Speaker 1: From UFOs to psychic powers and government conspiracies. History is
Speaker 1: riddled with unexplained events. You can turn back now or
Speaker 1: learn the stuff they don't want you to know. A
Speaker 1: production of iHeartRadio.
Speaker 2: Hello, welcome back to the show. My name is Matt,
Speaker 2: my name is Noah.
Speaker 1: They call me Ben.
Speaker 3: We're joined as always with our super producer Andrew the
Speaker 3: try Force Howard. Most importantly, you are you. You are here.
Speaker 3: That makes this the stuff they don't want you to know.
Speaker 3: Here's where it gets crazy. Already Previously on stuff they
Speaker 3: don't want you to know, we asked, does the CIA
Speaker 3: actually hire magicians? Short answer yes, as bizarre as it sounds, yes, absolutely, Yes, dudes,
Speaker 3: the CIA high are professional magicians.
Speaker 4: Yes, and of course we are not talking about practitioners
Speaker 4: of the dark arts, though that's its own thing and
Speaker 4: a question perhaps for another day. As we know, operations
Speaker 4: involving you know, astral projection and things approaching that genre
Speaker 4: of clandestine activity certainly did exist. We're talking about like
Speaker 4: stage magicians, vegas magicians, sleight of hand experts, yes, exactly,
Speaker 4: mind freaks. You gotta wiggle your fingers when you say that,
Speaker 4: mind freak.
Speaker 3: Oh, you don't know where I wiggling my fingers right now.
Speaker 4: Don't don't wiggle that's not that's not the kind of
Speaker 4: slight of hand we signed out for today. Fellas the
Speaker 4: FCC won't.
Speaker 3: Let me be anyway. Believe it or not, this was
Speaker 3: a brilliant idea. The CIA has a lot of hair
Speaker 3: bring schemes historically, not not necessarily evil stuff, just well
Speaker 3: far out of the box. But this was a pretty
Speaker 3: smart thing for them to do. The public may have
Speaker 3: never learned about it without the hard work of the
Speaker 3: intrepid authors and researchers h Keith Melton and Robert Wallace.
Speaker 3: Our story begins with a guy named John Mulholland. He's
Speaker 3: born John wick Aser on June ninth, eighteen ninety eight
Speaker 3: in Chicago.
Speaker 4: And you know why did he change his name wick
Speaker 4: Aser the Wizard. That would be a perfect stage magic name.
Speaker 4: I'm very confused. Mulholland's not nearly as cool.
Speaker 3: Maybe because of the circles he would run in later
Speaker 3: are the ones he aspired to run in. Maybe he
Speaker 3: felt it sounded too foreign.
Speaker 4: Maybe he felt that it was sort of like Alice Island,
Speaker 4: you know, folks coming in and changing their name from
Speaker 4: something that was more Tom, I'm only more American, and
Speaker 4: I guess Mulholland is pretty American if you think about
Speaker 4: old Hollywood. M M.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he was one of those kids who always loved magic.
Speaker 1: Uh.
Speaker 3: If you look at the this is a spoiler, but
Speaker 3: the primary biography written about this guy is the Magician
Speaker 3: with ci A, A magician capitalized, the Magician amazing. Yeah,
Speaker 3: it's in this biography. It is you know, we're no
Speaker 3: pun left behind crew. In this biography, what we see
Speaker 3: is that Mulholland's life changes when he's as young as
Speaker 3: five years old. He sees a performance by a guy
Speaker 3: named Heinrich Keller, who is known as the Dean of
Speaker 3: American magicians, not musicians, and he sticks with it. You know,
Speaker 3: everybody who's spent time around young kids or has raised
Speaker 3: a kid themselves, you know that that at that age
Speaker 3: a lot of kids intro can be ephemeral somewhat right,
Speaker 3: Dinosaurs one month, space exploration the next, or princesses or pirates,
Speaker 3: et cetera. This kid latched on to magic like a
Speaker 3: more a eel, and he did not let go. He
Speaker 3: reached his teens and he set about learning the art
Speaker 3: of stage magic under a guide named John William Sargent,
Speaker 3: who was president of the Society of American Magicians. And
Speaker 3: just spoiler, there are a ton of magicians societies. I
Speaker 3: had no idea there's so many.
Speaker 2: Yeah, and these societies take illusion and magic very, very seriously.
Speaker 2: Just quickly, let's throw the oath in here, because it
Speaker 2: really is the kind of thing that, especially as a kid,
Speaker 2: I imagine it being such a secretive thing. It would
Speaker 2: the intrigue would be like way up here magic has been.
Speaker 2: There's been a lot of disillusionment in the world of
Speaker 2: magic over the years, as the following oath has been
Speaker 2: broken over and over and over again. But then this
Speaker 2: oath was very very serious and it's still series to
Speaker 2: a lot of people today. As a magician, I promise
Speaker 2: never to reveal the secret of any allusion to a
Speaker 2: non magician unless that one swears to uphold the magician's oath.
Speaker 2: In turn, I promise never to perform any illusion for
Speaker 2: any non magician without first practicing the effect until I
Speaker 2: can perform it well enough to maintain the illusion of magic.
Speaker 4: Can I just say that I, too, much like our
Speaker 4: buddy Maul Hollins, here have been fascinated by stage magic
Speaker 4: ever since I was a little kid. I saw David
Speaker 4: Copperfield perform and I was probably ten or eleven, and
Speaker 4: I never looked back. And there's a Clive Barker movie
Speaker 4: from the nineties called Lord of Illusions that you guys
Speaker 4: may have seen. It's not great, doesn't super hold on
Speaker 4: you read I have, Yeah, it's I think a part
Speaker 4: of one of his collections. It is like a short
Speaker 4: story with then cabal. If I'm not.
Speaker 3: Mistaken, it's good.
Speaker 4: It's very good stories. The story is more intense than
Speaker 4: no the film. I watched it the other day actually,
Speaker 4: and I remember as a kid being obsessed with it
Speaker 4: and a big and it didn't it didn't quite hold
Speaker 4: up to my childhood memory, which is pretty common for
Speaker 4: movies from the nineties. But it a part of it
Speaker 4: takes place in a place in Los Angeles called the
Speaker 4: Magic Castle, which is the headquarters for the Academy of
Speaker 4: Magical Arts, and it is, you know, one of these
Speaker 4: very secretive, kind of members only magicians organizations. And I
Speaker 4: was lucky enough to get to go to a couple
Speaker 4: of shows at the Magic Castle, and it is like
Speaker 4: being transported back in time. There is nothing quite like
Speaker 4: it that I've ever experienced. They're not allowed to take pictures,
Speaker 4: you have to dress a certain way, and it just
Speaker 4: feels like the outside world kind of disappears. But it's
Speaker 4: it's such a neat world, and it's a very niche
Speaker 4: world today. You know, you don't really think of that
Speaker 4: many blockbuster magicians anymore. You got your Chris Angels and
Speaker 4: maybe still David Copperfield and David Blaine's. But it really
Speaker 4: the ones that are really pounding the pavement and doing
Speaker 4: the work are the ones that are performing at places
Speaker 4: like the Magic Castle, like for like super super fans
Speaker 4: and other magicians, other members of the community.
Speaker 2: We're in Vegas or on cruise ships.
