William Colby Options

[John Simkin]

Michael Holzman has recently assessed the theory that William Colby was a Soviet spy (Lobster 51). The original claim that Colby was a spy came from James Jesus Angleton. Mind you, according to Angleton, several CIA senior officials were spies and he leaked this information to several journalists. Richard Helms told his biographer, Thomas Powers (The Man Who Kept the Secrets) that Colby acts “as Director of Central Intelligence were entirely consistent with those of a man who was a Russian agent.” Helms of course was very angry with Colby for cooperating with the Congressional committees led by Frank Church and Otis Pike. In his own autobiography (A Look Over My Shoulder) Helms asks the question – “Was Colby America’s more successful Kim Philby?”

Holzman looks at the reasons why Colby was hated by both Angleton and Helms but fails to consider the connections with Watergate.

Colby appeared to have no chance of obtaining promotion while Richard Helms was Director of the CIA. However, everything changed when Nixon sacked Helms for refusing to cover-up the Watergate scandal.
In February, 1973, an outsider and Nixon supporter, James Schlesinger, became the new director of the CIA. Schlesinger was heard to say: “The clandestine service was Helms’s Praetorian Guard. It had too much influence in the Agency and was too powerful within the government. I am going to cut it down to size.” This he did and over the next three months over 7 per cent of CIA officers lost their jobs.

On 9th May, 1973, Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about “activities outside the CIA’s charter”.

There were several employees who had been trying to complain about the illegal CIA activities for some time. As Cord Meyer pointed out, this directive “was a hunting license for the resentful subordinate to dig back into the records of the past in order to come up with evidence that might destroy the career of a superior whom he long hated.”

It now became necessary to get Schlesinger removed from office. On 16th May, 1973, Deep Throat has an important meeting with Woodward where he provided information that was to destroy Nixon. This included the comment that the Senate Watergate Committee should consider interviewing Alexander P. Butterfield. Soon afterwards told a staff member of the committee (undoubtedly his friend, Scott Armstrong) that Butterfield should be asked to testify before Sam Ervin.

Nixon now realized he had gone too far and removed Schlesinger from his post. However, to maintain the pressure on the CIA, Nixon suggested Colby for the post. The reason for this was that Colby had convinced Schlesinger that he was in favour of revealing details of CIA’s dirty tricks.

This is no doubt true and this meant that the CIA now had a good reason to get rid of both Nixon and Colby.

On 25th June, 1973, John Dean testified that he believed Nixon's office might be bugged. On Friday, 13th July, Butterfield appeared before the committee and was asked about if he knew whether Nixon was recording meetings he was having in the White House. Butterfield now admitted details of the tape system which monitored Nixon's conversations. It was this disclosure that meant that Nixon would be forced to resign.

When in 1975 both houses of Congress set up inquiries into the activities of the intelligence community, Colby handed over to the Senate committee chaired by Frank Church details of the CIA's recent operations against the left-leaning government in Chile. The agency's attempts to sabotage the Chilean economy had contributed to the downfall of South America's oldest democracy and to the installation of a military dictatorship.

His testimony resulted in his predecessor, Richard Helms, being indicted for perjury. Colby was attacked by right-wing figures such as Barry Goldwater for supplying this information to the Frank Church and on 30 January 1976, President Gerald Ford replaced him with George H. W. Bush. Someone he knew would do everything he could to prevent disclosure of the CIA’s dirty tricks. After all, he had been involved with illegal CIA projects such as Operation 40 since 1960.

In retirement Colby published his memoirs Honorable Men. This resulted in him being accused of making unauthorized disclosures, and was forced to pay a $10,000 fine in an out-of-court settlement.

On 28th April 1996 William Colby went on a canoe trip at Rock Point, Maryland. His body was found several days later. Later police claimed that there was no evidence of foul play.

[Mark Stapleton]

Michael Holzman has recently assessed the theory that William Colby was a Soviet spy (Lobster 51). The original claim that Colby was a spy came from James Jesus Angleton. Mind you, according to Angleton, several CIA senior officials were spies and he leaked this information to several journalists. Richard Helms told his biographer, Thomas Powers (The Man Who Kept the Secrets) that Colby acts “as Director of Central Intelligence were entirely consistent with those of a man who was a Russian agent.” Helms of course was very angry with Colby for cooperating with the Congressional committees led by Frank Church and Otis Pike. In his own autobiography (A Look Over My Shoulder) Helms asks the question – “Was Colby America’s more successful Kim Philby?”

Holzman looks at the reasons why Colby was hated by both Angleton and Helms but fails to consider the connections with Watergate.

