Old spy case aired to give new lessons

Former spook speaks at conference

RALEIGH -- More than 40 years have passed since Soviet spy Yuri Nosenko told U.S. government agents he wanted to defect. Many of those involved in his case at the CIA are dead or retired, and those now building their careers in the agency are more worried about preventing terrorism than investigating old treason.

But Tennent "Pete" Bagley can't let it go.

Bagley, a 22-year veteran of the CIA who has been retired for years, was in Raleigh this week for the fifth Raleigh Spy Conference, where he talked about "Spy Wars," his recent book on the Nosenko case and why, after four decades, it's still relevant and can spark spirited arguments among those who study international intelligence.

The present-day CIA could learn from the case, Bagley said, because agents of the KGB, though it goes under another name, "are still doing their thing, their way." Thousands of Soviet missiles are still operable and still trained on U.S. sites, Bagley said, and Soviet spies have done nothing over the years but hone the skills they developed during the Cold War.

But more important, Bagley told those at the conference, buried in the files of the Nosenko case are the names of code clerks who betrayed the United States by passing secrets to the KGB. Had the Cold War ever turned hot, Bagley said, those secrets could have won the war for the Soviet Union.

"If I hadn't done this book, I can assure you all of these details would have been lost to history," he said.

Those attending the conference, at the N.C. Museum of History, were a furtive lot. Though they wore name badges around their necks, some were recalcitrant when approached: the young writer with the book project he couldn't discuss, the psychotherapist who didn't want to be identified.

Bagley, related to the Daniels family of Raleigh, former owners of The News & Observer, was welcomed by conferees like a dignitary at a state event. There are dozens of retired CIA agents who have made second careers as speakers and trainers in the intelligence community, but Bagley, who lives in Brussels, didn't go public with his convictions regarding Nosenko until he wrote his book.

Bagley argues that Nosenko was a false defector, planted by the KGB and eventually taken in by the CIA.