I recently saw the film The Man Nobody Knew. It’s a film about former Director of Central Intelligence, William Colby, made by his son Carl Colby.
Colby was nominated as DCI by Nixon immediately before Watergate hit the fan. The film, and the Q&A with the director afterwards point out that there were several attempts by Nixon to pin Watergate on the CIA, who successfully avoided it. Colby was famous for disclosing, first to NYT reporter Seymour Hersh and then later the Congress, a raft of illegal CIA activity. This activity, known as the “family jewels” included the mind control experiments, spying on American citizens, and assassinations.
The principal question attempted by the film is, why did Colby choose to make these damaging disclosures? Unfortunately, it doesn’t present a clear answer, perhaps because, Colby, being a professional secret keeper and from a generation where men didn’t discuss their feelings, never discussed it. The film makes light of Colby’s Catholic upbringing as a possible reason that he couldn’t lie, as well as grief over his young daughter’s death.
Another reason presented, was that Colby felt, by disclosing the Family Jewels, and cooperating with the Congress, was the only way to the save the CIA, and the nation’s intelligence program, which were in very real danger of abolition by the post-Watergate Congress. I find this a more probable explanation.
Overall, the film, and Colby’s career itself, reminds me of what a tortured period the Vietnam and Nixon eras were. There were so many careers, families and individual souls ruined.
