The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby (2011)

Synopsis

The secret life of legendary CIA spymaster William Colby, as told by his son Carl. From his start as an OSS agent parachuting into Nazi-occupied Europe, Colby rose through the ranks of “The Company” as a clandestine officer, overseeing covert operations around the globe. He ran “stay-behind” networks in the Soviet-occupied Baltic States, helped sway elections against the Communists in 1950’s Italy, witnessed the build up and tragic consequences of the assassination of President Diem in 1963, and was the architect of the controversial Phoenix Program during the Vietnam War. But after decades of obediently taking on the White House’s toughest and dirtiest assignments and rising to become Director of CIA, Colby—who always considered himself to be a patriot—defied the President and revealed to Congress the “Family Jewels,” the CIA’s darkest secrets about assassination plots against foreign leaders, mind-control experiments, surveillance against American citizens, and other wrong-doing. A mix of archival footage, never-before-seen photos and interviews with the “who’s who’ of American intelligence, this film is also the personal journey of a son trying to understand a father whose spy identity masked his inner life from his own family.

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