A FORMER CIA director, Mr William Colby, who long dominated the murky netherworld of US spying, was missing yesterday after his canoe was found capsized near his home in southern Maryland.
Mr Colby (76), an avid outdoorsman, disappeared on Sunday while boating close to his home at Charles County's Neale Sound, south of Washington DC.
The coast guard said the search, suspended after nightfall on Sunday, resumed shortly after daybreak with a Maryland state police helicopter and two police boats searching the Potomac river and its Wicomico tributary.
A passing pleasure boat found a green canoe used by Mr Colby overturned about 100 yards from his dock at about noon on Sunday, coast guard officials said.
A spokesman, Petty Officer Joe Dye, said he was unaware of any indication of foul play involving Mr Colby. He said Mr Colby apparently had not planned to be gone for long. Food had been left on his dinner table. Mr Colby's wife, Ms Sally Shelton, assistant administrator of the US Agency for International Development could not be reached.
Mr Colby, who championed a strong US spy capability, headed the Central Intelligence Agency from September 1973 to January 1976 under Presidents Richard Nixon and Gerald Ford. Earlier he had been chief of the CIA's Far East Division from 1963 to 1968.