DCI William Colby and the Constitution: Moral Leadership in the “Year of Intelligence”

Abstract

This article explores the leadership ethics of Director of Central Intelligence William Colby within the context of the release of the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) “family jewels,” the internal record that listed how the CIA had been involved in a number of illegal activities, including domestic spying. It explores the moral dimension of bureaucratic leadership and illustrates its presence in Colby’s thinking and actions through three indicators: his understanding of the regime values of American democracy; his adherence to his oath of office as a high-ranking civil servant, which he viewed as a positive duty; and his recognition that, in a contest between the executive and legislative branches, counterintuitively, Congress is the party on which the future existence of the CIA rests. Beyond an assessment of Colby’s personal characteristics, this article explores issues of moral leadership in the realm of intelligence and contributes to an understanding of the role of accountability in a fraught political landscape.

DECLARATION OF INTEREST

The authors report there are no competing interests to declare.

Notes

1 Donald Rumsfeld, When the Center Held (New York: Free Press, 2018), p. 123.

2 John O. Marsh, interview by Richard Norton Smith, 7 October 2008, Gerald R. Ford Oral History Project, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, https://geraldrfordfoundation.org/centennial/oralhistory/jack-marsh/

3 Randall B. Woods, Shadow Warrior: William Egan Colby and the CIA (New York: Basic Books, 2013), pp. 454-455.

4 Ibid., p. 456; J. Y. Smith, “Gen. Vernon A. Walters,” Washington Post, 14 February 2002.

5 William Colby and Peter Forbath, Honorable Men (New York: Simon and Schuster, 1978), pp. 446–447.

6 Gerald R. Ford to Colby, letter dated 11 November 1975, CIA Freedom of Information Act Electronic Reading Room (hereafter CIA FOIA), document CIA-RDP79M00467A000200120038-6; John Prados, Lost Crusader: The Secret Wars of CIA Director William Colby (New York: Oxford University Press, 2003), pp. 325–326.

7 William Colby, “After Investigating U.S. Intelligence,” New York Times, 26 February 1976. For a discussion of the CIA and its culture of secrecy, see James X. Dempsey, “The CIA and Secrecy,” in A Culture of Secrecy: The Government. Versus The People's Right To Know, edited by Athan G. Theoharis (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1998), pp. 37–59.

8 Timothy S. Hardy, “Intelligence Reform in the Mid-1970s,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 20, No. 2 (1976), pp. 5–7; Harold P. Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence: 1973–1976 (Washington, DC: History Staff, Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 1993), pp. xii, 105–107, 122, 131.

9 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 394; Hardy, “Intelligence Reform,” p. 4.

10 John A. Rohr, “Bureaucratic Morality in the United States,” International Political Science Review, Vol. 9, No. 3 (1988), p. 178.

11 Seymour M. Hersh, “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years,” New York Times, 22 December 1974.

12 Ibid.

13 Henry Kissinger, Years of Renewal (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1999), p. 312.

14 Colby to Gerald Ford, cover note of Colby Report, 24 December 1974, Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Library (GRFPL hereafter), Ann Arbor, Michigan; Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 389–390.

15 Hersh, “Huge C.I.A. Operation Reported in U.S. against Antiwar Forces, Other Dissidents in Nixon Years.”

16 Colby to Gerald Ford, cover note of Colby Report, 24 December 1974, Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files, GRFPL; “Excerpts From the Statement by Colby,” New York Times, 21 February 1975; Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 389–390.

17 Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 311.

18 Statement by Ron Nessen, Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files, GRFPL.

19 Rumsfeld to Kissinger, memorandum of telephone conversation, 23 December 1974, Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files, GRFPL; Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 389, 392–393.

20 Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 312.

