Exploring deceptions: cognitive strategies and dynamics in espionage

2.1 Gender dynamics and behaviors

There are several elements to be considered when a determined conduct is to be adopted in a given situation involving espionage. This conduct is ruled by factors such as the nature of the place – encompassing a larger sphere such as the country, and smaller ones such as the kind of activity expected to be performed there – the degree of formality, the frequenters, and others. In the manual, a prominent factor is the gender of the performers, and it should be noted that it takes into account societies in the 1950s, when certain actions were only expected from men and other actions were expected from women. These actions are, of course, circumscribed by “invisible rules,” which might very easily be broken on several occasions in the case of ordinary people, although not in the case of the spies because deviating from normality would attract attention, according to the guides. Attracting attention might be considered for that matter an anti-value object. There is a chapter dedicated to what should be only considered by women, with some parts hinting at the recommended behavior for men. There is no section exclusively dedicated to men. The chapter in question states the following overall guidelines for each group:

… trickery basically depends upon a manner of thinking and that such thinking must not violate the manners or custom of the spectator. For a woman to do some action a woman normally would not do would violate manners and customs at least by being unusual, and the unusual will attract attention which the trickster should avoid. It is not enough for the woman trickster never to perform an action which would appear unfeminine to a man; she also must never do anything which would seem unusual to another woman. In other words, a woman trickster, to be successful, always must act in the manner of a woman and never do anything in the man’s way. Of course this should not be interpreted as suggesting being girly-girly, but merely not being masculine in actions or manners.

… Earlier in this manual there were instructions for men to follow in order to appear to be stupid. A form of this technique very valuable for the woman’s pose is that she just does not understand the subject. She tries to look blank rather than dumb. This is not at all difficult when working in front of a man or men. The reason for this is (and ladies, we might as well face it) that men are never astonished when a woman does not know something. There is a major exception in this regard, for men expect their wives to know all manner of subjects. (Mulholland 2009: 120)

What is stated here is merely that the general content is ambivalent among the genders, although there are exceptions concerning women in particular which consequently highlight the content intended for men only. These are not detailed orientations but rather wide ones, orientations to be considered before deciding to engage in a given action. Still, they portray quite practical situations, allowing the learner to pre-visualize their unfolding and possibly to rehearse.

The situation presented assumes different kinds of interaction, dealing with how to maintain the disguise through a pattern of behavior, which is therefore wider than a visual disguise. The behavioral pattern is not detailed but summed up as avoiding the men’s way. The same route of avoidance is suggested for men, since stupidity will easily be utilized to stay away from interactions. The variations suggest that the majority of judgements – especially from men, we might add – would consider that a woman does not need to appear stupid because she cannot comprehend despite her efforts, in the first place. A stupid man, on the other hand, is not trying to figure anything out. A man will promote a woman to a “wiser” stereotype when she becomes his wife. These patterns of behavior may be understood as an “isotopy” according to Greimas (1966, 1970,^[2] a reiteration of semantic categories that standardize a text’s reading, just as any other behavioral pattern. For the witnesses, this pattern is expected because it fits the ordinary course of events. This means that unusual behavior will draw attention and prompt further inspection, both from ordinary people and from law enforcement. The continuity of usual behavior means that observers do not need to alter their own actions, thus distinguishing an isotopy related to the search for a spy from an isotopy related to discovering one; whereas the former focuses on identifying behavioral anomalies, the latter recognizes that such anomalies are likely to be concealed by a trained trickster. For the deceiver, the flow of continuity represents the weaving of a web where each thread aims to remove suspicions (discontinuity).

The realization of an odd element within the patterns of ordinary life is directly associated with what Merleau-Ponty writes in connection with sensation: “It is sometimes the adherence of the perceived object to its context, and, as it were, its viscosity, sometimes the presence in it of a positive indeterminate which prevents the spatial, temporal and numerical wholes from becoming articulated into manageable, distinct and identifiable terms” (1996: 12).^[3] An out-of-place object that encounters the emptiness of its surroundings may become undefinable, plunging sensation into an abyss. This undefined sensation, arousing attention, might remain on the focused object or not.

