EXCLUSIVE: Did CIA Assassination Chief Bill Harvey Travel to Dallas Under FAA Cover?
Description
This is a story that the CIA intended to bury forever, a story that only came into public view in March 2025 with the release of JFK records ordered by President Donald Trump.
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.”
As chief of assassination operations for the CIA during Kennedy’s presidency, William King Harvey was a man with a lethal reputation. His friend Richard Helms, director of the CIA, praised him as “wily, informed, perceptive and deeply patriotic.” Another CIA colleague, John Whitten, chief of the Mexico desk, described him as a “thug” and a “gun fanatic.” Asked why Harvey might have told his wife to destroy his personal papers, Whitten snapped: “He was too young to have assassinated McKinley or Lincoln. It could have been anything.”
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.”
William King Harvey has long been a person of interest to JFK researchers because of his ill-concealed hatred of John and Robert Kennedy and his role in CIA assassination operations.
All of Harvey’s travel records in 1963 are being sought by Rep. Anna Paulina Luna, chair of the House Task Force on the Declassification of Federal Secrets, which held two hearings on JFK assassination files earlier this year.
As recounted by journalist David Talbot in his best-selling biography of Allen Dulles, a State Department official who worked with Harvey said he encountered the swaggering CIA man on a domestic flight to Dallas in November 1963 and found his explanation of why he was going to Texas to be suspiciously evasive.
When asked about the Harvey travel records on Tuesday, Luna said she had recently spoken with CIA director John Ratcliffe, whom she described as “totally on board with this effort. He said they will not be running interference for anyone, and that we will get the documents requested.”
What the Documents Show
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.
The document does not prove that Harvey traveled to Dallas in November 1963, as the State Department official said. But it does show that, contrary to previous CIA statements, the assassination chief was authorized to travel domestically.
The documents raise new questions about Harvey’s role in the events of 1963.
Why did the CIA want the FAA to backstop the cover story of its assassination chief as he traveled within the United States?
And, what exactly were the duties of the Rome station chief that required U.S. travel in late 1963?
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