Speaker 3: Pen and Teller huge right stills, And I appreciate that
Speaker 3: we're bringing up the magician oath and the idea of
Speaker 3: how this feels somewhat Illuminati esque, the initiation into a
Speaker 3: secret society, something of the level of a cabal.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 2: Well, because Mulholland's being trained by the president of one
Speaker 2: of these societies, right, so this he's an apprentice to
Speaker 2: a master.
Speaker 3: Yes, he's taken on a trade, just like in that
Speaker 3: wonderful fairy tale the Satanic Mill. Check it out. It's
Speaker 3: also about magic, and it's appropriate for all audiences. I
Speaker 3: would say it's a great young adult book. So Mulholland
Speaker 3: is built from this adolescent opportunity to learn from the best.
Speaker 3: He creates a stellar professional career and he works as
Speaker 3: a magician for more than two decades. He's performing in
Speaker 3: small retinues as you know, part of like a vaudeville
Speaker 3: variety act, and then he's in larger stage shows as well.
Speaker 3: He starts headlining these. He's doing other stuff. He's not
Speaker 3: just practicing his famous rising hook trick or cup and
Speaker 3: ball stuff. He is also a prolific author. He is
Speaker 3: a prolific collector and of magic books. And in nineteen thirty,
Speaker 3: when he himself is in his early thirties, think like
Speaker 3: thirty one thirty two, he becomes the editor of a
Speaker 3: trade magazine all about magic. It's bm FM. It's by
Speaker 3: magicians for magicians. The name of it is The Sphinx,
Speaker 3: and he's a go to scholar. People consult him on
Speaker 3: the history of certain magic tricks, everything from like is
Speaker 3: this your card? To how do I appear to solve
Speaker 3: this lady in half without actually killing her.
Speaker 4: Well, I think one of the things that's always fascinating
Speaker 4: to me, or maybe later in life really truly maintained
Speaker 4: that fascination with magic is that it's not technology based.
Speaker 4: Like the real stuff. The stuff that you have to
Speaker 4: be an absolute master of, is movement based, is subtrifuge based,
Speaker 4: it's misdirection based. Like sure, there's big stage magician shows
Speaker 4: like in Vegas and the like, they use crazy set
Speaker 4: pieces and all of that, but at the heart of magic,
Speaker 4: it's all this kind of stuff that has been going
Speaker 4: on for generations and passed down and is just a
Speaker 4: matter of putting in the work and being an absolute
Speaker 4: master of your craft.
Speaker 2: Yes, but I would say like a major part of
Speaker 2: this guy's specialty is understanding the technology parts, the mechanism,
Speaker 2: the oh fre salment, you know, devices, the all of
Speaker 2: those things that are such well kept secrets. Right about
Speaker 2: how you actually saw that lady in half unless you're
Speaker 2: reading the sphinx, And even then it's probably not outright
Speaker 2: saying hey, here's how you do this with and this
Speaker 2: is the cutaway, right.
Speaker 4: I guess what I'm getting at though, is like that
Speaker 4: kind of technology that you're talking about, and that we're
Speaker 4: talking about here is it's old technology. Like it's not
Speaker 4: like there's some innovation that made the game changer in magic.
Speaker 4: Like a lot of this tough stuff and these methods
Speaker 4: and these techniques are like super low tech.
Speaker 3: The points I think we're making all stand together here
Speaker 3: because if there was a piece of technology or a
Speaker 3: technique in Western stage magic, then John Mulholland would know it.
Speaker 3: He became the premiere biblifile of the magic world. He
Speaker 3: had this cue huge collection and as far as we
Speaker 3: know it is currently in the possession of none other
Speaker 3: than David Copperfield from earlier, which makes sense. He also Muholan,
Speaker 3: not Copperfield. He became friends with VIP magicians and related
Speaker 3: experts and everything from pugilism to diplomacy. He was good
Speaker 3: at cultivating contacts, remember that part. By nineteen thirty nine
Speaker 3: he was the only member of the British Magical Society
Speaker 3: only officer who was not British. He was like there
Speaker 3: fore and hire and he had performed or studied magic
Speaker 3: in forty two different countries. Do you know how hard
Speaker 3: it was to not be in the military and travel
Speaker 3: of forty two different countries in nineteen thirty nine. You
Speaker 3: had to be like royalty, or you had to be
Speaker 3: able to do something that rich people liked to watch,
Speaker 3: you know.
Speaker 4: Oh Man callback to the first part of this episode,
Speaker 4: which I guess ultimately is just kind of a brief
Speaker 4: history of the CIA. That was such an important ability,
Speaker 4: you know, that would qualify someone to be a spied
Speaker 4: an intelligence gatherer is the ability to tran to move
Speaker 4: unseen in these other these places and not seem out
Speaker 4: of place. Right.
Speaker 2: We're not saying he was a spy at the time,
Speaker 2: but he definitely had right.
Speaker 4: But but that quality is exactly what the CIA would
Speaker 4: be looking for, is what I'm saying.
Speaker 3: Yeah, right, not the kind of person to freak out,
Speaker 3: you know what I mean, it's not their first time
Speaker 3: in Morocco, that kind of thing, And that's that's what
Speaker 3: you're that's what you're looking for. You're not necessarily at
Speaker 3: this point obviously, he's not speaking the lingua franca fluently everywhere. Right,
Speaker 3: He is there to do his job researching magic and
Speaker 3: performing stage magic. So he's legit. He's five by fives
Speaker 3: on the up and up, but he's a big, big
Speaker 3: deal in these magical circles. And to be clear, he's
Speaker 3: acknowledged to be very talented at what we call stage
Speaker 3: magic today, but he never not once made any claims
Speaker 3: toward what we will call the esoteric arts, hermetic or
Speaker 3: thelemic magic, all the proudly stuff. He was like many
Speaker 3: stage magicians or escapologist, including Houdini, he was actually quite
Speaker 3: skeptical of supernatural claims, and he did not cotton to them,
Speaker 3: as they would say, Yeah, what's.
Speaker 4: What's the guy's name, the stage magician that's always out
Speaker 4: there debunking stuff, James Rand Simpson, James Randy. Yes, that
Speaker 4: kind of skepticism seems to be a through line in
Speaker 4: a lot of these stage magic communities.
Speaker 3: One hundred percent right. And we also know that Mulholland,
Speaker 3: this is another you'll see how these pieces are all
Speaker 3: falling together, fellow conspiracy realists. Mulholland is also a US patriot.
Speaker 3: He is the kind of guy to wave the flag,
Speaker 3: so much so that during World War Two he turned
Speaker 3: his prolific pen toward the troops and he wrote a
Speaker 3: spell book as a diversion for soldiers. And we can
Speaker 3: only imagine it was the thing where you open the cover,
Speaker 3: see a little note from him, and then you.
Speaker 5: See the Magician's Oath and it says, you know, do
Speaker 5: docturn to page three to understand these hidden secrets until
Speaker 5: you have recited and sworn accordance with the Magician's Oath.
Speaker 4: This is a fun book, okay, Okay, So it was
Speaker 4: more like like some a diversionary entertainment. Yes, entertainment, I guess,
Speaker 4: because I mean the idea of calling it a spell
Speaker 4: book seems to me to be a little more along
Speaker 4: the lines of the hermetic or thelemic flavors of magic.
Speaker 3: Yeah, I mean this one too, right, was his own idea.
Speaker 3: We could, if we're being very fair, we could ascribe
Speaker 3: it to a desire to corner a niche audience market,
Speaker 3: a literal captive market, because these guys, you know, they
Speaker 3: can't leave the area of operation. Or maybe it was
Speaker 3: an aspiration to entertain the boys on the front, like
Speaker 3: like the USO would later do.
