dollars. Since Cassidy never split open the rocks before handing them over to the FBI, he never knew exactly how much money they held. But according to Charlie Bevels, “the rocks often contained ten thousand dollars at a time, usually in a little Baggie, rolled up inside the rocks. Sometimes there was more than that.”
But at the meetings with Danilin, Cassidy, playing his role, continually pressed for more money. If the Soviets tended to think of Americans as greedy and materialistic, then he would meet their expectations. “I was always crying for money. I have a teenage daughter, child-support payments for my wife, I have to buy food, clothes, insurance. The piddling amounts you’re giving me aren’t worth the chance I’m taking.”
Despite Cassidy’s complaints to the Soviets that he was being underpaid, the money was rolling in, albeit into the FBI’s coffers to finance the operation. With the GRU paying Cassidy tens of thousands of dollars, the Russians worried that he might display his new wealth conspicuously. His Soviet handlers warned him to spend money carefully and to avoid buying anything that would attract attention.
Intelligence work is highly compartmentalized. Although Taro Yoshihashi monitored the operation from the Pentagon and was deeply involved in the feed, he never met Joe Cassidy, though he admired him from afar.
“I felt Cassidy was one of the most competent double agents we ever had,” Yoshihashi said. “For example, when he bought a freezer, he said to the Soviets, ‘I have enough cash now to buy this, but I did a down payment just like everybody else.’ ”
When Cassidy needed to write to the GRU, he was instructed to use the special carbon paper he had been given earlier. He recalled how it worked: “The carbon was reddish but dark, it looked normal except for the red color. I would take a sheet of ordinary paper and make a pencil mark to show the writing will be on that side. I would put the special carbon on top of the paper, another paper on top of the carbon, and clip the three together. Then I would take a pencil and write the message. It left no visible marks on the bottom sheet. I’d give the top sheet to my FBI handler and save the carbon paper to use again. I was left with a blank sheet of paper with the invisible writing. I would put that sheet with the secret writing in the rock.”
Cassidy used this method to confirm a meeting date or a drop site or to answer requests from Danilin. “Sometimes he would ask whether I could get him something, and I would respond in a letter that I could or could not, or I was still looking for it. Sometimes I wrote to say a drop site they proposed was no good, it was in an area where there were too many people around.”
Cassidy got on well with Jimmy Morrissey. As it happened, he had a lot in common with his new case agent. Both were born into working-class Irish American families, and they hit it off from the start.
Morrissey was a quintessential Boston Irishman, with a soft New England brogue. Born in Charlestown, the blue-collar neighborhood of triple-decker houses that sent John F. Kennedy and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill to Congress, the FBI man was one of five children of immigrants who came over from County Waterford around the turn of the century; his father was a freight handler at a cold storage warehouse.
In the “wilderness of mirrors,” as counterintelligence has been called, seemingly unrelated spy cases often interlock, their threads becoming entangled with one another. So it was with one GRU case that had an impact on Morrissey and, at least indirectly, on Cassidy. In New York in January 1962, FBI agent John Mabey made one of the most important recruitments of the cold war. He persuaded Colonel Dimitri Fedorovich Polyakov of the GRU to pass secrets to the FBI. Mabey gave him the code name TOPHAT . Polyakov, who rose to the rank of general, provided information of enormous value during eighteen years as a spy
But at the meetings with Danilin, Cassidy, playing his role, continually pressed for more money. If the Soviets tended to think of Americans as greedy and materialistic, then he would meet their expectations. “I was always crying for money. I have a teenage daughter, child-support payments for my wife, I have to buy food, clothes, insurance. The piddling amounts you’re giving me aren’t worth the chance I’m taking.”
Despite Cassidy’s complaints to the Soviets that he was being underpaid, the money was rolling in, albeit into the FBI’s coffers to finance the operation. With the GRU paying Cassidy tens of thousands of dollars, the Russians worried that he might display his new wealth conspicuously. His Soviet handlers warned him to spend money carefully and to avoid buying anything that would attract attention.
Intelligence work is highly compartmentalized. Although Taro Yoshihashi monitored the operation from the Pentagon and was deeply involved in the feed, he never met Joe Cassidy, though he admired him from afar.
“I felt Cassidy was one of the most competent double agents we ever had,” Yoshihashi said. “For example, when he bought a freezer, he said to the Soviets, ‘I have enough cash now to buy this, but I did a down payment just like everybody else.’ ”
When Cassidy needed to write to the GRU, he was instructed to use the special carbon paper he had been given earlier. He recalled how it worked: “The carbon was reddish but dark, it looked normal except for the red color. I would take a sheet of ordinary paper and make a pencil mark to show the writing will be on that side. I would put the special carbon on top of the paper, another paper on top of the carbon, and clip the three together. Then I would take a pencil and write the message. It left no visible marks on the bottom sheet. I’d give the top sheet to my FBI handler and save the carbon paper to use again. I was left with a blank sheet of paper with the invisible writing. I would put that sheet with the secret writing in the rock.”
Cassidy used this method to confirm a meeting date or a drop site or to answer requests from Danilin. “Sometimes he would ask whether I could get him something, and I would respond in a letter that I could or could not, or I was still looking for it. Sometimes I wrote to say a drop site they proposed was no good, it was in an area where there were too many people around.”
Cassidy got on well with Jimmy Morrissey. As it happened, he had a lot in common with his new case agent. Both were born into working-class Irish American families, and they hit it off from the start.
Morrissey was a quintessential Boston Irishman, with a soft New England brogue. Born in Charlestown, the blue-collar neighborhood of triple-decker houses that sent John F. Kennedy and Thomas P. “Tip” O’Neill to Congress, the FBI man was one of five children of immigrants who came over from County Waterford around the turn of the century; his father was a freight handler at a cold storage warehouse.
In the “wilderness of mirrors,” as counterintelligence has been called, seemingly unrelated spy cases often interlock, their threads becoming entangled with one another. So it was with one GRU case that had an impact on Morrissey and, at least indirectly, on Cassidy. In New York in January 1962, FBI agent John Mabey made one of the most important recruitments of the cold war. He persuaded Colonel Dimitri Fedorovich Polyakov of the GRU to pass secrets to the FBI. Mabey gave him the code name TOPHAT . Polyakov, who rose to the rank of general, provided information of enormous value during eighteen years as a spy
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