ONE: Compartmentalization.
The tasks necessary to carrying out the operation are divided among players at different levels. In a successful op, these groups of players are unaware of each other. They wouldn’t be able to confess to more than their own roles.
And in many cases, the disparate players would never believe they were part of an op. They would swear they were “doing good”—as, for example, in medical research that was—unknown to the researchers—actually designed to obscure a chemical attack on a population, by locating a virus as the false culprit. By training and by general stupidity, the researchers are always predisposed to finding a virus. The last thing on their minds is that they’re part of an op.
TWO: Gaining tremendous media coverage for the effect of the op (even exaggerating the effects), while hiding the cause and the players who planned it.
THREE: Blaming the wrong people as the originators of the op. Relentlessly discrediting truth tellers who see what’s really going on.
FOUR: Developing and promoting a false cover story to describe the details of the op; in many cases, those details are wrong. For example, the famous truck bomb parked at the curb of the Murrah Federal Building on April 19, 1995, did most assuredly not cause the human and property destruction that ensued. There were bombs inside the building.
FIVE: Laying down false trails for investigators and independent researchers. In the wake of the JFK assassination, we saw the emergence of many, many “alternative” scenarios. Some of that “information” was designed to lead into dead-end alleys—after much time and frustration.
SIX: At least several goals. In any large covert op, there are a few different objectives, at different levels. For example, certain players gain an increase in status; profits for the elite planners; control of market share; demonizing of opponents; general demoralization of the population. Arguments over “the real purpose” of an op are often misguided. There was never just one purpose.
