Recently, behavioral scientists have examined interpersonal manipulation and its effects on individuals, groups, and society. Richard Christie's description of the Machiavellian personality orientation highlights the behaviors of those individuals who are highly successful manipulators of others. Scanning some Machiavellian works for items to tap the construct, a pool of 71 was constructed by Christie and an attempt is made here to investigate the factorial structure of Machiavellianism using the original 71 items. The questionnaire (Mach II) was administered to three student samples; each item scored by a seven point Likert type scale. The aim was on generalizing to a universe of items from a sample of items. An alpha factor analysis yielded a 24 factor solution. Only those factors which accounted for 2 percent of the variance or more were retained; the others were assumed to be inconsequential. Data suggest that the dimensions which Christie assigned a priori to the items in Mach II are not factorially independent nor do the results of the present study approximate such a theoretical point of view. Reasons for the discrepancy in results are postulated. (RC)