Flawed Patriot Read online

  Bill then began to probe Osborn’s knowledge of the Rosselli case. “He said he was a little annoyed with Helms, in that he had spread knowledge of the case so widely throughout The Agency, since he had had a very explicit understanding with [Helms] that it was to be extremely closely held. I pointed out that [the Pearson columns] had obviously made him decide that it was necessary to solicit the assistance and support of his Inspector General.”

  By now, Bill had had his second beer and was relaxed. Osborn:

  I asked him point-blank what was the nature of his relationship with Johnny. He … said that he didn’t give a damn; that he would not turn his back on his friends, and that Johnny was his friend. I replied that while this was an admirable quality, I felt he was taking all sorts of risks in this regard….

  … It was his opinion that it would be the worst thing he could do for himself or The Agency to turn his back on Johnny at this time. He said that he had told Johnny at the outset of their association that if anything happened to blow the operation, Johnny could not look to anyone other than Harvey for assistance, and that even Harvey would probably not be able to help him. He seemed to want to establish clearly with me the fact that it will be his neck if our use of Johnny comes out into the open, since he believes The Agency could not or would not admit involvement.

  Harvey then said he felt very uncomfortable about the entire situation, and fully realized the implications to The Agency if it ever surfaced publicly…. He felt sure that Johnny would never “pull the string” on us unless he was absolutely desperate, but that his concern was that Senator Robert Kennedy knew all about the operation.

  This is about as clear a statement of Harvey’s relationship with Rosselli as exists. Bill then reflected on the difficulty of his post-Agency life.

  He said (and I believe with provocative intent) that when he told Johnny about his intention to enter legal practice, Johnny suggested he send him an announcement and that he, Johnny, would be in a position to throw a lot of business his way. [Bill] said that he was sure he could clear $100,000 a year as an attorney for Johnny, but that he had no intention of getting involved in the type of legal activity this would entail.

  In fact, Rosselli called Bill twice, on October 22 and 27, more than two weeks after the Osborn lunch, and asked Harvey to represent him legally. In both cases, Harvey refused, “saying he couldn’t afford to be put in such a position.” Rosselli wondered audibly why the CIA would not give him the same type of support it had given Robert Maheu, whom it had recently extricated from a pickle over the Las Vegas wire-tapping incident.

  Osborn continues:

  In closing, I inquired as to his status with The Agency, and he stated that he had a couple of months to go with the ‘stupid head-shrinker’ that [ ] had forced on him.

  I asked him if he had located a law firm who would be willing to give him a hand, and he said he had several in mind, but had not yet decided on one. Since I am of the personal opinion that [ ] is one of these, I offered to make an informal check of the firm he selected if it would be helpful. He was most appreciative of this….

  He closed by saying that he had more or less sealed off a lot of his relationships with the Agency, but that I was one friend with whom he wanted to maintain contact.

  Harvey was articulate, clear-eyed and presentable. I did not receive the impression that he had had too much to drink and he consumed only two beers in my presence.

  Bill had applied for admission to the District of Columbia bar on June 5, 1967, while he was still officially on sick leave from the Agency. He retained a shred of dignity in his application. “From September 19, 1947 to date I have been employed by the Central Intelligence Agency in Washington DC and in various locations abroad in the positions of Staff Chief, Division Chief and … grades GS-13 through GS-18 ($25,890). I am now in the process of retiring voluntarily from the CIA to resume the private practice of law.

  “Among my immediate supervisors during this period have been Mr. Richard Helms, Mr. Lawrence K. White and Mr. Desmond FitzGerald, as well as several previous Directors, Assistant Directors and Deputy Directors of CIA.”

  Harvey, rather grandiosely, gave J. Edgar Hoover as a character reference. The FBI file copy of Hoover’s reply was hardly a positive endorsement. “In 1950, we learned he was unfriendly and hostile toward the Bureau. On 9-10-52, he was reported to be proselyting FBI personnel for CIA [ ] and on 5-6-67, we learned he had applied for retirement from CIA. No comment is being made concerning the quality of his services and character in view of the above, although while with the Bureau in 1940–1947, his work had been satisfactory.”

