The Official CIA Manual Of Trickery And Deception H. Keith Melton

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The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception

H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace

Contents

Acknowledgments
Foreword by John McLaughlin
Introduction: The Legacy of MKULTRA and the Missing Magic Manuals
Some Operational Applications of The Art of Deception
I. Introduction and General Comments on The Art of Deception
II. Handling of Tablets
III. Handling of Powders
IV. Handling of Liquids
V. Surreptitious Removal of Objects
VI. Special Aspects of Deception for Women
VII. Surreptitious Removal of Objects by Women
VIII. Working as a Team

Recognition Signals
Notes
Selected Bibliography
About the Authors
Other Books by H. Keith Melton and Robert Wallace
Credits
Copyright
About the Publisher

ACKNOWLEDGMENTS

It is unlikely that either John Mulholland or Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, the CIA officer who authorized the
creation of “Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception” and “Recognition Signals,”
ever anticipated their manuals would become available to anyone without security clearances. Both
men understood that their respective professions, as magician or CIA officer, required oaths of
secrecy.
The magician’s oath states:
As a magician I promise never to reveal the secret of any illusion to a non-magician, unless
that one swears to uphold the Magician’s Oath in turn. I promise never to perform any
illusion for any non-magician without first practicing the effect until I can perform it well
enough to maintain the illusion of magic.
Members of the magic community disavow anyone seen as betraying this oath, but also recognize
the necessity to expose secrets of their craft responsibly to students and others desirous of learning
magic. In his 2003 book, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and
Learned to Disappear, illusionist and author Jim Steinmeyer addressed the conundrum faced by those
seeking to write about magic, yet still preserve its mysteries:
In order to understand how Houdini hid his elephant, we’re going to have to explain a few
secrets. We’ll have to violate that sacred magician’s oath. In the process, I promise that
there will be a few disappointments and more than a few astonishments. But to appreciate
magic as an art, you’ll have to understand not only the baldest deceptions, but also the
subtlest techniques. You’ll have to learn to think like a magician.
In his popular general market book of 1963, Mulholland on Magic, the skilled practitioner
himself revealed many of the principles of magic that a decade earlier had been included in his
operational manuscript for the CIA. The real secret that Gottlieb and Mulholland sought to preserve,
however, was not of specific tricks, but that professional intelligence officers, not just performing
magicians, would be acquiring the necessary knowledge to apply the craft to the world of espionage.
In a sense, this book is the result of two historical accidents. The first “accident” is that of the
thousands of pages of research conducted under the CIA’s decade-long MKULTRA program, to our
knowledge, only two major research studies—Mulholland’s manuals—survived CIA Director
Richard Helm’s order in 1973 to destroy all MKULTRA documents. Mulholland’s manuals are a rare
piece of historical evidence that the CIA, in the 1950s, through MKULTRA, sought to understand and

acquire unorthodox capabilities for potential use against the Soviet adversary and the worldwide
Communist threat. The manuals and other declassified MKULTRA administrative materials further
reveal that many of America’s leading scientists and private institutions willingly participated in
secret programs they agreed were critical to the nation’s security.
The second “accident” was the authors’ discovery of the long-lost CIA manuals while
conducting unrelated research in 2007. Although portions of the manuals had been previously
described, referenced, or printed in part, we were unaware of the existence of a copy of the complete
declassified work along with the original drawings and illustrations.
Notable public references to the Mulholland manuals were made by magician-historian Michael
Edwards in a 2001 article, “The Sphinx & the Spy: The Clandestine World of John Mulholland,” in
Genii: The Conjurors’ Magazine, April 2001, a partial reproduction of Mulholland’s first manual in
Genii, vol. 66 no. 8, August 2003, and Ben Robinson’s MagiCIAn: John Mulholland’s Secret Life,
Lybrary.com, 2008. Neither the CIA’s library, nor its Historical Intelligence Collection, contained a
copy of Mulholland’s manuals.
When retrieved by the authors, the manuals’ text was legible, but the poor quality of photocopied
pages of Mulholland’s accompanying illustrations, drawings, and photographs required careful study
to understand his original intent. To enhance the manuals’ readability, corrections to grammar,
punctuation, and related errors that do not alter the substance of the original material have been made.
We are indebted to our HarperCollins editor, Stephanie Meyers, for recommending Phil Franke as the
illustrator, who has re-created the style and precision of the original images. The reader will find
Phil’s mastery of capturing human hand and arm movements, which are central to Mulholland’s
explanation of his tricks, to be superb art.
From the first day we mentioned this project, Daniel Mandel, our agent at Sanford J.
Greenburger and Associates, was an enthusiastic promoter. We are deeply appreciative for the
personal interest in the subject by Steve Ross, then at HarperCollins, and his actions in making the
project possible. Stephanie Meyers provided excellent suggestions and guidance in constructing the
overall work and seeing it through to publication. The HarperCollins graphic design team has created
a distinctive cover that reflects the historical look and significance of the material.
While researching, writing, and rewriting the book, we received the daily good-spirited
assistance of Mary Margaret Wallace in typing and editing drafts that bounced back and forth between
the authors. Consistent encouragement and well-placed suggestions and criticisms from Hayden Peake
and Peter Earnest substantially improved our initial drafts. Tony and Jonna Mendez offered
perspectives from their experiences that enabled us to translate many of the elements of magic from
theory to practice. Additional appreciation is owed to Jerry Richards, Dan Mulvenna, Nigel West,
Michael Hasco, David Kahn, and Brian Latell, as well as Ben, Bill, and Paul for their insights and
contributions. Susan Rowen served as our “hand model” and kept our spirits roused as the authors recreated each of Mulholland’s original photographs as references for artist Phil Franke.
John McLaughlin, former deputy director and acting director of the CIA, reviewed the
manuscript to validate our use of magic terminology, as well as contributing the book’s preface and
administering the “magician’s oath” to the authors. John is an accomplished amateur magician and, by
virtue of his distinguished career at the CIA, is uniquely qualified to understand the rich overlap
between the tradecraft of the intelligence officer and the magician. As a senior research fellow and
lecturer at Philip Merrill Center for Strategic Studies at the Paul H. Nitze School of Advanced
International Studies in Washington, D.C., he often begins presentations on strategic deception with
demonstrations from his repertoire of magic tricks.

FOREWORD

by John McLaughlin
Former Deputy Director, Central Intelligence

This is a book about an extraordinary American magician and the way his life intersected with
American intelligence at a pivotal moment in its early history.
John Mulholland was never a household word, like the world famous escapologist Houdini or,
more recently, the illusionist David Copperfield. But among professional magicians from the 1930s to
the 1950s, he was seen as the very model of what a magician should be—urbane, highly skilled,
inventive, and prolific. He was very successful professionally, entertaining mostly in New York City
society circles. He published widely on magic, both for the general public and for the inner circle of
magicians who subscribed to the professional journal he edited for decades, The Sphinx. His impact
on the art of magic was enormous.
Mulholland’s 1932 book, Quicker Than the Eye, was one of the first books I stumbled on as a
magic-struck boy combing the public library in the 1950s. I fondly remember being transported by an
author who seemed to have traveled the world and witnessed marvelous things I could only imagine.
That’s what fascinated me about Mulholland then. As a lifelong amateur magician who spent a
career in American intelligence, what fascinates me about Mulholland today is the way the story told
here resonates with something I came to conclude in the course of my professional life: that magic and
espionage are really kindred arts.
The manual that Mulholland wrote for the Central Intelligence Agency and that is reproduced
here sought to apply to some aspects of espionage the techniques of stealth and misdirection used by
the professional conjuror.
Many may ask what these two fields have to do with each other. But a cursory look at what
intelligence officers do illustrates the convergence.
Just as a magician’s methods must elude detection in front of a closely attentive audience, so an
intelligence officer doing espionage work must elude close surveillance and pass messages and
materiel without detection.
In another part of the profession, analysts must be as familiar as magicians with methods of
deception, because analysts are almost always working with incomplete information and in
circumstances where an adversary is seeking to mislead them—or in the magician’s term, misdirect
them.
Counterintelligence officers—people who specialize in catching spies—work in a part of the
profession so labyrinthine that it is often referred to as a “wilderness of mirrors”—a phrase, of
course, with magical overtones.
Finally, there are the covert-action specialists. In any intelligence service, these are the officers

who seek at the direction of their national leaders to affect events or perceptions overseas, especially
during wartime. Principles of misdirection familiar to magicians were evident in many of the great
British covert operations of World War II—such as deceiving Hitler into thinking the 1943 Allied
invasion from North Africa would target Greece rather than its true target, Sicily. This was the
conjuror’s stage management applied to a continent-sized theater.
The manual Mulholland produced for the CIA does not read the way a book for experienced
magicians would read. He is clearly addressing an amateur audience and takes care to explain things
in the simplest of terms. Yet he draws on the underlying principles of magic to explain how
intelligence officers could avoid detection in the midst of various clandestine acts.
A case can be made that Mulholland’s instruction influenced the more mundane aspects of
espionage tradecraft—how to surreptitiously acquire and conceal various materials, for example. As
best we know, however, the methods he designed for more aggressive actions—clandestinely
delivering pills and powders into an adversary’s drink, for example—were never actually used.
The fact that he was asked to contemplate such things is emblematic of a unique moment in
American history. American leaders during the early Cold War felt the nation existentially threatened
by an adversary who appeared to have no scruples. Mulholland’s writing on delivery of pills,
potions, and powders was just one example of research carried out back then in fields as diverse as
brainwashing and paranormal psychology. Many such efforts that seem bizarre today are
understandable only in the context of those times—the formative years of the Cold War.
These were also the formative years for the American intelligence community. It is important to
remember that this was a very new field for the United States. Most other countries had long before
integrated espionage into the national security tool kit; the Chinese strategist Sun Tsu had written
about it in sophisticated terms in the sixth century B.C., and older countries such as Britain, Russia,
and France had been at it for centuries. While the United States had used intelligence episodically, it
was not organized at a national-level effort until 1947, and our young country struggles still today
with its proper place in our national security strategy.
I doubt many intelligence officers today would recognize John Mulholland’s name. But the
essence of his contribution had little to do with notoriety or fame. It was, in effect, to help the nation’s
early intelligence officers think like magicians. Given the close kinship between these two ancient
arts, that was a significant contribution indeed and one that continues—in stealthy ways that
Mulholland would probably admire—to this very day.

INTRODUCTION: The Legacy of MKULTRA and the Missing Magic Manuals

Magic and Intelligence are really kindred arts.
-JOHN MCLAUGHLIN,
FORMER DEPUTY DIRECTOR OF CENTRAL INTELLIGENCE

In 2007, the authors discovered a long-lost CIA file, once classified top secret, which revealed
extraordinary details of the agency’s connection to the world of magic decades earlier. The
documents, part of project MKULTRA, shed light on a fascinating and little-known operation—the
employment of John Mulholland as the CIA’s first magician. An accomplished author and America’s
most respected conjurer of his day, Mulholland authored two illustrated manuals for teaching CIA
field officers how to integrate elements of the magician’s craft into clandestine operations. Due, in
part, to the extraordinary levels of secrecy surrounding MKULTRA, the manuals were considered too
sensitive to be distributed widely and all copies were believed to have been destroyed in 1973.1
Nearly fifty years after they were written, rumors of the existence of a long-lost copy of the “magic”
manuals continued to fly through the corridors at Langley, but many intelligence officers thought they
were a myth.2 To understand the CIA’s first magician, and how his remarkable manuals came to be, it
is necessary to recall one of the most dangerous periods in U.S. history.
With its establishment in July 1947, the CIA received two primary missions—prevent surprise
foreign attacks against the United States and counter the advance of Soviet communism into Europe
and third-world nations. Officers of “the Agency,” as the CIA became known, would be on the front
lines of the Cold War for four tense decades fueled by nuclear stalemate, incompatible ideologies,
and a Soviet government obsessed with secrecy. At home, the USSR’s security and intelligence
organizations, the KGB and its predecessors, cowed the internal population, and abroad they
attempted to undermine foreign governments aligned with the West.
The Soviet Union’s successful testing of a nuclear weapon in 1949 caught the United States by
surprise and created two nuclear powers competing in an international atmosphere of fear and
uncertainty. President Eisenhower received a startling top secret report in 1954 from a commission
headed by retired general James H. Doolittle that concluded, “If the U.S. is to survive, long-standing
American concepts of ‘fair play’ must be reconsidered. We must learn to subvert, sabotage, and
destroy our enemies by cleverer, more sophisticated, and more effective methods than those used
against us. It may become necessary that the American people become acquainted with, understand,
and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.”3
The report affirmed a threat to the Western democracies from Soviet-sponsored aggression and
called for an American offensive and defensive intelligence posture unlike anything previously
authorized in peacetime. As a result, the CIA’s covert-action role expanded from Europe into the
Middle East, Africa, Latin America, and the Far East. Reflecting on those years more than half a
century later, former U.S. secretary of state Henry Kissinger asserted that during the decade of the

1950s only the United States stood between Soviet-led communism and world freedom.4
The CIA had been engaged in covert programs since its creation and in 1951 formed a special
unit, the Technical Services Staff (TSS), to exploit advances in U.S. technology in support of
espionage operations. One of TSS’s first employees was Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, whose degree in
chemistry from the California Institute of Technology made him a logical choice to head the handful of
chemists in the staff. Initially the chemistry branch created and tested formulas, or “special inks,” for
secret writing that enabled CIA spies to embed invisible messages in otherwise innocuous
correspondence.5 To conceal the liquid “disappearing inks,” TSS reformulated the liquids into a solid
form that looked like aspirin tablets and repackaged the tablets in pill bottles that would pass
unnoticed in an agent’s medicine cabinet. When a spy had information to convey, he would dissolve
the tablet in water or alcohol to reconstitute the ink for his secret message.
TSS supported other activities of the Agency as well: forging travel and identity documents for
agents who worked under alias names, printing propaganda leaflets, installing clandestine
microphones and cameras, and building concealments for spy equipment in furniture, briefcases, and
clothing. To those uninitiated in the craft of espionage, the secretive work of the TSS scientists and
engineers at times appeared to accomplish the impossible. In reality, this handful of CIA scientists
was demonstrating the third law of prediction advanced by science-fiction author Arthur C. Clarke:
“Any sufficiently advanced technology is indistinguishable from magic.”6

Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, Chief, CIA Technical Services Division, 1966–1973.
Phil Franke
Dr. Gottlieb and his chemists expanded their research during 1953 to counter another
unanticipated Soviet threat. The three-year-long Korean War had stalemated and the alliance of North
Korea, China, and the Soviet Union seemed on the road to mastering the art of “mind control.” Such a
capability could render soldiers, and possibly entire populations, vulnerable to Communist
propaganda and influence. Reports reached the CIA about Soviet clandestine successes with mind
control and newly discovered capabilities to brainwash, recruit, and operate agents with the aid of
drugs.7
Mind control appeared to allow the Communists, using a combination of psychological

techniques and newly developed pharmacological compounds, to remotely alter a subject’s mental
capacities and control his “free will.”8 Despite limited research on similar topics during World War
II and the early 1950s, the science underlying the reported Soviet successes remained a mystery.
America needed to understand the scientific basis of mind control and develop safeguards and, if
necessary, applications for its own use.
In March 1953, Allen Dulles, Director of Central Intelligence, entrusted the thirty-four-year-old
Gottlieb with one of America’s most secret and sensitive Cold War programs, code-named
MKULTRA. Dulles authorized TSS and Dr. Gottlieb’s chemical staff to begin work on multiple
projects for “research and development of chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable
of employment in clandestine operations to control human behavior.”9
MKULTRA eventually encompassed 149 subprojects and remained one of the CIA’s most
carefully guarded secrets for over twenty years.10 Its projects aimed to understand how drugs and
alcohol altered human behavior and to protect American assets from Soviet psychological or
psychopharmaceutical manipulation. The research included clandestine acquisition of drugs, clinical
testing on and experimentation with humans, some of whom were unaware of said testing, and grant
proposals and contracts with hospitals, companies, and individuals. The scientists investigated topics
ranging from concocting truth serums to developing a humane way to incapacitate guard dogs using a
powerful tranquilizer mixed into ground beef.11 Several projects involved research on littleunderstood mind-altering drugs such as LSD and marijuana. In the end, the research produced an
assortment of potential offensive capabilities involving incapacitating, lethal, and untraceable toxins.
However, the absence of scientific data in the early 1950s about the effective and safe dosage
levels of the new drugs, including LSD, presented a problem for the MKULTRA researchers. As a
result, Gottlieb and members of his team performed experiments on themselves that included ingesting
drugs and observing and recording their own reactions. In late 1953, an early LSD experiment
involving several government scientists went horribly bad.

“Hush puppy” pills contained a harmless tranquilizer, which was mixed with ground beef and fed to
the dog. To avoid suspicion, adrenaline-filled syrettes would reawaken the dog when the mission was
concluded.
Phil Franke

Dr. Frank Olson was working at the U.S. Army Special Operations Division (SOD) biological
weapons facility at Ft. Detrick, Maryland, and assisting the CIA on MKULTRA projects. Along with
half a dozen other scientists, he volunteered to attend a retreat during mid-November 1953 at the
remote Deep Creek Lodge in western Maryland, organized by Gottlieb.12 Together with seven other
researchers from TSS and Ft. Detrick, Olson was served Cointreau liqueur that had secretly been
spiked with seventy micrograms of LSD. After thirty minutes, the participants were told of the LSD
and alerted to begin studying their reactions. Most reported little effect, but Olson had a “bad trip”
that night. As his condition worsened in the following days, Gottlieb’s deputy, Dr. Robert Lashbrook,
escorted him to New York City for psychiatric counseling. This attention and treatment seemed to
calm Olson temporarily, but later that evening on November 24, 1953, he jumped to his death from a
tenth-floor window of his New York hotel room.
CIA executives, seeking to protect the secrecy of the MKULTRA program, did not fully reveal
the circumstances of Olson’s death to his family. No other fatalities from the MKULTRA experiments
occurred, but two decades passed before Olson’s widow received a delayed apology from President
Gerald Ford and a financial settlement from the U.S. government.13

Soviet intelligence in the 1950s, however, was less averse to death, either from accident or from
assassination. Nikita Khrushchev, the successor to dictator Joseph Stalin, continued the existing
policy of “special actions” as a central tool for dealing with the leaders of anti-Soviet émigré
groups.14 The first target of the post-Stalinist era, Ukrainian nationalist Georgi Okolovich, was
spared when the assassin, KGB officer Nikolai Khokhlov, confessed the plot to his victim and
defected to the CIA. On April 20, 1954, Khokhlov gave a dramatic press conference and revealed
both the assassination plot and his exotic weapon to the world.15 The execution device was an
electrically operated gun and silencer hidden inside a cigarette pack that shot cyanide-tipped
bullets.16 This failure was followed soon thereafter by the successful assassinations of Ukrainian
leaders Lev Rebet in 1957 and Stephen Bandera in 1959. Both were killed by KGB assassin Bogdan
Stashinsky, who defected in 1961 and revealed that he had disposed of his weapon, a cyanide gas gun
concealed in a rolled-up newspaper, in a canal near Bandera’s residence in Munich, Germany.17 An
analysis of the KGB cigarette-pack gun and Stashinsky’s cyanide weapon, recovered from the canal,
stimulated accelerated U.S. efforts to create comparable weaponry for the United States.18

The Nondiscernible Bioinoculator.
Phil Franke
From the beginning of MKULTRA, CIA scientists researched lethal chemical and biological

substances, as well as “truth serums” and hallucinogens, as they continued work begun in the Office
of Strategic Services during World War II. Under a joint project code-named MKNAOMI, TSS and
the SOD cooperated on development of ingenious weapons and exotic poisons. One Army-produced
handgun, called the “nondiscernible bioinoculator,” resembled a .45-caliber Colt pistol that, fitted
with a telescopic sight and detachable shoulder stock, fired a toxin-tipped dart silently and accurately
up to 250 feet. The dart was so small—slightly wider than a human hair—it was nearly undetectable
and left no traces in the target’s body during an autopsy.19 Other dart-firing launchers were developed
and concealed inside fountain pens, walking canes, and umbrellas.20

A toothpaste tube used as concealment for the CIA STINGER, a small .22-caliber single-shot firing
device.
Phil Franke
Research was also conducted on a variety of exotic poisons including shellfish toxins, cobra
venom, botulinium, and crocodile bile.21 Under the MKULTRA program, the CIA stockpiled eight
different lethal substances and another twenty-seven temporary incapacitates either for specific
operations or as on-the-shelf capabilities for possible future use.22 In one example, a tube of poisonlaced toothpaste was prepared for insertion into the toiletry kit of President Patrice Lumumba in
1960. However, the CIA office chief in Leopoldville, Larry Devlin, rejected the plan and tossed the
tube into the nearby river.23 About the same time, CIA treated a handkerchief with an incapacitating
agent, brucellosis, to be sent to a targeted Iraqi colonel, 24 but the man was shot by a firing squad
before the handkerchief ever arrived.25

Illustration of original vials of lethal shellfish toxin created for MKULTRA.
Phil Franke
Perhaps some of the most creative and almost whimsical CIA plots considered in the early
1960s were part of Operation Mongoose, meant to discredit or assassinate Cuban leader Fidel Castro
using an assortment of incapacitating and deadly paraphernalia.26

The CIA considered modifying various devices for assassinating Castro.
Phil Franke
HALLUCINOGENIC SPRAYS AND CIGARS: One bioorganic chemist proposed spraying LSD
inside Castro’s broadcasting studio in Havana to cause him to hallucinate.27 Since Castro famously
smoked cigars, another idea suggested impregnating Castro’s cigars with a special chemical to
produce temporary disorientation during his rambling speeches during their live broadcast to the
Cuban people.28
CONTAMINATED BOOTS: When Castro traveled abroad, he often left his boots outside the
hotel room door at night to be shined. CIA considered dusting the insides of the boots with thallium
salts, a strong depilatory, which would cause his beard to fall out. The chemical was procured and
tested successfully on animals, but the plan scrapped when Castro canceled the targeted trip.29
DEPILATORY, POISONED, AND EXPLODING CIGARS: Similar to the dusted-boot
concept, Castro’s cigars could be treated with a powerful depilatory, causing loss of beard and
corresponding damage to his “macho” image. A special box of cigars was to be provided for Castro
during an appearance on David Susskind’s television talk show. However, after a senior CIA officer
questioned how the operation could ensure that only Castro would smoke the cigars, the idea was
abandoned.30
In another attempt, a Cuban double agent was recruited to offer Castro a cigar treated with
botulin, a deadly toxin that would cause death within seconds. The cigars were passed to the agent in
February 1961, but he failed to carry out the plan.31 Cuban security officials eventually created a
private cigar brand, the Cohiba, exclusively for Castro, to safeguard his supply against future
assassination attempts.
A third concept involved planting a box of exploding cigars at a place where Castro would visit
during a trip to the United Nations and “blow his head off.” The plan was not carried out.32

In addition to cigars, Castro enjoyed Cuba’s oceans and beaches, which offered an operational
venue for:

EXPLODING SEASHELLS: TSD was asked in 1963 to construct a seashell filled with explosives.
This device was to be planted near Cuba’s Veradero Beach, a place where Castro commonly went
skin diving. CIA discarded the idea as impractical when it failed an operational review.33
CONTAMINATED DIVING SUIT: A proposal was made for an intermediary to present
Castro with a diving suit and breathing apparatus contaminated with tubercle bacillus (tuberculosis
germ).34 CIA obtained a diving suit and dusted it to produce Madura foot, a chronic skin disease. The
plan failed when the intermediary chose to present a different diving suit.35
POISONED PEN: About the same time that President Kennedy was assassinated in Dallas—
November 22, 1963—a CIA officer met secretly with Rolando Cubela, a Cuban agent in Paris, and
offered a poisoned pen to kill Castro. The device, a Paper Mate ballpoint, was modified to conceal a
small hypodermic syringe for injecting Blackleaf-40 poison. Even the slightest prick would result in a
certain death, though the agent would have time to escape before the effects were noticed. After
learning of Kennedy’s death, however, Cubela reconsidered the plan and disposed of the pen prior to
returning to Cuba.36 A decade later, in 1976, American policy governing lethal actions against foreign
leaders was formalized when President Ford issued Executive Order 11905 prohibiting political
assassinations.37

A hypodermic syringe was concealed inside this modified Paper Mate pen for an operation to
assassinate Castro.
Phil Franke
From the earliest days of MKULTRA, Dr. Sidney Gottlieb recognized that CIA’s drugs and
chemicals, regardless of their ultimate purpose, would be operationally useless unless field officers
and agents could covertly administer them. During the same month MKULTRA was authorized, April
1953, Gottlieb contacted John Mulholland, then fifty-five years old and one of America’s most
respected magicians. Mulholland was an expert in sleight of hand or “close-up” magic, a style of
conjuring that appealed to Gottlieb because it was performed only a few feet from the audience.38
Further, sleight-of-hand illusions required no elaborate props for support. If Mulholland could
deceive a suspecting audience who was studying his every move in close proximity, it should be
possible to use similar tricks for secretly administering a pill or potion to an unsuspecting target.
To do so, CIA field officers would need to be taught to perform their own tricks and John

Mulholland, the author of several books about performing magic, appeared to be the ideal
instructor.39 When approached, Mulholland soon agreed to develop a “spy manual” for Gottlieb
describing “the various aspects of the magician’s art,” which might be useful in covert operations.
The instructions would provide information enabling a field case officer “to develop the skills to
surreptitiously place a pill or other substance in drink or food to be consumed by a target.”40
Mulholland accepted $3,000 to write the manual and the CIA approved the expense as MKULTRA
Subproject Number 4 on May 4, 1953.41

John Mulholland—world-renowned magician, “Deception that is art.”
Phil Franke
As part of the broader top-secret MKULTRA program, confidentiality regarding the CIAMulholland relationship and possible operational use of the techniques of magic was essential.
Multiple layers of security included a formal secrecy agreement with Mulholland, “sterile”
correspondence using alias names, cover companies, and nonattributable post office boxes. CIA used
various covers for Dr. Gottlieb. Initially he communicated with Mulholland as Sherman C. Grifford
of Chemrophyl Associates through a numbered post office box in Washington, D.C.42 Subsequently the
P.O. box number changed, as did the cover name, to Samuel A. Granger, president of the notional
Granger Research Company.43
As an added measure, Mulholland’s writing contained no reference to the CIA or clandestine
operations. Field case officers were called “performers” or “tricksters” and the covert acts referred
to as “tricks.” Mulholland pledged never to divulge, publish, or reveal the information, methods, or
persons involved.44 Information compartmentation practices at the time make it unlikely that
Mulholland was told about any of the other MKULTRA subprojects and there is no evidence that
Mulholland designed the sleight-of-hand tricks for any specific operation.
By the winter of 1954, the manuscript, titled “Some Operational Applications of the Art of
Deception,” was complete.45 Gottlieb, apparently pleased with the effort, then saw another area for
the magician’s skills: the CIA needed new methods for secret communication between officers and

spies. Gottlieb invited Mulholland to suggest how the CIA might appropriate “techniques and
principles employed by ‘magicians,’ ‘mind readers’ etc. to communicate information, and the
development of new [nonelectrical communication] techniques.”46 For this new assignment,
Mulholland produced another, but much shorter manual titled “Recognition Signals.”

John Mulholland’s stationery from 1953 to 1958.
courtesy of the authors
In 1956, Gottlieb again expanded John Mulholland’s role as a consultant to consider “the
application of the magician’s techniques to clandestine operations, such techniques to include
surreptitious delivery of materials, deceptive movements and actions to cover normally prohibited
activities, influencing choices and perceptions of other persons, various forms of disguise; covert
signaling systems, etc.”47 Mulholland’s work for TSS continued until 1958, when his failing health
from constant smoking and advancing arthritis limited his ability to travel and consult.48

Mulholland’s manuscripts, “Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception” and
“Recognition Signals,” are among the few remaining documents to reveal MKULTRA’s research.
Virtually all of the program’s reports and operational files on the “research and development of
chemical, biological, and radiological materials capable of employment in clandestine operations to
control human behavior” were ordered destroyed by DCI Richard Helms in 1973, ten years after most
of the research had ended.49 According to a CIA officer in the 1970s, the Mulholland manual(s) “is
the only product of MKULTRA known to have escaped destruction.”50 Gottlieb, MKULTRA’s
principal officer, had written in 1964, “It has become increasingly obvious over the last several years
that the general area [of biological and chemical control of human behavior] had less and less
relevance to current complex operations. On the scientific side these materials and techniques are too
unpredictable in their effect on individual human beings to be operationally useful.”51
But the destruction of the MKULTRA documents would itself become a problem for the Agency.
In the wake of New York Times articles alleging CIA abuses and misconduct related to domestic
spying in December 1974, a U.S. Senate Committee, headed by Senator Frank Church, launched an

investigation. One sensational revelation from the hearings involved the discovery of nonoperational
MKULTRA financial and administrative documents that had escaped destruction two years earlier.
Senate scrutiny of the files revealed that drug experiments with provocative names such as Operation
Midnight Climax had been run from CIA safe houses in California and New York. These experiments
observed the effects of LSD on unwitting individuals or “clients” who were lured to the safe houses
by prostitutes. Their reactions to drugs were surreptitiously monitored from behind one-way mirrors
to judge the effectiveness of LSD, “truth serums,” and other mind-control substances.52
Although he had been retired for two years, Gottlieb was called as a witness by the Senate
committee and questioned for four consecutive days in October 1975. The questioning concentrated
on the drug experiments and Gottlieb apparently was not asked about the John Mulholland contract.
Subsequently, following months of investigative work and thousands of hours of testimony, the Church
Committee cited the CIA for a failure of “command and control” for only two drug experimentation
projects including the 1953 event that had resulted in the death of Dr. Olson. The committee then
concluded that none of the officers conducting MKULTRA had undertaken or participated in illegal or
criminal activities.

An Operation Midnight Climax researcher monitors the hotel room from behind a one-way mirror to
secretly photograph and record events.
Phil Franke
Keeping his promise of secrecy, Mulholland died in 1970 without revealing his clandestine role
as “the CIA’s magician.”53 The public learned of his covert relationship with the CIA, and the
Agency’s interest in drawing on the techniques of conjuring and magic for its espionage mission, only
when the MKULTRA documents were declassified in 1977.54 For nearly twenty-five years, the story
was nearly forgotten until a well-researched article by magic historian Michael Edwards appeared in
Genii magazine in 2001, a follow-up August 2003 piece by Richard Kaufman in Genii, and a
biography of Mulholland by magician Ben Robinson was published in late 2008 under the title,
MagiCIAn: John Mulholland’s Secret Life.55
Declassified CIA documents, the Genii articles, and Robinson’s book described an elusive,
illustrated “manual” written by Mulholland detailing how to perform magic tricks for potential use by
intelligence officers. The seven chapter titles of Mulholland’s first hundred-page manuscript were

listed in the MKULTRA documents, but Edwards noted, “Today—five decades after it was written—
the tricks and approaches set forth in this manual are still classified ‘top secret.’”56
Robinson, commenting about the secrecy surrounding Mulholland’s manual, stated: “Of a onehundred-and-twenty-one-page manual comprised of eight chapters, the government has allowed only
fifty-six pages to be made public. Of the fifty-six pages seen, roughly two-thirds of the pages are
visible; the remaining third has been redacted [blacked out].”57 An internal history of the Technical
Services Staff written by a CIA historian in 2000–2001 referred to the “top-secret” Mulholland
manual and indicated that no known copies existed.
We now know that under his CIA contracts Mulholland produced at least two illustrated
manuals. The first described and illustrated numerous “tricks,” primarily sleight-of-hand and close-up
deceptions for secretly hiding, transporting, and delivering small quantities of liquids, powders, or
pills in the presence of unsuspecting targets. The second, much shorter manual revealed methods used
by magicians and their assistants to pass information among one another without any appearance of
communication. The manuals were written in the form of general training instructions rather than for
support for specific operations. Only one copy of the original manuals is known to have survived.
For Gottlieb and his successors, the techniques of deception used by performing magicians,
when added to the “magic” of technology, presented an intriguing potential to enhance the clandestine
delivery of materials and secret communications. Mulholland’s principles of magic were consistent
with the CIA’s doctrine of tradecraft, and in the ensuing decades talented consultants from the world
of magic provided the CIA with innovative illusions to mask and obscure clandestine operations.
Multiple elements of the magician’s craft can be seen throughout the world of espionage, most notably
in stage management, sleight of hand, disguise, identity transfer, escapology, and special concealment
devices such as coins.

