INTERVIEW WITH WILLIAM COLBY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP99-00418R000100110003-7
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 9
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 23, 2012
• Sequence Number: 3
• Publication Date: May 14, 1978
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

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STAT
60 Minutes STATION WTOP-TV
CBS Network
DATE May !4, 1978 7:00 PM CITY Washington, D.G.
Interview with WIlliam Colby
MIKE WALLACE: WIIIIam Colby's book, "Honorable Men: My
Life in the CIA," Is being officially published tomorrow morning.
It is a totally different view of the Central Intelligence Agency
from that expressed last week on 60 Minutes by resigned CIA officer
John Stockwell.
Richard Nixon made Colby Director of the CIA In 1973;
Gerald Ford fired him from the job In 1976. Colby headed the CIA
during Its most difficult years, years when It came under severe
fire for abuses; excesses; crimes, In fact, committed by CIA
officers In the name of this nation's security.
Bill Colby determined that If the CIA was to survive,
the agency had to come clean with the American people.
You were tired by President Ford, weren't you, because
you weren't tough enough, you weren't strong enough, you weren't
willing to, forgive me, lie enough?
WILLIAM COLEY: Well, I wasn't gotng to lie, I had made
that clear all along.
WALLACE: Right,
COLEY: But i think I was too responsive to Congress.
WALLACE: You were not a loyal member of the White House
team, as tar as they were,,.
COLEY: No. As he said later, he said that he wanted his
own team, and I wasn't on it,
OFFICES IN: NEW rORti ? LOO ANOELEB ? pNCAGO ? OETROiT ? AND OTFIER PRINCIPAL CITIES
~R~,C~O TV REPORTS, ~N~.
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WALLACE: And what was it that he wanted you to do that
you apparently were unwilling or unable to do?
COLEY: We!!, there were a number of his advisers who
felt that i was responding too willingly to Congress, i was giving
them information when i should have stonewalled them and refused
to give them information.
[Montage of clips from Colby's congressional testimony]
WALLACE: Indeed, there were myriad requests for Infor-
mation, for documents, for secret memoranda, demands coming from
reporters and congressional committees probing sensational stories
of CIA wrongdoing.
MAN: Have you ever given an expensive gift to an American
MAN: is there much covert activity against the USSR?
COLEY: The maJor work of the CIA is carried out In the
four main dtrectorates listed there. I will be discustng their
work with you in great detaI! In executive session, Including...
WALLACE: Henry Kissinger thought that you simply talked
too much to the Congress. I think he...
COLEY: Right.
WALLACE: ..,said, "Bill, when you go up there, you go
to confession,"
COLEY: Right.
WALLACE: Being a good Catholic.
According to Coiby, Nelson Rockefeller also told hIm he
was talking too much.
You write In your book, "I got the message quite unmIs-
takably, and I didn't like it. The Vice President of the United
States," Nelson Rockefeller, "was letting me know he didn't approve
of my approach to the CIA's troubles, that he would much prefer me
to take the tradItiona! stance of fending off investigators by
drawing the cloak of secrecy. around the agency in the name of
national security."
COLEY: I think that's correct. I think that was clearly
what he was telling me,
WALLACE: And you thought It was necessary to go Into ail
the detail about past misdeeds of the CIA because?
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COLEY: To get rld of them and to demonstrate that CIA
Itself had corrected those a year and a half before.
COLEY: I don't think so. i think It was the only way
to handle it, because, quite frankly -- and I think Kissinger came
around to that view also. The recent why It wasn't Halve Is because
there was no other way of handling it,
COLEY: Because the Congress was on a rampage of learning
what was going on in the government. And this was a result of
Vietnam and of Watergate, and the CIA was just the third to the row.
And they would have torn us apart it I'd tried to stop them.
WALLACE: in your book, Mr. Colby, you blame the Congress
and the press for performing irresponsibly: "Every admission I made
of past mistakes was Irresponslbty leaked by the Congress, ruthlessly
exploited by the press, and emblazoned In sensational and misleading
headlines."
COLEY: I think that's true; every new operation I re-
ported that year, a!! the political, a!! the paramllItary stuff.
And every such operation I reported that year leaked and became
the subject of major headlines.
WALLACE: You will agree that the press had a good deal
to look Into: assassinations of foreign leaders and CIA complicity
in that, dart guns; various activities which merited headlines,
after all.
COLEY: Yes, I understand that. I understand that. But
I don't think there was an attempt to put it In proportion. ! think
the talk of assassinations -- when you actually cook at the record,
and the Senate committee did for eight months and discovered.that,
really, no foreign leader had ever been assassinated by CIA. That's
one of their findings, It wasn't for lack of trying In Castro's
case, I might add.
And I don't agree with assassination. I'm against it.
WALLACE: And what about the assassination of Patrice
Lumumba in 1961, when he was Premier of the Republic of the Congo?
COLEY: No, sir. That's different.
WALLACE: Did not Sidney Gottlieb, who was in charge of
al! kinds of drug experiments, etcetera, of the CIA, did he not go
to Africa bearing poison?
