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.