The CIA guide from 1944 on how to sabotage and slow down an organisation
- Managers and Supervisors: To lower morale and production, be pleasant to inefficient workers; give them undeserved promotions. Discriminate against efficient workers; complain unjustly about their work.
- Employees: Work slowly. Think of ways to increase the number of movements needed to do your job: use a light hammer instead of a heavy one; try to make a small wrench do instead of a big one.
- Insist on doing everything through channels. Never permit shortcuts to be taken to expedite decisions.
- Make speeches. Talk as frequently as possible and at great length. Illustrate your points by long anecdotes and accounts of personal experiences.
- When possible, refer all matters to committees, for “further study and consideration”. Attempt to make committees as large as possible – never fewer than five.
- Bring up irrelevant issues as frequently as possible.
- Haggle over precise wordings of communications, minutes and resolutions.
- Refer back to a matter decided upon at the last meeting and attempt to reopen the question of its advisability.
- Raise doubts about the propriety of any decision.
This is from a sabotage manual produced by the Office of Strategic Services, the forerunner of the CIA, which was classified until recently.
The Simple Sabotage Field Manual, published in 1944, offered tips for workers in occupied Europe on traditional techniques which also included starting factory fires and cutting telephone lines.
You can find in full The CIA guide from 1944 declassified document here: https://www.cia.gov/news-information/featured-story-archive/2012-featured-story-archive/simple-sabotage.html
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