Speaker 4: Oh yeah, that was seeing some parallels there as well,
Speaker 4: Like it's his way of kind of pitching in and
Speaker 4: entertaining the truth.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and maybe it's a combination of both of those factors.
Speaker 3: Either way, he pulls it off with a plom and
Speaker 3: if we were to speculate a little bit and play
Speaker 3: with the puzzle pieces, do a little Charlie Day kind
Speaker 3: of conspiratorial Bob Ross stuff, then we could say that
Speaker 3: this self directed act of patriotism may have played a
Speaker 3: part in the events that were to follow. But what
Speaker 3: are you talking about, guys? Right now, we're talking about
Speaker 3: a break for a word from our sponsors. All right,
Speaker 3: we've returned. We know that he is a big deal magician.
Speaker 3: Mulholland has done a lot of performances, he's widely traveled,
Speaker 3: he's urbane, he has gotten through World War Two. He's
Speaker 3: been a patriot all the way. But there's a new
Speaker 3: war that is already starting. And this is something we
Speaker 3: talked a little bit about in chapter one. The frenemies.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's the US and the USSR, And a lot
Speaker 2: of the stuff that's happening is happening in the dark.
Speaker 2: Both sides are engaged in deception and trickery tactics. But
Speaker 2: I imagine it like everybody's starting out learning how to
Speaker 2: trick each other fully, like really fully what they feel
Speaker 2: is tricking someone fully, And both sides are trying to
Speaker 2: level up as much as they can on their abilities
Speaker 2: to deceive the other.
Speaker 3: Hmm, yeah, yeah, they're definitely leveling up. I would say
Speaker 3: that the the playing field is a little bit uneven
Speaker 3: because they have you know how, like this is so dumb,
Speaker 3: but I was playing Mario Kart earlier, you know how.
Speaker 3: Like in Mario Kart there are different attributes, right, Like
Speaker 3: you know you'll have one.
Speaker 4: Character, yeah, and wait even for the character you pick,
Speaker 4: they matter as well. Sorry not to get I didn't
Speaker 4: know this about you, Ben. We've got we must play sometimes.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, every every time I'm in Rome, I'll do
Speaker 3: as the Romans do, you know. And that's part of it.
Speaker 3: So the idea here than this terrible analogy of making
Speaker 3: based off sleep deprivation, is that the USSR and the
Speaker 3: US and Europe and Britain they all had different stats,
Speaker 3: different specialties in espionage. They were better at certain things
Speaker 3: like the British tended to be better at adding stuff
Speaker 3: through the curtain, right, and the Russians often excelled in
Speaker 3: other Well, the stereotype is they excelled in more nefarious exercises, right,
Speaker 3: more dirty pool. As the Cambridge Boys would put it,
Speaker 3: they were the Russians and the US were immediately fighting uh,
Speaker 3: like like you're like, you're talking about Matt. They're they're
Speaker 3: fighting to level up and they want control of former
Speaker 3: Nazi territory. This is where the Iron Curtain becomes apparent, right,
Speaker 3: this is the construction of the literal Berlin Wall. They're
Speaker 3: fighting for the future of Europe, communist or democratic, and
Speaker 3: most importantly, we would argue, they're fighting for access to
Speaker 3: the terrifying scientific minds and innovations of the former Third Reich.
Speaker 3: And Uncle Sam got the right Nazis. That's why we
Speaker 3: have NASA, That's how we made it.
Speaker 4: To the moon front of von Braun.
Speaker 2: Yeah, nukes, Yeah, and everything was evolving. In nineteen fifty one,
Speaker 2: the CIA forms this thing called the Technical Services Staff,
Speaker 2: which sounds very British to me and a lot of
Speaker 2: the terminology of their things. But these are these are
Speaker 2: the crew speaking of scientists that were pilfered, right, these
Speaker 2: are the crew. Yeah, these are the folks who are
Speaker 2: creating the technical things that you imagine when you think
Speaker 2: about spycraft. Right, the hidden compartment that is like for
Speaker 2: film or a secret message that looks just like a quarter,
Speaker 2: but it's not. It's actually a little hollowed out thing
Speaker 2: or a pen that's actually an injector or whatever.
Speaker 3: Just think about single used gun, yeah, single used firearm. Yeah.
Speaker 2: The technical services staff or just technical services if you're nasty,
Speaker 2: they are the guys who are creating this, this thing
Speaker 2: that is like magic.
Speaker 3: Right.
Speaker 2: These are little magic tricks that they're already creating, but
Speaker 2: they're just doing it based on something and operative may
Speaker 2: need or could be they think may be helpful out
Speaker 2: in the field.
Speaker 4: If you're interested. I think we've talked about this before.
Speaker 4: There's a fabulous spycraft museum in New York City that
Speaker 4: has a lot of these kinds of clandestine devices on display.
Speaker 3: And you can see them now. Please do check it out.
Speaker 3: It's worth the trip. The reason technical services, if your
Speaker 3: Nasty becomes so important in this particular turn of history
Speaker 3: is because the war that everybody has been predicting is
Speaker 3: a different kind of war. It's a new animal. It's
Speaker 3: clear to everybody in the know. It's a war fought
Speaker 3: not primarily on physical theater, right, No more Napoleonic people
Speaker 3: marching at each other. Instead, it's in the hearts and
Speaker 3: minds of human civilization. To people on both sides of
Speaker 3: the conflict, they actually share some goals, and one of
Speaker 3: their big goals is to avoid an outright hot war
Speaker 3: or what we would call a kinetic conflict today, because
Speaker 3: remember they.
Speaker 4: All radually assured destruction.
Speaker 3: Right, They're thinking of the horrors of Nagasaki and Hiroshima.
Speaker 3: They're thinking about how easily this could be repeated. They're
Speaker 3: in what Western pulp novelists would call a Mexican standoff.
Speaker 3: If one person, if one side pushes the line too far,
Speaker 3: the nukes are gonna fly and everybody is fubar. That's why.
Speaker 3: That's why stories like Hunt for Red October and the
Speaker 3: Cuban Missile Crisis and so on, that's why they hold
Speaker 3: such psychic weight in the zeitgeist at this time because
Speaker 3: everybody knows, just like the doomsday clock, everybody knows the
Speaker 3: world is teetering close to the end of civilization.
Speaker 2: So you can't oh your moves anymore. Your moves have
Speaker 2: to happen quiet.
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, yeah, real g's move in silence like Lasagna.
Speaker 3: As Wayne would say, uh. As a result, tactics and
Speaker 3: weaponry to your point, they evolve, you know, Infiltration replaces assault, cameras,
Speaker 3: radio monitoring, nascent, satellite observation, those replace artillery shells. And
Speaker 3: now more than ever, thankes Fox News. Geopolitical conflict. It's
Speaker 3: not a matter of bloody, bloody fights with armies. It's
Speaker 3: a matter of chess, and that means America needs new
Speaker 3: pieces for the board. This is where we go back
Speaker 3: to John mulholland.
Speaker 4: We need you, We need you to serve your country.
Speaker 4: John mulholland, at this point he's known, but not like
Speaker 4: you know, ubiquitously known as a stage magician. And in him,
Speaker 4: the CIA found a bit of an ace in the hole.
