Page:CIAdeceptionMaximsFactFolklore 1980.pdf/52

C00036554 A common feature of the successful deception efforts is that they were designed to co-opt skepticism by requiring some participation by the victim; either a physical effort in obtaining the evidence or analytic effort in interpreting it. Cave Brown, in writing the story of the Normandy deceptions (58) captured this idea well when he wrote: As Bevan pointed out, masses of misinformation could not simply be handed over to the Germans. It would have to be "leaked" in bits and pieces in indirect and subtle ways from places far from where the main battle would be fought. No one knew better than Bevan that intelligence easily obtained was intelligence readily disbelieved; it was the cardinal rule of deception. The Germans would have to work for the "truth," and once they had pieced it together, after much labor and cost, a convincing whole would emerge..." (Emphasis added).

Sir John Masterman, who was a principal participant in the XX Conunittee charged with the responsibility of running double agents during World War II makes the identical point (59): You cannot baldly announce to the enemy that such an operation is in preparation or that such and such a division is being trained to invade North Africa or Norway. What you have to do — granted that you control the major part of the German intelligence service — is to send over a great deal of factual information, introducing into it those facts from which the German intelligence staff will