The link between the perceived object and its context may be understood as continuity, or as something within the object that supports such continuity. The latter is more suitable from the perspective of the spies, as they interfere with the objects displayed, and the former facilitates an understanding based on a position of the object in the background of perception, since the objects mingle with their environment. Further on, Merleau-Ponty states the following on association:^[4]

It is at this stage that the real problem of memory in perception arises …. We want to know how … at every moment, [the conscience’s] former experience is present to it in the form of a horizon which it can reopen – ‘if it chooses to take that horizon as a theme of knowledge’ – in an act of recollection, but which it can equally leave on the fringe of experience, and which then immediately provides the perceived with a present atmosphere and significance… To perceive is not to remember. The relationships “figure” and “background,” “thing” and “not-thing,” and the horizon of the past appear, then, to be structures of consciousness irreducible to the qualities which appear in them. (Merleau-Ponty 1996: 22)^[5]

This establishes a link between what is perceived and memories. About the same subject, Husserl proposes the following:

Every perceived reality (real thing) can perhaps not be, and thereby in principle each and every thing posited in perception and also in memory might not be. Hence it is possible for there to be nothing real. But every perception is a rational positing of something (which possibly is not), a foundational positing, and that also holds for things revoked through conflict. Every perceptual apprehension is motivated, and in this motivation it has its right to proclaim, as it were, Being. Admittedly, however, this rational positing within perception is not an absolute positing; it is like a force that can be overwhelmed by strong counterforces. Experience is the force which guarantees the existence of the world, and it is a force which constantly draws new force from itself and continuously integrates this new force into itself. Every perception, already while it endures, integrates its force, and in the perceptual nexus every perception is augmented by every other one, corresponding to all the series of fulfillments which interweave into a manifold braid, unitarily and harmoniously, the various sides and rays of the perceptions. (Husserl 1997: 251)

From Merleau-Ponty’s perspective, memory plays a significant role in perception. Memory can be put aside when considering new phenomena that do not match it, or in the extreme opposite case, it can be forced upon perception. Moreover, memory and perception are reversible between each other (1997: 23), which impacts the aftermath of a trick. Memory and the perceived object are comparable to pieces of a puzzle that might fit together or not. In other words, memory is an entirely different picture that might be compared to what the present scene offers. A comparable reasoning directed to the assignment of meaning, and not only memory, to the environment and each of its elements is presented by Uexküll (2010: 150–157). Husserl, on the other hand, considers perception as a never-ending process. Perception is an element in the construction of everything around and within the observer, including memory, and its existence is based on experience. Husserl’s depiction goes beyond witnessing in itself, which might concern a single event in comparison to the whole day, or even to someone’s life. The observed event is not necessarily the emphasized element.

Both perspectives can portray the event of someone witnessing a spy’s behavior. For Merleau-Ponty, a perception of something starts the chain of events leading to its comprehension. For Husserl, a given experience leads to a series of processes which will result in a certain perception, in a process of synthesis. Neither author states that the final product is real, though. Hence, from this point on, assumption becomes relevant, and the subject must decide if what is being witnessed is worth further investigation or not, consequently determining its reality. Both perspectives can also describe the deceiver’s performance, because the performance will ultimately affect this final product as well, although the process to achieve it, if successful, will be accomplished by the victim: Aware that perception is constructed, the deceiver provides its building blocks, which are made of what presumably already has a place in the victim’s memory, since these components are shared by all in that context (the differentiation between what is common and what is not). The spy makes use of the edges between being and appearing, and reality and truth, which are not stable and may even intersect (Coquet 1989: 155, 177).

Although the code employed in a deception is quite simple in itself and could be solved through inference, permuting and transposing the correct elements (Eco 1997: 275–276), no information is provided about where, when, or with whom the enigma is situated. The only clue is that a random person carries it; the game is not fair without additional information.

In the usual process of assessment, the closer the object is to what the observers already know (remember, or perceive) as ordinary, the harder it will be for them to suspect anything is wrong, since it has become familiar through sedimentation. If, in a glance, the eye naturally seeks for what is odd or different, one may argue that the mind operates similarly in a mental image, trying to match experience with memory and hunting for whatever falls out of that range. When the spies forcefully remain within “normality,” avoiding the men’s way in the case of women, and looking stupid in the case of men, they are simulating their own piece of the environment-puzzle as a fitting one, for the observer. Another way to address this comes from relevance theory (Sperber and Wilson 1996: 118–171), where a dissonant behavior would gain more relevance in a given situation than an ordinary one and potentially call forth the larger context of the Cold War; a perfectly fitting behavior, on the other hand, has less relevance since it becomes a component of the general scene. The behavior that fits the lifeworld of the scene is irrelevant and nevertheless effective, demonstrating the silent work of irrelevance (Strassheim 2018: 15). The deception addressed here delineates relevance and irrelevance for the spy and observers. The disguise consists in the combination of relevant elements for the spy with irrelevant elements for the observers. The sedimentation present in each pattern for the genders becomes a tool for the spy. Therefore, the deceiver works on the borders between what he or she pretends to do and what they are doing in reality. The disguise shapes the puzzle piece to facilitate and encourage its alignment with the victim’s sedimentation, but the final alignment is done by the victim. Inherently, deceiving involves the assessment of what might be sedimented within the victim’s knowledge of behaviors and environments.