Speaker 4: Is that is that a gambling turn up their sleeve? Anyway,
Speaker 4: this he would have the ability to aid them in
Speaker 4: these more asymmetric goals by employing some of the tools
Speaker 4: and tricks of the trade as a stage magician.
Speaker 3: Yeah, let's go to an excellent forward by the former
Speaker 3: Deputy Director of the CIA, John McLachlan. In his in
Speaker 3: his writing, he is he is talking about mulholland. McLachlan himself,
Speaker 3: by the way, is a lifelong intelligence officer and a
Speaker 3: lifelong amateur magicians. Just so you know, he's a little
Speaker 3: bit biased and he's the perfect guy to write the
Speaker 3: forward for the official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception
Speaker 3: by Melton and Wallace. And here he says, he kind
Speaker 3: of sums up you know what you're referring to there, Nolan,
Speaker 3: He says. John mulholland was never a household word like
Speaker 3: the world famous eskepologist Houdini or more recently the illusionist
Speaker 3: David Copperfield. But still to McLachlan, Mulholland is the absolute
Speaker 3: epitome of what a magician is supposed to be.
Speaker 2: Yeah, he's got that secrecy thing on Locke. He also
Speaker 2: seems to be extremely good at what he does, and
Speaker 2: he is well, I think the word that's used in
Speaker 2: that quote is inventive, right, Like, yes, he is thinking
Speaker 2: outside the box that you put the person in and
Speaker 2: saw them in half.
Speaker 3: The magic box. He's thinking outside the magic box. Yeah,
Speaker 3: he's highly skilled. He can move with the ruffians and
Speaker 3: the groundlings, but he can well, you know, like Bridgriard
Speaker 3: Kipling would say he could walk with kings but not
Speaker 3: lose his common touch. He could go places and he
Speaker 3: was used to it. He also was.
Speaker 1: Well known in.
Speaker 3: Posh New York social circles. He's a real Goldilocks zone
Speaker 3: for the CIA. He has the social, familial, nepotistic connections
Speaker 3: that play a great role in the ad hoc trade
Speaker 3: craft of old. Just like we were talking about this earlier.
Speaker 3: Just like how LDS Latter Day Saint or Mormon missionaries
Speaker 3: of the right sort their god to your candidates for
Speaker 3: CIA recruitment. I'm telling you so cool. And Mulholland's kind
Speaker 3: of like on this level of a top pick. He
Speaker 3: checks all the boxes. And at first the idea of
Speaker 3: trying to turn a stage magician to do basically the
Speaker 3: greatest trick of his life, it sounds bonkers. You know,
Speaker 3: some of the more hard nosed out there in the
Speaker 3: field guys are probably thinking, well, what can this entertain
Speaker 3: or teach us? We're the world's most dangerous men. You know,
Speaker 3: we don't pull rabbits out of hats. We take people's heads.
Speaker 2: Because they're looking to Mulholland for advice basically, for know how,
Speaker 2: for like you said, a teaching opportunity. They're not looking
Speaker 2: for him to be the person who's out there practicing tradecraft.
Speaker 2: They're basically thinking, what can this guy teach us about tradecraft?
Speaker 4: Yeah, that's right, I mean they just they have a
Speaker 4: lot in common. There's so many there's so much crossover
Speaker 4: Venn diagram, you know, between the skills of a stage
Speaker 4: magician and spycraft, and you know the kind of skills
Speaker 4: that go into that. Both depend heavily on evasion of
Speaker 4: prying eyes, you know, of avoiding scrutiny literally sleight of hand, right, Yeah, that's.
Speaker 3: The rub of it when we see the CIA at
Speaker 3: this point, we're talking about doctor Gottlieb in particular, he
Speaker 3: realized that stage magic, which we would call the art,
Speaker 3: and his own trade which we'll call the craft, not
Speaker 3: the movie trade craft. They had so much in common,
Speaker 3: as you were saying. The Also, just like in Penn
Speaker 3: and Teller's famous TV show Bulls, both a magician and
Speaker 3: an intelligence analyst have to be very sensitive to counterintelligence.
Speaker 3: You got to know the tricks to pull them, you
Speaker 3: got to know the tricks to detect them. And this
Speaker 3: is where we run into It's a common phrase. I
Speaker 3: don't know who originated it, but in the West, counterintelligence
Speaker 3: is often described as a wilderness of mirrors because there
Speaker 3: are so many levels of possible information, disinfo, fog of war,
Speaker 3: you know, making the right lie or perfecting the correct
Speaker 3: illusion magic is very similar. You know, you have to
Speaker 3: understand the principles misdirection, red herrings, information is symmetry, and
Speaker 3: this strategy. Going back to our earlier thing, here's what
Speaker 3: I mean about specializations. This strategy was well established by
Speaker 3: Russians and the British in their earlier squabbles over control
Speaker 3: of Eurasia. Since we mentioned Bridgard Kipling before, yes he's
Speaker 3: kind of an asshole. He's definitely racist, dude, But he
Speaker 3: mentions a lot of this in his novel Kim, which
Speaker 3: is entirely about a boy child spy. I don't know
Speaker 3: if it holds up. It's been a while since I
Speaker 3: read it. All this stuff is based in fact, you know,
Speaker 3: and several legacies of tradecraft and misdirection, magic level misdirection
Speaker 3: continue today. For instance, this is a great one. I'm
Speaker 3: sure we all know this one. But growing up, did you,
Speaker 3: guys ever hear that carrots are good for your eyes?
Speaker 4: I sure did not.
Speaker 3: True, they're good.
Speaker 4: For you, but I mean the idea that they're like
Speaker 4: somehow magically good for your eyes over other things is
Speaker 4: a little bit of a misdirection.
Speaker 2: In itself, isn't it. No, they help you see in
Speaker 2: the dark.
Speaker 3: I mean, you can't see it all if you don't
Speaker 3: eat and you starve to death. So I guess technically
Speaker 3: carrots do help you. See. This is also to that
Speaker 3: excellent point, This is also propaganda. This is a grift
Speaker 3: from the British that was entirely meant to downplay in
Speaker 3: disguise the existence of radar technology. How do these planes
Speaker 3: keep figuring out where we are? How are they able
Speaker 3: to bomb stuff no one can see in the dark
Speaker 3: like that?
Speaker 4: Sir?
Speaker 3: Have you heard about the carrots? That's terrible?
Speaker 4: What about the sticks? That's the question? Nice? So why
Speaker 4: don't we in this case, as you like to say, been,
Speaker 4: exercise a bit of empathy. You don't just like say
Speaker 4: it's a good thing to do. And let's assume the
Speaker 4: perspective of the Central Intelligence Agency at this time. What
Speaker 4: they're thinking here makes a lot of sense. They're facing
Speaker 4: an enemy that plays dirty, that doesn't operate by some
Speaker 4: sort of rigid moral code, or at least maybe they
Speaker 4: have a code, but it's not necessarily one that is
Speaker 4: predictable or one that plays by.
Speaker 2: The rules, right exactly. So let's jump to a report
Speaker 2: that President Eisenhower received in nineteen fifty four that was
Speaker 2: talking about more potential surprise attacks that are on the way.
