Writers are known for their weird web histories, and I am no exception. Today, I’ll highlight just one of the many oddities I have come across lately. In case you are a writer. Or are the curious sort.
The official CIA manual of trickery and deception
The manuals reprinted in this work represent the only known complete copy of Mulholland’s instructions for CIA officers on the magician’s art of deception and secret communications written to counter Soviet mind-control and interrogation techniques
I found the reference after reading this newsletter, featuring a little magic and some talking shoelaces.
These Shoes Are Made for Talking – Now I Know
So in 1953, according to the BBC, the CIA hired a man named John Mulholland to help, paying him $3,000 (the equivalent of $35,000 today) to write the first-ever “CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.” Mulholland, though, wasn’t a spy — he was a magician. The manual outlined lots of different ways CIA agents could use the principles of illusionists to help them survive in the field and advance their goals.
I wondered, was the book still available? And lo, it was!*
* Free to read with login.
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J.R. Johnson 
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