Further on the manual provides more specific guidelines for women, aligned with the general orientations presented before, which concern what must be altered in each kind of performance. Such alterations concern gestures, and the nature of objects carried by women, which must never be masculine. Merleau-Ponty also emphasizes the significance of gestures, suggesting that a gesture can embody what it represents, and that one’s intention can be transferred to someone else through gestures. Merleau-Ponty’s wider approach considers the spoken word as a gesture (1945: 214, 215). In contrast, Greimas focuses on the structure and symbolic function of words, viewing them as gestures in a different sense. Gestures are understood here as bodily movements capable of conveying meaning, as suggested by the manuals.

Returning to the particular orientations for men on how to look stupid, the manual states the following:

The fact is that physically, at the moment of doing any action requiring concentrated thought, there is an alertness of appearance which is very noticeable.

A sudden alertness on the part of the performer causes wariness on the part of the spectator. The opposite of an alert appearance is a stupid one. Assuming a mildly stupid appearance during a trick will give the appearance of disinterest. Naturally this should be done to a mild degree, for suddenly having an imbecilic expression also is warranted to attract attention. Stupidity in appearance is affected by relaxing the facial muscles and throwing the eyes out of focus. (Mulholland 2009: 82)

Intrinsic effects of a given action, such as an alertness reflected by facial muscles, must be worked on by the spies. Although the author calls this final appearance stupidity, the lack of effort projected on the facial muscles might be understood as relaxation in accordance with the usual, although functional actions that the character impersonated by the spy would be performing. Mulholland considers an observer interpreting the face like someone watching a locomotive, where the other parts of the body are the wagons; the wagons must operate according to the locomotive. When the subject decreases their facial muscles’ tension, they are imprinting minimum effort on the train while operating normally. This is an active effort masked as inaction through intentional relaxation.

Therefore, although the men’s and women’s guidelines differ in their details, they follow the same pattern which might be understood in terms of sedimentation. Just as a woman is not exerting herself when she follows regular “feminine” configurations – or when she does not pursue any non-feminine behavior – a man is not doing anything suspicious when his face demonstrates no effort. Both these behaviors are taken for granted by the observer, who merges subject and scenery into an indecomposable meaning (Merleau-Ponty 1990 [1942]: 184–185) and allows sedimentation to become raw matter for the trick.

The gender-oriented guidelines summarize what a performed lie, or a “lie acted” (Mulholland 2009: 68), means. Such behavior is quite different from acting naturally, since the precise actions that are executed intend to mislead. While the manual tends to instruct tricksters to avoid verbal interaction, the behavior of the trickster resembles the performance of an actor, a similarity indicated by Mulholland a few times through the use of “actor” as a synonym for “trickster”; and it also agrees with the semiotic definition of an actor (Greimas and Courtés 1993 [1979]: 7–8). Furthermore, if one considers a regular situation comparable to those discussed above, a minor imperfection absolutely to be avoided by the trickster is likely to occur with ordinary people. That is to say, there is a slight difference between natural and conditioned behavior. Such natural flaws will likely be remembered, although for a very short time. It is hard to picture a woman, for instance, in that period or before, who would constantly act according to the entire set of spoken and unspoken rules expected from women. In contrast to actual ordinary behavior, the trickster is trying to give the impression of an uninteresting individual rather than just an ordinary one.

The act involves a process of subject construction. Although the constructed subject is likely attained prior to the act, there is a continuing meta-goal of appearing as a non-subject (Coquet 1989: 65–66), mostly through gestures aimed to be irrelevant. The goal is to be a constructed non-subject, a deliberate no one. This, in turn, is a means to an end: to execute the spy’s task at hand. Hence, during the act, the trickster is both a spy and an extremely average citizen who is commuting, having dinner or whatever suits best the scene of the trick, which makes the trickster at least partially a meta-subject able to operate a transformation (Coquet 1989: 106). The ultimate judge of the constructed neutral subject is naturally the target or witness.

