The 48 Laws Of Power

106 LAWH

REVERSAL

Informationiscriticalto

power,

but

just

as

youspy

onother

people,you

mustbe

prepared

forthemto

spy

on

you.

Oneofthemost

potentweapons

inthebattlefor

information,then,

is

giving

outfalseinformation.AsMn-

stonChurchill

said,

“Truthisso

precious

thatsheshould

always

beat»

tended

by

a

bodyguard

of

lies.”

You

mustsurround

yourself

with

such

a

bodyguard,

sothat

your

truthcannotbe

penetrated.Byplanting

theinfor-

mationof

your

choice,

you

controlthe

game.

In 1944 theNazis’rocket-bombattacksonLondon

suddenly

escalated.

OvertwothousandV-1

flying

bombsfellonthe

city,killing

morethanfive

thousand

people

and

woundingmany

more,

Somehow,however,

theGer-

mans

consistently

missedtheir

targets.

Bombsthat

wereintended

for

Tower

Bridge,

or

Piccadilly,

wouldfallwellshortofthe

city,landing

inthe

less

populated

suburbs.Thiswas

because,

in

fixing

their

targets,

theGer-

mansreliedonsecret

agentsthey

had

planted

in

England.They

didnot

know thatthese

agents

had been

discovered,

and thatin their

place,

English—c0ntrolledagents

were

feeding

them

subtly

deceptive

information.

Thebombswouldhitfartherandfartherfromtheir

targetsevery

time

they

fell.

By

theendofthe

campaignthey

were

landing

oncowsinthe

country.Byfeedingpeoplewrong

information,then,

yougain

a

potent

ad

vantage.

While

spyinggivesyou

a

third

eye,

disinformation

puts

outoneof

yourenemy’seyes.

A

cyclops,

he

always

misseshis

target.