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CIA used famous magician for his tricks during the Cold War

John Mulholland was paid the then princely sum of $3,000 for tips on slipping a pill into the drink of the unsuspecting, tying shoelaces to give uncover signals and on the "surreptitious removal of objects by women".

Fortunately for posterity and today's budding spies, the agency's paper shredders were not as thorough in their work. Though it was believed every copy of his report had been destroyed in 1973, one survived and has been turned into a book, The Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception.

The material, now unclassified, was unearthed, though they haven't said how, by Keith Melton, an espionage historian, and Bob Wallace, an author and former director of the CIA's Office of Technical Services.

Mulholland's guidance from the 1950s was part of a larger CIA effort, called MK-ULTRA, developed to counter Soviet mind-control and interrogation techniques.

Read entire article at Telegraph (UK)