2.2 Group infiltration and behavioral tactics

The cases presented by the instructions to be analyzed now involve what can be understood as more direct confrontations, a closer interaction between the spies and their targets. When the objective is to become a member of a group, the spy cannot avoid receiving attention from that group, which demands a strategy to deal with this fact. In a situation where an assistant is present, the assistant is free to become the focus of the group, and the trickster pretends only to accompany the assistant without further interest. The assistant can become a beacon, allowing the spy to perform the job. An assistant can do this in several different ways, including by simulating anger. Mulholland states that this method is very effective when it can be used (2009: 135–136).

When there is no assistant, the spies themselves must become the focus of attention. This is to be done in a way that keeps them away from the possibility of being discovered. The following, real-life example concerns a case where the spy resorts to sleight of hand to prepare the trick.

For example, undercover officers often face difficulties infiltrating suspicious groups who are wary when approached by strangers. One solution was a simple trick, the “magic beer coaster,” to attract attention and have the target “come to him.” A folded U.S. fifty dollar bill was inserted into a Heineken beer coaster that had been sliced apart with a razor, then reglued and placed in a book press to flatten as it dried. The officer appeared several nights at the bar and drank alone while slowly tearing apart a stack of Heineken coasters. When the bartender eventually asked why he was doing this, the officer responded, “Heineken places fifty-dollar bills as a little-known promotion in unmarked beer coasters.” An hour later, the officer employed sleight of hand to introduce a gimmicked coaster into the stack in front of him. When he later tore apart the prepared coaster and “discovered” the fifty-dollar bill, he celebrated loudly and offered to buy a round of drinks. The onlookers came to him! Though the fifty-dollar coaster attracted attention, the full effectiveness of the illusion was dependent on the officer’s stage performance and his sleight of hand. (Melton and Wallace 2009: 33–34)^[6]

In cases like this, the spies do the very opposite of what was discussed in the previous subsection: they attract all attention to themselves. Intentions signal the presence of volition – which negates a non-subject – so there is no concern here with emulating a non-subject. The agent serves as a beacon, providing security for the concealed action that may also be performed by an assistant. Precisely by becoming known through an explicit appeal, the trickster ceases to be suspected. According to Sperber and Wilson, the relevance of an interpretation compared to others comes from the smaller processing effort that it requires (1996: 166); in this sense, it is “easier” not to mistrust the addresser if there is no reason for it. Every action is nevertheless oriented towards the spies’ goal of infiltration and selected according to each specific situation; only the disguise’s appearance becomes known. Considering both wills displayed in this kind of spying action, the action operates as a whole through the dichotomies between a will to do (vouloir-faire) and its contradiction (Greimas and Courtés 1993 [1979]: 30, 421–422), as per Figure 1.^[7]

Figure 1:

Juxtaposition of volitions.

The will to carry out the espionage is not only encapsulated by the lack of will implicit in the disguise, but even embodied by it: By expressing great interest in seeing a factory, a spy might gain access to it for the purposes of espionage instead of merely curious observation. In cases like this the consequential spying act is in itself translated, since seeing a factory might be indistinguishable from spying on it, constituting optimal circumstances for the trickster because there is practically no need to mask the intention.

This also means that the addressee will build a belief (croire) concerning the trickster’s fake identity and therefore stop acquiring more knowledge (savoir) about them. As soon as the addressee becomes aware of the fake identity, however, they will start to build knowledge. If the addressee becomes aware of the trickster’s real intentions, a different kind of knowledge will be formed. From each kind of knowledge, a different kind of belief results in each case, a belief that the person in disguise is a spy, or a belief that they are something else: the end of belief means the start of knowledge and vice-versa (Bastide 1982: 8–11). The establishment of a belief in the disguise sets the cognitive stage for deception, enhancing the likelihood that it will go unnoticed throughout the procedure, and increasing its chances of success.

The explicit appeals present in each operation are connected in a chain and establish a new continuity within the environment. Taking the beer coaster trick as an example, it is possible to observe each link of this chain from the perspectives of (real or attributed) intentions and attention/sensation, considering the utterances involving the trickster and the target. According to the first perspective:

1. overt intention of the deceiver: to be welcomed by a group of people;

2. as part of the intention: the will to become a beacon (by causing a mess or trying to find money), not by announcing it, but rather by being noticed;

3. these actions cause a rupture in the lifeworld of the bar;

4. this rupture ends up being euphoric or dysphoric within the respective lifeworld, but never neutral as it is embraced by the witnesses;

5. if successful, the deceiver is welcomed or allowed to act.

