Product Description
William K. Harvey was the CIA’s most daring and successful field operator during the tense, early days of the Cold War. Extremely intelligent, a dedicated martini drinker, coarse in manner and appearance, both loved and hated, he was larger than life. But just as Harvey reached his zenith, fate and personal flaws caused his swift, dramatic downfall. Bayard Stockton provides a rich portrait of the man, including accounts from Harvey’s family, friends, and former CIA colleagues who have never spoken publicly before.

Harvey’s intelligence career began at the FBI, where he hunted Nazi spies. After running afoul of J. Edgar Hoover, Harvey went to the fledgling CIA in 1947. Harvey’s CIA successes included the unmasking of Soviet spy Kim Philby and masterminding the famous Berlin Tunnel that tapped Russian communications. The pinnacle of Harvey’s career came as chief of both ZR/RIFLE, the agency’s political assassination operation, and Task Force W, the group targeted on Cuba. But Harvey was in constant conflict with Bobby Kennedy, who micromanaged operations against Fidel Castro. Harvey profanely insulted the president’s brother during a tense meeting, which led to Harvey’s reassignment to Rome. His alcoholism worsened in Italian exile, and he was forced to retire. He became a nonperson.

However, Harvey resurfaced during Senate hearings in the 1970s. When his supervision of the plots to assassinate Castro was revealed, many labeled Harvey the epitome of CIA excess. Harvey’s continuing friendship with Johnny Rosselli, a Mafia figure who had helped the CIA with Cuban operations, opened further questions as some—most notably Robert Blakey, former chief counsel to the House Subcommittee on Assassinations—linked Rosselli to JFK’s assassination.

Flawed Patriot cuts through the rumors and inaccuracies surrounding Harvey to show a brilliant but flawed man who was undoubtedly one of the most talented and imaginative officers in the agency’s storied history.

CUSTOMER REVIEWS (Average Customer Rating: 3.5 based on 6 reviews)

Read Past the Flaws & Ye Shall Learn

This book features a poorly chosen title and many flaws in composition. However, it provides the reader with a reasonable introduction to an unsung (buried) American hero of the Cold War. More importantly, if the reader reads carefully and between the lines, there is much to learn about the CIA, large bureaucracies (ala Niskanen), what it takes to gather human intelligence, imperial politics, and the future of the American intelligence establishment.

First, to Bill Harvey. Sure, he had flaws ("Show me a hero and I'll show you a bum.") He was irrascible, blunt, opinionated, contempuous of those that hadn't paid their dues, and a three-martini lunch drinker. Leave off the drinking and you have Billy Mitchell, Dick Pick or Henry Ford. Harvey was the first CIA giant in positive intelligence collection, initially as an agent handler (case officer), then holding a series of supervisory positions. His output was prodigious, often working twenty hours a day, and he thought others should work as hard as he. He is remembered best for the Berlin tunnel tap on Soviet phone lines, but that was only the tip of the iceberg.

On the negative side, he simply didn't "fit in." He was a Midwesterner from a non-elite university (Indiana University), different in manners, speech, social connections and attitude from the effete (as he called them) Eastern Ivy-Leaguers then as now populating the CIA (and indeed, all Federal bureaucracies.) If one thinks this is no longer the case, allow me to say that the situation is much, much worse today. The enemy (red) states cannot provide leaders in government unless they have been vetted fully through attendance in the Ivy League or Seven Sisters (like Bush, Obama, Clinton, etc.)

In addition, Harvey tended to "spook it up" by packing and being devious and clandestine, rather than playing the social circuit and always being "hail and well met." It should be kept in mind that there were (are) NO "spies" in the Agency, and acting like one was anathema. Lastly, Harvey did not brown-nose those who required such action like Hoover, Bundy, Lansdale, MacNamara and Robert Kennedy. His was the Protestant work-ethic -- his good work would open the necessary doors for him. But it didn't.

Harvey never prospered from his work financially or otherwise, in marked contrast to most bureaucrats in Washington. Vacations were not in the cards, and over time he simply burned out. He had been ridden hard and put away wet. And it wasn't Harvey who blabbed to Philby -- it was Angleton. Harvey worked hard to neutralize Philby even though counter-intelligence wasn't his brief, and was eventually successful.

But to my main point: why is this book so important?

1) It exposes the Kennedys (particularly Robert) for their ineptitude and negative impact on US intelligence (see also Hersh; "The Dark Side Of Camelot.") The decline of the Agency definitively started with the Bay of Pigs, a disaster brought about by the fecklessness of Ted Bissel (an Ivy-Leaguer) and Kennedy's lack of resolve. Then Robert went on his well-documented micro-management crusade with the Agency in his attempt to assassinate Castro for revenge. Harvey was involved in this, although the evidence is that he fought RFK over this activity and was sacked as a result. Not covered, unfortunately, was the gutting of Military Intelligence by JFK at the same time. He moved the vast majority of military agent handlers back into uniform and terminated their sources. When the Soviets staged their forces in East Germany before invading Czechoslovakia in 1968, the Army's operations that would have reported this were gone, and the Agency had failed to replace them. A significant intelligence failure was the result.

2) The Agency never recovered after Harvey's demise, and became increasingly politicized over the years by a succession of kow-towing heads who stressed form over substance. Human intelligence was essentially eliminated except for walk-ins, and the result is today we have the likes of Valerie Plame supposedly undergoing five years of training and then being sent to Africa where, as a striking blond, she would easily disappear into the background. The Agency also moved from non-diplomatic cover to almost exclusively diplomatic cover so its members could enjoy the social perks that had become so important. Dirty work like what Harvey did was eschewed as being only for the unwashed. It should also be noted that Harvey was given almost no training before becoming a case officer, but today training and playing at being a case officer is more often the approved activity than doing something productive. After all, to be productive one must take risks, and risk aversion is the guiding commandment today. Harvey must be spinning in his grave.

