In 1973, when then-CIA Director Richard Helms ordered the destruction of all documents associated with the MKULTRA program, the manuals were thought to be gone forever. In the 1950s, as part of the MKULTRA project, the Agency hired magician John Mulholland to teach young officers techniques of deception suitable for the field, such as smuggling assets out of East Germany during the Cold War in vehicles that resembled the magic boxes used in stage illusions.Īs part of his contract, Mulholland prepared two training manuals “Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception” and “Recognition Signals.” This book, created from two long-lost training guides designed to teach Agency officers how to integrate elements of the magician’s craft into clandestine operations, revealed that the CIA’s connection to the world of magic was decades old.
“Magic and espionage are really kindred arts,” or so wrote former CIA Deputy Director McLaughlin, an amateur magician himself, in the forward to the book, “The Official C.I.A.
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