Cassidy's Run (23 page)

AUTHOR’S NOTE

It was in 1991, a few months before the collapse of the Soviet Union, that I first heard fragmentary reports of an extraordinary espionage case that had lasted for more than two decades during the height of the cold war.

In the course of the operation, I was told, two FBI agents had been killed while engaged in aerial surveillance. Secret nerve-gas formulas had been passed to the Soviets as part of a massive but potentially dangerous deception operation. A Mexican couple was involved, but the Justice Department had allowed them to escape at the last moment.

Not one word of the dramatic case had ever been made public. It remained locked in the government’s classified files. Researching the story would be, to say the least, a challenge.

I began to try. At the heart of the operation, I learned, was an American double agent. I found out that he was a noncommissioned army officer, but for five years, for perhaps understandable reasons, no one would tell me his name or where he was.

I did discover the identity of Mikhail Danilin, his principal Soviet control, however. With the support and encouragement of Mike Sullivan, the executive producer of television’s
Frontline,
I went to Moscow in 1993 to try to find and interview him and to see if I could learn more about the case from Russian officials or files. Where to begin? There are no telephone books in Moscow, but through my contacts I was fortunate enough to find someone who knew Danilin and got in touch with him at my request. Word came back that Danilin was close to retirement but still worked for the GRU and could not speak with me. Still playing his role as a spy, Danilin claimed through my intermediary that “he had nothing to do with the case. It belonged to someone else.”

I knew better, but the Danilin route was blocked. The Soviet Ministry of Defense refused to answer any questions about the case. Soon after I left Moscow, Danilin died. I later spoke with his widow, Margarita, but she declined to provide any information about him or his career.

The Pentagon was no more forthcoming than the Soviets. My requests for files under the Freedom of Information Act brought the misleading reply that the army had “no record” of the case. In 1996, I approached Kenneth H. Bacon, the assistant secretary of defense for public affairs, who was responsive and asked the then secretary of the army, Togo D. West, Jr., to review the matter. Secretary West agreed. After many months I was told that yes, the files existed after all, but, no, nothing would be released, for reasons of national security.

Around the same time, however, I learned the identity of the American double agent and gained his cooperation and that of his wife, who had shared his secret life. It was a major breakthrough in my knowledge of what the Joint Chiefs of Staff had called Operation
SHOCKER
. Over time, I was able to interview many former FBI agents, who gradually began to provide details of the case and its two offshoots,
PALMETTO
and
IXORA
. A number of Pentagon sources cautiously talked to me as well. The more I learned, the more I realized that
SHOCKER
was emblematic of how the cold war had been fought in secret by the intelligence agencies of the two superpowers.

All the while, I appealed to the FBI to open its case files and assist me in telling the story. Although some of the bureau’s senior counterintelligence officials felt that with the end of the cold war the story could now be told, they were unwilling to help unless the army also agreed to make information available, and it refused. There the matter remained until finally, late in 1997, John F. Lewis, Jr., FBI assistant director in charge of the national-security division, broke the logjam. Beginning in the summer of 1998, Lewis and James T. “Tim” Caruso, head of the FBI section concerned with Russian intelligence, provided limited but valuable assistance that helped greatly in my understanding of the history of the
PALMETTO
and
IXORA
cases. They also made it possible for me to interview several current and former agents who might not otherwise have talked with me.

To research this book, I conducted some 450 interviews with almost 200 persons. I am indebted first and foremost to Joe and Marie Cassidy, who spoke to me at length and answered all of my questions with abiding patience and good humor. I shall always value their friendship and generous assistance.

Julie Kirkland, the widow of Special Agent Mark A. Kirkland, was enormously helpful and also earned my enduring gratitude. I am greatly indebted as well to Letitia Basford, whose husband, Special Agent Trenwith S. Basford, perished in the same plane crash.

Many present and former FBI agents helped me to tell this story, even though they understood that the operation, like any human endeavor, was not without risk, flaws, and problems, along with its considerable successes. Among the retired agents to whom I am especially indebted are Phillip A. Parker, John J. O’Flaherty, Eugene C. Peterson, and Charles Bevels. Many others helped, including James E. Nolan, Jr., James F. Morrissey, Robert J. Schamay, Charles T. Weis, James E. Lancaster, Edgar Dade, Douglas MacDougall, Donald F. Lord, Richard McCarthy, Robert C. Loughney, John W. McKinnon, William O. Cregar, Carmen Espinoza, and Courtland J. Jones. Others preferred not to be identified, but I am equally appreciative of their help.

I am grateful as well to several officials and agents who were still working for the FBI as I researched the book. In addition to John Lewis and Tim Caruso, I am indebted to Bill Carter of the FBI’s national press office; A. Jackson Lowe and Dan LeSaffre, who provided many details of the fascinating
IXORA
case; as well as Aurelio Flores, Leslie G. Wiser, Jr., Sheila Horan, Dennis Conway, Ronald J. Van Vranken, and William M. Clifford. Before he retired in 1994, R. Patrick Watson, then deputy director of the FBI’s intelligence division, also helped.

Robert and Jill Freundlich were generous in sharing their recollections and photographs of Edmund Freundlich,
IXORA
. I very much appreciate the confidence they placed in me. Two former executives of Pergamon Press, Laszlo Straka and Robert Miranda, as well as Lori Miranda, filled in details about Edmund Freundlich’s work at the publishing house.

Because the deception over nerve gas was central to the early stages of the operation, I needed to know much more about the secret research in chemical weapons conducted in this country and the former Soviet Union. I was able to find and speak to many scientists who had worked at Edgewood Arsenal, as well as Soviet scientists who had participated in their country’s counterpart nerve-gas program.

