textfiles/anarchy/FDR/fdr-0274.txt

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KUBARK COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
INTERROGATION
July 1963
TABLE OF CONTENTS
I. INTRODUCTION 1-3
A. Explanation of Purpose 1-2
B. Explanation of Organization 3
II . DEFINITIONS 4-5
III. LEGAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS 6-9
IV. THE INTERROGATOR 10-14
V. THE INTERROGATEE 15-29
A. Types of Sources: Intelligence Categories 15-19
B. Types of Sources: Personality Categories 19-28
C. Other Clues 28-29
VI. SCREENING AND OTHER PRELIMINARIES 30-37
A. Screening 30-33
B. Other Preliminary Procedures 33-37
C. Summary 37
VII. PLANNING THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 38-51
A. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation 38-42
B. The Interrogation Plan 42-44
C. The Specifics 44-51
VIII. THE NON-COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 52-81
A. General Remarks 52-53
B. The Structure of the Interrogation 53-65
1. The Opening 53-59
2. The Reconnaissance 59-60
3. The Detailed Questioning 60-64
4. The Conclusion 64-65
C. Techniques of Non-Coercive Interrogation of Resistant Sources 65-81
IX. THE COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
INTERROGATION OF RESISTANT SOURCES 82-104
A. Restrictions 82
B. The Theory of Coercion 82-85
C. Arrest 85-86
D. Detention 86-87
E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli 87-90
F. Threats and Fear 90-92
G. Debility 92-93
H. Pain 93-95
I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis 95-98
J. Narcosis 98-100
K. The Detection of Malingering 101-102
L. Conclusion 103-104
X. INTERROGATOR'S CHECK LIST 105-109
XI. DESCRIPTIVE BILIOGRAPHY 110-122
XII. INDEX 123-128
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I. Introduction
A. Explanation of Purpose
This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator.
At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes
of poor interrogators.
Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation,
and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant
sources. Designed as an aid for interrogators and others immediately
concerned, it is based largely upon the published results of extensive
research, including scientific inquiries conducted by specialists
in closely related subjects.
There is nothing mysterious about interrogation. It consists of
no more than obtaining needed information through responses to questions.
As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than
others; and some of their superiority may be innate. But sound interrogation
nevertheless rests upon a knowledge of the subject matter and on
certain broad principles, chiefly psychological, which are not hard
to understand. The success of good interrogators depends in large
measure upon their use, conscious or not, of these principles and
of processes and techniques deriving from them. Knowledge of subject
matter and of the basic principles will not of itself create a successful
interrogation, but it will make possible the avoidance of mistakes
that are characteristic of poor interrogation. The purpose, then,
is not to teach the reader how to be a good interrogator but rather
to tell him what he must learn in order to become a good interrogator.
1 [page break]
The interrogation of a resistant source who is a staff or agent
member of an Orbit intelligence or security service or of a clandestine
Communist organization is one of the most exacting of professional
tasks. Usually the odds still favor the interrogator, but they are
sharply cut by the training, experience, patience and toughness of
the interrogatee. In such circumstances the interrogator needs all
the help that he can get. And a principal source of aid today is
scientific findings. The intelligence service which is able to bring
pertinent, modern knowledge to bear upon its problems enjoys huge
advantages over a service which conducts its clandestine business
in eighteenth century fashion. It is true that American psychologists
have devoted somewhat more attention to Communist interrogation techniques,
particularly "brainwashing", than to U. S. practices. Yet they have
conducted scientific inquiries into many subjects that are closely
related to interrogation: the effects of debility and isolation,
the polygraph, reactions to pain and fear, hypnosis and heightened
suggestibility, narcosis, etc. This work is of sufficient importance
and relevance that it is no longer possible to discuss interrogation
significantly without reference to the psychological research conducted
in the past decade. For this reason a major purpose of this study
is to focus relevant scientific findings upon CI interrogation. Every
effort has been made to report and interpret these findings in our
own language, in place of the terminology employed by the psychologists.
This study is by no means confined to a resume and interpretation
of psychological findings. The approach of the psychologists is customarily
manipulative; that is, they suggest methods of imposing controls
or alterations upon the interrogatee from the outside. Except within
the Communist frame of reference, they have paid less attention to
the creation of internal controls -- i.e., conversion of the source,
so that voluntary cooperation results. Moral considerations aside,
the imposition of external techniques of manipulating people carries
with it the grave risk of later lawsuits, adverse publicity, or other
attempts to strike back.
2 [page break]
B. Explanation of Organization
This study moves from the general topic of interrogation per se
(Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI) to planning the counterintelligence
interrogation (Part VII) to the CI interrogation of resistant sources
(Parts VIII, IX, and X). The definitions, legal considerations, and
discussions of interrogators and sources, as well as Section VI on
screening and other preliminaries, are relevant to all kinds of interrogations.
Once it is established that the source is probably a counterintelligence
target (in other words, is probably a member of a foreign intelligence
or security service, a Communist, or a part of any other group engaged
in clandestine activity directed against the national security),
the interrogation is planned and conducted accordingly. The CI interrogation
techniques are discussed in an order of increasing intensity as the
focus on source resistance grows sharper. The last section, on do's
and dont's, is a return to the broader view of the opening parts;
as a check-list, it is placed last solely for convenience.
3 [page break]
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II. Definitions
Most of the intelligence terminology employed here which may once
have been ambiguous has been clarified through usage or through KUBARK
instructions. For this reason definitions have been omitted for such
terms as burn notice, defector, escapee, and refugee. Other definitions
have been included despite a common agreement about meaning if the
significance is shaded by the context.
1. Assessment: the analysis and synthesis of information, usually
about a person or persons, for the purpose of appraisal. The assessment
of individuals is based upon the compilation and use of psychological
as well as biographic detail.
2. Bona fides: evidence or reliable information about identity, personal
(including intelligence) history, and intentions or good faith.
3. Control: the capacity to generate, alter, or halt human behavior
by implying, citing, or using physical or psychological means to
ensure compliance with direction. The compliance may be voluntary
or involuntary. Control of an interrogatee can rarely be established
without control of his environment.
4. Counterintelligence interrogation: an interrogation (see #7) designed
to obtain information about hostile clandestine activities and persons
or groups engaged therein. KUBARK CI interrogations are designed,
almost invariably, to yield information about foreign intelligence
and security services or Communist organizations. Because security
is an element of counterintelligence, interrogations conducted to
obtain admissions of clandestine plans or activities directed against
KUBARK or PBPRIME security are also CI interrogations. But unlike
a police interrogation, the CI
4 [page break]
interrogation is not aimed at causing the interrogatee to incriminate
himself as a means of bringing him to trial. Admissions of complicity
are not, to a CI service, ends in themselves but merely preludes
to the acquisition of more information.
5. Debriefing: obtaining information by questioning a controlled
and witting source who is normally a willing one.
6. Eliciting: obtaining information, without revealing intent or
exceptional interest, through a verbal or written exchange with a
person who may be willing or unwilling to provide what is sought
and who may or may not be controlled.
7. Interrogation: obtaining information by direct questioning of
a person or persons under conditions which are either partly or fully
controlled by the questioner or are believed by those questioned
to be subject to his control. Because interviewing, debriefing, and
eliciting are simpler methods of obtaining information from cooperative
subjects, interrogation is usually reserved for sources who are suspect,
resistant, or both.
8. Intelligence interview: obtaining information, not customarily
under controlled conditions, by questioning a person who is aware
of the nature and perhaps of the significance of his answers but
who is ordinarily unaware of the purposes and specific intelligence
affiliations of the interviewer.
5 [page break]
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III. Legal and Policy Considerations
The legislation which founded KUBARK specifically denied it any
law-enforcement or police powers. Yet detention in a controlled environment
and perhaps for a lengthy period is frequently essential to a successful
counterintelligence interrogation of a recalcitrant source. [approx.
three lines deleted] This necessity, obviously, should be determined
as early as possible.
The legality of detaining and questioning a person, and of the
methods employed, [approx. 10 lines deleted]
Detention poses the most common of the legal problems. KUBARK has
no independent legal authority to detain anyone against his will,
[approx. 4 lines deleted] The haste in which some KUBARK interrogations
have been conducted has not always been the product of impatience.
Some security services, especially those of the Sino-Soviet Bloc,
may work at leisure, depending upon time as well as their own methods
to melt recalcitrance. KUBARK usually
6 [page break]
cannot. Accordingly, unless it is considered that the prospective
interrogatee is cooperative and will remain so indefinitely, the
first step in planning an interrogation is to determine how long
the source can be held. The choice of methods depends in part upon
the answer to this question.
[approx. 15 lines deleted]
The handling and questioning of defectors are subject to the provisions
of [one or two words deleted] Directive No. 4: to its related Chief/KUBARK
Directives, principally [approx. 1/2 line deleted] Book Dispatch
[one or two words deleted] and to pertinent [one or two words deleted].
Those concerned with the interrogation of defectors, escapees, refugees,
or repatriates should know these references.
The kinds of counterintelligence information to be sought in a
CI interrogation are stated generally in Chief/KUBARK Directive and
in greater detail in Book Dispatch [approx. 1/3 line deleted].
The interrogation of PBPRIME citizens poses special problems. First,
such interrogations should not be conducted for reasons lying outside
the sphere of KUBARK' s responsibilities. For example, the
7 [page break]
[approx. 2/3 line deleted] but should not normally become directly
involved. Clandestine activity conducted abroad on behalf of a foreign
power by a private PBPRIME citizens does fall within KUBARK's investigative
and interrogative responsibilities. However, any investigation, interrogation,
or interview of a PBPRIME citizen which is conducted abroad because
it be known or suspected that he is engaged in clandestine activities
directed against PBPRIME security interests requires the prior and
personal approval of Chief/KUDESK or of his deputy.
Since 4 October 1961, extraterritorial application has been given
to the Espionage Act, making it henceforth possible to prosecute
in the Federal Courts any PBPRIME citizen who violates the statutes
of this Act in foreign countries. ODENVY has requested that it be
informed, in advance if time permits, if any investigative steps
are undertaken in these cases. Since KUBARK employees cannot be witnesses
in court, each investigation must be conducted in such a manner that
evidence obtained may be properly introduced if the case comes to
trial. [approx. 1 line deleted] states policy and procedures for
the conduct of investigations of PBPRIME citizens abroad.
Interrogations conducted under compulsion or duress are especially
likely to involve illegality and to entail damaging consequences
for KUBARK. Therefore prior Headquarters approval at the KUDOVE level
must be obtained for the interrogation of any source against his
will and under any of the following circumstances:
1. If bodily harm is to be inflicted.
2. If medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are
to be used to induce acquiescence.
3. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
8 [page break]
The CI interrogator dealing with an uncooperative interrogatee
who has been well-briefed by a hostile service on the legal restrictions
under which ODYOKE services operate must expect some effective delaying
tactics. The interrogatee has been told that KUBARK will not hold
him long, that he need only resist for a while. Nikolay KHOKHLOV,
for example, reported that before he left for Frankfurt am Main on
his assassination mission, the following thoughts coursed through
his head: "If I should get into the hands of Western authorities,
I can become reticent, silent, and deny my voluntary visit to Okolovich.
I know I will not be tortured and that under the procedures of western
law I can conduct myself boldly." (17) [The footnote numerals in
this text are keyed to the numbered bibliography at the end.] The
interrogator who encounters expert resistance should not grow flurried
and press; if he does, he is likelier to commit illegal acts which
the source can later use against him. Remembering that time is on
his side, the interrogator should arrange to get as much of it as
he needs.
9 [page break]
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IV. The Interrogator
A number of studies of interrogation discuss qualities said to
be desirable in an interrogator. The list seems almost endless -
a professional manner, forcefulness, understanding and sympathy,
breadth of general knowledge, area knowledge, "a practical knowledge
of psychology", skill in the tricks of the trade, alertness, perseverance,
integrity, discretion, patience, a high I.Q., extensive experience,
flexibility, etc., etc. Some texts even discuss the interrogator's
manners and grooming, and one prescribed the traits considered desirable
in his secretary.
A repetition of this catalogue would serve no purpose here, especially
because almost all of the characteristics mentioned are also desirable
in case officers, agents, policemen, salesmen, lumberjacks, and everybody
else. The search of the pertinent scientific literature disclosed
no reports of studies based on common denominator traits of successful
interrogators or any other controlled inquiries that would invest
these lists with any objective validity.
Perhaps the four qualifications of chief importance to the interrogator
are (1) enough operational training and experience to permit quack
recognition of leads; (2) real familiarity with the language to be
used; (3) extensive background knowledge about the interrogatee's
native country (and intelligence service, if employed by one); and
(4) a genuine understanding of the source as a person.
[approx. 1/2 line deleted] stations, and even a few bases can call
upon one or several interrogators to supply these prerequisites,
individually or as a team. Whenever a number of interrogators is
available, the percentage of successes is increased by careful matching
of questioners and sources and by ensuring that rigid prescheduling
does not prevent such matching. Of the four traits listed, a genuine
insight into the source's character and motives is perhaps
10 [page break]
most important but least common. Later portions of this manual explore
this topic in more detail. One general observation is introduced
now, however, because it is considered basic to the establishment
of rapport, upon which the success of non-coercive interrogation
depends.