This particular intention is of course merely a decoy for the deceiving intention, which is hidden. On the other side:

1. intention of the deceived: to carry on their activities, while possibly being aware of their environment;

2. they notice that someone is performing actions which do not belong to this lifeworld;

3. either the understanding that what is happening is just slightly out of the ordinary or the repetition of these actions is eventually assimilated into this micro-lifeworld, reducing the sense of threat;

4. learning the deceiver’s fake intention and aligning with it brings the subjects closer together.

According to the perspective of sensation/attention:

1. the deceivers’ attention towards creating the beacon works as a trap, but is real and operates as the initial stage of a process;

2. the second stage of this process is to capture the attention of others, which mostly takes place slowly as the actions are assimilated;

3. the third stage is to gain acceptance through the sharing of the fake goal, focusing all attention on the act.

4. on the side of the deceived, the scattered attention of the spectators turns to a rupture of their lifeworld;

5. since this rupture does not affect them and repeats itself, the possibility of a threat is eventually dismissed;

6. learning the (fake) goal of the deceiver unfolds into a shared attention on the performance.

Observing these two processes we realize that while intention and attention may look similar, in the spy’s playbook, the first is an end, and the second is a means. One perspective does not negate the other; the perspective of intention allows the detailed contemplation of an active facet of the performance, while the perspective of attention emphasizes a passive facet. Despite these descriptions of two different perspectives, the task is not achievable at all without the due application of both “tools.” An initial intention aimed at the objective gives rise to subservient intentions throughout the performance, and attention is required to follow or adapt each of the steps as they should be, while remaining alert to the circumstances of the environment. During the performance, deliberate and compelling somatic stimuli direct the target’s attention, thereby imbuing it – on the spy’s side, with intention and purpose. But regardless of the intensity of their intention, attention cannot be held continuously against the will of its original owner. Outside of a specific task, attention and intention are not necessarily interdependent. One may have an intention without taking any action towards it, just as one may lack a specific objective and instead contemplate certain thoughts or one’s surroundings.

For the deceiver, the repetition of an action or even an outburst of rage helps establish a smaller lifeworld within the broader environment, and eventually leads witnesses to withdraw their suspicions. For the deceived, while the initial observation of such actions draws attention and generates the intention to investigate, as those actions are gradually sedimented and become part of a general continuity, the threat is dismissed, leaving only curiosity, which aids in establishing the new isotopy. However, the expectations raised by the repetition must be considered for the establishment or non-establishment of the new isotopy. The deceiver feeds expectations through the connection between the repetition presented and the most likely and understandable outcome. This is understood as a presumption of isotopy, or the facilitating effects of semantic recurrences according to Rastier, a significant process in the perception of contextual lexical meaning (1991: 220–222).

2.3 Techniques and applications of strategic signaling

Recognition signals are means applied when one spy is to recognize another without being acknowledged by potential witnesses. Although the denomination is given by the guides, these “signals” actually constitute intentional signs that convey information (Nöth 2012: 144) against a cultural background. The selection of such signs follows the same principle of the other tricks, which consists in remaining within the range of normality for each situation. For an observer, these signs constitute indices that do not necessarily have to appear intentional (Goudge 1965: 53). Therefore, a recognition signal used in a library would most likely be different from one supposed to be used in a restaurant or train station. Depending on the situation, a range of different signals could be used, each serving a different purpose, such as facilitating the recognition of partners, giving orders to proceed or stop, or updating mission status. This type of sign carries a codified message presented through the code of the place, as per Eco. A recognition signal can be understood as a cloak, where a definition corresponds to a syntagm (Eco 1997: 270), with the reference language being composed by raw elements of the pragmatic cultural environment instead of words.

A recognition signal is in most cases an ordinary object arranged differently (Figure 2).

Figure 2:

Examples of recognition signals. Source: Mulholland (2009: 147).

It is imperative for the object in question to be ordinary, as this is where its connection lies to what is considered normal by a witness. Likewise, its different arrangement should not be emphasized too much, but only slightly. Other examples of such objects include a specifically colored feather in a hat, a different button in a coat or shirt – or even a missing button– a package being carried, a particular color or knot in a tie, etc. Briefly, anything acceptable which would present an insignificant meaning for a witness, but not for another spy, could be employed. It is important to notice that regardless of the chosen element, it should be completely functional. That is to say, a button will still perform its role as a button, shoelaces will be tied on somebody’s shoes, and a pen will still work as an ordinary pen. A similar process is described by Rastier when addressing the concept of a “universe,” which stands for an autonomous set of semantic graphs related to at least one actor. When there is a relation between two universes, it is possible for one of them to contain graphs that are replicated from another (1989: 82–84). Here, the replicated graphs understood as true in one universe are also true in the other one, while other graphs may be differently understood as false or possible in each universe. Just as with a social performance, acceptable elements from the expression plane are employed to configure the content plane of the detail that represents the secret code or recognition signal.

