COLBY: DON'T SQUELCH CIA ABROAD

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090121-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: October 4, 2004
• Sequence Number: 121
• Publication Date: February 18, 1978
• Content Type: NSPR

Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090121-7
ROCHESTER, NEW YORK
TIMES-UNION
18 February 1978
u1by Don't S
Congress should keep tabs on the
Central Intelligence Agency but not
squelch its intelligence-gathering
abroad, former agency Director Wil-
liam E. Colby said.
Speaking last night at the Univer-
sity of Rochester, Colby warned that
the U.S. must keep a wary eye on the
world's poorer, developing nations.
Those countries will regard Ameri-
ca's agricultural and economic wealth
with increasing envy and frustration,
he said.
"Some will look to political or eco-
nomic weapons ... some will look to
sabotaging international institutions
... and some will look to violence
." Colby said.
"As we face a future of some reek-
less despot building an atomic bomb
in his backyard, we could send for the
Marines," Colby said. .
But he added that "some quiet
help" to friendly people in developing
countries would be better than mili-
tary measures.
"We should only use intelligence
operations rarely, and use them well,"
he said. "Intelligence activity should-
not be taken out of our national
armory."
Colby, now a. Washington, D.C_
lawyer, received about $2,000 for his
appearance. His topic was "The New
Intelligence." He recapped spying his-
tory and concluded the CIA is
necessary.
But he said CIA experience in the
Vietnam War and the Watergate
scandal showed there must be reins
on the agency.
`We realize now.that no part of the.
American government can operate
outside American laws,,",. he,said.
The 58-year-old bespectacled man ini,
a gray suit defended the CIA's "secret!
assistance" in countries such as Chile,
the Philippines and Vietnam.
Those activities were carried but
under direction of the president and
with congressional knowledge, he said.
Or, they happened under a Congress
that didn't want to know about them.'
Colby, appointed CIA director in 1973,
oversaw the agency until George Bush
replaced him in 1975.
Now, the United States has perma-
nent congressional committees on
intelligence activities. The agency will
get supervision it didn't have in the
past, he said.
"Let's control the CIA. Let's not
blind ourselves," he said. He advocat-
ed opening the agency to more public
scrutiny and "replacing old, fuzzy
laws" with specific guidelines.
Colby joined the CIA in 1950 when
the Korean war broke out. He was
appointed head of the Far East divi-
sion in 1962. Two years later he over-
saw
the establishment of the Vietnam
counterterror program, which used
kidnapping, intimidation and assassi-
nation against the Communist
leadership.
He started Operation Phoenix in
1967 to coordinate American and Viet
namese attacks on the Communist
infrastructure. It has been reported
that more than 20,000 suspected Com-
munists were killed in the operation's
first 21/a years. I
Students questioned him closely on
Vietnam and assassinations.
"No foreign leader was ever assas-
sinated by the CIA," Colby said. "Not
that we didn't try," he quickly added,
citing the. case of Cuba's Fidel
Castro.
Approved For Release 2004/10/12 : CIA-RDP81M00980R002000090121-7