19-06-2013, 12:31 PM
A new, 576-page biography of CIA director William Colby was released a couple of months ago - Randall B. Woods' SHADOW WARRIOR: WILLIAM EGAN COLBY AND THE CIA. It looks to be of definite interest, particularly as a retired CIA officer - Merle Pribbenow - has taken to the Amazon review page to excoriate the book for recounting 'baseless conspiracy theories'.
"In the beginning of the book the author repeats the baseless conspiracy theory that Colby was murdered (pages 1-5); at the end of the book (pages 472-474) he repeats the equally baseless "Nugan Hand Bank" conspiracy theory, which was that there was a vast CIA plot to bring down the left-wing Australian government in 1975 by using the bank to funnel CIA money into the coffers of conservative Australian opposition parties. The author also gives credence to the spurious claim that Alexander Butterfield, who worked as an aide in Nixon's White House and was a key figure in the Watergate scandal, was really a covert CIA agent assigned to spy on and perhaps sabotage the Nixon White House. The author then asserts as a matter of accepted fact that "the CIA had the federal bureaucracy penetrated at many levels; Mole hunter James Angleton had spies everywhere" (pages 446-447). The author alleges, without citing any real, substantitive evidence: a) that Colby had a sexual relationship with the famed Clare Booth Luce when she was U.S. Ambassador in Rome (page 102); b) that President Diem's brother Ngo Dnh Nhu got rich off of the heroin trade (page 129); c) that the wife and brother-in-law of South Vietnamese Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem "oversaw a drug ring that sold heroin to all comers, including American GIs" (page 318); etc."
Pribbenow's review seems like a solid recommendation.
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Warrior-Wil...dp_product
"In the beginning of the book the author repeats the baseless conspiracy theory that Colby was murdered (pages 1-5); at the end of the book (pages 472-474) he repeats the equally baseless "Nugan Hand Bank" conspiracy theory, which was that there was a vast CIA plot to bring down the left-wing Australian government in 1975 by using the bank to funnel CIA money into the coffers of conservative Australian opposition parties. The author also gives credence to the spurious claim that Alexander Butterfield, who worked as an aide in Nixon's White House and was a key figure in the Watergate scandal, was really a covert CIA agent assigned to spy on and perhaps sabotage the Nixon White House. The author then asserts as a matter of accepted fact that "the CIA had the federal bureaucracy penetrated at many levels; Mole hunter James Angleton had spies everywhere" (pages 446-447). The author alleges, without citing any real, substantitive evidence: a) that Colby had a sexual relationship with the famed Clare Booth Luce when she was U.S. Ambassador in Rome (page 102); b) that President Diem's brother Ngo Dnh Nhu got rich off of the heroin trade (page 129); c) that the wife and brother-in-law of South Vietnamese Prime Minister Tran Thien Khiem "oversaw a drug ring that sold heroin to all comers, including American GIs" (page 318); etc."
Pribbenow's review seems like a solid recommendation.
http://www.amazon.com/Shadow-Warrior-Wil...dp_product
