Shadow warrior : William Egan Colby and the CIA
(Book)

Includes bibliographical references (pages 481-516) and index.

World War II commando, Cold War spy, and CIA director under presidents Nixon and Ford, William Egan Colby played a critical role in some of the most pivotal events of the twentieth century. A quintessential member of the greatest generation, Colby embodied the moral and strategic ambiguities of the postwar world, and first confronted many of the dilemmas about power and secrecy that America still grapples with today. However, this crusader for global democracy was also drawn to the darker side of American power himself, overseeing an endless succession of assassination attempts, coups, secret wars in Laos and Cambodia, and the Phoenix Program, in which 20,000 civilian supporters of the Vietcong were killed. Eventually he comes cleans about the CIA's illegal activities, making public a set of internal reports known as the "family jewels." Ostracized from the intelligence community, he dies under suspicions circumstance...a murky ending to a life lived in the shadows.