17. The CIA Director Who Began His Career as a Bona Fide Hero Blowing Up Nazis
Former Central Intelligence Agency Director William Colby is best remembered for his stint as America’s top spy from 1973 to 1976. It was a tricky time for the CIA: Congress, in a reformist mood after the Watergate scandal, launched investigations that unmasked many of the agency’s worst abuses. As the man on the spot, Colby became associated with the rot emanating from Langley. However, there was a time, decades earlier, when William Colby had been a bona fide American hero. During WWII, he had parachuted into German-occupied Europe to carry out dangerous operations that stuck it to the Nazis.
The last of those, Operation RYPE, came in 1945, when Colby parachuted into Norway at the head of an Office of Strategic Services (OSS) team. Their task was to blow up rail links to impede the evacuation of German soldiers, and keep them from reinforcing the Third Reich’s crumbling battlefronts. It was a hair-raising mission that started off horrifically and remained harrowing until the end. Nonetheless, Colby managed to snatch success from the jaws of catastrophe, and accomplished the mission.