the GRU suspect him? Was he about to be kidnapped?
For the first time since it had all begun almost a decade earlier with volleyball and oyster dinners along the riverfront in Washington, he was frankly scared. “I thought they might put me on a plane to Moscow, give me the truth serum, and shoot me.”
No one stepped out of the shadows at 9 P.M. Cassidy waited for an hour beyond the appointed time, then walked to the corner and waited another half an hour before a taxi came along. The taxi did not stop, but about ten minutes later it cruised by again, and this time it picked him up.
Disappointed but also relieved, Cassidy flew back to Baltimore and reported to the FBI that the Soviets had failed to make contact. At home with Marie, Cassidy made light of his trip at first. He told his wife he had seen some boxing matches and track-and-field events. He joked about his trouble finding something to eat. It was only some time after his return that he revealed to Marie his fears about the trip.
In December, at his next scheduled meeting with his GRU handler, Cassidy complained bitterly. The new “Mike,” to whom Danilin had handed him off, had been identified by the FBI as Oleg Ivanovich Likhachev, a GRU officer listed as a third secretary of the Soviet embassy.
Likhachev was not his real name, however. The GRU man was using his wife’s maiden name in his career as a spy, probably to avoid any potential embarrassment to the memory of his father, a decorated Soviet general during World War II. Likhachev’s father, General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, was killed in action in February 1945. 4 Had Likhachev been caught in a spy scandal and expelled from the United States or another country, there would be nothing to connect him with his famous father.
“I was steaming,” Cassidy recalled. “I said, ‘Jeez, Mike, I just got married and you send me off to a foreign country and nobody shows.’ He said, ‘You were supposed to have been told the meeting was canceled.’ That’s all he said.”
Jack O’Flaherty, soon to become Cassidy’s new FBI case agent, had his own theory about the hat dance the GRU put Cassidy through in Mexico. “It could have been a test to see if he would leave the country,” Flaherty said. “If he resisted, they might conclude he was under control.”
C H A P T E R: 11
SUNDANCE
By the spring of 1969, Cassidy had been stationed at Edgewood for seven years, and the FBI began to fret that the Russians might regard it as a suspiciously long time for him to remain in the same job. Moreover, the nerve-gas deception was winding down after three and a half years.
It had been difficult enough to keep Cassidy in the Edgewood lab as it was. Shortly after his marriage, Cassidy was informed by the army that he was being sent to Karlsruhe, Germany. There was some suspicion within the FBI that the army wanted to transfer Cassidy there so it could take over the case. (Because the FBI operates primarily within the United States, if the case moved abroad the army would have jurisdiction.) Morrissey managed to outflank the army and squelch the transfer. According to Charlie Bevels, the FBI had to maneuver around the army bureaucracy more than once.
“Cassidy’s name kept showing up on a list for Vietnam,” Bevels recalled, “and every six months or so Jimmy Morrissey had to go to the Pentagon and get his name off the list. Joe was uneasy because he couldn’t explain it to anybody. He didn’t want any special privilege.”
The army inadvertently solved the bureau’s problem that spring by promoting Cassidy, a master sergeant, to an E-9, the rating for sergeant major. “Since there was no E-9 slot at Edgewood, I had to find a slot,” Cassidy said. “I checked and found one open at the United States Strike Command [STRICOM], in Tampa, Florida. I put in a request for transfer.”
Unknown to Cassidy, the FBI was orchestrating his move to Tampa. The bureau, Phil Parker recalled, saw a major benefit that
For the first time since it had all begun almost a decade earlier with volleyball and oyster dinners along the riverfront in Washington, he was frankly scared. “I thought they might put me on a plane to Moscow, give me the truth serum, and shoot me.”
No one stepped out of the shadows at 9 P.M. Cassidy waited for an hour beyond the appointed time, then walked to the corner and waited another half an hour before a taxi came along. The taxi did not stop, but about ten minutes later it cruised by again, and this time it picked him up.
Disappointed but also relieved, Cassidy flew back to Baltimore and reported to the FBI that the Soviets had failed to make contact. At home with Marie, Cassidy made light of his trip at first. He told his wife he had seen some boxing matches and track-and-field events. He joked about his trouble finding something to eat. It was only some time after his return that he revealed to Marie his fears about the trip.
In December, at his next scheduled meeting with his GRU handler, Cassidy complained bitterly. The new “Mike,” to whom Danilin had handed him off, had been identified by the FBI as Oleg Ivanovich Likhachev, a GRU officer listed as a third secretary of the Soviet embassy.
Likhachev was not his real name, however. The GRU man was using his wife’s maiden name in his career as a spy, probably to avoid any potential embarrassment to the memory of his father, a decorated Soviet general during World War II. Likhachev’s father, General Ivan Chernyakhovsky, was killed in action in February 1945. 4 Had Likhachev been caught in a spy scandal and expelled from the United States or another country, there would be nothing to connect him with his famous father.
“I was steaming,” Cassidy recalled. “I said, ‘Jeez, Mike, I just got married and you send me off to a foreign country and nobody shows.’ He said, ‘You were supposed to have been told the meeting was canceled.’ That’s all he said.”
Jack O’Flaherty, soon to become Cassidy’s new FBI case agent, had his own theory about the hat dance the GRU put Cassidy through in Mexico. “It could have been a test to see if he would leave the country,” Flaherty said. “If he resisted, they might conclude he was under control.”
C H A P T E R: 11
SUNDANCE
By the spring of 1969, Cassidy had been stationed at Edgewood for seven years, and the FBI began to fret that the Russians might regard it as a suspiciously long time for him to remain in the same job. Moreover, the nerve-gas deception was winding down after three and a half years.
It had been difficult enough to keep Cassidy in the Edgewood lab as it was. Shortly after his marriage, Cassidy was informed by the army that he was being sent to Karlsruhe, Germany. There was some suspicion within the FBI that the army wanted to transfer Cassidy there so it could take over the case. (Because the FBI operates primarily within the United States, if the case moved abroad the army would have jurisdiction.) Morrissey managed to outflank the army and squelch the transfer. According to Charlie Bevels, the FBI had to maneuver around the army bureaucracy more than once.
“Cassidy’s name kept showing up on a list for Vietnam,” Bevels recalled, “and every six months or so Jimmy Morrissey had to go to the Pentagon and get his name off the list. Joe was uneasy because he couldn’t explain it to anybody. He didn’t want any special privilege.”
The army inadvertently solved the bureau’s problem that spring by promoting Cassidy, a master sergeant, to an E-9, the rating for sergeant major. “Since there was no E-9 slot at Edgewood, I had to find a slot,” Cassidy said. “I checked and found one open at the United States Strike Command [STRICOM], in Tampa, Florida. I put in a request for transfer.”
Unknown to Cassidy, the FBI was orchestrating his move to Tampa. The bureau, Phil Parker recalled, saw a major benefit that
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