Here are instructions in deception
There is a great difference between having an idea about how some act is done and knowing how to do it properly
“The purpose of this paper is to instruct the reader so he may learn to perform a variety of acts secretly and undetectably,” the manual’s introduction kicks off with a simple thesis statement. “In short, here are instructions in deception.”
Ultimately, Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception would perform its own disappearing act. For decades, the manual was a thing of myth, a mystical object whose one-time existence seemed increasingly unreasonable as the decades stretched on. It was among the secrets its author took to his grave 17 years after publication.
John Mulholland was no stranger to secrecy – nor, however, did he struggle to reveal the machinations of his close-up magic, when the moment called for it. In, perhaps, a breach of the opening lines of the Magician’s Oath, "I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion unto the laity,” he would become both the owner and author of numerous volumes on the subject.
“My library, for example, contains books on magic in more than twenty -five languages,” he wrote in 1965’s Magic of the World. “Many books are privately printed for magicians only. At first books merely had descriptions, mostly sketchy, of how magic was done. It has been only during the last hundred years, and largely in this century, that books have given explicit instructions in magic. There is a great difference between having an idea about how some act is done and knowing how to do it properly.”
While not exactly “privately printed for magicians only,” Some Operational Applications was penned for an highly-curated audience. It was Sidney Gottlieb who commissioned the work, the same year the CIA’s chemist began work on the LSD-fueled mind control operation, Project MKUltra.
Mulholland was a magician’s magician. Far from a household name, he still commanded great respect among his peers, forming a close, personal friendship with Harry Houdini. He performed in 42 countries and for FDR’s White House no fewer than eight times. But it was shows for New York City’s society elites that largely paid the bills.
Gottlieb set his sights on the working magician. The decision was perfectly in keeping with the career of a researcher whose best-known work with “chemical, biological and radiological" methods of mind control were unorthodox at best, and utterly brutal and worst. He reasoned that Mulholland’s ability to stun even the most observant audience members with his close-up sleight of hand would make him an ideal asset in the development of new methods of deception.
It was clear, too, that the U.S. government was entirely happy to support such strange and covert action in the early days of the Cold War.
“Hitherto acceptable norms of human conduct do not apply,” General Jimmy Doolittle wrote in a 1954 report to President Eisenhower. “If the U.S. is to survive, long-standing American concepts of “fair play” must be reconsidered. We must develop effective espionage and counterespionage services. We must learn to subvert, sabotage and destroy our enemies by more clever, more sophisticated and more effective methods than those used against us. It may become necessary that the American people will be made acquainted with, understand and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.”
In May of 1953, Gottlieb commissioned MKULTRA Subproject Number 4, paying Mulholland $3,000 for a “spy manual” he would complete the following winter. As he notes in Magic of the World, his own definition of his livelihood is rather loosely defined,
A person is a magician whether he makes magic his profession or his hobby. All magicians of all times are linked together in a fraternal chain. Every person who shows a true respect for the fascinating art of magic and can do even one trick well becomes a link in that chain which goes around the world.
“Magician” was a designation Mulholland seemed more than happy to extend to the CIA agents he envisioned while writing Some Operational Applications. In the manual, he notes that – while not professionally trained in the art of close-up magic – his readers have a decided advantage of going undetected.
Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception details a wide range of different methods derived from Mulholland’s magic work, from concealing objects to slipping pills and powders into beverages. Common products like cigarettes, coins, matchbooks and pens, meanwhile, could go undetected in the execution of these actions.
The extent to which the work and its shorter followup, Recognition Signals, ultimately influenced the CIA isn’t entirely clear. Failed attempts to assassinate Fidel Castro with poisoned milkshakes and pens, a contaminated diving suit and an exploding cigar certainly appear to bear some of Mulholland’s influence.
Three years after the magician’s death in 1970, Director of Central Intelligence Richard Helms ordered all MKUltra paperwork be destroyed. A 1977 Freedom of Information Act request would bring the horrors of MKUltra to light – and reveal the long-secret identity of the CIA’s magician. Mulholland’s two manuals were among a glancingly few reports saved from the agency’s shredders, though they would only be discovered by researchers three decades later.
“All tricksters, other than magicians,” Mulholland writes the first manual, “depend to a great extent upon the fact that they are not known to be, or even suspected of being, tricksters.”
Sources:
The Official CIA Manual Of Trickery and Deception by H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace
Secret CIA 'Magic' Manual Reveals Cold War Spy Tricks https://abcnews.go.com/Technology/secret-cia-magic-manual-reveals-cold-war-spy/story?id=9229248
Magic of the World by John Mulholland
Covert Action Can Be Just https://www.fpri.org/article/1993/07/covert-action-can-just/