21 Colby to Gerald Ford, letter, 24 December 1974, Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files, GRFPL.

22 Kissinger to Gerald Ford, cover memorandum, 25 December 1974 and Notes, Cheney meeting with Ford, 27 December 1974, both in Box 5, folder “Intelligence—Colby Report,” Richard Cheney files,” GRFPL; Kenneth Kitts, “Commission Politics and National Security: Gerald Ford’s Response to the CIA Controversy of 1975,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 4 (1996), p. 1083; Gerald R. Ford, A Time to Heal: The Autobiography of Gerald R. Ford (New York: Harper & Row, 1979), p. 230; Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 397–399.

23 Seymour Hersh, “Colby Said to Confirm C.I.A. Role in U.S.,” New York Times, 1 January 1975.

24 Memorandum of Conversation, subject: Allegation of CIA Domestic Activities, 3 January 1975 (11:10 a.m.–12:18 p.m.), GRFPL.

25 Memorandum of Conversation, subject: Allegation of CIA Domestic Activities, 3 January 1975 (5:30 p.m.), GRFPL.

26 Memorandum of Conversation, subject: Allegation of CIA Domestic Activities, 4 January 1975 (5:25–7:05 p.m.), GRFPL.

27 Memorandum of Conversation, subject: Allegation of CIA Domestic Activities, 4 January 1975 (5:25–7:05 p.m.), GRFPL. See also Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 411; James A. Wilderotter, Memorandum for the File, subject: CIA matters, 3 January 1975, The CIA’s Family Jewels, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 222, 26 June 2007, National Security Archive (hereafter NSA), The George Washington University, Washington, DC, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB222/family_jewels_wilderotter.pdf

28 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 396–396. See Woods, Shadow Warrior, pp. 410–411, for a contrasting view on this meeting.

29 Gerald R. Ford, Executive Order 11828, Establishing a Commission on CIA Activities Within the United States, 4 January 1975, Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/268730

30 Quoted in Kitts, “Commission Politics and National Security,” p. 1084. See also Kissinger, Years of Renewal, pp. 316, 320.

31 Quoted in Kathryn Olmsted, “Reclaiming Executive Power: The Ford Administration’s Response to the Intelligence Investigations,” Presidential Studies Quarterly, Vol. 26, No. 3 (1996), p. 726.

32 Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, p. 120.

33 Peter Wallison, interview by Richard Norton Smith, 18 November 2009, Gerald R. Ford Oral History Project, Gerald R. Ford Presidential Foundation, https://geraldrfordfoundation.org/centennial/oralhistory/peter-wallison/

34 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 400.

35 Ibid., pp. 399, 400.

36 Ibid., p. 401.

37 “Text of Report by Colby in Response to Charges of Domestic Spying by C.I.A.,” New York Times, 16 January 1975.

38 Ibid.

39 Frederick M. Kaiser, Legislative History of the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (Washington, DC: Congressional Research Service, 1978), CRS-12.

40 Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 415; Kaiser, Legislative History, CRS-12-CRS-13.

41 James M. Naughton, “C.I.A. Chief Says Charges Imperil Intelligence Work,” New York Times, 21 February 1975; William E. Colby, “Modern Intelligence: Myth and Reality,” New York Times, 3 August 1975; Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, p. 10.

42 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 410.

43 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 400–410. See also John M. Crewdson, “C.I.A. Opened Bella Abzug’s Mail, Kept 20‐Year File,” New York Times, 6 March 1975; “U.S. Intelligence Agencies Probed in 1975," in CQ Almanac 1975, 31st ed. (Washington, DC: Congressional Quarterly, 1976), pp. 387–413, http://library.cqpress.com/cqalmanac/cqal75-1214373; L. Britt Snider, The Agency and the Hill: CIA’s Relationship with Congress, 1946–2004 (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2008), pp. 34–35; Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, p. 163.

44 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 404.

45 Ibid., p. 40.

46 Memorandum for Principals of Ad Hoc Coordinating Group on Congressional Review, subject: Fifth Meeting (27 February 1975) of the Ad Hoc Group on Congressional Review of the Intelligence Community, 3 March 1975, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP83B00823R000700040026-9.

