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Film Screening and Discussion: "The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby"

The Woodrow Wilson School will host a film screening of "The Man Nobody Knew: In Search of My Father, CIA Spymaster William Colby." The film, produced and narrated by William Colby's son, Carl, is "a probing history of the CIA, a personal memoir of a family living in clandestine shadows, and an inquiry into the hard costs of a nation's most cloaked actions." The screening will feature a discussion following the film with Carl Colby and Anne-Marie Slaughter, the Bert G. Kerstetter '66 University Professor of Politics and International Affairs at the Woodrow Wilson School. A public reception will follow the film screening and discussion in Shultz dining room.


The film is described as “a son’s riveting look at the father whose life seemed straight out of a spy thriller.  Carl Colby, in the film, “asks a series of powerful and relevant questions about the father who was a ghost-like presence in the family home – and the intelligence officer who became a major force in American history, paving the way for today’s provocative questions about security and secrecy vs. liberty and morality.”


The synopsis of the film goes on to note that the film “forges a fascinating mix of rare archival footage, never-before-seen photos, and interviews with the ‘who’s who’ of American intelligence, including former National Security Advisers Brent Scowcroft and Zbigniew Brzezinski, former Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, for Secretary of Defense and CIA Director James Schlesinger, as well as Pulitzer Prize journalists, Bob Woodward, Seymour Hersh and Tim Weiner.  Through it all, Carl Colby searches for an authentic portrait of the man who remained masked even to those who loved him most.”

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