Bagley, Tennent H. 1925- (Pete Bagley, T.H. Bagley)

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Bagley, Tennent H. 1925- (Pete Bagley, T.H. Bagley)

PERSONAL:

Born 1925; son of David Worth (a Navy admiral) and Mary Louise Bagley. Education: Holds a Ph.D.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Brussels, Belgium. Office—47 Bedford Sq., London WC1B 3DP, England.

CAREER:

Writer, researcher, and CIA agent. Served in the CIA for twenty-two years in Clandestine Services, became chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence.

WRITINGS:

(With Peter Deriabin) KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union, Hippocrene Books (New York, NY), 1990.

Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, Yale University Press (New Haven, CT), 2007.

SIDELIGHTS:

Tennent H. Bagley is a writer, researcher, and former CIA operative who spent twenty-two years in that organization's Clandestine Services division. Well-versed in the espionage techniques of Russia and the Soviet Union, Bagley eventually became the CIA's chief of Soviet bloc counterintelligence, working against the KGB. Bagley provides an in-depth examination of one of his most important cases in Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, the story of a Soviet defector whose status still generates controversy.

Spy Wars chronicles Bagley's involvement in the complex case of Yuri Nosenko, an alleged Soviet KGB officer who defected to the United States in the early 1960s. When Nosenko approached an American diplomat in Geneva, Switzerland, and expressed his desire to provide information to the United States, Bagley was the CIA agent who handled the case. From the beginning, however, Nosenko's behavior and back-story aroused suspicion. He claimed he could not defect at that time because of potential danger to his wife and children, who were still in Moscow. He was unable to answer questions about the structure and layout of the KGB headquarters in Moscow. Bagley and others felt that his cover story of being an escort officer for a conference delegation was dubious, given the high rank he claimed within the KGB. Nosenko returned to Moscow, but agreed to provide additional information to U.S. agents.

Nosenko appeared again in January, 1964, as the United States reeled following the assassination of President John F. Kennedy. This time, Nosenko was eager to defect and provided even more incendiary information: he claimed to have seen secret KGB files that proved that Russia had no connection to Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald and that there was no Soviet involvement in Kennedy's killing. Nosenko again provided inconsistent information and weak confirmation of his position: he no longer seemed concerned with the family he had claimed to have in Moscow; he gave inconsistent information about his rank within the KGB; and he was unable to provide a consistent answer to the question of when he joined the KGB. Bagley and others concluded that Nosenko was neither a genuine KGB agent nor a serious defector; in fact, they believed that he was a Soviet plant, part of an ultra-secret KGB operation intended to install deep-cover agents in the United States under the guise of defectors. Others within the CIA, however, including Bagley's superiors, believed Nosenko's story and accepted him as a genuine defector. Bagley's reputation within the CIA was tarnished by his continued assertions against Nosenko. Though the book does not provide a definitive answer to the questions about Nosenko, Spy Wars stands as Bagley's case against both Nosenko and the CIA—against the agency superiors who doubted his conclusions, and against the Soviet spies who possessed the drive and ability to thoroughly deceive U.S. officials. "It's impossible to read this book without developing doubts about Nosenko's bona fides," commented David Ignatius in the Washington Post.

"This is perhaps the most amazing nonfiction spy book that has ever appeared during or after the Cold War," remarked Oleg Gordievsky and Boris Volodarsky in the Spectator. "The spy game has never seemed quite so dirty nor the CIA so villainous," remarked David Pitt in a Booklist review. Bagley "tells his story with an authority that can only come from living the life of a spook" for decades, noted Ed Goedeken in Library Journal. "Readers will need to be able to adapt to the mind-set of a counterintelligence officer sifting through the odd coincidences, connecting the dots, to fully appreciate and grasp the case against Nosenko. But this game of real-world Clue is worth it," remarked New York Times Book Review contributor Evan Thomas.

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

Booklist, March 15, 2007, David Pitt, review of Spy Wars: Moles, Mysteries, and Deadly Games, p. 6.

International Herald Tribune, June 1, 2007, Evan Thomas, review of Spy Wars.

Journal of Peace Research, May, 1992, Nils Petter Gleditsch, review of KGB: Masters of the Soviet Union, p. 235.

Library Journal, January, 1990, Daniel N. Nelson, review of KGB, p. 134; May 1, 2007, Ed Goedeken, review of Spy Wars, p. 89.

New York Times Book Review, June 3, 2007, Evan Thomas, "The Tangled Web," review of Spy Wars, p. 46.

Orbis, fall, 1990, James P. Konzak, review of KGB, p. 615.

Publishers Weekly, December 15, 1989, Genevieve Stuttaford, review of KGB, p. 51.

Russian Review, April, 1991, Amy Knight, review of KGB, p. 228.

Spectator, May 19, 2007, Oleg Gordievsky and Boris Volodarsky, "Untangling the Web of Deception," review of Spy Wars.

Times Literary Supplement, December 7, 1990, Amy Knight, review of KGB, p. 1309.

Washington Post, April 11, 2007, David Ignatius, "A Ghost of the Cold War," review of Spy Wars, p. A15.

Washington Times, June 3, 2007, Joseph C. Goulden, "Yuri Nosenko: CIA's Russian Defector, or Just a Phony?," review of Spy Wars; June 29, 2007, Bill Gertz, "Inside the Ring."