  Bill got his law license. In 1968 George Bailey, one of the Berlin Brotherhood, wanted to throw some legal business in Bill’s direction. The two had lunch in Washington. Bailey says that he “had no reason to assume Bill was on the wagon. He had a couple of martinis, but not three or four. Not the way he used to drink. He was still very fat. Not as fat as he had been in Rome, but still overweight.”

  The meeting was not a good one. “Bill asked me to list all the assets of the Ullstein family,” the powerful Austro-German publishing empire into which George had married many years earlier. Bailey was offended by the question. The pair finished lunch and parted, and Bailey never saw Harvey again.4

  A contrasting, much more favorable view of Bill in the post-Agency years comes from Richard W. Montague, who was a junior case officer and admirer of Harvey at BOB in the mid-1950s. “He ‘found a seat’ within a Washington, D.C., law firm in which several former FBI agents were active…. He handled a couple of personal legal matters for me with great skill in 1967–68, and I will always be thankful to him for his interventions on my behalf.

  “I can recall his telling me how difficult he had found it to ‘cut the cord’ (his exact phrase) from The Agency and go it alone on his own as a lawyer, but also how rewarding he had found it to do pro bono legal work for the poor and for the disadvantaged in Washington. I think he took great pleasure in trying to ‘right’ matters.”5

  “DEFINITELY QUESTIONABLE”

  After his October 4 lunch with Harvey, Howard Osborn dictated a further memorandum for the IG, which must have raised even more warning flags among the CIA hierarchy.

  The one thing I did not include in my Memorandum for the Record … was his extreme bitterness toward The Agency and The Director. He did not go so far as to condemn them for his “involuntary retirement,” but he did castigate The Director very severely for his selection of [ ] replacement. I have the very uncomfortable feeling, albeit purely a visceral one, that Harvey would not hesitate to use his knowledge of the Johnny operation as a handle on the Director or The Agency if he thought he could benefit from it.

  Harvey saw Dick Helms on October 30, 1967. It must have been an extraordinarily painful, tense meeting for both men, although undoubtedly it was conducted in the stiff, formal, phony-cordial, self-protective patois of senior government officialdom. Thereafter, both the CIA and the FBI considered Harvey a potential time bomb.

  DJ Brennan Jr. to WC Sullivan:

  On 10/31/67 … Helms advised SA Papich on 10/31/67 that he mistrusts Harvey; that he is not going to permit himself or CIA to be blackmailed by anybody; and he has no fear of threats which may emanate from subject.

  As far as he is concerned, The Bureau can treat Harvey as it sees fit.

  Rosselli is in a position to blackmail CIA…. Harvey periodically volunteers information to Special Agent Papich…. Harvey’s role in this situation definitely questionable.

  Osborn advised in strict confidence that he and Helms had very serious doubts that Harvey was divulging all information he possesses concerning subject. Osborn is confident that Harvey is holding out and possibly has become involved in some financial proposition with subject.

  OBSERVATIONS:

  … He very clearly knows that Rosselli is a top hoodlum and subject of a Bureau investigation. Harvey has indicated that he has no intention of becoming involved in any i
llegal or criminal activities, and that he wants to cooperate fully with The Bureau…. Whether or not he has reported adequately is a matter of conjecture. It should be noted that instead of withdrawing from a relationship with Rosselli, he seems to be getting in deeper. His role in this situation is definitely questionable….

  Harvey … maintains that he has not been able to sever contacts with subject for fear that Rosselli might become antagonized and consequently become a problem….

  Harvey has been full apprised of the dangers stemming from any association he may maintain with subject….

  SA Papich has been adhering to a line of accepting any information Harvey volunteers. No information is given to Harvey….

  [Handwritten comment, author unknown:] We must be very careful in any meeting with Harvey.

  [Handwritten comment by J. Edgar Hoover:] Right & vigorously press case against Rosselli.