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COLEY: There were preparations made for that kind of an
WALLACE: But a CIA man left Washington with the Intention
of assassInating Patrice Lumumba.
COLEY: I said there were preparations. That's exactly
what i said. I said...
WALLACE: And the man on the spot said he wouldn't do it.
COLEY: And that the activity stopped, that the CIA actt-
vtty stopped because of an objection of the CIA officer, That's
what i just say.
WALLACE: You say that the brutal murder of Richard Welch,
your station chief in Athens, in December of '75, the main cause of
that, you write, "was the sensattona! and hysterical way the CIA
Investigations," by the Congress and the Rockefeller Commisston,
"had been handled and trumpeted 'round the world."
So, in effect, you blame Richard Welch's death on the
American press, the Congress and the Rockefeller Commisston.
COLBY: I blame It on the sensattona! quality of the way
the Investigation was handled, Yes, I do. It did stir up those
terrorists In Greece to decide to kill the chief of station in
Greece.
WALLACE: Colby has no solid proof to back up that charge.
But although Welch was by no means the first CIA officer to have
been murdered, the Administration made his burial a media event.
And the resulting strong public reaction dulled the appetite of
many congressmen for further CIA probes. And the CIA emerged from
the congressional probes Intact.
COLEY: We did save the important secrets. We saved the
names of the people that worked with us around the world. We did
protect the sensitive technology, We protected what you journalists
like to protect, your sources. But we did not protect the actlvtttes
of the agency, generally; and I think that was the necessary trade-
off.
WALLACE: Twenty years ago, a group that grew out of the
Hoover Commission had this to say about covert operations that you
people would get Involved in: "Hitherto acceptable forms of human
conduct do not apply. If the U.S. is to survive, long-standing
American concepts of fair play must be reconsidered, We must learn
to subvert, sabotage, and destroy our enemies by more clever, more
sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used against
us. It may become necessary that the American people be acquainted
with, understand, anal support this fundamentally repugnant philo-
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sophy."
COLEY: That really was the thought process at that time.
It's almost incredible to consider those words today. But In the
period of the Cold War...
WALLACE: It's the charter, in effect, under which,.,
COLEY: Winston Churchill told the intelligence services
to set Europe ablaze. He wasn't subtle about it. And that was the
atmosphere to which CIA was formed,
WALLACE: And under those circumstances, CIA became a
cult, elitist,
COLEY: I think, under those circumstances, I believe
the number of things that CIA dId that were wrong are really few
and far between for an organization launched in that direction
with words like that.
WALLACE: You say that your strategy as head of the CIA,
Mr. Colby, was to be guided by the Constitution and to apply its
principles. That seems to say, "Unlike some of my predecessors."
COLEY: Well, I don't think anybody expected you to in
the previous years. i don't think the congressmen expected you
to. CIA wasn't out of control. The problem was it was too much
under the control of Presidents; and, secondly, that the Congress
didn't do its job of supervision, over the 20-odd years. Con-
gressmen are quoted on the floor of the Senate -- Senator Salton-
stall said that he didn't want to know any more than he absolutely
had to know about the activities of CIA, And Senator Stennis, as
late as 1971, said, "If you're going to have an Intelligence ser-
vice, you're going to shut your eyes and take what's coming."
COLEY: He was implying there's no way to run it in a
normal way.
And this was the ancient tradltIon of iota! secrecy about
Intelligence. That had to be resolved someday. It just happened
to happen while I was sitting there.
WALLACE: What limits do you fee! should be put upon the
CiA's Intervention in the interns! affairs of foreign countries?
COLEY: Weil, I think there are certain actIvltles that
CIA should not be allowed to conduct: assassination, torture,
things of that nature. No. Those are absolute limits that we should
not ever go over.
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On the other hand, the kind of polltica! support, para-
military activity; the kind of propaganda work, covert propaganda
work in some areas, that sort of thing...
COLEY: Chile. That should be decided by a procedure,
going through the Executive Branch. 1 think then It should be
subjected to the independent review of the other branch of the Con-
stitutton, the Congress, through the Select Committees.
WALLACE: Colby says he also has no compunction about the
CIA using such tactics abroad as bribery.
COLEY: Bribery, paying. Sure, i don't have any problem
WALLACE: You say you have no problem with bribery. Take
South Korea. U.S. military aid Is vital to that country; they feed
that way, By your ground rules, then, the Koreans are justified to
attempting to bribe members of the U.S. Congress to support pro-
Korean legislation,
COLEY: I think we have to distinguish here something --
legality from morality. Now, obviously, CIA. operations abroad are
illegal in the country in which they're taken.
WALLACE: So South Korea's Tongsun Park Is a hero In
South Korea, or could be considered a hero to South Korea and a
crlmIna! to the United States.
COLEY: Well, we've had -- Nathan Hale was hanged, you
know; and he's one of our national heroes.
WALLACE: So the Koreans, morally, are on good ground,
as far as their country is concerned, when they try to bribe a
member of the U.S. Congress.
COLEY: You're dealing with a fact of the International
state system. I think they made a mistake, but I wouldn't get
morally uptight about them.
