Page:CIAdeceptionMaximsFactFolklore 1980.pdf/27

C00036554 the case, surprise resulted in 67 percent of the cases, a difference significant in both practical and statistical terms — and indeed, is comparable, though of somewhat less magnitude than the effect of deception on surprise.

The empirical evidence is also consistent with (though it does not prove in a statistical sense) the hypothesis that the combined effects of false alerts and other deception are greater than either factor taken singly — leading to surprise in 23 out of 23 cases.

In view of this finding, it is an interesting curiosity that deliberate desensitization by false alerts was only rarely an integral part of the deception plan. That is, in almost all those cases involving false alerts and deception, the generation of false alerts was not an explicit part of the plan (though the architects of the plan were sometimes aware of the victim's false alerts). In some cases the cry-wolf effect was a byproduct of the deception effort. Thus, in the Peenemunde raid described earlier, the scientists and engineers at Feenemunde were as much the victims of the conditioning as the German air defenses, as revealed by this extract of Professor Werner von Braun's diary (32); "At that moment the air raid sirens sound... first