The Deep State

by Dennis Cuddy, Ph.D.

The Deep State usually refers to a left-leaning entrenched bureaucracy, with whom I am familiar from my years in the Reagan administration. My first awareness of its existence came from my reading Graham Allison’s book, THE ESSENCE OF DECISION, in which he wrote about “the bureaucratic model” concerning the Cuban Missile Crisis (CMC) of the early 1960s. I wrote about the CMC being a sham in the June 4, 1989 edition of THE ARIZONA REPUBLIC (also printed in the HOUSTON POST).

There are actually 2 parts to the bureaucracy in the federal government. Both of them have as a primary objective preserving their own jobs. Part 1 are the civil servants who actively work to thwart RIFs (Reductions in Force) that the government executes to save monies. The more dangerous part of the Deep State bureaucracy are former political operatives who have been implanted in the bureaucracy by converting them to civil servants usually toward the end of a Democrat administration. This is what Presidents Carter and Obama did, for example.

President Carter placed many of his political operatives in the bureaucracy as civil servants so they would be harder to remove. They were not just “pencil pushers,” but were strategically placed to preserve the initiatives of President Carter via delaying and other undermining tactics such as smearing Reagan appointees. In my own case, for example, they would try to belittle me by saying my qualification as a Senior Associate in the U.S. Department of Education was that I had been a theater usher. What they did not say was that the federal 171 form required one to list all their jobs back to the time a person was 12 years old, and as a teenager I had been a theater usher. What they ignored was my education qualifications which were more extensive than any of theirs. Congressman Henry Hyde once said in the CONGRESSIONAL RECORD that I was “one of the nation’s great education experts.” I was even unofficially made an offer to be the next U.S. Secretary of Education as Terrel Bell was leaving that position at the end of President Reagan’s first term in office.

Another tactic they use is the “set up.” For example, one of my jobs was to identify problems in education, solve them, and get the solutions published across the U.S., which I did from the MIAMI HERALD to the ANCHORAGE NEWS and from the New Hampshire UNION LEADER to the LAS VEGAS REVIEW-JOURNAL. On one occasion, a newspaper sent me a check for an article, which I returned to avoid “double dipping” (getting paid twice, once for my job and once by the newspaper). The editor returned the check to me and said “Have a lunch on us.” I immediately returned the check again, but the next day received a call from the Inspector-General saying he had received an anonymous tip that I was double dipping. I avoided trouble because I knew that the Deep State was trying to set me up. I also caught 2 individuals monitoring my office phone calls.

When President Reagan was first elected, there was a saying that “personnel is policy.” When President Trump assumed office, he was faced with the same Deep State tactics by President Obama’s placement of political operatives in the bureaucracy as civil servants to preserve his programs and policies and thwart President Trump’s initiatives. The difference was that President Trump only relied upon a small group of advisers, including his family, to carry out his agenda. He did not avail himself of the tremendous amount of experience and expertise of the Reaganites, who could have alerted him to Deep State personnel and tactics, which were also employed by their allies in the media. For example, President Trump was repeatedly “set up” from the time he entered office. For one of his first press conferences, THE NEW YORK TIMES sent a reporter who was handicapped in his muscular movements, hoping that President Trump would call attention to the handicap, thus setting him up for making fun of a person’s handicap. Although THE NEW YORK TIMES has many reporters who could have covered that press conference, I immediately recognized it as a “set up.” which was apparently not recognized by President Trump’s staff because of their lack of experience—something of which the Deep State unfortunately has plenty!

E-Mail Dennis Cuddy: recordsrevealed@yahoo.com