Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas

by David Wise

Cassidy's Run is the riveting story of one of the best-kept secrets of the Cold War—an espionage operation mounted by Washington against the Soviet Union that ran for twenty-three years. At the highest levels of the government, its code name was Operation shocker.

Lured by a double agent working for the United States, ten Russian spies, including a professor at the University of Minnesota, his wife, and a classic "sleeper" spy in New York City, were sent by Moscow to penetrate America's secrets. Two FBI agents were killed, and secret formulas were passed to the Russians in a dangerous ploy that could have spurred Moscow to create the world's most powerful nerve gas.

Cassidy's Run tells this extraordinary true story for the first time, following a trail that leads from Washington to Moscow, with detours to Florida, Minnesota, and Mexico. Based on documents secret until now and scores of interviews in the United States and Russia, the book reveals

 ¸         more than 4,500 pages of classified documents, including U.S. nerve gas formulas, were passed to the Soviet Union in exchange for hundreds of thousands of dollars

 ¸         an "Armageddon code," a telephone call to a number in New York City, was to alert the sleeper spy to an impending nuclear attack—a warning he would transmit to the Soviets by radio signal from atop a rock in Central Park

 ¸         two FBI agents were killed when their plane crashed during surveillance of one of the Soviet spies as he headed for the Canadian border

 ¸         secret "drops" for microdots were set up by Moscow from New York to Florida to Washington

More than a cloak-and-dagger tale, Cassidy's Run is the spellbinding story of one ordinary man, Sergeant Joe Cassidy, not trained as a spy, who suddenly found himself the FBI's secret weapon in a dangerous clandestine war.

ADVANCE PRAISE FOR CASSIDY'S RUN

"Cassidy's Run shows, once again, that few writers know the ins and outs of the spy game like David Wise. . . his research is meticulous in this true story of espionage that reads like a thriller."
—Dan Rather

"The Master hsa done it again. David Wise, the best observer and chronicler of spies there is, has told another gripping story. This one comes from the cold war combat over nerve gas and is spookier than ever because it's all true."
—Jim Lehrer

Genres: Espionage, History, Nonfiction, Crime

228 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.

From Wikipedia:
«David Wise (May 10, 1930 – October 8, 2018) was an American journalist and author who worked for the New York Herald-Tribune in the 1950s and 1960s, and published a series of non-fiction books on espionage and US politics as well as several spy novels. His book The Politics of Lying: Government Deception, Secrecy, and Power (1973) won the George Polk Award (Book category, 1973), and the George Orwell Award (1975).»

Most of his books were non-fiction examinations of espionage and U.S. politics. According to his obituary in the New York Times, “He also wrote three spy novels, which were praised for their insight and authority.” Those novels include:
• Spectrum, 1981
• The Children's Game , 1983
• Samarkand Dimension , 1987

Reviews

[D Andrews · Rating 3 out of 5]

I believe that this book was meticulously researched and as such it represents an important account of the espionage episode that it describes. Having said that, I think that the subject matter deserves a better rendering than this book. The writing style is tedious. This case would probably make an engaging movie provided that this book is not used as the basis for the screenplay.

[Fisher_FA · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fantastic in every way. Wise is a master in this genre and provides superb detail that tells the whole story. What I like best is how is deftly included the “big picture” without exhausting the reader.

[Kelly · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book was really interesting. I loved learning about how the spy world works. I learned a lot about the FBI. This was well worth the read. I will say it ends very differently than I expected, but I realized that may be because I have read too many fiction spy books.

[Ondra Soukup · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting, though too detailed account of one episode of cold war confrontation.

[Brian · Rating 4 out of 5]

David Wise is well acquainted with the worlds of espionage and counter-espionage, and "Cassidy's Run" reflected that. While it's a fairly short book, it's probably the most detailed narrative of a long-term, counter-espionage operation I've ever read. Wise does a great job in putting the cloak and dagger action into the context of not only the Cold War, but also the 1970s post-Church Committee fallout on the Intelligence Community. If you find the non-fiction variety of spy stories interesting, this is certainly the book for you. It will hold your attention, amaze you at the capabilities of our security services, and probably also make you furious at some of the behaviors of bureaucracy.

On the negative side, I felt a little sense of "bait and switch" with the manner in which Wise used the deaths of two FBI agents in this "secret spy war." Those deaths were certainly tragic, and they were certainly related to the FBI's counter-espionage operation. However, using that event as the start of the narrative seemed to imply the centrality of the event in the greater story; it was not. Nor were the deaths the result of KGB (actually GRU in this story) assassins wielding silenced weapons or poison-tipped umbrellas: they were the result of an airplane crash. I don't mean to minimize the tragedy of the deaths. I just think Wise shouldn't have tried to make it larger in his narrative than it was.

[Erik Graff · Rating 3 out of 5]

The first nonfiction book I ever read about espionage was one co-authored by David Wise, writer of this narrative. While that, The Invisible Government, was a serious overview of the CIA, this book has a much narrower focus, being about the work of a US Army mole burrowed in Soviet spy operations within the United States. Using this story as a thread spanning over two decades, Cassidy's Run delves into several spin-off operations against Soviet sleeper agents.
Chief among the topics pursued by the Soviets was the research being done in the States on nerve agents. Since Army sergeant Cassidy had access to such information, he run by the Defense Department and the FBI to plant disinformation, hoping to lead Soviet researchers down expensive, but fruitless, paths. However, author Wise ends his book with evidence that the USSR succeeded where the USA had failed, producing an unprecedentedly toxic binary delivery system, a system which may still remain operational.

[Raven · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wanted to like this one more than I did. While it was enlightening, and the time period it references has a lot of disturbing history in it, I couldn't get into the spy games when I feel strongly that neither side should have been developing better nerve gases to begin with. Add to that the usual grain of salt that you add when reading anything remotely recent on intelligence or national security -- you know you're not getting the whole story -- and it was worth reading once but not something I'll be eagerly passing on to my friends.

[Ryan · Rating 3 out of 5]

David Wise always sucks me in but I think I expected more from this book. That being said, I think it's a good book that highlights the intel war between the US and Soviet Union during the Cold War and shows some of the potential blowback from those deceptions.

[Eli · Rating 4 out of 5]

A fascinating look at how counterintelligence work is actually done.

[Brian Jackson · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very fascinating description of a cold-war counterintelligence operation. Well researched. I'd rate this as a must read for intelligence and CI professionals.

[Kathleen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Very cool!