For distance signaling (other than manual) are variations in attire. These must be both permissible so as not to attract attention and yet clearly visible at a distance to the knowing observer.

… Alteration of design (such as with the shoelaces) is almost as much of an attention attractor to the person looking for it as is color. Another design variant is using one different button on a shirt or vest. (Mulholland 2009: 143, 146)

The question of rearranging a common element with a particular intent once again raises the question of implementing an intention, where the intention is placed and materialized upon an object. The partners are only able to direct their attention to this element because they are aware of this particular sign. It cannot be completely invisible, since it must attract attention to a certain degree. The problem of simultaneously attracting and dismissing attention is handled through the configuration of a sign among elements of a particular lifeworld. The codification of this configuration will not be open, and the fact that the sign is also unannounced hinders a possible interpretation through pragmatic inferences (Rastier 1991: 216).

As far as the witnesses are concerned, it is noticeable how important they are for the conception of such deceits because they are the ones in control of what is acceptable and what is not. The witness will always have the option to decide whether a different pattern of shoelace is irrelevant or not, and this ability is pondered by the trickster who will employ an object that has to be visible but yet on the margins. In order to decide what is going to be employed, although there may be a number of possibilities, the trickster’s decision will focus on what is sedimented for the witness.

For instance, all the items that the author of our manual discourages from use because they may attract attention may be understood as not sedimented. Shoelaces may be rearranged, but a shoe must not be missing; a button of a shirt might be missing, but not the shirt. Those elements of attire compose an established pattern where each one of them is an expected whole; they can be flawed but not inexistent, and they must not be completely out of pattern. Otherwise, these elements would be placed beyond the ordinary lifeworld, or they would not be recognized as following the cultural code prescribed for a particular place (Eco 1997: 298).

2.4 Maneuvering deception through different contextual realities

By considering the trickster and witness as involved subjects and analyzing the trick and its conception from two different theoretical perspectives, we can better understand the development on both sides: The tricksters, in their active performance, deal with intentions; the witnesses, in their passive performance, deal with perception and attention; and the trick is devised based on lifeworlds and sedimentation.

Nevertheless, during the employment of the trick all lifeworlds considered overlap. There are three lifeworlds that have a significant impact on this matter, each with its own history and tradition: one concerning the country and culture where the trick takes place, which would always be a foreign country; the particular location, which would usually be a space of public frequentation; and the atmosphere of suspicion particular to times of war and espionage, which is even higher where a target to be stolen from or dealt with is involved. This overlapping might also be described as different universes assigned to a single actor; not all actors will have a universe attached to them, but an actor may be placed inside the universe of other actors (Rastier 1989: 83).

Although the manuals do not approach these matters, some passages help delineate the procedure of the spies when navigating different lifeworlds:

Resuming the description of the attributes of a successful trickster, let it be repeated that he should be so normal in manner, and his actions so natural, that nothing about him excites suspicion. This does not mean that he has to be of any particular size or shape, or that he has to make gestures when he talks, or refrain from making them. It means only that he has to be himself – as he is at his calmest moments. That person who naturally speaks and acts rapidly will do well to learn to make both speech and actions more slowly. Tricks never are done rapidly and slowing up at the time the trick is done becomes noticeable. The big point is to be comfortably natural or, at least, to give that appearance. (Mulholland 2009: 71)

When Mulholland states that the spies should mimic themselves in their calmest moments, he is basically guiding them to behave as if they had nothing to worry about and to shift their concentration focus to an inner point. By doing so the trickster reaches for deeper sedimented structures, where people will take for granted the emotional state in which someone accomplishes a given kind of task. The instructions go beyond what and how something should be done, encompassing how one should act while doing it in spite of the delicate situation. This also indicates the importance of knowing how to interact with lifeworlds: When someone is calm, an observer will discard more straightforwardly the possibility of this person being in contact with different lifeworlds at the same time, a description that might easily give away a spy. In order to move freely between lifeworlds, spies need to place themselves within the first two lifeworlds and at the same time outside of the third one, which is their original and encompassing one. No further details are provided in the disclosed part of the manual regarding how this shift is to be performed, except that it requires training.

