Secret CIA 'Magic' Manual Reveals Cold War Spy Tricks

[sabra]

Source: ABC News

During Cold War, American Magician Wrote 'Trickery and Deception' Manual for C.I.A.

Dec. 4, 2009—

For decades, rumors of top-secret "magic" manuals swirled within CIA circles.

The long-lost guides were said to have been written by a prominent magician, but many officers dismissed them as myth, believing them too fantastical to be true.

But in 2007, retired CIA officer Robert Wallace unearthed an extraordinary archived file and is now making its contents available to the public for the first time.

The file contained once highly-classified manuals written in the early 1950s by American magician John Mulholland that detailed the secrets of magic that could enhance the art of espionage.

It was thought that every copy of his reports had been destroyed in 1973.

But Wallace obtained surviving copies and, with intelligence historian H. Keith Melton, combined the two manuals -- one examining sleight of hand techniques and the other on covert signaling -- into one book, recently released by publisher HarperCollins.

Read more: http://abcnews.go.com/Technology/secret-cia-magic-manual-reveals-cold-war-spy/story?id=9229248

[BennyD]

1. Yeah, and extraterrestrials aren't visiting this planet either. n/t

[bergie321]

2. "Spy Tricks"

This line automatically renders every piece of intelligence ever gathered false. Why isn't Faux News reporting on "IntelligenceGate" yet?

[24601]

3. Because the context is different - in one, it's meant to conceal or

mislead, while with the other, the meaning is to enable our intelligence officers to obtain information the host nation doesn't want us to have.

I, for one, want out intelligence officers to succeed so that policy makers, such as President Obama, have a wide spectrum of information upon which to base informed decisions.

[Liberation Angel]

4. interesting!

thanks

k and r