Talk:William Colby/Archive 1

Kay Griggs
I'm wondering how credible Kay Griggs is as a source that Colby was murdered? The website selling her video that someone linked to recently seems to show her making a large number of allegations about a multitude of disparate subjects. Anyone got any thoughts on her credibility? --Shimbo 20:21, 20 July 2007 (UTC)

'Gladio': could someone clarify this, please...?
"he helped set up the stay-behind networks of Gladio, a covert paramilitary organizations organized by the CIA in order to prepare an eventual Soviet invasion"

I mean, how does the CIA 'prepare' a Soviet invasion...?

Thanks.

Pf.
 * That should be prepare FOR a soviet invasion. Shimbo 08:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Deko Dekov
Reference to Dr. Dekov is still present in discussion of Colby's death- without any explanation of who he is or what relation he has to the situation. I had to comb through the talk page to find additional info. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 162.129.251.18 (talk • contribs) 18:55, June 26, 2007


 * I am once again removing this libelous & unsubstantiated allegation re Louis Freeh, as I did back in July. This is an egregious violation of WP:BLP, people. I cannot believe it was permitted to stay after being re-added to the article. Cgingold 21:40, 28 October 2007 (UTC)

"The CIA Owns.." quote
Are there any non-conspiracy sources for this quote? As far as I can tell, the book by Dave McGowan is the only source for this claim, which is rather troubling as the book wasn't released until 4 years after Colbys death.

And given Dave McGowan's special interest in various conspiracy theories (notable on his website: http://davesweb.cnchost.com), I don't think he'd qualify as a reliable source in this matter. —Preceding unsigned comment added by KDLarsen (talk • contribs) 06:24, 7 April 2010 (UTC)
 * Pending better sourcing, I've taken out the quote. Ray  Talk 17:08, 7 April 2010 (UTC)

Brief note on tangential COI
At the moment I happen to be working with the producers of a current documentary feature film about William Colby, The Man Nobody Knew. As part of this project, I created the article about this film (see also disclosure on that Talk page). Since then I've been shoring up some uncited information and adding details verified in the film on a few additional articles, chiefly this one. I'm reasonably sure that what I'm adding is accurately represented and encyclopedic, and in the spirit of transparency I'm likewise adding this note about the fact. Cheers, WWB Too (talk) 22:59, 4 October 2011 (UTC)

Theories about death
I removed the statement "there is no proof to this claim and no reason to doubt the offical reports." this may very well be true but the statement is POV unless it has a source. Shimbo 10:54, 8 February 2006 (UTC)

I removed the statement "There is no doubt he had enemies. Can we really credit that his worst was Clinton?" This seems more appropriate to the talk page to provoke discussion about the theory presented. The theory may well not be true but it it is correctly attributed, not stated as fact. If others wish to dispute it then they need to cite their sources. Shimbo 20:32, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

I've reverted removal of theories about his death. Again whether the theories are correct or not is irrelevant, they are correctly attributed. Shimbo 08:35, 21 June 2006 (UTC)

Someone has just added something to the article about Colby being killed by the FBI. Well, I wouldn't rule it out, you never know about these things, but we can't state that as plain fact. If it's a notable theory (and I've never heard it before), then we need to cite it and explain it in a NPOV manner. Everyking 07:57, 3 August 2005 (UTC)
 * An anon user has been adding nonsensical conspiracy theories to a series of articles, I have reverted them. - SimonP 14:01, August 3, 2005 (UTC)
 * The frequent edits coming from 84.54.166.36 have to stop. This person recklessly edits the Colby page and the entries of related figures, repeatedly inserting unsourced, conspiracy-tinged assertions with no discussion and after multiple reverts from other editors. How do we go about banning or at least temporarily blocking this user from this sort of behavior?


 * Furthermore, in regard to "Dr. Deko Dekov" (who 84.54.166.36 keeps referencing in his edits), I have to ask why the theories of some Bulgarian mathematician are pertinent to a discussion of Colby's mysterious death if they cannot be sourced! Without sources, without corroboration, it's a bit like citing "my Uncle Ed who used to be a secret agent" as definitive proof that the CIA assassinated JFK. Wikipedia has standards. Please read them, anonymous editor: here, here, and here. Inoculatedcities 21:08, 8 November 2006 (UTC)

I have made an attempt to stabilise this by creating a separate theories about death section and adding a disputed section tag to it. The 'suspicious circumstances' are from 'Lost Crusader', but I don't know how to add an inline reference. IMO people can judge for themselves how credible the 'Kay Griggs' and 'Dr. Dekov' allegations are and save us all a lot of trouble. Please let me know if you disagree with this course of action. --Shimbo 22:29, 4 August 2007 (UTC)

I've just reverted the removal of the theories about the death of William Colby. We may or may not agree that he was murdered, and I personally don't think he was, but those accusations are correctly attributed and shouldn't be removed without explanation and discussion. --Shimbo (talk) 10:18, 28 November 2007 (UTC)

Wikipedia has policies and guidelines requiring that statements of fact be attributed to reliable sources, that defamation of living persons shall not occur, that original research be avoided, and that articles should not be turned into a coatrack for alternative agendas. Please adhere to these policies in the future, and happy editing! Ray Talk 22:56, 19 March 2009 (UTC)

