NIXON'S CHOICE TO HEAD THE C.I.A.

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060002-4
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 11, 2012
• Sequence Number: 2
• Publication Date: May 11, 1973
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

ST Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060002-4
? REW YORK TEES
11 l.,! ~'t n73
Nixon's Choice to Head the C.I.A.
William Egan Colby .
By LINDA CHARLTON
Specal 0'17:e New Ycct Tames
WASHINGTON, May 10-
William Egan Colby, named
today as the new chief of the
Central Intelligence Agency,
is one of the few profession-
als to rise to the top of a
major Government depart-
ment: He is a career clandes-
tine operative.
The 53-year-old Mr. Colby's
involvement with
Man
in the
News
intelligence work
dates to 1943,
when, responding
to a call for
French - speaking
volunteers, he joined the Of-
fice of Strategic Services, the
forerunner of the C.I.A., and
parachuted behind enemy
lines in France to join a Re-
sistance unit.
He continued his O.S.S.
service through the rest of
the war, then took time to
obtain a law degree from Col-
lumbia University and work
in the New York City law
firm, headed by Maj. Gen.
William S. Donovan, the for-
mer head of the O.S.S. He
joined the C.I.A. in 1950. Ex-
cept for a brief interval as
deputy and then chief United
States adviser to the pacifica-
tion program in South Viet-
nam, Mr. Colby has been with
the agency ever since.
Since March 3, he has been
the agency's deputy director
of operations, the head of its
clandestine services. known
otherwise as the "Department
of Dirty Tricks." He had been
executive - director-controller
of the agency since January,
1972, six months after he re-
turned from Saigon. where he
had succeeded Rebert W.
Homer as the director of the
United States phase of the
South Vietnanje-? Govern-
ment's pacification program.
Mr. Komer, now with the
Rand Corporation here, de-
scribes Mr. Cclby as "a pro-
fessional's professional-out-
standingly capable."
Mr. Colby's involvement
with the pacification program
was well-known, particularly
after he testified about
the controversial operation
Phoneix - an antisubsersion
program - before a House
subcommittee in the summer
of 1971. Much less is known
about his other assignments.
His official biography
shows him on "the staff" of
the United States Embassy
in Stockholm in 1951, and
notes that he "served" in
the Embassy in Rome from
1953 to 1958. In 1959, he
began his involvement with
Vietnam, with the title of
First Secretary of the Em-
bassy in Saigon.
He was working for the
C.I.A., eventually becoming
Saigon station chief, and he
returned to the agency's Mc-
Lean, Va., headquarters in
1962 as chief of the Far East
Division, which means, in ef-
fect, the man in charge of
the agency's operations in
Vietnam.
The known facts of Mr.
Colby's life outside the
agency are few. He was born
Jan. 4, 1920, in St. Paul, the
son of an Army officer. Much
of his childhood was spent at
Army posts. He graduated
from Princeton in 1910,
joined the Army the next
year, and served in the para-
chute field artillery until that
1943 call for volunteers for
the 0. S. S.
He and his wife, the former
Barbara lleinzen, live in a
Washington suburb. They
vout Roman Catholics, a
faith that sustained them
after the recent death of a
19-year-old daughter, one of
five children.
His personality, by all ac-
counts, is suitable for a man
of his calling-"attractive,
low-key, almost deliberately
anti-charismatic," Mr. Komer
said. "Very soft-spoken, un-
exuberant, very careful," said
another man who had had
contact with him in Vietnam.
Opinion Differs
He is a man whose life
has been the agency's since
leaving college. Mr. Komer
sees this as an advantage,
since he is known and re-
spected among the profes-
sionals; others see it as less
benign, tending toward mak-
ing the agency more of a
sovereign state. "The first
rule is to protect the organi-
zation," said one man who
views Mr. Colby's appoint-
ment skeptically.
The thin, bespectacled Mr.
Colby is, however, perhaps
the only C.I.A. official ever
to have testified on the rec-
ord, which he did during a
Congressional investigation
of the "Operation Phoenix"
program. He conceded that
there had been "occasional
abuses," such as political as-
sassinations and the killing
of civilian suspects, but main-
tained that the program was
,,on essential part of the war
effort."
Mr. Komer said that Mr.
Colby was a "deep believer
in the other war, trying to
help the people." Others de-
scribe him as an "absolutely
committed hard-line Vietnam
veteran." a man to whom the
ends of the agency justify
Declassified in Part - Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2012/05/11: CIA-RDP99-00418R000100060002-4