Speaker 2: And in this it's not authored by but it's headed
Speaker 2: by a retired general named James H. Doolittle. And this
Speaker 2: is the this is the quote. This is a takeaway
Speaker 2: here quote. If the US is to survive this is
Speaker 2: in nineteen fifty four, long standing American concepts of fair
Speaker 2: play must be reconcs We must learn to subvert, sabotage,
Speaker 2: and destroy our enemies by cleverer and more sophisticated and
Speaker 2: more effective methods than those used against us. It may
Speaker 2: become necessary that the American people become acquainted with, understand,
Speaker 2: and support this fundamentally repugnant philosophy.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah, repugnant is one of the words that was used,
Speaker 3: not infrequently, if anybody remembers this time, because one of
Speaker 3: the concerns was, weirdly enough, it was similar to how
Speaker 3: European forces felt fighting Americans in the Revolutionary War. These
Speaker 3: guys aren't playing by our rule book. You know what
Speaker 3: I mean, You're not doing it fair. And if you've
Speaker 3: ever been in a real fight, you know that fairness
Speaker 3: goes out the window in about two seconds.
Speaker 4: Right.
Speaker 3: That's why ninety percent of real fights out on the
Speaker 3: street end up on the ground, so quickly they're going
Speaker 3: for your hair, They're going for your eyes, your throat,
Speaker 3: and your balls, you know what I mean. They're gonna
Speaker 3: a lot. They're gonna break those bones if they can.
Speaker 3: And that's what the US is dealing with a version
Speaker 3: of that, and they're saying, look, also, our counterparts on
Speaker 3: the other side of the curtain, they don't have a
Speaker 3: problem with sending people on one way operations, you know,
Speaker 3: just like the Japanese Army would send divine wind or
Speaker 3: kamikaze pilots, you know, on these suicide missions and funny story, well,
Speaker 3: the opposite of a funny story. A lot of people
Speaker 3: don't know this. I think the Japanese Empire also did
Speaker 3: that with naval vessels. They took teenage boys age like
Speaker 3: fourteen to seventeen, and they put them on these plywood
Speaker 3: boats with a single massive depth charge and they gave
Speaker 3: them just enough fuel to hit an enemy vessel. So
Speaker 3: this is stuff that is an ass them unclean to
Speaker 3: American forces. They've got to figure out, like you were
Speaker 3: saying in the Eisenhower pull there, Matt, They've got to
Speaker 3: figure out how they how they respond in the face
Speaker 3: of something that seems so cold, right and unceasing, and
Speaker 3: is more than willing to lose a few fingers right
Speaker 3: to advance its hand.
Speaker 4: Yes, and let's also remember that the US is still
Speaker 4: relatively new to this type of operation. They have a
Speaker 4: lot of catching up to do. You know, they really
Speaker 4: do have to kind of assess the enemy and begin
Speaker 4: to shift their focus into this new kind of world
Speaker 4: of clandestine asymmetric warfare. So let's fast forward now to
Speaker 4: the presence. I believe Ben you've requested a special secretive
Speaker 4: sound cue from Triforce.
Speaker 3: Oh yes, if we're all cool with it, TryForce give
Speaker 3: us some music as we switch the present tense. Let's
Speaker 3: go in situ in media arrests. It's nineteen fifty three.
Speaker 3: What does that mean?
Speaker 4: Full on cold wars? What that means?
Speaker 2: Yeah, maybe only four years after the Soviet Union did
Speaker 2: a little nuclear bomb testing in surprise the pants off,
Speaker 2: Uncle Sam full bit? Yeah, Uncle Sam?
Speaker 3: Wait?
Speaker 2: Wait what what? And now now the all of the
Speaker 2: things we've been talking about are culminating, right, we got
Speaker 2: to get better information as fast as we can.
Speaker 3: And this is where the CIA approaches Johnny boy, this
Speaker 3: is this is so funny. It's a twisted rom com.
Speaker 3: Through a series of plausibly innocuous conversations, they pitched the
Speaker 3: idea of writing a manual for field officers work that
Speaker 3: weaponizes magic, essentially, as we're saying earlier, teach our folks
Speaker 3: to perform your tricks.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's incredible stuff. Just the idea of how do
Speaker 2: we make our guys better at giving a secret message
Speaker 2: to somebody?
Speaker 4: Right?
Speaker 2: The old what is that move called the bumping the
Speaker 2: like bumping past or the thing where no, no, the
Speaker 2: thing where you like you just brush past each other off.
Speaker 3: Yeah, that kind of thing, right pocketing, Yeah, well yeah.
Speaker 2: Yeah, pickpocketing or two agents that you know, nobody knows
Speaker 2: their agents, but they were able to pass each other
Speaker 2: and get a message, or to hide something, you know,
Speaker 2: or to kill somebody.
Speaker 3: In secret, right right, And the CIA wants Mulholland to
Speaker 3: break that magician's oath that he's loved since he was
Speaker 3: a child, and in doing so, educate dem boys, which
Speaker 3: is not how they refer to themselves. On the art
Speaker 3: of secretly administering pills and poison. In addition to transmitting messages,
Speaker 3: they wanted him, specifically to develop the skill to surreptitiously
Speaker 3: place a pill or other substance in drink or food
Speaker 3: to be consumed by a target. We're giving you that
Speaker 3: verbatim quote because it's important to know that John was
Speaker 3: cognizant of what was happening. He knew that if he
Speaker 3: revealed these techniques to people that to your earlier point,
Speaker 3: NOL didn't need a ton of technology. They were going
Speaker 3: to try to kill folks with them, like they were
Speaker 3: going to try to take his sleight of hand, and
Speaker 3: you know, slim down some life expectancies.
Speaker 4: No, for sure. I mean it's a very definition of
Speaker 4: weaponizing a craft. Mulholland accepts a meager salary stipend, really
Speaker 4: more of three thousand dollars to write this manual that
Speaker 4: we are talking about. The CIA proves this expense as
Speaker 4: part of MK Ultry Subprojects number four on May fourth
Speaker 4: of nineteen fifty three. Ben, what do you say we
Speaker 4: ridiculous history inflation? Calculate this bad boy.
Speaker 3: Ah, Yes, let's do it. So three thousand US dollars
Speaker 3: in nineteen fifty three is equivalent to drum roll, Matt,
Speaker 3: will you do the honors?
Speaker 2: Thirty five thousand, two hundred and forty five point nine
Speaker 2: to six US dollars sterling.
Speaker 4: No, it'spell never mind.
Speaker 3: I mean, look, that's a hefty payday, but it's not
Speaker 3: a ton of money. It's not what you would think
Speaker 3: of as it. I think also, we get as weekly.
Speaker 3: There's no publishing.
Speaker 4: This is just here.
Speaker 3: Here's why they're drawing on Mulholland's previously proven patriotism. They're
Speaker 3: giving him a stipend, right, but it's just kind of
Speaker 3: for his time. Uh, he's in his fifties at this point.
Speaker 3: He doesn't need the money. And we need to bust
Speaker 3: a myth that often happens with this kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Just like when you read about corrupt politicians in Congress
Speaker 3: on either side of the aisle, and you see how
Speaker 3: little it takes to buy their vote, right, like a
Speaker 3: small amount of money. We could put that together, the
Speaker 3: five of us tonight, we could do that. We could
Speaker 3: sway a member of Congress. Potentially. It turns out that
Speaker 3: the assets right and turning people and all that jazz
Speaker 3: also is way more affordable than you think. And that
Speaker 3: should scare you. That should scare the crap out of everybody. Really, Uh,
Speaker 3: we're gonna move on though, we're not gonna talk to
Speaker 3: us about that. Yeah, yeah, I'm smiling from fright. So anyway,
Speaker 3: Mulholden doesn't need money. He also doesn't need to play
Speaker 3: this game. And interestingly enough, as we see time and
Speaker 3: time again, the CIA is coming to him hat in hand.