WALLACE: The Impression that one gets from a good deal
of what you hear In Washington right now Is that the Intelltgence
community Is waltIng it out; that the American memory, In the Con-
gress and in the people, of misdeeds of the CIA Is growing dim;
and that the intelligence community has every intention of going
back and operating In much the same way, five years from now, three
years from now, that It dId over a period of l0 years, when,..
COLEY: Oh, that's just not so. I mean the fact Is that
you've got two publtc prestdentta) executive orders issued in the
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last couple of years, on one of which I helped write, which make
very clear that there are certain IimIts to CIA's activities, that
we will not engage In certain activities that may have occurred (n
the past but are not going to be repeated In the future,
WALLACE: A footnote on professional courtesy among spies
from William Colby.
You used to be a case officer, Mr. Colby. It a CIA case
officer has a flat fire in the dark of night on a lonely road, he
will not hesitate to accept a ride from a KGB officer, and likely
the two of them will detour to a local bar for a friendly drink.
COLEY: ! know of at least one occasion where a CIA
officer met a KGB officer under somewhat similar circumstances.
What's wrong with that?
WALLACE: Professional to professional.
COLEY: Yeah.
WALLACE: He knows who you are, you know who he is.
COLEY: Right. So?
WALLACE: You're foot soldiers from...
COLEY: You're both serving your own Hatton.
WALLACE: That interview was conducted a couple of weeks
ago. After it was over, William Colby gave us leave to use his
answers to some other questions we had put to him about CIA tnvolve-
ment In Angola, to use those answers in a broadcast we did last week
on 60 Minutes.
In that program, John Stockwell, a resigned CIA agent who
has written a book about the agency, alleged that Wtlllam Colby, as
head of the CIA, misled the Congress about the true story of CIA
Involvement in a secret war in Angola, Colby dented those allega-
tions.
But we could not tell Colby's then about Stockwei!'s role
In our broadcast because Stockwe!!'s book was being published
secretly, without prior clearance by CIA.
After viewing last Sunday's broadcast, Colby asked that
he be given a chance to respond.
COLEY: Frankly, i would not have gone on the same program
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as a book such as that. i wouldn't want to be a party to helping
to promulgate a book of that nature, written by an officer who
violated his pledge to submit to the agency.
1 believe that you can't run an army if every lieutenant
decides which order to follow. You can't run an intelligence ser-
vice If every Junior officer decides which secret to keep.
WALLACE: Would you have said anything different in
answer to any of the questions that I put to you? Because i did
tel! you that It was a program about Angola,..
COLEY: No, On the merits of the case, I stand by what
I've said, of course. I stand by the fact that ! deny that I mIs-
led Congress. And I described the basic thrust of our program in
Angola,
WALLACE: Yet Colby stopped well short of accusing Stock-
wel! of lying.
COLEY: I wouldn't say he made up any of this. I think
he may characterize things differently; and there are two ways of
characterizing the same event, as you wel! know, many times.
WALLACE: How Is the intelligence community hurt by revei-
atlons like those of Stockwell?
COLEY: We!!, I think the climate of sensation, hysteria
has convinced a lot of people around the world that we can't keep
secrets, There are foreign intelligence services who I know have
cut dawn on the kind of information they previously shared with us,
when they thought we could keep that information secret. And now
fear that they're going to read it In the papers the next day,
We have had people who have needed our help In certain
countries who have not dared to take our help, because, again,
they're afraid that it wil! come out as some kind of bribery, un-
quote, even though it would just be help to them to do what they
wanted to do.
WALLACE: Were you the head of the CIA still, Mr. Colby,
what would you do about John Stockwell?
COLEY: The first thing I'd do is try to get a {aw which
punished ex-employees for reveal -- or employees -- for revealing
real secrets. Now, 1 would have that a very llmIted law which only
applied to CIA employees who undertake the obligation to keep the
secret.
Secondly, I would require that the secret be screened by
an impartial Judge to make sure it's a real secret and not a cover-
up of some wrongdoing. _
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WALLACE: The rationale that Stockwe!! gives for having
broken his oath of secrecy to the C!A is that, he says, he was told
certain things when he joined CIA which proved not to be true: no
drugs, no assassinations, no immoral dirty tricks. And when he
learned what he learned later about ClA, he felt himselt released
from that oath.
That basically...
COLEY: Well, that's great rationalization, because I'm
sure if Mr. Stockwell joined CIA -- I don't know when he joined,
several years ago -- he read enough spy stories and novels and other
accounts of the invisible government and a!! the other books written
to the early '60s about CIA that he knew roughly what kind of an
organization he was joining.
WALLACE: In other words, you feel...
COLEY: And if he says that suddenly it doesn't turn out
to be the Boy Scouts, I think he was asking a little much. And he's
not relieved of that obligation.
WALLACE? As for the truthfulness of Stockwel!'s charges,
that question could best be resolved by the Senate Select Committee
on Intelligence. Stockwell testified before them secretly almost
a year ago. Their investigation into his allegations is now virtu-
ally completed, but the committee has yet to decide how much, if
any, of their findings should be made public.
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