Stage Management and Misdirection
The proper secret for a magician to use is the one indicated as best under the conditions
and circumstances of the performance.
-JOHN MULHOLLAND
John Mulholland instructed officers that their success, as opposed to that of magicians, depended
upon the fact that they are not known to be, or even suspected of being, tricksters. The deceptive
techniques he taught for delivering CIA pills, powders, and potions were to be performed
clandestinely, yet in full view of audiences that, if aware of the nature of the activity, would
immediately confront and arrest the spy. Awareness and “management” of the potentially hostile
environment, where audiences are culturally diverse, uncontrolled, and sometimes unseen, is as
critical to a spy’s success as his special devices. Similarly, a successful stage magician understands
that the execution of a trick may not produce an effective illusion unless the stage and audience are
consciously managed.
Mulholland, the master of “close magic,” instructed his CIA “tricksters” that “the more of the
performer that can be seen, the less his chance of doing anything without detection. As an example, a
performer on the stage would be seen were he to put his hand into his pocket, but that action can be

made without being seen while standing close to a person so the hand is outside of his range of
vision.”58 This style of magic was ideal for the CIA-intended actions that needed to be performed in
close proximity to the target.
Sight lines, limiting what the audience is allowed to see, are arranged so that the magician’s
trick may be executed without exposing secret equipment or maneuvers.59 The placement of the
magician’s scenery, props, lighting, and even a distractingly beautiful assistant further protect and
safeguard the illusion. Sufficient time is allocated for preparing complex illusions and an unlimited
number of rehearsals may be conducted to tweak and perfect the performance. In contrast to
espionage, where a single mistake can be deadly for the spy, slip-ups by a magician during a “live
show” carry little consequence beyond momentary embarrassment.
To create an effective illusion, the spy and the magician employ similar craft and stage
management techniques.60 Plausible reasons are substituted for reality to conceal true purposes, and
spectator attention is lulled and diverted. For both spies and magicians to be successful, execution
must be carefully planned, exhaustively practiced, and skillfully performed.
Magicians plan performances by asking themselves “what is my stage?” and “who is my
audience?” Mulholland taught that these questions should be supplemented by asking “what is my goal
for the operation?” and “how can I carry out the operation secretly?” Only after these questions have
been sufficiently answered can the likely stage and audience be assessed.
For the magician, the perfectly executed illusion is the ultimate goal. For the spy, illusion is only
a means to divert attention from a clandestine act. To be successful, the espionage illusion must
withstand both the direct observation of onlookers (casuals) and the scrutiny of professional
counterintelligence officers (hostile surveillance), without exposing either the participation or
identification of the agent. Typical clandestine acts of this type involve covert exchange of
information, money, and supplies between the spy and intelligence officer.
Proper stage management techniques provide reasons for the magician’s audience to believe
their eyes instead of their reason. People have an almost infinite capability to self-rationalize and
“know” that humans cannot levitate or survive being cut in half, yet both appear to occur on a wellmanaged stage. The CIA learned to exploit such tendencies in operations where the spy needed the
hostile surveillance team to ignore direct visual observations and rationalize events as nonalerting.
For example, an intelligence officer may always park his car at the curb directly in front of his house.
This is observed by surveillance. On the day a dead drop is left for an agent, the car is parked across
the street from the house.61 The agent recognizes the different parking location as a signal, while
surveillance sees no significance.
Strategic misdirection becomes even more effective when combined with camouflage and
illusion. During World War II, stage magician Jasper Maskelyne used his skills for “deceiving the
eye” to support the British Camouflage Directorate.62 Inflatable rubber tanks were created to
misdirect enemy attention away from real tanks that were disguised with plywood shells to appear as
transport trucks. Operationally, an entire column of “trucks” could shed their artificial skins and
reappear on the battlefield “out of thin air,” as if by magic!
Such operations also had applications in naval deceptions. In 1915, “Q-boats,” apparently
harmless, worn-out steamers appearing to be easy prey, lured German submarines close in to finish
them off with their deck gun. The Q-boats had been fitted with concealed guns disguised in
collapsible deckhouses or lifeboats. Naval uniforms for the crew were exchanged for old secondhand
uniforms to disguise their crew and captain, who remained hidden to portray a lightly manned and

vulnerable vessel. Only when the submarine drew close enough “for the kill” would the trap be
sprung, and the superstructure pivoted away to reveal the Q-boat’s formidable weaponry.63
Reminiscent of the Q-boats’ successful deception, in 1961 CIA officers acquired standard
Chinese junks in Hong Kong for conversion with high-speed craft equipped with marine diesel
engines, fifty-caliber machine guns, and a battery of camouflaged 3.5-inch rockets. The boats, which
appeared externally unmodified, would patrol covertly off the Vietnamese coast above the DMZ, and,
if necessary, be able to quickly discard their camouflaged junk superstructure and hull “like magic”
before disappearing at high speed.64
For agent operations, a retired CIA technical officer, Tony Mendez, has described the elaborate
stage management techniques used in Moscow against elite surveillance teams of the KGB’s Seventh
Directorate. By “lulling” the surveillance team with an unvarying pattern of daily commute in and
around Moscow, the alertness of the watchers would eventually, and naturally, degrade. Then, after
months of an unchanging travel pattern, the CIA officer would “disappear” during his “normal”
commute for the brief time necessary for a clandestine act—usually filling a dead drop or posting a
letter—before reappearing at his destination only minutes behind schedule.65 The watchers were not
alarmed by the short gap in a routine schedule.
Mendez explains that when using misdirection, “a larger action covers a smaller action as long
as the larger action itself does not attract suspicion.”66 A CIA officer stationed abroad once
commented that having a dog was essential as a mask for secret communication with agents. Taking
the dog out for long walks at night (the larger action) provided numerous opportunities to secretly
mark signal sites and service dead drops (the smaller actions). Surveillance teams became used to the
pattern of the late-night walks and were lulled into a false belief that no smaller-action clandestine
activity would occur.
Both magicians and spies must effectively manage the stage and sight lines to create an illusion.
CIA officer Haviland Smith, the former senior CIA officer in Czechoslovakia during the late 1950s,
developed new operational techniques to exploit weaknesses in the sight lines of the surveillance
teams working against him in Prague. He discovered that when he was walking in urban areas, on
routes he used frequently, the trailing surveillance team was always behind him, and when he made a
right-hand turn, he would be “in the gap” or clear of surveillance for a few seconds. Rather than
acting suspiciously to evade surveillance, he managed the sight lines to operate “before their very
eyes” while “in the gap.” Smith repeated the technique during his next posting in East Berlin, and
again it worked. By properly managing his stage, all of his operational activities could be conducted
in these gaps, and out of sight.67
Smith continued to refine his techniques for working “in the gap” to covertly exchange
information with spies and in 1965 consulted with a magician for tips on using misdirection.68 Smith
initiated each operational sequence employing an orthogonal approach—right angles or right-hand
turns—to ensure he would be free from trailing observation. In a personal demonstration set up at
Washington’s Mayflower Hotel in front of his boss, the head of the East European Division, he added
the new twist of misdirection. Smith had another officer—Ron Estes—make a right-hand turn into the
hotel carrying a small package in his right hand beneath his raincoat. Smith, posing as the agent, was
waiting inside the door, standing next to a bank of pay phones. As Estes approached, he shifted his
raincoat from his right hand and shook it briefly before letting it flop into his left hand. In that same
instant he handed the package unnoticed to Smith with his right hand. The movement of the raincoat
successfully diverted attention to the left of Estes and away from the package. Smith received it

without notice and moved quickly away and down a stairway. The CIA observers were unaware of
the technique and inquired impatiently when the activity would take place. It worked. Misdirection
had compounded the effectiveness of stage management.69

Performing theaters can be artfully arranged for illusions that provide the stage magician with distinct
advantages. Stage lighting assures the audience focus is drawn to visible details intended to enhance
the illusion, masking those that are unwanted. Props and paraphernalia are arranged in advance.
Access to the stage is controlled and restricted to avoid exposing the magician’s secrets. The
intelligence officer lacks such advantages, as the location or stage of his performance will be dictated
by the requirements of the secret operation. As such, little assured control can be exercised over the
audience, lighting, and sight lines. Regardless of how well designed and rehearsed clandestine
“magic” may be, uncertainty always accompanies the real “performance.” For the field officer and
agent, unseen as well as unanticipated spectators or hidden surveillance can expose a clandestine
operation with disastrous consequences. Thus special precautions are required.
Robert Hanssen, a trained FBI counterintelligence officer who volunteered to spy for Soviet and
Russian intelligence, selected the footbridges in the parks of northern Virginia for his stage. At night,
he hid tightly wrapped and taped plastic trash bags crammed full of secret U.S. documents or
retrieved sacks containing money or diamonds. Hanssen cleverly controlled the stage by choosing to
“perform” when the parks were mostly unoccupied and at sites in heavily wooded and secluded park
locations. He carefully selected each operational site to minimize his visibility to passersby while
permitting him to detect possible surveillance prior to placing or removing bags from beneath the
footbridge.70 Under these circumstances, Hanssen exploited an advantage over even the magician’s
controlled stage since the absence of any audience virtually guaranteed his success.71
For the Central Intelligence Agency, few operations were more dangerous, or important, than the
covert or “black” exfiltration of endangered officers, agents, and defectors from hostile countries or
hostage situations. During the Cold War, the CIA and British intelligence, MI6, employed stage
management techniques, frequently similar to those in the world of magic, for more than 150 secret
operations to bring individuals and their extended families “out of the cold.”72
Stage management by the British intelligence service saved one of its most important spies from
certain death in 1985. KGB colonel Oleg Gordievsky, the senior KGB intelligence officer and acting
rezident in London, who was working secretly for the British intelligence, was betrayed by CIA
turncoat Aldrich Ames and recalled to Moscow under suspicion. KGB investigators had
circumstantial evidence from Ames that pointed to Gordievsky, but lacked the proof necessary to
arrest the senior KGB officer. Each day he was subjected to lengthy interrogations as the investigators
built their case against him, but allowed to return at night to his apartment, which was rigged with
hidden listening devices. They hoped that overhearing a private confession to his wife, or an attempt
to contact the British, would provide the final proof of his treason.73 However, Gordievsky secretly
activated an emergency escape plan provided to him by MI6, and after eluding surveillance while on
his daily jog traveled by train and bus to the Finnish border.
Concurrent with Gordievsky’s secret travel, a pregnant British diplomat was driven from
Moscow to Helsinki for medical attention. As her car and driver neared the Finnish border, they
rendezvoused with Gordievsky and concealed him in the trunk of their diplomatic vehicle. At the
border, while KGB Border Guard officers were examining papers, their German shepherd guard dog

began to sniff suspiciously at the area of the car concealing Gordievsky. Thinking quickly, the
pregnant diplomat took a meat sandwich from her bag and offered it to the curious dog as a
distraction. Her impromptu stage management, employing misdirection, saved the agent’s life and
Gordievsky became the only person known to have escaped Moscow while under the direct
observation of the KGB’s Seventh Directorate.74
A classic CIA example demanding exacting stage management for a secret exfiltration is the
rescue of six U.S. diplomats stranded outside of the American embassy in Iran after the compound
was overrun and seized by Iranian “students” in November of 1979. Mendez, then chief of the
disguise section of the CIA’s Office of Technical Service, adapted exfiltration techniques to the
particular situation. With the assistance of Academy Award winner and Hollywood makeup specialist
John Chambers, he created the deception necessary for their rescue. Mendez and his associates
formed a notional Hollywood film company, “Studio Six Productions,” to produce a science-fiction
film titled Argo. Studio Six announced that the film would be shot in Iran and a team would be
dispatched to scout potential locations outside Tehran. Fooled by this subterfuge, the Iranian
government was expected to agree to cooperate with the Hollywood company as part of efforts to
reverse the negative international publicity following the embassy takeover.
To prepare the world stage, Mendez opened Studio Six production offices on the Columbia
Studio lot in Hollywood and established credibility by running a full-page business advertisement in
the industry’s most important trade paper, Variety. Mendez, posing as a European filmmaker, adopted
an alias name, obtained visas from the Iranian embassy in Switzerland, and, accompanied by a
colleague, traveled to Tehran in January of 1980. Once contact was established with the six diplomats
hidden at the residence of a Canadian official, Mendez explained how their cover as filmmakers,
combined with disguise and fabricated Canadian passports, could be used to exfiltrate them out of the
Tehran airport. Mendez, a magic enthusiast as well as an accomplished “document validator” or
forger, used a simple sleight-of-hand trick with wine-bottle corks to illustrate how deception and
stage management would be used to overcome potential obstacles. His “magic and illusion”
demonstration, called “The Impassable Corks,” instilled confidence for the plan among the
diplomats.75
Mendez and his colleague worked through the weekend to create “new” Canadian passports and
forge the necessary Iranian exit visas. Each of the six diplomats received cosmetic “makeovers” using
disguise materials that restyled their looks to appear “Hollywood.” One conservative diplomat
sported snow-white hair with a “mod” blow-dry. Mendez observed that after the transformation, “[the
diplomat] was wearing tight trousers with no pockets and a blue silk shirt unbuttoned down the front
with his chest hair cradling a gold chain and medallion. With his topcoat resting across his shoulders
like a cape, he strolled around the room with the flair of a Hollywood dandy.”76
Seats for the escaping diplomats posing as the film’s “scouting team” were booked on a
Swissair flight departing from Tehran’s Mehrabad Airport early on January 28, 1980. Mendez and his
CIA colleague arrived at 5:30 A.M. to “manage the stage” at a time when the departure officials would
be sleepy and most of the potentially troublesome Revolutionary Guards were still in bed. The
escapees’ luggage was emblazoned with Canadian maple leaf stickers and Mendez hovered about his
“stage,” the airport departure lounge, impressing onlookers with “Hollywood-talk.” The activity
effectively supported the newly acquired manners and dress of the disguised diplomats, and by late
afternoon, all reached Zurich, Switzerland, and freedom.
Illusionist Jim Steinmeyer, when commenting on the techniques of the escape, noted: “Mendez’s
improvisation was performed within carefully rehearsed scenes, meticulous paperwork, backstopped

stories, and exhaustive research. If the six Americans seemed to saunter effortlessly through the
Tehran airport, it was because the stage had been beautifully set and the scene masterfully presented.
It was a demonstration of Kellar the Magician’s famous boast that, once he had an audience under his
spell, he could ‘march an elephant across the stage and no one would notice.’”77

Dr. Gottlieb’s TSS staff later became the CIA’s Office of Technical Service and employed a new
generation of magicians and illusionists.
courtesy of the authors

Sleight of Hand
As beginners, magicians love the colorful boxes they first saw on magic shop shelves—the
trick props that seem able to do anything. As sophisticates, they learn that these mechanical
props are no substitute for pure ability…sleight of hand.
—JIM STEINMEYER, HIDING THE ELEPHANT
A common and incorrect belief is that the hand is quicker than the eye. Quick movement does not
explain an effective illusion by either magicians or spies. In fact, the hand is much slower than the
eye, and for deceptive purposes, neither should ever move quickly. An illusion is primarily mental,
not visual; when magicians and spies fool the minds of audiences, eyes observe only what the
performer intends.
Mulholland employed sleight of hand, the skilled manipulation of objects in a manner
undetectable to the observer, in creating effective deceptions and illusions. He also recognized that
such techniques could be learned by intelligence officers and applied in espionage. By replacing
quick or clumsy movements that would attract the attention of hostile surveillance teams or an
intended target, Mulholland described “sleights” that would appear to observers as natural and
innocent, whether those be gestures, alterations in body posture, or changes in hand position.
Effective sleight of hand employs psychology, misdirection, and a natural sequence of steps to
create an illusion. Magicians and spies use misdirection so that their audiences will look toward an
intended direction and away from the covert act. Since the human mind can only focus on a single
thought at a time, controlling the target’s visual perception of events unfolding around him can implant
a false image and memory. For example, Mulholland instructed officers that the flaming of a match
rising in one hand to light a target’s cigarette would mask the discrete drop of a pill from the other
hand. The target’s eyes, focusing, as intended, on the match, were incapable of also noticing the pill,
the covert action.

Mulholland realized that CIA officers needed small props to enhance their limited sleight-ofhand skills. He understood that spectators were less likely to suspect items with which they were
already familiar. Commonly seen objects, such as cigarettes, matchbooks, pencils, and coins,
appeared almost ubiquitous and inconsequential. Since most onlookers would not suspect that these
items could be used as espionage devices, they could be concealments for hiding the pills, potions,
and powders such as those produced by MKULTRA.
Intelligence officers employed other sleight-of-hand techniques using conjuring paraphernalia.
“Flash paper,” a staple for many magicians, was popular when cigarette smoking was common and
acceptable. CIA officers employed it when taking secret notes in hostile and threatening
environments; if the officer sensed danger or considered an operation compromised, touching the
paper with a lit cigarette would result in its complete and instantaneous destruction. To the
surveillance teams, none of the officer’s movements appeared unusual and only the ash residue
remained if searched.
In later years, as smoking became less acceptable, CIA officers preferred making written notes
on water-soluble paper instead of flash paper. Covert communications and tasking instructions were
printed on this special, water-soluble paper so they could be destroyed quickly and completely in a
cup of coffee, splashed with water, or even swallowed. Ryszard Kuklinski, the CIA’s most valuable
Cold War agent in Poland in the 1970s, kept his secret escape plan on water-soluble paper taped
beneath a kitchen cabinet so it could be quickly destroyed in a nearby pan of water.78

A principal skill of intelligence officers is taking photographs without being detected. In the 1960s,
the CIA needed an effective way to make a Minox subminiature camera “disappear” quickly after
taking a secret photo. The solution employed sleight of hand and a device from the magician’s
repertoire of disappearing objects. In this case a “holdout,” a simple piece of elastic for making a
coin disappear from an outstretched hand and up the performer’s sleeve, worked well. However,
instead of elastic, CIA technicians used a retractable tape measure to fit the mechanism with thin
black cord and mounted it on a leather armband.79 The cord attached to the end of the Minox, and
after the photo was taken, the officer had only to release his grip to allow the camera to retract and
“disappear” up his sleeve.

Using sleight of hand can enhance a clandestine operation in other, less direct ways. For example,
undercover officers often face difficulties infiltrating suspicious groups who are wary when
approached by strangers. One solution was a simple trick, the “magic beer coaster,” to attract
attention and have the target “come to him.”80 A folded U.S. fifty-dollar bill was inserted into a
Heineken beer coaster that had been sliced apart with a razor, then reglued and placed in a book press
to flatten as it dried. The officer appeared several nights at the bar and drank alone while slowly
tearing apart a stack of Heineken coasters. When the bartender eventually asked why he was doing
this, the officer responded, “Heineken places fifty-dollar bills as a little-known promotion in
unmarked beer coasters.” An hour later, the officer employed sleight of hand to introduce a
gimmicked coaster into the stack in front of him. When he later tore apart the prepared coaster and
“discovered” the fifty-dollar bill, he celebrated loudly and offered to buy a round of drinks. The
onlookers came to him! Though the fifty-dollar coaster attracted attention, the full effectiveness of the

illusion was dependent on the officer’s stage performance and his sleight of hand.

Disguise and Identity Transfer
Disguise is only a tool…. Before you use any tradecraft tool you have to set up the
operation for the deception.
-TONY MENDEZ, FORMER CIA “MASTER OF DISGUISE”81
Magicians regularly employ doubles, identical twins, full disguise, or disguise paraphernalia to
create effective illusions. CIA disguise technicians employed skills learned in Hollywood to devise a
variety of effective disguise solutions. As with stage disguises, the shorter the time the subject will be
studied by observers, the less elaborate the disguise must be. A light disguise might include only a
wig, glasses, mole, facial hair, dental appliance, and articles of clothing. One application of such
disguises occurred during meetings with an unknown volunteer, called a “walk-in,” who sought to
meet with “someone in American intelligence.”82 In such cases, the CIA officer would put on a light
disguise to provide limited protection against being later identified by terrorists or the local
counterintelligence service. However, if the “volunteer” appeared to have valuable information and
the attributes to become a future spy, his identity had to be protected, and a light disguise could
effectively mask his appearance as he departed the meeting.
In the late 1970s, Hollywood makeup artist John Chambers worked with CIA technicians to
create a new generation of face masks using techniques developed for the hit movie Planet of the
Apes.83 His masks blended articulated facial elements to appear “lifelike” when individuals talked or
blinked their eyes. Illusions created with the new masks could withstand scrutiny for several hours or
longer. More elaborate disguise could effect an ethnic or gender change as well. Custom clothing
altered body type and weight distribution and dental appliances altered facial features and speech
tone. Hair could be dyed and makeup employed to give a younger or older appearance.

CIA field officers in Moscow frequently donned light disguises, such as that of a Russian worker, for
meetings with agents; circa 1982.
courtesy of the authors
The FBI has used disguise techniques for years when pursuing evidence in counterintelligence
investigations against U.S. traitors who spied for the Soviet Union and thought they had successfully
retired. A disguised undercover officer, a special agent who spoke with a heavy East European
accent, dressed in a poorly fitting suit tailored in the former Soviet Bloc, sought to “reestablish
contact” with former agents.84 Though the “retired” spies were initially wary, the special agent’s
stage management, attire, and disarming questions such as “do we still owe you money?” eventually
elicited replies and provided evidence. One notable catch from this operation was retired U.S. Army
colonel George Trofimoff, who had been an important KGB spy for twenty-five years until his
retirement in 1994. When recontacted by the undercover officer in 1997, he provided compromising
details over the next two years before sufficient evidence was gathered for his arrest. His motivation
in talking was to recover payments for information provided during his career as a spy, but for which,
he alleged, no payment had been received. In 2001, Trofimoff, then age seventy-five, was convicted
and received a life sentence.85
Disguises can also be used with greater speed and creativity than sometimes imagined. When, in
less than a second, a magician’s assistant is transported from one side of the stage to the other, there
can be no other apparent explanation for the audience except “It’s magic!” Illusionists perform similar
feats nightly and Houdini’s mysterious “disappearance through a newly constructed brick wall” act
was one of his most famous illusions. R. D. Adams, the craftsman who constructed Houdini’s magical
apparatus, described the illusion: “A dozen or more bricklayers in overalls appeared before the
audience and built a bona fide brick wall seven or eight feet high extending from the footlights to
almost the rear of the stage. When it was completed, Houdini was ready to ‘disappear.’ After a few
appropriate remarks, he stepped behind a small screen, something like a prompter’s box, which the
bricklayers pushed slowly to the center of the wall. The bricklayers moved over to the other side and
adjusted a similar screen there opposite the first one. “Here I am, here I am,” Houdini would shout,
and waving arms thrust through holes in the screen gave evidence of the fact. Then the arms would
disappear and Houdini would step forth from the screen on the other side of the wall.”86
At the time, respected skeptics speculated that Houdini did this by using a trapdoor, which
allowed secret passage from one side of the stage to the other. Such speculation was inaccurate,
however, since the investigating committee that validated the integrity of each performance would
have detected the trapdoor. To confound the audience in later performances, Houdini even placed a
sheet of paper or a sheet of glass beneath the wall to demonstrate that a trapdoor was not used. The
secret, Adams explained, was: “Houdini disappeared through the wall only in the minds of the
exceedingly gullible. As a matter of fact while the first screen, behind which he had stepped, was
being pushed back against the wall, he leaped into a pair of blue jumpers and pulled a workman’s cap
down far over his face. When the screen touched the wall, he was one of the bricklayers as far as the
audience was concerned. He got behind the second screen disguised as a bricklayer. From this point
he did his calling to the audience. Mechanical arms and hands, operated by a hidden rope leading to
the wings, furnished the gestures, which convinces Houdini was behind screen No. 1 instead of No. 2
completing the illusion.”87

One of Houdini’s most mystifying tricks. a. The brick wall was built on a glass plate. b. Mechanical
hands were moved by ropes. c. Houdini, who was disguised as a bricklayer, changed sides and
removed his overalls behind a screen before reappearing.
Phil Franke
Such a baffling, and effective, illusion can also be accomplished employing an identical or
disguised twin.88 One assistant seems to vanish, and almost instantly reappears in another location,
sometimes, for effect, even suspended above the stage. To deceive the audience, the lovely blond
assistant, and her replacement, must be of similar body type, dressed in similar attire, using the same
makeup and hair (wigs). To the audience, who never sees them together to form a comparison, they
appear identical. The less time the audience has to scrutinize elements of the deception, such as
details of the assistant’s appearance, the more effective the illusion. The magician never announces
the deception in advance, and the audience has no opportunity or reason to scrutinize any of the
onstage participants.
At the CIA, the identical-twin illusion became known as “identity transfer.” An officer would
disappear from one location and reappear somewhere else as the same or a different person. When
this was properly staged, surveillance teams were never aware of the switch and officers were able
to evade hostile surveillance prior to performing operational acts. Successful CIA identity transfers
involved an entire “little theater” presentation, which was performed for several hours before the
swap took place. The actual transfer required only a few minutes at the most, and was nearly
impossible for even a trained observer to detect. The staged scenario presented to surveillance was
geared toward fooling their minds, rather than just fooling their eyes. Disguise was critical, but only
one element of the “magic” demanded by an identity-transfer illusion whether performed in an
auditorium or on the street.

Moscow represented one of the CIA’s most dangerous operational areas during the Cold War due to
the effectiveness of the KGB’s Seventh Directorate surveillance apparatus. CIA officers serving in
Moscow were never publicly identified; they worked during the day in a variety of cover jobs and

then at night and on weekends as intelligence officers. Though they were protected from prosecution
by diplomatic immunity, their greater concern was that hostile surveillance of their clandestine
activities might expose their agents, who were subject to arrest and execution. Therefore, it was
imperative that an officer “go black”—become free of surveillance—before conducting an
operational act and keep his agent safe. Different ruses, utilizing techniques similar to those
developed by Houdini decades earlier, proved successful.
In one of the first successful identity-transfer performances in Moscow, an American
intelligence officer planning a clandestine meeting with a top spy had to assure himself he would be
free of surveillance. The officer carefully choreographed a performance with a similarly sized fellow
worker during an official social function they both would attend.
On the appointed evening, the officer, accompanied by his wife, arrived at the reception dressed
in his normal suit and tie. His partner in the operation, who was not under suspicion, arrived
separately in garish, 1970s mod-style clothing. Both knew that their arrival and appearance would be
noted by KGB surveillance posted around the official compound. Then a third official, driven by his
spouse, arrived at the function on crutches wearing a leg cast, ski jacket, and cap, following an
unfortunate skiing accident the previous weekend. Once all were inside, the intelligence officer
swapped clothing and “identity” with the garishly dressed man and left the reception in the company
of the injured official, whose wife was driving the car.
The exit of the mod-dressed man accompanied by his friend on crutches would be observed by
KGB surveillance who assumed the intelligence officer was still inside. Once away from the
compound, the officer changed into nondescript clothing hidden in the vehicle and met safely with his
agent. Before returning, he again changed into the garish outfit and, in the company of the injured
skier, reentered the compound they had earlier left. There a clothing and identity switch was made
with the original partner. The normally dressed, suit-and-tie officer rejoined the function apologizing
for being called away for a few minutes to “answer questions from another self-important bureaucrat
in Washington.” The successful performance, using identity-transfer techniques that fooled the KGB,
would have made Houdini proud.89
Another identity-transfer technique permitted an intelligence officer to exit a car while being
driven through the darkened streets of Moscow, yet appear to the trailing surveillance vehicle as if he
were still inside. To set the stage, the intelligence officer and driver moved at normal speed through
the nighttime streets knowing that KGB surveillance teams were following in their cars from behind
at a discreet distance. Experience had taught them that when slowing for a right-hand turn on the dark
streets, the car was out of sight of the trailing KGB vehicle for a few seconds. In this brief moment in
obscura, which they called “the gap,” the intelligence officer, riding in the passenger’s seat, could
roll unseen out of the slowed car. The challenge was to disguise his absence so that when the
headlights of the trailing surveillance vehicle turned the corner, two silhouetted figures would still be
seen in the car ahead.
The answer was the CIA’s creation of a three-dimensional human torso sitting atop a springactivated scissor-lift mechanism fitted with a rotating head, which collapsed into a small portable
briefcase or duffel bag. This piece of equipment acquired the name “jack-in-the-box” or JIB. With
one hand, the driver could unlatch the carrying case and lift the JIB instantly into place.

The JIB had a trigger grip to rotate the head and a collapsing scissor mechanism for storage.
Phil Franke
Instead of using offstage ropes to manipulate artificial hands and legs as in Houdini’s
disappearance through a brick wall, the CIA used a trigger grip to rotate the JIB’s artificial head and
create an effective illusion for the KGB surveillance vehicles. When the officer was ready to reenter
the car, the JIB could be pushed back into its resting position and the “briefcase” shoved to the
floor.90 The CIA understood that by controlling the location of the event (an empty street in Moscow),
the lighting (an unlit area), the audience (the trailing surveillance car), the timing (when the cars were
a sufficient distance apart), and the sight line (visible only from the rear), they could stage-manage an
effective illusion.
One of the CIA’s most unusual plans for an identity transfer required a big dog. In the 1970s, a
plan was conceived to post an officer abroad with an adult male Saint Bernard weighing more than
180 pounds. When identity transfer was needed, the dog would be swapped for an agent concealed in
a full Saint Bernard skin and inside a portable kennel. A tape recorder and small speakers hidden in
the kennel provided sound effects to enhance the effectiveness of the illusion. The agent-dog would be
taken to a safe location for “examination by a veterinarian.” Once inside the safe house, the agent
could be safely debriefed, and when the “examination” was completed, he could redon the dog skin,
get into the kennel, and be returned “home.”91
The idea of swapping identities with an animal was not completely new and had been
previously developed during World War II. The British Special Operations, Executive (SOE) created
an innovative camouflage for parachutists secretly landing in German-occupied France. A two-piece,
collapsible rubber cow was painted in advance of the operation to blend with livestock in the landing
area. The plan then called for agents to parachute the rubber cow with them, land, and bury their
parachutes. That done, they would climb into their respective half of the two-person cow, join up, and
remain concealed until members of the local French Resistance units arrived and led them to safety.
Tests showed the camouflage to be effective at night, and though rubber cows were produced, no
record exists of their being used operationally.92

Escapology
Anything that can be locked by one man can be unlocked by another.
–ESCAPE ARTIST STERANKO
Danger is sometimes an unfortunate consequence of espionage and even the most skilled
intelligence officers and spies may be caught and incarcerated. The art and practice of escaping from
constrictions, be they ropes, handcuffs, straitjackets, jails, or even a country, is escapology.
Magicians and performers have long employed such techniques to entertain audiences expecting to
see an “impossible” escape. Spies have been equipped with similar tools and techniques for
situations in which imprisonment could lead to death and escape is not expected.
Creative minds have continually devised special equipment and techniques to escape from
virtually every type of restraint. Secret escape techniques developed by magicians over the last 150
years to amaze audiences have also been used by spies.
Escaping locks and chains requires special technical knowledge, a hidden key or tool, or a
willing confederate. In the early 1900s, Harry Houdini employed all of these to become one of the
most famous celebrities of his day. His creativity and innovation were exhibited during a 1903 visit
to Moscow when he issued a challenge to the Russian secret police proclaiming his ability to escape
from their dreaded “Siberian transport cell or carette,” a large horse-drawn “safe on wheels” used
for conveying prisoners to Siberia.93
The challenge was accepted and Houdini, stripped naked in freezing weather and searched
thoroughly by three police officers, was manacled, shackled, chained to foot fetters, and locked inside
the vault-shaped wagon. The lock controlling the door was inaccessible from the inside and a small
slit on the outside of the carette allowing access required a different key to open it from the one to
lock it.94 Nevertheless, minutes later, Houdini emerged to the amazement and fury of his wary hosts.
How he had escaped was soon obvious to his jailers, but they remained puzzled about the trick he
used to sneak his tools into the prison.
Houdini’s preparations began the day before the escape, when his assistant, Franz Kukol,
managed to glimpse the underside of the carriage. Kukol observed that the carriage’s plain wooden
floor was protected only by a thin layer of zinc. Kukol recognized that just two tools were needed for
the escape: a flexible metal wire used by surgeons for cutting bone called a Gigli saw and a tiny
cutting tool.95 Houdini’s plan was to completely avoid the heavy doors and locks, and cut through the
floor to escape the carriage.96 Houdini had managed to conceal his escape apparatus during the
probing searches of his jailers in a small “sixth finger.”97 As the guards searched first his upper body,
then his lower body, he switched the hollow finger between his trousers and hand. Once locked inside
the carette, Houdini effected his escape in only a minute by cutting a slit in the zinc layer and sawing
through the floorboards.98 He credited his escape abilities to technical skills, physical ability, and
trickery in concealing the equipment necessary for the act.
A few years earlier, in 1900, Houdini’s escaping skills had attracted the attention of William
Melville, the head of Britain’s Scotland Yard Special Branch.99 Dismissive of what he presumed
were theatrical stage handcuffs, the chief encircled Houdini’s arms around a pillar and snapped on
regulation Scotland Yard handcuffs. Melville was amazed at Houdini’s self-extrication within

seconds and pronounced, “Scotland Yard won’t forget you, young man.”100
Melville fulfilled his own prediction. When British agents began training in 1914 to operate
against Germany during the buildup to World War I, those attending an MI5 spy school received
lectures taught by Melville on “how to pick locks and burgle houses.” Other presentations included
the Technique of Lying, the Technique of Being Innocent, the Will to Kill, Sex as a Weapon in
Intelligence, and (finally) Dr. McWhirter’s Butchery Class, which taught one how to “top [kill]
yourself if you were caught.”101
The impact of Houdini’s magical escape techniques influenced later generations of clandestine
officers. Clayton Hutton, a pilot in the Royal Flying Corps during the First World War, volunteered
his services to British military intelligence in the late 1930s.102 None of Hutton’s skills seemed of
value until he mentioned his great interest in “magicians, illusionists, and escapologists.” He
described responding to a hundred-pound challenge from Houdini in 1913 for anyone who could
construct a wooden box from which the magician could not escape. Hutton accepted the challenge and
Houdini was handcuffed, put in a sack, and locked in Hutton’s formidable wooden packing case. To
Hutton’s dismay, Houdini escaped within minutes.
Hutton said he learned years later that his own assistant, Ted Withers, a first-class carpenter, had
been bribed by Houdini for three pounds before the performance. Withers gimmicked the case with
false nails at the end to enable an easy escape.103 Houdini cut the sack “using a small razor blade he
had palmed when shaking hands with the last man to come up on stage—a confederate.”104 After
hearing the story, the British intelligence officer conducting his interview, Major J. H. Russell,
commented, “You may be the man we want. We’re looking for a showman with an interest in
escapology. You appear to fit the bill.”105 Hutton got the job.

MI9, a division of British military intelligence, was responsible for helping service personnel evade
capture where possible, escape when necessary, collect intelligence, and distribute information.106
Their efforts were centered at the secretive Intelligence School 9 (IS9), where Hutton worked to
invent, design, and adapt aids for evasion, escape, and secret communication with prisoners of war.
Evading capture required small, easily carried, and hidden equipment for terrain and directional
knowledge such as maps and compasses. Hutton remembered the methods Houdini had used thirty
years earlier to conceal his escape aids and adapted them to hide MI9’s gadgets from determined
searches by German police and guards. Escape maps were concealed within false backs of playing
cards or printed on silk or rice paper to be folded silently into tiny volumes. Miniature telescopes
were hidden inside a cigarette holder, and smoking pipes, belt buckles, and even magnetized razor
blades were used to hide compasses. The face of a standard brass uniform button unscrewed to reveal
a hidden compass and was one of Hutton’s most effective deceptions. In his first hidden compass
design, the button was unscrewed with a standard left-hand thread. When German guards got wise to
the concealment, Hutton quickly changed the design to utilize a right-hand thread on the buttons; the
deception worked as planned, and the more the German guards tried to “open” the new buttons
conventionally, with a counterclockwise rotation, the tighter they became.107
The imagination required for conceiving devices seemed to have no limits. One escape kit, fitted
within a pocketknife, contained wire cutters, saw blades, and a lock breaker.108 Another kit,
concealed in a boot heel that was accessible through a hinged flap in the straight edge of the heel,

contained a silk map, a compass, and a small file. The brother of magic dealer Will Gladstone had
first created the hollow heel for the “Mokana shoe” in 1901, which Houdini used successfully to
evade the invasive police searches that preceded his escapes.109 Though stripped naked, he had
requested shoes to ward off cold feet.110
During World War II, others from the world of magic applied their craft to support the British
intelligence services. Onetime missionary Charles Fraser-Smith created gadgets and tricks for
Britain’s SOE and MI6 to deceive the Axis. Among these were pocket-size radio receivers, a device
that seemed impossible at a time when home radios were so large that they were considered pieces of
furniture. The radios allowed agents as well as prisoners to receive one-way communications. One
set, designed for smuggling into POW camps, was purposefully manufactured crudely to appear as if
it had been cobbled together by the prisoners.111
Tools such as the Gigli saw used by Houdini were capable of cutting through a one-inch steel
bar and could be concealed within the shoelace of a British pilot “just in case.”112 Concealed knife
blades for cutting ropes were fitted on the back of copper coins and passed unnoticed during a search.
Other knife blades were concealed in a boot-heel reinforcement so even if the wearer was captured
and hog-tied, the blade could be reached. Military uniforms were designed for “quick change”
conversion into civilian clothes by use of dye concealed inside the ink bladders of standard-looking
fountain pens.113 “Cut down” and recolored, the uniforms provided a lower profile for escapees.
Even military-issue leather flying boots were designed for instant conversion to civilian walking
shoes by making a few cuts with a small, concealed blade.
The secret escape apparatus developed by Houdini and early twentieth-century magicians
continued to influence spy gadgetry during the Cold War.114 Houdini had hidden a small egg-shaped
container holding a variety of small lock picks in the back of his throat while being searched. The
concealment was safe from all but a search by the most determined jailers.115 The CIA, using a
similar design, created an escape-and-evasion suppository as a portable “tool kit” packed within a
waterproof black plastic shell. This “spy’s Leatherman” featured nine escape tools, including wire
cutters, pry bar, saw blades, drill, and reamer packed into the four-inch-long-by-one-inch-diameter
kit.116

The CIA Escape and Evasion Rectal Suppository was a multipurpose tool kit packed within a smooth
waterproof black plastic or aluminum shell; circa 1955 (actual size: 4” long x 1” diameter).
courtesy of the authors
Lock picking, which even for Houdini was a last resort, has always been a useful skill for spies.

