A newly released document provides an important disclosure about William King Harvey, the incendiary CIA officer who was known for his passionate hatred of the Kennedys.
Harvey took part in the CIA-Mafia plots to kill Fidel Castro. In Italy, he recommended using Mafia hitmen to kill certain Italian officials. In a dangerous act of insubordination, when the threat of nuclear war was a real possibility during the Cuban Missile Crisis, Harvey disobeyed White House orders and recklessly sent three commando teams into Cuba. The Kennedys were furious when they learned about this, and Harvey was quickly shuffled off to Italy.
Mark Wyatt, who served as Harvey’s deputy, told a French journalist in 1998 that he saw Harvey on a flight to Dallas in November 1963. Wyatt found this strange because Harvey was stationed in Italy at the time. Based on Harvey’s flight to Dallas in November 1963 and on comments that Harvey made to him about JFK’s death, Wyatt told his children that he believed Harvey either had advance knowledge of the assassination or was involved in it. Wyatt’s daughter urged him to testify to the HSCA, but he could not bring himself to do so because of his sense of loyalty to the CIA.
The newly released document reveals that the CIA requested the FAA to give Harvey an FAA travel credential. The credential would have enabled him to travel under a false name. I quote from the JFK Facts substack article on this disclosure:
One of the new documents was a letter from the CIA, dated April 10, 1963. A CIA official, Nicholas R. Zubon, addressed a one-page letter to Charles Niles at the Federal Aviation Agency (now the Federal Aviation Administration, or FAA). Zubon requested that Niles arrange for FAA records to reflect that “HARVEY, WILLIAM K.” had been “issued Federal Aviation Agency Credential Number 4883, on 2 January 1963.”
The newly discovered document, a one-page letter released with redactions in 2017, reveals for the first time, Niles’ name and the role of the FAA. Both had been hidden from public view as recently as 2022 — for reasons of “national security.”
Marked “Confidential,” Zubon’s letter states that “in the event of an inquiry, this information may be released to verify the authenticity of this credential.”
The document about Harvey’s FAA credential reveals two new facts about his involvement in the events of 1963, neither known previously.
-- Harvey was authorized to travel undercover in the United States while he was serving as chief of the CIA station in Rome.
-- The CIA did not disclose this arrangement to Senate investigators in the 1970s.
Now why would Harvey, the CIA chief of station in Rome, Italy, need an FAA travel credential so he could safely travel undercover in the U.S.?
If for some reason Harvey had been challenged about flying under a different name, he could have said, "Hey, I'm authorized by the FAA to travel under a different name. You can check with the FAA and verify my travel credential."
The CIA still has not released Harvey's travel records.