The interrogator should remember that he and the interrogatee are
often working at cross-purposes not because the interrogates is malevolently
withholding or misleading but simply because what he wants front
the situation is not what the interrogator wants. The interrogator's
goal is to obtain useful information -- facts about which the interrogatee
presumably have acquired information. But at the outset of the interrogation,
and perhaps for a long time afterwards, the person being questioned
is not greatly concerned with communicating his body of specialized
information to his questioner; he is concerned with putting his best
foot forward. The question uppermost in his mind, at the beginning,
is not likely to be "How can I help PBPRIME?" but rather "What sort
of impression am I making?" and, almost immediately thereafter, "What
is going to happen to me now?" (An exception is the penetration agent
or provocateur sent to a KUBARK field installation after training
in withstanding interrogation. Such an agent may feel confident enough
not to be gravely concerned about himself. His primary interest,
from the beginning, may be the acquisition of information about the
interrogator and his service.)
The skilled interrogator can save a great deal of time by understanding
the emotional needs of the interrogates. Most people confronted by
an official -- and dimly powerful -- representative of a foreign
power will get down to cases much faster if made to feel, from the
start, that they are being treated as individuals. So simple a matter
as greeting an interrogatee by his name at the opening of the session
establishes in his mind the comforting awareness that he is considered
as a person, not a squeezable sponge. This is not to say that egotistic
types should be allowed to bask at length in the warmth of individual
recognition. But it is important to assuage the fear of denigration
which afflicts many people when first interrogated by making it clear
that the individuality of the interrogatee is recognized. With this
common understanding established, the interrogation can move on to
impersonal matters and will not later be thwarted or interrupted
--
11 [page break]
or at least not as often -- by irrelevant answers designed not to
provide facts but to prove that the interrogatee is a respectable
member of the human race.
Although it is often necessary to trick people into telling what
we need to know, especially in CI interrogations, the initial question
which the interrogator asks of himself should be, "How can I make
him want to tell me what he knows?" rather than "How can I trap him
into disclosing what he knows?" If the person being questioned is
genuinely hostile for ideological reasons, techniques of manipulation
are in order. But the assumption of hostility -- or at least the
use of pressure tactics at the first encounter -- may make difficult
subjects even out of those who would respond to recognition of individuality
and an initial assumption of good will.
Another preliminary comment about the interrogator is that normally
he should not personalize. That is, he should not be pleased, flattered,
frustrated, goaded, or otherwise emotionally and personally affected
by the interrogation. A calculated display of feeling employed for
a specific purpose is an exception; but even under these circumstances
the interrogator is in full control. The interrogation situation
is intensely inter-personal; it is therefore all the more necessary
to strike a counter-balance by an attitude which the subject clearly
recognizes as essentially fair and objective. The kind of person
who cannot help personalizing, who becomes emotionally involved in
the interrogation situation, may have chance (and even spectacular)
successes as an interrogator but is almost certain to have a poor
batting average.
It is frequently said that the interrogator should be "a good judge
of human nature." In fact, [approx. 3 lines deleted] (3) This study
states later (page "Great attention has been given to the degree
to which persons are able to make judgements from casual observations
regarding the personality characteristics of another. The consensus
of research is that with respect to many kinds of judgments, at least
some judges perform reliably better than chance...." Nevertheless,
"... the level
12 [page break]
of reliability in judgments is so low that research encounters difficulties
when it seeks to determine who makes better judgments...." (3) In
brief, the interrogator is likelier to overestimate his ability to
judge others than to underestimate it, especially if he has had little
or no training in modern psychology. It follows that errors in assessment
and in handling are likelier to result from snap judgments based
upon the assumption of innate skill in judging others than from holding
such judgments in abeyance until enough facts are known.
There has been a good deal of discussion of interrogation experts
vs. subject-matter experts. Such facts as are available suggest that
the latter have a slight advantage. But for counterintelligence purposes
the debate is academic. [approx. 5 lines deleted]
It is sound practice to assign inexperienced interrogators to guard
duty or to other supplementary tasks directly related to interrogation,
so that they can view the process closely before taking charge. The
use of beginning interrogators as screeners (see part VI) is also
recommended.
Although there is some limited validity in the view, frequently
expressed in interrogation primers, that the interrogation is essentially
a battle of wits, the CI interrogator who encounters a skilled and
resistant interrogatee should remember that a wide
___________________
*The interrogator should be supported whenever possible by qualified
analysts' review of his daily "take"; experience has shown that such
a review will raise questions to be put and points to be clarified
and lead to a thorough coverage of the subject in hand.
13 [page break]
variety of aids can be made available in the field or from Headquarters.
(These are discussed in Part VIII.) The intensely personal nature
of the interrogation situation makes it all the more necessary that
the KUBARK questioner should aim not for a personal triumph but for
his true goal -- the acquisition of all needed information by any
authorized means.
14 [page break]
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V. The Interrogatee
A. Types Of Sources: Intelligence Categories
From the viewpoint of the intelligence service the categories of
persons who most frequently provide useful information in response
to questioning are travellers; repatriates; defectors, escapees,
and refugees; transferred sources; agents, including provocateurs,
double agents, and penetration agents; and swindlers and fabricators.
1. Travellers are usually interviewed, debriefed, or queried through
eliciting techniques. If they are interrogated, the reason is that
they are known or believed to fall into one of the following categories.
2. Repatriates are sometimes interrogated, although other techniques
are used more often. The proprietary interests of the host government
will frequently dictate interrogation by a liaison service rather
than by KUBARK. If KUBARK interrogates, the following preliminary
steps are taken:
a. A records check, including local and Headquarters traces.
b . Testing of bona fides .
c. Determination of repatriate's kind and level of access while
outside his own country.
d. Preliminary assessment of motivation (including political orientation),
reliability, and capability as observer and reporter.
e. Determination of all intelligence or Communist
15 [page break]
relationships, whether with a service or party of the repatriate's
own country, country of detention, or another. Full particulars are
needed.
3. Defectors, escapees, and refugees are normally interrogated
at sufficient length to permit at least a preliminary testing of
bona fides . The experience of the post-war years has demonstrated
that Soviet defectors (1) almost never defect solely or primarily
because of inducement by a Western service, (2) usually leave the
USSR for personal rather than ideological reasons, and (3) are often
RIS agents.
[approx. 9 lines deleted]
All analyses of the defector-refugee flow have shown that the Orbit
services are well-aware of the advantages offered by this channel
as a means of planting their agents in target countries.
[approx. 14 lines deleted]
4. Transferred sources referred to KUBARK by another service
16 [page break]
for interrogation are usually sufficiently well-known to the transferring
service so that a file has been opened. Whenever possible, KUBARK
should secure a copy of the file or its full informational equivalent
before accepting custody.
5. Agents are more frequently debriefed than interrogated. [approx.
3 lines deleted] as an analytic tool. If it is then established or
strongly suspected that the agent belongs to one of the following
categories, further investigation and, eventually, interrogation
usually follow.
a. Provocateur. Many provocation agents are walk-ins posing as escapees,
refugees, or defectors in order to penetrate emigre groups, ODYOKE
intelligence, or other targets assigned by hostile services. Although
denunciations by genuine refugees and other evidence of information
obtained from documents, local officials, and like sources may result
in exposure, the detection of provocation frequently depends upon
skilled interrogation. A later section of this manual deals with
the preliminary testing of bona fides . But the results of preliminary
testing are often inconclusive, and detailed interrogation is frequently
essential to confession and full revelation. Thereafter the provocateur
may be questioned for operational and positive intelligence as well
as counterintelligence provided that proper cognizance is taken of
his status during the questioning and later, when reports are prepared.
b. Double agent. The interrogation of DA's frequently follows a
determination or strong suspicion that the double is "giving the
edge" to the adversary service. As is also true for the interrogation
of provocateurs, thorough preliminary investigation will pay handsome
dividends when questioning gets under way. In fact, it is a basic
principle of interrogation that the questioner should have at his
disposal, before querying starts, as much pertinent information as
can be gathered without the knowledge of the prospective
17 [page break]
interrogatee.
[2/3 of page deleted]
d. Swindlers and fabricators are usually interrogated for prophylactic
reasons, not for counterintelligence information. The purpose is
the prevention or nullification of damage to KUBARK, to other ODYOKE
services Swindlers and fabricators have little of CI significance
to communicate but are notoriously skillful timewasters. Interrogation
of them is usually inconclusive and, if prolonged,
18 [page break]
unrewarding. The professional peddler with several IS contacts
may prove an exception; but he will usually give the edge to a host
security service because otherwise he cannot function with impunity.
B. Types of Sources: Personality Categories
The number of systems devised for categorizing human beings is
large, and most of them are of dubious validity. Various categorical
schemes are outlined in treatises on interrogation. The two typologies
most frequently advocated are psychologic-emotional and geographic-cultural.
Those who urge the former argue that the basic emotional-psychological
patterns do not vary significantly with time, place, or culture.
The latter school maintains the existence of a national character
and sub-national categories, and interrogation guides based on this
principle recommend approaches tailored to geographical cultures.
It is plainly true that the interrogation source cannot be understood
in a vacuum, isolated from social context. It is equally true that
some of the most glaring blunders in interrogation (and other operational
processes ) have resulted from ignoring the source's background.
Moreover, emotional-psychological schematizations sometimes present
atypical extremes rather than the kinds of people commonly encountered
by interrogators. Such typologies also cause disagreement even among
professional psychiatrists and psychologists. Interrogators who adopt
them and who note in an interrogatee one or two of the characteristics
of "Type A" may mistakenly assign the source to Category A and assume
the remaining traits.
On the other hand, there are valid objections to the adoption of
cultural-geographic categories for interrogation purposes (however
valid they may be as KUCAGE concepts). The pitfalls of ignorance
of the distinctive culture of the source have "[approx. 4 lines deleted]
19 [page break]
[approx. 8 lines deleted]." (3)
The ideal solution would be to avoid all categorizing. Basically,
all schemes for labelling people are wrong per se; applied arbitrarily,
they always produce distortions. Every interrogator knows that a
real understanding of the individual is worth far more than a thorough
knowledge of this or that pigeon-hole to which he has been consigned.
And for interrogation purposes the ways in which he differs from
the abstract type may be more significant than the ways in which
he conforms.
But KUBARK does not dispose of the time or personnel to probe the
depths of each source's individuality. In the opening phases of interrogation,
or in a quick interrogation, we are compelled to make some use of
the shorthand of categorizing, despite distortions. Like other interrogation
aides, a scheme of categories is useful only if recognized for what
it is -- a set of labels that facilitate communication but are not
the same as the persons thus labelled. If an interrogatee lies persistently,
an interrogator may report and dismiss him as a "pathological liar."
Yet such persons may possess counterintelligence (or other) information
quite equal in value to that held by other sources, and the interrogator
likeliest to get at it is the man who is not content with labelling
but is as interested in why the subject lies as in what he lies about.
With all of these reservations, then, and with the further observation
that those who find these psychological-emotional categories pragmatically
valuable should use them and those who do not should let them alone,
the following nine types are described. The categories are based
upon the fact that a person's past is always reflected, however dimily,
in his present ethics and behavior. Old dogs can learn new tricks
but not new ways of learning them. People do change, but what appears
to be new behavior or a new psychological pattern is usually just
a variant on the old theme.
20 [page break]
It is not claimed that the classification system presented here
is complete; some interrogatees will not fit into any one of the
groupings. And like all other typologies, the system is plagued by
overlap, so that some interrogatees will show characteristics of
more than one group. Above all, the interrogator must remember that
finding some of the characteristics of the group in a single source
does not warrant an immediate conclusion that the source "belongs
to" the group, and that even correct labelling is not the equivalent
of understanding people but merely an aid to understanding.
The nine major groups within the psychological-emotional category
adopted for this handbook are the following.
1. The orderly-obstinate character. People in this category are
characteristically frugal, orderly, and cold; frequently they are
quite intellectual. They are not impulsive in behavior. They tend
to think things through logically and to act deliberately. They often
reach decisions very slowly. They are far less likely to make real
personal sacrifices for a cause than to use them as a temporary means
of obtaining a permanent personal gain. They are secretive and disinclined
to confide in anyone else their plans and plots, which frequently
concern the overthrow of some form of authority. They are also stubborn,
although they may pretend cooperation or even believe that they are
cooperating. They nurse grudges.
The orderly-obstinate character considers himself superior to other
people. Sometimes his sense of superiority is interwoven with a kind
of magical thinking that includes all sorts of superstitions and
fantasies about controlling his environment. He may even have a system
of morality that is all his own. He sometimes gratifies his feeling
of secret superiority by provoking unjust treatment. He also tries,
characteristically, to keep open a line of escape by avoiding any
real commitment to anything. He is -- and always has been -- intensely
concerned about his personal possessions. He is usually a tightwad
who saves everything, has a strong sense of propriety, and is punctual
and tidy. His money and other possessions have for him a personalized
quality; they are parts of himself. He often carries around shiny
coins, keepsakes, a bunch of keys, and other objects having for himself
an actual or symbolic value.
