History may not always repeat....but it sure does rhyme. Why did they really Murder former CIA director William Colby?
This was Saturday, April 27, 1996. William Colby, a former director of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, was alone at his weekend house across from Cobb Island, Maryland, 60 miles south of Washington, D.C. Colby, who was 76 years old, had worked all day on his sailboat at a nearby marina, putting it in shape for the coming summer.
After he got home from the marina, Colby called his wife, Sally Shelton, a high-ranking State Department official who was in Houston, Texas, visiting her mother. He told her that he had worked hard all day and was tired. He said he was going to steam some clams, take a shower, and go to bed.
Colby made the call at 7 p.m. He was seen a few minutes later by two sets of witnesses in his yard watering a willow tree. One of the witnesses was his gardener who dropped by to introduce his visiting sister. His two next-door neighbors saw him at the same time from their window. After he finished watering his trees, he went inside and had dinner.
The witnesses saw him at 7:15 p.m. The sun set at 7:57—42 minutes later.
When he was found dead in the water nine days later, it was said that he had gone out paddling his canoe at nightfall and drowned. I was in Paris when I read the story in the International Herald Tribune. I knew William Colby. And I didn’t believe that for one second.
Friends & Enemies
I considered Colby a friend. Not a close friend. He didn’t have any close friends that I knew about, outside his family. In my book, Facing the Phoenix, I described him as being a polite man who was open and approachable but without much of a sense of humor or an inclination to introspection. He communicated human interest, I wrote, rather than human warmth. He was not very physically impressive and at bottom was a shy man, is the way I saw him. He described himself to me as someone who couldn’t easily get the attention of a waiter in a restaurant. Yet he was strong and determined in everything he did.
Colby and I went back in the Vietnam War. I met him early on but got to know him pretty well when he left his job at CIA to serve as Ambassador Robert Komer’s deputy for pacification. Later, when he replaced Komer as pacification chief and I was sent to Vietnam by Time and CBS to investigate the capture of two photographers in Cambodia, Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, he backed me when I got into a dispute with CIA about my search for the two Americans.
When I began working on Facing the Phoenix he volunteered to help set up my interviews with the major intelligence players of the war, from Edward Lansdale to Lou Conein. The book was subtitled “The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam.” To me, Colby was the key to my being able to do the book, which got good reviews from all sides.
Edward Lansdale, who was the model for Graham Greene’s Quiet American, considered Colby to be the most effective American to serve in the Vietnam War. I did too. He listened. He learned. Although Colby knew I was against the war, that didn’t interfere with our working relationship in the least.
Still, the fact was that Colby had more enemies than friends. In the period between September 1973 and his dismissal in November 1975 as CIA director, Colby testified before congressional committees 56 times. When Congress asked him a question, he gave a straight answer. The Intel guys hated him for it. They thought it was his duty to lie. So did Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger who fired him as CIA chief for revealing what were called “the family jewels”—assassination plots and other dirty deeds.
Colby had got rid of a lot of guys in the clandestine service at CIA. I’d talked to ex-CIA officers who hated his guts. Even Lou Conein, one of the best-known CIA operatives in Vietnam, told me he believed Colby had destroyed the agency. And Conein, who knew Colby for many years, liked him. Colby had enemies coming from the Right and the Left.
Colby realized, of course, that he was in danger of being killed at any time. But I was surprised when I went to his home in Georgetown for the first in a series of long interviews. I thought an ex-CIA director would have the latest locks and security cameras and top-secret protection devices.
Colby had nothing. I had a more secure lock on my door than he did. When I asked him about it he said that if anybody wanted to get him, they could do it, and he wasn’t going to live his life in constant fear and worry. I admired his attitude. I knew he was right. On the night they got him both doors to his house were unlocked.
Colby liked my work on the missing journalists that had gone on for years. When I told him nothing had come of it, he said, “That doesn’t matter. You do what is necessary. And you did it.”
So I figured I owed it to him to look into how it happened. I didn’t expect anything to come of it. I knew the guys who did it would have done it right, with a minimum of mistakes. And I knew Colby would have been a fatalist about it. He wouldn’t have put up a fight when they came for him.