Spies were taught the magician’s principle to “beg, borrow, bribe, or steal” the master or original
key, if possible, before attempting to break into or escape from a locked enclosure. Once obtained,
the master key could be covertly impressioned using clay, wax, or even a small bar of soap, and
returned. From this impression, an exact duplicate key could be cut and concealed.117 The OSS, and
later the CIA, issued key-impressioning kits using modeling clay in a pocketable aluminum mold for
this purpose.118 For actual lock picking, should that be necessary, the CIA improved on the design of a
small concealable pocketknife designed first by the OSS that contained six small tools of the type
Houdini employed seventy years earlier in his own concealed escape kits.119

Concealments
The CIA concealment specialist combines the skills of a craftsman, the creativity of an
artist, and the illusion of a magician.
—CIA CONCEALMENT ENGINEER
Traditionally, conjurers must be smartly groomed and remain polished, refined, confident, and
poised throughout the performance. Their clothing must be well tailored, yet incorporate special
pockets for concealing performance paraphernalia, including tricked coins, cards, handkerchiefs,
flowers, hollow thumbs, and even live animals!120 Spies also wear clothing designed specifically for
their “performances.”121
If the magician desires to produce a large rabbit, he might employ a “rabbit bag” under his arm.
However, if his dress suit is cut too tightly, the bulge will be visible. Conversely, if the conjurer’s
attire is noticeably large to accommodate the bulk of the rabbit, suspicions will be raised. Author
Dariel Fitzkee observed, “Any variation from the norm attracts undesirable attention from the
viewpoint of the magic. The conjurer must remain natural at all times. When something unnatural is
evident, a spectator becomes vigilant and alert to deception.”122 Whether one is a magician or a spy,
specially tailored clothing must distribute both the weight and bulk of hidden items while keeping the
items accessible for the performance or secret operation.123
CIA officer Richard Jacob was wearing a specially tailored raincoat when detained in Moscow
in 1962 just after retrieving Minox film concealed in a matchbox, which had been hidden behind a
radiator in a public hallway and placed there by the CIA’s top Soviet spy, GRU colonel Oleg
Penkovsky. Jacob’s modified raincoat included a slit inside a pocket. When Jacob saw he was about
to be detained, he dropped the matchbox through the slit to the inside of the coat, letting it fall to the
floor. Thanks to the accessibility of the flap within his special clothing, he was not apprehended with
the stolen secrets in his hand or coat pocket.124
Other forms of attire, such as shoes, can be ideal concealment cavities for use by both conjurers
and spies. The hollow Mokana shoe used by Houdini for hiding escape tools became a favorite for
spies throughout the Cold War.125 Concealment heels were used by East German agents to transport
Minox film cassettes in both men’s and women’s shoes. In the 1960s Czechoslovakian intelligence
(StB) technicians placed an entire eavesdropping transmitter in the heel of an unsuspecting U.S.
ambassador’s shoe.126 When it was activated, the ambassador became a walking broadcasting station

who was “bugging” his own secret meetings.127

Power’s silver dollar with cutaway view revealing inner pin.
Phil Franke
For a CIA application, the U.S. Army Special Operations Division at Ft. Detrick, Maryland,
worked in the late 1950s with the Technical Services Staff to create a concealment coin for U2 pilots
overflying the USSR.128 The coin was a silver dollar mounted inside a bezel with a loop on the end
for holding a chain that could be worn around the neck. Inside the hollow shaft of a straight pin, a
poison needle was concealed.129 The pin fit into a small hole drilled into the edge of the coin and
held in place by the silver bezel. When a small hole in the bezel was aligned with the hole in the coin,
the straight pin was ejected by an internal spring. With a tiny prick of the skin by the needle, death
would be nearly instantaneous.130 On May 1, 1960, CIA pilot Francis Gary Powers was issued the
modified coin as he prepared to depart from Peshawar, Pakistan, and overfly the Soviet Union.131
After his U2 was shot down over Sverdlovsk, USSR, he parachuted safely into a farmer’s field, hid
the pin in his pocket, and discarded the coin. Both the coin and pin were recovered by the KGB and
used as evidence against Powers at his subsequent trial for espionage.132

The needle was constructed using a tiny drill bit brazed to the head of a common straight pin. The
sheath was built from a hypodermic syringe fitted to a machined metal tip.
Phil Franke
Concealed devices can be made part of clothing or hidden inside body cavities to support
clandestine operations. During the first half of the twentieth century, conjurers created the illusion of
telepathy or “second sight” using only voice codes.133 As new technologies became available in the
1970s, subminiature radios could be hidden inside the performer’s clothing and connected by small
wires running from his neck to a concealed earpiece. The performer’s stylishly long hair hid the

wires. Later the telltale wires disappeared as hearing-aid-size radio receivers could be fitted directly
into the ear canal.134
The problem then became one of hiding the earpiece rather than the wires.135 The solution was a
CIA-developed color-matched silicon covering that was camouflaged to replicate the inner ear’s
contours and shadows.136 So effective was the illusion that the KGB missed the device during a
search of CIA officer Martha Peterson after her detention at a dead drop in Moscow in 1977.
Peterson’s surveillance radio, attached to her bra with Velcro and concealed in her armpit, was
discovered, but the absence of visible wires caused the KGB to ignore the concealed earpiece.137
Other body parts and orifices were useful for concealment as well. In the late 1960s, the CIA
fielded a military request to provide a means of concealing a subminiature escape radio on a downed
pilot who was likely to be captured and searched. Advances in miniature circuitry using transistors
had produced a radio one-half the size of a cigarette pack, but it needed a hiding place. CIA engineers
knew that guards were less likely to search another male’s genitalia and created a false rubber
scrotum that fit over the wearer’s testicles. Matched to skin color, and incorporating full anatomical
detail, the prosthesis was visually undetectable, but formed a cavity large enough to conceal the
escape radio.138
Concealing larger objects presents a different set of problems. Magicians consider any object on
the stage, from the performing table to the props themselves (including their bases or platforms), as a
partial concealment cavity for the object, animal, or person to be hidden. Concealing the conjurer’s
“load” in a hidden cavity is a science that employs lighting, positioning, design, craftsmanship, and
viewing angles to deceive the audience. The platform holding the woman about to be sawed in half
appears impossibly small to conceal a second woman, and yet, by fooling the eye, the mind accepts
the illusion as reality.

Spies and magicians employ concealment cavities to deceive their audiences. Concealing the second
woman in the impossibly small cavity is essential for the success of the deception. Here, the magician
uses a curtain to mask the size of the platform.
Phil Franke
The CIA employed such a ruse during a Cold War operation to smuggle a spy concealed within a

new Mercedes being driven out of Eastern Europe. The car’s original fuel tank was redesigned to
allow a person, though contorted, to fit inside it while to any observer the car looked factory-new.
Intelligence services have employed other concealments for illusions when faced with the
challenge of moving a person unnoticed while under surveillance. Their creative solutions adapted
the same principles of deception used by magicians. One was to construct a stack of luggage to be
rolled on a hand dolly. The pieces of luggage appeared unmodified, but each contained hidden
openings that allowed a person to sit inside. No single piece of luggage was large enough for the
deception, but when they were stacked together, a person could fit inside.139 A second technique
involved stacking cases of bottled water side by side on a large rolling cart. Each case was wrapped
in plastic, and to observers it appeared that light was passing through all of the cases. In actuality,
however, the outer cases were only shells with Mylar inside the outer row of plastic bottles to reflect
the light outward. Inside the stack of cases was a cavity large enough to hide a person. Each illusion
had been constructed using the designs of a new generation of Hollywood illusionists brought to the
CIA in the mid-1970s. The same principles of optical illusions that amazed audiences in Las Vegas
stage performances paved the way for more daring and successful CIA clandestine operations.140

The modified fuel tank is only partially filled with gas and contains a cavity to conceal a person being
exfiltrated from a hostile area. From the outside, the car appears normal.
Phil Franke

The illusion of light appearing to pass through the stacked cases of bottled water mask the person
hidden inside.
Phil Franke
A primary area for CIA concealment technology involved designing unsuspicious “hosts” for
money, film cassettes, and other spy paraphernalia to be exchanged between agents and field case
officers at dead drops.141 The hosts might appear as innocuous tree branches, discarded soda cans, or
even construction bricks left over at a building site.142 Each item was left at an agreed on time and
location for recovery a few minutes later. In the Cold War years before digital technology, such timed
exchanges were a primary method of clandestine communications and still being used by Robert
Hanssen at the time of his arrest in 2001.
Cold War operational requirements led the CIA to create a category of dead drop concealments
using “host carcasses.” Virtually any animal carcass could be configured with a cavity for exchanging
spy gear. The more repugnant the host carcass, the less likely it would be disturbed until collected.
Pigeons and rodents, because they are small enough to be carried in a pocket and are found in almost
every part of the world, were especially attractive hosts. Their eviscerated and preserved body
cavities were large enough to hold money, instructions, subminiature cameras, film, notes, and
codebooks.143 The carcasses, filled with paraphernalia for the agent, could be tossed from a slowmoving vehicle at predetermined locations along the darkened streets of virtually any city. Who
would disturb the carcass of a dead rat or rotting pigeon? That question had to be answered when
deployed rats unexpectedly went missing. Hungry cats, unaware of the concealed treasure, had
carried the rats off before the agents arrived. The solution to the problem was a liberal dousing of hot
pepper sauce on the rodent before the operation.
When a magician pours water from a pitcher on the stage, the audience sees it as real. Yet the
hidden compartment concealed by a mirror inside the pitcher is never observed as water is pouring
out. The CIA used the same principle when designing “active” concealments for agents—each item
retained its original function but masked a concealed cavity inside. The Cricket cigarette lighter
concealing a tiny document camera was unlikely to be examined after demonstrating that it produced a
flame. Likewise, a working fountain pen was dismissed by the KGB as a possible host for a suicide

pill.144 Less sophisticated “passive” concealments can be effective when a device needs to perform
no function other than to conceal the cavity. For example, a large wooden storage cabinet in a
basement mounted against a wall performs no function except to mask the entrance to a hidden crawl
space for secretly entering or exiting the house.

A large piece of furniture with a concealed inner panel masked the entrance to an escape tunnel.
Phil Franke
The concealments and tricks Mulholland envisioned for intelligence officers in his manual
combined classic methods of the magician’s art with the most nonsuspicious host objects available.
Smaller packages attracted less attention and a concealment device had to fit naturally into the “act”
being performed. Few props served this purpose better than the coins found in every pocket and
purse.

Magic Coins
The best magicians come to understand that these gimmicks are mere tools for the
presentation. Illusion, not mere gimmicks, must be present in any real magic
performance.145
—JIM STEINMEYER
Coins provide objects for the tricks of magicians and spies that can easily deceive and confound
audiences as well as espionage targets. The magician employs sleight of hand to make them appear,
vanish, or change for amusement. A spy’s coin can mask the presence of an attached pill, conceal a
hidden powder, or contain a secret message.

“A trick becomes a piece of sheer incredibility in Mulholland’s hands.”
—Fulton Oursler
courtesy of the authors
As mentioned previously, the magician plays to an audience that expects to be deceived, while
the spy’s trick occurs before an unwitting audience and unsuspecting target. Magicians refer to
performances with coins as “close-up magic” because of the small size of the physical objects being
manipulated and the short distance between the performer and the audience. The audience must be
close enough to the performer to see the effects; otherwise it will not be deceived or even be aware
of the illusion. For the intelligence officer, performing the trick in close proximity to the target
minimized exposure to onlookers and limited the target’s sight lines as well.146
Coins are well suited for close magic, but manipulating them requires dexterity, skill, and
grace.147 For both magicians and spies, their universal presence offers great advantages. Coins create
no suspicion, in contrast to other pieces of magical apparatus such as linking rings, wooden boxes,
stage cabinets, and top hats, which, simply by being onstage, arouse curiosity and questions.148 Most
people do not assume that coins will be modified or used in deception. Such perceptions can be
readily exploited to deceive an unwitting target.
Mulholland understood that maximum audience deception would occur when real coins were
used to create espionage “magic.” As a result, most of the coins used in his manual of deception for
the CIA were unmodified. For example, in one trick a pill was affixed to the back of a real coin with
a small dab of gum of Arabic or magician’s wax. The coin would appear as just one of several others
when held in the trickster’s palm.
Professional coin manipulators employ a number of gimmicked coins that mirror the techniques
used in “spy coins.” These magic coins are constructed in ways that permit them to seemingly change
denominations, multiply, pass through solid objects, and survive penetration. These and other
gimmicked coins are designed for quick manipulation in performing an illusion.149 They would not,
however, survive close examination or, in most instances, satisfy the requirements of a professional
intelligence service that primarily uses coins for clandestine communication—transporting and
exchanging information. Hollow coins were employed by Soviet agents in the early 1930s to conceal
secret information on microdots, “soft film,” or “onetime-pads,” particularly while traveling or
passing information between agent and handler.150
In the United States, attention was drawn to the Soviet use of spy coins for the first time in the
early 1950s during the famous Hollow Nickel Case.151 In 1935, a young Brooklyn newspaper boy
dropped a nickel that was discovered to be modified when it was split open to reveal a tiny piece of

film hidden inside an interior cavity. On the film was a ciphered message. The nickel was part of a
sophisticated covert communication exchange between Soviet spy Rudolph Ivanovich Abel and his
assistant, Reino Häyhänen, who had accidentally lost the spy coin.152

Russian spy coin machined to create a cavity for concealing soft film and ciphers. The coin opened by
inserting a small tool (or needle) into the loop of the numeral 9 in the date, 1991, on the bottom face
of the coin.
courtesy of the authors
On June 26, 1953, the nickel was examined by the FBI and appeared unmodified, but had a tiny
hole drilled in one side so that a fine needle could be inserted to force the sides apart. The examiner,
Special Agent Robert J. Lamphere, examined the coin and correctly concluded that there was a Soviet
“illegal” operating in New York City. However, the FBI was unable to identify the owner of the coin,
or break the cipher.153
The mystery remained unresolved until Häyhänen defected in Paris in 1957 and revealed that
Rudolph Ivanovich Abel had received ciphered instructions from Moscow using the coin. A
subsequent search of Häyhänen’s apartment uncovered another spy coin of similar construction—a
fifty-markka coin from Finland. It, too, had been hollowed out and had a small hole in the first a of the
word Tasavalta appearing on the tail side of this coin. Abel was convicted of espionage in 1957 and
served five years of a thirty-year sentence before being exchanged in 1962 for CIA pilot Gary
Powers.154
The effectiveness of coins as hiding places also made them easy to lose. They were small, could
easily be dropped, mistakenly spent, or become mixed in a handful of similar coins. In the early
1950s another Russian “illegal,” Valeri Mikhaylovich Makayev, lost a hollow Swiss coin containing
operational instructions on microfilm while returning to his post from leave in Moscow. The KGB
recalled him to the Soviet Union and his career was ended.155 There is no record of the coin being
discovered and it may still be in circulation.
Intelligence services of the Soviet Union as well as Poland, Czechoslovakia, East Germany, and
Hungary used concealment coins throughout the Cold War. The East German foreign intelligence
service, the HVA, produced concealment coins with three different methods of opening. Each
appeared externally unmodified, but required different techniques to access their contents.
The “pinhole coin” required a special tool or needle to force the sides apart. The design is very
similar to KGB concealment coins.
The “screw-top coin” had an exterior shell with a second and smaller face of the obverse design
of the original coin that fit within the milled edge of the shell. The pieces matched perfectly and only
the lighter weight of the coin might give it away.156 Placing the coin in the palm and using the
opposing thumb to unscrew the inner face provided access to the concealment.
The “bang-ring coin,” fitted with an obverse facing to appear unaltered, required that the agent

also possess a fitted machined ring for opening.157
In 1966, the KGB sent Major Yuri Nikolayevich Loginov, posing as a Canadian businessman of
Lithuanian heritage, to South Africa. Loginov established his cover business and began laying plans to
immigrate to the United States. He carried a small coin concealing a tiny piece of soft film that
contained his personal code, a list of radio frequencies, call signs, a listening schedule, a summary of
instructions for meetings with other KGB agents, and a brief compendium of his legend.158
The concealment, an Indian rupee coin, had been machined at the Moscow workshops of the
KGB’s OTU—Operative Technical Unit.159 This spy coin was constructed from two rupee coins
machined to fit together. When the two sides were joined, the resulting coin appeared unaltered, a
nearly perfect illusion. Identical in design and construction to the hollow nickel provided to the FBI
in 1953, the coin could only be opened using a tiny needle, which was inserted into a small hole in
the face of the coin near the milled edge of side one. The needle was used to separate the two sides,
making access to the coin’s secrets precise, but the opening process was slow. This type of spy coin
worked perfectly for Russian spies, although it would not have allowed the quick access required in a
magic performance.
Other intelligence services also machined concealment coins to be used covertly for storing or
transporting cipher material and agent communication details. Most coins for clandestine operations
employed threaded openings, which screwed together and were reusable by the agent. In rare
circumstances, when the coin might be subjected to extra scrutiny, a “onetime,” non-threaded coin
was constructed, loaded, and sealed like a dead drop. Its weight, with the loaded microfilm, was
identical to an unmodified coin, but opening required special knowledge. For example, a
temperature-sensitive coin seal required mild heating in a cup of coffee or tea to release the glue or
low melting alloy that secured the two pieces together.160

This example of a coin concealment was created by the authors from an OTS fiftieth-anniversary
souvenir coin. The interior cavity can be accessed by unscrewing the inner face of the coin.
courtesy of the authors
The process of creating threaded and screwed together coins required a machine shop lathe to
mill out the inside of the coin and cut threads on the male and female sections. The face inside the rim
would be hollowed out on one coin leaving the bottom and rim, and on the other coin the back side
and rim would be removed for dead space and threads. While in theory only two coins are needed to

make one modified coin, in reality at least six were usually required because of the difficulty in
getting both sides to match up when screwed closed. Machinists preferred thicker coins with wide
rims and an inside borderline since the seam where the two sections fitted together would be
invisible to the naked eye. Depending on space and what material was removed, weight was added to
match the weight of the unmodified coin.
A threaded coin was opened by applying downward pressure on the face of the coin and turning
right or left depending upon which type of thread was cut. When used by agents for storage or
transport of microfilm, finely cut threads fit more snugly and were less likely to come loose during
carrying or handling. The pieces fit together so well that some officers and their agents had difficulty
applying sufficient finger pressure to open them. In that case, a piece of sticky tape placed on the
bottom of the fingers made it possible to grasp the face of the coin and open it.
On display at the CIA Museum in its Langley, Virginia, headquarters is an Eisenhower silver
dollar described as follows on the museum’s Web site: 161
“Silver Dollar” Hollow Container: This coin may appear to be an Eisenhower silver
dollar, but it is really a concealment device. It was used to hide messages or film so they
could be sent secretly. Because it looks like ordinary pocket change, it is almost
undetectable.162
The origin of the CIA’s silver-dollar container is uncertain, but the method of quickly accessing
its hidden cavity makes it an unlikely candidate for concealing messages.163 The ability to open the
coin by simply squeezing at spot near the edge makes it insecure for concealing secret messages
because the sensitive contents might be revealed accidentally, or prematurely, and contrasts with
other CIA concealments that require a planned effort for opening.164
The design of the CIA silver dollar, for example, employs a feature that is more desirable to a
magician—a large cavity that can be opened easily during a performance. In this case, it appears that
Mulholland transferred the fruits of his magic to the CIA. Magician and author Ben Robinson’s
research into John Mulholland’s papers discovered:

Squeezing a spot near the edge of the coin caused it to open.
Phil Franke
The clever “dope coin” that Mulholland machined for the Agency in 1953 is made from a
1921 Silver Dollar and opens when the word “peace” is gently pushed between thumb and
forefinger. Mulholland charged fifteen dollars in machine fees when he submitted his bill
for the presentation of this highly secret tool. Apparently Mulholland was no stranger to
this device. He had been working on such a prop since his early 20s.165
The method described by Robinson for opening the Mulholland “dope” coin is identical to that
for opening the CIA silver-dollar hollow container. If usable at all, the coin’s large cavity and quick
accessibility would have been better suited for the covert delivery of powders—one of the major
topics in Mulholland’s manual.
The principles of magic learned from Mulholland and his follow conjurers like Houdini and
Maskelyne combined with twentieth-first-century technology will continue to influence espionage
“tricks.” Even the ultimate tool for both magicians and intelligence operations, an “invisibility
cloak,” now appears possible. Scientific experiments have confirmed that light waves can be bent to
make objects invisible to the naked eye or appear to be something else.166 The concept of invisibility
is not new and was popularized in 1897 by H. G. Wells’s science-fiction novella The Invisible
Man.167 Stage magicians in the twentieth century regularly made objects, people, and even elephants
disappear, as illusionist Jim Steinmeyer chronicled in Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians
Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.168 Because such techniques employed mirrors
and other special apparatuses and were performed only onstage, the illusions had limited application
to espionage.

The effect of an electronic cloak of invisibility on clandestine operations would be sweeping.
Sensors, listening devices, cameras, and data intercept devices could be hidden in plain sight. Dead
drops could be serviced with impunity and electronic identity transfers performed on command. New
technologies, however amazing, provide only additional methods for creating deceptions and
illusions; the goals and objectives of both the spies and magicians remain unchanged.169
A copy of the only known example of Mulholland’s two original manuals overlooked during the
destruction of MKULTRA files in 1973, was discovered by the authors in 2007. Subsequently, master
illustrator Phil Franke used the poor-quality photocopies of Mulholland’s original photographs as the
basis for painstakingly redrawing the illustrations. Each image details the exacting movements and
techniques used by Mulholland to teach the CIA’s “tricksters.” These images, along with the retyped
original manuals’ text, are reprinted together here for the first time.

John Mulholland was a master magician showman.
courtesy of the authors

“Magic is the art of creating illusions agreeably.” Crest from Mulholland’s Book of Magic, 1963.
courtesy of the authors

SOME OPERATIONAL APPLICATIONS OF THE ART OF DECEPTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS

I. Introduction and General Comments on the Art of Deception
II. Handling of Tablets
III. Handling of Powders
IV. Handling of Liquids
V. Surreptitious Removal of Objects
VI. Special Aspects of Deception for Women
VII. Surreptitious Removal of Objects by Women
VIII. Working as a Team

I. Introduction and General Comments on The Art of Deception
The purpose of this paper is to instruct the reader so he may learn to perform a variety of acts secretly
and undetectably. In short, here are instructions in deception.
There are few subjects about which so little generally is known as that of deft deception. As the
American humorist Josh Billings said, “It ain’t so much ignorance that ails mankind as it is knowing
so much that ain’t so.” Practically every popularly held opinion on how to deceive, as well as how to
safeguard one’s self from being deceived, is wrong in fact as well as premise. Therefore, prior to
explaining either theories or methods, an effort will be made to uncover that which “ain’t.” This is
particularly important because successful deception depends so much on attitude of mind, and holding
even one erroneous belief will make it difficult to attain the proper mental approach.
Parenthetically, the writer is assured that the reader is a person of unquestionable integrity,
possessing more than average intelligence and schooling. In other words, this is a person to whom the
practice of deception is quite foreign. However, the reader’s admirable attributes of honesty and
learning do not make his present task easier, for it takes practice to tell a convincing lie. Even more
practice is needed to act a lie skillfully than is required to tell one. Though practice is essential to
successful deception, much less practice is needed than might be imagined provided a person knows
exactly what he is to do, how he is to do it, and why it is to be done in that way. The success of the act
becomes more a matter of memorization of details than of physical repetition.
As examples of those who deceive by physical trickery, i.e. doing something in addition to
talking, may be named magicians, crooked gamblers, pickpockets, and confidence men. To cite
fallacious beliefs regarding the methods of each of these examples will show how wrong popular
opinion is.
“The hand is quicker than the eye” generally is given as the reason for a magician’s success in
mystifying his audience with any trick of small size. In large tricks, for instance where a person is
caused to disappear, the secret is generally attributed to the use of mirrors. There are a number of
other equally wrong “solutions” used to explain the methods of magicians, but the two given will
show how basically wrong is uninformed opinion.
Stating that the hand can move more rapidly than the eye can follow suggests that a movement
can be made and the hand returned to its original position so quickly that no motion at all is
discernible. This is not possible.
The most rapid coordinated movement man has ever learned to make is done by a few of the
leading pianists. Some of these highly trained musicians have gone as high as eight to nine strokes on
a key per second, with one finger of one hand. It was discovered through mechanical tests with player
pianos that the mechanism had to be in very good order to have one key function at the rate of ten
times per second. It may be assumed that some pianist could develop the manual speed of ten strokes
per second. However, even at such a rate, the movement would not be invisible because the normal

eye can catch movement at the speed of one-one-thousandth of a second. The sight of the average
person therefore is one hundred times faster than the most highly trained person can move one finger.
The mind may not register exactly what is accomplished in a very rapid motion of the hand but
that a motion has been made will be quite obvious. It should be noted that a magician, unlike all other
tricksters, acknowledges that he intends to deceive. His performance, because trickery is expected,
can have no unexplained or, at least, unacceptable movements of the hands. A magician may not be
seen to make any false motions and he should realize that he should perform all his secret movements
with deliberation. Movement of any kind attracts attention—hence moving signs—and trickery
depends upon not attracting attention to the method of performance. Magicians do not use speed in
their actions.
Mirrors have been used by magicians in a few feats but their effective use is limited. A mirror
can hide only one object by giving the reflection of another as a substitute. A mirror cannot make an
object invisible. A mirror’s single function is to reflect something. A mirror cannot reflect nothing—
and when a mirror is given nothing to reflect, the mirror itself becomes visible. Further, a mirror only
can be used in trickery where it is possible to have every edge abutting some visible solid object, for
otherwise the edges can be seen. Another detail which precludes the general use of mirrors in magic
is that the larger the audience the closer the object to be reflected has to be to the mirror because of
the angle of reflection. In large modern theaters this fact makes mirrors of no use to magicians.
Traveling magicians, and these are the vast majority, find it utterly impossible to transport large
mirrors due to their weight and fragility.
In short, while there is a slight basis for the public to believe that magicians use mirrors to
achieve their mystification, the public is wrong in its understanding of the functions of the mirror in
optical trickery and wrong in believing that mirrors generally are used in magic.
These two examples, 1. the totally wrong general belief that magicians depend upon rapidity of
action, and 2. the misconception of how and when mirrors are used in magic, are typical of the
wrongness of popular beliefs regarding magic. That magicians depend upon hypnotism and that
magicians generally use confederates are among the other fallacies to which the public clings. None
of these have any more validity than the one occasionally heard that magicians make objects invisible
by painting them air color.
The great misconception about all trickery is that there is a single secret which will explain how
each type of trick is performed. For instance, consider the feat of causing a rabbit to appear in a hat
that had just been shown to be quite empty. It generally is thought that there is a specific method of
getting the rabbit secretly into the hat. The fact is that there are several score of different methods for
performing this feat and a person conversant with the majority of methods may be mystified (and most
probably will be) upon seeing the trick performed by a method he does not know. As another
example, people still wonder about the secret which permitted Houdini to escape from any type of
physical restraint. The fact is that he released himself by a different secret method for each way in
which he was confined. He had at least one method for escaping from each type of handcuff, shackle,
and box, and each way of being tied with rope, cord, bandages, or straitjacket. There is no overall
secret to magic, or any part of magic. It is the multiplicity of secrets and the variety of methods which
makes magic possible. The proper secret for a magician to use is the one indicated as best under the
conditions and circumstances of the performance.
All tricksters, other than magicians, depend to a great extent upon the fact that they are not known
to be, or even suspected of being, tricksters. Therein lies their great advantage, for they need only do
their trickery when it is to their advantage and when they have conditions favorable for success.

Further, having made no commitment as to what they are going to do, they can utilize that trick which
is most suitable under the conditions of the moment.
The main error in public thinking about the tricks of gamblers is in believing that the tricks are
designed to make winning a certainty. Actually these tricks are intended only to give the gambler
enough advantage to increase the probability of his winning above that of the chance expectation.
Working on this basis also minimizes the possibility of the gambler’s tricks being discovered.
It generally is believed that a skilled card shark can deal to himself any card he wishes and
whenever he has such desire. This can’t be done, although a skilled manipulator of cards can, now
and again, arrange to give himself a good hand. Even such skill may not ensure winning, for chance
may give his opponent a better hand. The professional gambler depends largely upon a thorough
knowledge of the game played, his memory of the cards played, and a full understanding of the
mathematical probabilities of winning in any situation. This is not suggesting that the gambler will not
take advantage of any means which he can use to his own aid but merely that he doesn’t, and usually
cannot, do the things which people generally believe.
The opposite situation also exists in the common belief about gambling that demanding a new
deck at the start of a game will ensure that the cards do not have secret marks upon their backs. The
new deck may have such marks, or it is not at all difficult to substitute a marked deck for an unmarked
one. Also it is quite possible to mark cards while the game is being played.
Pickpockets are very generally accredited with such delicacy of touch, brought about through
long practice, as to be able to put a hand into a person’s pocket and remove it, along with some
valuable, without the person feeling the action. This is easily possible with a sleeping or intoxicated
person, but for the sober, as well as awake, individual, deftness is not enough on the part of the
pickpocket. The method generally used is to accustom the victim to being touched (usually done in a
crowd) so that he is not aware of the extra touch at the time the theft is made. The public has been told
about pickpockets having jostling confederates. At times confederates are used but they seldom are as
rough as the word jostling would indicate. While the confederate may assist in preparing the victim
by accustoming the victim to being touched, his chief task is to accept the loot and leave the vicinity
so that the pickpocket is free of incriminating evidence.
Sellers of goldbricks (also confidence men and others of like ilk) rely in the main on the cupidity
of their dupes. The only person who can be sold a goldbrick must have such avarice that he ignores
the obvious fact that the “bargain” he is offered must be untrue or illegal. The chief skill of the seller
is in discovering properly greedy victims. However, trickery frequently is used to clinch the sale by
substituting false gold for real, or substituting other bad merchandise for good. The world has the
opinion that the goldbrick seller is one who has the ability to give a super sales talk. Actually he is
merely a trickster with knowledge of the weaknesses of human nature.
To summarize from these few typical examples, the public holds wholly, or largely, untrue
beliefs about how all trickery is accomplished. The public is satisfied that these false beliefs explain
every deception, while actually the public has almost no factual knowledge of the methods used to
deceive. One not aware that these generally accepted beliefs are false will be bothered
subconsciously and can never learn to perform any false action smoothly and easily.
It is as essential to point out the facts as to point out what are not facts. As has been noted, there
never is a single secret for any trick. The sole criterion is that the method to be used is the one to
ensure the trick’s success. There are two chief reasons for choosing a particular method. One is that it
fits the physique, mannerisms, and personality of the performer better than any other method. The
other is that conditions at the time of performance favor a particular method. Of course, this latter

reason sometimes, as in a theater, can be ignored because conditions of performance are under the
control of the performer.
The basic principle in performing a trick is to do it so that the secret actions are not observed.
As Alphonse Bertillon said, “One can only see what one observes, and one observes only things
which are already in the mind.” A trick does not fool the eye but fools the brain. In order to do that, it
must be performed so that the secret parts are not noticed. This is possible because the trick is merely
one or more actions which are added to other actions done for legitimate and obvious reasons. The
added motions are not noticed because of the great variation in which people perform any given task
and because it is not in the observer’s mind to suspect such motions. The added motions must be
minor ones, or at least they must not be emphasized more than the other actions. Further, the “secret”
actions must fit in with the actions which are done openly.
Here is an example to clarify the generalities. A person, seated at a table in a restaurant, wants
to obtain a teaspoon full of salt and put the salt into his left coat pocket, and wishes to do this without
being observed.
The trickster picks up the saltcellar and shakes salt on to his food, or into his beer. He does this
with the top of the saltcellar held toward himself so that the others at the table cannot see the quantity
of salt coming out of the shaker. Seemingly not satisfied, the trickster raps the bottom of the saltcellar
on the table. At this point circumstances dictate the performance, for the salt may, or may not, run
freely from the cellar. If the salt runs freely, the performer, as if to try out the shaker after he has
tapped it on the table, shakes a quantity of salt into his left hand, which is held at the edge of the table.
If the salt actually is bound up in the cellar, he unscrews the top and pours a quantity of salt into his
left hand. In the first instance, as if satisfied by the test that the salt is coming out properly, he salts his
food, or beer, by using the shaker. He drops his left hand to his lap or by his side. In the second
instance, he takes pinches of salt from his left hand, with the fingers of the right hand, and salts his
food. As soon as he has taken enough salt for his needs, he drops the left hand as was done in the
other case. Naturally, when the left hand is dropped below the table, the fingers are closed so that the
salt is held in the hand. The left hand is held at the side, or in the lap, for as much as a minute before
the salt is put into the pocket. This wait is to ensure that there will be no obvious connection between
the salt going into the hand and the hand going into the pocket. While this illustrates how something
can be done which will not be observed although it can be seen, it also illustrates another point: not
everyone can do a trick in the same way. A person with very moist hands would have to use another
method because all the salt would adhere to his hand and could not be left in his pocket.
Timing also is most important. Timing has two elements. One has to do with when the trick is
done. For instance, it obviously would be wrong, in the example above, to handle the saltcellar
immediately after another person has used is successfully. The other point in timing is the cadence in
a series of actions. The accent is given to what is wished to be noticed. There will be little attention
paid to those actions which are not stressed.
The example makes it obvious that what is essential to the success of the trick is the naturalness
with which the performer acts the part of wanting salt, has trouble getting salt, doesn’t let it bother
him, and gets the salt he wants. It should be performed as if it were one of those minor bothers which
beset mankind. He should go through all the actions as if no thought were needed (which it isn’t) and
is just one of those automatic actions one does regularly. Above all the trickster does not try to make
any action slyly. The salt openly goes into the left hand and then the hand is dropped. He calls no
attention to dropping the hand and thereby attracts no attention to the action. As with most tricks, it
will be seen that it is not a matter of digital dexterity that is required for the success of the trick, but

instead, a carefully thought out sequence of actions, naturalness in performance, and the ability to fit
oneself to circumstances.
In planning a trick, the first consideration is to determine exactly what is to be accomplished.
This would seem to be so obvious a fact that there would be no need to mention it at all. But, unless
one is reminded that he must know fully and exactly what is his aim, one will begin with generalities.
The invariable result of planning, when working from generalities, is complication of method. A trick
to be good must be simple in its basic idea. It is true that, at times, it may become easier to do a trick
through elaborating the details of performance, but the basic idea must be simple.
After the full requirements of what is to be done have been determined, the next step is to decide
how the task can be done most easily, provided secrecy is not necessary. In most instances, that is the
way it will be done in the trick except that some addition is made which will keep the action from
being noticed. Again referring to the trick of secretly putting salt into the left coat pocket, it is obvious
that the easiest way to do this openly is to pour the required amount of salt from the shaker onto the
left hand and then to put that hand, and the salt, into the coat pocket. That also is what is done when
performing the trick. However, because the spectators are given something reasonable to think about,
apart from the required actions, the extra actions will not be noticed. The trick, in that instance, as is
so frequently the case, is due entirely to a false premise induced in the minds of the spectators. The
pretense that the saltshaker is clogged is the false premise.
It will be noticed, in the example, that the false idea which masks the essential action is
suggested only by a routine which is usual in getting salt from a clogged shaker. The false idea is put
over by pantomime rather than by words. At times, too, words are needed to get a spectator to accept
some false premise. The great value of relying only upon simple pantomime is that the actions can
further be minimized by talking on a totally unrelated subject as the actions are made.
Primarily, trickery depends upon a manner of thinking. It is a lie acted. More thought and care
are needed to act out a lie than to tell one, for false actions are more obvious in their incongruity than
are words. It is easier, for example, to claim to be an automobile mechanic than it is to act the part of
one. It is easy for a phlegmatic person to state that he is nervous but exceedingly difficult to act for
any appreciable length of time as if he were nervous.
Stating that trickery basically depends upon a manner of thinking needs considerable
amplification, for the oblique thinking of the trickster must be acceptable to the spectators. This
means that it cannot violate the manners and customs of the spectators nor, in any other way, can be
the cause of attracting special attention. Anything unusual in action or speech (unusual to the one
watching or listening) will attract attention and should be avoided. Even if a spectator’s attention is
focused on the actions during a trick and he does not discover that a trick is being done, he may later
recall that the trickster acted oddly and possibly have his suspicions aroused.
Before a trickster can plan a trick, he must know who the spectators are to be. This does not
mean knowing their names and addresses. It means knowing the kind of people that they are and their
nationality. For instance, one might base a trick on the action of borrowing a watch and then find that
none of the spectators carried watches. Or the trick might require the trickster to slap a spectator on
the back only to discover that all the spectators were Hindu, who would resent being touched. These
are examples of actual cases where the trickster’s lack of knowledge of who the spectators were
precluded the performance of the trick which had been planned. The more the trickster knows about
the spectators the better he can plan the trick to assure that it will succeed.
The “at-a-tangent thinking” is quite a descriptive phrase of the manner in which a trickster plans
his work. He must think of something to do or say which, while it touches the subject, actually shoots

