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

^{CHAPTER: 2} THE DANGLE

On a warm night in August 1959, Commander Boris M. Polikarpov, who was listed as the assistant naval attaché at the Soviet embassy in Washington, left the YMCA on G Street, two blocks from the White House, after a game of volleyball.

The Y was only a few minutes’ walk from the Soviet embassy on Sixteenth Street, a beaux-arts mansion built by the widow of George M. Pullman, the inventor who designed the railroad sleeping cars that bear his name.[1]

Polikarpov was a short, tough-looking Slav, with slicked-back straight hair and coarse features. His official position was a cover job. He was in reality a spy, an officer of the GRU. Muscular and physically fit, he had been selected for the YMCA volleyball team that traveled around the Washington area to play other clubs in competition. He had been posted to Washington more than a year earlier.

On this night, Commander Polikarpov noticed an American army sergeant, in uniform, sitting on the steps of the Y and enjoying the summer evening. He was one of the Thursday-night regulars. They had played together in pickup games for several months, sometimes on the same team, sometimes on opposing teams. They did not really know each other, however.

“Hi, have you had dinner yet?” the Russian asked.

The sergeant said he had not. He fell into step with his occasional teammate, and they walked together to a little Italian restaurant nearby.

A big, strapping man of thirty-nine, Sergeant Joseph Edward Cassidy, at six foot one, towered over Polikarpov. Born in Erie, Pennsylvania, Cassidy had spent five years in an orphanage, dropped out of high school, and gotten a job at the local steel plant. He had worked in the intense heat of the open-hearth furnace, turning scrap metal into molten steel. He entered the army in 1943, during World War II, and decided to stay after the war ended. At the moment, he was a first sergeant assigned to the army’s nuclear power field office at Fort Belvoir, Virginia.

At the restaurant, although Polikarpov did not give his name, it was clear to Cassidy that his new friend was a foreigner. His English was imperfect, and he spoke with an accent. Over chicken cacciatore, the two men chatted about volleyball. The Russian asked how long Cassidy had been playing at the Y. Five months, the sergeant replied. There was more small talk, and they parted.

For Polikarpov, a trained intelligence officer, the familiar espionage dance had begun. The casual encounter, a friendly dinner, and the Russian, with luck, might gradually be able to develop the American sergeant into a paid source, a spy for Moscow. Polikarpov had already known how long Cassidy had been playing at the Y. He had watched him since he had first showed up in March and had noticed him in uniform before. Although Cassidy was only a noncommissioned officer, there was no telling what information he might have access to or might be able to obtain in the future. It was entirely possible that the big, amiable sergeant, if handled carefully, might be recruited as an agent in place—a mole inside the United States Army.

The thought was surely exciting to the GRU officer, for a good recruitment might bring a medal; it would certainly be a giant step toward a promotion. His superiors would be pleased.

Above all, this recruitment would be safe. Cassidy was no walk-in, a volunteer spy who had showed up unannounced at the embassy or the consulate, offering his services in return for money. The GRU was well aware that the United States military and the FBI often sent such wouldbe double agents. The Russians were always extremely wary of these bogus volunteers, suspecting, often rightly, that they were really working for American intelligence.

But here the shoe was on the other foot. It was Polikarpov who had spotted Cassidy as a possible developmental. The big sergeant seemed a simple man who enjoyed sports and a good meal. The GRU officer could hardly wait until next Thursday; he would invite the sergeant to dinner again.

The next morning, Cassidy drove alone to a fried-chicken restaurant on U.S. Route 1 and Kings Highway, a few miles north of Fort Belvoir. He met there with two agents of the FBI. He reported the approach by the volleyball player and their dinner together. Those were the words that, for many months, the FBI agents had been hoping they would hear.

Inside the intelligence division of the FBI, the news was electric. Polikarpov had made contact. WALLFLOWER was operational.[2]

The genial sergeant was, in the jargon of the spy world, a dangle. He had been carefully selected by the bureau and army intelligence and put in the way of Boris Polikarpov. Much like a metal lure flashed to a bluefish in the surf or a delicately tied mayfly presented to a trout in a mountain stream, Joe Cassidy had been sent to play volleyball at the YMCA, where, from its surveillance, the FBI knew that Polikarpov played on Thursday evenings. Now, after five months, Polikarpov had taken the bait.

The following Thursday, Cassidy lounged on the steps outside the Y again. Years later, he remembered those first contacts with clarity. “I always made a point to get out front of the Y ahead of him,” he said, “so he’d see me in uniform when he came out.” On this second Thursday, Polikarpov greeted Cassidy and asked if he had a car.

Cassidy’s blue Buick was parked nearby, and he offered his friend a ride.“We went in my car to a different restaurant,”Cassidy recalled. Dinners with Polikarpov soon became a regular Thursday-night event. “A number of times we went to the Old English Raw Bar along the Potomac. He liked oysters on the half shell.” During their second dinner together, Polikarpov introduced himself simply as“Mike.”He didnot reveal that he was a Russian or that he worked at the embassy.Cassidy didnot press him.