47 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 404; Bart Barnes, “Mitchell Rogovin Dies at 65,” Washington Post, 8 February 1995; John Prados, “CIA History of DCI William Colby,” National Security Archive, National Security Archive Electronic Briefing Book No. 362, 28 October 2011, NSA, https://nsarchive2.gwu.edu/NSAEBB/NSAEBB362/index.htm#5; Woods, Shadow Warrior, pp. 371–372; “Oral History: Reflections of DCI Colby and Helms on the CIA’s ‘Time of Troubles,’” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 51, No. 3 (2007), pp. 43–44; Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, pp. 129, 140.

48 Colby to Scowcroft, letter, 24 February 1975, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP91-00966R000400220017-4; Scowcroft quoted in Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 419.

49 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 406.

50 Quoted in Prados, Lost Crusader, p. 311.

51 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 406, 407.

52 Ibid., p. 407; Barnes, “Mitchell Rogovin Dies at 65”; Marsh, interview.

53 “Colby Won’t Resign and Is Sure C.I.A. ‘Will Come Through,’” New York Times, 2 March 1975.

54 Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 417.

55 “Colby Oral Fill-In to Ford on Assassination Reported,” Washington Star, 5 March 1975.

56 George L. Cary, Memorandum for the Record, subject: Meeting with Jack March and Philip Buchen, of the White House Staff, 7 March 1975, OLC-75-0659, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP77M00144R000500110068-4.

57 Cary, Memorandum for the Record, subject: Meeting with Jack March and Philip Buchen.

58 Central Intelligence Agency, Employee Bulletin No. 442, subject: Senate Select Committee to Review U.S. Intelligence Activities, 12 March 1975, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP77M00144R000500110008-0; Colby to Church, letter, 11 March 1975, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP77M00144R000500110008-0.

59 Martin Arnold, “Colby Tells Publishers that C.I.A. Is Jeopardized by Sensational Headlines,” New York Times, 8 April 1975.

60 Nicholas M. Horrock, “Colby Reviews C.I.A. Activities in Testimony at Senate Inquiry,” New York Times, 16 May 1975; John M. Crewdson, “Senator Reports C.I.A. Death Plots,” New York Times, 5 June 1975.

61 Harold P. Ford, “William Colby: Retrospect,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 40, No. 5 (1997), p. 1.

62 “Rockefeller and Kissinger Said to Seek Colby’s Ouster,” New York Times, 21 June 1975.

63 Prados, Lost Crusader, p. 328.

64 Kaiser, Legislative History, CRS-13, n23; Gerald K. Haines, “The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA,” Studies in Intelligence, Vol. 42, No. 5 (1998–1999), p. 81.

65 Snider, The Agency and the Hill, p. 38; Frank J. Smist, Jr., Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, 1947–1989 (Knoxville: University of Tennessee Press, 1990), pp. 160–161, 167, 180; Prados, Lost Crusader, pp. 319, 321–322.

66 “Text of Colby Statement,” New York Times, 30 September 1975.

67 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 435.

68 Ibid., p. 435.

69 Ibid., pp. 436–439; Woods, Shadow Warrior, pp. 445, 448–449; Haines, “The Pike Committee Investigations and the CIA,” pp. 81, 87, 89; Nicholas M. Horrock, “Nessen and Colby Say Agreements Have Been Violated,” New York Times, 27 January 1976; Snider, The Agency and the Hill, p. 39; Smist, Jr., Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, p. 325.

70 Colby, Honorable Men, p. 444.

71 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 443–444; John Osborn, White House Watch: The Ford Years (Washington, DC: New Republic Book Co., 1977), pp. 226–227; Ford, A Time to Heal, p. 326.

