's attempts to undermine Chilean
President SalvadorAltende?
Our first mistake was during the elec-
tion year of 1970, when we failed to sup-
port either of Allende's moderate
opponents in the campaign. Instead we
just engaged in a spoiler propaganda
effort against the Marxist Allende. At
the direct order of Richard Nixon
we then sought a military coup against
Allende. This was called Track II to dis-
tinguish It from other CIA activities in
Chile, and was known only to Nixon,
Henry Kissinger, CIA director Richard
Helms and Attorney General John
Mitchell.
What did Track fl involve?
Bribery. But funds made available
to bribe the Chilean congress weren't
spent because that tactic was unwork-
able. An attempt was made by a
group once linked to the CIA to kid-
nap the commander of Chile's army,
Gen. Rene Schneider, but it was
bungled and Schneider died trying to
resist it.
What do you think of the current situ,
ation in Italy?
It makes me very sad. The Socialists
and the Christian Democrats have col-
lapsed, and in their absence there is
chaos. The situation won't improve un-
til Italy produces a strong center-left
leadership. Most people think the CIA
backs right-wing groups, but we always
preferred moderates-sometimes
even moderate leftists.
Why did you write about your daughter
Catherine's death in the book?
Vicious rumors had been circu-
lating that she committed suicide be-
cause of my involvement in Vietnam.
She had physical and psychiatric prob-
lems, but on that subject she was .
always very supportive of me. When
she died ip 1973 it was from epilepsy
and anorexia nervosa, a form of
starvation.
What was the CIA 's lowest point?
Our involvement with the Mafia,
which I did not know about at the time,
in trying to find ways to poison Fidel
Castro. There were other things that
disturbed me: the opening of citizens'
mail, for example, and drug experi-
ments of the sort that led to the suicide
of Frank Olsen when he was slipped
LSD in 1953. I put a stop to them.
What do you think of the Justice Depart-
ment's decision to prosecute ex-FBI
Director L Patrick Gray for illegal
break-ins?
I think it is wrong. If you have a whole
ethic that dominates an agency like the
FBI or the CIA for 30 years and sud-
denly you want to change it, then go
ahead. But don't go back and beat up
people with ex post facto laws. It isn't
fair, and I don't want the same thing
happening to me.
Are you bitteraboutbeing fired by Ger-
ald Ford in November 1975?
Not at all. It was a political decision
at a critically political time. After all the
CIA revelations, I was a distinct liabil-
ity. Given the circumstances, I might
have done the same. 0
Bill and Barbara Colby have time for them-
selves, now that Jonathan, 31, Carl, 27, and
Paul, 22, have left home. Christine, 18, leaves
for college in the fall.
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