3) The Agency that had been lauded by Khrushchev ("You and I read the same reports every morning") morphed into a social club of Ivy-League bureaucrats more involved in turf wars and appearances while trusting to electronic surveillance for maintaining the flow of intelligence. As a result, human intelligence as to the intentions of others went by the wayside, never to be regained (at least not yet). Risk-takers were not wanted and were indeed an embarrassment by their constantly calling for action and producing operations plans that had to be scuttled on one pretense or the other. (I once had an operation involving a part-time prostitute disapproved because of her lack of morals. I guess the Germans should have turned down Mata Hari.) There would be no more Harveys and no more American patriots or heroes in the Agency. And the world is a more dangerous place.

I once had to meet with the brother of a resident agent (spy) who had been arrested by the opposing counter-intelligence service. She had performed extremely well, but attention was drawn to her when my superiors decided to increase her access by providing her with a Moped. She received twenty years after being tortured and confessing, but lasted less than two years before dying in prison. Her brother asked me if her sacrifice had been worth it. I know what I said, but I leave it up to the reader to decide for himself. All I can say now is that her sacrifice made the reader a little safer while growing up.

Harvey's hard work also made the reader a little safer while growing up. Everyone should learn about Harvey even if I don't think this book is necessarily the best vehicle. Personally, I believe the US was well-served by him, and to infer anything else is to betray one's own arm-chair, Monday morning quarterbacking ignorance.
August 22, 2008

A Worthy Expose of An American Traitor

This book should be read by every citizen seeking to understand where American government has gone wrong over the past 60 years. Flawed, yes, but critically important to our understanding of misguided actions and indeed meglomania in power centers too far removed from public scrutiny and democratic control.

The problem with so-called "patriots" like William Harvey is that their arrogance and self-absorption - so evident in his acute alcoholism - tends to prevent basic comprehension that they quite rightly serve at the request of others, in particular those individuals entrusted through elective office with preserving those principles and practices that define our democratic form of government.

William Harvey was a misfit granted far too much power by a rogue system of covert power that had grown exponentially under a corrupt and complicit Eisenhower-Nixon administration that had knowingly condoned repeated violation of laws and human rights at home and abroad through programs of assassination, coups, private wars, invasions, government destabilizations, media infiltration, propaganda, domestic spying, illegal surveillance, complicity with war criminals and organized crime figures, manipulation of or otherwise destruction of evidence, and lying to congress and executive branch superiors, including even the president.

Harvey was, ultimately, the exact opposite of a patriot. He was in fact, an assassin and traitor.

Robert Kennedy, as chief law enforcement officer for the United States and a key government official entrusted by the president with overseeing sensitive foreign operations, had every right to micro-manage affairs in order to prevent the insubordination of Harvey and others who sought to control events in violation of superiors' orders and U.S. government objectives. If anything, Kennedy was far too lenient in merely reassigning this arrogant, reckless, and insubordinate loose cannon, especially after Harvey's reckless unilateral actions during the Cuban Missile Crisis came close to causing a nuclear World War III.

Most egregiously, Harvey and others within the CIA like David Atlee Phillips, after participating in the assassinations of their superiors, then went before Congress and lied to the American people, having destroyed or buried documents to the contrary, and retained or even manufactured others that would tend to portray them in a favorable light, while falsely incriminating those now unable to defend themselves and correct the public record.

As for the author's difficulty in composing and arranging such a major work as this, it is to his credit that this book could even be published considering the CIA's suppression of facts, disinformation, and gross manipulation of media in this and other countries around the world.

Kudos to the author for creating an important work that contributes to greater public awareness and understanding of the forces that have undermined democracy in America.

January 04, 2008

A tough read

There's a lot of great info in this book, but unless you're REALLY into FBI/CIA/Bill Harvey, it's very dry reading. It jumps around a bit, but if you persevere, you'll find some interesting tidbits here and there.
May 06, 2007

A Brilliant Title

This book has a brilliant title. Bill Harvey was indeed a Patriot. And he certainly had flaws. His drinking was a problem from early in his life and combined with smoking was at least partly responsible for the heart attacks that killed him at the relatively early age of 61.

He was also not exactly what you would call a team player. He was fired by J. Edgar Hoover for breaking regulations. His relationship with Robert Kennedy might best be called hatred. While he did some brilliant work, like identifying Kim Philby as a KGB agent and the famous tunnel into East Berlin, his relationship with the Mafia and rumors about being involved in the JFK assassination are not the sort of things that help get promotions within an organization like the CIA.

This is both an interesting biography of a full fledged master spy, and a history of the early days of the CIA and the Cold War. The author worked for Harvey in Berlin for two years before becomming a journalist and now a biographer.
February 01, 2007

The CIA Legend part is correct

Flawed Patriot has a great topic in Bill Harvey. The author's direct knowledge seems to be based on Harvey's career in Germany . The research of the late Mr. Stockton of much of the career of Bill Harvey appeares flawed. The drama of Bill and CG's adoption of a daughter in Germany is in line with what they told my wife and me in Rome,Italy in the mid 1960s. The events surronding Bill's return to Washington from Rome are not fair and complete and appear to be based on interviews that lack some of the facts.
Based on my personal knowledge and my research as an intelligence scholar and professor, Flawed Patroit does no justice to the pioneering work of Bill Harvey in clandestine collection, covert action and technical intelligence operations. In my opinion, Bill Harvey ranks amond the Top Ten Clandestine Service Officers in the history of the Central Intelligence Agency.

January 22, 2007

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