21 [page break]
Usually the orderly-obstinate character has a history of active
rebellion in childhood, of persistently doing the exact opposite
of what he is told to do. As an adult he may have learned to cloak
his resistance and become passive-aggressive, but his determination
to get his own way is unaltered. He has merely learned how to proceed
indirectly if necessary. The profound fear and hatred of authority,
persisting since childhood, is often well-concealed in adulthood,
For example, such a person may confess easily and quickly under interrogation,
even to acts that he did not commit, in order to throw the interrogator
off the trail of a significant discovery (or, more rarely, because
of feelings of guilt).
The interrogator who is dealing with an orderly-obstinate character
should avoid the role of hostile authority. Threats and threatening
gestures, table-pounding, pouncing on evasions or lies, and any similarly
authoritative tactics will only awaken in such a subject his old
anxieties and habitual defense mechanisms. To attain rapport, the
interrogator should be friendly. It will probably prove rewarding
if the room and the interrogator look exceptionally neat. Orderly-obstinate
interrogatees often collect coins or other objects as a hobby; time
spent in sharing their interests may thaw some of the ice. Establishing
rapport is extremely important when dealing with this type.[approx
3 lines deleted] (3)
2. The optimistic character. This kind of source is almost constantly
happy-go-lucky, impulsive, inconsistent, and undependable. He seems
to enjoy a continuing state of well-being. He may be generous to
a fault, giving to others as he wants to be given to. He may become
an alcoholic or drug addict. He is not able to withstand very much
pressure; he reacts to a challenge not by increasing his efforts
but rather by running away to avoid conflict. His convictions that
"something will turn up", that "everything will work out all right",
is based on his need to avoid his own responsibility for events and
depend upon a kindly fate.
Such a person has usually had a great deal of over-indulgence in
early life. He is sometimes the youngest member of a large family,
22 [page break]
the child of a middle-aged woman (a so-called "change-of-life baby").
If he has met severe frustrations in later childhood, he may be petulant,
vengeful, and constantly demanding.
As interrogation sources, optimistic characters respond best to
a kindly, parental approach. If withholding, they can often be handled
effectively by the Mutt-and-Jeff technique discussed later in this
paper. Pressure tactics or hostility will make them retreat inside
themselves, whereas reassurance will bring them out. They tend to
seek promises, to cast the interrogator in the role of protector
and problem-solver; and it is important that the interrogator avoid
making any specific promises that cannot be fulfilled, because the
optimist turned vengeful is likely to prove troublesome.
3. The greedy, demanding character. This kind of person affixes himself
to others like a leech and clings obsessively. Although extremely
dependent and passive, he constantly demands that others take care
of him and gratify his wishes. If he considers himself wronged, he
does not seek redress through his own efforts but tries to persuade
another to take up the cudgels in his behalf -- "let's you and him
fight." His loyalties are likely to shift whenever he feels that
the sponsor whom he has chosen has let him down. Defectors of this
type feel aggrieved because their desires were not satisfied in their
countries of origin, but they soon feel equally deprived in a second
land and turn against its government or representatives in the same
way. The greedy and demanding character is subject to rather frequent
depressions. He may direct a desire for revenge inward, upon himself;
in extreme cases suicide may result.
The greedy, demanding character often suffered from very early
deprivation of affection or security. As an adult he continues to
seek substitute parents who will care for him as his own, he feels,
did not.
The interrogator dealing with a greedy, demanding character must
be careful not to rebuff him; otherwise rapport will be destroyed.
On the other hand, the interrogator must not accede to demands which
cannot or should not be met. Adopting the tone of an understanding
father or big brother is likely to make the subject responsive. If
he makes exorbitant requests, an unimportant favor may provide a
satis-
23 [page break]
factory substitute because the demand arises not from a specific
need but as an expression of the subject's need for security. He
is likely to find reassuring any manifestation of concern for his
well-being.
In dealing with this type -- and to a considerable extent in dealing
with any of the types herein listed -- the interrogator must be aware
of the limits and pitfalls of rational persuasion. If he seeks to
induce cooperation by an appeal to logic, he should first determine
whether the source's resistance is based on logic. The appeal will
glance off ineffectually if the resistance is totally or chiefly
emotional rather than rational. Emotional resistance can be dissipated
only by emotional manipulation.
4. The anxious, self-centered character. Although this person is
fearful, he is engaged in a constant struggle to conceal his fears.
He is frequently a daredevil who compensates for his anxiety by pretending
that there is no such thing as danger. He may be a stunt flier or
circus performer who "proves" himself before crowds. He may also
be a Don Juan. He tends to brag and often lies through hunger for
approval or praise. As a soldier or officer he may have been decorated
for bravery; but if so, his comrades may suspect that his exploits
resulted from a pleasure in exposing himself to danger and the anticipated
delights of rewards, approval, and applause. The anxious, self-centered
character is usually intensely vain and equally sensitive.
People who show these characteristics are actually unusually fearful.
The causes of intense concealed anxiety are too complex and subtle
to permit discussion of the subject in this paper.
Of greater importance to the interrogator than the causes is the
opportunity provided by concealed anxiety for successful manipulation
of the source. His desire to impress will usually be quickly evident.
He is likely to be voluble. Ignoring or ridiculing his bragging,
or cutting him short with a demand that he get down to cases, is
likely to make him resentful and to stop the flow. Playing upon his
vanity, especially by praising his courage, will usually be a successful
tactic if employed skillfully. Anxious, self-centered interrogatees
who are withholding significant facts, such as contact with a hostile
service,
24 [page break]
are likelier to divulge if made to feel that the truth will not
be used to harm them and if the interrogator also stresses the callousness
and stupidity of the adversary in sending so valiant a person upon
so ill-prepared a mission. There is little to be gained and much
to be lost by exposing the nonrelevant lies of this kind of source.
Gross lies about deeds of daring, sexual prowess, or other "proofs"
of courage and manliness are best met with silence or with friendly
but noncommittal replies unless they consume an inordinate amount
of time. If operational use is contemplated, recruitment may sometimes
be effected through such queries as, "I wonder if you would be willing
to undertake a dangerous mission."
5. The guilt-ridden character. This kind of person has a strong
cruel, unrealistic conscience. His whole life seems devoted to reliving
his feelings of guilt. Sometimes he seems determined to atone; at
other times he insists that whatever went wrong is the fault of somebody
else. In either event he seeks constantly some proof or external
indication that the guilt of others is greater than his own. He is
often caught up completely in efforts to prove that he has been treated
unjustly. In fact, he may provoke unjust treatment in order to assuage
his conscience through punishment. Compulsive gamblers who find no
real pleasure in winning but do find relief in losing belong to this
class. So do persons who falsely confess to crimes. Sometimes such
people actually commit crimes in order to confess and be punished.
Masochists also belong in this category.
The causes of most guilt complexes are real or fancied wrongs done
to parents or others whom the subject felt he ought to love and honor.
As children such people may have been frequently scolded or punished.
Or they may have been "model" children who repressed all natural
hostilities.
The guilt-ridden character is hard to interrogate. He may "confess"
to hostile clandestine activity, or other acts of interest to KUBARK,
in which he was not involved. Accusations levelled at him by the
interrogator are likely to trigger such false confessions. Or he
may remain silent when accused, enjoying the "punishment." He is
a poor subject for LCFLUTTER. The complexities of dealing with conscience-ridden
interrogatees vary so widely from case to case that it is almost
impossible to list sound general principles. Perhaps
25 [page break]
the best advice is that the interrogator, once alerted by information
from the screening process (see Part VI) or by the subject's excessive
preoccupation with moral judgements, should treat as suspect and
subjective any information provided by the interrogatee about any
matter that is of moral concern to him. Persons with intense guilt
feelings may cease resistance and cooperate if punished in some way,
because of the gratification induced by punishment.
6. The character wrecked by success is closely related to the guilt-ridden
character. This sort of person cannot tolerate success and goes through
life failing at critical points. He is often accident-prone. Typically
he has a long history of being promising and of almost completing
a significant assignment or achievement but not bringing it off.
The character who cannot stand success enjoys his ambitions as long
as they remain fantasies but somehow ensures that they will not be
fulfilled in reality. Acquaintances often feel that his success is
just around the corner, but something always intervenes. In actuality
this something is a sense of guilt, of the kind described above.
The person who avoids success has a conscience which forbids the
pleasures of accomplishment and recognition. He frequently projects
his guilt feelings and feels that all of his failures were someone
else's fault. He may have a strong need to suffer and may seek danger
or injury.
As interrogatees these people who "cannot stand prosperity" pose
no special problem unless the interrogation impinges upon their feelings
of guilt or the reasons for their past failures. Then subjective
distortions, not facts, will result. The successful interrogator
will isolate this area of unreliability.
7. The schizoid or strange character lives in a world of fantasy
much of the time. Sometimes he seems unable to distinguish reality
from the realm of his own creating. The real world seems to him empty
and meaningless, in contrast with the mysteriously significant world
that he has made. He is extremely intolerant of any frustration that
occurs in the outer world and deals with it by withdrawal into the
interior realm.
26 [page break]
He has no real attachments to others, although he may attach symbolic
and private meanings or values to other people.
Children reared in homes lacking in ordinary affection and attention
or in orphanages or state-run communes may become adults who belong
to this category. Rebuffed in early efforts to attach themselves
to another, they become distrustful of attachments and turn inward.
Any link to a group or country will be undependable and, as a rule,
transitory. At the same time the schizoid character needs external
approval. Though he retreats from reality, he does not want to feel
abandoned.
As an interrogatee the schizoid character is likely to lie readily
to win approval. He will tell the interrogator what he thinks the
interrogator wants to hear in order to win the award of seeing a
smile on the interrogator's face. Because he is not always capable
of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, he may be unaware of
lying. The desire for approval provides the interrogator with a handle.
Whereas accusations of lying or other indications of disesteem will
provoke withdrawal from the situation, teasing the truth out of the
schizoid subject may not prove difficult if he is convinced that
he will not incur favor through misstatements or disfavor through
telling the truth.
Like the guilt-ridden character, the schizoid character may be
an unreliable subject for testing by LCFLUTTER because his internal
needs lead him to confuse fact with fancy. He is also likely to make
an unreliable agent because of his incapacity to deal with facts
and to form real relationships.
8. The exception believes that the world owes him a great deal.
He feels that he suffered a gross injustice, usually early in life,
and should be repaid. Sometimes the injustice was meted out impersonally,
by fate, as a physical deformity, an extremely painful illness or
operation in childhood, or the early loss of one parent or both.
Feeling that these misfortunes were undeserved, the exceptions regard
them as injustices that someone or something must rectify. Therefore
they claim as their right privileges not permitted others. When the
claim is ignored or denied, the exceptions become rebellious, as
adolescents often do. They are
27 [page break]
convinced that the justice of the claim is plain for all to see
and that any refusal to grant it is willfully malignant.
When interrogated, the exceptions are likely to make demands for
money, resettlement aid, and other favors -- demands that are completely
out of proportion to the value of their contributions. Any ambiguous
replies to such demands will be interpreted as acquiescence. Of all
the types considered here, the exception is likeliest to carry an
alleged injustice dealt him by KUBARK to the newspapers or the courts.
The best general line to follow in handling those who believe that
they are exceptions is to listen attentively (within reasonable timelimits)
to their grievances and to make no commitments that cannot be discharged
fully. Defectors from hostile intelligence services, doubles, provocateurs,
and others who have had more than passing contact with a Sino-Soviet
service may, if they belong to this category, prove unusually responsive
to suggestions from the interrogator that they have been treated
unfairly by the other service. Any planned operational use of such
persons should take into account the fact that they have no sense
of loyalty to a common cause and are likely to turn aggrievedly against
superiors.
9. The average or normal character is not a person wholly lacking
in the characteristics of the other types. He may, in fact, exhibit
most or all of them from time to time. But no one of them is persistently
dominant; the average man's qualities of obstinacy, unrealistic optimism,
anxiety, and the rest are not overriding or imperious except for
relatively short intervals. Moreover, his reactions to the world
around him are more dependent upon events in that world and less
the product of rigid, subjective patterns than is true of the other
types discussed.
C. Other Clues
[approx. 4 lines deleted]
28 [page break]
The true defector (as distinguished from the hostile agent in defector's
guise) is likely to have a history of opposition to authority. The
sad fact is that defectors who left their homelands because they
could not get along with their immediate or ultimate superiors are
also likely to rebel against authorities in the new environment (a
fact which usually plays an important part in redefection). Therefore
defectors are likely to be found in the ranks of the orderly-obstinate,
the greedy and deriding, the schizoids, and the exceptions.