  Harvey met Papich on November 6 and bluntly asked him what the strength of the FBI/Department of Justice case against Rosselli was. Osborn recorded that, “Sam refused point-blank to discuss this, and warned Harvey that he was getting himself in an extremely dangerous position … might even be subpoena’ed as a witness at the trial…. The Bureau might even be covering their luncheon.

  “Harvey described his recent conversations with Rosselli. Rosselli asked Harvey to act as his legal counsel, and Harvey claims he turned him down…. He inquired if Agent [Papich] could make any observations regarding the [immigration] case.” Papich warned Harvey that he was, in effect, acting as Rosselli’s lawyer and that no FBI man could leak information to an opposing attorney. Papich “reiterated that Harvey could not expect anything from him now or in the future…. Harvey stated that he knew where he stood….

  “At this point Harvey became quite incensed and said that if he broke off his relationship with Johnny, he was convinced that the Agency could get itself in serious trouble…. Johnny had no idea that Harvey had been keeping the Bureau informed of this relationship.”

  When Bill simmered down, he told Papich of “his proposed plans to enter law practice in conjunction with some established legal firm and queried Sam as to his knowledge of any reputable private investigators that might be willing to use Harvey’s services to establish contacts and investigative coverage on the Continent. Mr. Papich suggested Wackenhut Corporation or the Fidelifax Company as having a good reputation in the trade.”

  Hoover’s handwritten comment: “Press vigorously.”

  This and subsequent feelers that Harvey put out to the FBI and CIA have two possible interpretations: (1) he was playing a reasonably sophisticated double-agent game, seeming to keep both agencies informed about the activities of someone who was of extreme interest to both, but in reality, privately, siding with Rosselli, whom he felt was being persecuted, even as Bill himself was being persecuted by the CIA; or (2) he was operating as a conscientious former senior officer of the U.S. government, keeping the appropriate agencies informed of the doings of someone of interest to them and well aware that Rosselli was under physical as well as telephone surveillance by the FBI.

  The final memo in the file is a non sequitur written by Hoover to the FBI Liaison Office. In part it reads, “Although it is realized that you will not have occasion to deal with Harvey, you nevertheless should be certain that you be most circumspect in any contact which you may have with him at any time in the future.”

  JOHNNY GOES TO WASHINGTON

  The next step in the complex ballet of Harvey’s decline was his notification to the CIA and the FBI that Rosselli would be in Washington in late November 1967. Bill told Osborn on the phone that “Rosselli will stay with Harvey, as he has in the past.” Bill added that he was going hunting on the Eastern Shore of Maryland on November 21 and 22, indicating that his health was good enough for that kind of exposure. He also asked Osborn to check out a California law firm that Rosselli had brought into his court case. Osborn noted in his memorandum to Helms, “I do not trust Harvey and will not ask [General Counsel Lawrence] Houston to make any inquiries. However, irrespective of our distrust of Harvey, I believe it is important to keep him as long as possible as window into Rosselli’s plans and intentions….

  “I recorded both his conversations for our protection. I plan to follow this practice whenever I talk to him, unless you do not consider it desirable.” In other words, the CIA’s top brass had almost completely swung around to view Bill Harvey, still, technically, a colleague, as an untrustworthy loose cannon, so much so that any conversations with Harvey were now being recorded, in the event that such records were later needed, for whatever purpose.

  Bill and Johnny met in Washington from November 26 to November 28. Harvey reported to Papich and Osborn, successively on December 8 and 9, excusing the delay by saying that he had been on a hunting trip.

  Johnny chose to stay at the Madison Hotel, not at the Harveys’. The pair met for three hours at the hotel on Monday, November 27, and for eleven or more hours on Tuesday, November 28, partially at the Bethesda Country Club, of which Bill was a board member. Officially, Rosselli was in town to talk with Ed Morgan, the former FBI agent and Jack Anderson source, about buying a radio station in San Jose, California. He appeared to be “well-heeled” and discussed his current love, a twenty-one-year-old California girl. He showed Harvey a copy of his indictment on the immigration charge and a letter of resignation from the Friars Club, where he was accused of skimming a rigged $400,000 card game. Johnny seemed wistful that Harvey continued to refuse to be his attorney.