off from it. Because the comment touches the subject, it will not be noticed that it actually is going
away from the subject rather than around it. Again refer to the saltshaker trick. Attention is called so
obviously to the “faulty” shaker that the spectators pay no attention to the perfectly open action of
putting salt in the left hand. It should be stressed again that the false action must be so natural as to be
acceptable.
There are several points which should be known about the things spectators will notice and
those things they will not notice and about some of the spectators’ thinking processes which can be
depended upon. These are things which are true of all people irrespective of their nationality,
educational background, or station in life.
No action which is expected will be noticed, but all actions which are surprising to a spectator
will be noticed by him. However, while all surprising actions will be noticed, many will immediately
be forgotten when followed at once by a rational explanation. For instance, pouring a beverage from a
bottle into a glass, or tea or coffee from a pot into a cup, will not attract attention. However, pouring
the liquid over the food on one’s plate will be noticed. It will be noticed but not remembered if, when
the liquid is poured on the food, it seems accidental because the body is twitched as if in pain and the
statement is made, “There must be a pin on the chair.” It will be all the stronger if, upon reaching
down, a pin is produced, shown, and discarded. In other words, natural and normal actions excite no
interest and, therefore, are not observed, while unnatural and unusual actions will attract attention
unless a simple but satisfactory explanation is given at once.
A person who seems to be interested in what it is he is doing will not be noticed but one whose
interest is directed toward what others are doing will attract attention. For instance, little attention
will be paid to the individual who, when alone, seems absorbed in the book or newspaper he is
reading, and when with others devotes his interest to his companions and has but casual interest in his
surroundings. One who seems interested in everything except his paper, or his companions, or
seemingly is looking for someone who hasn’t yet arrived, always will attract attention.
Posture is important in avoiding being conspicuous. That person attracts little attention who
when either seated, or standing, appears to be at his ease; that is, showing no physical effort and with
the manner of being confident of having a right to be where he is. He will be noticed if he stands
stiffly as if he were a soldier reporting to a high-ranking officer, or slouches as if death were
imminent. Noticeable, too, is the person who sits as if he expects the chair to explode, or the one who
sits slouched awkwardly in a chair as though he were a rag doll tossed into that position.
Possibly nothing attracts attention as quickly as fidgeting. Constantly shifting position either
while standing or seated; repeatedly putting hands in and out of pockets; tapping on a chair area or
table with the fingers; or playing with a watch chain, keys, coins, table silver, etc are all to be
avoided by the person who wishes to do something secretly.
Summarizing these points: the calm, quiet, relaxed (though not to the point of seeming disjointed)
person does not attract attention. This assumes, of course, that he is a normal individual. The person
who is exceptionally tall, or short, or crippled, or deformed will be noticed, but once the observer
notes the way in which he is unusual, little further notice is paid.
On the subject of being noticed, there is an inverse point that should be noted. At times tricksters
have reason to credit, or accuse, some imaginary person with what has been done. A natural mistake
is to describe someone of a form, and of actions, which are unusual and striking. It usually is easy to
ascertain that no such person has been in the vicinity. The proper description will be of a person
average in size and coloring and normal in features, but—and this is a very essential point-having
some minor oddity such as the first joint missing of the little finger of the left hand, or a large mole

close behind his right ear. The description, in short, of almost anyone but mentioning some unlikely,
but easily noticed, minor oddity which would identify him if found. Such a description will be
acceptable to listeners and at the same time be one most difficult to disprove.
Resuming the description of the attributes of a successful trickster, let it be repeated that he
should be so normal in manner, and his actions so natural, that nothing about him excites suspicion.
This does not mean that he has to be of any particular size or shape, or that he has to make gestures
when he talks, or refrain from making them. It means only that he has to be himself—as he is at his
calmest moments. That person who naturally speaks and acts rapidly will do well to learn to make
both speech and actions more slowly. Tricks never are done rapidly and slowing up at the time the
trick is done becomes noticeable. The big point is to be comfortably natural or, at least, to give that
appearance. If one can be natural even in a difficult situation, he will make his work less arduous, for
it is very difficult to act the role of one who is at ease and, at the same time, think of trickery. The
chief cause of stilted actions and lack of poise is due to worry brought about through lack of
preparation. When confident that he can do it, he will have a natural manner. There is nothing more
important to the performance of a trick than confidence on the part of the performer. Confidence is a
direct result of preparation. Confidence is nothing to be exhibited and it is not cockiness. Confidence
is merely the feeling of certainty of being prepared to do the job—an awareness of being ready.
Some people, as a matter of fact almost everyone, become nervous and tense when appearing
before a large audience. The trained actor realizes, and the novice senses, that due to distance, his
natural manner seems false. Because distance both minimizes and otherwise alters, the stage actor
makes gestures both broader and slower than he would do intimately. Because doing a trick is a form
of acting, beginners tend to be nervous and assume an unusual manner and stilted gestures. Those who
do their tricks before only a few should not worry, for they have no need to alter their actions or
manner. Not only is there no need, but it should not be done. The popular belief that it is more
difficult to perform a trick “right up close” is completely erroneous. The performance on the stage is
sufficiently distant so that the spectator’s eye sees the entire man. When close by, only part of the
performer is within the spectator’s range of vision. The more of the performer that can be seen, the
less his chance of doing anything without detection. As examples: a performer on the stage would be
seen were he to put his hand into his pocket, but that action can be made without being seen while
standing close to a person so the hand is outside of his range of vision.
Simple tricks, and the reader will never need to do any others, are easy to do, for they require
only knowledge, understanding, confidence, and a small amount of ingenuity. And the ingenuity will
be needed only in the event of having to combine or alter methods hereinafter set down in order to fill
some particular circumstance of which the writer could not be aware. The reader will not find it
necessary to develop any manual skills for any of the tricks. He never will be asked to do any action
that he does not now do regularly, even though he may need to make the action for a new purpose.
There will be no lessons in intricate sleight of hand. All tricks will be simple to do physically. But
take this bit of warning—the easier the manipulation in a trick the more essential it becomes for the
performer to have every detail clearly in mind. This is because, while expert manipulation can in
itself become mystifying, simple trickery depends entirely upon an idea and a routine. However, with
your mind and my methods, there should be no real difficulty.
Prior to going on with details of how to do particular tricks, it may be well to review what has
been written. First, in order to approach the subject properly, one must have a mind completely free
of all the various commonly held, though erroneous, ideas about how tricksters operate. It is wise for
a beginner to have his mind completely devoid of convictions of any sort about trickery. Starting with

a clear mind eliminates 75 percent of the difficulty of learning to do tricks.
Next, it is necessary to restate that trickery depends basically upon elementary psychology. One
who expects to perform trickery must understand that the objective of the trickster is to deceive the
mind rather than the eye. This understanding will make him ready to accept that the trickster depends
upon a form of thinking which will mislead the spectators rather than upon quickness and
manipulative ability. To make a positive statement, the trickster relies upon confusing, and thereby
deceiving, the minds rather than the eyes of the spectators. Even when eyes are misled, the memory
may hold something that will permit working out how the mystery was accomplished after it is over.
When the mind has been deceived, it is almost impossible to work backward and discover the
deception.
Were it possible for the writer to be with the reader, it would be very easy to demonstrate how
readily the mind may be fooled even when what is done is seen by the eyes. It would be very easy
because the personal element plays such a large part in the performance. As this is not possible, all
that can be done is to set down a couple of tricks on paper.
1. Two farmers live a mile apart and each put a fence of the same length, height, and
material in front of his house. The eye can see (in the design below) that one farmer
is a better fence builder than the other, but unless attention is called to the matter,
the mind does not realize the difference.
(-0-0-0-0-0-0-) (-0 -0—0- 0-0 -)
2. A man had been studying Esperanto and other universal languages. As he sat at his
desk thinking about the matter of universal languages, he absentmindedly wrote
these letters:
LUANSIRVEEVRISNAUL
The eye sees the letters, but even with the reader’s mind cued twice in the story
above, it takes some study to see what was in the man’s mind. Without the story, and the
study, the mind would register only that a number of letters, making no word or words,
had been written. It is not immediately apparent that beginning with the second letter and
reading every other letter spells out the word universal. And beginning with the next to
the last letter and reading backward, every alternate letter spells out the same word.
Now a description of the performer. He must be natural and at ease. He must know in such
complete detail what he is to do and how he is to do it that he is completely assured and so has full
confidence in himself. He has such complete confidence that he not only does not fidget but has no
inclination to do so.
Then the performer must have a realization of the element of time. He must know the proper time
to start his trickery. He must know the importance of time in each detail of his performance.
Finally, the performer must accept to the full extent the fact that he cannot know too much about
what he plans to do. Every detail he knows, beyond the bare essentials to ensure success, adds just
that much more to eliminating the possibility of failure. The more details a trickster has in mind in
connection with a trick the more certain he will be of his ability to do what is required. To state this
in other words, worry, the possibility of error, and the chance of detection can all be eliminated by
thoughtful, careful preparation. The situation recalls the occasion when a reporter asked the scientist

Dr. Roy Chapman Andrews, on his return from a year in Inner Mongolia, to tell about his adventures.
“My dear man,” said the doctor, “we had no adventures. We had a scientific expedition. Adventures
come only through lack of preparation and we were properly prepared.” Such is the case with
trickery, for proper preparation ensures success.
The performer’s knowledge must be so complete that he knows each detail of how and why each
point in the trick is done. He must know, as well, when conditions of the moment demand a change in
the prepared procedure and how to make such change without being disturbed. Such changes will not
be manipulative and never require anything but a flexibility of mind coupled with knowledge.
At this point (very possibly at an earlier paragraph) the reader comes to the conclusion that the
writer is extremely verbose in explaining a few simple points. Such feeling is not at all objectionable
as long as the reader has grasped that the points are simple. The writer’s aim is to have the reader
successful whenever he performs a trick. The writer is quite willing to acknowledge being both
wordy and obvious provided the reader, thereby, invariably has success in his work.

II. Handling of Tablets
In an earlier paragraph it was noted that the reader in performing his tricks need never make any
action that he does not now do regularly. This is because he should be able to have his entire mind
concentrated upon the performance rather than being diverted by the necessity of having to consider a
new manipulative technique. The first illustration will be found to be entirely natural for any person
who smokes. Even if the reader is a nonsmoker, he will, most probably, find it to be quite natural.
Whether the reader does or does not smoke, he should follow the instructions and actually do the
action indicated.
In order that the reader may find exactly what his natural actions are, he should get a packet of
paper matches before reading further.
Take the paper matches, open the cover, tear off one match, and close the cover. Then light the
match and blow it out.
You will have found that it is natural to do these several actions entirely without using the third
or little fingers of either hand. Assuming that the reader is right-handed, he will have held the packet
of matches in the left hand and between the thumb, on one edge, and the first and second fingers, on
the opposite edge. (If the reader naturally is left-handed, he will find all details are the same in all
instructions hereinafter set down and quite usable provided he read “left hand” whenever “right
hand” is set down and vice versa.)
Whereas the reader will find that he will use only the thumb and the first and second fingers of
the left hand in holding the paper of matches, he may not automatically hold the packet exactly as is
required for this first trick. However, he will find that the position of the packet is all that has to be
changed and that does not change the grip he naturally uses. Properly held, the thumb is on one side of
the edge of the back of the paper cover and the first and second fingers are on the opposite edge. Held
in this way, the back of the cover is facing the palm of the hand. This grip makes it possible for the
fingers of the right hand to open the front cover, to tear off a match, and to close the front cover,
without releasing the grip of the left fingers or changing their position.
To continue the experiment, the reader should insert an ordinary straight pin into the back of the
packet of matches. The pin is stuck through the lower-right-hand corner (this assumes that the back of

the packet is uppermost), a quarter of an inch from the right side and the same distance from the
bottom. The pinpoint should be pointed toward the top of the packet and right along the inside of the
back and behind the matches. The pin should be pushed all the way in so that only the head protrudes
at the back.
Again the packet of matches should be taken, held as described above, opened, one match torn
off, the cover closed, and the match lighted. It will be found in doing these actions that the head of the
pin never is touched. It also will be found that it is easy, and not at all noticeable, to rub the tip of the
third finger of the left hand over the head of the pin. If the nail of the third finger is used, it will be
found easy even to pull the pin out of the paper.
Having tried this experiment, it will be obvious how simple it would be to knock off a small pill
which had been stuck to the packet at the position of the pinhead. In handling the matches, it will be
seen that it is natural, and easy, always to keep the back of the matches pointing toward the inside of
the hand or down toward the floor. In either instance the pinhead (or the pill) always will be kept
hidden from the sight of both performer and all spectators.

Showing pill attachment and way matchbook is held to easily release pill.
Phil Franke
The above describes how a small pill may easily be carried and handled (though it is minute)
and yet is quickly released indiscernibly and with no effort. Such is the secret and the following are
the details of performance. The plot of the trick is to put the pill into the beverage of one particular
spectator without his, or any other spectator’s, knowledge. In the situation where there is but one
spectator, the trick is extremely simple. The performer should either be facing the spectator or at his
left (again these are instructions for a right-handed person). It makes little difference whether both are
standing at a bar or are seated at a table. If the table, however, is so wide that the performer cannot
easily reach across it, the trick cannot be done when the performer faces the spectator. If, by half
rising from his chair, the performer can reach across the table, then it is suitable. The reason for the
respective positions of performer and spectator is that the trick is done with the left hand and
therefore requires ample space for the movement of the left arm.
This trick, by the way, only can be done for a spectator who is a smoker. Another method will be
described for performing for a spectator who does not smoke. If, prior to performance, the performer
knows whether the spectator does or does not smoke, he need only be prepared to use one method. If

that fact is not known, it will be necessary to be prepared to perform either method.
This is the routine for the spectator who smokes. The instant the performer sees the spectator
take a cigarette, cigar, or pipe, he takes the packet of matches from his pocket, tears off one match,
and holds packet and match ready to ignite the match. He does these things openly because what he
does can only be looked upon as a friendly and courteous gesture. As soon as the spectator is ready to
light up, the performer should hold the matches close to the spectator and strike the one match. The
matches should be held only as close to the spectator as politeness allows but should, if possible, be
closer to the spectator than is the mouth of the glass, or cup, into which the pill is to be dropped.

Left hand lowered for action immediately after match is struck.
Phil Franke
The performer should hold the flame of the match so that the spectator best can use it, and, of
course, the performer must look at what he is doing. As soon as the spectator has a proper light, the
performer should begin to lean backward into his previous position. In doing this, the left hand, which
has been held still since the match was struck, is brought over the mouth of the glass or cup, and the
pill dropped into the liquid. Three points should be stressed. First, the left hand must be withdrawn
with a continuous motion. There can be no hesitation over the liquid. It should be obvious that the
slower the left hand is moved the easier it will be to aim accurately. Second, while the left hand is
being withdrawn the performer may drop his eyes from the face of the spectator and thereby see the
table, but he should not obviously follow the movements of the left hand. Third, the left hand should
come as close to the mouth of the glass as possible. This not only ensures the pill going into the liquid
but also lessens the chance of the pill making a splash which could be seen or heard.
It will be noticed that the pill is dropped as the arm is brought back to the body rather than at the
time the arm is extended. This, chiefly, is because any secret move which is performed as a part of a
broader action usually can be made less obvious when done as the arm is brought back to the body.
This is because once the obvious action has been completed, the spectator’s mind no longer takes an
interest in the movement of that arm.
The psychological basis for this routine is that a small action will not be noticed when it is done
while making a broader gesture for which there is an obvious reason. The reason for the broad

gesture must, however, be an essential part of a thought entirely disassociated from the purpose of the
small action. Again it should be stressed that the obvious action must be completely natural.
In the circumstances that the performer is standing with the spectator at a bar, the trick is done
exactly as if at a table except for the movement of the performer’s body. At the bar the performer
makes a quarter turn of his body to the right so that he is facing the spectator rather than facing the bar.
Otherwise the movements are done entirely with the arms. When at the table, if seated at the left of the
spectator, the performer turns at his waist rather than moving his feet, so as to face the spectator.
If the spectator is a nonsmoker, this is the routine suggested. Affix the pill to the back of a wallet,
notebook, or small paper pad which would be natural for a person of the character of the performer to
carry. Have loosely in the pocket of the wallet, or among the pages of the notebook or pad, a paper
with something written on it about which you wish to question the spectator. The writing may be an
address, or name, or anything on any subject. Whatever is written only has to be something about
which a legitimate question may be asked.
There is an alternative possibility, which is to show something commonly seen about which a
remark can be made on a point which it is unlikely the spectator is aware, such as a piece of paper
money.

Phil Franke
A few minutes’ study with any piece of paper money ever made will find some oddity about
which a remark may be made with the assurance that the spectator never had noticed the detail. Such a
detail is the fact that on the U.S. dollar bills issued during the time John W. Snyder was secretary of
the treasury there was no period after the W in his signature. The detail need have no importance
whatsoever. It need only be something which may be shown and talked about. It is best not to use a
detail which may be something the spectator has been asked before, such as, “How many times does
the figure 1 and the word one appear on a dollar bill?”
The preparation for using the paper is exactly the same as with the matches. The point at which
the pill is affixed to the back of the wallet, notebook, or pad depends upon the size of the object. It is
to be stuck at a point where the third finger of the left hand can pick it off easily when the object is

held between the thumb on one edge and the first and second fingers on the opposite edge. Naturally,
the object used must be of such a size that it may be held in this manner and as if it were a natural way
to hold it.
The performance, using the paper, is almost the same as the trick with the matches. These are the
details of the routine of the performance. First, something is said about the subject mentioned on the
paper. Then the wallet, notebook or pad is taken from the pocket. It is brought in front of, and close to,
the spectator as it is opened and the paper is taken out. The majority of people in doing this action
would open the wallet and extract the paper while the wallet was held close to their own bodies and
then reach out only with the hand holding the paper. The point is that there are some people who
naturally would do the action the other way. That fact makes it possible for the performer to do it in
such manner. He need only remember that it is a perfectly natural action even though it might not be
the way he normally would do it. It does not in the least change the manipulations he normally uses.
By holding that thought in mind and then going ahead and opening the wallet close to the spectator, the
performer will find that the action seems natural even for him.
The psychological point here is that all that is required is, no matter what the action, that action
must be a natural one and appear so. It is not necessary that the action be the one customarily
followed by the performer. Any action natural for one person can be performed easily by another
person provided no new techniques are involved.
Once the paper has been taken with the right hand and handed to the spectator, the left hand is
brought back to the body. In the motion the left hand is brought over the mouth of the glass or cup, and
the pill is dropped in.
The character of the performer, or the character he has assumed, plays a major part in this trick
and its performance. For instance, if it is in character for the performer to carry a cigarette case, the
pill may be stuck to it. After offering a cigarette to the spectator the pill is picked off as the performer
brings back the case prior to returning it to his pocket.
If the performance is to take place in a country where paper matches are not commonly used, the
trick may be done quite as readily with any size box of matches which may be carried in the pocket.
One accustomed to performing tricks could do the trick by using a lighter but, due to the fact that only
one hand is needed to operate a lighter, the trick becomes more difficult to do. It is more than twice as
hard for a spectator to observe the simultaneous, though varied, actions of two hands as it is to follow
the movements of one hand. This is a factor of which it is advisable to take advantage.
No matter what the object to which the pill is attached, precaution has to be taken that the pill is
not scraped off the object during the time it is in the performer’s pocket. The most certain way to
prevent having the pill accidentally loosened in the pocket is to have a stiff box in the pocket in which
the object may be put. The box must be open at the top in order that there will be no fumbling in
extracting the object. The box must be shallow enough so that part of the object will extend above the
edges and will be easy to grasp. The box should be only so long and so wide as to ensure that the
object goes in and can be withdrawn easily. Such a box often can be made from some small container
by cutting away a part. A proper box can also be made by cutting and folding a piece of cardboard
and pasting paper around the outside.

Phil Franke

Types of boxes used to hold prepared objects so that pills will not become dislodged while objects
are carried in pockets.
Phil Franke
The above trick, even with its variations, is intended for use only in connection with a solid pill
no more than 2.5 mm in diameter. Other methods are more practical when using objects of larger size,
or objects in other form. Methods for achieving the same objective but using pills of larger size, a
powder, or a liquid will be described later. It is not the task of the writer, nor is it within his
knowledge, to indicate whether a solid or a liquid form should be used, nor the size or quantity of
either. Such information will be given the reader by other sources. The writer’s single job is to
supply the tricks by which the object may be handled. The writer does not recommend one method
above another. The method indicated for a specific performance is the one having details most
suitable in the situation and which will appear most natural.

Left: Normal expression of face. Right: Exaggerated expression of dumbness. The more facial
muscles are relaxed and eyes thrown out of focus, the greater the effect. Doing these actions to a mild
degree merely shows a lack of alertness or disinterest.
Phil Franke
A psychological-physical fact which applies to the performance of the above trick in all its
variations, as well as in the performance of all other tricks, must be noted because of its great
importance. The fact is that physically, at the moment of doing any action requiring concentrated
thought, there is an alertness of appearance which is very noticeable.
A sudden alertness on the part of the performer causes wariness on the part of the spectator. The
opposite of an alert appearance is a stupid one. Assuming a mildly stupid appearance during a trick
will give the appearance of disinterest. Naturally this should be done to a mild degree, for suddenly
having an imbecilic expression also is warranted to attract attention. Stupidity in appearance is
affected by relaxing the facial muscles and throwing the eyes out of focus. To learn to relax the facial
muscles one should practice in front of a mirror. When one finds, in this manner, which muscle
controls which part of the face, it becomes a matter of very little practice to relax the indicated
muscles when away from a mirror. To learn to throw the eyes out of focus, look at some object about
a foot distant and then hold that focus when looking at a person several feet away. This skill, too,
requires only a little practice. When, earlier, the writer promised the reader that he never would be
asked to do any action he did not regularly perform, it escaped the writer’s memory that the reader
would at times need to appear stupid. This is the single exception and the writer apologizes to the
reader. However, to be able to appear stupid purposely in order to enhance one’s work shows a
considerable degree of intelligence as well as an appreciation of the art of acting. In such cases it is
quite a different matter than it is with that individual to whom such an expression is not only
uncontrollable but usual.
The instructions above are for performing a trick in which a small pill is used. Whereas the
method was devised for pills ranging in size from one-sixteenth of an inch in diameter to a pill as
large as three-sixteenths of an inch in diameter, it will be found that the method is suitable for pills of
greater size. In doing the trick with larger pills (up to three-eighths of an inch and even more) extra
care must be taken in sticking the pill to its carrier. First, the position on the object at which the pill is
attached must be such that the pill can be removed with ease. Second, its position must be such that
the pill is masked from the sight of the spectators. This means that the pill must be far enough away
from the edges of the object that it does not stick out where it may be seen—even when the object is
held as has been described. A little experimenting will show the spot at which the pill is to be
attached. Third, extra care must be taken in using the exact amount of paste in sticking the larger pill
to the carrier. Due to the greater weight of a large pill, more paste will be needed than for a small

pill. Experimenting, here, too, will show just how much paste to use.
The paste used must fulfill several requirements. It must be simple to apply, hold firmly,
dissolve quickly in any beverage and without leaving a noticeable residue, and it should be easily
obtained. Powdered gum arabic (available in any drugstore) makes an excellent adhesive when mixed
with water and fulfills all the requirements. A drop of water and a minute quantity of the powder,
mixed together with a toothpick, will make enough paste to hold even a large pill. When mixed to the
consistency of a fairly thick gruel, a small quantity of the paste is taken on the point of the toothpick
and put on the proper position on the carrier. The pill then is pressed onto the paste.
In using a large pill (three-eighths of an inch in diameter and over), it probably will be found as
easy, if not easier, to hold the pill in the fingers and merely drop it at the proper time rather than
carrying it on an object from which it has to be picked off.
The easiest and most natural way secretly to hold a pill is at the base of the third and little
fingers and curling those fingers so that the tips touch the palm of the hand. It will be found, even with
those two fingers held in that manner, that there is no lack of freedom of movement of the thumb and
the first and second fingers. When the third and little fingers are curled as described, there is a crease
between the base of the fingers and the palm. The pill is held by the fold of flesh which forms the
crease. The center of the pill should be at the crack between the two fingers. In this position there is
enough flesh on all sides of the pill so that it is completely masked from sight. Some individuals,
because of the formation of their hands, have a space between the fingers which is impossible to
close and, therefore, cannot hold anything in this manner so that it cannot be seen. However, even they
will find it is possible to adjust the position of the pill so that it will be hidden.

Position in hand for holding large pill in fingers. This action can be masked by holding some object
such as a paper of matches. Object held is immaterial.
Phil Franke
In using this “grip” method, all the details of performance are identical with the methods
described above with two exceptions. The pill is released by opening the fingers instead of picking it
off the carrier as is done in the other method. The second difference is that the pill has to be in
position in the fingers before the packet of matches (or whatever other object is used) is taken in the
hand. It is advisable to have some small container with an open end to carry the pill when it is in the
pocket. Using a container ensures that there is no chance of having the pill crushed, or chipped, and

thereby rendering the pill so that it is entirely useless or lacking its full strength. The container also
keeps the pill from picking up any lint, etc., in the pocket.
The pill is tipped from the container into the hand and pushed into position by the thumb. This
action takes place in the performer’s pocket. The fingers then are curled to hold the pill. When the pill
is gripped firmly, the matches or other object is taken by the thumb and first two fingers.
It is possible that the reader will find this method to be so easy and natural that he will wonder
why the other method was suggested. Holding the pill in the fingers only is indicated for use with the
larger pills. The reasons for this statement are: 1. Few men have hands with flesh so soft as to be able
properly to feel a small pill and to be certain that they are holding it. 2. The natural moisture of the
hands is apt to make a small pill adhere to the flesh and not be released when the fingers are opened.
3. The fingers have to be closed so tightly to hold a small pill that the hand is noticeably cramped and
unnatural.
One additional suggestion for a way secretly to handle a pill is set down only because
circumstances in a particular situation may make it more suitable. In this method the pill is stuck to the
center of one side of a coin. This coin is taken by the performer from his pocket along with two or
three other coins. The “loaded” coin, however, in being brought out of the pocket is held between the
thumb and first finger and the other coins are gripped between the rest of the fingers and the palm. The
loaded coin is so held that the pill is kept from the sight of the spectators.

Underneath view of pill attached to coin.
Phil Franke
The loaded coin is placed on the center of the palm of the other hand (pill side down) and the
rest of the coins dropped upon it. Due to the concave shape of the palm of the hand, the pill will be
completely hidden from sight.
The purpose of taking the coins from the pocket is, ostensibly, to make some minor purchase
such as a package of cigarettes. There should be enough coins left on the hand after making the
purchase so that two or more may be put on the bar or table and yet still have two of the same size left
on the hand. One of these two coins is the one to which the pill is attached. One of these coins is taken
in each hand and held, with one flat surface facing the ceiling, between the thumb and first finger. The
second finger of the hand holding the loaded coin will readily and naturally hide the pill from being
seen from the side, and also is in position to pick off the pill.

Phil Franke
The coins are held in front of the spectator and some remark made as to how much, or how little,
the coins have worn, or that one is worn far more than the other. The remark is unimportant as to
substance. It has only to express a reason, seemingly of interest or amusement to the performer, which
makes it natural to show the coins. As soon as the remark is made the extra coin is handed to the
spectator or dropped on the table or bar. According to what has first been said, the performer asks the
spectator to feel the surface of the coin, or its weight, or to listen to its “ring.”
As these things are done and said, the loaded coin is brought back to the performer’s body. In the
movement the coin is carried over the spectator’s drink and the pill is released.
As was the case with the paper of matches, the coin to which the pill is attached is carried
edgewise in a box in the performer’s pocket. The box is so made that the coin may easily be taken out.
While several variations have been given in the mechanics of carrying and disposing of the pill,
it will be apparent that the psychological background for the performance does not change. There is
no change in the thinking behind the actions of the performer, nor in the way in which the mind of the
spectator is led to thoughts apart from the secret action. What the performer says and what he handles
may be varied from the suggested topics and articles as long as no change is made in the
psychological pattern of the performance.
An important point is that these tricks, as is true with almost everything one does well, must be
practiced. That does not mean countless repetitions such as a pianist does in learning the scales. It
means slowly going through all the details of performance, physically as well as mentally, until
confidence comes so that there will be nothing awkward nor hesitant in word or action. The first few
times the routine is gone through, it should be done extremely slowly in the manner of the movement
in slowed-action moving pictures. Rehearsing slowly at the beginning ensures that no detail will be
overlooked. As soon as the routine can be done smoothly and evenly, it may be practiced at a natural
tempo. Learning the details of performance by practicing slowly at the beginning reduces the overall
rehearsal time materially.
If a matter of weeks, or longer, occurs between rehearsals and the time of performance, it is
advisable to run through the routine prior to attempting it. Provided it had been thoroughly learned
during the original rehearsals, it is not absolutely necessary to do the trick at later rehearsals if one is
able mentally slowly to go through each detail of speech and action that the performance requires. If
there is any hesitancy in recalling details, the trick should be practiced further. Forgetting details is
more apt to be caused by not having learned the trick thoroughly in the beginning than from being
possessed of a faulty memory.

III. Handling of Powders
Loose material, saltlike in form, can be handled only when it is in some type of container. The
container has to have three requisites. 1. The container must safely hold the loose material without the
possibility of loss of quantity. 2. It must be constructed so the material can be instantly released. 3. It
must not appear to be a container and it must have some common use which makes it an object anyone
might be expected to carry. The writer’s instructions were to design tricks in connection with using
amounts of a loose solid varying from the volume of one grain of table salt to one teaspoonful.
In order to simplify the instructions, all tricks in which powdered solids are used are based
upon using a pencil as the container. Normally, common wooden pencils are not considered as
containers and for that very reason excite no suspicion when used for writing in the customary way.
Common objects are not apt to be suspected, especially if the object is not new. This is a
psychological point which holds true with things a man ordinarily carries in his pockets. Crumpled
and worn paper money (unless the value is so high as to be of interest because such bills are not
usually carried) attracts less notice than do crisp new bills. A shiny new penny will be the only coin
noticed in a handful of dull worn coins. Taking a cigarette from a partially used pack will pass
unheeded while taking a new packet from the pocket is apt to be noticed. A new billfold, watch, etc.
will be noticed, while the actions connected with using similar but old objects will not be observed.
Therefore, since it is necessary that it attract no attention, the “loaded” pencil should not be new. The
difference in appearance between an old and a new pencil is largely a matter of length. A pencil from
four to five inches long, seemingly having been sharpened and resharpened, will not attract attention.
As in most such rules, this rule against newness can be overdone. A stub of a pencil, only an inch or
two long, is noticed because it is awkward to handle so short a writing tool. A torn and ragged
wallet, a twisted and crushed pack of cigarettes, or anything so obviously dirty no normal person
would carry it are other examples of the overdoing of the lack of newness.
There is a further exception to the above rule. A worried and suspicious person will more
readily accept a cigarette from a new package he has just seen purchased than he will from a partially
used package taken from someone’s pocket. While it is not the safeguard the suspicious person
assumes, it is one of those commonly held beliefs, such as the trust in a newly opened deck of cards,
previously mentioned.
According to the amount of loose solid needed to be carried, there are three ways of preparing a
pencil. Although it does not make a great deal of difference in two of the methods, a round, rather than
a hexagonal, pencil is easier to handle. In the third method a round pencil only can be used. The
pencil should be of the usual style, which has a metal band at one end to hold a rubber eraser.
Because the performance is the same no matter which pencil is used, descriptions first will be given
of the three ways to convert a pencil into a container.
1. Container for from one to fifteen grains.
It will be found fairly easy to take the rubber out of the metal tube. Most pencil
manufacturers run the metal cap through a machine after the rubber has been inserted.
The machine stamps small prongs of metal into the rubber in order to clamp it firmly in
the metal. During the same operation, the metal tube similarly is clamped to the wood of
the pencil. Usually the rubber can be twisted out of its metal casing so that the rubber
remains quite intact. At times the rubber will tear and part of it will be left inside the

metal band. In the event of the rubber tearing when it is taken out of the metal, such
rubber as remains has to be dug out completely. The rubber, if taken out whole, should
have one-eighth of an inch cut off the end so that it is from one to three-eights of an inch
less than its original length. If more than that amount of rubber is missing, it is advisable
to use another pencil. The eighth-of-an-inch cut off the rubber allows space inside the
metal band for a small quantity of powder when the rubber is replaced in the pencil.
Prior to pushing the rubber back into the tube, the sides of the rubber should be rubbed
lightly with very fine (00 or 000) sandpaper so that it will go easily into the tube and yet
still be large enough to stay firmly in place.
2. Container for up to a cubic centimeter of a powder.
In this instance the rubber is taken out as before. Then the center of the pencil is
drilled out to a depth of an inch or more depending upon the amount of powder to be
used. Such drilling should be done in a shop having a small drill press having a clamp
with which the pencil can be held firmly. Due to the graphite being harder than the wood
of the pencil, it is almost impossible to drill down into the center of a pencil by using a
hand drill. Even with the proper drill press, the job of drilling such a hole has to be
handled with great care. The amount of powder which such a hole will hold depends, of
course, upon the length and the diameter of the hole. It is possible to drill a threesixteenths-inch hole in a pencil to a depth of two inches and such a size hole will hold a
cubic centimeter of a fine-grain loose solid. The rubber is sanded as in the other case
and used as a stopper for the container. It is not necessary to shorten the rubber unless
more space is needed for the powder.