Speaker 3: They are politely, diplomatically, if cryptically, asking him to help.
Speaker 3: They are not doing things that they've done in the past,
Speaker 3: or that the Russian counterparts would do, which is to
Speaker 3: use the stick method we referred to earlier, the stick
Speaker 3: method Karen and stick we've talked about in the past,
Speaker 3: the stick method that in this case would be blackmail,
Speaker 3: would be extortion, would be threatening a family member, things
Speaker 3: like that, which are totally possible and happen all the
Speaker 3: time in this era of history. Instead, they say, look, man,
Speaker 3: you're a patriot, we're on the same team. Also, you
Speaker 3: like magic, help us out.
Speaker 4: And he is fully on board for this. As previously mentioned,
Speaker 4: his patriotism is on full display. He's more or less
Speaker 4: in it not for the money, but to help his country,
Speaker 4: and he does so with one of his greatest tricks
Speaker 4: of all time.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, this guy is well known. He's not Houdini,
Speaker 2: he's not Copperfield, but he's known. So how do you
Speaker 2: cover the tracks and get this to spend the amount
Speaker 2: of time that it would take to create this work? Right,
Speaker 2: he's he's he is the I guess he's the editor
Speaker 2: of The Sphinx, which again comes out all the time.
Speaker 2: If he's just gone from there, you're not covering your
Speaker 2: tracks very well.
Speaker 4: Yeah, he is.
Speaker 3: You know, he's not coke, he's not pepsi, but he's
Speaker 3: kind of like cheer wine. You know, people are aware
Speaker 3: of him. He needs he needs that cover story you're
Speaker 3: talking about. So in nineteen fifty three, it comes to
Speaker 3: pass that he finally takes a sabbatical from the Sphinx.
Speaker 3: The official reason.
Speaker 2: Spend time with his family.
Speaker 3: I love it. I'm sorry, sorry, wait, no, no, no, no,
Speaker 3: let's stay there. How often do you guys think that.
Speaker 4: Is sincere, what to spend time with their family?
Speaker 3: No politicians say it, like what a politician?
Speaker 4: Very rarely, maybe never, because.
Speaker 3: They could have spent time with their family all of
Speaker 3: the years before they were caught, you know, taking illegal
Speaker 3: bribes or I hate to have to say illegal bribes,
Speaker 3: or you know, awarding with sex workers. But then it
Speaker 3: shows up in the news and they're like, I'm in
Speaker 3: a I remember I had a kid earlier. I'm going
Speaker 3: to hang out with little Tyson. I don't know why.
Speaker 3: Tyson's a funny name, but anyway, Yeah, the official reason
Speaker 3: he gives their health concerns, and the public buys it
Speaker 3: because he's got an extreme work ethic. He's prodigious in
Speaker 3: his output. He's always working and traveling and maintains, you know,
Speaker 3: reams of correspondence. So not just the public, but his
Speaker 3: colleagues in the world of magic, they all buy this
Speaker 3: and they say, you know, sometimes, hey, the guy's taking
Speaker 3: a vacation. Good for him, and that's how he maintains
Speaker 3: his secrecy. And we're going to take a break for
Speaker 3: a word from our sponsors. Then we're going to learn
Speaker 3: what John Mulholland RUMs and how, and we'll also see
Speaker 3: some of that rom com we were talking about.
Speaker 4: And we've returned and let's jump right into MK Ultra.
Speaker 4: We've already set up some of the other operations involved
Speaker 4: in this program, and Mulholland's manual is no different. This
Speaker 4: is not meant to be known about by the public.
Speaker 4: And doctor Godlieb and his cronies deploy their own kind
Speaker 4: of brand of tradecraft in an effort to conceal all
Speaker 4: of the correspondence that goes into this project writing this manual.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Yeah, it's like a courtship dance, you know, where they
Speaker 3: don't want to give away too much, but they have
Speaker 3: to convey enough information somehow that this guy can agree.
Speaker 3: There is a formal secrecy agreement. Think of it like
Speaker 3: an NDA on steroids. Obviously, someone who loves the magician's
Speaker 3: oath is also going to be kind of interested and
Speaker 3: intrigued in that. And there's shell companies, aliases, there's shadow
Speaker 3: po boxes. Quick note for all of us playing along
Speaker 3: at home. This was way easier back in the day
Speaker 3: to do physically. I think you can still do stuff
Speaker 3: like this digitally, but it's I don't know, what do
Speaker 3: you think is it easier to get Well, let's talk
Speaker 3: about what he's doing, so all right, Gottlieb contacts Mulholland
Speaker 3: under a fake name. He's should and C. Griffith representing
Speaker 3: Chemo Freil Associates via a PO box in DC.
Speaker 4: That's an amazing a globokeem name for a fake company.
Speaker 3: Kimro Field and later the peobox number changes. Kemro Field
Speaker 3: becomes the Granger Research Company. What do we say about
Speaker 3: innocuous names and news? Yeah? Yeah, and Grifford becomes Granger.
Speaker 3: Mull Holden clocks this. This is super He's guys, he's
Speaker 3: so down. He's so super down with this. That is
Speaker 3: where I have to pause and ask, do you think
Speaker 3: it's easier to do this kind of shenaniganism in the
Speaker 3: digital age or is it more difficult?
Speaker 4: I guess that there are conveniences, but there are also
Speaker 4: much more robust interception methods and monitoring methods, So I
Speaker 4: think it might be a bit of a wash.
Speaker 2: When you think Matt oh sliding a message into you know,
Speaker 2: a mailbox somewhere that get sent off that doesn't have
Speaker 2: anything on it, but what's written on it, I feel
Speaker 2: like it's pretty easy. Uh yeah, I don't know. I
Speaker 2: don't know, because you trace everything, even the most like, oh,
Speaker 2: this is untraceable. Electronic activity is if you work backwards, traceable.
Speaker 3: Agreed, Yeah, well said and Mullholland Also, he's doing his
Speaker 3: part of the dance. It's very important to be aware
Speaker 3: of this. He never refers to the CIA nor any
Speaker 3: operations by name. As a matter of fact, as the
Speaker 3: authors we mentioned, the investigators we mentioned earlier, as they argue,
Speaker 3: it's pretty likely that he did not have visibility on
Speaker 3: any specific operation, which is sort of par for the course.
Speaker 3: You can't have a morning meeting where you catch everybody
Speaker 3: affiliated with the CIA up on everything. It's just too
Speaker 3: many people, too many things. So instead he doesn't write
Speaker 3: about field operatives. He writes about performance and tricksness, and
Speaker 3: he and his it's like an improv game where they're
Speaker 3: inventing a code. As they go. They start talking about
Speaker 3: he is a trick that every prof should know, and
Speaker 3: they're in fact, step by step instructions on covert actions
Speaker 3: like you were talking about Matt with the hollowed out coin,
Speaker 3: that kind of thing.
Speaker 2: Oh, yeah, exactly. And then you jump forward just a
Speaker 2: little while later to the late days of nineteen fifty four. Well,
Speaker 2: we'll just say approximately a year in change after including
Speaker 2: that quarter, and he submits the first manual and guys,
Speaker 2: I've got an edit on the title, but this is
Speaker 2: the title that was submitted. Quote some operational applications of
Speaker 2: the Art of deception.
