Therefore, NASA leadership and strategists wouldn't have even known that the NRO existed, and independently came up with their lesser satellites, no agenda needed to pretend to have an inferior space sector.

That seems unlikely because they'd have been recruiting from the same pool of talent. They'd have been wondering where the best people from specializing in space tech, optics, etc went, and being leadership at NASA means you're probably not stupid, and you go to the same events as them. Also as NASA leadership, it would have been a pretty logical next step for your own career.

I don't doubt that people outside of the NRO had no idea what they do there, and that people lower down the hierarchy didn't know about it, but NASA leadership must have known there was a shadowy org working on cool satellites.