Removal of eraser from a wooden pencil can create a secret cavity for powders.
Phil Franke
3. Container for up to a half teaspoonful of powder.
To make a really sizable container out of a pencil requires using a glazed colored
paper. Such paper is sold for a variety of purposes such as gift wrappings, shelf paper,
and children’s pinwheels—years ago the usual name for such paper was “pinwheel

paper.” Pencils commonly are orange, yellow, blue, green, or red and such paper
generally is to be found in these colors. To prepare the pencil, the wood just below the
metal band (which holds the rubber) is cut through so that the band is separated from the
pencil. The wood and graphite remaining in the metal tube are drilled. Care must be
taken not to drill into the rubber, which must be pushed intact out of the metal tube. This
is done from the inside of the tube. Next the metal prongs on the inside of the tube are
flattened and the metal of the tube stretched a very slight amount. These things are done
by using a drill whose shank is a little (but no greater than one-sixty-fourth of an inch)
larger than the diameter of the inside of the tube. The drill is reversed in the drill stock
so that the shank protrudes. As the end of the shank of the drill is somewhat rounded, it
makes an excellent tool for the purpose.
Having prepared the metal band, the next step is to make a tube of the paper. This is done by
rolling the paper around the pencil tightly in order to measure the exact amount of paper needed. A
mark is made on the paper allowing one-eighth of an inch of overlap. The paper is unrolled and
carefully cut so as to have straight and true edges. Glue is brushed along the inside of the paper but
only on the portion which will overlap. The paper is rerolled tightly around the pencil and the glued
part pressed down. The paper is held in place by winding soft string tightly along the entire length of
the paper. The string is tied and the pencil put aside until the glue has had a chance to dry. Most glue
used on paper will harden in less than an hour. The string then is taken off the paper and the pencil
pushed out of the tube. There should be no difficulty in removing either string or pencil provided the
glue had been carefully applied so that none had squeezed out of the edges of the paper.
The pencil then is cut off two inches above the point. This piece of pencil, after having been
lightly brushed with glue from the blunt end down almost to the taper, is pushed into the paper tube.
The stub of pencil should be pushed into the tube until only the point and the taper protrude.
Measuring four and a half inches from the point of the pencil, the paper tube should be cut off. That
end should be inserted into the metal band. Glue should be brushed around the end of the paper tube
prior to pushing it into the metal band. The rubber eraser will have to be rubbed with fine sandpaper
in order to make it fit properly in the metal tube, which now is lined with the paper. While the rubber
should go easily into the tube, it should be large enough to stay in and hold the weight of the
powdered solid. The reason for the rubber being its original length is to give more surface to hold the
rubber more firmly in the tube. The rubber has to stay in place, yet it must not fit so tightly as to cause
difficulty in taking it out. This pencil will hold up to 2.5 cc of a powdered solid.
It will be seen that each of the pencils described has a secret compartment and that each
compartment is stoppered with an eraser. For each of these pencils there should be a duplicate in
outward appearance and lacking the secret compartments. Actually, a duplicate of the first pencil
described (with the capacity of fifteen grains) is not essential, although having one may help the
confidence of the performer. Each duplicate pencil should have a tiny notch cut in the taper of the
wood near the point of the pencil so that by touch it can be distinguished from the matching prepared
pencil. This notch should run partway around the circumference of the pencil and cut so that it
appears to have been accidentally made when the pencil was sharpened. While the notch should be so
small that it never would be noticed by anyone handling the pencil in the ordinary manner, the notch
should be deep enough so that it can readily be felt by anyone aware of its existence.
The best place to carry the pencils (a prepared one and its duplicate) is in the right, outside
pocket of the coat. In that pocket the pencils can be carried in a horizontal position. However, when a
coat is not worn, the pencils may be carried in any pocket which will make them instantly available.

The pocket should be large enough to permit the entire pencil to go inside. Were the pencils to
protrude, it would be obvious that two were carried.
In performance, the routine is very much like that with the pills. Again it is assumed that the
action takes place either at a bar or at a table. Again the purpose is secretly to put something into the
beverage of a particular spectator. The respective positions of performer and spectator are changed
when at a bar. In this trick the performer stands at the right of the spectator.
The best way to introduce the pencil (and at the beginning the duplicate is used) is to bring into
the conversation some subject which becomes clearer, or less confusing, using a diagram, for
example the streets to follow and the turns to be made in order to get from here to there. If the
performer has the ability to sketch, the subjects which may be brought up are limitless. If he cannot
draw recognizable pictures, he will find many subjects in connection with which he can draw simple
diagrams.
While the performer should have some piece of paper with him in case it is needed, it is better
to use something for the drawing which is picked up at the moment. Menus, beer coasters, etc. are all
good for the purpose. Anything at all may be used which readily will take pencil marking and may be
passed to the spectator. Because its position cannot be changed, a tablecloth cannot be used.
The routine in sequence is: first, the subject is brought up about which the diagram or picture
may be used. It is preferable if a picture can be thought of in connection with some subject which the
spectator has introduced. Then the paper, or whatever, is located and the performer places it on the
table or bar in position to make his sketch. He takes the pencil from his pocket and makes his
drawing. If, when the performer first sits at the table or stands at the bar, he makes certain (by touch)
of the respective positions of the two pencils in his pocket, he will avoid either fumbling or error
when it is time to draw.
During the drawing, the performer acts as if he were concentrating upon his picture—which may
well not call for any acting. At any rate, during the drawing, he says nothing. When the sketch has
been completed, he places it on the table or bar in position for the spectator best to see it. He
replaces the pencil in his pocket and lets his hand remain in the pocket as he starts to describe the
details of the sketch. It not only is natural, but far easier, to point to the details as they are mentioned.
So the pencil again is taken from the pocket and the details of the sketch indicated with the point of
the pencil.
“The pencil again is taken” is what the very close observer will believe. Very few people
would notice that the pencil had gone back in the pocket at all. No one will suspect the existence of a
second pencil. The pencil makes an excellent pointer and its use is so natural that no thought is given
to its being used in that manner. The eraser is left in the “loaded” pencil while the pointing is going
on.
An easy and natural way to hold the pencil while using it as a pointer is between the first and
second fingers as a cigarette is held. That is, the pencil goes on top of the side of the second finger
right at the first joint, and the first finger goes on the pencil. There is this difference: the ball of the
thumb is pressed against the rubber at the end of the pencil. The thumb on the end of the pencil will be
found to be necessary in order properly to point with the pencil. While at the beginning of using the
pencil as a pointer, holding the pencil in that manner is not essential, it is best to hold it so, for later it
must be held that way.
After two, or more, details have been indicated with the pencil point, the performer brings his
hands back to his body and, without releasing the grip on the pencil with the first and second fingers,
moves his thumb away from the rubber. As the thumb leaves the rubber, the thumb and first finger of

the left hand grasp the eraser. This appears to be, as it actually is, a very natural thing to do. Because
it is so natural a thing to do, there is very small chance of anyone noticing the action and, even if it
should be observed, there is nothing out of the way to see. The performer should continue talking
about the subject and either look directly at the face of the spectator, or at the sketch, as would be
natural in the circumstance. He should not look at the pencil he holds and, of course, there is no
reason to do so.
While the pencil is held between the two hands, the sides of the hands should be resting on the
table or bar. A few trials will show whether it is more natural for the reader to twist the rubber out of
the pencil in one move, or to loosen it gradually. Most people find the first move easier. Whichever
way it is done, the pencil must be held so that the point is lower than the rubber. The pencil need be
held only enough off the horizontal so that the contents will not be lost. The instant the rubber is out of
the band, the right thumb goes back to its previous position, but this time it acts as a stopper as well
as holding the pencil more firmly.
This is an important point: the right hand moves away from the left hand which holds the rubber.
The left hand does not move. As has been mentioned, movement attracts attention, and if any attention
is paid to the action, it should fall upon the right hand, about which there is nothing changed. The
movement of removing the rubber is so small that there is scant likelihood of anyone noticing it at all.
As the rubber is so small it will be almost, if not entirely, hidden between the first finger and thumb of
the left hand. Even on the off chance of the rubber being noticed, the spectator will suppose that in
fiddling with the pencil that the rubber accidentally was twisted off. There is no need to stress hiding
the rubber for the matter is of little consequence. However, if the left hand were the one moved away
from the pencil and the rubber were noticed, it would, because of the movement, gain importance in
the mind of the spectator.
At this stage of the routine, the performer again reaches out with the pencil and indicates a point
in the sketch. The point should be one about which a question can be asked. The question, naturally,
depends upon the subject of the sketch but should be one asking for help. Such a question could be,
“Is there a better way to go?” or “Is there an easier way to make it?” The question should never, at
this point, be in the form of seeming to doubt the spectator’s understanding of the subject. As the
question is made, the performer looks directly at the face of the spectator.

Showing how thumb and first finger mask the container with the rubber eraser removed.
Phil Franke

As he raises his eyes, the performer brings his right hand over the mouth of the glass or cup
containing the spectator’s beverage. The movement of the arm should not be great, and will not be
provided the sketch was properly placed before the spectator at the beginning when it first was laid
down. As soon as the spectator looks at the performer and begins to answer this question, the
performer, by twisting his wrist, turns the point of the pencil toward the ceiling. Simultaneously, he
takes his thumb away from the open end of the pencil. The instant the powder falls out of the pencil
and into the liquid (which is practically instantaneously and one second is more than ample time to
allow), the performer without haste, and most casually, returns the pencil to his pocket. In his pocket
he drops the prepared pencil and picks up the duplicate. When he brings his hand out of the pocket, he
“still” holds the pencil. This hand and the pencil are rested on the table. After a few seconds the
pencil is released. This last part of substituting the pencils is not of great importance. The only reason
it is suggested is, on the chance that he wants to make alterations in the sketch or to use a pointer, the
spectator can pick up the pencil without needing to ask for it. Having to ask for the pencil would call
more attention to the pencil than were it available to pick up. The less the pencil is considered the
better the situation.
The point may come to the reader’s mind that he would be in great difficulty in performing the
trick were the spectator to ask for the pencil at the point where the powder is only held in the hollow
pencil by means of the thumb. This situation will not arise provided the spectator has been asked the
proper question. The purpose of the question is to get the spectator to talk; that is, to answer the
question with words, not pictures. As soon as he begins to talk, the powder is dropped and the pencil
exchanged. If, in answering the question, the spectator seems at all hesitant, or that it might be easier
for him to make use of the diagram in making his answer, he should be asked another question. There
should be no difficulty at all in keeping the conversation going by this method for the five to ten
seconds needed to drop the powder and pocket the pencil. This is one of the instances where
confidence of manner is of the utmost importance. Actually confidence or assurance of manner is the
real basis for the trick.
Even though again being guilty of repetition, the writer wishes to stress that each of the actions
done throughout the routine must be performed without haste, jerks, or exaggeration.
Using the first and second pencils described (with their lesser contents), the trick may be done
successfully before a number of people. The contents of the third pencil are so great that the dumping
cannot be depended upon to be unseen when shown to more than two persons. It always is possible to
notice the direction of attention of two people at the same time. Simultaneously watching the focus of
attention of more than two people becomes most uncertain.

IV. Handling of Liquids
A liquid, like a loose solid, requires a container in order to be handled. However, a liquid cannot be
held in many containers suitable to hold a powder because of the proneness of liquid to do three
things. 1. Many materials suitable to hold a loose solid will absorb a liquid due to the tendency
liquids have to be sucked up by the nature of some substances. 2. Because a liquid is continuous,
atmospheric pressure will hold it in many forms of containers from which a loose solid readily will
pour. 3. Because of surface tension, a liquid has a tendency to cling to a solid and a proportion may
be retained in the container when the contents are released. Because of these qualities of a liquid, a

proper container has to be nonabsorbtive and be so constructed that all the liquid can be freed easily
and quickly when needed.
Two of the qualities of a liquid which make some containers unsuitable can be utilized in a
container with flexible walls. Using no stopper at all, because of surface tension and the continuous
quality, a liquid will be held in a container having a small aperture regardless of the position of the
container. Not having to manipulate a stopper simplifies handling. Because of the flexible walls, the
liquid will be forced out of the aperture when pressure is exerted upon the container. Such a container
is excellent when working with quantities of a liquid up to 2 cc, even 2½ cc Though the liquid will
remain in the container with a much larger aperture the best size to make the opening is one-thirtysecond of an inch—the size of the shaft of an ordinary pin. Liquid, when forced out of a hole of that
size, will make an almost invisible stream. Even with so small a stream, 2 cc of a liquid can, under
pressure, be quickly ejected. When only enough pressure is used to force the liquid through the
aperture, there will be no noticeable sound when the stream hits the surface of the liquid to which it is
added. As in the previously described tricks with pills and powdered solids, the purpose of the tricks
to be done with liquids is to put them secretly in another person’s beverage. However, when a very
small quantity of a liquid is used, it is also possible to spray the liquid on a solid such as bread
without either the action or result being observed.
Several ideas are given below for tricks with an amount of liquid no more than 2 cc in quantity
and with a description of the containers for such quantity of liquid. After this data is completed, there
will be found descriptions of containers suitable for amounts of liquid from 2 cc to 10 cc.
In all the tricks some way will be described to mask the presence of the liquid container. These
objects must be commonplace and the kind of thing which would be accepted as natural for a man to
carry in his pockets. The first to be described will use a paper of matches as the screen. In most
details the routine will be found to be very similar to the one described earlier in which paper
matches were used to carry a pill.
The container for the liquid is hidden inside the paper of matches. The easiest way to put the
container in the paper of matches also makes the trick easy to do. This is done by taking out eight
matches (four from the front row and four from the back row) at the left side of the packet when it is
opened. After the matches are torn off the base cardboard, a section of that, too, is taken out. This is
done with the point of a penknife. The container is made from a piece of polyethylene tubing. Tubing
three-eighths of an inch in diameter is a convenient size and the container should be two inches long.
The top end of the container is cut at right angles to the wall of the tubing. The bottom end is cut at an
angle of approximately forty-five degrees. Polyethylene tubing is very flexible and may be flattened
completely with a pair of pliers. Held flat, the tubing can be cut easily with an ordinary pair of
scissors. After it has been cut, and while still held with the pliers, the tubing can be fused together
with the flame of a match. The easiest way to make the container is to cut and seal the lower end first.
Then, working from the inside, a pin is pushed through at the point of the angle. It is much easier
properly to place the hole when working from the inside. Having made the hole the top is flattened
and sealed. Care should be taken to have the top flattened to agree with the way the bottom is
flattened so that both the container’s ends will be at the same angle. The container is put into the
paper of matches at a slight angle so that the point (with the hole) at the bottom protrudes just enough
so the steam will clear the paper. The bottom fold of the packet, due to the staple, will hold the end of
the container firmly. A piece of Scotch tape stuck over the container and with each end of the tape
attached to the packet will ensure that the container does not move.
It is necessary to fill the container prior to putting it in the paper of matches. It is filled by

compressing the walls of the container to exclude the air and putting the point, with the hole, into the
liquid prior to releasing the pressure. A container of this size will hold and readily release forty
drops (2 cc) of liquid. The most certain way to force all the liquid out of the container is to press,
release, and press a second time. Of course, in releasing the pressure, only enough pressure is
removed so that the tube can expand and suck in air. Enough pressure is contained to maintain a firm
grip on the paper of matches. Probably the best way to hold the paper of matches so as to exert
pressure on the container is with the thumb on the face of the packet and the first and second fingers
on the back. The grip is along the left side of the packet (where the container is hidden) and the packet
is held so that the point of the container points directly down.
Because it is possible to see the container at the open left side of the packet, care must be taken
never to turn that side so that it is within the vision of any spectator. Provided no spectator is behind
the performer, he may open the match cover in the normal manner and tear off a match. On the chance
that at the time the trick is to be done, there may be a spectator in a position to see the container when
the cover is opened, it is advisable to break, but not tear off, a match at the extreme right of the
packet. It will be found possible to take this match out of the side of the packet and have it seem a
natural thing to do.

Manner of holding paper of matches so as to exert pressure on the entire container and properly to
direct the expulsion of contents.
Phil Franke

Phil Franke
A considerable amount of experimenting should be done in private to see how the paper of
matches may best be handled as matches, as well as in forcing out the liquid. Such experiments also
are necessary in order to learn how to aim the stream of liquid accurately.
Some individuals may be disturbed because the container can be seen at the open left side of the
paper of matches were that side turned toward the spectators. If that makes a mental hazard, it is quite
possible to put the container at the center of the packet so that matches hide it on both sides. This is
done by removing the wire staple and taking out all the matches. Then two staples are put, vertically,
in the flap while the matches are out. Each staple is three-eighths of an inch from the side of the
packet. At each side of the packet are put six matches (three in the front and three in the back row).
The matches are held in place by Scotch tape around the inside matches and stuck to the back of the
paper. In this case the bottom of the polyethylene container is cut at each side so that there is a center
point. The hole is at the point. A small slot is cut in the bottom of the packet and the point of the
container is pushed through this slot.
While this second way of hiding a container in a paper of matches permits a more openhanded
way of handling the packet, it increases the effort needed to force out the liquid and considerable
more preliminary practice.
With either way it is absolutely essential to have a duplicate paper of matches, minus a
container, and which may be exchanged for the prepared packet.
The routine of performance is almost identical with the trick done with the paper of matches to
which a pill is attached. The one difference is that the packet has to be held over the mouth of the
glass a little longer, for it takes more time to eject the liquid than it does to drop the pill. However,
the liquid will mix instantly with the beverage while there may be an interval until the pill dissolves.
There are several other ways the polyethylene tubing can be formed into small containers which
may readily be hidden. The different ways of hiding containers will require different routines in using
them. They also will need different stories to mask their use.
It is unnecessary for the writer to devise a story to be told to cover the action for using each
container, for the reader will be able to fit his own story better to the circumstances of performance.
He need only remember that the story has to be rational and simple. Elaborate stories should be
avoided, for complications are what cause doubt. By “rational” is meant making the details of the
story agree. For instance, a lion cannot be caught in a mousetrap, nor is a lion trap of any use in
capturing a mouse. It is quite within reason to catch a mouse in a mousetrap and a lion in a lion trap. It
is necessary for the teller of a story to be aware of how the mousetrap, or lion trap, of his story
operates. It is not essential to the story’s acceptance that he ever actually used either type of trap, but
he must know how they are used. In other words, the details of the story must be correct although the
story itself may be totally untrue. The vagaries of a super imagination will be accepted as fact as long
as the teller of the tale does not stub his verbal toe and fall down because his details were incorrect.
As this invariably is true, a wise liar will use as few details as possible and be certain of the
exactness of each detail he uses.
An uncomplicated story, no matter how distant it may be from truth, will be acceptable provided
it is told with conviction. Telling a story with conviction is only a matter of acting as if the story were
gospel. The key word, of course, is acting, but it is easy to act as if one believes a story if he has
thought the details so that he can tell it without hesitation or fumbling for a word. Here again,

preparedness is essential.
The correct and incorrect use of details in telling an unfactual story is somewhat confusing.
Whereas it is absolutely true that the great hazard in telling a lie is due to the use of details, it also is
true that details can lend a considerable degree of plausibility to a story, always provided there are
not so many as to make the story difficult to follow, but the details must either be factual or ones
which can’t be controverted.
Of course, in doing a trick, it may not be at all necessary to deviate from the truth and it is best
when this is the situation. It may be that all that need be said is to wonder aloud if it is going to rain—
or stop raining as befits the situation. But by this time the reader must be quite familiar with the basic
idea that whatever is said is said merely to keep the spectator’s attention away from what the
performer is doing. As long as the reader understands the purpose and the method, he should never
have difficulty with the words.
A container which will hold eight or ten drops can be stuck to the back of a coin the size of a
quarter. This container is made by flattening a piece of polyethylene tubing and cutting the end so as to
make 180 degrees of a circle. After the round end has been sealed, a pinhole is made at the tip of the
arc. Then the tube is flattened so that the other end can be rounded and sealed. The finished container
should be oval in shape and look like an ordinary printed uppercase letter O. This container is
attached to the center of the reverse side of a coin. It should be so attached that the container is in
alignment with the design on the face of the coin and with the hole in the container at the bottom of the
design. This makes it possible by looking at the face to know how to hold the coin so as properly to
direct the liquid when releasing it.
A container attached to a coin may be used whenever it is natural to handle coins.
A container suitable for holding two to five drops can be made small enough to be hidden
between the first finger and thumb and without requiring any carrier at all. The natural position for a
relaxed hand is with the fingers curled in toward the palm and with the ball of the thumb touching the
first finger. Some individuals may not actually bring the thumb and first finger into contact when
naturally relaxed. However, even those people will find that the thumb and first finger almost meet
and their hands still appear to be natural when the thumb and first finger are made to touch. In such a
position a small container may be held quite invisibly between the ball of the thumb and the side of
the first finger. The container is carried in a side pocket of the coat or trousers until needed. The
container is taken in the correct position by the fingers while it is still in the pocket.
The liquid is squeezed out of the container while making a gesture in connection with whatever
is being said. What is said depends upon the situation and is immaterial as long as it is natural to
gesticulate at the time. No rule can be laid down as to whether the container should be held in the
right or the left hand. The hand which should be used is the one the performer finds is the most natural
to use in making gestures. Of course, the container is carried in the pocket on the side of the hand
which is to use it.
The containers may be of two shapes. Both should be tried out by the performer to discover
which best fits his fingers. One shape is circular and is about one-half inch in diameter. While many
will find this shape the handiest to use, it has one drawback. That is in knowing the exact location of
the opening. This may be remedied by having a nick or bump opposite the opening. By touch, the nick
or bump may be located and the container taken into the proper position while the hand still is in the
pocket.

Showing how thumb and first finger mask container as it is squeezed.
Phil Franke
The other container is made in the shape of a wedge with a rounded top. The wedge is about an
inch long and a quarter of an inch across at its widest part. The hole is made at the point of the wedge.
With this shape the container may be picked up instantly in the correct position.
With both these containers the opening should face toward the tip of the thumb. This means that
the back of the hand faces the ceiling at the time the liquid is released.

Left hand lowered for action as cigarette is offered and eye contact engaged.
Phil Franke
Still another container using the principle of pressure to release the liquid may be made for
quantities up to 5 cc. When made of three-eighths-inch tubing, the container will have to be at least
three and a half inches long. Such a container can be hidden in a pocket of a wallet (or billfold) and
placed near the center fold. The top of the container is cut at right angles to the sidewalls and sealed.
The bottom is cut at an angle which has its point at one wall. The hole is made at this point. At the
bottom of the pocket of the wallet a small cut is made so that the extreme tip of the container may be
pushed down through this slit. With a container hidden in this way, the wallet may be opened and used

in the ordinary manner. When the wallet is closed and squeezed along the edge of the fold, the liquid
will be ejected in a stream at the bottom of the wallet. This method of carrying liquid of such quantity
has several advantages and, under some circumstances, one major drawback. In order to eject all the
liquid, it is necessary to squeeze and release, squeeze and release the container several times. This
makes the release of the liquid take longer than some situations permit.

Showing how container may be hidden in a wallet.
Phil Franke

Showing how container is squeezed to discharge liquid.
Phil Franke

Rigid container showing stopper at top to which thread is attached. Stopper closes top air vent. Exit
hole is in center of bottom of container.

Phil Franke
A much quicker method of releasing 3 to 10 cc of a liquid makes use of a rigid container.
Drugstores use vials made of plastic which are excellent for the purpose. This type of vial is round
and has a one-piece body three-quarters of an inch in diameter and two inches long. The outer wall at
the top is recessed so that a plastic cup will slide on and seal the top. Plastic is easy to drill and
therefore a plastic vial is much better than one of glass. In the center of the bottom of the vial a hole is
drilled. The hole should be no smaller than one-sixteenth of an inch and no larger than threesixteenths. Another hole should be drilled in the top of the cap. This hole may be made from oneeighth to one-quarter inch in diameter. A cork must be cut to fit the hole in the cap. Through the center
of the cork (running from top to bottom) a tiny hole is drilled.
Through this hole a piece of heavy linen thread (or fine fish line) is forced. A large knot is made
in the thread at the bottom of the hole. The purpose of the knot is to keep the thread from pulling out of
the cork.
Once the container has been drilled, and the cork fitted and threaded, it is filled with the liquid.
A container of this size will hold 10 cc of liquid. Due to atmospheric pressure, the liquid will remain
in the container as long as the cork is in place in the cap. The instant the thread is pulled, the cork will
be withdrawn and the liquid will pour out of the hole in the bottom.
In order to hide and yet use such a container, it may be put into a package of cigarettes. To
prepare the cigarette package, the seal at the top is carefully opened with a knife. Then the top is
unfolded and all the cigarettes removed. The container is put inside the package, upright and at one
end. A mark is made in the bottom of the package to coincide with the hole in the bottom of the
container. The container is removed and a hole a little larger than the one in the container is cut
through the bottom of the cigarette package. The container is returned to the package. Then a slit is
made in the top of the paper (the continuation of the side) which folds over the top of the package.
Through this slot the thread is passed so that it hangs down along the side of the package. As many
cigarettes are returned to the packages as are needed to fill the space left by the container. The
cigarettes are not packed as tightly as when the pack first was opened but tightly enough to seem as if
but one cigarette has been removed. Then the paper at the top of the package is refolded and the seal
reglued in place. After the glue has been given a chance to dry, a part of the top (at the end with the
cigarettes) is torn away.

Showing how container is hidden in package of cigarettes. Thumbnail pulls on knot in exposed end of
thread to release stopper. Hole is made in bottom of cigarette package to correspond with hole in
container.
Phil Franke
The package should now appear to be one which has been opened and one cigarette removed.
The thread is tied so as to form a large knot right at the edge of the top. After the hole has been made,
any surplus thread should be cut off. By picking this knot with the nail of the first finger, the thread
may be drawn down the side of the package. Doing this pulls out the stopper and releases the liquid,
which will run out of the hole in the bottom of the package. At the time of pulling the thread, the
package of cigarettes is best held with the thumb on the side of the package and the second, third, and
little fingers on the other side. A package prepared in this manner may be held out so that a spectator
may take a cigarette.
In preparing the routine and its accompanying story for use with this container, it should be
borne in mind that it will take one and a quarter seconds for 5 cc to run out through a one-eighth-inch
hole and double that time to release 10 cc. A larger hole will speed the release of the liquid but more
sound will be heard as the bigger stream hits the surface of the beverage.
The container just described releases its liquid contents by gravity rather than by force. In many
ways such release is the more dependable. It can be used in many other forms. For instance, it can be
used in a container masquerading as a cigarette. The corked vent hole is on one side at the top of the
container. The cigarette is made up of the container wrapped in a cigarette paper and topped by a
short length of a real cigarette. The stopper can be held out of sight easily and just as easily picked
off. This is but one of the myriad ways of hiding liquid containers made for gravity release. They may
be hidden in almost anything which can be carried in the pocket.

Showing how thumbnail can remove stopper of air vent of container in cigarette.
Phil Franke

Gravity release is approximately as rapid as pressure release and is less noisy. Furthermore it
requires less manipulation. However, in very small quantities of liquid—i.e., ten drops or less—
pressure release is more satisfactory. The method indicated for a particular performer depends
largely upon which he can use with more confidence and ease.

V. Surreptitious Removal of Objects
The previous pages have been giving details for doing several tricks in which the performer secretly
adds something to what is known to be present, and without the spectator, or spectators, being aware
of any addition. In the following pages will be details for tricks in which the performer’s secret
actions are those of subtraction rather than addition. It would seem that all that need be done would
be to reverse the rules for putting down and one would know the rules for picking up. Probably that
would generally be true in normal events but it is not true in the performance of a trick. Trickery can
be accomplished only when the normal is circumvented. The difficulties of performance are caused
by the trickster having to do unusual acts while apparently, in his actions, he has in no way deviated
from the normal. As has been pointed out, the success of a trick largely is due to the manner of the
performer.
Secretly putting your watch in the pocket of someone else is, technically, only a little easier than
it is secretly to take a watch from the pocket of another person. However, the first act has few mental
hazards and in the second they are manifold. Partly this is due to admonitions from early childhood on
the wrong in taking another’s property. Partly it is due to the realization of having in one’s possession
the tangible evidence of the act. It not only is more blessed to give than to receive but it is far easier
to be nonchalant about it.
The action of taking something secretly has four hazards. The first is getting the object without
being observed. The second is stowing away the object without attracting attention. The third is to try
to keep anyone from immediately noticing that something is missing. When, however, these three
things have been accomplished successfully, the performer need have little fear of the fourth hazard—
that of being searched and, because of the presence of the object, discovered.
Getting the object and secreting it are done simultaneously in most instances. Further, they are
done under the one psychological cover. However, because with different objects varying techniques,
and combinations of techniques, are required, as the objects vary in size, shape, and weight, the
methods of taking and secreting have to be studied separately.
The first point in picking up an object secretly is to make the task as easy as possible. Therefore
the performer should get as close as he can to the object. This not only means that less arm movement
is required to reach the object, but it makes possible the use of the body as a screen. So as to make it
natural to be near the object which is to be picked up, the performer should make a practice of
standing close to whatever he is looking at or to the person to whom he is talking. Without trying in
any way to give the effect with his eyes, he should act in the manner of a nearsighted person, i.e., as if
he were more comfortable being up close.
Having arranged to be in a position easily to pick up the object, the next point is when to pick it
up. Here again, as in every other trick, proper timing is of extreme importance. And by “time” is
meant when the action should be done and not the speed of the action.
Proper timing includes consideration of preparatory actions. “Preparatory actions” are of two

kinds. One is the meaningless action which will cause the spectator to ignore it when it is done with a
purpose. For instance, the man who carries his hands in his coat pockets whenever he is not using
them will attract no attention when he returns his hands to his pockets at the time he has an article in
his hand he wishes to put in his pocket. Of course, it is understood that the article is one he can hold
hidden in his closed hand so it will not be seen. The other preparatory action is that of making part of
a movement openly in order to lessen the amount of movement which has to be done secretly. For
example, a man wishes to take his wallet out of his own right inner coat pocket without being seen to
do so. The preparatory action would be to grasp the lapels of his coat. The fingers would bend
around and go inside the coat while the palms of the hands would be against the surface of the lapels
just a little higher than the top of the pocket. It is apparent that in such a position the man would be
instantly ready to hold the coat out with his right hand so that the pocket would be easy to get into. It
also is obvious that the left hand would have very little distance to travel to reach the pocket. Holding
the lapels in such a manner is a normal gesture and attracts no attention. And yet not only has several
feet of movement for the left hand been accomplished openly but the right hand is in a position to
make easier the secret operation when it needs to be done.
Moving up close to what is to be secretly picked up is a preparatory action. Standing so that the
body is turned to facilitate and shorten the movement is another. In planning any trick, all thought on
the possibility of preparatory actions is well spent. Not to consider and learn such actions handicaps
the performer greatly and needlessly.
Before going into how to pick up an object secretly and stow it away, it is well to study the
possibilities of where the object is to be secreted. Any man naturally would think first, and correctly,
of his pockets. In the usual coat and trousers a man has nine pockets, and if he wears a vest, he has
four additional pockets. Not all of the thirteen pockets can easily be used. The watch pocket and the
two hip pockets in the trousers are all difficult to get into quickly and the motions of doing so are
awkward. The upper vest pockets are also unsuitable for any but a very flat object. The side coat
pockets, by a telltale bulge, will reveal the presence of any bulky object. And the action of putting
anything in either the side coat pockets or the side pockets of the trousers make the elbows stick out
behind the back of the body. Often the arm movement may be made, in putting the hand in either
trouser or side coat pocket so that it is not noticeable, but there are many times when this movement is
very noticeable.
The inside coat pocket may be used for many objects and quite undetectably. The outside breast
pocket of the coat often is easy to use. Both of these pockets can be used without taking the elbows
away from their normal position. Both can be held open so as to make it easier to drop something into
them by stuffing a handkerchief down to the bottom of the pocket. The lower vest pockets are good for
use with quite small objects, as they also can be reached with little movement.
First the use of the regular pockets will be considered. Later mention will be made of other
ways to hide objects about the person.
In order to outline a routine which will give the basic pattern for taking something secretly, let us
consider a suppositious situation. The locale is a factory. The desired object is metal and of the
approximate size and weight of a cigarette lighter and is one of a number on a workbench. The
trickster is a visitor being shown around the factory by a member of the staff.
First, if it is possible to do so, much more interest must be shown by the visitor in the way in
which the factory operates than in what is being made—apparently his interest is in the machines
rather than the product. This attitude permits all sorts of innocuous questions to be asked about
shafting overhead, or the manner in which a machine is bolted to the floor or of gear ratio, or of

overall length of machines, and similar questions. Such questions naturally make both guide and
visitor look up at one moment, down or sideways at another. The more a person’s eyes can be
directed in various directions the greater the ease in which things may be done without attracting
attention.
Not all interest is to be shown in the tools of manufacture. Some interest also must be shown in
the product, but only as it relates to the manufacture. For instance, a question such as “this part is
made from a one-inch steel rod, isn’t it?” permits the part to be picked up, although interest is
directed toward manufacture rather than product.
The supposition now is that after various steps in the progress of manufacture have been shown,
the guide and the visitor have reached the bench upon which are several examples of the object of
which one is to be taken away. The object is picked up with the left hand as some question of method
(no interest should be shown in the object) is asked. The answer should be listened to with every
indication of interest while, at the same time, the object is put back on the bench. Please note that it is
put back on the bench, but the fingers still retain their grip.
The instant the answer is given—allowing no wait whatsoever—a question should be asked
about the machine—“at that end”—“those gears above”—at the same time pointing with the right
hand at the spot mentioned. As the guide’s eyes go in the direction indicated, the left hand picks up the
object and puts it in a pocket.
The pocket used depends upon the exact situation. If no one is standing to the left of the
performer and the guide is at his right, the trickster can use either his left trouser or outside left coat
pocket. If he could be observed doing that, he may find that the right inside coat pocket may be
reached with a less obvious movement.
If either the trouser or side coat pocket is used, it would be well to put the right hand in the
corresponding pocket and leave both hands in the pockets momentarily. The reason is that when both
hands are put into pockets, the action becomes one of resting the hands and does not attract attention.
The hands must go into opposite pockets; that is, both trouser pockets are used, or both side coat
pockets, but never one trouser pocket and one coat pocket. This fact is of importance whenever it
becomes necessary to go into a pocket. Simultaneously using opposite pockets does not attract
attention.
If the object is put into the inside coat pocket and the performer feels that the action has been
unobserved, he need do nothing else. If he feels that there is the slightest chance that it was noticed, he
brings out a pencil which had been clipped to the edge of the pocket. He uses the pencil to draw with,
make a note, or merely as a pointer. Of course, he has to have been prepared for this situation by
having had a pencil in his pocket prior to going to the factory. However, this is the sort of detail
which never bothers the person capable of plowing ahead.
According to the above outline, it should have been possible for the trickster to have pocketed
an object without anyone having observed the action. But this only could be true provided there were
so many identical objects on the workbench that one less would not be noticeable. It would be quite
apparent, were there but three such objects on the bench when the visitor came, that only two
remained when the visitor left. That is, it would be apparent to a workman standing at his bench,
though the guide would not have been apt to have counted the number twice. If it were possible to
move the other objects into altered positions, and there were five, or more, to begin with, even the
bench workman will not notice the absence of one. People seem unable to be aware of numbers
above four, except when specifically required to count. On the other hand, because of the way, at
times, in which objects are laid out, when one of the number is taken, the pattern is broken, and the

absence of the object is noted. In the situation where there is an evenly spaced arrangement of objects
removed, it is possible to remove one object and by varying the spacing of several of the remaining
objects to alter the pattern so that it appears unbroken. This pattern rearrangement cannot be done
instantaneously though usually it can be done very rapidly. For instance were the pattern

OOOOO
AXB
O OO O

it would be very apparent were object X taken away. But if objects A and B were moved respectively
to the right and left, the spacing again being even and regular, the absence of object X would not be
noticeable.
Were the conditions such that the performer were alone with the guide and there were a pile or
filled box of identical small objects, the task of securing one becomes easier. In such a situation there
need be no consideration of an action being seen by another person, nor of there being a chance of
anyone noticing a reduction in quantity of objects. Under these conditions the routine would be either
of picking up the object while the attention of the guide were distracted or waiting until the guide had
turned away to call attention to another part of the shop. In the latter case the performer should stand
as close to the guide as possible and use his body as a shield between the guide and the object to be
picked up. This necessitates first, standing close to the object so it may easily be reached, second,
standing so that his body is between the object and the guide, and third, having one hand and arm
completely free to touch the guide. While earlier it was noted that in the main it is inadvisable to
touch another person, in some instances a partial exception may be made. The other person may be
touched provided it is made to seem accidental. Standing and walking close to the guide makes it
perfectly natural to seem to be awkward. The arm is extended and touches the guide ostensibly only to
keep from bumping him. Such a gesture actually permits turning the guide’s body so that he is in no
position to see the object picked up, and even if it is not possible to turn the guide’s body, the action
of putting him off balance keeps him from thinking about what the performer is doing with the other
hand.
In this situation, once the object is picked up, the performer puts his hand into his pocket—the
one closest to the position of the hand at the moment, which would be the side pocket of the trousers
or coat. If he is certain that the pocketing action has not been witnessed, the performer may withdraw
his hand. Otherwise the moment he is free to do so, the other hand also should be put into a pocket.
Still another situation supposes that a variety of objects are laid out on a bench, shelf, or counter.
In this supposition it would be natural for the performer to handle the objects. In such an instance it
becomes possible to take one of the objects by a process of confusion. The confusion is brought about
entirely through the sequence of the routine and the timing of the actions. This routine may be done
with as few as four different objects, although it becomes easier when there are more, as will be seen
by experimentation once the routine with four objects is memorized and practiced. For sake of clarity,
we will call the objects A, B, C, and D. Object C is the one which the performer wishes to take. The
steps in the routine will be numbered.