Speaker 4: Okay, not super sexy, but I get what it's about.
Speaker 3: What's the edit.
Speaker 2: Well, I think you start with the you say, the
Speaker 2: Art of Deception colon operational applications. That's not some much better.
Speaker 2: These are the operational Applications of the Art of Deception.
Speaker 4: You should I have Matt to name their documents.
Speaker 3: And weirdly, well, actually it's not even weird. Old Gotti
Speaker 3: loves it, as his friends called Sidney and God leaves
Speaker 3: a weird dude. Okay, it's just this. He's a super
Speaker 3: weird dude, and he's very difficult to impress. He is
Speaker 3: so on board with magic. There's something about stage magic
Speaker 3: that just brightens the date of these spooky guys. And
Speaker 3: so soon after this first manual, which I agree, Noel,
Speaker 3: that you have a better title, Matt, we wish you
Speaker 3: were in the room with him. Doctor g asked moholland
Speaker 3: to create a new book, a sequel to the Banger,
Speaker 3: some Operational Applications of the Art of Deception, and this
Speaker 3: one is instructions entirely on how to communicate information through
Speaker 3: unconventional meaning non electrical means. So mholland comes back with
Speaker 3: a different manual called Recognition Signals. It's much kind of
Speaker 3: like how Part two of this series is it's probably
Speaker 3: a little shorter than part one.
Speaker 4: Yes, so, I mean the question then becomes like, what
Speaker 4: is the difference between a stage magician and a covert operator.
Speaker 4: Early on Mulholland made note that the alpha and omega
Speaker 4: difference between stage performance and field work is the presence
Speaker 4: or the nature of an audience. I guess an audience
Speaker 4: seeing a magician consents to be tricked. However, an operative
Speaker 4: in the field is as much higher stakes as we
Speaker 4: talked about having your cover blown. It is all a
Speaker 4: non consensual act of deception. A bad magician might lose
Speaker 4: their reputation or be ostracized by the magic community or
Speaker 4: God forbid, boot off the stage, or given the old hook.
Speaker 4: An operative might be arrested, detained, interrogated, or of course
Speaker 4: killed after horrific interrogation methods and torture, you know, for
Speaker 4: just a tiny little slip up. And Mulholland describes all
Speaker 4: this these stakes beautifully.
Speaker 3: Yeah, he says, the more of the performer that can
Speaker 3: be seen, the less his chance of doing anything without detection.
Speaker 3: As an example of performer on the stage would be
Speaker 3: seen where he to put his hand into his pocket,
Speaker 3: but that action can be made without being seen while
Speaker 3: standing close to a person, so the hand is outside
Speaker 3: of his range of vision. This is pretty specific, but
Speaker 3: he's it gives you a sense of the clarity with
Speaker 3: which he writes. Right, He's not trying to wax philosophical.
Speaker 3: He's giving you what may as well be the equivalent
Speaker 3: of an ikea assembly manual. At different parts in his industry,
Speaker 3: this is called sideline or stage management. But his audience
Speaker 3: doubtlessly already recognizes this as the importance of proximity.
Speaker 2: Oh, for sure, there's all kinds of fun little tidbits
Speaker 2: in there about lighting a cigarette and the use of
Speaker 2: light in your hand, right live sleight of hand, just
Speaker 2: to do something else on the scene with your other hand,
Speaker 2: because of how much attention that action draws, Right sure,
Speaker 2: all kinds of just incredible little things like that that
Speaker 2: people do. Anyway, it's just you're, you're. He's telling you
Speaker 2: how to use that thing that everybody does is completely inocuous,
Speaker 2: and then hide something within that.
Speaker 3: Action, and how to especially in uh the second book,
Speaker 3: recognition signals. He's also talking a little, a little closer,
Speaker 3: I would say, even to the pre existing language of
Speaker 3: trade craft. You know what I mean, Like, tie in
Speaker 3: the shoe is a good old way we could talk about.
Speaker 2: Well, yeah, and how to hide somebody if you're trying
Speaker 2: to get them in or out of a place. Inside
Speaker 2: a loaded like a crate that you are taking in
Speaker 2: or out of a place. Make it look like a
Speaker 2: series of bottles, right the giant, you know, have four
Speaker 2: palettes of something, but then there's actually a compartment in
Speaker 2: there for a human being.
Speaker 3: Magic box exactly. So this is brilliant stuff. And he
Speaker 3: breaks them, just like the Cia or the oss breaking
Speaker 3: laws for a greater good. He breaks the magician's oath
Speaker 3: in service of a greater good. And he also is there.
Speaker 3: You can tell sometimes, I think his frustration or his
Speaker 3: concern that comes across because there are some things that
Speaker 3: can only really be taught in person. And one of
Speaker 3: the things that he has he takes pains to emphasize
Speaker 3: is the importance of acting natural. You know, you have
Speaker 3: to you have to look like you belong here, even
Speaker 3: if you don't speak the language. What is acting natural?
Speaker 3: It's a combination of indifference, maybe a little bit of stupidity,
Speaker 3: and then confidence, you know what I mean.
Speaker 4: Yeah, like and stuff that's kind of hard to teach,
Speaker 4: you know. Yeah, it certainly requires a certain kind of aptitude.
Speaker 4: You know, it makes you a good candidate for this
Speaker 4: kind of stuff.
Speaker 3: Swim through the water like you don't know, people can
Speaker 3: drown there.
Speaker 2: You go and look a little disheveled while you're doing it,
Speaker 2: because only a spy would be completely buttoned up in
Speaker 2: all this stuff, and you're outfit would look great and
Speaker 2: your hair would be perfect, and you know, it's really interesting.
Speaker 3: So yeah, yeah, you want to be invisible, right, You
Speaker 3: want to be non interesting. You don't want to be
Speaker 3: the Dosakis guy, because the Dosakis guy dies, so does
Speaker 3: every James Pond pretty much. But this, like that, that's
Speaker 3: the art of this stuff, and his insights are incredibly helpful.
Speaker 3: If we fast forward to nineteen fifty six, we know
Speaker 3: Gottlieb is digging the holy heck out of his favorite
Speaker 3: Patriot magician and he essentially promotes mul Holland from what
Speaker 3: we would call a contributing author to an active consultant.
Speaker 3: And there are two reasons he does this. Neither of
Speaker 3: them are based in friendship. The first reason we have
Speaker 3: to assume is that the instructions in these manuals yield result.
Speaker 3: Field operatives, whether or not they actually like magic, are
Speaker 3: able to do this stuff. They're able to really read
Speaker 3: this book and really pull off operations right.
Speaker 4: The step by step guide, you know, in the hands
Speaker 4: of qualified agents that already have that kind of aptitude,
Speaker 4: gives them this ability to execute an objective and most importantly,
Speaker 4: to make an escape, to get out there, returning to
Speaker 4: management and proceeding onto the next assignments.
Speaker 3: Yeah. And secondly, weirdly enough, most importantly, well, Holland stays quiet.
Speaker 3: He never talks to anybody about his work, or we
Speaker 3: have no record of him doing so. In the age
Speaker 3: of social media where everybody is so incentivized to brag
Speaker 3: about anything, this is pretty wild. So how do we
Speaker 3: know about this today? We teased it in chapter one.
Speaker 3: We know about this due to happy accident and intrepid investigation.