72 Memorandum of Conversation, 3 November 1975, 9:20–10:13 a.m., Foreign Relations of the United States, 1969–1976, Vol. 35, National Security Policy, 1973–1976, Document No. 61, https://history.state.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1969-76v35/d61

73 Gerald R. Ford, “The President’s News Conference,” online by Gerhard Peters and John T. Woolley, The American Presidency Project, https://www.presidency.ucsb.edu/node/256911

74 Anthony Lewis, “Farwell, My Lovely,” New York Times, 6 November 1975.

75 Norman Kempster, “CIA Professionals Hail Church Attack on Bush,” Washington Star, 12 November 1975.

76 Peter Lisagor, “CIA Purge Stirs Talk of ‘Plots’ by Ford,” Chicago Daily News, 5 November 1975.

77 Smist, Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, p. 28.

78 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 453–472; William E. Colby, “After Investigating U.S. Intelligence,” New York Times, 26 February 1976; William E. Colby, “Intelligence Secrecy and Security in a Free Society,” International Security, Vol. 1, No. 2 (1976), pp. 3–14.

79 William E. Colby, “Reorganizing the CIA: Who and How,” Foreign Policy, No. 23 (Summer 1976), p. 53.

80 Michael Spicer and Larry Terry, “Legitimacy, History, and Logic: Public Administration and the Constitution,” Public Administration Review. Vol. 53, No. 3 (1993), p. 239.

81 Jade McClain, “Dr. Stephanie Newbold Discusses Her New Book on ‘The Constitutional School,’” Rutgers University Newark News, 20 December 2016, https://www.newark.rutgers.edu/news/dr-stephanie-newbold-discusses-her-new-book-constitutional-school.

82 Alexander Hamilton, The Federalist Papers: No. 27, The Avalon Project, Yale Law School, Lillian Goldman Law Library, https://avalon.law.yale.edu/18th_century/fed27.asp

83 Larry Terry, Leadership of Public Bureaucracies: The Administrator as Conservator (Armonk, NY: M. E. Sharpe, 2010), p. 28.

84 Gary J. Greenberg, “Revolt at Justice,” in Ethics and Politics: Cases and Comments (3rd ed.), edited by Amy Gutman and Dennis Thompson (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1997), p. 146.

85 John A. Rohr, To Run a Constitution: The Legitimacy of the Administrative State (Lawrence: University Press of Kansas, 1986), p. 194.

86 John A. Rohr, “Ethical Issues in French Public Administration: A Comparative Study,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 51, No. 4 (1991), pp. 290, 293.

87 Stephanie P. Newbold, “Toward a Constitutional School for American Public Administration,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (2010), pp. 540, 542.

88 Rohr, “Bureaucratic Morality,” pp. 171, 173.

89 Ibid., p. 178.

90 Harry Howe Ransom, “The Intelligence Function and the Constitution,” Armed Forces and Society, Vol. 14, No. 1 (1987), p. 43.

91 Ransom, “The Intelligence Function and the Constitution,” pp. 43–46, 48–49.

92 Rohr, “Bureaucratic Morality,” pp. 167, 170, 171.

93 John A. Rohr, Ethics for Bureaucrats (New York: Marcel Dekker, 1978), p. 59.

94 Chad B. Newswander, “Moral Leadership and Administrative Statesmanship: Safeguards of Democracy in a Constitutional Republic,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 72, No. 5 (2012): pp. 867, 868.

95 David Rosenbloom, Public Administration: Understanding Management, Politics, and Law in the Public Sector, 2nd ed. (New York: Random House, 1989), pp. 443–457; Newbold, “Toward a Constitutional School,” pp. 542, 543. See also Patrick Overeem, “The Concept of Regime Values: Are Revitalization and Regime Change Possible?,” American Review of Public Administration, Vol. 45, No. 1 (2015), pp. 48, 50.

96 Hindy Lauer Schachter, Douglas F. Morgan, Kent A. Kirwan, John A. Rohr, David H. Rosenbloom, and David Lewis Schaefer, “Recovering, Restoring, and Renewing the Foundations of American Public Administration: The Contributions of Herbert J. Strong,” Public Administration Review, Vol. 70, No. 4 (2010), p. 626.

97 Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 362.