The movie Argo (2012) exemplifies in more detail how such a fluctuation process works in a practical manner.^[8] The narrative portrays the real process of the exfiltration of US diplomats from Iran during the 1979 revolution (Melton and Wallace 2009: 30–31) through the use of deception. In this case, the diplomats were in a hostile environment and could not merge with the locals. They had to stay together, which nevertheless would not make the environment any safer. The trick’s conception had to involve foreigners in Iran with a very good reason to be there at that specific time. The trick could not be too difficult to learn and execute, given the inexperience of the diplomats. Furthermore, they could not reveal their nationality, and the easiest choice was for them to pose as Canadians due to several reasons, including cultural similarities.

In the plan devised, the character Tony Mendez was the trickster posing as the producer of a film called “Argo.” He would reach the hiding diplomats with fake documents, train them to act as film production staff and later rescue them on a routine flight. The initial parts of the trick were in fact agreed upon with the “host” country, since the tricksters managed to provide each detail a real movie would have, including a real film production company and related news published by entertainment magazines. Iran was open to their search for a location, but the group still had many obstacles to overcome in their plan, as they would be dealing with various kinds of people in charge, and with constant suspicion.

The paperwork and all the elements provided surrounding a film production were real, but the diplomats relied on the lifeworld of a film production as a shelter for hiding their true identities. Differently from the circumstances addressed in the previous subsections, the trickster and the diplomats were officially acknowledged as their characters from the beginning. They had complete identities assigned to them, with occupations that were not common, making them stand out. It was not required of them to actually perform their fake jobs, but only to provide trustworthy impressions. This deliberate positioning was part of the plan, as it aimed to keep the authorities focused on verifying the narrative as a whole. As long as the diplomats kept to their assigned roles, the deception would work, and within the borders of their roles they would have a reasonable range of possibilities.

The set of objects the trickster team provided to the Iranian government falls under the figure of a “fiduciary contract” (Greimas 1970; Greimas and Courtés 1993 [1979]: 70–71)^[9] in its initial stage of establishment, where both parties valuate the objects to be traded and trust is established. There are multiple objects in this set: the company that was created, the advertisement for the film, the documents concerning the authenticity of the production, their contacts in the base of operations, and the identities created for the people involved, each of them with their own particularities.^[10] Their behavior, the part they were supposed to perform, is connected to a subsequent stage of the contract, but still under scrutiny by the other side – blending into a trial of the subject (Greimas and Courtés 1993 [1979]: 83, 131) – so that a failure could lead to a rupture of the contract.

Outside of the contract, these elements occur as independent figures, as they receive semantic investment (Greimas and Courtés 1993 [1979]: 147–148). Semantic investment happens when each of the elements is converted into credibility in the eyes of the Iranian government. When put together, they function as subdivisions of the contract figure, which is in turn related to the broader theme^[11] of art, and specifically to the context of the film industry. In this case, art is the value that connects deceiver and deceived, except that for the deceiver, art is merely the decoy theme required to conceive and execute the trick.

Everything that a film production is expected to provide must be included in this list forming the framework of the fiduciary contract, and anything a film should not include could raise suspicion: Figures not easily associated with cinema would present a gap which could allow them to be associated with other themes, including that of deception. It is possible to visualize this constellation of figures and themes as shown in Figure 3.

Figure 3:

Connection of theme and figures in Argo.

If the deception is now shown as one of the figures in the lower part of the picture, it can be correlated at the same time to the theme of art and the film industry and to another theme, which in this case translates as the planned exfiltration. In Argo this figure lies in the identities of the staff, something that could not be verified aside from data provided by the diplomats themselves in various ways during their subsequent interactions.

The same configuration works for the other deceptions addressed above, so that the dual figure becomes a link between themes (Figure 4).

Figure 4:

Connection of themes and figures in deceptions.

The matter contained by the fiduciary contract will present some variations, except for the agreement that all figures match and are acceptable within a given theme. The same can be said about the following stages of the contract, where perception plays a significant role on a somatic level. Each piece of information provided by the actors through gestures, clothing, manner of speaking, and other channels operates as an element of credibility, and the actors bear the duality of their fake and real identities. This linking process can be expanded more than once to create a chain marked by such dual figures, and in theory those figures could reference more than two themes. Although in Argo the ambiguous figure represented by the lack of expertise on the diplomats’ part was flawed – in the sense that a deeper assessment would possibly unveil the deception – in most of the other deceptions this figure was completely functional on both sides, making it an actual dual figure. Different lifeworlds can be similarly managed through the same process, by inserting a dual figure without severing its ability to be fully recognizable in both environments. When the performance is physically executed, the dual figure is embodied by the actors, who – in the ideal case – can seamlessly shift between two roles.