Speaker 3: This case, we owe a big, big thanks to Robert Wallace,
Speaker 3: who is the former director of the CIA's Office of
Speaker 3: Technical Services in two thousand and seven. Right, this guy
Speaker 3: is pouring through all these old documents, all these old papers,
Speaker 3: you know which ones need the famous black highlighters and
Speaker 3: so on, and he discovers these vague references to something
Speaker 3: called magician manuals, you know, like, what are these? What
Speaker 3: is responding signals? What's all this clap trap? So he
Speaker 3: tenaciously hunts them down, and eventually, after way too much time,
Speaker 3: he uncovers copies that have somehow escaped the great culling
Speaker 3: of MK Ultra. Problem is, according to what I understand,
Speaker 3: these were really low quality copies, like physically difficult to read.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you couldn't read them at all. But also there's
Speaker 2: a book opportunity sitting here right Like what if you
Speaker 2: just couldn't read them at all? Every copy of this
Speaker 2: was supposed to be destroyed in nineteen seventy three, and
Speaker 2: we've got them. That's write a book. Just get your
Speaker 2: intelligence historian friend Keith Keith Melton to help you out,
Speaker 2: and let's just put it out as a book. Baby.
Speaker 4: Well, and you know, given the way time works, these
Speaker 4: manuals at this point weren't considered classified anymore. So Wallace
Speaker 4: and h. Keith Melton were able to dig through some
Speaker 4: of these remnants and bring you know, more information about
Speaker 4: this stuff to the world.
Speaker 2: It's so brilliant because they officially don't exist, right, but
Speaker 2: you've got them.
Speaker 3: Somehow exactly. Yeah, what is it? We always used to
Speaker 3: say we don't lie. The truth changes. We've mentioned that before.
Speaker 2: There you go.
Speaker 3: It's a scary thing that people say with a street.
Speaker 4: Face, and we wonder why we don't trust the CIA.
Speaker 3: Yeah, this is a fascinating look at what are the
Speaker 3: most successful of conspiracies. These are reproducible strategies. They don't
Speaker 3: need much in the way of equipment, environment or capital investment. Right,
Speaker 3: you can hide these secrets in your head and you
Speaker 3: can apply them to the world around you. History proves
Speaker 3: that these things can happen on a small, large scale.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, the CIA and the
Speaker 3: magicians agree all the world is a stage. Mulholland dies
Speaker 3: in nineteen seventy. He never tells people about his job
Speaker 3: or about that time he went away for his health.
Speaker 3: It makes you wonder, right, how much hidden knowledge is
Speaker 3: already out there.
Speaker 4: It's interesting. On the one hand, he broke that magician's oath,
Speaker 4: but then he kind of took it back up again.
Speaker 2: I guess, oh, yeah, there's all I guarantee you there's
Speaker 2: all kinds of stuff like this out there, a lot.
Speaker 2: But you know, well, I mean and isn't it a
Speaker 2: little weird that the former director of that office of
Speaker 2: Technical Services we talked about the magicians, right, the technical magicians,
Speaker 2: he's the guy that discovers it. Kind of cool, the
Speaker 2: weird lineage that's snaked its way through the story of
Speaker 2: this stuff.
Speaker 3: I would call it interesting in the Interesting America.
Speaker 2: Yeah, hmm. It does make me think just more and
Speaker 2: more about that that underlying mind state of somebody who
Speaker 2: finds themselves immersed in these worlds, these worlds of tradecraft
Speaker 2: and all that stuff. As we said, the perceived misdirection
Speaker 2: that's always coming your way, right, everything is a misdirection.
Speaker 2: So therefore I must mix misdirect everybody outwardly because I
Speaker 2: you know, nobody can know the true me kind of
Speaker 2: thing or what I'm actually doing, because they're all doing
Speaker 2: it to me too.
Speaker 3: Yeah. Hey, if you want to totally non fictional example
Speaker 3: of this, please check out The Passage, which is a
Speaker 3: podcast series ep by you Matt with our pal Nick
Speaker 3: Tikowski as a head writer. There's an episode on Hoover
Speaker 3: that may interest you and give you a window into
Speaker 3: that kind of paranoid reasoning. Again totally factual. The other
Speaker 3: episodes are fiction. That one is one hundred percent true.
Speaker 3: It's basically a transcript.
Speaker 2: While we were recording this episode, Dan Bush, the creator
Speaker 2: of that show, was texting me, that's so funny.
Speaker 3: Yes, and check out Dan's other work. Also check out
Speaker 3: all the other episodes we have mentioned in this two
Speaker 3: part series. Folks, write to us, let us know what
Speaker 3: else is out there. What other hidden stories and strange
Speaker 3: bedfellows have the CIA created or made in the course
Speaker 3: of their existence. We'd love to hear from you. We
Speaker 3: try to be easy to find online. You can email us,
Speaker 3: you can call us on the phone. You can hop
Speaker 3: on social media. If you've listened to our episode about
Speaker 3: social media and attention spans, yep, we're we're still on
Speaker 3: there too, so don't feel weird about it.
Speaker 4: Necessary evil. You can find us the handlic Conspiracy stuffhere.
Speaker 4: We exist on Facebook with our Facebook group Here's where
Speaker 4: it gets crazy, on YouTube where we have video content
Speaker 4: galore for your perusing enjoyment, and on ex fka Twitter,
Speaker 4: on Instagram and TikTok you can find us at the
Speaker 4: hand look inspiracy Stuff, show up with there's more.
Speaker 2: Oh, yes, we have a phone number. It's one eight
Speaker 2: three three st D WYTK. It's a voicemail system. And
Speaker 2: you know what we didn't mention in here is the
Speaker 2: concept of concealment and dead drops, which was it wasn't
Speaker 2: invented by our magician friend here who created the memos
Speaker 2: that became the topic of this series, but he did
Speaker 2: revolutionize it, I think, because I just want to talk
Speaker 2: about this. What is the weirdest thing that you could
Speaker 2: hide in plane sight and put like a letter inside
Speaker 2: of it? Right, That's what it drop would be. What
Speaker 2: is the weirdest thing? Call us and let us know
Speaker 2: when you call in, give yourself a cool nickname, and
Speaker 2: let us know if we can use your name and
Speaker 2: message on the air. If you got more to say
Speaker 2: they can fit in a voicemail, why not send us
Speaker 2: a good old fashioned email.
Speaker 3: We are it's dease that read every piece of correspondence
Speaker 3: we receive. It doesn't have to be more than can
Speaker 3: fit in a voicemail. It can be a single one
Speaker 3: line that you like. It can be a response to
Speaker 3: a question we've posed in this series. It can be,
Speaker 3: perhaps most importantly, a proposal for another episode that you
Speaker 3: feel your fellow conspiracy realist will enjoy. We can't wait
Speaker 3: to play out here in the dark with you in
Speaker 3: the greatest of games. A big special thanks to everybody
Speaker 3: who took the time to email us about the Manchester Pusher.
Speaker 3: I can't believe it. We had so much correspondence. We're
Speaker 3: going to bring that to bear in a future listener
Speaker 3: mail program, and when you write to us see this
Speaker 3: we can all respond. Please tell us your favorite strange
Speaker 3: story of espionage, and to the degree that you are comfortable,
Speaker 3: tell us if you ever think you've run a foul
Speaker 3: of an active operation, We'll see you out here on
Speaker 3: the edge of the map. Conspiracy at iHeartRadio dot com.
Speaker 2: Stuff they Don't want you to Know is a production
Speaker 2: of iHeartRadio. For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app,
Speaker 2: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.