William Colby, a man who lived in the shadows, moved there during World War II when he was a member of the OSS (Office of Strategic Services) and spent time parachuting behind enemy lines in Europe. He later headed parts of the CIA during the Cold War and was involved in some of its less-clean operations in Chile and Vietnam. He died in 1996 when he fell — or jumped or was pushed — out of his canoe one night and drowned in the Wicomico River near his home in Rock Point, Md.
His son, Carl, has put together a biographical film of his father, “The Man Nobody Knew,” and it will screen Nov. 19 at Webster University as part of the St. Louis International Film Festival. It’s a powerful tale of a man who spent his life doing more-or-less legal things, and Colby suggests that his father was thrown to Washington wolves who either had him murdered or harassed hm to the point that he committed suicide.
Colby interviews a number of people who worked with or knew his father, and all have high praise for a man who did a necessarily dirty job for many years, continually buoyed by his knowledge that his World War II chores were positive ones, no matter which tyrants he had to appease in his later years. Journalist Seymour Hersh and Brent Scowcroft, former National Security adviser, illuminate the man well, and Donald Rumsfeld, at his smarmy best, displays his worst attributes.
Colby was a spy for many years, living all over the world in a variety of State Department “positions,” all invented to serve as a cover. He was especially influential in dealings with the government of South Vietnam. But he ran afoul of the Administration of Richard Nixon, was hounded in a series of Congressional hearings and was one of the victims in the “Saturday Night Massacre” when Elliot Richardson and a number of other high-ranking officials were fired when they refused to go along with another cover-up.
Colby’s first wife, Barbara, also talks about her husband and about the difficulties of living both a public and a secret life.
Very strong, very interesting film about a dark period of American history.
The Man Nobody Knew plays at 3 p.m. Nov. 19 in the Winifred Moore Auditorium on the campus of Webster University
— Joe