Experiments and statistical analyses performed at the University
of Minnesota concerned the relationships among anxiety and affiliative
tendencies (desire to be with other people), on the one hand, and
the ordinal position (rank in birth sequence) on the other. Some
of the findings, though necessarily tentative and speculative, have
some relevance to interrogation. (30). As is noted in the bibliography,
the investigators concluded that isolation typically creates anxiety,
that anxiety intensifies the desire to be with others who share the
same fear, and that only and first-born children are more anxious
and less willing or able to withstand pain than later-born children.
Other applicable hypotheses are that fear increases the affiliative
needs of first-born and only children much more than those of the
later-born. These differences are more pronounced in persons from
small families then in those who grew up in large families. Finally,
only children are much likelier to hold themselves together and persist
in anxiety-producing situations than are the first-born, who more
frequently try to retreat. In the other major respects - intensity
of anxiety and emotional need to affiliate - no significant differences
between "firsts" and "onlies" were discovered.
It follows that determining the subject's "ordinal position" before
questioning begins may be useful to the interrogator. But two cautions
are in order. The first is that the findings are, at this stage,
only tentative hypotheses. The second is that even if they prove
accurate for large groups, the data are like those in actuarial tables;
they have no specific predictive value for individuals.
29 [page break]
----------------------
VI. Screening and Other Preliminaries
A. Screening
[approx. 2/3 line deleted] some large stations are able to conduct
preliminary psychological screening before interrogation starts.
The purpose of screening is to provide the interrogator, in advance,
with a reading on the type and characteristics of the interrogatee.
It is recommended that screening be conducted whenever personnel
and facilities permit, unless it is reasonably certain that the interrogation
will be of minor importance or that the interrogatee is fully cooperative.
Screening should be conducted by interviewers, not interrogators;
or at least the subjects should not be screened by the same KUBARK
personnel who will interrogate them later.
[approx. 10 lines deleted]
Other psychological testing aids are best administered by a trained
psychologist. Tests conducted on American POW's returned to U. S.
jurisdiction in Korea during the Big and Little Switch suggest that
prospective interrogatees who show normal emotional responsiveness
on the Rorschach and related tests are likelier to prove cooperative
under interrogation than are those whose responses indicate that
they are apathetic and emotionally
30 [page break]
withdrawn or barren. Extreme resisters, however, share the response
characteristics of collaborators; they differ in the nature and intensity
of motivation rather than emotions. "An analysis of objective test
records and biographical information is a sample of 759 Big Switch
repatriates revealed that men who had collaborated differed from
men who had not in the following ways: the collaborators were older,
had completed more years of school, scored higher on intelligence
tests administered after repatriation, had served longer in the Army
prior to capture, and scored higher on the Psychopathic Deviate Scale
- pd.... However, the 5 percent of the noncollaborator sample who
resisted actively - who were either decorated by the Army or considered
to be 'reactionaries' by the Chinese - differed from the remaining
group in precisely the same direction as the collaborator group and
could not be distinguished from this group on any variable except
age; the resisters were older than the collaborators." (33)
Even a rough preliminary estimate, if valid, can be a boon to the
interrogator because it will permit him to start with generally sound
tactics from the beginning - tactics adapted to the personality of
the source. Dr. Moloney has expressed the opinion, which we may use
as an example of this, that the AVH was able to get what it wanted
from Cardinal Mindszenty because the Hungarian service adapted its
interrogation methods to his personality. "There can be no doubt
that Mindszenty's preoccupation with the concept of becoming secure
and powerful through the surrender of self to the greatest power
of them all - his God idea - predisposed him to the response elicited
in his experience with the communist intelligence. For him the surrender
of self-system to authoritarian-system was natural, as was the very
principle of martyrdom." (28)
The task of screening is made easier by the fact that the screener
is interested in the subject, not in the information which he may
possess. Most people -- even many provocation agents who have been
trained to recite a legend -- will speak with some freedom about
childhood events and familial relationships. And even the provocateur
who substitutes a fictitious person for his real father will disclose
some of his feelings about his father in the course of detailing
his story about the imaginary substitute. If the screener
31 [page break]
has learned to put the potential source at ease, to feel his way
along in each case, the source is unlikely to consider that a casual
conversation about himself if dangerous .
The screener is interested in getting the subject to talk about
himself. Once the flow starts, the screener should try not to stop
it by questions, gestures, or other interruptions until sufficient
information has been revealed to permit a rough determination of
type. The subject is likeliest to talk freely if the screener's manner
is friendly and patient. His facial expression should not reveal
special interest in any one statement; he should just seem sympathetic
and understanding. Within a short time most people who have begun
talking about themselves go back to early experiences, so that merely
by listening and occasionally making a quiet, encouraging remark
the screener can learn a great deal. Routine questions about school
teachers, employers, and group leaders, for example, will lead the
subject to reveal a good deal of how he feels about his parents,
superiors, and others of emotional consequence to him because of
associative links in his mind.
It is very helpful if the screener can imaginatively place himself
in the subject's position. The more the screener knows about the
subject's native area and cultural background, the less likely is
he to disturb the subject by an incongruous remark. Such comments
as, "That must have been a bad time for you and your family," or
"Yes, I can see why you were angry," or "It sounds exciting" are
sufficiently innocuous not to distract the subject, yet provide adequate
evidence of sympathetic interest. Tasking the subject's side against
his enemies serves the same purpose, and such comments as "That was
unfair; they had no right to treat you that way" will aid rapport
and stimulate further revelations.
It is important that gross abnormalities be spotted during the
screening process. Persons suffering from severe mental illness will
show major distortions, delusions, or hallucinations and will usually
give bizarre explanations for their behavior. Dismissal or prompt
referral of the mentally ill to professional specialists will save
time and money.
The second and related purpose of screening is to permit an educated
guess about the source's probable attitude toward the
32 [page break]
interrogation. An estimate of whether the interrogatee will be cooperative
or recalcitrant is essential to planning because very different methods
are used in dealing with these two types.
At stations or bases which cannot conduct screening in the formal
sense, it is still worth-while to preface any important interrogation
with an interview of the source, conducted by someone other than
the interrogator and designed to provide a maximum of evaluative
information before interrogation commences.
Unless a shock effect is desired, the transition from the screening
interview to the interrogation situation should not be abrupt. At
the first meeting with the interrogatee it is usually a good idea
for the interrogator to spend some time in the same kind of quiet,
friendly exchange that characterized the screening interview. Even
though the interrogator now has the screening product, the rough
classification by type, he needs to understand the subject in his
own terms. If he is immediately aggressive, he imposes upon the first
interrogation session (and to a diminishing extent upon succeeding
sessions) too arbitrary a pattern. As one expert has said, "Anyone
who proceeds without consideration for the disjunctive power of anxiety
in human relationships will never learn interviewing." (34)
B. Other Preliminary Procedures
[approx. 2 lines deleted] The preliminary handling of other types
of interrogation sources is usually less difficult. It suffices for
the present purpose to list the following principles:
1. All available pertinent information ought to be assembled and
studied before the interrogation itself is planned, much less conducted.
An ounce of investigation may be worth a pound of questions.
2. A distinction should be drawn as soon as possible between sources
who will be sent to [approx. 1/2 line deleted site organized and
equipped for interrogation and those whose
33 [page break]
interrogation will be completed by the base or station with which
contact is first established.
3. The suggested procedure for arriving at a preliminary assessment
of walk-ins remains the same [approx. 4 lines deleted]
The key points are repeated here for ease of reference. These preliminary
tests are designed to supplement the technical examination of a walk-in's
documents, substantive questions about claimed homeland or occupation,
and other standard inquiries. The following questions, if asked,
should be posed as soon as possible after the initial contact, while
the walk-in is still under stress and before he has adjusted to a
routine.
a. The walk-in may be asked to identify all relatives and friends
in the area, or even the country, in which PBPRIME asylum is first
requested. Traces should be run speedily. Provocation agents are
sometimes directed to "defect" in their target areas, and friends
or relatives already in place may be hostile assets.
b. At the first interview the questioner should be on the alert
for phrases or concepts characteristic of intelligence or CP activity
and should record such leads whether it is planned to follow them
by interrogation on the spot [approx. 1 line deleted]
c. LCFLUTTER should be used if feasible. If not, the walk-in may
be asked to undergo such testing at a later date. Refusals should
be recorded, as well as indications that the walk-in has been briefed
on the technique by another service. The manner as well as the nature
of the walk-in's reaction to the proposal should be noted.
34 [page break]
d. If LCFLUTTER, screening. investigation, or any other methods
do establish a prior intelligence history, the following minimal
information should be obtained:
[approx. 1/3 page deleted] (7
[approx. 1/2 page deleted]
h. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
35 [page break]
[entire page redacted, except for "4." about 3/4 of the way down
the page]
36 [page break]
[approx. 4 lines deleted]
5. All documents that have a bearing on the planned interrogation
merit study. Documents from Bloc countries, or those which are in
any respect unusual or unfamiliar, are customarily sent to the proper
field or headquarters component for technical analysis.
6. If during screening or any other pre-interrogation phase it
is ascertained that the source has been interrogated before, this
fact should be made known to the interrogator. Agents, for example,
are accustomed to being questioned repeatedly and professionally.
So are persons who have been arrested several times. People who have
had practical training in being interrogated become sophisticated
subjects, able to spot uncertainty, obvious tricks, and other weaknesses.
C. Summary
Screening and the other preliminary procedures will help the interrogator
- and his base, station, [one or two words deleted] to decide whether
the prospective source (1) is likely to possess useful counterintelligence
because of association with a foreign service or Communist Party
and (2) is likely to cooperate voluntarily or not. Armed with these
estimates and with whatever insights screening has provided into
the personality of the source, the interrogator is ready to plan.
37 [page break]
----------------------
VII. Planning the Counterintelligence Interrogation
A. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation
The long-range purpose of CI interrogation is to get from the source
all the useful counterintelligence information that he has. The short-range
purpose is to enlist his cooperation toward this end or, if he is
resistant, to destroy his capacity for resistance and replace it
with a cooperative attitude. The techniques used in nullifying resistance,
inducing compliance, and eventually eliciting voluntary cooperation
are discussed in Part VIII of this handbook.
No two interrogations are the same. Every interrogation is shaped
definitively by the personality of the source - and of the interrogator,
because interrogation is an intensely interpersonal process. The
whole purpose of screening and a major purpose of the first stage
of the interrogation is to probe the strengths and weaknesses of
the subject. Only when these have been established and understood
does it become possible to plan realistically.
Planning the CI interrogation of a resistant source requires an
understanding (whether formalized or not) of the dynamics of confession.
Here Horowitz's study of the nature of confession is pertinent. He
starts by asking why confessions occur at all. "Why not always brazen
it out when confronted by accusation? Why does a person convict himself
through a confession, when, at the very worst, no confession would
leave him at least as well off (and possibly better off)...?" He
answers that confessions obtained without duress are usually the
product of the following conditions:
38 [page break]
1. The person is accused explicitly or implicitly and feels accused.
2. As a result his psychological freedom - the extent to which
he feels able to do what he wants to - is curtailed. This feeling
need not correspond to confinement or any other external reality.
3. The accused feels defensive because he is on unsure ground.
He does not know how much the accuser knows. As a result the accused
"has no formula for proper behavior, no role if you will, that he
can utilize in this situation."
4. He perceives the accuser as representing authority. Unless he
believes that the accuser's powers far exceed his own, he is unlikely
to feel hemmed in and defensive. And if he "perceives that the accusation
is backed by 'real' evidence, the ratio of external forces to his
own forces is increased and the person's psychological position is
now more precarious. It is interesting to note that in such situations
the accused tends toward over response, or exaggerated response;
to hostility and emotional display; to self-righteousness, to counter
accusation, to defense.... "
5. He must believe that he is cut off from friendly or supporting
forces. If he does, he himself becomes the only source of his "salvation."
6. "Another condition, which is most probably necessary, though
not sufficient for confession, is that the accused person feels guilt.
A possible reason is that a sense of guilt promotes self-hostility."
It should be equally clear that if the person does not feel guilt
he is not in his own mind guilty and will not confess to an act which
others may regard as evil or wrong and he, in fact, considers correct.
Confession in such a case can come only with duress even where all
other conditions previously mentioned may prevail."
39 [page break]
7. The accused, finally, is pushed far enough along the path toward
confession that it is easier for him to keep going than to turn back.
He perceives confession as the only way out of his predicament and
into freedom. (15)
Horowitz has been quoted and summarized at some length because
it is considered that the foregoing is a basically sound account
of the processes that evoke confessions from sources whose resistance
is not strong at the outset, who have not previously-been confronted
with detention and interrogation, and who have not been trained by
an adversary intelligence or security service in resistance techniques.
A fledgling or disaffected Communist or agent, for example, might
be brought to confession and cooperation without the use of any external
coercive forces other than the interrogation situation itself, through
the above-described progression of subjective events.
It is important to understand that interrogation, as both situation
and process, does of itself exert significant external pressure upon
the interrogatee as long as he is not permitted to accustom himself
to it. Some psychologists trace this effect back to infantile relationships.