Colby appeared to have no chance of obtaining promotion while Richard Helms was Director of the CIA. However, everything changed when Nixon sacked Helms for refusing to cover-up the Watergate scandal.
In February, 1973, an outsider and Nixon supporter, James Schlesinger, became the new director of the CIA. Schlesinger was heard to say: “The clandestine service was Helms’s Praetorian Guard. It had too much influence in the Agency and was too powerful within the government. I am going to cut it down to size.” This he did and over the next three months over 7 per cent of CIA officers lost their jobs.

On 9th May, 1973, Schlesinger issued a directive to all CIA employees: “I have ordered all senior operating officials of this Agency to report to me immediately on any activities now going on, or might have gone on in the past, which might be considered to be outside the legislative charter of this Agency. I hereby direct every person presently employed by CIA to report to me on any such activities of which he has knowledge. I invite all ex-employees to do the same. Anyone who has such information should call my secretary and say that he wishes to talk to me about “activities outside the CIA’s charter”.

There were several employees who had been trying to complain about the illegal CIA activities for some time. As Cord Meyer pointed out, this directive “was a hunting license for the resentful subordinate to dig back into the records of the past in order to come up with evidence that might destroy the career of a superior whom he long hated.”

It now became necessary to get Schlesinger removed from office. On 16th May, 1973, Deep Throat has an important meeting with Woodward where he provided information that was to destroy Nixon. This included the comment that the Senate Watergate Committee should consider interviewing Alexander P. Butterfield. Soon afterwards told a staff member of the committee (undoubtedly his friend, Scott Armstrong) that Butterfield should be asked to testify before Sam Ervin.

Nixon now realized he had gone too far and removed Schlesinger from his post. However, to maintain the pressure on the CIA, Nixon suggested Colby for the post. The reason for this was that Colby had convinced Schlesinger that he was in favour of revealing details of CIA’s dirty tricks.

This is no doubt true and this meant that the CIA now had a good reason to get rid of both Nixon and Colby.

On 25th June, 1973, John Dean testified that he believed Nixon's office might be bugged. On Friday, 13th July, Butterfield appeared before the committee and was asked about if he knew whether Nixon was recording meetings he was having in the White House. Butterfield now admitted details of the tape system which monitored Nixon's conversations. It was this disclosure that meant that Nixon would be forced to resign.

When in 1975 both houses of Congress set up inquiries into the activities of the intelligence community, Colby handed over to the Senate committee chaired by Frank Church details of the CIA's recent operations against the left-leaning government in Chile. The agency's attempts to sabotage the Chilean economy had contributed to the downfall of South America's oldest democracy and to the installation of a military dictatorship.

His testimony resulted in his predecessor, Richard Helms, being indicted for perjury. Colby was attacked by right-wing figures such as Barry Goldwater for supplying this information to the Frank Church and on 30 January 1976, President Gerald Ford replaced him with George H. W. Bush. Someone he knew would do everything he could to prevent disclosure of the CIA’s dirty tricks. After all, he had been involved with illegal CIA projects such as Operation 40 since 1960.

In retirement Colby published his memoirs Honorable Men. This resulted in him being accused of making unauthorized disclosures, and was forced to pay a $10,000 fine in an out-of-court settlement.

On 28th April 1996 William Colby went on a canoe trip at Rock Point, Maryland. His body was found several days later. Later police claimed that there was no evidence of foul play.

John,

Michael Collins Piper has some interesting things to say about Colby. Quoting his book "Final Judgement" (pp353-357):


[color=#3366FF]"The August 20, 1996 issue of The Sun, a supermarket tabloid, carried an exciting 'newsflash' which announced, "Dead CIA Chief Was Set To Finally Blow Lid on JFK Assassination". The tabloid announced that former CIA director William Colby had been planning to blow the whistle on the truth about the assassination. Although the tabloid provided no evidence whatsoever that this was the case, there is no question but that Colby's strange demise did give many people--not just so called conspiracy theorists--reason to pause. Colby himself had indeed made cryptic remarks about the JFK assassination in one interview shortly before his death, so perhaps there is reason for suspicion.

....The fact is, that while serving as CIA director, William Colby was considered hostile to Israel's interests, so much so that it was Colby who fired the Mossad's longtime agent-in-place at the CIA, James Jesus Angleton, who has been documented in 'Final Judgement' as the key CIA player in the JFK assassination conspiracy.

