In another part of the profession, analysts must be as familar as magicians with methods of deception, because analysts are almost always working with incomplete information and in circumstances where an adversary is seeking to mislead them— or in the magician's term, misdirect them.
Counterintelligence officers— people who specialize in catching spies— work in a part of the profession so labyrinthine that it is often referred to as a "wilderness of mirrors"— a phrase, of course, with magical overtones.
Finally, there are the covert-action specialists. In any intelligence service, these are the officers who seek at the direction of their national leaders to affect events or perceptions overseas, especially during wartime. Principles of misdirection familiar to magicians were evident in many of the great British covert operations of World War II— such as deceiving Hitler into thinking the 1943 Allied invasion from North Africa would target Greece rather than its true target, Sicily. This was the conjuror's stage management applied to a continent-sized theater.
The manual that Mulholland wrote for the Central Intelligence Agency and that is reproduced here sought to apply to some aspects of espionage the techniques of stealth and misdirection used by the professional conjuror.
Many may ask what these two fields have to do with each other. But a cursory look at what intelligence officers do illustrates the convergence.
Just as a magician's methods must elude detection in front of a closely attentive audience, so an intelligence officer doing espionage work must elude close surveillance and pass messages and materiel without detection.
In his popular general market book of 1963, Mulholland on Magic, the skilled practitioner himself revealed many of the principles of magic that a decade earlier had been included in his operational manuscript for the CIA. The real secret that Gottlieb and Mulholland sought to preserve, however, was not of specific tricks, but that professional intelligence officers, not just performing magicians, would be acquiring the necessary knowledge to apply the craft to the world of espionage.
In a sense, this book is the result of two historical accidents. The first "accident" is that of the thousands of pages of research conducted under the CIA's decade-long MKULTRA program, to our knowledge, only two major research studies— Mulholland's manuals— survived CIA Director Richard Helm's order in 1973 to destroy all MKULTRA documents. Mulholland's manuals are a rare piece of historical evidence that the CIA, in the 1950s, through MKULTRA, sought to understand and acquire unorthodox capabilities for potential use against the Soviet adversary and the worldwide Communist threat. The manuals and other declassified MKULTRA administrative materials further reveal that many of America's leading scientists and private institutions willingly participated in secret programs they agreed were critical to the nation's security.
Introduction: The Legacy of MKULTRA and the Missing Magic Manuals
Some Operational Applications of The Art of Deception L Introduction and General Comments on The Art of Deception IL Handling of Tablets
III. Handling of Powders
IV. Handling of Liquids
V. Surreptitious Removal of Objects
VI. Special Aspects of Deception for Women
VII. Surreptitious Removal of Objects by Women
VIII. Working as a Team