My thanks in particular go to Saul Hormats, Benjamin L. Harris, William J. Weber, Jefferson C. Davis, Jr., Bernard Zeffert, and Edmund H. Schwanke. I was helped as well by some current officials at Edgewood, including Jim Allingham; Jeff Smart, the base historian; and William C. Dee, former manager of the binary nerve-gas program. Professor Matthew Meselson of Harvard provided an overview of this country’s nerve-gas research and history. Other data was made available by Charles A. Duelfer of the United Nations Special Commission on Iraq.

I am especially indebted to Vil Mirzayanov, who provided detailed information about the Soviet nerve-gas program at considerable personal risk, and to his former wife, Nuria, as well as to Gale M. Colby and Irene Goldman. In Moscow, Lev Fedorov also shared his knowledge about Soviet nerve-gas weapons.

My research in Moscow also benefited from interviews with General Georgy Aleksandrovich Mikhailov, deputy director of the GRU for ten years in the 1980s; Georgi Arbatov, director of the USA-Canada Institute; Yuri G. Kobaladze and Oleg Tsarev of the SVR, the Russian intelligence service; and Mikhail P. Lyubimov and Boris A. Solomatin, former senior officers of the foreign-intelligence directorate of the KGB. I had generous help as well from Joseph Albright and Marcia Kunstel, then the Cox Newspapers’ correspondents in Moscow. Yuri H. Totrov, a former KGB counterintelligence specialist, was interviewed in Washington, and Victor Gundarev, a former KGB officer now living in the United States, provided additional data.

My special thanks also go to Taro Yoshihashi, the former double-agent specialist for the army chief of staff for intelligence, who patiently walked me through the complex web of secret boards that created and approved deception operations for the Pentagon. Brigadier General Charles F. Scanlon, former head of INSCOM, the army intelligence command, provided valuable guidance in the early stages of my research. Henry A. Strecker, another former army intelligence official, was also helpful, as were Harold F. St. Aubin, a former chemical- and biological-warfare specialist for the Defense Intelligence Agency, and several former officers of army intelligence. I also appreciate the efforts of Kenneth Bacon on my behalf.

Several colleagues of Gilberto Lopez y Rivas at the University of Minnesota were kind enough to share their recollections of him. They included Arturo Madrid, Frank Miller, Manuel Guerrero, Alfredo Gonzales, and Rolando Hinojosa-Smith.

Several friends and former colleagues helped generously, and I am particularly grateful to them. They include Thomas B. Ross, my coauthor on three books; Andrew J. Glass, senior correspondent of the Cox Newspapers Washington bureau; and Joel Seidman.

Morton H. Halperin, Kenneth C. Bass III, Mark Lynch, Kate Martin, Robert L. Keuch, and Jonathan R. Turley all helped me to understand the rapidly changing laws, Supreme Court decisions, and presidential orders governing the FBI’s warrantless investigative techniques during the period covered by this book. I am grateful for their advice on this complex subject.

Kristin Kenney Williams assisted in some of the early research, particularly in tracking down sources at the University of Minnesota who helped me to conclude that
PALMETTO
, whose identity I did not then know, was Professor Gilberto Lopez y Rivas. My thanks go to her, as well as to my brother, William A. Wise, who located the former executives of Pergamon Press and assisted with other research.

This is the eighth book on which I have been fortunate enough to have Robert D. Loomis, vice president and executive editor at Random House, as my editor. His talent is legendary, and deservedly so. I am grateful for his steadfast support on this book, which is dedicated to him, and for his friendship of more than three decades.

Finally, I am indebted, as always, to my wife, Joan, and to my two sons, Christopher and Jonathan, all of whom provided valuable advice and counsel along the way.

—David Wise              

Washington, D.C.     

June 16, 1999          

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

D
AVID
W
ISE
is America’s leading writer on intelligence and espionage. He is coauthor of
The Invisible Government
, a number one bestseller that has been widely credited with bringing about a reappraisal of the role of the CIA in a democratic society. He is the author of
Nightmover: How Aldrich Ames Sold the CIA to the KGB
for $4.6 Million; Molehunt; The Spy Who Got Away; The American Police State;
and
The Politics of Lying
and coauthor with Thomas B. Ross of
The Espionage Establishment; The Invisible Government;
and
The U-2 Affair
. Mr. Wise has also written three espionage novels,
The Samarkand Dimension; The Children’s Game;
and
Spectrum
. A native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College, he is the former chief of the Washington bureau of the
New York Herald Tribune
and has contributed articles on government and politics to many national magazines. He is married and has two sons.

OTHER BOOKS BY DAVID WISE

N O N F I C T I O N

The U-2 Affair
(with Thomas B. Ross)

The Invisible Government
(with Thomas B. Ross)

The Espionage Establishment
(with Thomas B. Ross)

The Politics of Lying

The American Police State

The Spy Who Got Away

Molehunt

Nightmover

F I C T I O N

Spectrum

The Children’s Game

The Samarkand Dimension

Copyright © 2000 by David Wise

All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions. Published in the United States by Random House, Inc., New York.

Wise, David.

Cassidy’s run: the secret spy war over nerve gas / David
    Wise.

    p.   cm.

1. Espionage, Soviet—United States—History.
2. Cassidy, Joseph Edward.  3. Chemical weapons—United
States.  4. Biological weapons—United States.
5. Intelligence service—United States.  6. United States.
Federal Bureau of Investigation.  I. Title.

    E839.8.W55    2000    327.1247'073—

    dc21           99-15802

Random House and colophon are registered trademarks of Random House, Inc.

Random House website address:
www.atrandom.com

F
IRST
E
DITION

eISBN: 978-0-375-50536-2

v3.0