Meerlo, for example, says that every verbal relationship repeats
to some degree the pattern of early verbal relationships between
child and parent. (27) An interrogatee, in particular, is likely
to see the interrogator as a parent or parent-symbol, an object of
suspicion and resistance or of submissive acceptance. If the interrogator
is unaware of this unconcsious process, the result can be a confused
battle of submerged attitudes, in which the spoken words are often
merely a cover for the unrelated struggle being waged at lower levels
of both personalities. On the other hand, the interrogator who does
understand these facts and who knows how to turn them to his advantage
may not need to resort to any pressures greater than those that flow
directly from the interrogation setting and function.
Obviously, many resistant subjects of counterintelligence interrogation
cannot be brought to cooperation, or even to compliance, merely through
pressures which they generate
40 [page break]
within themselves or through the unreinforced effect of the interrogation
situation. Manipulative techniques - still keyed to the individual
but brought to bear upon him from outside himself - then become necessary.
It is a fundamental hypothesis of this handbook that these techniques,
which can succeed even with highly resistant sources, are in essence
methods of inducing regression of the personality to whatever earlier
and weaker level is required for the dissolution of resistance and
the inculcation of dependence. All of the techniques employed to
break through an interrogation roadblock, the entire spectrum from
simple isolation to hypnosis and narcosis, are essentially ways of
speeding up the process of regression. As the interrogatee slips
back from maturity toward a more infantile state, his learned or
structured personality traits fall away in a reversed chronological
order, so that the characteristics most recently acquired - which
are also the characteristics drawn upon by the interrogatee in his
own defense - are the first to go. As Gill and Brenman have pointed
out, regression is basically a loss of autonomy. (13)
Another key to the successful interrogation of the resisting source
is the provision of an acceptable rationalization for yielding. As
regression proceeds, almost all resisters feel the growing internal
stress that results from wanting simultaneously to conceal and to
divulge. To escape the mounting tension, the source may grasp at
any face-saving reason for compliance - any explanation which will
placate both his own conscience and the possible wrath of former
superiors and associates if he is returned to Communist control.
It is the business of the interrogator to provide the right rationalization
at the right time. Here too the importance of understanding the interrogatee
is evident; the right rationalization must be an excuse or reason
that is tailored to the source's personality.
The interrogation process is a continuum, and everything that takes
place in the continuum influences all subsequent events. The continuing
process, being interpersonal, is not
41 [page break]
reversible. Therefore it is wrong to open a counterintelligence
interrogation experimentally, intending to abandon unfruitful approaches
one by one until a sound method is discovered by chance. The failures
of the interrogator, his painful retreats from blind alleys, bolster
the confidence of the source and increase his ability to resist.
While the interrogator is struggling to learn from the subject the
facts that should have been established before interrogation started,
the subject is learning more and more about the interrogator.
B. The Interrogation Plan
Planning for interrogation is more important than the specifics
of the plan. Because no two interrogations are alike, the interrogation
cannot realistically be planned from A to Z, in all its particulars,
at the outset. But it can and must be planned from A to F or A to
M. The chances of failure in an unplanned CI interrogation are unacceptably
high. Even worse, a "dash-on-regardless" approach can ruin the prospects
of success even if sound methods are used later.
The intelligence category to which the subject belongs, though
not determinant for planning purposes, is still of some significance.
The plan for the interrogation of a traveller differs from that for
other types because the time available for questioning is often brief.
The examination of his bona fides , accordingly, is often less searching.
He is usually regarded as reasonably reliable if his identity and
freedom from other intelligence associations have been established,
if records checks do not produce derogatory information, if his account
of his background is free of omissions or discrepancies suggesting
significant withholding, if he does not attempt to elicit information
about the questioner or his sponsor, and if he willingly provides
detailed information which appears reliable or is established as
such.
[approx. 2 lines deleted]
42 [page break]
[approx. 5 lines deleted]
Defectors can usually be interrogated unilaterally, at least for
a time. Pressure for participation will usually come [approx. 1/2
line deleted] from an ODYOKE intelligence component. The time available
for unilateral testing and exploitation should be calculated at the
outset, with a fair regard for the rights and interests of other
members of the intelligence community. The most significant single
fact to be kept in mind when planning the interrogation of Soviet
defectors is that a certain percentage of them have proven to be
controlled agents; estimates of this percentage have ranged as high
as [one or two words deleted] during a period of several years after
1955. (22)
KUBARK's lack of executive powers is especially significant if
the interrogation of a suspect agent or of any other subject who
is expected to resist is under consideration. As a general rule,
it is difficult to succeed in the CI interrogation of a resistant
source unless the interrogating service can control the subject and
his environment for as long as proves necessary.
[approx. 20 lines deleted]
43 [page break]
[1/3 of page deleted]
C. The Specifics
1. The Specific Purpose
Before questioning starts, the interrogator has clearly in mind
what he wants to learn, why he thinks the source has the information,
how important it is, and how it can best be obtained. Any confusion
here, or any questioning based on the premise that the purpose will
take shape after the interrogation is under way, is almost certain
to lead to aimlessness and final failure. If the specific goals cannot
be discerned clearly, further investigation is needed before querying
starts.
2. Resistance
The kind and intensity of anticipated resistance is estimated.
It is useful to recognize in advance whether the information desired
would be threatening or damaging in any way to the interests of the
interrogates. If so, the interrogator should consider whether the
same information, or confirmation of it, can be gained from another
source. Questioning suspects immediately, on a flimsy factual basis,
will usually cause waste of time, not save it. On the other hand,
if the needed information is not sensitive from the subject's viewpoint,
44 [page break]
merely asking for it is usually preferable to trying to trick him
into admissions and thus creating an unnecessary battle of wits.
The preliminary psychological analysis of the subject makes it
easier to decide whether he is likely to resist and, if so, whether
his resistance will be the product of fear that his personal interests
will be damaged or the result of the non-cooperative nature of orderly-obstinate
and related types. The choice of methods to be used in overcoming
resistance is also determined by the characteristics of the interrogatee.
3. The Interrogation Setting
The room in which the interrogation is to be conducted should be
free of distractions. The colors of walls, ceiling, rugs, and furniture
should not be startling. Pictures should be missing or dull. Whether
the furniture should include a desk depends not upon the interrogator's
convenience but rather upon the subject's anticipated reaction to
connotations of superiority and officialdom. A plain table may be
preferable. An overstuffed chair for the use of the interrogatee
is sometimes preferable to a straight-backed, wooden chair because
if he is made to stand for a lengthy period or is otherwise deprived
of physical comfort, the contrast is intensified and increased disorientation
results. Some treatises on interrogation are emphatic about the value
of arranging the lighting so that its source is behind the interrogator
and glares directly at the subject. Here, too, a flat rule is unrealistic.
The effect upon a cooperative source is inhibitory, and the effect
upon a withholding source may be to make him more stubborn. Like
all other details, this one depends upon the personality of the interrogatee.
Good planning will prevent interruptions. If the room is also used
for purposes other than interrogation, a "Do Not Disturb" sign or
its equivalent should hang on the door when questioning is under
way. The effect of someone wandering in because he forgot his pen
or wants to invite the
45 [page break]
interrogator to lunch can be devastating. For the same reason there
should not be a telephone in the room; it is certain to ring at precisely
the wrong moment. Moreover, it is a visible link to the outside;
its presence makes a subject feel less cut-off, better able to resist.
The interrogation room affords ideal conditions for photographing
the interrogatee without his knowledge by concealing a camera behind
a picture or elsewhere.
If a new safehouse is to be used as the interrogation site, it
should be studied carefully to be sure that the total environment
can be manipulated as desired. For example, the electric current
should be known in advance, so that transformers or other modifying
devices will be on hand if needed.
Arrangements are usually made to record the interrogation, transmit
it to another room, or do both. Most experienced interrogators do
not like to take notes. Not being saddled with this chore leaves
them free to concentrate on what sources say, how they say it, and
what else they do while talking or listening. Another reason for
avoiding note-taking is that it distracts and sometimes worries the
interrogatee. In the course of several sessions conducted without
note-taking, the subject is likely to fall into the comfortable illusion
that he is not talking for the record. Another advantage of the tape
is that it can be played back later. Upon some subjects the shock
of hearing their own voices unexpectedly is unnerving. The record
also prevents later twistings or denials of admissions. [approx.
6 lines deleted] A recording is also a valuable training aid for
interrogators, who by this
46 [page break]
means can study their mistakes and their most effective techniques.
Exceptionally instructuve interrogations, or selected portions thereof,
can also be used in the training of others.
If possible, audio equipment should also be used to transmit the
proceedings to another room, used as a listening post. The main advantage
of transmission is that it enables the person in charge of the interrogation
to note crucial points and map further strategy, replacing one interrogator
with another, timing a dramatic interruption correctly, etc. It is
also helpful to install a small blinker bulb behind the subject or
to arrange some other method of signalling the interrogator, without
the source's knowledge, that the questioner should leave the room
for consultation or that someone else is about to enter.
4. The Participants
Interrogatees are normally questioned separately. Separation permits
the use of a number of techniques that would not be possible otherwise.
It also intensifies in the source the feeling of being cut off from
friendly aid. Confrontation of two or more suspects with each other
in order to produce recriminations or admissions is especially dangerous
if not preceded by separate interrogation sessions which have evoked
compliance from one of the interrogatees, or at least significant
admissions involving both. Techniques for the separate interrogations
of linked sources are discussed in Part IX.
The number of interrogators used for a single interrogation case
varies from one man to a large team. The size of the team depends
on several considerations, chiefly the importance of the case and
the intensity of source resistance. Although most sessions consist
of one interrogator and one interrogatee, some of the techniques
described later call for the presence of two, three, or four interrogators.
The two-man team, in particular, is subject to unintended antipathies
and conflicts not called for by assigned roles. Planning and
47 [page break]
subsequent conduct should eliminate such cross-currents before they
develop, especially because the source will seek to turn them to
his advantage.
Team members who are not otherwise engaged can be employed to best
advantage at the listening post. Inexperienced interrogators find
that listening to the interrogation while it is in progress can be
highly educational.
Once questioning starts, the interrogator is called upon to function
at two levels. He is trying to do two seemingly contradictory things
at once: achieve rapport with the subject but remain an essentially
detached observer. Or he may project himself to the resistant interrogatee
as powerful and ominous (in order to eradicate resistance and create
the necessary conditions for rapport) while remaining wholly uncommitted
at the deeper level, noting the significance of the subjects reactions
and the effectiveness of his own performance. Poor interrogators
often confuse this bi-level functioning with role-playing, but there
is a vital difference. The interrogator who merely pretends, in his
surface performance, to feel a given emotion or to hold a given attitude
toward the source is likely to be unconvincing; the source quickly
senses the deception. Even children are very quick to feel this kind
of pretense. To be persuasive, the sympathy or anger must be genuine;
but to be useful, it must not interfere with the deeper level of
precise, unaffected observation. Bi-level functioning is not difficult
or even unusual; most people act at times as both performer and observer
unless their emotions are so deeply involved in the situation that
the critical faculty disintegrates. Through experience the interrogator
becomes adept in this dualism. The interrogator who finds that he
has become emotionally involved and is no longer capable of unimpaired
objectivity should report the facts so that a substitution can be
made. Despite all planning efforts to select an interrogator whose
age, background, skills, personality, and experience make him the
best choice for the job, it sometimes happens that both questioner
and subject feel, when they first meet,
48 [page break]
an immediate attraction or antipathy which is so strong that a change
of interrogators quickly becomes essential. No interrogator should
be reluctant to notify his superior when emotional involvement becomes
evident. Not the reaction but a failure to report it would be evidence
of a lack of professionalism.
Other reasons for changing interrogators should be anticipated
and avoided at the outset. During the first part of the interrogation
the developing relationship between the questioner and the initially
uncooperative source is more important than the information obtained;
when this relationship is destroyed by a change of interrogators,
the replacement must start nearly from scratch. In fact, he starts
with a handicap, because exposure to interrogation will have made
the source a more effective resister. Therefore the base, station,
[one or two words deleted] should not assign as chief interrogator
a person whose availability will end before the estimated completion
of the case.
5. The Timing
Before interrogation starts, the amount of time probably required
and probably available to both interrogator and interrogatee should
be calculated. If the subject is not to be under detention, his normal
schedule is ascertained in advance, so that he will not have to be
released at a critical point because he has an appointment or has
to go to work.
Because pulling information from a recalcitrant subject is the
hard way of doing business, interrogation should not begin until
all pertinent facts available from overt and from cooperative sources
have been assembled.
Interrogation sessions with a resistant source who is under detention
should not be held on an unvarying schedule. The capacity for resistance
is diminished by disorientation. The subject may be left alone for
days; and he may be returned to his cell, allowed to sleep for five
minutes, and brought back
49 [page break]
to an interrogation which is conducted as though eight hours had
intervened. The principle is that sessions should be so planned as
to disrupt the source's sense of chronological order.
