The purpose of this web site is to make sense of liars whom I’ve lived and worked among, against, and for in my life. There are moments when I shake with rage at the memory of trust broken; as well I quiver with shame at the memory of breaking trust. We deceive and are deceived, by others and ourselves. It is this topic of deception––state-to-state and person-to-person–– about which this web site dances.
This web log addresses denial and deception, its dozens of synonyms in English (and Russian), how deception (and its synonyms) is defined, was applied and sometimes countered in the twentieth century.
How best to address deception––in fiction or non-fiction, in novel or memoir?
I am writing a set of four novels which follow four characters: one American; Michael Richard Belisle: one Canadian, Marie Jeanne Charbonneau, and two Russians; Danton Larionov and Ekaterina Soroka, each living in worlds where the deceptive arts are practiced. I follow them from youth to retirement as they conduct the US-USSR intelligence and counter-intelligence wars, practice the deception and counter-deception arts.
It is a puzzling life.
As intelligence was professionalized as a military and diplomatic force multiplier, so were its countermeasures, i.e. counter-intelligence, of which deception (and its synonyms) is a subset. I am revisiting twentieth century history with an eye to where purposeful deception might have impacted events. I will eventually write a non-fiction book on this research, but as of yet I have not even an outline.
One does not exclude self-deception from an examination of the deceptive arts. I will examine the extent to which the deceived is gullible, and how the deceiver, opportunist that he must be, uses the gullible.
So I seek in the world those also interested in the art and artifice of deception, what skills and awareness create it, likewise what skills and awareness counter it. I solicit your commentary.
