Trail of Destruction, Pt. 10: CIA Orders Incineration of Assassination Specialist’s Operational Diaries and Notes

Bill Harvey’s ex-CIA widow trashed his personal diaries too

[Editor’s Note: This is the 10th installment in the JFK Facts series, “Trail of Destruction.” New installments will appear every Wednesday.]

Clandestine operations officer William King Harvey works the grill at a pool party in the CIA’s Berlin station in 1955. (Credit: Bayard Stockton)

Among the CIA’s original top-ranking officers, probably none generates more suspicion of involvement in — or foreknowledge of — President John F. Kennedy’s murder than William King Harvey. The Assassination Records Review Board (ARRB), established to declassify JFK files in the 1990s, looked for records of Harvey’s operations but could not find any.

The ARRB’s final report says:

The “1967 Inspector General’s (IG) report,” commonly called the IG Report, refers to a 133-page CIA memorandum dated April 25, 1967, which details the agency’s attempts to murder the Cuban leader, with a little help from the Mafia, starting from the Eisenhower administration and continuing after JFK’s death.