The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception

Once a top-secret training manual for CIA field agents in the early Cold War Era of the 1950s, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception is now available to the general public. An amazing historical artifact, this eye-opening handbook offered step-by-step instructions to covert intelligence operatives in all manner of sleight of hand and trickery designed to thwart the Communist enemy. Part of the Company’s infamous MK-ULTRA—a secret mind-control and chemical interrogation research program—this legendarydocument, the brainchild of John Mulholland, then America’s most famous magician, was believed lost forever. But thanks to former CIA gadgeteer Bob Wallace and renowned spycraft historian H. Keith Melton, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception is now available to everyone, spy and civilian alike.

Customer Reviews:

A window into illusion and espionage

By E. M. Van Court "Van" - November 18, 2009

During the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employed an American sleight of hand artist, a magician by the name of John Mulholland to provide instruction on illusion and deception as part of the sinister and shadowy MKULTRA program. Two of his texts have survived and been declassified, and are reproduced here, along with a brief history of some of the CIA's spookiest programs.

The history portion; "The Legacy of MKULTRA and the Missing Magic Manuals" will entertain, delight, and provoke conspiracy theorists everywhere. This section touches on operations of the Cold War, formerly classified experimentation, and gadgets from the sublime to ridiculous. It also discusses the long-standing relationship between magicians and intelligence operations going back to WW I. There are some super vignettes about Harry Houdini and his stagecraft in there too.

The first text by Mulholland is mostly about covert (covert; "An operation that is so... read more

Finally available, the legendary stage magic books for the CIA

By Michael A. Duvernois - November 3, 2009

Stage magician John Mulholland wrote this pair of manuals for the CIA in the early 1950s. All copies were believed to have been destroyed, though stories of the sleight of hand and secret communication documents have carried down through the decades. One copy of each manual were discovered though, and now declassified, appear here in print. It's an interesting book for both the stage magic and the history of CIA spycraft folks. Though the cover makes it clear that they figure the market will be from those interested in the CIA "trickery and deception."

It's not as exciting as a James Bond version would be, unless you can put the movies and fiction aside and feel the thrill of the real deal. These manuals were written to help CIA case officers pass documents to agents without notice, or to hold-out hide small objects. The real nuts and bolts of espionage. Makes sense to go to the magicians who do that sort of thing daily, though with lower consequences of failure... read more

Overblown -

By Loyd E. Eskildson "Pragmatist" - March 28, 2010

In 2007 the authors discovered a long-lost CIA file, once top secret, created by magician John Mulholl while employed as the agency's first magician. The intent was to guide CIA officers on how to use magicians' craft in clandestine operations. That lost file comprises the material in "The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception." Readers get the lowdown on 'flash paper' that burst into flame when touched by a lit cigarette, water-soluble paper, disguises, switching clothes and persons, an agent impersonating a 180-lb. large dog, how the sawing a woman in half trick works, sleight of hand in dropping pills in someone else's drink etc. Nice, but it gets old after awhile, and one doubts how useful the lessons learned were in practice.