CIA Manual Thought Lost In 1973 Available On Amazon

An anonymous reader writes "At the height of the Cold War, the Central Intelligence Agency paid renowned magician John Mulholland $3,000 to write a manual on misdirection, concealment, and stagecraft. All known copies of the document were believed to be destroyed in 1973. Turns out one survived — and is now available on Amazon."

Comments

Trickery and misdirection

[RDW]

'Turns out one survived -- and is now available on Amazon'

Or at least, that's what they want you to think...

The original article?

[Sara Chan]

So the Slashdot summary links to an article in the Huffington Post. And the HuffPo article links to an article in Wired. And the Wired article links to the actual story in the Boston Globe.

Genius idea: have the Slashdot summary link to the actual story. YES!!!

Re:The original article?

[arachnoprobe]

Genius idea: have the Slashdot summary link to the actual story. YES!!!

You must be new here.

Re:The original article?

[CharlyFoxtrot]

So the Slashdot summary links to an article in the Huffington Post. And the HuffPo article links to an article in Wired. And the Wired article links to the actual story in the Boston Globe

Slashdot: now a free treasure hunt with every story !

Re:Oh come on, everybody has that on his hard disk

[zwei2stein]

Most of those files were work of BBS users and can range anywhere from complete bullshit all the way to actually working stuff.

I guess you know this, but rest of slashdot could take a peek at those manuals here: http://textfiles.com/

Re:wow

[SpaghettiPattern]

Did you ever read the prince? It's the K+R C Programming Language for politics. The book in TFA is about being a spy. I wouldn't say the topics are unrelated but one is a practical handbook and the other is on concepts.

Re:wow

[krou]

"As they are tools they can be used for both Good and Evil purposes."

I know what you mean, but that's the wrong terminology to be using when discussing Machiavelli and the school of realism (which is essentially what you're describing). It's nothing to do with "good" and "evil". It's only about power, and continuing the existence of the state by whatever means necessary. This tradition goes all the way back to Thucydides, who basically recorded that the “the strong do what they have the power to do and the weak accept what they have to accept [and] by conquering you we shall increase not only the size but the security of our empire – it is a general and necessary law of nature to rule whatever one can". Rousseau, Niebuhr, Edward Bernays, and various others all expound the same principles.

The only usage of the term "good" that you can probably use in this scenario is that the actions taken continue the existence of the state. Machiavelli even notes that "it is necessary for a prince wishing to hold his own to know how to do wrong, and to make use of it or not according to necessity – it will be found that something which looks like virtue, if followed, would be his ruin; whilst something else, which looks like vice, yet followed brings him security and prosperity.” "Good" and "evil" simply do not apply as most people would understand them; that's a moral code used for propaganda i.e. whatever we do is "good", while whatever they do is "evil". Lying, deception, torture, wars of aggression, ignoring human rights issues, etc. are not things that most people would endorse as being "good" in any shape or form, but in the realm of realism they are all legitimate means towards the one goal i.e. continuing the existence of the state.

This is one of the prime reasons that there exists a core contradiction in states: internally, its citizens are meant to uphold a strict moral code. Externally, as a collective, they engage in activities that very rarely, if ever, coincide with this moral code.

Ironic

[hallux.sinister]

Every time I see or hear of a reference to "The Prince", or a leader is referred to as Machiavellian, I smile at the irony. Machiavelli was being SARCASTIC when he wrote that. He was kidding! Machiavelli was ahead of his time in holding the ideals of personal freedom and responsibility, equality, and all that jazz which are diametric opposites of the views espoused in "The Prince". He worked hard as a politician to build Florence into a shining beacon of how a society should be run, and a family called the de' Medici came along, seized power, (using techniques from the, at the time, as-yet-unwritten book, "The Prince") and turned the shining beacon into a cesspool of corruption, with rampant nepotism, greed, etc.

Stripped of his position, and having been barred from holding any political office by the de' Medici, after a lifetime of public service, embittered, Machiavelli wrote "The Prince" basically saying: "if you want to grab, hold, and expand your political power," (adding under his breath, "like those de' Medici bastards,") he continued, "this is what you do..." (He could not insult them openly, he had already been imprisoned and tortured by them once, and I guess he wasn't "feeling strong" anymore.)

It was not meant literally! I guess the De Medici had the last laugh though, whether by their actions or not, Machiavelli's name is associated NOT with his own good and noble life's work, but with the behaviours and beliefs of those he most loathed and despised. For a better idea of what this great Renaissance figure really thought, try instead his "Discorsi sulla prima deca di Tito Livio", or "Discourses on the first ten books of Livy", (Titus Livius, Roman historian)

~ Hallux