6. The Termination
The end of an interrogation should be planned before questioning
starts. The kinds of questions asked, the methods employed, and even
the goals sought may be shaped by what will happen when the end is
reached. [approx. 3 lines deleted] If he is to be released upon the
local economy, perhaps blacklisted as a suspected hostile agent but
not subjected to subsequent counterintelligence surveillance, it
is important to avoid an inconclusive ending that has warned the
interrogates of our doubts but has established nothing. The poorest
interrogations are those that trail off into an inconclusive nothingness.
A number of practical terminal details should also be considered
in advance. Are the source's documents to be returned to him, and
will they be available in time? Is he to be paid? If he is a fabricator
or hostile agent, has he been photographed and fingerprinted? Are
subsequent contacts necessary or desirable, and have recontact provisions
been arranged? Has a quit-claim been obtained?
As was noted at the beginning of this section, the successful interrogation
of a strongly resistant source ordinarily involves two key processes:
the calculated regression of the interrogatee and the provision of
an acceptable rationalization. If these two steps have been taken,
it becomes very important to clinch the new tractability by means
of conversion. In other words, a subject who has finally divulged
the information sought and who has been given a reason for divulging
which salves his self-esteem, his conscience, or both will often
be in a mood to take the final step of accepting the interrogator'
s values and making common cause with him. If operational use is
now
50 [page break]
contemplated, conversion is imperative. But even if the source has
no further value after his fund of information has been mined, spending
some extra time with him in order to replace his new sense of emptiness
with new values can be good insurance. All non-Communist services
are bothered at times by disgruntled exinterrogatees who press demands
and threaten or take hostile action if the demands are not satisfied.
Defectors in particular, because they are often hostile toward any
kind of authority, cause trouble by threatening or bringing suits
in local courts, arranging publication of vengeful stories, or going
to the local police. The former interrogatee is especially likely
to be a future trouble-maker if during interrogation he was subjected
to a form of compulsion imposed from outside himself. Time spent,
after the interrogation ends, in fortifying the source's sense of
acceptance in the interrogator's world may be only a fraction of
the time required to bottle up his attempts to gain revenge. Moreover,
conversion may create a useful and enduring asset. (See also remarks
in VIII B 4.)
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----------------------
VIII. The Non-Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation
A. General Remarks
The term non-coercive is used above to denote methods of interrogation
that are not based upon the coercion of an unwilling subject through
the employment of superior force originating outside himself. However,
the non-coercive interrogation is not conducted without pressure.
On the contrary, the goal is to generate maximum pressure, or at
least as much as is needed to induce compliance. The difference is
that the pressure is generated inside the interrogatee. His resistance
is sapped, his urge to yield is fortified, until in the end he defeats
himself.
Manipulating the subject psychologically until he becomes compliant,
without applying external methods of forcing him to submit, sounds
harder than it is. The initial advantage lies with the interrogator.
From the outset, he knows a great deal more about the source than
the source knows about him. And he can create and amplify an effect
of omniscience in a number of ways. For example, he can show the
interrogatee a thick file bearing his own name. Even if the file
contains little or nothing but blank paper, the air of familiarity
with which the interrogator refers to the subject's background can
convince some sources that all is known and that resistance is futile.
If the interrogatee is under detention, the interrogator can also
manipulate his environment. Merely by cutting off all other human
contacts, "the interrogator monopolizes the social environment of
the source."(3) He exercises the powers of an all-powerful parent,
determining when the source will be sent to bed, when and what he
will eat, whether he will be rewarded for good behavior or punished
for being bad. The interrogator can and does make the
52 [page break]
subject's world not only unlike the world to which he had been accustomed
but also strange in itself - a world in which familiar patterns of
time, space, and sensory perception are overthrown. He can shift
the environment abruptly. For example, a source who refuses to talk
at all can be placed in unpleasant solitary confinement for a time.
Then a friendly soul treats him to an unexpected walk in the woods.
Experiencing relief and exhilaration, the subject will usually find
it impossible not to respond to innocuous comments on the weather
and the flowers. These are expanded to include reminiscences, and
soon a precedent of verbal exchange has been established. Both the
Germans and the Chinese have used this trick effectively.
The interrogator also chooses the emotional key or keys in which
the interrogation or any part of it will be played.
Because of these and other advantages, " [approx. 6 lines deleted]
."(3)
B. The Structure of the Interrogation
A counterintelligence interrogation consists of four parts: the
opening, the reconnaissance, the detailed questioning and the conclusion.
1. The Opening
Most resistant interrogatees block off access to significant counterintelligen
ce
in their possession for one or more of four reasons. The first is
a specific negative reaction to the interrogator. Poor initial handling
or a fundamental antipathy can make a source uncooperative even if
he has nothing significant or damaging to conceal. The second cause
is that some sources are resistant "by nature" - i.e. by early conditioning
- to any compliance with authority. The third is that the subject
believes that the information sought will be
53 [page break]
damaging or incriminating for him personally that cooperation with
the interrogator will have consequences more painful for him than
the results of non-cooperation. The fourth is ideological resistance.
The source has identified himself with a cause, a political movement
or organization, or an opposition intelligence service. Regardless
of his attitude toward the interrogator, his own personality, and
his fears for the future, the person who is deeply devoted to a hostile
cause will ordinarily prove strongly resistant under interrogation.
A principal goal during the opening phase is to confirm the personality
assessment obtained through screening and to allow the interrogator
to gain a deeper understanding of the source as an individual. Unless
time is crucial, the interrogator should not become impatient if
the interrogatee wanders from the purposes of the interrogation and
reverts to personal concerns. Significant facts not produced during
screening may be revealed. The screening report itself is brought
to life, the type becomes an individual, as the subject talks. And
sometimes seemingly rambling monologues about personal matters are
preludes to significant admissions. Some people cannot bring themselves
to provide information that puts them in an unfavorable light until,
through a lengthy prefatory rationalization, they feel that they
have set the stage that the interrogator will now understand why
they acted as they did. If face-saving is necessary to the interrogatee
it will be a waste of time to try to force him to cut the preliminaries
short and get down to cases. In his view, he is dealing with the
important topic, the why . He will be offended and may become wholly
uncooperative if faced with insistent demands for the naked what
.
There is another advantage in letting the subject talk freely and
even ramblingly in the first stage of interrogation. The interrogator
is free to observe. Human beings communicate a great deal by non-verbal
means. Skilled interrogators, for example, listen closely to voices
and learn a great deal from them. An interrogation is not merely
a
54 [page break]
verbal performance; it is a vocal performance, and the voice projects
tension, fear, a dislike of certain topics, and other useful pieces
of information. It is also helpful to watch the subject's mouth,
which is as a rule much more revealing than his eyes. Gestures and
postures also tell a story. If a subject normally gesticulates broadly
at times and is at other times physically relaxed but at some point
sits stiffly motionless, his posture is likely to be the physical
image of his mental tension. The interrogator should make a mental
note of the topic that caused such a reaction.
One textbook on interrogation lists the following physical indicators
of emotions and recommends that interrogators note them, not as conclusive
proofs but as assessment aids:
(1) A ruddy or flushed face is an indication of anger or embarrassment
but not necessarily of guilt.
(2) A "cold sweat" is a strong sign of fear and shock.
(3) A pale face indicates fear and usually shows that the interrogator
is hitting close to the mark.
(4) A dry mouth denotes nervousness.
(5) Nervous tension is also shown by wringing a handkerchief or
clenching the hands tightly.
(6) Emotional strain or tension may cause a pumping of the heart
which becomes visible in the pulse and throat.
(7) A slight gasp, holding the breath, or an unsteady voice may
betray the subject.
(8) Fidgeting may take many forms, all of which are good indications
of nervousness.
55 [page break]
(9) A man under emotional strain or nervous tension will involuntarily
draw his elbows to his sides. It is a protective defense mechanism.
(10) The movement of the foot when one leg is crossed over the
knee of the other can serve as an indicator. The circulation of the
blood to the lower leg is partially cut off, thereby causing a slight
lift or movement of the free foot with each heart beat. This becomes
more pronounced and observable as the pulse rate increases.
Pauses are also significant. Whenever a person is talking about
a subject of consequence to himself, he goes through a process of
advance self-monitoring, performed at lightning speed. This self-monitoring
is more intense if the person is talking to a stranger and especially
intense if he is answering the stranger's questions. Its purpose
is to keep from the questioner any guilty information or information
that would be damaging to the speaker's self-esteem. Where questions
or answers get close to sensitive areas, the pre-scanning is likely
to create mental blocks. These in turn produce unnatural pauses,
meaningless sounds designed to give the speaker more time, or other
interruptions. It is not easy to distinguish between innocent blocks
-- things held back for reasons of personal prestige -- and guilty
blocks -- things the interrogator needs to know. But the successful
establishment of rapport will tend to eliminate innocent blocks,
or at least to keep them to a minimum.
The establishment of rapport is the second principal purpose of
the opening phase of the interrogation. Sometimes the interrogator
knows in advance, as a result of screening, that the subject will
be uncooperative. At other times the probability of resistance is
established without screening: detected hostile agents, for example,
usually have not only the will to resist but also the means, through
a cover story or other explanation. But the anticipation of withholding
increases rather than diminishes, the value of rapport. In other
words,
56 [page break]
a lack of rapport may cause an interrogatee to withhold information
that he would otherwise provide freely, whereas the existence of
rapport may induce an interrogatee who is initially determined to
withhold to change his attitude. Therefore the interrogator must
not become hostile if confronted with initial hostility, or in any
other way confirm such negative attitudes as he may encounter at
the outset. During this first phase his attitude should remain business-like
but also quietly (not ostentatiously) friendly and welcoming. Such
opening remarks by subjects as, "I know what you so-and-so's are
after, and I can tell you right now that you're not going to get
it from me" are best handled by an unperturbed "Why don't you tell
me what has made you angry?" At this stage the interrogator should
avoid being drawn into conflict, no matter how provocatory may be
the attitude or language of the interrogatee. If he meets truculence
with neither insincere protestations that he is the subject's "pal"
nor an equal anger but rather a calm interest in what has aroused
the subject, the interrogator has gained two advantages right at
the start. He has established the superiority that he will need later,
as the questioning develops, and he has increased the chances of
establishing rapport.
How long the opening phase continues depends upon how long it takes
to establish rapport or to determine that voluntary cooperation is
unobtainable. It may be literally a matter of seconds, or it may
be a drawn-out, up-hill battle. Even though the cost in time and
patience is sometimes high, the effort to make the subject feel that
his questioner is a sympathetic figure should not be abandoned until
all reasonable resources have been exhausted (unless, of course,
the interrogation does not merit much time). Otherwise, the chances
are that the interrogation will not produce optimum results. In fact,
it is likely to be a failure, and the interrogator should not be
dissuaded from the effort to establish rapport by an inward conviction
that no man in his right mind would incriminate himself by providing
the kind of information that is sought. The history of interrogation
is full of confessions and other self-incriminations that were in
essence the result of a substitution of the interrogation world for
the world outside. In
57 [page break]
other words, as the sights and sounds of an outside world fade away,
its significance for the interrogatee tends to do likewise. That
world is replaced by the interrogation room, its two occupants, and
the dynamic relationship between them. As interrogation goes on,
the subject tends increasingly to divulge or withhold in accordance
with the values of the interrogation world rather than those of the
outside world (unless the periods of questioning are only brief interruptions
in his normal life). In this small world of two inhabitants a clash
of personalities -- as distinct from a conflict of purposes -- assumes
exaggerated force, like a tornado in a wind-tunnel. The self-esteem
of the interrogatee and of the interrogator becomes involved, and
the interrogatee fights to keep his secrets from his opponent for
subjective reasons, because he is grimly determined not to be the
loser, the inferior. If on the other hand the interrogator establishes
rapport, the subject may withhold because of other reasons, but his
resistance often lacks the bitter, last-ditch intensity that results
if the contest becomes personalized.
The interrogator who senses or determines in the opening phase
that what he is hearing is a legend should resist the first, natural
impulse to demonstrate its falsity. In some interrogatees the ego-demands,
the need to save face, are so intertwined with preservation of the
cover story that calling the man a liar will merely intensify resistance.
It is better to leave an avenue of escape, a loophole which permits
the source to correct his story without looking foolish.
If it is decided, much later in the interrogation, to confront
the interrogatee with proof of lying, the following related advice
about legal cross-examination may prove helpful.
"Much depends upon the sequence in which one conducts the cross-examination
of a dishonest witness. You should never hazard the important question
until you have laid the foundation for it in such a way that, when
confronted with the fact, the witness can neither deny nor explain
it. One often
58 [page break]
sees the most damaging documentary evidence, in the forms of letters
or affidavits, fall absolutely flat as betrayers of falsehood, merely
because of the unskillful way in which they are handled. If you have
in your possession a letter written by the witness, in which he takes
an opposite position on some part of the case to the one he has just
sworn to, avoid the common error of showing the witness the letter
for identification, and then reading it to him with the inquiry,
'What have you to say to that?' During the reading of his letter
the witness will be collecting his thoughts and getting ready his
explanations in anticipation of the question that is to follow, and
the effect of the damaging letter will be lost.... The correct method
of using such a letter is to lead the witness quietly into repeating
the statements he has made in his direct testimony, and which his
letter contradicts. Then read it off to him. The witness has no explanation.
