William King "Bill" Harvey (September 13, 1915 – June 9, 1976) was an American Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) officer, best known for his role in the terrorism and sabotage campaign known as Operation Mongoose.
Harvey joined the Federal Bureau of Investigation in December 1940,[3] (where he specialized in German and Soviet counterintelligence) throughout World War II and its immediate aftermath.
[4] From 1952 to 1960, Harvey was posted to West Berlin as chief of base, where he led the operation that built a tunnel to the Soviet sector to spy on their communication channels.
[1] On his return to CIA headquarters, Harvey was tasked with a project to organize "executive actions" (a euphemism for the assassination of foreign political leaders) under the codename ZR/RIFLE.
He drew on the connections of businessman and CIA asset Robert Maheu, who had cultivated relationships with Sam Giancana, Santo Trafficante Jr., Johnny Roselli and other figures.
[1] Although Harvey briefly headed a CIA headquarters unit on possible countermeasures to electronic surveillance, he took an extended leave of absence (largely precipitated by his alcoholism and the concurrent fallout from his relationship with Roselli, who had been convicted in an elaborate card-cheating case) throughout much of 1967.
[8][9] The two sons alleged that their father excised the information from his memoirs, "American Spy: My Secret History in the CIA, Watergate and Beyond", to avoid possible perjury charges.
"[7] In a podcast with Soledad O'Brien, "Who Killed JFK", Rob Reiner described Harvey and General Charles A. Willoughby as the master planners and tacticians of the Kennedy assassination.
Immediately thereafter, he married Clara Grace "CG" Follick, a former CIA personnel officer who was the first woman to attain the rank of major in the United States Army.