THE AMERICAN JAMES BOND: A TRUE STORY

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP90-00552R000303190040-3
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: August 16, 2010
• Sequence Number: 40
• Publication Date: April 1, 1980
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Sanitized Copy Approved for Release 2010/08/16: CIA-RDP90-00552R000303190040-3
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VE:RrHROW OF CASTRO iS possible;'
Bobby Kennedy told Richard
Helms amid the controlled chaos
of his fifth-floor office at the justice
Department. An aide to the CIA clan-
destine services' Helms wrote rapid-
ly to keep up with the Attorney
General's staccato cadence. "A solu-
tion to the Cuban problem todjy car-
ried top priority in U. S. Government.
No time, money, effort-or manpow-
er-is to be spared. Yesterday ... the
President had indicated to him that
the final chapter had not been writ-
ten-it's got to be clone and will be
done."
President John F. Kennedy was still
smarting from the Bay of Pigs fiasco
and, as his brother had told Helms,
was determined to settle the score.
Helms's response was to place AVil-
liam King Harvey in charge of what
would be known within the agency as
Task Force W. Two-gun Bill Harvey,
foil of Soviet spy Kim Philby, fore-
man of the Berlin tunnel, was the
CIA's heaviest hitter. Harvey's ap-
pointment, more than anything else
Helms could do, would convince the
Kennedy Administration that the CIA
meant business.
Brigadier General Edward Lans-
dale, Kennedy's "Cuba Commander,"
was suitably impressed. He intro-
duced Harvey to the President as the
American James Bond.
The President's enthusiasm for Ian
Fleming and the improbable esca-
pades of his British superagent, 007,
was well publicized, so Lansdale must
have been more than a little flattered
when John Kennedy remarked to him
one (lay that he was Americas answer
to Bond. Lansdale, with all due mod-1
esty, demurred, suggesting that the
real American 007 was this fellow
Harvey, whom.Helms had just put on
the Cuba case. Naturally, the Presi-
dent wanted to meet the man, and
before long, Harvey and Lansdale
were sitting outside the Oval Office,
waiting to be ushered in.
PLAYBOY
April 1980
As Lansdale told the st
turned to Harvey and said, '
not carrying your gun, are y
course he was, Harvey replie
ing to pull a revolver from hi
pocket. Aghast at what the
Service might do if this strap
ing man were suddenly to
gun, Lansdale quickly told H
keep the damn thing in his
until he could explain to the
that the gentleman would liKe to
check his firearm. Harvey turned over
the gun and was about to enter the
Oval Office when suddenly he remem-
bered something. Reaching behind
him, he whipped out a .38 Detective
Special from a holster snapped to his
belt in the small of his back and
handed it to the startled Secret Serv-
ice agents.
The President left no record of his
reaction to the sight of his American
Bond-this red-faced, popeyed, bullet- pear-shaped man advancing'
on him with a ducklike strut that was
part waddle and part swagger. Har-I
vey's deep, gruff voice must have re-
stored the President's faith in 007
somewhat, but Ian Fleming would
never read the same again.
William Harvey's father was the
most prominent attorney in Danville,
Indiana, a small town 20 miles west
of Indianapolis, and his grandfather
was the founder of the local news-
paper. In 1936, on the strength of his
father's name and the endorsement
of his grandfather's newspaper, Har-
vey himself ran for prosecuting attor-
ney in Hendricks County while still
a student at Indiana University law;
school. Despite The Danville Gazette's l
promise that "Billy is a keen student
and his election would be a great
benefit to the people of Hendricks!
County," Harvey was a Democrat in a
staunchly Republican county, and he
lost by 880 votes out of 12,000 cast.
pea quay ers in Washington as part
of a small vanguard of three agents--
himself,
Robert Collier and Lish \Vhiitsun-tar-
geted against America's ostensible ally.
the Soviet Union. "