He has stated the fact, there is nothing to qualify."(41)
2. The Reconnaissance
If the interrogatee is cooperative at the outset or if rapport
is established during the opening phase and the source becomes cooperative,
the reconnaissance stage is needless; the interrogator proceeds directly
to detailed questioning. But if the interrogatee is withholding,
a period of exploration is necessary. Assumptions have normally been
made already as to what he is withholding: that he is a fabricator,
or an RIS agent, or something else he deems it important to conceal.
Or the assumption may be that he had knowledge of such activities
carried out by someone else. At any rate, the purpose of the reconnaissance
is to provide a quick testing of the assumption and, more importantly,
to probe the causes, extent, and intensity of resistance.
During the opening phase the interrogator will have charted the
probable areas of resistance by noting those topics which caused
emotional or physical reactions, speech blocks, or other indicators.
He now begins to probe these areas. Every experienced interrogator
has noted that if an interrogatee
59 [page break]
is withholding, his anxiety increases as the questioning nears the
mark. The safer the topic, the more voluble the source. But as the
questions make him increasingly uncomfortable, the interrogatee becomes
less communicative or perhaps even hostile. During the opening phase
the interrogator has gone along with this protective mechanism. Now,
however, he keeps coming back to each area of sensitivity until he
has determined the location of each and the intensity of the defenses.
If resistance is slight, mere persistence may overcome it; and detailed
questioning may follow immediately. But if resistance is strong,
a new topic should be introduced, and detailed questioning reserved
for the third stage.
Two dangers are especially likely to appear during the reconnaissance.
Up to this point the interrogator has not continued a line of questioning
when resistance was encountered. Now, however, he does so, and rapport
may be strained. Some interrogatees will take this change personally
and tend to personalize the conflict. The interrogator should resist
this tendency. If he succumbs to it, and becomes engaged in a battle
of wits, he may not be able to accomplish the task at hand. The second
temptation to avoid is the natural inclination to resort prematurely
to ruses or coercive techniques in order to settle the matter then
and there. The basic purpose of the reconnaissance is to determine
the kind and degree of pressure that will be needed in the third
stage. The interrogator should reserve his fire-power until he knows
what he is up against.
3. The Detailed Questioning
a. If rapport is established and if the interrogatee has nothing
significant to hide, detailed questioning presents only routine problems.
The major routine considerations are the following:
The interrogator must know exactly what he wants to know. He should
have on paper or firmly in mind all the questions to which he seeks
answers. It usually
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happens that the source has a relatively large body of information
that has little or no intelligence value and only a small collection
of nuggets. He will naturally tend to talk about what he knows best.
The interrogator should not show quick impatience, but neither should
he allow the results to get out of focus. The determinant remains
what we need, not what the interrogatee can most readily provide.
At the same time it is necessary to make every effort to keep the
subject from learning through the interrogation process precisely
where our informational gaps lie. This principle is especially important
if the interrogatee is following his normal life, going home each
evening and appearing only once or twice a week for questioning,
or if his bona fides remains in doubt. Under almost all circumstances,
however, a clear revelation of our interests and knowledge should
be avoided. It is usually a poor practice to hand to even the most
cooperative interrogatee an orderly list of questions and ask him
to write the answers. (This stricture does not apply to the writing
of autobiographies or on informational matters not a subject of controversy
with the source.) Some time is normally spent on matters of little
or no intelligence interest for purposes of concealment. The interrogator
can abet the process by making occasional notes -- or pretending
to do so -- on items that seem important to the interrogatee but
are not of intelligence value. From this point of view an interrogation
can be deemed successful if a source who is actually a hostile agent
can report to the opposition only the general fields of our interest
but cannot pinpoint specifics without including misleading information.
It is sound practice to write up each interrogation report on the
day of questioning or, at least, before the next session, so that
defects can be promptly remedied and gaps or contradictions noted
in time.
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It is also a good expedient to have the interrogatee make notes
of topics that should be covered, which occur to him while discussing
the immediate matters at issue. The act of recording the stray item
or thought on paper fixes it in the interrogatee's mind. Usually
topics popping up in the course of an interrogation are forgotten
if not noted; they tend to disrupt the interrogation plan if covered
by way of digression on the spot.
Debriefing questions should usually be couched to provoke a positive
answer and should be specific. The questioner should not accept a
blanket negative without probing. For example, the question "Do you
know anything about Plant X?" is likelier to draw a negative answer
then "Do you have any friends who work at Plant X?" or "Can you describe
its exterior?"
It is important to determine whether the subject's knowledge of
any topic was acquired at first hand, learned indirectly, or represents
merely an assumption. If the information was obtained indirectly,
the identities of sub-sources and related information about the channel
are needed. If statements rest on assumptions, the facts upon which
the conclusions are based are necessary to evaluation.
As detailed questioning proceeds, addition biographic data will
be revealed. Such items should be entered into the record, but it
is normally preferable not to diverge from an impersonal topic in
order to follow a biographic lead. Such leads can be taken up later
unless they raise new doubts about bona fides .
As detailed interrogation continues, and especially at the half-way
mark, the interrogator's desire to complete the task may cause him
to be increasingly business-like or even brusque. He may tend to
curtail or drop the usual inquiries about the subject's well-being
with which he opened earlier sessions. He may feel like dealing more
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and more abruptly with reminiscences or digressions. His interest
has shifted from the interrogatee himself, who jut a while ago was
an interesting person, to the atsk of getting at what he knows. But
if rapport has been established, the interrogatee will be quick to
sense and resent this change of attitude. This point is particularly
important if the interrogatee is a defector faced with bewildering
changes and in a highly emotional state. Any interrogatee has his
ups and downs, times when he is tired or half-ill, times when his
personal problems have left his nerves frayed. The peculiar intimacy
of the interrogation situation and the very fact that the interrogator
has deliberately fostered rapport will often lead the subject to
talk about his doubts, fears, and other personal reactions. The interrogator
should neither cut off this flow abruptly nor show impatience unless
it takes up an inordinate amount of time or unless it seems likely
that all the talking about personal matters is being used deliberately
as a smoke screen to keep the interrogator from doing his job. If
the interrogatee is believed cooperative, then from the beginning
to the end of the process he should feel that the interrogator's
interest in him has remained constant. Unless the interrogation is
soon over, the interrogatee's attitude toward his questioner is not
likely to remain constant. He will feel more and more drawn to the
questioner or increasingly antagonistic. As a rule, the best way
for the interrogator to keep the relationship on an even keel is
to maintain the same quiet, relaxed, and open-minded attitude from
start to finish.
Detailed interrogation ends only when (1) all useful counterintelligence
information has been obtained; (2) diminishing returns and more pressing
commitments compel a cessation; or (3) the base, station, [one or
two words deleted] admits full or partial defeat. Termination for
any reason other than the first is only temporary. It is a profound
mistake to write off a successfully resistant interrogatee or one
whose questioning was ended before his potential
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was exhausted. KUBARK must keep track of such persons, because people
and circumstances change. Until the source dies or tells us everything
that he knows that is pertinent to our purposes, his interrogation
may be interrupted, perhaps for years -- but it has not been completed.
4. The Conclusion
The end of an interrogation is not the end of the interrogator's
responsibilities. From the beginning of planning to the end of questioning
it has been necessary to understand and guard against the various
troubles that a vengeful ex-source can cause. As was pointed out
earlier, KUBARK's lack of executive authority abroad and its operational
need for facelessness make it peculiarly vulnerable to attack in
the courts or the press. The best defense against such attacks is
prevention, through enlistment or enforcement of compliance. However
real cooperation is achieved, its existence seems to act as a deterrent
to later hostility. The initially resistant subject may become cooperative
because of a partial identification with the interrogator and his
interests, or the source may make such an identification because
of his cooperation. In either event, he is unlikely to cause serious
trouble in the future. Real difficulties are more frequently created
by interrogatees who have succeeded in withholding.
The following steps are normally a routine part of the conclusion:
a. [approx. 10 lines deleted]
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d. [approx. 7 lines deleted]
e. [approx. 7 lines deleted]
f. [approx. 4 lines deleted]
C. Techniques of Non-Coercive Interrogation of Resistant Sources
If source resistance is encountered during screening or during
the opening or reconnaissance phases of the interrogation, non-coercive
methods of sapping opposition and strengthening the tendency to yield
and to cooperate may be applied. Although these methods appear here
in an approximate order of increasing pressure, it should not be
inferred that each is to be tried until the key fits the lock. On
the contrary, a large part of the skill and the success of the experienced
interrogator lies in his ability to match method to source. The use
of unsuccessful techniques will of itself increase the interrogatee's
will and ability to resist.
This principle also affects the decision to employ coercive techniques
and governs the choice of these methods. If in the opinion of the
interrogator a totally resistant source has the skill and determination
to withstand any con-coercive method or combination of methods, it
is better to avoid them completely.
The effectiveness of most of the non-coercive techniques depends
upon their unsettling effect. The interrogation situation is in itself
disturbing to most people encountering it for the first time. The
aim is to enhance this effect, to disrupt radically the familiar
emotional
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and psychological associations of the subject. When this aim is
achieved, resistance is seriously impaired. There is an interval
-- which may be extremely brief -- of suspended animation, a kind
of psychological shock or paralysis. It is caused by a traumatic
or sub-traumatic experience which explodes, as it were, the world
that is familiar to the subject as well as his image of himself within
that world. Experienced interrogators recognize this effect when
it appears and know that at this moment the source is far more open
to suggestion, far likelier to comply, than he was just before he
experienced the shock.
Another effect frequently produced by non-coercive (as well as
coercive) methods is the evocation within the interrogatee of feelings
of guilt. Most persons have areas of guilt in their emotional topographies,
and an interrogator can often chart these areas just by noting refusals
to follow certain lines of questioning. Whether the sense of guilt
has real or imaginary causes does not affect the result of intensification
of guilt feelings. Making a person feel more and more guilty normally
increases both his anxiety and his urge to cooperate as a means of
escape.
In brief, the techniques that follow should match the personality
of the individual interrogatee, and their effectiveness is intensified
by good timing and rapid exploitation of the moment of shock. (A
few of the following items are drawn from Sheehan.) (32)
1. Going Next Door
Occasionally the information needed from a recalcitrant interrogatee
is obtainable from a willing source. The interrogator should decide
whether a confession is essential to his purpose or whether information
which may be held by others as well as the unwilling source is really
his goal. The labor of extracting the truth from unwilling interrogatees
should be undertaken only if the same information is not more easily
obtainable elsewhere or if operational considerations require self-incrimination
.
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2. Nobody Loves You
An interrogatee who is withholding items of no grave consequence
to himself may sometimes be persuaded to talk by the simple tactic
of pointing out that to date all of the information about his case
has come from persons other than himself. The interrogator wants
to be fair. He recognizes that some of the denouncers may have been
biased or malicious. In any case, there is bound to be some slanting
of the facts unless the interrogatee redresses the balance. The source
owes it to himself to be sure that the interrogator hears both sides
of the story.
3. The All-Seeing Eye (or Confession is Good for the Soul)
The interrogator who already knows part of the story explains to
the source that the purpose of the questioning is not to gain information;
the interrogator knows everything already. His real purpose is to
test the sincerity (reliability, honor, etc.) of the source. The
interrogator then asks a few questions to which he knows the answers.
If the subject lies, he is informed firmly and dispassionately that
he has lied. By skilled manipulation of the known, the questioner
can convince a naive subject that all his secrets are out and that
further resistance would be not only pointless but dangerous. If
this technique does not work very quickly, it must be dropped before
the interrogatee learns the true limits of the questioner's knowledge.
4. The Informer
Detention makes a number of tricks possible. One of these, planting
an informant as the source's cellmate, is so well-known, especially
in Communist countries, that its usefulness is impaired if not destroyed.
Less well known is the trick of planting two informants in the cell.
One of them, A, tries now and then to pry a little information from
the source; B remains quiet. At the proper time, and during A's absence,
B warns the source not to tell A anything because B suspects him
of being an informant planted by the authorities.
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Suspicion against a single cellmate may sometimes be broken down
if he shows the source a hidden microphone that he has "found" and
suggests that they talk only in whispers at the other end of the
room.
5. News from Home
Allowing an interrogatee to receive carefully selected letters
from home can contribute to effects desired by the interrogator.
Allowing the source to write letters, especially if he can be led
to believe that they will be smuggled out without the knowledge of
the authorities, may produce information which is difficult to extract
by direct questioning.
6. The Witness
If others have accused the interrogatee of spying for a hostile
service or of other activity which he denies, there is a temptation
to confront the recalcitrant source with his accuser or accusers.
But a quick confrontation has two weaknesses: it is likely to intensify
the stubbornness of denials, and it spoils the chance to use more
subtle methods.
