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The operation began in 1959 when U.S. Army First Sergeant Joseph Edward Cassidy (1920<ref name="C-SPAN">{{cite AV media | people=Brian Lamb (Host), David Wise (interviewed) | date=April 3, 2000 | title=Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas | medium=TV program | publisher=C-SPAN | url=https://www.c-span.org/video/?156370-1/cassidys-run-secret-spy-war-nerve-gas&start=164 }}<!--Birth day June 25, 1920 stated on video--></ref>-2011<ref>{{cite web |url=http://www.legacy.com/obituaries/national-cremation/obituary.aspx?n=Joseph-Cassidy&lc=4516&pid=154252599&mid=4821163 |title=Joseph Cassidy Obituary - National Cremation - Virginia Beach VA |author=<!--Not stated--> |website=[[Legacy.com]] |access-date=March 22, 2018 }}</ref><ref>{{cite web |url=https://billiongraves.com/grave/Joseph-Edward-Cassidy/10173877 |title=Joseph Edward Cassidy |author=<!--Not stated--> |date=August 27, 2014 |website=BillionGraves |access-date=March 22, 2018 |quote=CSM US Army World War II Korea Vietnam}}</ref>), assigned to the Army's nuclear power office near [[Washington, D.C.]], was approached (with Army permission) by the FBI. Cassidy, despite having no previous training, was able to make contact with a Soviet naval attache believed to be a spy, and set up an arrangement where he would provide information to the Soviets in exchange for money. Soviet requests for information were passed to the US [[Joint Chiefs of Staff]], and various classified information provided as a result.<ref name=Day>Anthony Day, ''[[Los Angeles Times]]'', 7 April 2000, [http://articles.latimes.com/2000/apr/07/news/cl-16806 "Cold-War Espionage Thriller Brims with the Shocking Truth"]</ref>
The principal Russian interest was in information about the US [[nerve gas]] program,<ref name=Day/> and Cassidy initially established his credentials by providing genuine data from the US program.<ref>Scott Shane, ''[[Baltimore Sun]]'', 8 July 2001, [http://articles.baltimoresun.com/2001-07-08/entertainment/0107080327_1_soviet-union-espionage-shocker "Spying, though overrated, has much redeeming value"]</ref> By 1964 he was in a position to begin pointing Soviet research towards a G-series nerve agent, [[GJ (nerve agent)|GJ]], which the US thought could not be produced in stable, weaponizable form.<ref name="C-SPAN" /> Cassidy provided over 4,000 documents on a mixture of real and non-existent research into the new gas, with the US intending to waste Soviet resources attempting to duplicate the work.<ref name=BW>Milton Leitenberg, Raymond A Zilinskas, and Jens H Kuhn (2012), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=6iSg3YKhzikC&pg=PT430 The Soviet Biological Weapons Program: A History]'', [[Harvard University Press]], p. 430</ref><ref>Benjamin C. Garrett and John Hart (2009), ''[https://books.google.com/books?id=yNJtYLW4IiwC&pg=PA160 The A to Z of Nuclear, Biological and Chemical Warfare]'', [[Scarecrow Press]], p. 160</ref><ref>[[James Risen]], ''[[The New York Times]]'', 5 March 2000, [https://www.nytimes.com/2000/03/05/world/us-dangled-poison-secrets-before-soviets-book-reports.html "U.S. Dangled Poison Secrets Before Soviets", Book Reports]</ref> Information on the GJ agent fed to the Soviets may have influenced the Soviet FOLIANT program that produced the [[Novichok agent]]s.<ref name="Cassidy's Run" /><ref name="Flynn Fired">{{Cite journal |last1=Flynn |first1=Michael |author-link1=Michael Flynn |last2=Garthoff |first2=Raymond L. |author-link2=Raymond L. Garthoff |year=2000 |title=Playing with Fire |journal=Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists |volume=56 |issue=5 |pages=35-40 |at= |nopp= |arxiv= |asin= |bibcode= |bibcode-access= |biorxiv= |citeseerx= |doi=10.1080/00963402.2000.11456992 }}</ref><ref name="nrc.nl">{{cite news |last=Knip |first=Karel |date=March 21, 2018 |title=‘Unknown’ newcomer novichok was long known |url=https://www.nrc.nl/nieuws/2018/03/21/unknown-newcomer-novichok-was-long-known-a1596490 |work=nrc.nl |location= |access-date=March 22, 2018 }}</ref>
The operation was highly classified, and when two FBI agents died in a plane crash while surveilling a Soviet spy, press and public were misled about the circumstances, and even the agents' families were told nothing for years.<ref name="Cassidy's Run">{{cite book |last1=Wise |first1=David |author-link1=David Wise (journalist) |title=Cassidy's Run: The Secret Spy War Over Nerve Gas |year=2000 |publisher= [[Random House]] |url=http://www.randomhouse.com/book/192523/cassidys-run-by-david-wise/ |lay-summary=http://articles.chicagotribune.com/2000-05-31/features/0005310028_1_soviet-spies-soviet-embassy-nerve-gas |lay-source=Russian Spies, Poison Gas, The Fbi--an Intriguing Mix |lay-date=May 31, 2000 }}</ref>
A similar, and arguably more significant, disinformation operation was run by the FBI via [[double-agent]] [[Dmitri Polyakov]], feeding the Soviet Union the false information that the US was covertly continuing with its biological weapons program despite public announcements to the contrary. The disinformation
==References==
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