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The point to be drawn from the foregoing examples is that there may be subtle costs to a deception which should enter into the deceiver's cost/benefit calculus. It is unrealistic to expect that all of these possibilities can be foreseen ab initio. Nonetheless, a sensitivity to such possibilities is desirable.
Maxim 10: care in the Design of Planned Placement of Deceptive Material
| “ | Great care must be exercised in the design of schemes to leak notional plans. Apparent "windfalls" are subject to close scrutiny and often disbelieved. Genuine leaks often occur under circumstances thought improbable. | ” |
Two incidents can serve to illustrate this principle. Early in World War II a Cerman aircraft heading for Cologne became lost and made a forced landing near Malines in Belgium. The three passengers, two Wehrmacht officers and a Luftwaffe Major, were soon arrested by Belgian authorities. Taken to the police station and left alone briefly, they made an attempt to burn some documents they were carrying — top secret documents containing the attack plans for Holland and Belgium. The documents failed to burn and fell into Belgian hands. According to Schellenberg (55);
