Cassidy's
Run : The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas by David Wise
David Wise has written three spy novels and a number of nonfiction
books about U.S. intelligence and espionage, and in Cassidy's Run he vividly
merges both genres to create a true story that reads like a thriller. In
1959, Joseph Cassidy was an ordinary army sergeant with no training in
intelligence or espionage when he was handpicked by the FBI to operate
as a double agent. He spent the next 20 years passing U.S.-approved information
to the Soviets about chemical and biological weapons and U.S. troop movements.
Dubbed Operation Shocker, some of the information he passed involved an
experimental, unstable nerve gas that U.S. scientists believed could not
be used. This assumption proved to be a high-stakes gamble since much accurate
information was mixed with the false in order to lend credence to the charade.
U.S. intelligence may never know whether the information they gave the
Soviets actually spurred on Russian chemical weapons development. Part
of the objective of the operation was to uncover the Soviets' spy network,
and in this respect it was successful, eventually flushing out 10 agents
living in the United States. Throughout his time as a double agent, only
Cassidy's wife knew of his activities--even his children were unaware--allowing
him to retire quietly in Florida with his friends and relatives none the
wiser. Cassidy's Run is a fascinating tale of cold-war intrigue publicly
unknown until now. --Linda Killian - Amazon.com Paperback from Random House
Book Published: 07 March, 2000
Charlie Wilson's War: The Extraordinary Story of the Largest Covert
Operation in History by George Crile
Listed under Charlie Wilson's War
The
Spy Who Stayed Out in the Cold: The Secret Life of FBI Double Agent Robert
Hanssen by Adrian Havill
While the term double agent implies contradiction, Adrian Havill's
portrait of spymaster Robert Hanssen reveals a man truly driven by opposing
demons. Hanssen was a consummate loner, "Walter Mitty squared," yet he
approached the Soviets himself in quest of the thrill-filled life of a
double agent. A staunch conservative and strict Catholic, he took money
from communists--to give diamonds and Mercedes to strippers on one hand,
and to send his six children to expensive Catholic schools on the other.
Havill, a seasoned chronicler of criminals and celebrities, creates a taut
and troubling portrait of a disturbed man who compromised the security
of a nation. He also gives an inside look into the oft-inept FBI, the National
Security Agency's futuristic surveillance systems, and the spy-versus-spy
world of Russian intelligence. --Lesley Reed - Amazon.com Hardcover: 352 pages
St. Martin's Press; ISBN: 0312287828; (September 25,
2001)
Inside
CIA's Private World: Declassified Articles from the Agency's Internal Journal,
1955-1992 by H. Bradford Westerfield
In 32 essays originally written for the Central Intelligence Agency's
internal journal, Studies in Intelligence, authors, most of whom are CIA
agents, talk shop. These recently declassified articles, written between
1955 and 1992, provide an offbeat internal history of CIA operations. Some
delve into arcane areas of tradecraft, and could be considered essential
reading for historians as well as spy buffs: CIA operatives detail secret
operations, offer practical how-to advice, and critique themselves and
their work. Amazon.com Paperback from Yale Univ Pr
Book Published: September, 1997
The CIA's Greatest Hits (The Real Story Series)
by Mark Zepezauer, Arthur Naiman (Editor)
Paperback - 96 pages (September 1994)
Odonian Pr; ISBN: 1878825305
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