For this deception of a film production the trickster has likely considered an important circumstantial aspect of the place where they would be operating: Any studio would hardly choose such a complex location when they could easily pick another with similar landscapes. When the newly installed government approves a request to scout film locations to serve their own goals of propaganda and arts promotion, they are also confirming that the world, or at least a part of it, has already acknowledged what transpired there. The trickster is dealing with a recently formed lifeworld.

Furthermore, no film worker would be at ease in that situation, especially when they could be mistaken for Americans during their local interactions. The lie acted in the Argo case was not so much according to how a real unfolding of events would be, were it a real movie, but rather according to what the witnesses were possibly expecting based on how they perceived their own everyday lifeworld and that of the film industry. For this trick they were not trying primarily to fit in a given lifeworld, but first they emulated one where they could fit in, thus creating their own shelter. They fabricated a reality based on stereotypes, on what concerned merely supposed behavior, and worked for it to be judged as truth (Coquet 1989: 186). The advantage of doing this lies in the control of this universe, for what is true, possible or known is only definable for a particular universe and by a particular actor (Rastier 1989: 82).

A noteworthy example of this is presented during one of the scenes when the characters walk through the bazaar and one of them takes a picture of a shop. The shop owner argues that he should have been consulted before, demands the picture and soon a dispute takes place, with the shop owner being backed up by the crowd. In response to his arguments the trickster justifies what has just taken place by replying: “It’s okay, it’s her job to take photographs. She’s the production designer.” The picture is handed over by the photographer, which, however, does not prevent the quarrel, as the shop owner takes them for Americans and changes the topic to politics, and the tricksters have to leave. Their first response might appear as an overreaction considering the risks they were assuming: They could have apologized and asked for the shop owner’s permission, trying to avoid escalation for the sake of politeness from the beginning – even in less troubled times. However, they were being accompanied by a representative of the Minister of Culture and Guidance, a member of the collective subject that constituted the trickster’s target who was observing the argument. When the tricksters justify the photograph being taken, they do not simply stick to their roles, but they also state implicitly that the national situation is not at all affecting the lifeworld portrayed by them, and that it is perfectly acceptable for a film to be shot there. The argument’s outcome strengthens the disguise: they are exploring locations for their film and will try to stand against whatever compromises their goal. Expanding the scheme presented above, marked by the presence of a dual figure, a visual interpretation of this linkage could be the following (Figure 5).

Figure 5:

Linkage of cognitive layers in Argo.

The two central layers of the picture (the conflict is assimilated and stereotyped entertainment industry) represent the shelter established by the trickster. The central layers are patched into the surrounding ones (the real situation and espionage/disguised diplomats). The aim of this is to create a path of acceptable possibility. For the tricksters, this kind of operation means a greater level of difficulty compared to cases where the spies can roam freely in a given space because they have not been previously identified. The inevitable high exposition is dealt with through a linking of cognitive layers as presented in the picture, all of which are ultimately connected to the somatic domain.

During the diplomats’ last performance at the airport, a similar situation is portrayed as their date of arrival is going to be checked and they know that there is no register for that, which could potentially become a problem. When the airport officers cannot verify it, the group announces, quite nonchalantly, the existence of a letter from the ministry of culture approving their exploration. Through this manner of expressing themselves, they are once more defending the planned stereotype by simply ignoring the local situation. This narrative sets the cognitive domain as a place of multiple layers, as exemplified in Figure 5. The layers created by the trickster must prioritize the execution of the trick, and they may match, conflict, or run parallel to the encompassing lifeworld. A parallel layer may be understood as irrelevant for the addressee, while a matching layer is relevant, but not as relevant as a conflicting layer would be (e.g., the declaration of a straight opposition). Being aware of this enables the subjects to control their movements at least partially. Within the cognitive domain, each pattern works as one of those layers, including the lifeworlds, which helps in building a shared cognitive space. In each case, the trickster must be careful to constitute a layer that fits the environment according to the task, allowing free movement and not attracting suspicion as to what must be concealed. The usual operation will opt for a parallel layer where the deceiver remains practically imperceptible, while Argo required a matching layer instead, since the usual “invisibility” was not an option.