98 Ibid., p. 362; Ford, “William Colby,” p. 2.

99 Peter F. Drucker, Managing in Turbulent Times (New York: Harper & Row, 1980), p. 1.

100 Olmsted, “Reclaiming Executive Power,” pp. 725, 726; Kissinger, Years of Renewal, pp. 326–327; Prados, Lost Crusader, p. 307. See also, “Oral History,” pp. 43–45.

101 Prados, Lost Crusader, p. 304.

102 Loch K. Johnson, “A Conversation with Former DCI William E. Colby: Spymaster during the ‘Year of Intelligence Wars,’” Intelligence and National Security, Vol. 22, No. 2 (2007), pp. 251, 257.

103 F. A. O. Schwarz, Jr., “The Spy Who Would Speak,” New York Times Magazine, 29 December 1996, p. 40.

104 Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central Intelligence, p. xi; William Colby, “American Intelligence Today and Tomorrow,” An Address by the Honorable W. E. Colby, Director of Central Intelligence, 6 September 1973, CIA FOIA, document CIA-RDP84-00780R005500190001-3; David Binder, “C.I.A., Bruised by Vietnam and Watergate, Is Undergoing Quiet Changes Under Colby,” New York Times, 7 June 1974; Prados, Lost Crusader, pp. 265–279.

105 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 357–358.

106 Kent Harrington, “Opinion: Trump Is Prepared to Go to War against U.S. Intelligence Agencies,” 26 September 2019, Project Syndicate, https://www.marketwatch.com/story/trump-is-prepared-to-go-to-war-against-us-intelligence-agencies-2019-09-24

107 Jacob Heilbrunn, “True Believer,” The New Republic, 3 June 1996, pp. 10–11.

108 “Colby Statement to Panel, In Part,” New York Times, 28 December 1977.

109 Kissinger, Years of Renewal, p. 328.

110 Colby, Honorable Men, pp. 14–15.

111 Woods, Shadow Warrior, p. 409.

112 Ibid., p. 440.

113 Harold P. Ford, William E. Colby as Director of Central IntelligenceWilliam E. Colby as Director, p. 77.

114 U.S. Congress, House of Representatives, Hearings before the Select Committee on Intelligence, 94th Cong., 2nd sess., Part 5, US Intelligence Agencies and Activities: Risks and Control of Foreign Intelligence, 1925.

115 Smist, Congress Oversees the United States Intelligence Community, p. 61.

116 Douglas F. Garthoff, “William Colby: Positive Efforts and Turmoil,” in Directors of Central Intelligence as Leaders of the US Intelligence Community 1946–2005, by Douglas F. Garthoff (Washington, DC: Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central Intelligence Agency, 2005), pp. 87, 88.

117 Martin Edwin Anderson, “How Late DCI William Colby Saved the CIA, and What That Can Teach Us Today,” Just Security, 16 January 2020, https://www.justsecurity.org/68065/how-late-dci-william-colby-saved-the-cia-and-what-that-can-teach-us-today/; Martin Edwin Anderson, biographical summary, Just Security, https://www.justsecurity.org/author/andersenmartine/

118 Daniel Schorr, “William Colby (Obituary),” New Leader, Vol. 79 (6–20 May 1996), p. 5.

Additional information

Notes on contributors

Frank Leith Jones

Frank Leith Jones is a Distinguished Fellow of the U.S. Army War College. He retired from the Office of the Secretary of Defense. He received his Ph.D. from the School of Government and International Relations, Griffith University, Australia. He is the author of Blowtorch: Robert Komer, Vietnam, and American Cold War Strategy and Sam Nunn: Statesman of the Nuclear Age.

Genevieve Lester

Genevieve Lester is the De Serio Chair of Strategic Intelligence at the U.S. Army War College. She is also an Associate Fellow for Strategic Intelligence at the International Institute for Strategic Studies. She holds a Ph.D. from the University of California, Berkeley. The author can be contacted at [email protected].