Starred review from January 14, 2013
A lifelong CIA counterinsurgency specialist, William Egan Colby (1920–1996) was a central figure in America’s post-WWII clandestine operations. University of Arkansas history professor Woods (LBJ: Architect of American Ambition) delivers an engrossing account of Colby’s contentious life and career, from early intelligence recruit during the Second World War to his suspicious demise in the Chesapeake Bay. As CIA station chief in Saigon during the Vietnam War (where “he had been the only high-ranking official to move about at night without an armed escort”), Colby was skeptical of the efficacy of conventional strategies in fighting communism, and eventually oversaw the controversial and brutal Phoenix Program, which sought to systematically cripple the Viet Cong. Later, he served as director of the CIA under presidents Nixon and Ford at a time when it was roundly criticized as “an Agency run amok,” though he did his best to usher in “a new sense of openness.” Those efforts enraged many colleagues, and led some (including Colby’s son Carl) to suggest his death was politically motivated. Scathingly critical of both the CIA and the government it served, Wood’s thoroughly entertaining portrait reveals plenty of warts, as well as a thoughtful character, surprisingly liberal and sophisticated about the limitations of CIA derring-do. 35 b&w images.
February 1, 2013
William Colby's mysterious death in 1996 ended a life of public service that stretched from his time in the OSS in World War II to his termination as CIA director in 1975. He served as an intelligence officer in Rome in the 1950s, then, during the 1960s, as a CIA station chief in Vietnam. When he returned to Washington, DC, after the war, President Nixon appointed him CIA director. Although a trained undercover agent, Colby believed in openness in government, and thus, under pressure from a post-Watergate Congress, he made public the CIA's "Family Jewels," documents that outlined that agency's various clandestine activities. Colby sought to reform the CIA, but his willingness to share agency secrets led to increased opposition to him within the government; President Ford fired him in November 1975. Woods (history, Univ. of Arkansas; LBJ: Architect of American Ambition) has crafted an excellent biography based on the usual primary sources and buttressed by interviews with Colby's family and associates. Although John Prados's Lost Crusader (2003) covers much of the same ground, Colby's life and career deserve more than one biographical approach. VERDICT Well written and researched, this solid biography by an established historian is worthy of recommendation to all interested readers.--Ed Goedeken, Iowa State Univ. Lib., Ames
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February 1, 2013
A thorough biography of "the ultimate subversive" that probes the shadowy U.S. intelligence efforts through the Vietnam War. Arguably part of the problem or part of the fix, CIA operative William Colby (1920-1996) was intimately involved in the questionable clandestine practices of the U.S. intelligence service in Southeast Asia, as well as instrumental in the reforms stemming from the "family jewels" revelations of 1974-1975, when he was ultimately forced out as director. Woods (History/Univ. of Arkansas; LBJ: Architect of American Ambition, 2006, etc.) looks at a complicated individual who was at heart a liberal activist, schooled in the ideas of unconventional warfare championed by his father, a military man and instructor. An only child in a deeply Catholic family, Colby also gravitated toward the Army. From key training in World War II's Jedburgh Operation, Colby became part of the newly minted CIA, swept up in the "mortal danger" presented in Soviet communism, and sent first to Scandinavia, Italy, then Vietnam by 1959, when the "people's war" was heating up. Covert action against North Vietnam was approved by President John F. Kennedy and carried out enthusiastically by Colby and others in a "counterinsurgency think-tank" in Saigon, ultimately undermined by the military ascendancy in Washington. An increased compartmentalization of the CIA led to clandestine operations around the world, encouraging a rogue atmosphere within the agency. Woods carefully sifts through Colby's involvement in the Phoenix Program and his short-lived tenure as DCI, where he implemented reforms that would ultimately get him fired by Henry Kissinger. A nuanced treatment spirals through the crucial years of CIA operations.
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