Presto, alakazam! "Official CIA Manual of Trickery and Deception" magically re-appears

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

Wired Danger Room item here, and I'm gonna go buy a copy right now. (thanks, Noah Shachtman)

• [jenjen]

  If this is a government document, shouldn’t it be available free from the gummint?

• [schmod]

  Actually, it looks like plain ol’ Futura to me.

  • [Eric Logan]

    @schmod: Notice the unusual “R”s and the arms of the “K”, which are distinct TTC features.

• [cymk]

  @Eric, @schmod

  I don’t think its either, Century Gothic maybe but probably not. Notice the terminals of the “C”

• [jfrancis]

  That’s just what they want you to believe.

• [hoffmanbike]

  that doesn’t sound like to bad a deal for $3000.

• [cymk]

  Wait, a magician revealed his secrets for $3,000? Isn’t there an unwritten rule in magiciandom that you don’t reveal your secrets?

• [wgmleslie]

  I bought a copy… and ALL THE PAGES WERE BLANK!

• [Witteveen]

  I like seeing how often the first (de)classified stamp isn’t wetted or stamped fierce enough, after which the second try is done with so much more gusto.

  anyways, just love hints of a human touch in bureaucraty

• [WalterBillington]

  Isn’t it trickery and deception to say there was a book about trickery and deception?

  I mean, aren’t the C.I.A. trickeption and decepery? I don’t believe a word they didn’t say.

  Just remember to forget. Or, more usefully, forget to remember.

• [jaytkay]

  What if it’s not really the CIA book, but merely a magic book with a clever marketing plan.

  If only there were words appropriate to describe such falsehoods…

  • [cymk]

    shenanigans?

• [rebdav]

  as with all government manuals printed in the US this is in the public domain, I hope a good citizen scans it in and returns it to its rightful owners.

  • [stipes]

    While the content may be public domain (as a US government publication), the book is not. Now, I would be all for someone OCRing it and distributing the text and public domain images (although, again note, some are new and/or updated by the publisher).

• [Eric Logan]

  Oh my goodness! That’s the Toronto subway font! I wonder how it got there, since I had heretofore thought it unique to Toronto…

• [Tristan Eldtritch]

  The page on how to substitute weather balloons for crashed saucers is particularly well thumbed.