THE DEEP STATE
‘Pete’ Bagley became Chief of the CIA’s Soviet Russia Division Counterintelligence in 1962 and later Deputy Chief of the Soviet Bloc Division. That same year, I started working undercover in the “Soviet” division at Moffett Field, California. In 1967, Bagley transferred to Brussels as Chief of Station until his early retirement at the age of 46 in 1972. During that period, I was assigned to the CIA’s Los Angeles office, handling coding and decoding duties in a secure room (a vault) about the size of a small bedroom.
Bagley was the main case officer and interrogator for KGB defector Yuri Nosenko from June 1962 to August 1967. Nosenko asserted, months following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy, that “the KGB was not involved with the accused assassin.” (Commentary, Sept. 2022, History, “A Spy Story Too Juicy to Be True? Written by Harvey Klehr). Lee Harvey Oswald, during his two-and-a-half-year residence in the USSR had been compromised, but the CIA and Bagley denied this fact.
Despite concerns from Bagley and other CIA members about Nosenko’s credentials, he was permitted to officially defect to the United States after reconnecting with Bagley in Geneva in February 1964. At that time, Nosenko asserted that he had served as Lee Harvey Oswald’s KGB case officer during Oswald’s two-and-a-half-year residence in the USSR. He never acknowledged that Oswald was indoctrinated, drugged, and forced to return to the U.S. and assassinate President Kennedy – so the truth of the matter remained unresolved – but the first version was more closely aligned with how Russia operates. Nosenko’s actions and statements in 1964 constituted the dissemination of misleading information, and Bagley believed him.
The number one lesson learned at the CIA and then later living in Russia was “believe nothing you hear and only half that you see.” (Edgar Allan Poe)
The Bay of Pigs Invasion was a failed U.S.-backed landing by Cuban exiles against Fidel Castro in southwestern Cuba in April 1961. Convinced a U.S. invasion was unavoidable, Castro sought Soviet protection. Premier Khrushchev responded by placing nuclear missiles in Cuba to deter U.S. aggression and dealing with an imbalance of power. In October 1962, the Cuban Missile Crisis brought the United States and Soviet Union to the brink of nuclear war during the Cold War. The crisis unfolded between the White House and the Kremlin – Kennedy and Khrushchev. This was a man-to-man clash. While the Cuban missile crisis strengthened Kennedy’s image domestically and globally, Premier Khrushchev was embarrassed and angry – a major and unforgivable blunder of the American side. With my twenty years living and working in Russia and learning to understand and appreciate Russians, it is my understanding that this Kennedy gaffe led to his death only a year later by Lee Harvey Oswald.
Motivation for most Russians comes from deep-seated but often hidden emotions. As I have written before, the Moscow Business Guide published a caution to foreigners wishing to work in Russia or to understand Russians. It says, “The most fundamental concepts that have guided your judgement for a lifetime are not even known, much less understood here.”
Today, 64 years after the Cuban crisis, another American is threatening Cuban invasion. The circumstances are entirely different. Mr. Trump has repeatedly shown the world the obvious fact that he operates under the control of Mr. Putin on a regular basis.
The Trump administration has blocked energy shipments to Cuba since January as part of a strategy to force the Communist government into submission. Mr. Trump said in a January social media post: “THERE WILL BE NO MORE OIL OR MONEY GOING TO CUBA — ZERO!” (The NYT, March 30, 2026, written by Zolan Kanno-Youngs, et al).
Mr. Putin spoke with Mr. Trump and explained the dire need for gas in Cuba. Trump then allowed a Russian oil tanker to pass, showing his continued submission toward President Putin. This strengthened Russia’s hold on Washington and on Mr. Trump.
Moscow continues to thwart Mr. Trump’s global goals. While Trump has told our UN Ambassador to vote in favor of Russia – a first in U.S. history – Russia has rejected Trump’s Ukraine cease-fire efforts after lengthy talks. In the Middle East, it has provided intelligence on U.S. troop locations, according to American officials. Russia, who now has the upper hand in global clandestine operations, is the master at disinformation.
Wikipedia defines “deep state” as “a term used for unauthorized secret networks of power operating within a government but independent of its political leadership, in pursuit of their own agendas and goals. It distorts and abuses the truth for various purposes shaping the balance of power within government institutions. In Russia, the ‘deep state’ KGB men schemed and conquered power in the 1990s, so today their country operates as a criminal society and government. In the U.S., Trump’s team of ‘deep state’ followers during his first administration – while all operating with Russians in some manner – convinced the American public ‘he had no connections with Russia.’ THE TRUTH IS: Trump had been working with Russians since the early 1980s and was entrapped and bribed by the Russians since 1990s.
And as Americans continue to disavow the Trump-Russian treasonous relationship – finding it hard to believe – it is the Russians who now ‘control all the levers.’