Yes I agree, with these basic principles of wiki, most honest and fair wiki editors hold these priciples very dear. An Encyclopedia is the record of facts, and only agenda ought be the facts. However, I interested in how the deletion of a whole entire subsection that carries published facts and claims from Doctors and a Congressmen is not a coatrack for alternative agendas in itself. Please be explicit. It feels odd that these offensive facts, according to you, have been on wiki since at least 2005. And, you can clearly see have been reviewed and re-edited by many peers, and yet you alone seem to be the authority? It seem to negate the principle of consensus. Is the solution not to simply publish all facts and reliable claims, and reliable counter-claims?Eyezee (talk)
 * First of all, the "details of death" section is unsourced, an exemplar of poor style, and a clear attempt at synthesis of facts. Any of those grounds are sufficient for removal.
 * The subsequent "theories about death" contains two segments. The second is completely unsourced, does not present any connecting logic, and lacks a reliable claimant. The first is a first person account, and fails WP:RS on that basis, as well as several others -- sensationalistic claims require extraordinary standards of proof.
 * The final "claimant" section is a mishmash of determinedly unreliable sources. Dekov's section is entirely self-published and deletable on that basis (I won't examine the other reasons why he should not be treated as WP:RS as that's hardly necessary), to say nothing of a blatant slander of Louis Freeh and thus a violation of WP:BLP. Similarly the following next two are self-published. We have already dealt with DeCamp's claims.
 * Finally, the nature of WP:COATRACK is such that a section is used to aggregate information in search of alternative agendas. I count a claim of mysterious political corruption, a smear against a former FBI director, a claim concerning extraterrestrial intelligence, and a claim of obstruction of justice, none of which are reliably sourced, all of which arise without physical proof or even a claim of physical proof, in the matter of a death the coroner regarded as open and shut. Ray  Talk 18:31, 20 March 2009 (UTC)

The allegations that Colby was murdered is a fact. Wikipedia is filled with such facts. Removing references to anything alleged is not Wiki policy nor should it be. I have put back the previous reference. No one is stating that Colby was murdered, which may or may not be true, only that there has been more than enough evidence to support the allegations. Any attempt to "clean" Wikipedia of things like this is a ridiculous. The excuse that here it is being non-encyclopedic is just as invalid, especially when other articles have made the same points about Colby's death. Judgements in a matter like this should be left to the readers and not made by editors. For readers who are interested the following was also removed:

The cause of Colby's death remains controversial. Several people have gone public with claims that he was murdered by agents of the U.S. government. 172.162.7.205 (talk) 16:09, 8 January 2010 (UTC)

CIA Director
The paragraph beginning "Colby's tenure as DCI" has major problems. I would rewrite it but I don't know much about Colby myself -- as a casual reader I just noticed the problems, which I hope someone else who is better informed (and more experienced with Wiki) might address. I can see four problems:

1. "was characterized chiefly by"

This is poor English usage. Perhaps what the writer intended was something more like "was dominated by" or "was overshadowed by"?

2. "both advisable and right"

The intended distinction between the two is less than clear to an average reader.

3. "Colby believed that the actual scope of such misdeeds was not actually that great, and that Congress and the American people would recognize that fact, do what was necessary to ensure such things did not happen again, and move on."

If you read the paragraph as a whole, it implicitly assumes that anyone who thought the scope of the misdeeds WAS great wouldn't be moved to do anything about it other than trying to keep Congress and the public from finding anything out about it. At least, no alternative to this rather unpopular POV is presented. Which leads to the last, and biggest, problem...

4. "Supporters of Colby's method argue that he saved the Agency from destruction by showing that it was accountable and an instrument of the Constitution rather than a 'rogue elephant.' Detractors say Colby gave away too much or did not understand that he was only feeding the fire of politicized congressional witch hunts."

This is blatant POV masquerading as balance. Both of the alternative positions given presume that the important thing was preserving the CIA itself from harm. The hardly unheard-of POV that many of the CIA's actions quite simply needed to be stopped is completely left out of account. I would compare the above two sentence with the following rather wacky invented example of false balance:

"Some argue that Jim Jones did yeoman's service in reducing the excessive human population, while others contend that he actually harmed the cause of violent population reduction through the adverse publicity his actions engendered."

Obviously, this is not "balanced" in the eyes of any sane human being -- i.e., anyone who opposes "violent population reduction." But its logic is almost exactly analogous to what's in the article. It's kind of weird that nobody picked up on this before.

Beyond the two presented alternative points of view, there are at least two more that would have to be included to achieve genuine balance concerning Colby's tenure:

a. The loosely "liberal" position that argues that the congressional investigations, far from witch hunts, were necessary corrections to an agency that HAD become a "rogue elephant," or at least seriously exceeded its bounds, and needed to be restored to its proper functions. (I believe this was, FWIW, the view of the majority of Americans at the time of the investigations -- perhaps someone could dig out old opinion polls to prove me right or wrong on this.) This position would imply that Colby unwittingly did a lot of good for not entirely the right reasons.

b. The more radical position (actually rather commonplace and not radical at all in many parts of the world outside the U.S.) that argues that the CIA has been a destructive institution from the get-go, and that people like Colby are simply "reformist" apologists for it.

Lubejob 23:15, 31 May 2006 (UTC)

Okay...since no one else would do the job, I broke down and did it myself.

Lubejob 07:19, 8 September 2006 (UTC)

"The Central Intelligence Agency owns everyone of any significance in the major media"
This needs a credible source. The best I could find is http://mtracy9.tripod.com/cia_media.htm claiming it stems from Dave McGowan's Book "derailing democracy". He wrote 3 books, all about how the shadow elite is responsible for everything wicked in the world. That is not a credible source. -Ados 23:59, 27 September 2006 (UTC)

Don't say anything negative about the CIA or they'll come to your house at night, take you out of bed, and drag you to g-bay where they'll torture you until you sign fake confessions. —Preceding unsigned comment added by 96.250.228.94 (talk) 05:53, 24 August 2008 (UTC)