1. Object A is picked up with the fingers of the left hand. It is held chest high so as
better to see it. After a moment’s examination, it is taken by the fingers of the right
hand, turned over (using the right hand), and again taken by the fingers of the left
hand. The right hand is dropped back to its normal position.
2. The right hand picks up object C and as the right hand is being raised the left hand
replaces A. Object C is given a shorter examination than was given A.
3. The left hand picks up B as the right hand moves down with C. Here is the crucial
point. As the right hand moves to “replace” C, the object is moved in the fingers so
that it may be held between the palm and the second, third, and little fingers. Held
thus, the thumb and first finger are free.
4. Object B seems to be of scant interest and is put down almost as soon as it is
picked up. The length of the examination is set by the length of time it takes to pick
up object D with the thumb and forefinger of the right hand. The instant D is
grasped, the left hand replaces B. The left hand moves more rapidly in putting
down B than the right hand moves in bringing D up for examination.
5. As quickly as possible, but without a jerk or apparent display of speed, the left
hand comes up to the right hand and takes hold of D. When the left hand has a firm
hold of D, the right hand is dropped to the side. As soon as the right hand hangs
motionless, the left hand replaces D.
6. Both hands are put into their respective side pockets—either coat or trousers,
whichever is more natural. Object C, of course, goes into the right pocket with the
hand.
Even from this distance, the writer can hear the reader say, “But that’s sleight of hand?” And
technically the reader is correct. But all the writer ever promised is that the reader never would be
asked to do any manual act he did not do regularly. He often holds some of his change in the manner
described when he puts a coin on a counter. The difference is only mental, for he has other coins in
his hand. But he need have no worry in the trick for the complication of the “picking up—putting
down” routine and its resultant confusion to a watcher will hide the action. Actually the routine is so
confusing that the performer is apt to astonish himself, provided he has practiced until he can perform
it unhesitatingly, when he finds the object in his pocket.
To review the basis for picking up an object without being seen to do so: 1. When no spectator
is looking because of their own reasons or using a routine that directs attention elsewhere. 2. By using
the body as a screen. 3. By using a routine which masks the action by confusion.
Beyond the usual pockets of an ordinary suit of clothes, there are two special pockets which can
be of great use and have advantages which the usual pockets do not have. Both must be made larger
than ordinary pockets, i.e., be of greater capacity. Both can be used with less arm movement than is
required for the usual pockets. Being unusual, the existence of neither pocket is suspected.
First the construction of the pockets will be described and then the manner in which they are
used.
One pocket is made to go inside the front of the trousers. The mouth of the pocket is about
twelve inches wide. The pocket is as deep as the distance from the waistband of the trousers to the
crotch. The bottom of the pocket is rounded concavely, i.e., it is deeper at the corners (which go into
the legs of the trousers) than it is at the center. A hem one-half to three-quarters of an inch deep is

made on both sides of the top. A tape long enough to go around the performer’s body and tie is run
through the hem of one side. A wide corset steel is run through the hem on the other side and sewn in
place. The reason for the steel is that it holds the pocket out straight and, being flexible, will curve to
fit the body. The side with the steel is pinned (with safety pins) to the inside of the waistband of the
trousers. An alternate and better method is to sew four buttons to the waistband of the trousers and
make corresponding buttonholes at the top of the bag. In this case the buttonholes are put horizontally
in the bag and above the steel. The tape is tied tightly around the body and thus holds the other side of
the bag tightly against the body. This pocket can be used either when a coat is, or is not, worn but
cannot be used when a vest is worn.

Dumping object into trouser pocket. Note how left hand holds waistband of trousers away from body.
Phil Franke
The other pocket is located under the left arm inside the coat. This pocket, too, has a wide mouth
which is attached on both sides. However, in this pocket the mouth is vertical. The pocket is
triangular-shaped like a piece of pie with the mouth of the pocket where the side crust of the pie
would be. This pocket, too, may be buttoned in place or held by safety pins. The mouth of the pocket
is attached to the coat on one side and to the vest or shirt on the other side. The point of the triangle
also is attached to the coat.

Tossing object into pocket inside of coat. Note how left hand holds coat away from body so that

mouth of pocket is open.
Phil Franke
It will be plain that if the trousers are pulled away from the body with the one pocket, or the coat
pulled away from the body with the other, the pocket will be opened. As the one hand pulls on the
trousers the other hand dumps the object to be hidden into it. The reason for the concave pattern of the
bottom of the pocket is that the object dropped into the pocket will come to rest in the trouser leg,
where there is more space for it.
It likewise will be plain that the other pocket will be held open when the coat is pulled away
from the body with the left hand. This makes it merely a matter of tossing the object inside the coat for
it to go into the pocket. While the term tossing is used, this is intended to mean only a small wrist
motion which does not cause movement in either the arm or body.
So far, all the notes have been about secretly picking up a small article of three appreciable
dimensions and having some weight. While some of the methods mentioned also are suitable for
picking up a letter enclosed in an ordinary size envelope, and, on occasion, even a legal size
envelope, there are better methods for picking up a flat piece of paper.
One of these methods may be used provided it is immaterial as to how the paper may be creased
provided it is pocketed. The main difficulty in folding paper is that the action is noisy. Folding paper
has a distinctive and carrying crackling sound.
A full letter-size paper must be either crumpled or folded to make it of a size to go into a pocket.
Crumpling paper makes far more noise than folding it. However, crumpling is by far the fastest
method of reducing its size. Provided there is enough noise when the action takes place, as in a
factory, crumpling the paper may be indicated. Of course, once a paper has been crumpled, it never
can be flattened so as to look as it did in its pristine state. Unless the paper is to be returned, this fact
is of no importance.
Probably the easiest way to pick up a paper from a desk, or other flat surface, is by using a
book. “Book” means anything having a number of pages and includes a magazine, writing pad, or
newspaper. If it be a newspaper, it should be folded an extra time or two according to its size, for this
not only makes it less difficult to handle but increases its stiffness.

Showing how dabs of wax on rigid surface will pick up paper.

Phil Franke
On the back of the book (or other paper object) are pressed a number of dabs of a special wax.
It would seem to the writer that at this point in this paper it must be quite unnecessary to mention that
the wax is affixed prior to the meeting and in solitude. The dabs of wax are put on the book in the
pattern of the spots on a ten of diamonds in a deck of cards. This pattern will ensure picking up any
size paper.
The book is placed on the paper to be appropriated and pressed down. The wax will adhere to
the paper and the paper will be taken away with the book when it is picked up. All that need be done
further is to remember to carry the book so that the side with the paper is either facing the floor or
against the performer’s body. The special wax may be obtained from the same source which gave you
this paper.
One word is added about folding paper secretly. It is quite impossible to give full details in
writing, but if the reader will take a piece of paper as he reads the instructions below, he will find it
not difficult to understand.
First, before giving the method, it must be noticed that in order to fold paper secretly, it must be
done with one hand. Holding a paper in one hand out in the air makes it almost impossible to fold it.
But not only is it not necessary to hold the paper away from the body, it should not be done that way,
for the first objective is to hide the paper.
Now having the paper, perhaps in the left hand which picked it up from the desk, bring it against
the side of the thigh. With the fingers of the hand it will be found possible to fold over the paper and it
may be creased by pressing the paper against the thigh. Once that fold has been made, the same
procedure is followed to make a third. With three folds the paper is but one-eighth its original size. It
becomes one-sixteenth the original size with a fourth fold—a size surely small enough to pocket even
though the original paper be extra large and the pocket unusually small. It was suggested that the
reader experiment in trying out the above suggestions. He will find it much easier to do than he would
imagine. The fact that the folding is done against the thigh has the added advantage that folding may be
done in that manner with less noise than in any other. No attempt should be made to have even folds
or tight creases, for neither has any importance. The sole object is to reduce the size of the paper so
that it may easily be pocketed.

Showing successive stages of folding a large sheet of paper so as to make it small enough to hide in
the hand. Illustrations show manner in which paper is folded by one hand pressing against the thigh.
Phil Franke
The action of folding the paper, according to circumstances, is hidden by the desk at which the
performer is seated, or by his turning his body if he is standing.
Summarizing the methods for secretly picking up something, they depend upon hiding the action
by direction of the spectator’s attention, a physical screen, judging the time when no attention will be
paid, confusion brought about by a rehearsed routine purposely complicated, or by a mechanical aid
such as a book prepared with an adhesive. These methods may be combined in various ways besides
those suggested in the examples. For instance, the wax on the book might be used to pick up a flat, not
very heavy, piece of metal. The routines suggested are subject to all sorts of modifications depending
upon the nature of the object to be picked up. However, while the routines suggested will work, it is
essential to try out any modifications in order to find out if a routine will work in the way in which it
has been altered. If it does, it should be practiced. If it does not, other alterations should be tried until
a workable method is found and then it should be practiced.
Because of the importance of what is said at the time of the actual picking up, as well as in
getting ready to do so, it is of the utmost importance to think out beforehand a variety of things to say.
Attempting to devise topics of conversation on the spur of the moment always is difficult and making
such an attempt while the mind is focused on a tricky action is practically impossible. Enough
subjects can be figured out ahead of time so that the performer will find he is at no loss for words no
matter what situation arises. It is not necessary to figure out exact sentences and memorize them. It is
only necessary to have considered a sufficient number of distracting topics so that the mind will not
run dry of subjects about which to talk. Some people imagine they have the ability to talk their way
out of any situation no matter how incriminating. Even if one has such rare ability, it is far better not
to rely too heavily upon it. And those who are willing to plan and rehearse with care and thought
should have little worry about how to get out of a bad situation for there will be no such predicament.

VI. Special Aspects of Deception for Women
While much of the general advice and preliminary observations with which this manual began also
will apply to the following section, a great deal will not. This is because the previous material was
written solely for use by men and the notes below are written for use by women.
Though the writer is a man, he does not have the idea that women lack any talents which men
may possess. However, because much of their training, their clothes, and their manners are not those
of men, women must use different methods for performing tricks than those used by men.
It might be well to give examples of a few types of these masculine-feminine differences. Men
reach out with the hand, palm down, to take something offered, while women hold out the hand palm
up to receive that which is offered. This is one of countless examples of training or of the natural
aping which a child does of his elders. From the buttons being on the left side on women’s coats,
women’s clothes are unlike men’s. The major difference, as far as performing trickery is concerned,
between the clothes of men and women is pockets—their size, type, number, and location. Because of
these differences in pockets, women can never use their pockets in the casual manner in which men
use theirs.
It is a matter of masculine manners for men to wait on women in public and a matter of feminine
manners for women to make such masculine efforts easy for men to perform. Interjecting a sad
commentary, it is almost limited to public demonstrations that men may be found waiting on women.
In public, even an old man will help a woman to put on her coat in a restaurant. A man will light a
woman’s cigarette. A man draws a chair from a table for a woman to sit on. These, and a variety of
similarly nonarduous attentions which men pay to women, are not reciprocal. Women do not
customarily do these things for men. Were they to do any of these things, women would draw attention
to themselves and tricksters should never do anything to attract notice. The following pages are
devoted to descriptions of methods for women to do exactly the same tricks which in previous pages
have been described for performance by men.
Before setting down descriptions as to method, it must be stated with emphasis that the methods
women can use for these tricks are neither harder nor easier to do than the methods described for
men. That is, the woman’s methods are of the same degree of difficulty for women to do as are the
men’s method for men to do. Again it should be stressed that the required changes have nothing to do
with capabilities but only with social customs. A man makes a lengthy and awkward job of buttoning
up a woman’s coat he has to put on himself. For that matter, a woman is not particularly handy in
buttoning up a man’s coat she has to put on.
There are a few other further preliminary points to mention. Women have to vary their technique
in performing some tricks according to whether a man is the subject or another woman. Details will
be given in each trick described, noting these differences. Here again the changes are necessary
because of social custom.
It was stated on an early page that trickery basically depends upon a manner of thinking and that
such thinking must not violate the manners or custom of the spectator. For a woman to do some action
a woman normally would not do would violate manners and customs at least by being unusual, and
the unusual will attract attention which the trickster should avoid. It is not enough for the woman
trickster never to perform an action which would appear unfeminine to a man; she also must never do
anything which would seem unusual to another woman. In other words, a woman trickster, to be
successful, always must act in the manner of a woman and never do anything in the man’s way. Of

course this should not be interpreted as suggesting being girly-girly, but merely not being masculine in
actions or manners.
Women are not as apt to slouch in their chairs as are men and so do not have to worry about
having to avoid that attention arresting weakness. But women do fidget even though they have their
own ways of doing so. Constantly patting hair, feeling earrings, or similar feminine actions attract
attention to the individual and should not be done.
Earlier in this manual there were instructions for men to follow in order to appear to be stupid.
A form of this technique very valuable for the woman’s pose is that she just does not understand the
subject. She tries to look blank rather than dumb. This is not at all difficult when working in front of a
man or men. The reason for this is (and ladies, we might as well face it) that men are never
astonished when a woman does not know something. There is a major exception in this regard, for
men expect their wives to know all manner of subjects. Noting this exception is merely academic, for
husbands will not be the subject of the trickery herein described.
While the pose of lack of knowledge will be readily accepted as fact by a man, such a pose is
apt to be suspected by another woman. This point is true also of a show of coyness, shyness, or
maidenly modesty. A man will accept almost any degree of such ruses, while another woman will
work more doggedly to satisfy herself of the correctness of her opinion. Even when a man is
suspicious, he still may readily be tricked. It is infinitely more difficult to succeed with a trick before
a suspicious woman. The obvious answer is, don’t do anything to make the woman suspicious.
This next point is put down with hesitation, and not because there is any question of its validity.
The plot of a trick should be shorter and more direct when shown to a woman. The hesitation in
mentioning this fact is due to the inference which might be made that women have less powers of
concentration. This inference the writer does not accept. By many years of experience, the writer
knows the truth of the statement and his explanation, true or false, is that a man is more inclined to
follow step by step and a woman is likely to think ahead. As with all general statements, this one is
not always true and there are both masculine and feminine exceptions. However, it is so generally the
case that it is advisable to act always as though no exceptions existed.
The first trick described for men is with a pill which is carried on a paper, or box of matches.
As women do not usually light a match to hold to a man’s cigarette, this method cannot be used by a
woman. It is not recommended even for a woman to use when another woman is the subject because it
is not an act generally done.
While the matches are eliminated, the exact technique described may be used with the slipcase
of a very small pocket mirror. The pill is attached to the underside of the case. The mirror inside the
case is put in front of the subject and the mirror withdrawn from the case and handed to the person.
The mirror and case are carried in the handbag inside an open-ended box such as previously was
described. Until the encased mirror has been taken from the handbag, nothing at all is said in regard to
it. Just as the mirror is thrust forward the trickster says, “Use this mirror. There’s something in the
corner of your left eye.” As the person takes the mirror, the left hand of the performer is brought back
to her body and, in transit, the pill is picked off and dropped off into the glass or cup.
It will be obvious that manipulatively the trick is precisely the same as the one a man would do
with the matches. Psychologically, too, it is very much the same. It is a kindly, courteous act to try to
help someone about to have a foreign body get into her eye, just as it is kind to light another’s
cigarette. It is quite immaterial that the foreign body is imaginary, for even if the subject should say, “I
don’t see anything,” it is acceptable to assure him that he must have brushed it away.
A woman readily can use the tricks described for men in which wallets, notebooks, and paper

pads are used as pill carriers.
Women will find it very easy to hold pills at the base of the third and little fingers as described
in the men’s section. However, a woman should never attempt to do this trick while wearing gloves
or if she is accustomed to using a quantity of hand cream. Both gloves and cream make the
performance uncertain.
Even though a woman will find it easy to handle a pill manually and will be able in rehearsal to
manipulate a very small pill, the trick should not be attempted with a very small pill. The reason for
this is the excitement brought about by actual performance is apt to make the hands moist. A tiny pill
is difficult to release because the moisture makes it adhere to the flesh.
Coins are not suitable carriers for pills when a woman is performing. However, the same
general idea may be followed by showing pictures in a small locket—the pill is stuck on the back of
the locket. In certain circumstances the monogram on a compact might serve as the excuse to show the
compact. The pill would be on the bottom of the compact. Reversing the position of the pill, it is
possible to show the maker’s name, or the hallmark on the bottom of the compact.
Because cosmetics are not carried by all classes of women in every country, it is possible to
utilize their containers only where it would be a natural thing to do. Again it must be stressed that
only those actions which are acceptable locally are permissible for a woman trickster. Manners for
women are more restrictive and more rigid than are those for men. It is essential that a woman
trickster inform herself of all the taboos of the district in which she is to operate. A man should have
such knowledge but it is imperative for a woman to know such things.
In handling powdered solids, a woman will find two of the previously described pencil
containers easy to handle. The paper tube simulating a pencil should not be used by a woman. No
changes need be made in the wooden pencils except that they should be shorter than the lengths
suggested for men to use. There are two reasons for making the pencils shorter. One reason is that a
short pencil can be carried more easily in a handbag. The other reason is that men expect a woman to
carry only a stub of a pencil if she carries one at all.
The instructions regarding the manner in which men are to use loaded pencils in their tricks are
those for women, too. However, there are two points which may well be altered. The first is brought
about because it is more difficult to exchange pencils in a handbag than it is in a pocket. The other
point is due to the masculine belief that no woman can draw as clear a diagram as can a man. Neither
of these points raises any real difficulty but both have to be taken into consideration.
If the loaded pencils are well made, there is no reason why they have to be exchanged for
normal pencils at the beginning of the trick, as they may be handled safely by the subject and without
in any way exciting his suspicion. Actually the only reason it was suggested that the exchange be
made in the instructions for men is that it avoids a psychological hazard for the performer if he does
not permit the loaded pencil to leave his possession.
A man almost certainly will alter any diagram a woman has drawn in order to ask a question. A
man will answer a question in his way and will find it necessary to add to or change the sketch in
order to give his answer. As this is usually the case, it is well to accept that it will happen. It does not
in any way change the performance of the trick, for if the man has his own pencil, he probably will
use it, but no difficulty will arise even if he borrows the loaded pencil. In the event that the loaded
pencil is borrowed, the performance of the trick is slightly delayed until the pencil is returned. Then
the trickster, pretending to review the explanation given by the man, goes ahead in the performance of
the trick as previously described.
The reason a woman cannot use the paper-tube pencil is that she cannot lend it, for while such a

pencil has the appearance of a genuine pencil, it does not feel like one. However, if the woman
trickster has an ability to draw with some degree of skill, it is possible for her even to use the paper
tube pencil. This is because the subject of women’s dresses is one of which a man does not claim an
exhaustive knowledge and he will not wish to redraw the sketch. It is possibly more difficult to bring
clothes into a casual conversation particularly if the man is comparatively a stranger. It might be done
to show why a dress of some total stranger across the room was costly or cheap, homemade or storebought. Being male, the writer probably is stressing the wrong point, and very likely some other point
about the stranger’s clothes would be more natural for a woman to make in her sketch, but the idea is
sound.
All the above suggestions in regard to tricks with powdered solids are made for a woman
trickster to use when the subject is a man. When the subject is a woman, the conversations would be
different although the manipulations would be the same. One woman would not be apt to ask another
mechanical question and it would be particularly unlikely that she would make a diagram in asking
the question. A woman seldom sketches a map for the purpose of asking directions of another woman.
A man accepts these things as commonplace but they would be unusual enough to a woman to attract
attention. It is possible for a woman to ask for an address and, after having written it down, have it
read to make certain it is correct. The pencil may be used by the trickster to point out the number or
spelling in order to inquire if it is correctly written. It is also possible for one woman to sketch
clothes, floor plans for the arrangement of furniture, jewelry designs, etc., for another woman. While
these things are possible, it is true that sketching is not as usual an aid to conversation with women as
with men. Though unusual, sketching or writing can be used among women when words alone do not
express an idea or in order not to have to rely on memory. All that is necessary is to lead the
conversation so that the use of a pencil becomes essential.
In this type of trick a woman is apt to move more rapidly than a man. As rapidity not only makes
the trick less certain in aim but also much more likely to be noticed, women have to take particular
pains when practicing to move slowly. Practice should be done with very slow movements because
actual performance always will be done more quickly than is done in rehearsal.
On the subject of arm and hand movements by a woman, there is a point of naturalness which
causes some women difficulty. It will be remembered that naturalness of movement is the best cover
for any action which has to be done secretly. Some women become “fluttery” in their manual actions
when required to do something which they do not wish to be seen. The fluttery effect of their gestures
is caused by making extra and unnecessary motions. In practice, these extra motions may be
eliminated easily by concentrating on just what actions are essential. For those women whose hands
are constantly in motion, an extra motion or two at the time the trick is performed probably will not
attract attention, but even such persons will benefit by doing their tricks in the simplest and most
direct way.
In the instructions for men it was suggested that a man could rise from his chair in order to reach
across a large table. Even though the action would not necessitate standing, but merely raising a little
off the chair, it is not something a woman should do unless the subject is another woman. Usually, in a
restaurant, the woman is seated in the more protected chair. Frequently this means that the woman’s
place at a table is more difficult to get into as well as harder to leave. A woman seldom is given a
choice of where she would like to sit. She is given the chair which, in theory at least, is preferable.
The “seat of honor” very often by its very position makes trickery more difficult if not altogether
impossible. On the other hand, frequently tables for two are arranged so that the man and woman sit
side by side, which makes trickery easier. It is permissible for a woman to mention that she would

prefer a particular table if she can sight one suitable for her purposes upon entering the restaurant.
Once a table is chosen, it is too conspicuous to demand changing to another table.
Several of the methods suggested to mask containers of liquid in the tricks described for men are
totally unsuitable for women. Hiding containers in match folders or in packages of cigarettes cannot
be used. Neither can a masculine billfold be used, for no woman would carry such a thing. The use of
coins, too, is eliminated as masks for the containers. All of these methods are not to be used by
women because they depend upon material or actions which are unfeminine.
Some of the methods men can use may be used by women. For instance, the small containers
(with capacity for two to five drops) which are held between the first finger and the ball of the thumb
will be found easy to use. Care must be taken to make these containers of a size and shape that they
may be hidden by the fingers. They have to be made especially for feminine hands, which are smaller
than the hands of men.
It is far better to carry these containers outside of the handbag. If the woman is wearing a jacket
which has a side pocket (a breast pocket cannot be gotten at easily), the container may be carried in
the pocket. In the case of no jacket and no pocket, it may be found possible to make a small pocket
which will be hidden by a flounce or plait in blouse or shirt. Such a pocket often can be made by a
few properly placed stitches. Care must be made to ensure that the pocket is hidden even when the
person is walking about or seated. Care must also be given to have the pocket of such a size and in
such a location that the container is available instantly and without fumbling. If the attire is such that it
is not possible to carry the container in either a regular or a special pocket, it is possible to carry it in
the handbag. The excuse (never mentioned) of getting a handkerchief permits picking up the container
as well. In such case it is better to pick up the container at the time of getting the handkerchief rather
than at the time of returning it to the bag. If the woman is seated so that her lap cannot be seen at any
angle, it is possible to take the container from its concealment sometime before using it and leave it
on her lap until needed.
The stories which are told to distract attention from the movement of the hands are left for the
reader to devise. Besides what previously has been set down in the section devoted to masculine
performers, the only additional advice is that a woman must be certain that the story violates no
feminine custom.
One simple ruse by which a woman may hand something to a man without exciting any suspicion
is to untangle a chain. A chain such as is used to hang a pendant, locket, or religious symbol around
the neck usually is made of very small links. Such a chain may be knotted in a tangle so that it
becomes rather difficult to straighten out. When the tangling is done so that it keeps the pendant from
being taken off, it is most natural to hold the pendant when giving the chain to another person. This
brings both hands of the trickster close to the person asked to untangle the chain. One hand delivers
the knotted chain but the other hand, at least momentarily, maintains hold of the pendant.
The hand holding the pendant, probably the left hand would be more natural, can hold a liquid
container as well. The pendant might even be used as a mask. Another possibility is to have the
pendant wrapped in a piece of tissue paper or handkerchief. A liquid container can be attached to the
underside of the paper or cloth and be in a position easy to use. A liquid container never should be
attached to, or even inside, a pendant. Most people’s curiosity causes them to peep.
Probably the best cover for a container is a handkerchief. Many women quite regularly hold
handkerchiefs in their hands. This is so generally true that the action excites no suspicion whatsoever.
Some women crumple the handkerchief into a ball while others hold it by the center and allow the
edges to hang below the hand. A handkerchief may be held in either manner and yet be a perfect cover

for a container. There are three details to understand in using a handkerchief for such a purpose: 1.
how to attach the container to the handkerchief; 2. the manner in which the handkerchief is taken from
the pocket or handbag; 3. the way the container is emptied.
The container should be placed with the outlet at the center of the handkerchief. Right at the
center of the handkerchief a small hole should be cut in the cloth so that the tip of the container can be
pushed through. Then the container should be sewn into a pocket in the handkerchief. The pocket may
be made by folding part of the handkerchief over the container, or by adding a piece of similar
material. The latter method is suggested only when the handkerchief is of so small a size that there is
not enough material for a fold. The pocket should be made so tight around the container that there can
be no movement. This is necessary so that only the very tip of the container will extend through the cut
in the cloth. The tip should extend only enough so that the cloth will not obstruct the ejection of the
liquid and that means only that the opening is free from the material. A thirty-second of an inch
beyond the cloth will be found to be ample.
When the handkerchief is taken from the pocket (or handbag) is the time to get the container in
the proper position so that the liquid can be released. In order that this may be done easily, it is
necessary for the handkerchief to have been put into the pocket (or handbag) in such a position as to
make this action possible. The manner in which the handkerchief is held in the hand will vary
according to the person doing the trick. It will depend upon the size of the handkerchief, the size of the
person’s hand, the size of the container used, and the manner which the performer finds most natural
to hold a handkerchief. These things can be learned only through experimentation. Two things are
necessary. First, the container must be held so that the liquid may be ejected downward when the
hand is held in a natural position. Second, care must be taken that no part of the handkerchief will
cover the mouth of the container and thereby interfere with the flow of the liquid.

Showing how a woman can hold handkerchief so that hidden container may be used. The inside
pocket should be sewn to position the tip of the tubing at the handkerchief’s opening.
Phil Franke
To use the handkerchief as a mask for a liquid container requires that there be a reasonable

excuse for the hand holding the handkerchief to move over the object into which the liquid is to go.
This may be done by handing a menu to the subject of the trick or passing the sugar bowl, bread plate,
etc. Both hands should be used in the operation of passing but the hand with the handkerchief (the left
hand is suggested) releases the passed object before the other hand is removed.
The handkerchief cover is very practical but it needs considerable experimentation by the
performer and somewhat more practice than most of the other methods. However, it can be used when
none of the other methods are practical.
Women on occasion carry small “purses” of brocade, petit point, suede, etc. The writer’s
masculine memory (in such matters undoubtedly masculinity inaccurate) is that such purses are called
“evening bags.” Provided that the time, the place, and the girl would make such a bag an expected
adjunct, it may be used to advantage to hold a liquid container. The container is sewn into position
inside the bag so that the mouth of the container will stick out through a minute hole at the bottom
corner of the bag.
A bag is suitable for either a container which has to be pressed to eject the liquid or a rigid
container from which the contents are released by removing a cork. This latter-type container was
described in a previous section of this manual. At that time it was suggested hiding the container in a
package of cigarettes. When such a container is hidden in a bag, the thread attached to the cork is run
though the upper part of the material of the bag. A small bead is tied to the thread on the outside of the
bag. The purpose of the bead is to have something which may be seen and easily grasped so that the
cork can be released without fumbling. In case the bag is of a material or design which would make
the bead noticeable, there are two alternatives. One is to sew a number of beads onto the bag where
such added decoration would be in keeping. The other is to run the thread through the material to the
outside of the bag and, at a point about a half an inch distant, run the thread back through the bag and
fasten it to the inner surface of the bag. This will make a loop of thread flat against the outside surface
of the bag which, by slipping a fingernail under the loop, makes it simple to pull the thread and
thereby remove the cork. The thread used must be extra strong to avoid any chance of having it break.
Linen thread usually called “carpet thread” (sometimes called “shoe thread” or “button thread”) is
suitable. When thread of a matching color is used, it is invisible, and even a contrasting color is not
apt to be noticed and, when noticed, is meaningless.
The advantage of the use of an evening bag for holding a container is that a container of large
capacity can be used. As these bags always are held in the hand, when not left on the lap, they excite
no notice when in the hand. It may be found easier to use the bags while standing near a punch bowl,
or coffee urn, if the occasion be such as to have these things. However, there should be no difficulty
using it while seated at a table. Here again the writer being unable to know or even to guess all the
circumstances and situations in which the tricks might be performed must leave many details to the
performer’s greater knowledge of the particular occasion.
In ending this section, it might be well to stress by repetition several points regarding women
tricksters. The primary and chief point is that a woman trickster never should be seen to do anything
which would be unnatural for a woman to do in the locality where the trick is performed. She should
take advantage of any of the mistaken ideas men cherish about women because aiding a person to fool
himself by letting him follow his false beliefs is the easiest way to deceive. It is so much easier to
nudge than it is to push (even when the nudge is verbal) and far less apparent. No matter which type
of woman her role requires her to act, the woman trickster should be a calm, rather than a fluttery,
example of that type. Finally, no matter what the speed of her speech, she must remember to make her
gestures deliberate.

VII. Surreptitious Removal of Objects by Women
Secretly taking small objects is easier, in many ways, for a woman than it is for a man. This is
because women are less apt to obey that admonition of childhood to “look with your eyes and not
with your hands.” Possibly this trait is what makes women such careful buyers—women don’t just
look, they inspect. Because handling is so necessary a part of getting possession of an object, it is a
great advantage to be able to handle the object openly without having to make an explanation or give
any reason for the action.
On the other hand, women’s clothes restrict the number of places an object can be hidden rapidly
and secretly. Depending upon the type of attire, women have no pockets at all or very few. And
women’s pockets always are the wrong size and construction and in the wrong locations to hide an
object easily and quickly. Further, because women’s pockets are almost invariably of small capacity,
they will hold only the smallest of objects. These facts do not make the task of secreting an object
about a woman’s person an impossibility by any means, but they do show that a woman must use
different methods than those available for men. They also indicate that a woman rarely will find it
possible to hide other than small objects.
The difficulty connected with any description of ways in which either obvious pockets in
feminine attire, or hidden ones, may be used is caused by constantly changing fashions. As fashions
change, so, particularly, do the pockets change in location, size, and shape. Of course there is the
possibility that the style will permit no pockets whatsoever. While the following suggestions about
pockets cannot all be followed, and in many instances none can be used, they are worth mentioning
for those times when they will serve.
There are five pieces of women’s apparel in which sometimes pockets may be found. These five
articles of clothing are skirts, blouses, jackets, coats, and belts. The pockets now referred to are those
which are plainly visible to others, i.e., neither secret nor hidden pockets. These pockets, both in
location and design, are made more for decorative purposes than utilitarian. For the reasons stated
above, few are useful in trickery. However, some may be altered so as to be useful without changing
their outward appearance.
Skirt pockets, though occasionally placed at the hips, usually are at the front. The front pockets
seldom are big enough to be useful as they are but often can be made of service. It will be found
possible with most of these pockets to make an opening at the bottom of the pocket right through the
material of the skirt. To this opening can be sewed a silken (or other material of little friction) tube.
This tube may itself give the pocket sufficient capacity to make it of use. However, this depends upon
the cloth of the skirt. Tweed, or similarly heavy material which will not be pulled out of shape by
weight in the pocket, will permit enlarging of the pocket. Thinner material requires other treatment.
For thin material the silken tube should extend to a pocket inside the skirt. It may be that this pocket
can be fastened to a slip or petticoat, but it probably will be found more practical to hang a pocket by
tapes from the waistband of the skirt. The practicality of such a pocket depends upon the design of the
garment and particularly its fullness. Such an inner pocket also can be used in skirts having no visible
pockets but having plaits deep enough to hide a small opening. Care, of course, must be taken that the
inner pocket will hang so as to make no visible bulge. These pockets can be made and have been
made and used successfully. Making such a pocket can only be the result of feminine ingenuity, skill,
and knowledge. It is, obviously, no project for an untutored male.
Blouse pockets, because of where they are placed, are unsuitable for trickery. Such pockets are

too hard to reach undetectably and, further, their contents are obvious.
Jacket pockets, when not over the hips, sometimes can be used as they are. If this is not possible,
there is seldom any way of altering them. Once in a great while it will be found practical to make
them of use by cutting an opening through the material of the jacket and making a pocket between the
material and the lining. It also is possible with some jackets to make pockets on the inside. These
pockets should be at about the waistline and that, of course, cannot be done with a fitted garment.
That coats can be worn only in certain weather is very obvious. However, on such occasions as
they can be worn, they are most useful, for their pockets are more apt to be large and heavy enough to
serve without any alteration. Coats also will allow special inside pockets to be added and used.
Some coats have inside pockets but usually they are not placed where they may be used easily in
trickery.
Some belts are designed with pockets which can be used. Other belts can have pockets added on
the inside which will be found handy. Occasionally belts can be used to cover the opening in a dress
which is the mouth to a hidden pocket.
Women can use handkerchiefs in deceiving in a manner a man could never do. The handkerchiefs
are used in conjunction with a handbag. The reason women can use handkerchiefs in trickery is that
women so customarily carry a handkerchief in their hands that no attention is attracted to this action.
The handkerchief is used as an actual physical cover for that object which is to be hidden and carried
away. As is true with all tricks, there is a sequence of actions which must be memorized in order to
deceive the spectator. Parenthetically, may it be noted that it always is advisable to assume that there
is a spectator watching. This precaution will avoid the chance of being caught doing some action in
an abrupt way in the belief that no one was looking.
The routine, making use of a handkerchief, is as follows. A handkerchief is taken from the
handbag. It will facilitate matters to have had the handkerchief already unfolded when it was stuffed
into the bag. When the handkerchief is in the hand, it is used immediately after the bag has been
closed. In the winter an eye might be wiped with the cloth, and in the summer the forehead might be
patted. It is reasonable after either of these actions to continue holding the handkerchief. Unless one
obviously has a cold, it would be more natural to return the handkerchief to the bag once the nose had
been wiped.
Once this preliminary maneuver has been accomplished, the handkerchief is taken with the left
hand. At this time it would be well, if easy to do, to hold the center of the handkerchief in the fist and
let the four corners dangle. It might even be natural to hold a corner of the cloth and let the rest of the
handkerchief hang down. Incidentally these actions should be done, if possible, sometime ahead of the
moment when the handkerchief is used for the trickery. This is in order that full concentration may be
made on doing the trick.
At this point consideration has to be given to the style of the handbag. If it be one which can be
hung from the arm, the strap of the bag should be over the left forearm—about midway between wrist
and elbow. If it is not such a bag, it should be held (with the elbow bent) between the left forearm and
the body. In either case it will be obvious that the left arm has to be held still or the handbag will be
dropped. Holding the handbag in either way means that any picking up which is done has to be done
with the right hand. It may be assumed, for example, that the object to be made away with is anything
up to the size of a box of safety matches. Now please follow closely the seven following steps:
a. The object is picked up with the right hand and looked at.
b. (While actually this is a double step, it must be done in a continuous way as if it

were but one.) The object is put in the left hand in order that the right hand may take
the pocketbook which “seemingly” is slipping. This move is varied according to
the style of handbag. If it is the kind which is gripped between forearm and body,
the bag is moved up to the armpit and grasped there. If it be the type with a handle,
it is taken off the left arm and held by the handle in the right hand.
c. As the handbag moving is taking place, the left hand crumples the handkerchief
around the object.
d. The handkerchief is changed over to the right hand. In this move it should be
possible to conclude completely covering the object with the handkerchief.
e. The left hand (still closed as if it were holding something) is dropped to the table
from which the object was picked up.
f. The left hand retrieves the “loaded” handkerchief as the right hand makes some
natural movement with the handbag.
g. After an interval of a minute or so, the handkerchief is replaced in the handbag.
Because of the possibility of needing a handkerchief for any normal purpose right
after the trick has been done, it is advisable to be prepared for such a situation by
having another handkerchief tucked in the other end of the handbag.
Reading the above, one is apt to think but where is the trick? Why should anyone be confused by
such simple actions. There are two reasons. The chief one is that every action made seems natural and
logical. The other reason is that there are three objects (object, handkerchief, and handbag) and two
hands to watch. Because of the naturalness of the actions, they do not call for close observation and it
requires exceedingly close attention to keep track of the location of three objects in two moving
hands. Again let it be pointed out that no rapidity is to be used. The hands move slowly but their
movement is continuous. This routine should be carefully practiced in private until the sequence of
moves is second nature.
Nothing has been said about using either of women’s traditional hiding places—stocking tip and
front of dress. This is because in most instances neither can be used inconspicuously. Further, either
because of costume or anatomy, in neither place can an object of any size or weight be hidden.
However, by all means use either or both spots as hiding places when the article or articles to be
taken are suitable and the situation makes their use feasible.
As has been noted earlier, there is no wrong or right way to do a trick. If it works and is simple
to do, it is a good trick. It often is necessary to alter the performance of a trick in some slight way due
to circumstances of the moment because conditions seem suspicious. This is because there is, almost
invariably, some detail which has not been taken into consideration which will give the trick away.
Saying it in short, and again, nothing so ensures the success of a trick as proper planning.
It is to be hoped that those women who read this section will accept, in this one instance, a
man’s statements as being authoritative. Trickery is a field in which men long have been active and
successful. That is, those men have been successful who have followed the tested methods. These
methods have been discovered through centuries of trial and error. It always has been impossible to
know if a method will be deceiving except through actual performance, and, therefore, it is
imperative that a trickster adhere to tested methods. Using tested methods needs only knowledge,
preparation and practice, and the patience to acquire these. Rely on these, ladies, rather than upon
your brilliant minds.

