5/10
The only person who would have ever thought about making a
film documentary of former CIA Director William Colby must be related to
him. In fact, his son Carl Colby did
just that. William Colby was a driven
individual who lived during interesting times and ended up in a fascinating
job; however, this does not increase his suitability to carry an entire
documentary.
Intercutting very intriguing historical film vignettes,
nostalgic and archived pictures, and one-on-one interviews with some very
famous and influential public servants from the last few decades, The
Man Nobody Knew: In Search of my Father CIA Spymaster William Colby
charts the course of Colby’s life from the attack on Pearl Harbor until his
death five decades later. The main
subjects include Colby’s involvement in the earliest form of the Office of
Strategic Services, his time in Italy in the 1950s, his back and forth
involvement in Vietnam from America’s earliest involvement to its last gasp,
and his controversial stint as CIA Director.
The historical film footage dug up and effectively edited is
the best part of this documentary. A lot
of this footage is from familiar places we have all seen in documentaries
before, but this footage seems new and freshly unearthed. There are scenes from the 1941 Pearl Harbor
attack with lifeless casualties floating in the water, there are scenes of
brutal interrogation methods from the Vietnamese jungle, and most compelling,
there are scenes where we listen to President Kennedy and his brother discuss
overthrowing the South Vietnamese President.
Colby was the CIA station chief in Vietnam from 1959-1962 and knew the
players very well there. The arrival of
new Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge, his destructive heavy-handedness, and the
eventual coup and assassination of President Diem and his brother are shocking
to see even in 2011.
Vietnam and its Phoenix Program would go on to define and
represent Colby for the rest of his life.
President Nixon appointed him CIA Director in 1973 after he fired
Richard Helms for not helping enough to cover up Watergate. However, Colby was not a party man. He would not roll over and play fetch much to
the consternation of President Ford.
Ford appreciated loyalty more than anything else which is why Colby was
eventually let go. There is a very
telling monologue from Bob Woodward who paraphrases that President Ford told
him he valued loyalty as number one which is why Cheney, Rumsfeld, and George
Bush Sr. were his go to guys. There are
eerie shadows of the future in 1975 footage of Bush Sr. assuming the job of CIA
Director and Cheney and Rumsfeld in the background in certain scenes.
It is not Colby’s fault that most of this documentary is
just nice to know, gee-whiz information.
Perhaps if Carl Colby chose to only focus on the Vietnam era issues this
film would pack more of a punch. The up
close interviews with people such as Zbigniew Brzezinski, Brent Scowcroft,
Rumsfeld, and Woodward are very telling, but they concern a man who had such a
brief stint in the public eye that it is surprising there was not much to
uncover in his private life. Colby was a
guy who went to work every day and tried to maintain a steady family life;
gentlemen such as this usually do not make for intriguing documentary subjects.
His family life is explored and there is significant time
devoted to his wife who provides information on their social lives while in
Italy and Vietnam. Carl Colby shows he
still has some very deep ‘daddy’ issues claiming his father was very distant,
did not have any friends, could be cold, etc…
It is hard to say what William Colby would think about this documentary
if he were still alive. He was a very
private man who kept his personal business at home so he probably would not
appreciate its close examination. Furthermore,
Carl was just a child during most of his father’s CIA clandestine activities so
there is a logical answer to the filmmaker’s frequent exclamation that he never
really knew who his father was.
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