I was already scheduled to leave for Washington on another writing project several weeks after he disappeared. The timing would be good. The media frenzy would have died out. And I could go in quietly and see what I could make of it.
The Murder Scene
Cobb Island was sixty miles south of Washington. On the way to Colby’s house, I stopped at La Plata, MD, to talk to Sheriff Fred Davis about setting up interviews. The Charles County Sheriff’s department was responsible for the investigation of Colby’s death.
Sheriff Davis admitted that it was not an open and shut case. “There is always that window open,” he said, “because there were no witnesses.”
I continued on to Colby’s house. It was on Hill Road which was technically in Rock Point, Maryland, but Cobb Island, right across Neale Sound, was where Colby kept his sailboat and shopped.
Colby’s home was a turn of the century oysterman’s cottage. It had two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a breakfast table. The sunroom, which was glassed in, was originally the porch. Since it offered a spectacular view of the water, the sunroom also served as the dining room. Cobb Island and his home was pure Colby–unpretentious, tranquil, anonymous.
The house was surrounded on three sides by water. Sitting on a finger in Neale Sound, it looked out on Cobb Island and the Wicomico River, which turned into the Potomac farther up. You could only enter or exit his unfenced grounds by driving down a narrow dirt road.
Anyone standing on the other side of Neale Sound, using a pair of binoculars, could see practically any movement around the Colby house.
Carroll Wise: Last to Talk to Colby
As I drove up I saw a workman gassing a tractor-lawn mower–Joseph “Carroll” Wise, Colby’s gardener and caretaker. Wise was the last known person to talk to Colby. Wise, who had grizzled gray hair, tattoos on both arms, and a protruding beer belly, spoke quietly.
It was about 7:15 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, 1996, when Wise drove to Colby’s home with his sister. Colby was standing at the edge of his yard, near the front pier, watering a willow tree. Colby wore a red windbreaker, khaki slacks, and loafers.
When Colby saw them coming, he said, “Carroll, you’ve got a new car.”
“No, that’s my sister’s van,” Wise said. “That’s why I’ve dropped by. I’d like ——continued in article
After he got home from the marina, Colby called his wife, Sally Shelton, a high-ranking State Department official who was in Houston, Texas, visiting her mother. He told her that he had worked hard all day and was tired. He said he was going to steam some clams, take a shower, and go to bed.
Colby made the call at 7 p.m. He was seen a few minutes later by two sets of witnesses in his yard watering a willow tree. One of the witnesses was his gardener who dropped by to introduce his visiting sister. His two next-door neighbors saw him at the same time from their window. After he finished watering his trees, he went inside and had dinner.
The witnesses saw him at 7:15 p.m. The sun set at 7:57—42 minutes later.
When he was found dead in the water nine days later, it was said that he had gone out paddling his canoe at nightfall and drowned. I was in Paris when I read the story in the International Herald Tribune. I knew William Colby. And I didn’t believe that for one second.
Friends & Enemies
I considered Colby a friend. Not a close friend. He didn’t have any close friends that I knew about, outside his family. In my book, Facing the Phoenix, I described him as being a polite man who was open and approachable but without much of a sense of humor or an inclination to introspection. He communicated human interest, I wrote, rather than human warmth. He was not very physically impressive and at bottom was a shy man, is the way I saw him. He described himself to me as someone who couldn’t easily get the attention of a waiter in a restaurant. Yet he was strong and determined in everything he did.
Colby and I went back in the Vietnam War. I met him early on but got to know him pretty well when he left his job at CIA to serve as Ambassador Robert Komer’s deputy for pacification. Later, when he replaced Komer as pacification chief and I was sent to Vietnam by Time and CBS to investigate the capture of two photographers in Cambodia, Sean Flynn and Dana Stone, he backed me when I got into a dispute with CIA about my search for the two Americans.
When I began working on Facing the Phoenix he volunteered to help set up my interviews with the major intelligence players of the war, from Edward Lansdale to Lou Conein. The book was subtitled “The CIA and the Political Defeat of the United States in Vietnam.” To me, Colby was the key to my being able to do the book, which got good reviews from all sides.
