William King Harvey (1915 - 1976)

Born 13 Sep 1915 in Cleveland, Cuyahoga County, Ohio, United States

Ancestors

Husband of Clara Grace (Follick) Harvey — married 3 Feb 1954 in Berlin, Germany

Died 9 Jun 1976 at age 60 in Indianapolis, Marion County, Indiana, United States

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Biography

Harvey was born September 13, 1915 in Cleveland, Ohio. He was the son of Sara King Harvey, professor at Indiana State Teachers College in Terre Haute, now Indiana State University. He graduated from Wiley High School in Terre Haute in 1931, eventually enrolling at Indiana University, then graduating from Indiana University School of Law - Bloomington. While there in April 1934, he married a fellow student- Elizabeth Howe Mclntire, the daughter of a lawyer from Maysville, Kentucky but, that marriage ended in divorce in 1954.

He is listed in the 1920 US Census as a young boy living with his mother at his grandparent's home in Center, Indiana: ^[1]

Household Role Sex Age Birthplace

William A King Head M 55 Ohio

Jennie H King Wife F 53 Indiana

Sarah K Harvey Daughter F 29 Indiana

William K Harvey Grandson M 4 Indiana

He joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in December 1940. He resigned from the FBI in July 1947 after breaking an FBI regulation and refusing a resulting re-assignment to Indianapolis. Peter Wright of MI5 writes in his book Spycatcher that Harvey was fired by FBI Director J. Edgar Hoover as a result of his drinking.

He joined the CIA shortly thereafter where his FBI knowledge proved to be invaluable. Along with James Angleton, he became one of the foremost operatives in the secret war against the KGB during the Cold War.

From 1952 to 1960, Harvey was posted to West Berlin as Chief of Base, where he led the operation that built an underground tunnel to the Soviet sector, to spy on their communication channels. This operation was called PBJOINTLY. On his return to CIA headquarters, Harvey was tasked with a project to organize "Executive Action" - assassination of foreign political leaders, under the codename ZR/RIFLE. To get at Fidel Castro, Harvey decided he needed Mafia links, and drew on the connections of CIA agent Robert Maheu, who had links with Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante, Jr., Johnny Roselli and others. Finding Maheu's operation chaotic, Harvey cut everyone but Roselli out, and ran the operations against Castro himself. Harvey was also involved in Operation Mongoose, a CIA operation run from Miami, Florida that ran various attempts to undermine or overthrow the Cuban Revolution. At the height of the Cuban Missile Crisis in October 1962, Harvey sent ten intelligence operatives into Cuba to gather intelligence and prepare for an invasion Harvey thought inevitable. The operation was unauthorised, and resulted in Harvey being exiled to Italy as Rome station chief (Harvey had wanted to go to Laos). In Rome, Harvey's drinking and health deteriorated, and he was ultimately relieved. After returning to head a CIA headquarters unit on possible countermeasures to electronic surveillance, Harvey retired in 1969, his drinking and health still problematic..

In 1975, he testified before the Church Committee on some of the CIA's past operations.

Harvey died in Indianapolis, Indiana on June 9, 1976 from a heart attack and is buried in Danville South Cemetery, Danville, Indiana (Hendricks Co.).^[2]

A recent biography on him is “Flawed Patriot: The Rise and Fall of CIA Legend Bill Harvey,” by Bayard Stockton (2006, Potomac Books).^[3]

Because of his involvement with Operation Mongoose, he figures prominently in many JFK assassination conspiracies.^[4][5]

He has two children- Sally Harvey-Koelpin, professor of education studies at DePauw University in Indianapolis, and James Drenan Harvey of Westport, Connecticut at the time of Harvey's death. Both of them are adopted; his son was adopted about 5 years before the divorce to his first wife; his daughter was adopted soon after he married C.G. Follick. According to an article in Playboy, she had had been left on the doorstep of another CIA officer's home by an East German woman who wanted her child to grow up free.^[6]

Sources

1. ↑ "United States Census, 1920," database with images, FamilySearch (https://familysearch.org/ark:/61903/1:1:MF7N-X3H : accessed 1 November 2017), William K Harvey in household of William A King, Center, Hendricks, Indiana, United States; citing ED 31, sheet 2A, line 36, family 43, NARA microfilm publication T625 (Washington D.C.: National Archives and Records Administration, 1992), roll 436; FHL microfilm 1,820,436.
2. ↑ Find A Grave, database and images (https://www.findagrave.com : accessed 18 December 2017), memorial page for William King Harvey (13 Sep 1915–9 Jun 1976), Find A Grave Memorial no. 116691850, citing Danville South Cemetery, Danville, Hendricks County, Indiana, USA; Maintained by Pattie Ford (contributor 47257816).
3. ↑ http://www.tribstar.com/news/lifestyles/historical-perspective-america-s-james-bond-the-new-biography-of/article_7f770bac-0468-5ec1-b00a-20596378eedf.html
4. ↑ Wikipedia contributors, "William King Harvey," Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia, https://en.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=William_King_Harvey&oldid=801256743 (accessed December 18, 2017).
5. ↑ "William King Harvey: The CIA’s ´Loosest Cannon’" by Trowbridge Ford, 25 Aug 2011. http://jfkcountercoup2.blogspot.com/2017/04/william-king-harvey-cias-loosest-cannon.html
6. ↑ PLAYBOY vol. 27. no. 4 — april. 1980; "The American James Bond: A True Story" by David C. Martin, Page 266 - http://jfk.hood.edu/Collection/Weisberg%20Subject%20Index%20Files/C%20Disk/CIA%20Harvey%20William%20King/Item%2004.pdf