Spies' Disguise Manual Details Subterfuges Both Clever and Silly
Dec. 13, 1999
By Janon Fisher
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| Antonio Mendez, author of Master of Disguise and a former chief of disguises for the CIA |
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NEW YORK (APBnews.com) -- The laboratory of Hollywood's makeup manufacturing pioneer Max Factor was also a test site for America's first spy agency, records show.
Factor's makeup lab worked with the Office of Strategic Services (OSS), the precursor to the CIA, during World War II to create skin-pigmentation makeup that would hold up under the scrutiny of the Axis powers.
The spy agency created the "Manual on Personal Disguise," which contained methods for masking one's identity in every aspect, from skin color to height.
"[Makeup] must look completely natural even upon close inspection, the range of colors must be unlimited, and the material must stand up under difficult conditions without needing constant care and touching up," according to the OSS manual on personal disguise. "With these requirements in mind, special experiments were conducted in the cosmetic research laboratories of Max Factor in Hollywood, where their chief chemists, their formulas and the benefit of their years of experience in cosmetology were made available for this purpose."
Tinseltown consulted until the '70s
Michael Key, publisher of Make-up Artist Magazine, acknowledged that Hollywood makeup artists were used by the intelligence community, although he said he had never participated first-hand.
"The government did solicit our help at the early part of this century up until the late 1970s. At that point I think they had enough internal knowledge that they didn't need our help," he said.
Key, however, was reluctant to name makeup artists, even those who have died, who the intelligence community called into service.
But Antonio Mendez has no reservations about talking of altering identities; in fact, he just published a book called Master of Disguise, about his 25-year career as chief of disguises for the CIA.
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These four photos are of the same operative disguised four different ways using OSS techniques. |
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"I was impressed," said Mendez. "They had to test 50 formulas to get the right combination of makeup. They obviously did a lot of research."
'An act of desperation'
"In the case of the OSS, disguise is an act of desperation," said Mendez. "They have been dropped behind enemy lines with a black parachute, and they have to make sure they don't get picked up."
Geoffrey Jones, president of the OSS Society Inc. and one of the agency's few surviving members, dismissed the manual as irrelevant. "They've churned these things out and they were probably good for someone. It's like the S.O.P. manual. They had a manual that would tell you how to make a bed. But no one ever read it."
Jones said he had done intelligence work for the OSS just prior to the Allied invasion of southern France in 1945. "I was only behind [enemy] lines for 10 days. I had a French identity, and I never saw that manual," Jones said.
'Play it for all it's worth'
The manual, discovered at the National Archives by intelligence community researcher Nathan Estey, was put out for the camouflage division of research and development in 1944, three years after the OSS was established and a year before World War II ended. It details the philosophy and mechanics of creating a credible disguise and carrying it off.
The manual begins the way a class with the famous method acting coach Lee Strasberg might have: "You must know your cover story thoroughly: Know the character or characters you will have to be, inside and out -- their clothes, facial expressions, gait, gestures, personal habits, thoughts and reactions."
"Dispel from your mind the fear that every little action is necessarily significant. A good rule to follow is never use a disguise except as a last resort -- but when you do, play it for all it's worth."
It is a philosophy that was still applied during the Cold War, Mendez said.
"It is a game of millimeters," he said.
He recalled an incident when he was trying to smuggle a KGB defector out of hostile territory. "Here was a man on the edge. We had lead him along like mother elephant with a baby elephant, trunk and tail." Mendez said he disguised the defector with elevator shoes and sunglasses and gave the man a cigar to give him something to do to calm his nerves.
"When it was his turn in line to check his passport, one of the KGB goons came out of the back room to look at him. He just lit up the cigar and blew smoke in his face," said Mendez.
Crude and ridiculous
The mechanics of disguise appear fairly crude and ridiculous at times, such as the recommendation to "hoist your trousers way up and tighten the belt. This will make your legs look longer."
Other methods are more advanced, such as the experimental wrinkling cream that slows the flow of blood to the face to help "sag" the facial muscles.
The manual, which is only 33 pages long, ends with the ultimate in disguises -- permanent change, which "requires the services of a plastic surgeon."
The manual makes it clear that the United States was fighting a war on two fronts, as these tips illustrate:
The use of pigmentation makeup is encouraged because its "advantages are readily apparent when one realizes that when white officers and men go in with native troops, it is usually the white faces that the Japs shoot at first."
And permanent disguises were geared toward evading Nazi troops. The manual advises that "surgery has been used to alter the racial characteristics of Jewish students before they enter the field."
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