VIII. Working as a Team
Everything on the preceding pages has been written for the performance of trickery by the man or
woman working alone. The following suggestions are made for those occasions when the trickster is
in the company of a colleague. Whereas both may be capable of trickery, it is wise in any given trick
for one to be the performer and the other to be the assistant. On a second trick it is quite possible for
the roles to be reversed and have the trickster become the assistant. But in a trick there always must
be one person who makes the decisions as to when, where, and how. The assistant must follow the
lead of the trickster.
Naturally there are three combinations of trickery-working teams. There may be two men, a man
and a woman, or two women. This is mentioned because, as the makeup of a team varies, so does the
role of assistant. In most instances the assistant’s job is to aid by attracting the attention of the
spectators before, during, or after the performance of the trick, according to when it is most needed.
Naturally what the assistant does, and at which point in the performance his action takes place, is
decided upon, and practiced, ahead of time. When the assistant does his part depends upon a signal
given by the trickster. (The types of signal will be described below.) What is done often depends
upon whether the assistant is a man or a woman.
While the above assumed that the trickster and assistant were known to be acquaintances, even
friends, there may be occasion when the two are thought, by the spectators, to be total strangers. In
such circumstances added methods can be used.
Before going into why and what the assistant does, it would be best to tell when the trick is to be
done. As it is the trickster who has to be ready for the performance of the trick, it is his decision as to
when the trick is to be done. He then signals the assistant of his readiness. This should be a physical
rather than a verbal signal. Verbal signals often have to be delayed in order not to interrupt a person
who is speaking, and they are almost impossible to plan so as not to seem quite incongruous when
spoken. Physical signals can be given at any time and should seem to be perfectly natural, and
therefore non-attention-attracting actions. Smoothing down an eyebrow, pulling the lobe of an ear, or
similar action makes a good signal. The assistant is bound to see the action, for it is high—a tableheight action may be overlooked unless the assistant keeps staring at the trickster, which, of course, he
must not do. The action of the signal, while it must be completely natural, cannot be anything which
the trickster might be apt to do unconsciously. The assistant does not act immediately after the signal
is given, but only either after a prescribed interval or following some action of the trickster according
to the demands of the particular trick to be performed. Usually the trickster acknowledges having
noticed the signal by blinking his eyes, stroking his chin, or in some other prearranged manner. After
the signal has been acknowledged, both trickster and assistant know the other to be ready to assume
his role.
The type of aid an assistant can give varies with the time the aid is given. Aid prior to the
performance of a trick is of two general kinds.
a. The assistant either by speech or action “sets the stage” for the performance. As
examples: The assistant brings up the subject of the designs on certain coins. The
trickster takes coins from his pocket to see whether the assistant is correct. The
trickster shows a coin to the victim and performs the trick with a coin and pill as
described in an earlier section of this manual. This type of conversational opening
may be used by either a man or a woman. Similarly, the assistant takes a package of

cigarettes from his pocket and offers cigarettes to everyone in the party. This makes
it natural for the trickster to strike a match to offer a light to his neighbors and
perform the trick of the pill on the package of matches.
There are two advantages to having the trick performed in this manner. The first is
that the trickster was not the one to bring up the idea of another cigarette, and second, he
had ample time to get set with the prepared package of matches. This action, if men
were present, would be done only when a man is the assistant, for it would be less
natural for a woman to offer cigarettes to a mixed group. However, it would be
completely natural for one woman to offer other women cigarettes and for a second
woman (the trickster) to offer a light.
The most frequent way in which an assistant can aid prior to the trick is verbally.
For instance, the assistant can bring up the subject about which the diagram, or sketch, is
drawn (for the trick with the loaded pencil). The magician’s role, in drawing the
diagram, is that he cannot understand the description and asks the victim to go over the
sketch with him. In this instance, the assistant may be either man or woman, but the
trickster (for the reasons given earlier) must be a man. Another way in which the
assistant can aid prior to a trick is to express great interest in seeing a factory (or some
other place when the trick to be performed is to acquire some object secretly). The
trickster’s role is one of lack of interest and he joins the party “only” to be a good sport.
As he has no interest in factory or products (or whatever), he may do things unobserved
and with greater freedom. The trickster, however, should act just as carefully as though
he were alone and the focus of all attention.
b. The second way an assistant can aid prior to performance is to be the one carrying
the properties by which the trick is performed. Examples are: The trickster finds he
has no matches, or that he lacks a pencil, or that he wishes for a cigarette. The
assistant lends the trickster that which he wishes and, it should be needless to
mention, it would be the prepared paper of matches, or pencil, or pack of
cigarettes. There are two advantages to working in this way. The first is that a
borrowed object “must” be innocent and just what it appears to be, and the second
is that both before and after the trick (for the borrowed objects are returned) the
trickster does not have the trickery items on his person.
Although it requires considerable practice in order to make the act seem accidental, an assistant
can draw everyone’s attention to himself by spilling his drink (coffee, wine, or water), or by having
all the matches of a package flare up as he lights one. An attention arresting action of this sort by the
assistant permits the trickster to do many actions quite unobserved. The same result may be obtained
by the assistant getting angry and pounding the table. This requires more than average ability in acting
on the part of the assistant. Further, there are many occasions when this technique would be
unsuitable, particularly because in a public place it would attract general attention to the group.
However, the method is noted because of its effectiveness at such times as it may be used.
There may be times when a woman can pick up something without being observed which her
male companion could not do. The woman would then pass the object to the man to secrete. The
transfer naturally would depend upon the place where it would occur, the size and form of the object,
and also upon the way the man was dressed. The three general methods which may be used are: 1. the

woman might pass the object to the hand of the man; 2. the woman might put the object into something
(such as a hat) which the man later will pick up; 3. the woman might put the object directly into one of
the man’s pockets.
Naturally, in each of these methods the man would be aware of what the woman intended to do
and so would be in a position to aid her by distracting attention from her action. If the first method is
used (i.e., passing the object from the woman’s hand to the man’s hand), the man has to cooperate by
having his hand held so as immediately to be able to accept the object and, further, to hold his hand in
a position where the woman may reach it inconspicuously. This would mean that the man held his
hand either down at his side in a normal position or at his back over his buttocks. The woman would
get as close to the man as possible prior to passing the article to him. In making this move, the woman
(of course with the man’s cooperation) would use the body of the man as a screen to hide the action
from the person to whom the man was talking. Upon receipt of the article, the man would put it in his
pocket. He would not do this unless circumstances would make it so that no movement could be seen
until after the woman had stepped away. He would use that pocket which, in the situation, he could
reach most easily. If the second method is used, it is because it would not be natural for the man or
woman to get close together.
As such situations arise, this method is given. The method is suggested only where no other
means can be used. The man’s job is to leave his hat, overcoat, large envelope, etc., at a point where
both sexes are permitted. He further must take care to pick up whatever has been “loaded” so as
neither to disclose, nor drop the object itself. The woman’s job, after getting the object, is to have
some reason for getting close to the man’s possessions. This may be done by having left some
possessions of hers to which it is natural for her to need to go (as for a handkerchief) alongside of the
article the man has put down. It is inadvisable to go to the man’s possessions even with a seemingly
legitimate excuse such as getting a package of cigarettes out of the man’s overcoat pocket. This type
of action is apt to be remembered and will likely connect the man and woman too closely for the
complete success of the trick.
In using the third method, the chances of detection are very small. The method can only be used,
however, when the man is wearing garments which have pockets which the woman can readily use.
These pockets are the side pockets of overcoats and jackets. When the man is wearing no coat at all,
it may be possible also to use a hip pocket of the trousers. Of course, this can only be done with quite
a small object and with a man whose anatomy does not protrude and whose trousers are ample in
size. It will facilitate matters if the pocket is held partially open by having a handkerchief crumpled at
the bottom of the pocket.
Though these methods are suggested for use by a woman as the trickster and a man as assistant
(and are almost impossible to use when the role of the man and woman are reversed), they have other
uses. There are times when they can be used by two men and times, also, when suitable for two
women. The hand-to-hand passing method and the method of putting the object directly into the
assistant’s pocket also can be used in every combination of trickster and assistant in a delayed-action
routine. Delayed action means that the transfer is not done at the time of the acquisition of the object.
At the time the object is taken, the trickster secrets it in a pocket where it is easily available. Later the
object is passed to the assistant. This may be done most easily in a crowd. The method is particularly
good when the trickster and assistant are believed to be strangers. It also is useful when it is
necessary for the trickster to remain but when the assistant can leave the premises.
Another means of passing an object secretly from one person to another may be used in a variety
of ways by both men and women. The great advantage of this method is that the contact between two

persons is made openly. An object openly is handed by one person to another. The object passed is
the cover for the secret object exchanging hands. The covering object may be almost anything
provided it is larger than that which it hides and is something which easily may be held by one hand.
A book or magazine is suitable to use as an example of a cover. The book is grasped with the thumb
on top and the fingers underneath. The book actually is held between the thumb and the third and little
fingers. The secret object is held by the first and second fingers, pressing it against the back of the
book. The one receiving the book uses both hands, palms up and with the tips of the fingers of one
hand pointing toward those of the other. As soon as the receiver feels the hidden object, he presses it
against the book with the fingers of the hand which best can hold it. The other hand holds the book.
After the transfer has been completed and the giver has moved away, the secret object is pocketed as
soon as the action will be convenient and will not be apparent. The covering object may be a plate, a
cigarette box, paper pad, or a countless number of other things. Neither person’s task is at all difficult
but both should practice the actions so as to be able to do them naturally. This method will be useful
both when the assistant’s part is to give the trickster something he will need for his trick and when the
trickster wants to get rid of something by giving it to the assistant.
The chief hazard in performing the secret passing of an object in the manner described is
psychological. When the receiver’s first knowledge that he is to be given the object is at the time he
touches it, he will find great difficulty in controlling his involuntary reflexes. When the person is
aware that he is secretly to receive the object, there will be no reflex jerk. Therefore, it is essential
that either through prearrangement between the passer and receiver or by a signal given and
acknowledged prior to passing, the receiver knows that the action is to take place.
On the subject of signals, it must be noted that no signal is made twice during one session.
Repetition of any signal, no matter how inconspicuously natural it may be, is apt to attract attention.
Further, having two or more signals with the same meaning ensures that there will be no occasion
when one or other can’t be given.

Passing one object under cover of another. Position of hands of passer and receiver make interchange
easy, certain, and unnoticeable.
Phil Franke

Another use for signals is when one person expects or hopes that he will have an assistant but
does not know the identity of that individual. Here, of course, it is of extreme importance that the
assistant give acknowledgment that the signal has been noted before any action takes place.
The signals mentioned above are only to indicate either being prepared for action or to establish
identity and the latter is merely an addition of the former. Where a signal is indicated to designate one
of a variety of possible choices, a code is required. The best code is a combination of physical signal
and counting. In its operation the signaler, upon making his actions, starts to count in his mind. He
counts slowly and evenly. The receiver, upon noting the signal, also counts in his mind at the same
rate of speed. The sender, upon reaching the number he wishes to signal, gives a stop sign and the
receiver knows that the code number is, for example, nine. Naturally, this system takes practice, but it
is far easier than it sounds and is completely undetectable. The only difficulty is for the two people to
learn to count at the same rate of speed. In the old days of slow-speed negatives, photographers
counted seconds by repeating the word chim-pan-zee after each numeral. By this means
photographers learned to judge from one through ten seconds with accuracy. Making the interval
between numbers of greater length makes it easier for two people to count in unison. For instance
repeating, “one great big chimpanzee, two great big chimpanzees, three…,” two people will find it
quite easy to learn to count in unison. By this means any one of ten prearranged plans may be
transmitted undetectably from one person to another without speech. Because numerals above ten
have two or more syllables and throw out even timing in counting and it is easier in memorizing to
limit a numbered code to groups of ten, this system goes only from one through ten. In the event that
more than ten variants are needed, it is advisable to have groups one, two, three, etc., and each group
made up of ten items. Having more than one group requires that a signal also must be given to indicate
which group is being used. This is done by having some slight variation in the “stop counting” signal
or in the way the hand is held between signals. There is no reason why the starting signal and the
stopping signal cannot be identical. If it is a natural and inconspicuous gesture such as smoothing an
eyebrow, there is no reason why it cannot be repeated a few seconds later. It is only on a subsequent
occasion that it is advisable to change the signal.
Where due to inadequate light, or other reasons, it is not possible to give a “sight” signal, the
counting code can be utilized by a sound to start and stop the count. The sound has to be one that can
be made easily and naturally and one that causes no surprise to those who hear it. Among such sound
signals are moving the foot along the floor (easier to do when seated), tapping a cigarette four times
on something hard such as a table or matchbox (the fourth tap is the signal to start counting), clearing
the throat, or, where the company is permissive and the person has the control, a belch. Each of these
signals may be repeated for the stop-counting sign except tapping the cigarette and that may be made
by scratching a match. There are countless other suitable sounds for signals and those given are
merely sample types.
Great care must be made in designating the signals to have them such that they do not take the
receiver by surprise and thereby delay the start of his counting. As the count is invisible, there is no
way for the sender to know if it has been done properly by the receiver. It is not like an incomplete
pass in football, which is, according to your side, so pleasantly or horribly obvious.
So much for signals which are merely one aid to cooperative efforts. The major point in two
people working together is the degree of oneness with which the job can be done. Success is attained
by skillful work as a duet—two soloists, no matter how talented, are bound to have trouble.
In this work there is nothing which demands that the cooperating couple be alike in sex, size,
manner, or temperament—as long as there is nothing to interfere with their working as a team. Often

unlike individuals will, in this work, find that their differences will make their task easier and that
one complements the other.
In the realm of trickery, more practice is needed to ensure success in teamwork than is needed
for a person working alone. The single worker will, at times, find it possible and indicated to change
pace, or even make some change in procedure. In teamwork, where the second person cannot know
what is in the mind of the first person, such changes would interfere with the second person knowing
when and how to perform his part. This difficulty will be eliminated somewhat by following the rule
that in each trick one must be the performer and the other the assistant. Nevertheless, practice is
required, for as in dancing, where it is the man’s job to lead and the woman’s to follow, it takes
practice to be a good partner.
However, as has been noted many times in these pages, the main thing is to understand exactly
what is to be done and how it is to be done. Having such knowledge reduces the rehearsal time in
teamwork just as it does for the individual.

Recognition Signals

The problem is that A and B, who have to work together, do not know or have descriptions for
recognizing one another. A variation of the problem is that only one knows the other.
The problem is involved because of the many conditions which must be considered. It is
possible that A and B may be able to meet and converse. It also is quite possible that it is advisable
never to meet. A may be of a totally different social stratum (by role or fact), so that there would be
few places both A and B could go. It might be that because of the job of one (such as a waiter), it
would be either easy or impossible to have the meeting or identification take place at the job locale.
Many jobs would materially limit the hours during which the worker could absent himself so as to be
at another location.
Other conditions also must be considered. Were A to arrive at an airport, train, or bus station, it
might be necessary for B to be able at a distance, and instantly, to recognize A. This would require
some sign or signal visible at a distance and yet not noticeable to the uninformed. Almost the same
conditions would apply were A and B to pass one another on the street or in a square or public park.
Other signs and signals might be better were the contact to be made in a lobby of a business
building, in a museum, gallery, or library. Still other means of identification might serve were the
meeting in a restaurant, bar, or store. Of course, no clothing variations could be used were the
meeting between two bathers at a public beach.
In each of these situations, and others which may come to mind, it will be remembered that
while A must recognize B, it also is necessary for B to identify A. And each must have a way of
knowing that the other has made the identification.
Because the problem has so many variations, it is obvious that there must be different means of
identification available to meet the different conditions.
The most obvious signaling device may be called “The Chrysanthemum in the Buttonhole
Technique.” Naturally, such a boutonniere would rarely be suitable, but it exemplifies the
qualifications such a signaling device should have. First, a flower in the buttonhole is not an unusual
practice of men everywhere. Second, it can be seen instantly. Third, it has color and color attracts
attention. An alternate to color is differentiation in size. (A chrysanthemum certainly is larger than any
flower normally worn.) Fourth, of itself the wearing of a flower is meaningless. (However, in the
case of flowers, any specific flower lacks the basic qualification of availability anywhere and at any
season of the year.)
It would seem best to divide methods for signaling into two classifications: those to be used at a
distance and those for close-up use. Whereas every method which occurs to this writer for distance
might also be used for close-up as well, there are a number of close-up methods which have a
subtlety that makes them admirable for this purpose and they could serve a wider range of uses than
most distance methods.
For distance signaling (other than manual) are variations in attire. These must be both

permissible so as not to attract attention and yet clearly visible at a distance to the knowing observer.
A varicolored feather in a hatband is such a device. Such feathers are generally worn and the visible,
but not noticeable, distinction would be in the combination of colors used. A necktie made of material
of a particular shade, or having a combination of unusual colors, might be used. Tying a tie (either
four-in-hand or bow) with an unusual knot cannot be seen at a distance but can be used closeup. A
twist in a knot is easily seen by anyone looking for it and is unlikely to be observed by anyone else.
Even when it is noticed, it is ascribed to error rather than intent. Variations in the bow of a hatband
also are easy to make and will pass unnoticed by anyone not especially looking for it. Here again,
however, the change in the bow cannot be seen at a great distance.

Variations of ribbons and bows on a package become covert recognition signals.
Phil Franke
Carrying a parcel which is, to use the retail store’s term, “gift wrapped” can be seen at a
distance. The special paper and/or the color of the ribbon or string can be seen at an amazing
distance. Naturally, the situation would have to be such that carrying a gift would be natural and there
would have to be a gift in the package on the chance that it would be opened. Instead of gift wrapping
the parcel, ordinary paper could be used and the paper held closed by several wide colored rubber
bands. Or the rubber bands could be put around the package in a prescribed manner. Instead of a
package, a book might be used and held closed by the rubber bands. Another way of using a book
would be to have it covered with a protective paper, as is commonly done with schoolbooks.
Ink (invisible except when special colored glasses are used) on packages, book wrappers, or
baggage labels can be seen at a distance. The special value of such ink is that added information can
be given by writing a large code letter or number.
Court plaster, surgeon’s tape, Band-Aids, or any similar covering for cuts makes an excellent
signaling device. It may be used on the face at any spot where one might cut himself shaving, or on
almost any part of the hands, or, when in swimming, on an ankle or foot. The location of the tape, its
size, and its shape all may be used to modify the signal, or to make it more definite that it is a signal.
In some instances, it may well be necessary to have the tape cover an actual cut in the flesh. Except
for that one point, the method has every advantage possible and is useful at a distance and close up.
While some of the following signals also can be used for considerable distance, most are for
nearby use.

It might be well to point out that the absence of something often is as usable a signal as can be
found. A missing vest or sleeve button, a shoelace missing in a workingman’s shoe, or dissimilar
laces, the absence of a bow on the ribbon of a hat, a strap at only one end of a suitcase, are examples
of missing things which do not attract attention but are most apparently absent to anyone looking for
such discrepancy. Care must be taken to eliminate only such objects as coincidence would be most
unlikely to find unintentionally missing in another person’s apparel or equipment.
Cutting an eraser on the end of a pencil into either a wedge shape or a point is a good middle
distance signal. The pencil, point down, would be stuck in the breast pocket of the coat or shirt.
Another middle-distance signal would be the colored thread marking of a handkerchief left
protruding from the breast pocket. Such threads are commonly used in many parts of the world by
laundries as identification. A colored monogram in a handkerchief can be noticed easily. In either
instance, the color used would be the important factor.

Phil Franke
Organization lapel buttons, because of their variations in shape, design, and color, are quickly
and easily identified. Of course they rarely, if ever, could be used for the purpose under
consideration, but the general idea can be followed with pen and pencil clips. The tip of the clip
which goes outside the pocket is altered so as to be identifiable. This may be done by filing the clip
to change its shape, drilling one or more holes in it, or coloring it with enamel—paint or colored
sealing wax. Naturally a specially designed clip is even better, for its distinctive pattern may be so
subtle. On another page are suggested designs for altering standard-type clips.
Clips also can be made from a variety of easily obtainable metal objects. For example. a
“blackhead ejector” sold in drugstores may be made into a clip by heating and bending. The hole is
filled with colored sealing wax. The cost—ten cents for the tool.
In such instances where A and B can get within fifteen feet or so of one another, shoelaces make
an excellent signaling device. There are several ways in which laces can be used and no one of them
ever will be noticed provided the laces are treated identically in both shoes.
The first suggestion is to have the shoelace run as a double strand through the eyelets nearest the

instep, i.e., toward the toes. First, the shoestring is cut in half. Then the tip of one lace is pushed from
the inside of the shoe up through one hole, across the instep, and down through the opposite hole. The
tip of the other half is treated in the same way but is started from the opposite side. While the cut ends
still are outside the shoe, each is tied, with a slipknot, around the other lace. The tips of the laces then
are drawn so as to have the two knots inside the shoe and each by one of the eyelets. (See
illustration.) The shoe then is laced in the normal way. For one who is looking for such a possibility,
the double lace is easy to distinguish. It will never be seen by one not particularly looking for it.
Though it will not be noticed, it is without reason except to mend a broken lace were the shoes to be
examined.
Because shoelaces are inserted in shoes in three standard ways, any deviation in these ways
becomes useful for signaling. On other pages are illustrations of the standard ways of lacing shoes
and several ways in which shoes could be laced but never are. None of these alternate ways will
attract attention, yet each is very obvious to one looking for such a signal.
Using one of these shoelacing patterns is an excellent way to identify a person. Because there
are several such patterns, added information could be given by the choice of pattern used. “I have
information for you.” “I’ll follow your instruction.” “I have brought another person.” What need be
said is not for this writer to suggest—merely the means to say it.
Alteration of design (such as with the shoelaces) is almost as much of an attention attractor to the
person looking for it as is color. Another design variant is using one different button on a shirt or vest.
While the buttons so used may be unlike the other visible buttons in several acceptable ways, the use
of a button of a different size is probably the best variation and, generally speaking, such a button is
easier to obtain. The button should be but a little larger (or smaller) than the other buttons. When on a
shirt, and a tie is worn, the tie must be one which does not cover at least two buttons. The difference
in size is known by comparison. Were an outsider to notice an odd-size button—which is most
unlikely—he would think that the wearer merely did not have a matching button to replace one he had
lost.

Variations of tying a shoelace can be used for signaling.
Phil Franke
Just as the trousers, as many men wear them, would be of a length to hide the shoelaces when the
person is standing, so can the occupational use of an apron hide vest buttons. Neither of these signs

can be used on all occasions but both are very good at such times as they can be used.
Another similar clothing variation is the use of one grommet in one buckle hole of a belt which
does not have such metal protection in any of the other holes.
The old schoolboy stunt of sticking a thumbtack in the heel of a shoe might also be useful on
some occasions. It is something which could be acquired accidentally and to avoid the possibility of
an inadvertent thumbtack being in the heel of the wrong person, the tack used for the signal should be
stuck in a specified location on the right heel. To find a tack in a particular spot, in the right heel, and
on a particular day, and at a certain place and time, of a second person would be asking too much of
coincidence.
A method of attracting attention, and done for that obvious purpose, is yelling. “Hi, Pete,” or
“Aya, Pedro,” or any such call is done for the obvious purpose of getting the attention of the one
called. If the caller stands three-quarter view to the person whose attention he actually wishes to
attract, rather than the imaginary Pete, the yell will serve its purpose and without connecting the two
people. Naturally, as soon as the call is made the caller should wave a greeting to the imaginary Pete,
and naturally, there have to be several men in that direction, so no one can know of Pete’s
nonexistence. This means of attracting attention only is possible where there is a crowd, such as at a
railway station, but if the crowd were large enough, it could be the only quick way. The name used
should be one found in some form in all languages and in a way be something like the “Hey Rube”
call circus people use for emergencies.
Acknowledgment of recognition is most important, for otherwise neither person could be certain
of the other having noticed his signal. Further, it would be safest were the acknowledgment of
recognition also acknowledged. Were this done, each person would be certain of the other’s
awareness of his presence.
At a distance, the act of rubbing the back of the neck under the collar can be seen easily. It
appears to be a most natural act and does not attract attention, yet it is one which almost never is
done. Note that it is not scratching the back of the neck but rubbing it with the balls of the fingers and
with the fingers straight.
At a short distance the smoking signals, or drinking signals, might well be used for
acknowledgment. It might be best to signal a designated number if such signals are used.
Where the contact is between waiter and patron, or clerk and customer, the acknowledgment
could be by the patron asking for something unusual but not too odd. Or the waiter-clerk could offer a
service or item that would be the signal of acknowledgment. In each instance, the signal would be
verbal but would be without special meaning except to the persons listening for it.
The acknowledgment could be touching the special button, clip, shoelace, etc. by the one who
has the original signal. Acknowledgment can use a larger variety of natural methods than would be
feasible for the original signals. All that is required is that they be simple, quick, and natural.
A common type of button is made with an eye, affixed to a shank, which protrudes from the back
of the button. Such buttons always are used for uniforms, and, frequently, on overcoats and other
clothing. These buttons usually are made of plastic.

A coat button could be easily marked to convey a signal.
Phil Franke
Such a button can be used at the buttonhole of the coat lapel. A cord is tied to the button and the
cord runs down to the breast pocket of the coat. On the other end of the cord should be fastened a
watch, key, glasses case, or any other object which should be easy to get at and would be a
disadvantage to its owner were it lost. Such a button is not unlike those made commercially for just
such use.
A button, such as one of these, can be seen at a fair distance and is therefore useful for
identification purposes. By filing or drilling one of these buttons, added information may be given.
(See sketch.)
Metal buttons can be left with the finish (usually brass or chrome) given them at the factory or
they can be colored with an enamel paint. Wooden buttons may be left as natural wood, or they can be
stained or painted. Plastic buttons can be purchased in a fairly wide variety of colors.
The size of the button, its color, and its design all can be used for eye-catching purposes for the
one looking.
Such buttons, too, can be used by women for identification purposes. One method would be to
wear the button as an ornament—a piece of ribbon could be pulled through the eye and the entire
“button and bow” pinned from the other side of the cloth with a safety pin. In material with a loose
weave, the threads of the cloth can be pushed apart far enough for the eye to go through the cloth
without doing any damage. Again, the button (this time minus ribbon) would be held in place with a
safety pin. The button, either of shiny metal or of a suitable color, can be an attractive piece of
costume ornament. The button also can be pushed through a hole made in a handbag and used with a
string holding a door key—the button would be on the outside of the bag.
Ribbon bows (without the button) can be used for purposes of ornamentation (as well as
identification) by women. Bows often are worn at the neckline, or, like a flower, just below the
shoulder. For this special purpose, the bow should be of ribbon of certain color, or colors, and tied in
an observably different way. (See sketches of two such ways to tie ribbon.) A wristband of ribbon

also may be used. Here, too, the color or colors of the ribbon and the way the knot is made are the
means of identification. Great care must be taken when ribbon identification is used by a woman so
that the man knows what he is looking for. If this were a woman-to-woman meeting, this difficulty
does not exist. Men do not visualize a double bow (or any other kind) from a woman’s description.
Nor do most men have any idea of colors from the names of the colors by which women identify them.
The knowledge of men generally concerning colors is limited largely to the colors of traffic lights,
their school colors, and those they don’t like. So ladies, help us.
Wide rubber bands around a small wrapped parcel, or around a book, can be seen at a distance
of fifty feet. The pattern made by the number of bands and the way they are put around the object can
give additional information. (See sketches.) It should be noted that the book used is unwrapped and
cannot be of so dark a color or complicated a design that the rubber bands become invisible.

Rubber bands around a wrapped package were useful for signaling.
Phil Franke
This type of package may also be carried by a man, though with a man it might, though it is unlikely,
be noticed because it is a somewhat elaborate way to do up a package.
The court plaster and surgeon’s tape suggested for use by men can be used by women by making
adaptations. A Band-Aid can be used on a finger or back of hand. Instead of tape on the face, a
woman can use beauty spots. If beauty spots be used, there must be a definite understanding of their
(or its) location. It might be well also to have a specific size and design decided upon. The design
might be an oval rather than a circle. It should not be a butterfly, or heart, or other pattern which
because of its design would attract attention.
A number of the ideas suggested for use by men also can be used by women. Many cannot. No
woman would be certain of being unnoticed were she to rub the back of her neck. A man could push
his hat to the back of his head to acknowledge having received a signal. And such action with a man
would pass unnoticed, for it is quite natural. For a woman to push her hat to the back of her head
would be so fantastic an act that everyone would look.
Toying with a necklace or bracelet, on the other hand, is for a woman similar to the way a man
plays with a watch chain. Usually, for the things a man will do naturally, there are actions-

counterparts which a woman may naturally do. But it has to be kept in mind, few of these actions are
identical.
No attempt should be made to know and look for all the various signals and codes suggested in
these pages. What have been set down are only suggestions. Some may be thought to be unusable as
given, some may be adapted and made of use, and some may be of use solely as starting a trend of
thought toward usable methods. The point is that whatever is used must be decided upon long before
it ever is needed. Every detail then has to be studied, and fully understood, by everyone who ever
may be called upon to use the method. Any material which is successful is good. Success will depend
upon people, and when one of the elements is a person, there can be no certainty of success unless
that person has full knowledge and understanding. No one can be assured he has such knowledge and
understanding until he has actually tried out the method to his satisfaction and under calm
circumstances. In actual use there are too many distractions to try to recall unmemorized details.

