information.”
Yoshihashi and Peterson, while responsible along with a few other officials for managing the operation, did not deal directly with Cassidy. That was the job of the case agents in the field. And during the deception phase of SHOCKER , that meant Jimmy Morrissey.
In the fall of 1964, a major shift of positions had occurred in the FBI’s Washington field office. Ludwig Oberndorf, the counterintelligence chief, was assigned to headquarters. Special Agent William J. Lander took over S-3, the GRU squad. At the same time, Donald Gruentzel, who had been Cassidy’s case agent, was promoted to supervisor of S-2, the KGB squad. It thus fell to Jimmy Morrissey to run Cassidy during the most sensitive phase of the operation.
In its final form, the plan was, in a sense, a triple deception. “There were G-series gases up to letter H,” Yoshihashi said. “The deception was to say we now have GJ. It was fictitious.” Secondly, the claim of a new and powerful GJ nerve gas might lead Moscow to conclude, by implication, that the Edgewood scientists had also created a nerve gas labeled GI. The third aspect of the deception was that the bogus documents to be passed to Moscow by Cassidy were also to reveal that GJ existed in binary form.
The decision to tell the Soviet Union about a breakthrough nerve gas designated GJ had a grain of truth embedded within it, since the Edgewood scientists had in fact tried to do so and failed. The effort had taken place, but the results disclosed to the GRU were false.
Most former officials privy to the deception declined to discuss it. One ex-FBI agent familiar with Operation SHOCKER , however, agreed to talk about the deception, the most sensitive phase of the long-running case, on the condition that he not be named. “We had spent a lot of money, and we thought, hell, make them do it. It was hoped the operation would lead the Soviets in turn to spend time and resources on trying to develop the same weapons system, in binary form. It was a ‘we tried and couldn’t so let’s make them spend money on it’ attitude.”
The FBI’s files confirm this purpose. In December 1965, FBI headquarters informed the Washington field office that the deception operation had been authorized based on material developed by the army. The deception would involve a lethal chemical agent, many times more effective than any then available. For #8220;technical” reasons, it was said, the United States had decided not to deploy this weapon but would pass the information to the Soviet Union in a controlled manner. The objective was to cause the Soviets to conduct extensive research and to commit money, personnel, training, and material to replicate or defend against a chemical agent that the United States had not actually produced and therefore had no intention of using.
Another former FBI official, who also insisted on anonymity, was willing, cautiously, to describe the nerve gas that the Soviets were led to believe had been developed. “It was very unstable and could not be stored, so it could not be put in a weapon. It would not maintain its toxicity.
And there was no antidote for it.
So the idea was, we give it to the Soviets, they make it, and then discover it’s unstable and no antidote exists, so it can’t be used. Because how would they protect their own troops?”
Now the double-agent operation had escalated into a risky, highstakes gamble. For at its core, the deception over nerve gas was designed to mislead Moscow into believing that the United States was ahead in the chemical-warfare arms race.
Any deception operation carries with it a risk. The documents passed by Cassidy to Mikhail Danilin contained enough true information mixed in with the false to get the Russians to believe all of it. The risk was that Soviet scientists might find the true information valuable and use it to make breakthroughs that had eluded America’s scientists.
The Joint Chiefs, the army, and the FBI agents who
Yoshihashi and Peterson, while responsible along with a few other officials for managing the operation, did not deal directly with Cassidy. That was the job of the case agents in the field. And during the deception phase of SHOCKER , that meant Jimmy Morrissey.
In the fall of 1964, a major shift of positions had occurred in the FBI’s Washington field office. Ludwig Oberndorf, the counterintelligence chief, was assigned to headquarters. Special Agent William J. Lander took over S-3, the GRU squad. At the same time, Donald Gruentzel, who had been Cassidy’s case agent, was promoted to supervisor of S-2, the KGB squad. It thus fell to Jimmy Morrissey to run Cassidy during the most sensitive phase of the operation.
In its final form, the plan was, in a sense, a triple deception. “There were G-series gases up to letter H,” Yoshihashi said. “The deception was to say we now have GJ. It was fictitious.” Secondly, the claim of a new and powerful GJ nerve gas might lead Moscow to conclude, by implication, that the Edgewood scientists had also created a nerve gas labeled GI. The third aspect of the deception was that the bogus documents to be passed to Moscow by Cassidy were also to reveal that GJ existed in binary form.
The decision to tell the Soviet Union about a breakthrough nerve gas designated GJ had a grain of truth embedded within it, since the Edgewood scientists had in fact tried to do so and failed. The effort had taken place, but the results disclosed to the GRU were false.
Most former officials privy to the deception declined to discuss it. One ex-FBI agent familiar with Operation SHOCKER , however, agreed to talk about the deception, the most sensitive phase of the long-running case, on the condition that he not be named. “We had spent a lot of money, and we thought, hell, make them do it. It was hoped the operation would lead the Soviets in turn to spend time and resources on trying to develop the same weapons system, in binary form. It was a ‘we tried and couldn’t so let’s make them spend money on it’ attitude.”
The FBI’s files confirm this purpose. In December 1965, FBI headquarters informed the Washington field office that the deception operation had been authorized based on material developed by the army. The deception would involve a lethal chemical agent, many times more effective than any then available. For #8220;technical” reasons, it was said, the United States had decided not to deploy this weapon but would pass the information to the Soviet Union in a controlled manner. The objective was to cause the Soviets to conduct extensive research and to commit money, personnel, training, and material to replicate or defend against a chemical agent that the United States had not actually produced and therefore had no intention of using.
Another former FBI official, who also insisted on anonymity, was willing, cautiously, to describe the nerve gas that the Soviets were led to believe had been developed. “It was very unstable and could not be stored, so it could not be put in a weapon. It would not maintain its toxicity.
And there was no antidote for it.
So the idea was, we give it to the Soviets, they make it, and then discover it’s unstable and no antidote exists, so it can’t be used. Because how would they protect their own troops?”
Now the double-agent operation had escalated into a risky, highstakes gamble. For at its core, the deception over nerve gas was designed to mislead Moscow into believing that the United States was ahead in the chemical-warfare arms race.
Any deception operation carries with it a risk. The documents passed by Cassidy to Mikhail Danilin contained enough true information mixed in with the false to get the Russians to believe all of it. The risk was that Soviet scientists might find the true information valuable and use it to make breakthroughs that had eluded America’s scientists.
The Joint Chiefs, the army, and the FBI agents who
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