David WisewasAmerica's leading writer on intelligence and espionage. Hewasthe coauthor ofThe Invisible Government, a #1 bestseller about the CIA. Hewasalso the author ofNightmover, Molehunt, The Spy Who Got Away, The American Police State,The Politics of Lying,Cassidy's Run, Spy,andTiger Trap,and the coauthor, with Thomas B. Ross, ofThe Espionage EstablishmentandThe U-2 Affair. A native New Yorker and graduate of Columbia College, hewasthe former chief of the Washington bureau of theNew York Herald-Tribuneand contributed articles on government and politics to many national magazines.David Wise died in 2018.
Praise for Cassidy's Run
"A true cold-war story that reads like the very best spy
thriller."
—Seymour M. Hersh
"David Wise has again performed one of his astonishing feats of
digging out a spy drama where few even knew one existed.
Magnificently documented and yet clearly and cogently written,
Cassidy's Run is a piece of hidden history that is a cautionary
tale for our time."
—Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst, National Public Radio
" A Soviet sleeper
agent doubled back against the GRU. Dangles. Illegals. Hollow rocks
with microdots at dead drops. Fake nerve gas formulas. FBI special
agents killed in the line of duty. At the center of it all an army
sergeant from a humble background who deceives Soviet intelligence
for over two decades. Bag the novels. Read Cassidy's Run."
—R. James Woolsey, former director, Central Intelligence Agency
"David Wise's carefully researched, dramatic story reveals how
counterintelligence has been used to identify the targets,
objectives, and techniques of our enemies and to neutralize their
efforts. Because of patriotic citizens like Joe Cassidy, America is
safer today."
—William H. Webster, former director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency
This is a remarkable true-life espionage thriller. For 21 years, beginning in 1959, plainspoken, modest U.S. Army Sgt. Joseph Cassidy successfully pretended to be a money-grubbing traitor to his country. In the eyes of his Soviet handlers, he was a mole planted deep inside the U.S. defense establishment. In fact, he was passing along secret nerve-gas formulas and military data--some of it genuine, some fake--to the Russians with the aim of sidetracking their chemical warfare program. Cassidy, now retired, was the star player in Operation Shocker, a top-secret FBI/Defense Department project that cost the lives of two FBI agents, flushed out 10 Communist spies and revealed the lengths to which Soviet intelligence would go to penetrate America's defenses. Wise (The Spy Who Got Away) takes readers deep inside the U.S. nerve-gas program, founded on the ashes of the Third Reich when U.S. Army intelligence obtained from ex-Nazi scientists the formulas for lethal agents like sarin. Wise also interviewed Vil Mirzayanov, a senior chemist who worked for three decades in the Soviet nerve-gas program, and who was arrested in 1992 for telling the world that the U.S.S.R. had developed Novichok, a nerve gas capable of killing millions of people instantly. Although both the U.S. and Russia have pledged to dispose of their chemical weapons, Wise reports that the Russians still possess Novichok. His taut narrative is full of bizarre twists and James Bond echoes--coded Soviet messages on microdots left inside hollow artificial rocks; a Russian sleeper agent in the Bronx, awaiting the signal for nuclear Armageddon; Cassidy's marriage to an ex-nun who conceals her past from him (and vice versa). To say this book would make a terrific movie in no way diminishes its value as an investigative scoop. (Mar.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.
Praise for Cassidy's Run
"A true cold-war story that reads like the very best spy
thriller."
-Seymour M. Hersh
"David Wise has again performed one of his astonishing feats of
digging out a spy drama where few even knew one existed.
Magnificently documented and yet clearly and cogently written,
Cassidy's Run is a piece of hidden history that is a cautionary
tale for our time."
-Daniel Schorr, senior news analyst, National Public Radio
" A Soviet sleeper agent doubled back against the GRU. Dangles.
Illegals. Hollow rocks with microdots at dead drops. Fake nerve gas
formulas. FBI special agents killed in the line of duty. At the
center of it all an army sergeant from a humble background who
deceives Soviet intelligence for over two decades. Bag the novels.
Read Cassidy's Run."
-R. James Woolsey, former director, Central Intelligence Agency
"David Wise's carefully researched, dramatic story reveals how
counterintelligence has been used to identify the targets,
objectives, and techniques of our enemies and to neutralize their
efforts. Because of patriotic citizens like Joe Cassidy, America is
safer today."
-William H. Webster, former director, Federal Bureau of
Investigation and Central Intelligence Agency
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