Spies

  When I lived across from TCU 1978-79, it was an enjoyable time.  I should have gone to a football game or two, because I lived near the stadium, but I settled for free programs.  It was there I saw Jim Dickey read his poetry and talked to him afterwards.  It was there that I went to the Van Cliburn International Piano Festival and see him there.  It was also there, where I had an interesting encounter with a man I really respected.  William Colby.

 He had been in the Central Intelligence Agency for many years and served as the Director under Presidents Nixon and Ford.  He had left the CIA, when Ford left office and wrote a book which was published in 1978.  He came to TCU to promote his memoir and to lecture on spying.  He was very interesting talking about his life doing spying during World War II and then later with the CIA.  I got him to sign my book afterwards, and then I told him the story about what happened to us five years earlier in Jerusalem.  I had been told at the time not to tell anyone about our frightening experience, but I felt I could tell the former director of the CIA.  After all, he had been the deputy director of the CIA, when we were in Jerusalem.

 He listened intently to my story, and then he had a wry smile on his face.  He told me that he remembered that operation that we were involved in.  He then said something that I will never forget.  He told me that the CIA uses civilians all the time to gather intelligence.  He also included journalists in that admission.  He then apologized to me for the stress and danger that the CIA put us through, but that our intel was very important at the time to thwart an attack on Henry Kissinger who was in Jerusalem at that same time as us.  He then told me never to tell anyone about it, which I didn't for another 13 years, until I told I guy I knew who was in Special Forces in Vietnam.  If anyone wants to read that story, search for it down the line with my stories about our 1973 trip to Europe and Israel.  Bill Colby was a bonafide spy for the United States.  I was a civilian spy for the United States.  Both were very dangerous jobs.  He got paid to do it.  They didn't buy any Alka Seltzer for me.  I still have that box.