Magician spies

[jeregenest]

The CIA hired John Mulholland, an influential stage magician, to explain techniques of sleight-of-hand and surreptitious signaling so that agents could use them in the field. His text, which was originally supposed to have been destroyed, was recovered, declassified, and reprinted as The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception. Mulholland’s manual evokes a understated, eerie figure - not a dashing hero with infinite James Bond-ian technology at his disposal, but a gray, anonymous person who “should be so normal in manner, and his actions so natural, that nothing about him excites suspicion.” The strength of this book is less in the actual tradecraft, though much of it is timely, than in the ability to get into the mindset that makes tradecraft desirable. Once you understand the basic principles, and they are all the same that drives a practicing magician, you can easily imagine more, modern, techniques. This is what makes this book a must read for me.

If you want more on Mulholland, and who wouldn’t, I recommend The MagiCIAn: John Mulholland's Secret Life by Ben Robinson. Mulholand’s story is amazing and this is a good read.

When the boy was attending Society of Young Magician meetings Mulholland was a big deal to many of the older mentor figures. I once spent an enjoyable time in a magic shop talking with someone who knew him. For a gamer the magician/spy connection can’t be more fun.