Evidently, most press reports at the time, describing Colby's sacking of Angleton, didn't tell the whole story. However, according to Wolf Blitzer, longtime Washington correspondent for the Jerusalem Post: 'CBS News back in 1975 reported that Angleton had lost his job in December 1974 because of policy disputes over Israel and not because of allegations of CIA domestic spying as originally reported...[and that] Angleton was said to have argued with CIA director William Colby over Middle East policy questions as well'1. In fact, according to Blitzer, it was one week before the New York Times first published a story by Seymour Hersh alleging that the CIA was engaged in domestic spying that Colby told Angleton he could no longer handle the Israeli desk at the CIA after which Angleton resigned--effectively forced out by Colby.

As early as 1967 Angleton's behavior had become so bizarre that on one of Angleton's trips to Israel, John Denley Walker, the CIA's station chief in Israel, believed Angleton 'was on the edge of a nervous breakdown'. CBS News reporter Daniel Shorr has described meeting with Angleton shortly after he had been dismissed by Colby. According to Schorr, Angleton 'rambled on circuitously, the conversation disjoined. He had been to Israel thirty times. He had never met Howard Hunt. Angleton added that: 'For twenty two years I handled the Israeli account. Israel was the only sanity in the Middle East. As Angleton's ravings continued, Schorr decided that Angleton was 'really crazy'. Schorr said that Angleton 'went on speaking almost as though I wasn't there'. 'He was talking as though he was looking into his own mind'.

Wolf Blitzer has written about how many high ranking CIA officials didn't share Angleton's enthusiasm for Israel, citing Colby as a specific example: 'In 1975, for example, there was an increasing concern among Israeli intelligence officials over what appeared to be a growing pro-Arab tilt among several senior analysts in the CIA. The November 1975 closed door testimony on the Middle East arms balance offered by outgoing CIA director William Colby was one of the first indications of this attitude. Colby, who had just been dismissed by President Ford, but was asked to remain in office until his designated successor, Ambassador George Bush, returned from China and won Senate confirmation, argued in his testimony that the balance of power was shifting in Israel's favor. Colby's testimony, which disputed figures offered by Israeli officials, was widely seen as having damaged the Administration's own pending request before the Congress for $1.5 billion in military aid for Israel during that fiscal year'.

In the Spring of 1996, Colby contacted a veteran journalist whom he knew to be friendly with top Arab diplomatic, military and intelligence officials and requested that the journalist arrange for Colby to meet with a certain high-level Arab official.2. The first meeting was held at the exclusive (and now infamous) Watergate Hotel in Washington DC. According to a former federal security administrator who attended one of the meetings, Colby and his Arab associate 'had shared concerns. Both men knew that their respective Governments were being infiltrated and manipulated by Israeli agents. Following these meetings, Colby agreed to go to work as a confidential advisor to Arab interests'.

It is interesting to note further that Colby's death came at a critical time when the Israeli lobby in Washington was engaged in a major behind-the-scenes effort to substantially expand the power of the CIA and its then director, John Deutch, a Belgian born Jewish refugee and longtime Washington figure known for his close ties to Israeli intelligence. The so called reform measures were of such a nature that a genuine CIA reformer such as Colby would have emerged as a very loud and public critic of such proposals. On April 24, 1996--two days before Colby disappeared--a little noted Senate committee vote laid the groundwork for a bizarre and unprecedented proposed restructuring of the US civilian and military intelligence system. Senator Arlen Specter, Republican chairman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, pushed through a vote on a measure to extend the author of the CIA director to control the budgets of all US intelligence agencies, most of which were then under the purview of the military divisions. Under Spector's proposal, the CIA director would have been granted the authority to play a major role in the appointment of the directors of various intelligence agencies, including those inside the Pentagon. This would have put Deutch in control of not only the CIA but also the NSA, DIA and the National Reconnaissance Office, as well as the Army, Navy, Marine and Air Force intelligence groups.

On April 25, the Washington Post commented that, 'such a radical change is likely to run into strong opposition not only from the military services themselves but also from other Congressional committees with Pentagon oversight. The Senate Armed Services Committee has already sent a letter to Specter saying it wants to hold off any action on any of the reforms that would limit the powers of the Pentagon, such as proposals to give the CIA director a role in the naming of agency heads'.

In fact, in the end, the CIA power grab orchestrated by the Israeli sympathisers in Washington was defeated but in the meantime the man who would have been one of its most effective opponents--William Colby--had been removed from the scene.[color=#3333FF]


1. Wolf Blitzer: Between Washington and Jerusalem. (New York: Oxford University Press, 1985), p.89.
2. Author's interview with Andrew St. George, the journalist who arranged the meeting.

This post has been edited by Mark Stapleton: Jul 17 2006, 05:40 AM