Edward Lansdale, who was the model for Graham Greene’s Quiet American, considered Colby to be the most effective American to serve in the Vietnam War. I did too. He listened. He learned. Although Colby knew I was against the war, that didn’t interfere with our working relationship in the least.
Still, the fact was that Colby had more enemies than friends. In the period between September 1973 and his dismissal in November 1975 as CIA director, Colby testified before congressional committees 56 times. When Congress asked him a question, he gave a straight answer. The Intel guys hated him for it. They thought it was his duty to lie. So did Gerald Ford and Henry Kissinger who fired him as CIA chief for revealing what were called “the family jewels”—assassination plots and other dirty deeds.
Colby had got rid of a lot of guys in the clandestine service at CIA. I’d talked to ex-CIA officers who hated his guts. Even Lou Conein, one of the best-known CIA operatives in Vietnam, told me he believed Colby had destroyed the agency. And Conein, who knew Colby for many years, liked him. Colby had enemies coming from the Right and the Left.
Colby realized, of course, that he was in danger of being killed at any time. But I was surprised when I went to his home in Georgetown for the first in a series of long interviews. I thought an ex-CIA director would have the latest locks and security cameras and top-secret protection devices.
Colby had nothing. I had a more secure lock on my door than he did. When I asked him about it he said that if anybody wanted to get him, they could do it, and he wasn’t going to live his life in constant fear and worry. I admired his attitude. I knew he was right. On the night they got him both doors to his house were unlocked.
Colby liked my work on the missing journalists that had gone on for years. When I told him nothing had come of it, he said, “That doesn’t matter. You do what is necessary. And you did it.”
So I figured I owed it to him to look into how it happened. I didn’t expect anything to come of it. I knew the guys who did it would have done it right, with a minimum of mistakes. And I knew Colby would have been a fatalist about it. He wouldn’t have put up a fight when they came for him.
I was already scheduled to leave for Washington on another writing project several weeks after he disappeared. The timing would be good. The media frenzy would have died out. And I could go in quietly and see what I could make of it.
The Murder Scene
Cobb Island was sixty miles south of Washington. On the way to Colby’s house, I stopped at La Plata, MD, to talk to Sheriff Fred Davis about setting up interviews. The Charles County Sheriff’s department was responsible for the investigation of Colby’s death.
Sheriff Davis admitted that it was not an open and shut case. “There is always that window open,” he said, “because there were no witnesses.”
I continued on to Colby’s house. It was on Hill Road which was technically in Rock Point, Maryland, but Cobb Island, right across Neale Sound, was where Colby kept his sailboat and shopped.
Colby’s home was a turn of the century oysterman’s cottage. It had two bedrooms and a small kitchen with a breakfast table. The sunroom, which was glassed in, was originally the porch. Since it offered a spectacular view of the water, the sunroom also served as the dining room. Cobb Island and his home was pure Colby–unpretentious, tranquil, anonymous.
The house was surrounded on three sides by water. Sitting on a finger in Neale Sound, it looked out on Cobb Island and the Wicomico River, which turned into the Potomac farther up. You could only enter or exit his unfenced grounds by driving down a narrow dirt road.
Anyone standing on the other side of Neale Sound, using a pair of binoculars, could see practically any movement around the Colby house.
Carroll Wise: Last to Talk to Colby
As I drove up I saw a workman gassing a tractor-lawn mower–Joseph “Carroll” Wise, Colby’s gardener and caretaker. Wise was the last known person to talk to Colby. Wise, who had grizzled gray hair, tattoos on both arms, and a protruding beer belly, spoke quietly.
It was about 7:15 p.m. on Saturday, April 27, 1996, when Wise drove to Colby’s home with his sister. Colby was standing at the edge of his yard, near the front pier, watering a willow tree. Colby wore a red windbreaker, khaki slacks, and loafers.
When Colby saw them coming, he said, “Carroll, you’ve got a new car.”
“No, that’s my sister’s van,” Wise said. “That’s why I’ve dropped by. I’d like ——continued in article
It must have been soooo much easier for the government to propagandize us back then. They didn’t have to resort to name calling and character assassination on such an epic scale as now.