In the course of their early conversations, Polikarpov asked Cassidy casually whether he was married, where he lived, how long he had been in the army, and where he was assigned. At the time, Cassidy and his wife lived in Alexandria, not far from his job at Fort Belvoir. Cassidy explained that he worked in the nuclear power area; his job was to help train operators for the army’s nuclear power plants at Belvoir, Idaho Falls, and in Alaska.[3]

Occasionally, Cassidy asked a question, but “Mike” seldom answered. “When I would ask questions he would answer with a question.”

Russians like to drink, and Cassidy felt he had to keep up. “Polikarpov was drinking vodka on the rocks. I was drinking bourbon and ginger ale. Some nights we would not break up until around two A.M. Although I watched my drinking, I felt I had to play the game.

“Sometimes with a glow on, he would have me drop him off in locations in Washington that I was not familiar with, like Walter Reed Army Medical Center. I would have a job trying to find the Fourteenth Street bridge. I would get home, grab a few hours sleep, then go off to work.”

Polikarpov, like a skilled spy, was proceeding slowly. He knew it was important to cultivate a source gradually. But after several dinners, it was time for the first move.

“One night we were eating, and he said, ‘Joe, can you do me a favor?’ I said, ‘If I can.’”

Polikarpov took the plunge. “We’re interested in some nuclear power information,” he said.

“I don’t know what country you’re from,” Cassidy replied, “but I’m loyal to my country. I would never do anything to hurt my country.”

“No, this is peaceful,” Polikarpov protested. “We in Russia have some—”

“Oh, you’re from Russia?”

Polikarpov nodded. “We have some desolate areas,” he continued, “where we would like to get power. I’ll pay you for the information.” Polikarpov paused. “Joe, I don’t want you to do anything improper.” But it was terrible, the Russian went on, that there were people in his country who had no electricity. All he was asking Cassidy to do was to help him help his people obtain basic necessities.[4]

Cassidy waited a long moment, as though he were turning the matter over in his mind. “OK,” he finally replied. “Since I consider you my friend, I will try to help you, within limits. As long as it’s peaceful, I’ll see what I can do.”

“Mike” then asked Cassidy to meet him with the documents a few days later at 10 A.M. on a residential street just off Route 1, half a mile north of the sprawling Belvoir military complex.

“Don’t wear your uniform,” the Russian said.

“I have to,” Cassidy replied, “I’m working.”

Then wear an overcoat, Polikarpov instructed him. Cassidy said he would but pointed out that the coat would be olive drab and would still bear his sergeant’s stripes.

Before the scheduled meeting with Polikarpov, Cassidy joined two of his FBI handlers at the chicken restaurant on Route 1. The agents handed him documents that had been cleared to be given to the GRU officer.

At the rendezvous with the Russian, Cassidy produced the material. “I have to have it back,” he warned.

“No problem,” Polikarpov said, “I’ll have it back this afternoon.” Around 3 P.M., they met again, and Polikarpov, having had time to photograph the documents, gave them back to the sergeant.

Later, Cassidy met the FBI men again at the restaurant, returned the documents to them, and was debriefed. The same procedure was followed in a subsequent series of meetings. Polikarpov pressed for any and all information Cassidy could get on nuclear power. In each case, Polikarpov took the documents from Cassidy in the morning and, like clockwork, returned them in the afternoon so that Cassidy could supposedly slip them back into the army’s files.

No money changed hands at the first rendezvous, but Polikarpov paid Cassidy for the documents he brought to their later meetings. Cassidy turned the money over to the FBI agents.[5]

In March 1960, Polikarpov handed Cassidy off to a second “Mike,” who took over the meetings. Polikarpov and Cassidy continued to play volleyball at the Y on Thursday evenings. The FBI identified WALLFLOWER’s new control as Gennady Dimitrievich Fursa, another GRU officer, who was listed simply as an “attaché” in the political section of the Soviet embassy. But Fursa missed two meetings, and the FBI had Cassidy express his concern to Polikarpov at one of their volleyball games.

Although Cassidy continued to pass documents to the Russians under the FBI’s guidance, he was distracted in 1960 by personal problems. “My marriage was souring,” he said. One of his army buddies, also a noncommissioned officer, was put on orders for Korea. “It gave me an idea: Why not me, too? This may be the way to save the marriage. My marriage vow was very important to me. I felt I had to try to make it work. Maybe if we were separated for a while things might be different. Maybe a year away from home might patch things up.”

WALLFLOWER’s plan to leave the United States for an overseas post dismayed the FBI, but the bureau had little choice but to go along with Cassidy’s wishes. The human factor was central to the success of any espionage operation; it could not be ignored. Cassidy clearly wanted to get away from Washington for a time. The army and FBI approved his transfer to Korea.

Before he left in September 1960, the Russians gave him recontact instructions for his return. That was welcome news to the FBI, since it meant the operation might not be over after all.

“I was told to take a red crayon and crush it on the sidewalk in front of a photography store in Washington,” Cassidy recalled. “And the next day I was to walk with a pipe in my mouth and a book in my hand on a residential street in Maryland, and someone would come up to me with a code phrase. The contact would ask, was a certain movie house nearby? Cassidy was to give a prearranged reply.

WALLFLOWER memorized his instructions. He would see, when he came back from Korea, whether his wife, or the Russians, were waiting for him.