  Harvey told both the FBI and the CIA that Rosselli “continued to deny that he has any other identity or that he is engaged in any nefarious deals. He claims not to have seen Sam Giancana since 1965.” Osborn noted, “Harvey says that unlike his past meetings with Johnny, these most recent ones were characterized by some friction, and a sense of resentment on Johnny’s part. Harvey feels this is [because] Johnny feels Harvey is working with the U.S. Government and telling them everything Johnny tells him.” Rosselli then added that he had other channels into CIA, that he had had lunch with Sheffield Edwards in California, as well as another brief meeting involving the CIA and Robert Maheu, also in California.

  Osborn continued, “Harvey is quite resentful of the fact that The Agency did not ‘level’ with him and did not inform him of those meetings when we first discussed the case with him. I did not respond to this…. It is clear that Harvey wants to create the impression at least that he is working for us in this case and must be kept fully informed.”

  Bill felt that if Rosselli were threatened with deportation he “would immediately subpoena Messrs. Bissell, Karamessenes, Edwards, Osborn, O’Connell and Harvey. Harvey, I believe, slipped at one point when he indicated that Johnny said, ‘Just because I was once convicted under the name of Philippo Sacco, doesn’t mean I am an alien. I changed names to cover up the conviction.’ This, to my knowledge, is the first time Johnny has admitted to using another name.”

  Then, “I asked Harvey if he was sure that his involvement with Johnny wasn’t more than just to protect The Agency’s interest. He became highly indignant at this and said that Johnny has no hold on him in the past or in the future. He further volunteered that he had only the highest regard for the Agency and the way we handled his problem. He said he would cooperate fully with us and The Bureau. He added, however, that he would never do anything to hurt Johnny.” Read in cold type, it’s hard to get the feel of what appears to have been an extremely see-saw meeting, involving a gamut of tactics by a skilled operator who, despite his calm appearance, was probably worried about the fix he had gotten himself into and who was on the verge of being pushed well beyond the pale legally, as well as in fact, when his resignation became final, in a matter of days.

  Osborn’s summing-up was the culmination of the queasy feelings the top brass had about Bill. “It is difficult to assess Harvey’s role in this affair…. I cannot help but feel that there is something in his relationship with Johnny that he is conce
aling, and that his insistence on learning more about how good a case Justice has against Johnny is not entirely in The Agency’s interests.”

  On December 19, 1967, only a couple of weeks before his retirement became official, Harvey’s patience appears to have worn out. He called Osborn to ask if the Agency had been able to determine the strength of the Department of Justice case against Johnny and was brushed off. Helms had been “extremely busy … and was trying to get away over the Holiday Season.” Osborn added that he doubted the CIA would query Justice on the Rosselli case, but would prefer to “sit tight.” Harvey suggested that Helms and Hoover might have an “ears-only” conversation. Osborn: “I have the strong feeling that [Harvey’s interest in the case] is a self-serving one …

  “I would be inclined to say that he has already made some kind of deal with Ed Morgan who, as is known, already has Johnny as a client…. It is a possibility that Harvey intends to associate himself with Morgan’s law firm in the future. I should emphasize that this is my own personal opinion, based on nothing more than speculation.” With this statement, the Agency’s director of security effectively labeled Harvey hostile to the CIA.

  THE END OF A CAREER

  In the months following his return from Rome, Harvey had been shunted aside—kept on the payroll but placed on long-drawn-out sick leave, consigned to rehab. The final job of demanding Bill’s retirement had fallen many months earlier to Lawrence K. “Red” White. His account of the episode, extracted from an oral history interview, was printed in the CIA’s unclassified CSI Intelligencer.6 Perhaps significantly, as late as 1999, the CIA still felt it had to publicly blacken Harvey’s reputation.