NOTES

1. John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate (New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1979), p. 204.
2. The headquarters compound for the Central Intelligence Agency, the George Bush Center for
Intelligence, is located in Langley, VA. See www.cia.gov/about-cia/todays-cia/george-bushcenter-for-intelligence/index.html
3. Special Study Group, J. H. Doolittle, Chairman, Report on the Covert Activities of the Central
Intelligence Agency (declassified), September 30, 1954, pp. 6–7.
4. Henry Kissinger, Georgetown University Speech, May 2008.
5. For an explanation of secret inks, see Robert Wallace and H. Keith Melton, Spycraft: The Secret
History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda (New York: Dutton Books, 2008),
pp. 427–437.
6. Arthur C. Clarke, Profiles of the Future (New York: Harper & Row, 1962).
7. Public awareness of the dangers of “mind warfare” arose after Richard Condon’s 1959 novel, The
Manchurian Candidate (New York: McGraw-Hill), became a hit movie in 1962. The plot
involved a brainwashed Korean War POW who returns and is remotely controlled as a Communist
assassin in a plot to overthrow the U.S. government.
8. Allen Dulles, “Brain Warfare,” Speech to the National Alumni Conference of the Graduate Council
of Princeton University, Hot Springs, VA, April 10, 1953.
9. Some of MKULTRA’s concepts had been partially researched by the Office of Strategic Services in
World War II and later in authorized CIA programs such as “Project Bluebird” (1950) and
“Project Artichoke” (1951), which studied mind control, interrogation, and behavior modification.
See John Waller, “The Myth of the Rogue Elephant Interred,” Studies in Intelligence 22:3
(Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, 1978), p. 6.
10. Prepared Statement of Admiral Stansfield Turner in the Joint Hearing Before the Select
Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific Research of the
Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Congress, 1st Session, August 3,
1977. The DCI grouped MKULTRA’s 149 subprojects into fifteen categories. Among these were
(1) research into behavior modification, drug acquisition and testing, and clandestine
administration of drugs, (2) financial and cover mechanisms for each of the subprojects, (3)
subprojects, of which there were 33, funded under the MKULTRA umbrella but unrelated to

behavioral modification, drugs, or toxins. Polygraph research and control of animal activity were
examples offered. The process to phase out all of the MKULTA projects required several years.
11. See Project MKULTRA, the CIA’s Program of Research in Behavioral Modification: Joint
Hearing Before the Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and
Scientific Research of the Committee on Human Resources, United States Senate, 95th Congress,
1st Session, August 3, 1977. Published by U.S. Government Printing Office, 1977, p. 69. See also
H. Keith Melton, CIA Special Weapons and Equipment: Spy Devices of the Cold War (New York:
Sterling Publishing, 1993), p. 115.
12. On the Frank Olson Project Web site
(www.FrankOlsonProject.org.Documents/DeepCreekMemo.html) are images of two documents
purportedly found in a desk drawer of the family home that appear to be the original CIA invitation
to the Deep Creek rendezvous in 1953.
13. Associated Press, “Family in LSD Case Gets Ford Apology,” New York Times Magazine, July
22, 1975. These actions did not permanently close the case and the New York City district attorney
reopened the investigation in 1998. See Letter from New York Assistant District Attorney Stephen
E. Saracco to the Office of the General Counsel, CIA, May 1, 1998.
14. Christopher Andrew and Vasili Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive
and the Secret History of the KGB (New York: Basic Books, 1999), pp. 358–359.
15. Ibid.
16. Ibid., pp. 359, 361. The device had been produced at the intelligence service’s secret arms
laboratory at Khozyaistvo Zheleznovo. Khokhlov would himself become the target of a KGB
attempt in 1957 to poison him using radioactive thallium—selected in the belief that it would
degrade and leave no trace of the cause of his death.
17. Ibid., p. 361. For photos of KGB assassination weapons, see H. Keith Melton, The Ultimate Spy
Book (New York: DK Publishing, 2002), pp.182–187. Soviet assassination operations continued
during the Cold War, and in 1978 the KGB supplied the infamous ricin-pellet-firing umbrella
weapon to the Bulgarian intelligence service (DS) for the London operation that killed dissident
Georgi Markov.
18. “Colby revealed that the agency in 1952 began a super-secret research program, code-named
MKNAOMI, partly to find countermeasures to chemical and biological weapons that might be
used by the Russian KGB. Former CIA Director Richard Helms reported that a KGB agent used
poison darts and poison spray to assassinate two Ukrainian liberation leaders in West Germany.
The CIA also wanted to find a substitute for the cyanide L-pill, the suicide capsule used in World
War II. Cyanide takes up to 15 minutes to work and causes an agonizingly painful death by
asphyxiation.” “Of Dart Guns and Poisons,” Time, September 29, 1975.
19. Ibid.
20. Ibid. The article quotes Charles Sweeny, who is identified as a former Defense Department
engineer and testified to his participation in joint tests between the CIA and Defense Department in

the 1960s.
21. MKULTRA Briefing Book, Central Intelligence Agency, January 1976; released 1999.
22. For a listing of the substances, see “The Exotic Arsenal,” Time, September 29, 1975.
23. Larry Devlin, Chief of Station, Congo (Public Affairs, New York City, 2007), pp. 94–95.
Lumumba was later executed by Katangan authorities, see “Correspondent: Who Killed LumumbaTranscript,” BBC, 00.36.57.
24. Roger Morris, “Remember: Saddam Was Our Man. A Tyrant 40 Years in the Making,” New York
Times, March 14, 2003.
25. MKULTRA Briefing Book, Central Intelligence Agency, January 1976.
26. “Minutes of the Meeting of the Special Group (Augmented) on Operation Mongoose on October
4, 1962.” U.S. attorney general Robert Kennedy and CIA director John McCone were in
attendance. Original document in the Gerald R. Ford Library.
27. U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations with Respect to Intelligence
Activities, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders: An Interim Report, 94th
Congress, 1st Session (Senate Report Number 94–465), November 20, 1975, p. 71.
28. Ibid., p. 72.
29. Ibid.
30. David Atlee Phillips, The Night Watch (New York: Atheneum, 1977), p. 91.
31. Warren Hinkle and William Turner, The Fish Is Red: The Story of the Secret War Against Castro
(New York: Harper & Row, 1981), pp. 30–31, and U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots
Involving Foreign Leaders, p. 73.
32. David Wise and Thomas B. Ross, The Espionage Establishment (New York: Random House,
1970), p. 130.
33. U.S. Senate, Alleged Assassination Plots Involving Foreign Leaders, p. 85.
34. Ibid., pp. 85–86.
35. Ibid.
36. Ibid., pp. 88–89. Blackleaf-40 is a commercially available concentrate of nicotine sulfate used
for horticulture and containing 40 percent of alkaloidal nicotine as a parasiticide. (See Saunders
Comprehensive Veterinary Dictionary, 3rd edition.) The plan was for Cubela (code name
AMLASH), a physician, to prepare the pen with poison after returning to Cuba. Instead of
continuing with the plan at a time when Castro’s personal security would be on edge following the
assassination of President Kennedy, Cubela disposed of the pen in Paris.
37. Weekly Compilation of Presidential Documents, vol. 12 (February 23, 1976), p. 15.

38. Ben Robinson, MagiCIAn: John Mulholland’s Secret Life (Lybrary.com, 2008), p. 84, states that
Mulholland came to the attention of the CIA “because of the agency’s face-to-face meeting with a
supposed psychic” and that he could aid the CIA as their best consulting critic in their search for
the “unlimited powers of the mind.” The February 26, 1970, New York Times obituary for John
Mulholland references his books on magic, performances in more than forty countries and charity
shows for Mrs. Franklin D. Roosevelt.
39. Mulholland’s obituary in the New York Times cites that his first book, Beware of Familiar Spirits,
an exposé of fraudulent mediums and fortune-tellers, was published in 1938. His later books
included Quicker Than the Eye, Story of Magic, The Art of Illusion, and in 1967, The Magical
Mind. See “John Mulholland, Magician and Author, 71, Dies,” New York Times, February 26,
1970.
40. MKULTRA Document 4–29. Letter to Dr. Sidney Gottlieb, April 10, 1973.
41. MKULTRA Briefing Book, p. 13.
42. Robinson, MagiCIAn, p. 88. Robinson reprints a letter on Chemrophyl stationery from Grifford
(Gottlieb) to Mulholland dated May 3, 1953. A confirmation of Dr. Gottlieb’s cover name is found
on a receipt in the author’s papers from the TSS Budget office in July of 1953 for a payment of
three hundred dollars to Mulholland as part of Subproject 4 and contains the typed name Sherman
C. Grifford. The initials SG were the same for Sidney Gottlieb as well as Sherman Grifford.
43. Robinson, MagiCIAn, p. 169. The common initials of SG for Sherman Granger/Sidney Gottlieb
remained consistent.
44. Ibid., pp. 98–99.
45. Memorandum for the Record, Project MKULTRA, Subproject 34, Central Intelligence Agency,
MKULTRA Document 34–46, October 1, 1954.
46. Memorandum for the Record, “Definition of a Task Under MKULTRA Subproject 34,” Central
Intelligence Agency, MKULTRA Document 34–39, August 25, 1955.
47. Memorandum for the Record, “MKULTRA, Subproject 34–39,” June 20, 1956.
48. Michael Edwards, “The Sphinx and the Spy: The Clandestine World of John Mulholland,” Genii:
The Conjurors’ Magazine, April 2001.
49. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, p. 204.
50. Unclassified CIA memo dated January 23, 1977, in the author’s files.
51. Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, p. 219.
52. Evan Thomas, The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1996), p. 212.
53. “John Mulholland, Magician and Author, 71, Dies.”

54. Joseph Treaser, “C.I.A. Hired Magician in Behavior Project,” New York Times, August 3, 1977.
55. Edwards, “The Sphinx & the Spy: The Clandestine World of John Mulholland.”
56. Ibid.
57. Robinson, MagiCIAn, p. 136. Robinson commented that though only 46 percent of the original
manual was made public, his possession of Mulholland’s original handwritten notes and rough
draft of the manual from the Milbourne Christopher Collection allowed him to “piece together
what information the government has withheld from public inspection.”
58. John Mulholland, “Some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception,” 1953.
59. Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to
Disappear (New York: Carroll & Graf, 2003), p. 80.
60. Dariel Fitzkee, Magic by Misdirection (Pomeroy, OH: Lee Jacobs Publication, 1975), p. 69.
61. A “dead drop” is a secure form of impersonal communication that allows the agent and handler to
exchange materials (money, documents, film, etc.) without a direct encounter. Dead drops were
“timed operations” in which the dropped package remained in a location for only a short time until
retrieved by the agent or the handler.
62. Henrietta Goodden, Camouflage and Art: Design and Deception in World War 2 (London:
Unicorn Press, 2007), p. 34.
63. Boyer Bell and Barton Whaley, Cheating and Deception (New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 1991), pp. 78–80.
64. New Grey Marine 671 diesel engines increased the speed of the boats from three to fifteen knots
for infiltration operations. See Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, p. 281. Photographs of the modified
junks are shown in Spycraft’s second photo supplement following p. 358.
65. In a 1998 interview, Tony Mendez commented that the KGB surveillance teams, faced with the
choice between “believing their eyes”—and thus admitting that they had lost sight of their CIA
surveillance target—or rationalizing the lapse in surveillance as being inconsequential, invariably
chose the latter.
66. Tony and Jonna Mendez presentation at the International Spy Museum, Washington, DC, October
27, 2008.
67. Benjamin Weiser, A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid
to Save His Country (New York: Public Affairs, 2000), pp. 74–75.
68. Ibid., p. 77.
69. Ibid.
70. The authors retraced each of Hanssen’s identified dead drop sites and noted their similarities.
Most sites appeared to provide quick access from a nearby parking location, good “cover” from

foliage, and, after reaching the sites, excellent visibility of the footpaths leading to them.
71. Hanssen’s eventual arrest on February 21, 2001, was not a result of bad stage management or
sloppy tradecraft, though he was certainly guilty of the latter. In an interview with Melton in
December of 2007, retired CIA officer Brian Kelley recounted that Hanssen became complacent.
He was observed when servicing his dead drops by two ladies from his neighborhood who were
walking through the park in the early morning hours and saw him lying on his stomach on a
footbridge in the park near their home in Vienna, Virginia. The incident was not reported before
his arrest, and at the time the women thought Hanssen was involved in a drug transaction. Retired
intelligence officer Victor Cherkashin, the first KGB handler for both Robert Hanssen and Aldrich
Ames, alleges that information about the spy was first provided by a retired senior SVR officer,
cryptonym AVENGER. According to Cherkashin, this information led the CIA to Ames, and then to
another retired top-level KGB officer, who gave them the KGB/SVR files on Hanssen in
November of 2000. See Cherkashin, Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of
the Man Who Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames (New York: Basic Books, 2005), p.
251.
72. Antonio J. Mendez, The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA (New York: Morrow,
1999), pp. 140–141.
73. Keith Melton interview in Moscow with Yuri Kobaladze, July 1995. Kobaladze was a former
KGB intelligence officer in the London rezidentura and worked for Gordievsky. Kobaladze rose
to become the first press officer for the SVR following the collapse of the Soviet Union and was
promoted to the rank of general.
74. Keith Melton interview with Oleg Gordievsky on July 4, 1995, at his residence outside London,
England.
75. For an illustrated explanation of “the impassable corks” trick, see:
http://magic.about.com/od/libraryofsimpletricks/ss/magiccorks.htm.
76. Tony Mendez, “A Classic Case of Deception,” Center for the Study of Intelligence, Central
Intelligence Agency, wwwcia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/csi-publi
cations/csi-studies/studies/winter99–00/art1.html.
77. Harry Kellar was the leading stage magician in the early 1900s. Quoted from Jim Steinmeyer’s
review of The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio Mendez. Studies in
Intelligence, www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/ kentcsi/docs/v46ila09p.htm.
78. Weiser, A Secret Life, p. 66.
79. See photo, Melton, The Ultimate Spy Book, p. 79.
80. Melton interview in May 2008 with former undercover officer discussing examples learned in the
UK from operations infiltrating suspicious members of the IRA.
81. Mendez recounted advice given to him early in his CIA career as quoted in Jim Steinmeyer’s

review of The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by Antonio Mendez. Studies in
Intelligence, www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-of-intelligence/kentcsi/docs/v46ila09p.htm.
82. The term walk-in is used by intelligence professionals to refer to a broad range of volunteers such
as walk-ups, write-ins, or call-ins.
83. In 1968, no category of the Academy Awards existed to recognize “makeup effects.” John
Chambers received an honorary award for his makeup work in the 1968 film Planet of the Apes.
See Variety Film Database, http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117794029.html?
categoryid=31&cs=1. One of the masks Chambers created for Planet of the Apes was loaned by
Tony Mendez to the International Spy Museum in Washington, DC, where it is on display in the
disguise section of “Spy School.”
84. How the FBI identifies a traitor is usually not explained, but most often the tips come either from
defectors or from counterespionage operations to penetrate opposing intelligence services. FBI
special agent Earl Edwin Pitts, former NSA employee Robert Lipka, and retired U.S. Army
lieutenant colonel George Trofimoff were all victims of such “tips” and their own greed.
85. Dong-Phuong Nguem, “Trofimoff, 75, Sentenced to Life in Prison for Spying,” St. Petersburg
Times, September 28, 2001.
86. Other theories exist to explain Houdini’s passage through the wall. Walter Gibson and Morris
Young provide a description and illustration (Houdini on Magic [New York: Dover, 1953], p.
221) showing the brick wall resting on top of a carpet. Houdini is depicted squeezing beneath the
wall in the slack space created when an underlying trapdoor is opened to cause the carpet to sag.
For Adams’s explanation of the trick using a different technique, see
blog.modernmechanix.com/2008/03/13/ exposing-houdinis-tricks-of-magic/?
Qwd=./ModernMechanix/11–
1929/houdinis_tricks&Qif=houdinis_tricks_0.jpg&Qiv=thumbs&Qis=XL#qdig.
87. Ibid.
88. In the 2006 movie The Prestige, the magician appears to achieve the impossible, that of human
transportation across the stage. Only in the closing scenes is it explained that using an unseen
identical twin brother created the illusion.
89. Antonio and Jonna Mendez, Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and
Operations that Helped Win the Cold War (New York: Atria Books, 2002), pp. 254–273. These
retired CIA technical officers and former chiefs of disguise recount a detailed identity transfer and
exfiltration of a couple (code name ORB and his wife) from Moscow. Their account of the escape
is likely sanitized to safeguard the identity of the individuals involved.
90. For a description of the development of the JIB, see Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 130–131.
Former intelligence officer Edward Lee Howard, who had completed clandestine training for a
posting to Moscow, was fired by the CIA in 1983 and later betrayed secrets to the KGB. In 1985,
while living in New Mexico, Howard employed a homemade JIB to escape FBI surveillance and
fled to Moscow. See Spycraft, pp. 154–155.

91. Unpublished Keith Melton lecture, “The Evolution of Tradecraft,” first presented in 2001.
92. Keith Melton’s archive has World War II photographs from the British Inter-Services Research
Bureau with the rubber-cow camouflage opened to show the two-man team, as well as closed.
93. Kenneth Silverman, Houdini!: The Career of Ehrich Weiss (New York: HarperCollins, 1996),
pp. 99–100.
94. Ibid.
95. William Kalush and Larry Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First
Superhero (New York: Atria Books, 2006), pp. 132–133.
96. Ibid., p. 133.
97. An additional hollow finger was used as a concealment in the palm.
98. Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, p. 133.
99. Ibid., pp. 97–99.
100. Ibid., p. 100.
101. Ibid., p. 233.
102. Clayton Hutton, Official Secret (London: Max Parish, 1960), pp. 2–3.
103. Ibid., p. 5.
104. Ibid., p. 7.
105. Ibid., p. 287.
106. M.R.D. Foot and James Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion (London: Bodley Head, 1979), pp.
34–35.
107. Eventually German security learned of the right-hand threads and MI9 switched to a pressure fit.
The war ended before German guards became aware of the final evolution of the design. See H.
Keith Melton, OSS Special Weapons and Equipment: Spy Devices of World War II (New York:
Sterling Publishing, 1991), p. 113.
108. Foot and Langley, MI9: Escape and Evasion, p. 109.
109. The Mokana shoe used a hollow heel as a concealment for escape tools. See: Will Goldston,
Tricks and Illusions for Amateur and Professional Conjurers (London: George Routledge &
Sons), 1920, pp. 138, 140. Also see Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, p. 179.
110. Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, p. 179.
111. Charles Fraser-Smith, The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith (London: Michael Joseph,
1981), cover.

112. Hutton, Official Secret, photo supplement following p. 48.
113. Charles Connell, The Hidden Catch (London: Elek Books, 1955), photograph preceding p. 65.
114. See article by Steranko, Genii: The Conjurors’ Magazine, October 1964.
115. Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, p. 179.
116. H. Keith Melton, CIA Special Weapons and Equipment: Spy Devices of the Cold War (New
York: Sterling Publications, 1993), p. 106. Leatherman is a commercially available multitool. See:
http:// www.leatherman.com/multi-tools/default.aspx.
117. Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini, pp. 178, 181.
118. Melton, CIA Special Weapons, p. 75.
119. Ibid., p. 72.
120. Eddie Sachs, Sleight of Hand: A Practical Manual of Legerdemain (London, L.U. Gill 1885),
p. 2, “Formerly conjurers appeared clothed in long robes and tall, pointed hats, both covered with
mystic signs and symbols. Robert Houdini, whom we may consider the father of modern conjuring,
being the first to perform in the now conventional evening dress. This innovation had the effect of
increasing the genuineness of the performance, as it was an easy matter to conceal large articles
beneath a flowing robe, such as had been previously worn; but the close-fitting dress suit affords
no means of concealment—to the minds of the audience, at any rate.”
121. Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 228–229, describes a topcoat tailored to hide an
eavesdropping device that a CIA officer carried for weeks until he had the opportunity to install
the bug.
122. Fitzkee, Magic by Misdirection, p. 87.
123. British Special Operations, Executive (SOE) crafted waistcoats and various styles of money
belts in World War II to conceal stacks of currency or small equipment. The special clothing
camouflaged the “load” in pockets designed to fit in the small of the user’s back in the upper chest
to avoid detection. For photographs see: Mark Seaman, Secret Agent’s Handbook: The WWII Spy
Manual of Devices, Disguises, Gadgets, and Concealed Weapons (Guilford, CT: The Lyons
Press, 2001), pp. 138–139, 143.
124. By dropping the matchbox through his coat to the floor, Jacob could deny that he had retrieved it
from the drop site. However, the distinction was of little consequence since, unbeknownst to him,
the KGB had secretly photographed all of his actions at the drop site. Jacob was detained and
declared persona non grata (PNG’d) from Russia. For a KGB surveillance photo of Jacob about to
clear the drop see Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, photo section following p. 166, and pp. 28–30.
125. Goldston, Tricks and Illusions, pp. 138, 140; Kalush and Sloman, The Secret Life of Houdini,
p. 179.
126. See Melton, Ultimate Spy, pp. 107, 159, for photos. In a March 2009 interview, retired RCMP

Security Service counterintelligence officer Dan Mulvenna related an incident according to which
the Canadians in the early 1970s secretly placed a transmitter in the heel of an StB officer’s street
shoe while he was on the tennis court. Technicians, J-Operations or J-OPS, replaced the heel of
his shoe, which he believed was securely stowed in his club locker.
127. Bugging is a term in common use that refers to the various forms of clandestine electronic audio
surveillance, or eavesdropping. See Melton, Ultimate Spy, pp. 102–111, for photos, and Wallace
and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 405–416, for details.
128. Athan G. Theoharis with Richard H. Immerman, The Central Intelligence Agency: Security
Under Scrutiny (Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2006), p. 313.
129. The Trial of the U2: Exclusive Authorized Account of the Court Proceedings of the Case of
Francis Gary Powers, heard before the Military Division of the Supreme Court of the USSR,
Moscow, August 17, 18, 19, 1960, (Chicago: Translation World Publishers, 1960). Also see Gary
Powers and Curt Gentry, Operation Overflight (New York: Brassey’s, 2003), pp. 50–51.
130. The device was not an offensive weapon, but a means to provide a fast means of suicide.
Previous research in World War II had produced a lethal pill (L-pill) using cyanide, which took
fifteen minutes to work and caused death painfully by asphyxiation. The poison on the needle
carried by Powers was shellfish toxin and would have resulted in paralysis and death within ten
seconds. See “Of Dart Guns and Poisons,” Time, September 29, 1975.
131. The Trial of the U2, p. 38.
132. Powers pled guilty to espionage at his trial in August of 1960 and received a ten-year sentence.
He was released in 1962 as part of a spy swap involving KGB spy Rudolf Abel. See Norman
Polmar and Thomas B. Allen, Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage (New York: Random
House, 1998), pp. 448–449.
133. Voice codes convey meaning clandestinely by altering the inflection, sequence, or selection of
words used between the performer and his confederate.
134. The exploitation of a believing audience with a hidden earpiece receiver by a
televangelist/performer/faith healer was depicted in the 1992 movie Leap of Faith, starring Steve
Martin.
135. An earlier solution by the CIA was to hide the receiver inside the bowl of a smoking pipe and
use bone conductivity to allow him to “hear” when he bit down on the pipe stem. See Wallace and
Melton, Spycraft, p. 418.
136. See a photo of the Phonak and ear camouflage in the second photo supplement of Wallace and
Melton, Spycraft, following p. 358.
137. Communicating secrets in high-threat postings, such as Moscow, was a constant concern for CIA
officers who suspected audio eavesdropping from within even their own embassy. One temporary,
but effective, solution was the “Magic Slate.” Instead of talking, messages would be written on a
slate and handed to another officer, who read it and then lifted the transparency to erase the words.

The slates were never left where an adversary could have access. Their tools, ordinary children’s
toys, were identical in function and derived from the “slates” used by spiritualists and performers,
including Houdini, to summon messages from communicative spirits almost a century earlier.
138. A prototype of the false scrotum is in Keith Melton’s Florida museum and descriptions of its
development and use are included in museum tours and Melton’s “The Evolution of Tradecraft”
lecture. The wearer donned the concealment by inserting one testicle at a time into the false
scrotum. Once loaded, it was held in place until access was required to the radio. The
concealment was built and successfully tested, but it was never employed operationally.
139. An example of this exfiltration technique is on display in Moscow at the Border Guard Museum
and credited to a smuggling ring in 1905. Following the dissolution of the KGB at the end of the
Cold War, the Border Guards are now part of FSB, the Federal Counterintelligence Service of the
Russian Federation.
140. Keith Melton interview with Tony Mendez, July 1998.
141. For a detailed description of dead drops and concealments, see Wallace and Melton, Spycraft,
pp. 388–400.
142. See Melton, Ultimate Spy, pp. 154–163, for photos of concealments and dead drops.
143. For a photo of the dead rat concealment, see Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, photo section
following p. 358. If necessary, the rats’ fur could be dyed using commercially available haircoloring products so as to match the fur of indigenous rats observed in the operational area.
144. CIA agent Aleksandr Ogorodnik committed suicide following his arrest after biting into a CIAsupplied fountain pen (working) that contained an L-pill (suicide) in the cap. See Wallace and
Melton, Spycraft, pp. 101–102.
145 Quoted from Jim Steinmeyer’s review of The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA by
Antonio Mendez. Studies in Intelligence, www.cia.gov/library/center-for-the-study-ofintelligence/kent-csi/docs/v46ila09p.htm.
146. Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant, p. 80, describes sight lines as “the imaginary lines of vision,
the boundaries of what an audience will see or what they will be prevented from seeing.”
147. Henry Hay, The Amateur Magician’s Handbook (Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 1982), p. 129.
148. Fitzkee, Magic by Misdirection, p. 104.
149. Professional coin manipulators employ a variety of coins for deceptions; half dollars or silver
dollars are more visible to audiences and easier to handle, while the smaller, thinner, and lighter
dimes and pennies are better for palming (concealing in the hand) and more likely to be sharply
milled. See Hay, The Amateur Magician’s Handbook, p. 129.
150. The Soviet intelligence service (NKVD) began concealing soft film in hollow coins as early as
1933–1934 to facilitate their covert communication with agents. The NKVD conducted
sophisticated intelligence operations globally between the world wars at a time in which U.S.

intelligence capabilities had been almost eliminated. (Keith Melton interviewed the retired former
chief of clandestine photography for the KGB’s First Directorate in Moscow during 1994.)
Separating the film’s emulsion layer from its transparent base produces soft film. The thin
emulsion is fragile, but easier to conceal. Microdots are optical reductions of a photographic
negative to a size that is illegible without magnification, usually one millimeter or smaller in area.
One-time-pads are groups of random numbers or letters arranged in columns, used for encoding
and decoding messages. Since the codes are used only once, a properly employed OTP is
theoretically unbreakable. Secure-data storage cards are forms of nonvolatile digital memory,
which can be as small as 32 mm by 24 mm by 2.1 mm and can store gigabytes of data. See Wallace
and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 429–435.
151. See photographs of the nickel and the complete story on the official FBI Web site:
www.fbi.gov/libref/historic/famcases/abel/abel.htm.
152. The term used for Soviet and Russian intelligence officers operating abroad without benefits of
“diplomatic cover.” Illegals pose as legitimate residents of the target country and are protected
only by a strong cover.
153. Robert J. Lamphere, The FBI-KGB War, A Special Agent’s Story (New York: Random House,
1986), pp. 270–271. An examination of the ciphered message by FBI experts concluded that it was
prepared using a Cyrillic typewriter. A conversation with “two men from the RCMP” confirmed
the importance of the “nickel and cipher” to Lamphere and convinced him it was created using a
one-time-pad (called a gama) and intended for use by a Soviet illegal officer operating in the
United States.
154. Polmar and Allen, Spybook, p. 530.
155. Andrew and Mitrokhin, The Sword and the Shield, pp. 159–160.
156. To compensate for the missing weight of the milled-out inner core, it would be possible to add
an inner ring of denser metal within the cavity to restore the coin to its original weight.
157. When the coin is fitted into the machined ring and struck against a hard surface, inertia separates
the two sides of the coin and reveals the secret cavity.
158. Tom Mangold, Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter (New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1991), p. 215. In a positive transparency, the background is clear and only the
text of the message appears in black. To aid in concealment, the KGB developed techniques to
strip the emulsion of film away from its backing and bleach it in diluted iodine to make it clear.
The thin emulsion would appear clear, but could be redeveloped and fixed using ordinary film
processing chemicals for viewing. See Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, pp. 429–431.
159. Mangold, p. 215.
160. Melton, “The Evolution of Tradecraft.”
161. The internal CIA Museum is considered the “most secret museum in the world” and the “best
museum that you’ll never get to see.” Some of its unclassified holdings are displayed in two

museums inside the CIA headquarters buildings in Langley, Virginia.
162. www.cia.gov/about-cia/cia-museum/cia-museum-tour/flash-movie-text.html.
163. Donated artifacts sometimes arrive at the CIA Museum curator’s office without any history and
have been known to even appear anonymously on the curator’s desk during a lunch hour. The
necessary compartmentation of clandestine operations may result in the operational history of an
artifact being lost.
164. A concealment device, or CD, includes a hidden compartment to which access is obtained for
locks, hinges, and latches. The mechanical actions necessary to open a professional CD are
normally a sequence of unnatural twists, turns, and pulls. See Wallace and Melton, Spycraft, p.
390.
165. Robinson, MagiCIAn, p. 163. Mulholland’s “dope” coin is cited as being in the Robinson
collection.
166. Robert Lee Holtz, “Behold the Appearance of the Invisibility Cloak,” Wall Street Journal,
March 13, 2009.
167. In the story, the scientist, Griffin, makes himself invisible by altering his body’s refractive index
to that of air so that he becomes invisible. Unfortunately for the character, the alteration is not
reversible and is accompanied by mental instability. In 1933 Universal Pictures made it into a
movie of the same name. Wells’s novel can be downloaded from www.gutenberg.org/etext/5230.
168. Jim Steinmeyer, Hiding the Elephant.
169. In a similar manner, the “best” espionage tradecraft, including clandestine techniques and
devices, will always employ the “best” available technology. The objectives of espionage do not
change, but the tools employed by the spy are constantly changing and becoming more capable.

SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Bookplate from John Mulholland’s extensive library of magic and conjuring.
courtesy of the authors

Andrew, Christopher, and Vasili Mitrokhin. The Sword and the Shield: The Mitrokhin Archive and
the Secret History of the KGB. New York: Basic Books, 1999.
Bell, Boyer, and Barton Whaley. Cheating and Deception. New Brunswick, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 1991.
Cherkashin, Victor. Spy Handler: Memoir of a KGB Officer: The True Story of the Man Who
Recruited Robert Hanssen and Aldrich Ames. New York: Basic Books, 2005.
Connell, Charles. The Hidden Catch. London: Elek Books, 1955.
Cook, Andrew M. MI5’s First Spymaster. Gloucestershire, England: Tempus Publishing, 2004.
Dawes, Edwin. The Great Illusionists. London: David & Charles, 1979.
Devlin, Larry. Chief of Station, Congo. New York: Public Affairs, 2007.
Fisher, David. The War Magician: How Jasper Maskelyne and his Magic Gang Altered the Course
of World War II. New York: Coward-McCann, 1983.
Fitzkee, Dariel. Magic by Misdirection. Pomeroy, OH: Lee Jacobs Publication, 1975.
Foot, M.R.D., and James Langley. MI9: Escape and Evasion. London: Bodley Head, 1979.
Fraser-Smith, Charles. The Secret War of Charles Fraser-Smith. London: Michael Joseph, 1981.
Gibson, Walter, and Morris Young. Houdini on Magic. New York: Dover Publications, 1953.
Goldston, Will. Tricks and Illusions. London: George Routledge & Sons, 1908.

Goodden, Henrietta. Camouflage and Art: Design and Deception in World War 2. London: Unicorn
Press, 2007.
Hutton, Clayton. Official Secret. London: Max Parish, 1960.
Kalush, William, and Larry Sloman. The Secret Life of Houdini: The Making of America’s First
Superhero. New York: Atria Books, 2006.
Lamphere, Robert J. The FBI-KGB War, A Special Agent’s Story. New York: Random House, 1986.
Mangold, Tom. Cold Warrior: James Jesus Angleton: The CIA’s Master Spy Hunter. New York:
Simon & Schuster, 1991.
Marks, John. The Search for the Manchurian Candidate. New York: W. W. Norton & Company,
1979.
Melton, H. Keith. CIA Special Weapons & Equipment: Spy Devices of the Cold War. New York:
Sterling Publications, 1993.
———. OSS Special Weapons and Devices: Spy Devices of World War II. New York: Sterling
Publishing, 1991.
———. Ultimate Spy. London: DK, 2002.
Mendez, Antonio J. The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA. New York: Morrow, 1999.
Mendez, Antonio J., and Jonna Mendez. Spy Dust: Two Masters of Disguise Reveal the Tools and
Operations That Helped Win the Cold War. New York: Atria Books, 2002.
Mulholland, John. Mulholland’s Book of Magic. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1963.
Polmar, Norman, and Thomas B. Allen. Spy Book: The Encyclopedia of Espionage. New York:
Random House, 1998.
Powers, Gary, with Curt Gentry. Operation Overflight. London: Hodder & Stoughton, Ltd., 1971.
Robinson, Ben. MagiCIAn: John Mulholland’s Secret Life. Lybrary.com, 2008.
Roco, Mihail C., and William Sims Bainbridge. Nanotechnology; Societal Implications II. U.S.
National Science Foundation, National Science and Technology Council, 2007.
Sachs, Eddie. Sleight of Hand: A Practical Manual of Legerdemain. London: L.U. Gill, 1885.
Seaman, Mark. Secret Agent’s Handbook: The World War I Spy Manual of Devices, Disguises,
Gadgets, and Concealed Weapons. Guilford, CT: Lyons Press, 2001.
Silverman, Kenneth. Houdini!: The Career of Ehrich Weiss. New York: HarperCollins, 1996.
Snider, L. Britt. The Agency and the Hill: The CIA’s Relationship with Congress, 1964–2004.
Washington, DC: Central Intelligence Agency, The Center for the Study of Intelligence, 2008.

Steinmeyer, Jim. Art and Other Essays on Illusion & Artifice. (New York: Carroll & Graf
Publishers, 2006).
———. Hiding the Elephant: How Magicians Invented the Impossible and Learned to Disappear.
New York: Carroll & Graf Publishers, 2003.
———. Book Review: “The Master of Disguise: My Secret Life in the CIA,” Studies in Intelligence
46:2. Central Intelligence Agency, 2002.
Theoharis, Athan G., with Richard H. Immerman, Loch Johnson, Kathryn Olmsted, and John Prados.
The Central Intelligence Agency. Westport, CT: Greenwood Publishing Group, 2006.
Thomas, Evan. The Very Best Men: Four Who Dared: The Early Years of the CIA. New York: Simon
& Schuster, 1996.
U.S. Senate, Select Committee on Intelligence and the Subcommittee on Health and Scientific
Research of the Committee on Human Resources. Project MKULTRA: The CIA’s Program of
Research in Behavioral Modification. 95th Congress, 1st Session, August 3, 1977.
Waldron, Daniel. Blackstone: A Magician’s Life. Glenwood, IL: Meyerbooks, 1999.
Wallace, Robert, and H. Keith Melton. Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from
Communism to Al-Qaeda. New York: Dutton Books, 2008.
Weiser, Benjamin. A Secret Life: The Polish Officer, His Covert Mission, and the Price He Paid to
Save His Country. New York: Public Affairs, 2004.
Wise, David, and Thomas B. Ross. The Espionage Establishment. New York: Random House, 1970.

About the Authors

H. KEITH MELTON, a graduate of the U.S. Naval Academy, is an intelligence historian and a
specialist in clandestine technology and espionage “tradecraft.” Recognized internationally as an
authority on spy technology, Melton has assembled an unparalleled collection of over eight thousand
spy devices, books, and papers of eminent spies. He is the author of several books, including CIA
Special Weapons and Equipment, Ultimate Spy, and coauthor, with Bob Wallace, of Spycraft: The
Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to Al-Qaeda (Dutton, 2008). He is also a
member of the board of directors for the International Spy Museum in Washington, D.C., and the
technical tradecraft historian at the Interagency Training Center. He lives in Florida.
ROBERT WALLACE retired from the CIA in 2003 after thirty-two years of service as an operations
officer and senior executive, including an assignment as director of the Office of Technical Service.
Wallace was awarded the Intelligence Medal of Merit and the Distinguished Career Intelligence
Medal. Under his leadership, OTS received two Meritorious Unit Citations. Wallace is coauthor,
with H. Keith Melton, of Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs from Communism to AlQaeda (Dutton, 2008). He is founder of the Artemus Consulting Group, and a resource for the oral
history program of the CIA’s Center for the Study of Intelligence. He lives in Virginia.
Visit www.AuthorTracker.com for exclusive information on your favorite HarperCollins author.

ALSO BY H. KEITH MELTON AND ROBERT WALLACE
Spycraft: The Secret History of the CIA’s Spytechs, from Communism to Al-Qaeda
ALSO BY (OR COAUTHORED BY) H. KEITH MELTON
Ultimate Spy
U.S. Government Guide to Surviving Terrorism: Compiled from
Official U.S. Government Documents
Spy’s Guide: Office Espionage
The Ultimate Spy Book
CIA Special Weapons and Equipment:
Spy Devices of the Cold War
OSS Special Weapons and Equipment:
Spy Devices of World War II
Clandestine Warfare: Weapons and Equipment of the SOE and OSS
Spy University
Detective Academy
ALSO COAUTHORED BY ROBERT WALLACE
Nine from the Ninth

Credits

Cover design by Christopher Tobias

Copyright

THE OFFICIAL CIA MANUAL OF TRICKERY AND DECEPTION.

Copyright © 2009 by H. Keith Melton and
Robert Wallace. All rights reserved under International and Pan-American Copyright Conventions.
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