One of these is to place the interrogatee in an outer office and
escort past him, and into the inner office, an accuser whom he knows
personally or, in fact, any person -- even one who is friendly to
the source and uncooperative with the interrogators -- who is believed
to know something about whatever the interrogatee is concealing.
It is also essential that the interrogatee know or suspect that the
witness may be in possession of the incriminating information. The
witness is whisked past the interrogatee; the two are not allowed
to speak to each other. A guard and a stenographer remain in the
outer office with the interrogatee. After about an hour the interrogator
who has been questioning the interrogatee in past sessions opens
the door and asks the stenographer to come in, with steno pad and
pencils. After a time she re-emerges and types material from her
pad, making several carbons. She pauses, points at the interrogatee,
and asks the guard how
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his name is spelled. She may also ask the interrogatee directly
for the proper spelling of a street, a prison, the name of a Communist
intelligence officer, or any other factor closely linked to the activity
of which he is accused. She takes her completed work into the inner
office, comes back out, and telephones a request that someone come
up to act as legal witness. Another man appears and enters the inner
office. The person cast in the informer's role may have been let
out a back door at the beginning of these proceedings; or if cooperative,
he may continue his role. In either event, a couple of interrogators,
with or without the "informer", now emerge from the inner office.
In contrast to their earlier demeanor, they are now relaxed and smiling.
The interrogator in charge says to the guard, "O.K., Tom, take him
back. We don't need him any more." Even if the interrogatee now insists
on telling his side of the story, he is told to relax, because the
interrogator will get around to him tomorrow or the next day.
A session with the witness may be recorded. If the witness denounces
the interrogatee there is no problem. If he does not, the interrogator
makes an effort to draw him out about a hostile agent recently convicted
in court or otherwise known to the witness. During the next interrogation
session with the source, a part of the taped denunciation can be
played back to him if necessary. Or the witnesses' remarks about
the known spy, edited as necessary, can be so played back that the
interrogatee is persuaded that he is the subject of the remarks.
Cooperative witnesses may be coached to exaggerate so that if a
recording is played for the interrogatee or a confrontation is arranged,
the source -- for example, a suspected courier -- finds the witness
overstating his importance. The witness claims that the interrogatee
is only incidentally a courier, that actually he is the head of an
RIS kidnapping gang. The interrogator pretends amazement and says
into the recorder, "I thought he was only a courier; and if he had
told us the truth, I planned to let him go. But this is much more
serious. On the basis of charges
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like these I'll have to hand him over to the local police for trial."
On hearing these remarks, the interrogatee may confess the truth
about the lesser guilt in order to avoid heavier punishment. If he
continues to withhold, the interrogator may take his side by stating,
"You know, I'm not at all convinced that so-and-so told a straight
story. I feel, personally, that he was exaggerating a great deal.
Wasn't he? What's the true story?"
7. Joint Suspects
If two or more interrogation sources are suspected of joint complicity
in acts directed against U.S. security, they should be separated
immediately. If time permits, it may be a good idea (depending upon
the psychological assessment of both) to postpone interrogation for
about a week. Any anxious inquiries from either can be met by a knowing
grin and some such reply as, "We'll get to you in due time. There's
no hurry now ." If documents, witnesses, or other sources yield
information about interrogatee A, such remarks as "B says it was
in Smolensk that you denounced so-and-so to the secret police. Is
that right? Was it in 1937?" help to establish in A's mind the impression
that B is talking.
If the interrogator is quite certain of the facts in the case but
cannot secure an admission from either A or B, a written confession
may be prepared and A's signature may be reproduced on it. (It is
helpful if B can recognize A's signature, but not essential.) The
confession contains the salient facts, but they are distorted; the
confession shows that A is attempting to throw the entire responsibility
upon B. Edited tape recordings which sound as though A had denounced
B may also be used for the purpose, separately or in conjunction
with the written "confession." If A is feeling a little ill or dispirited,
he can also be led past a window or otherwise shown to B without
creating a chance for conversation; B is likely to interpret A's
hang-dog look as evidence of confession and denunciation. (It is
important that in all such gambits, A be the weaker of the two, emotionally
and psychologically.) B then reads (or hears) A's "confession." If
B persists in withholding, the
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interrogator should dismiss him promptly, saying that A's signed
confession is sufficient for the purpose and that it does not matter
whether B corroborates it or not. At the following session with B,
the interrogator selects some minor matter, not substantively damaging
to B but nevertheless exaggerated, and says, "I'm not sure A was
really fair to you here. Would you care to tell me your side of the
story?" If B rises to this bait, the interrogator moves on to areas
of greater significance.
The outer-and-inner office routine may also be employed. A, the
weaker, is brought into the inner office, and the door is left slightly
ajar or the transom open. B is later brought into the outer office
by a guard and placed where he can hear, though not too clearly.
The interrogator begins routine questioning of A, speaking rather
softly and inducing A to follow suit. Another person in the inner
office, acting by prearrangement, then quietly leads A out through
another door. Any noises of departure are covered by the interrogator,
who rattles the ash tray or moves a table or large chair. As soon
as the second door is closed again and A is out of earshot, the interrogator
resumes his questioning. His voice grows louder and angrier. He tells
A to speak up, that he can hardly hear him. He grows abusive, reaches
a climax, and then says, "Well, that's better. Why didn't you say
so in the first place?" The rest of the monologue is designed to
give B the impression that A has now started to tell the truth. Suddenly
the interrogator pops his head through the doorway and is angry on
seeing B and the guard. "You jerk!" he says to the guard, "What are
you doing here?" He rides down the guard's mumbled attempt to explain
the mistake, shouting, "Get him out of here! I'll take care of you
later!"
When, in the judgment of the interrogator, B is fairly well convinced
that A has broken down and told his story, the interrogator may elect
to say to B, "Now that A has come clean with us, I'd like to let
him go. But I hate to release one of you before the other; you ought
to get out at the same time. A seems to be pretty angry with you
-- feels that you got him into this jam. He might even go back to
your Soviet case officer and say
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that you haven't returned because you agreed to stay here and work
for us. Wouldn't it be better for you if I set you both free together?
Wouldn't it be better to tell me your side of the story?"
8. Ivan Is a Dope
It may be useful to point out to a hostile agent that the cover
story was ill-contrived, that the other service botched the job,
that it is typical of the other service to ignore the welfare of
its agents. The interrogator may personalize this pitch by explaining
that he has been impressed by the agent's courage and intelligence.
He sells the agent the idea that the interrogator, not his old service,
represents a true friend, who understands him and will look after
his welfare.
9. Joint Interrogators
The commonest of the joint interrogator techniques is the Mutt-and-Jeff
routine: the brutal, angry, domineering type contrasted with the
friendly, quiet type. This routine works best with women, teenagers,
and timid men. If the interrogator who has done the bulk of the questioning
up to this point has established a measure of rapport, he should
play the friendly role. If rapport is absent, and especially if antagonism
has developed, the principal interrogator may take the other part.
The angry interrogator speaks loudly from the beginning; and unless
the interrogatee clearly indicates that he is now ready to tell his
story, the angry interrogator shouts down his answers and cuts him
off. He thumps the table. The quiet interrogator should not watch
the show unmoved but give subtle indications that he too is somewhat
afraid of his colleague. The angry interrogator accuses the subject
of other offenses, any offenses, especially those that are heinous
or demeaning. He makes it plain that he personally considers the
interrogatee the vilest person on earth. During the harangue the
friendly, quiet interrogator breaks in to say, "Wait a minute, Jim.
Take it easy." The angry interrogator shouts back, "Shut up! I'm
handling this. I've broken crumb-bums before, and I'll break this
one, wide open." He expresses his disgust by spitting on
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the floor or holding his nose or any gross gesture. Finally, red-faced
and furious, he says, "I'm going to take a break, have a couple of
stiff drinks. But I'll be back at two -- and you, you bum, you better
be ready to talk." When the door slams behind him, the second interrogator
tells the subject how sorry he is, how he hates to work with a man
like that but has no choice, how if maybe brutes like that would
keep quiet and give a man a fair chance to tell his side of the story,
etc., etc.
An interrogator working alone can also use the Mutt-and-Jeff technique.
After a number of tense and hostile sessions the interrogatee is
ushered into a different or refurnished room with comfortable furniture,
cigarettes, etc. The interrogator invites him to sit down and explains
his regret that the source's former stubbornness forced the interrogator
to use such tactics. Now everything will be different. The interrogator
talks man-to-man. An American POW, debriefed on his interrogation
by a hostile service that used this approach, has described the result:
"Well, I went in and there was a man, an officer he was... -- he
asked me to sit down and was very friendly.... It was very terrific.
I, well, I almost felt like I had a friend sitting there. I had to
stop every now and then and realize that this man wasn't a friend
of mine.... I also felt as though I couldn't be rude to him.... It
was much more difficult for me to -- well, I almost felt I had as
much responsibility to talk to him and reason and justification as
I have to talk to you right now."(18)
Another joint technique casts both interrogators in friendly roles.
But whereas the interrogator in charge is sincere, the second interrogator's
manner and voice convey the impression that he is merely pretending
sympathy in order to trap the interrogated. He slips in a few trick
questions of the "When-did-you-stop-beating-your-wife?" category.
The interrogator in charge warns his colleague to desist. When he
repeats the tactics, the interrogator in charge says, with a slight
show of anger, "We're not here to trap people but to get at the truth.
I suggest that you leave now. I'll handle this."
It is usually unproductive to cast both interrogators in hostile
roles.
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Language
If the recalcitrant subject speaks more than one language, it is
better to question him in the tongue with which he is least familiar
as long as the purpose of interrogation is to obtain a confession.
After the interrogatee admits hostile intent or activity, a switch
to the better-known language will facilitate follow-up.
An abrupt switch of languages may trick a resistant source. If
an interrogatee has withstood a barrage of questions in German or
Korean, for example, a sudden shift to "Who is your case officer?"
in Russian may trigger the answer before the source can stop himself.
An interrogator quite at home in the language being used may nevertheless
elect to use an interpreter if the interrogatee does not know the
language to be used between the interrogator and interpreter and
also does not know that the interrogator knows his own tongue. The
principal advantage here is that hearing everything twice helps the
interrogator to note voice, expression, gestures, and other indicators
more attentively. This gambit is obviously unsuitable for any form
of rapid-fire questioning, and in any case it has the disadvantage
of allowing the subject to pull himself together after each query.
It should be used only with an interpreter who has been trained in
the technique.
It is of basic importance that the interrogator not using an interpreter
be adept in the language selected for use. If he is not, if slips
of grammar or a strong accent mar his speech, the resistant source
will usually feel fortified. Almost all people have been conditioned
to relate verbal skill to intelligence, education, social status,
etc. Errors or mispronunciations also permit the interrogatee to
misunderstand or feign misunderstanding and thus gain time. He may
also resort to polysyllabic obfuscations upon realizing the limitations
of the interrogator's vocabulary.
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Spinoza and Mortimer Snerd
If there is reason to suspect that a withholding source possesses
useful counterintelligence information but has not had access to
the upper reaches of the target organizations, the policy and command
level, continued questioning about lofty topics that the source knows
nothing about may pave the way for the extraction of information
at lower levels. The interrogatee is asked about KGB policy, for
example: the relation of the service to its government, its liaison
arrangements, etc., etc. His complaints that he knows nothing of
such matters are met by flat insistence that he does know, he would
have to know, that even the most stupid men in his position know.
Communist interrogators who used this tactic against American POW's
coupled it with punishment for "don't know" responses -- typically
by forcing the prisoner to stand at attention until he gave some
positive response. After the process had been continued long enough,
the source was asked a question to which he did know the answer.
Numbers of Americans have mentioned "...the tremendous feeling of
relief you get when he finally asks you something you can answer."
One said, "I know it seems strange now, but I was positively grateful
to them when they switched to a topic I knew something about."(3)
The Wolf in Sheep's Clothing
It has been suggested that a successfully withholding source might
be tricked into compliance if led to believe that he is dealing with
the opposition. The success of the ruse depends upon a successful
imitation of the opposition. A case officer previously unknown to
the source and skilled in the appropriate language talks with the
source under such circumstances that the latter is convinced that
he is dealing with the opposition. The source is debriefed on what
he has told the Americans and what he has not told them. The trick
is likelier to succeed if the interrogatee has not been in confinement
but a staged "escape," engineered by a stool-pigeon, might achieve
the same end. Usually the trick is so complicated and risky that
its employment is not recommended.
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Alice in Wonderland
The aim of the Alice in Wonderland or confusion technique is to
confound the expectations and conditioned reactions of the interrogatee.
He is accustomed to a world that makes some sense, at least to him:
a world of continuity and logic, a predictable world. He clings to
this world to reinforce his identity and powers of resistance.
The confusion technique is designed not only to obliterate the
familiar but to replace it with the weird. Although this method can
be employed by a single interrogator, it is better adapted to use
by two or three. When the subject enters the room, the first interrogator
asks a doubletalk question -- one which seems straightforward but
is essentially nonsensical. Whether the interrogatee tries to answer
or not, the second interrogator follows up (interrupting any attempted
response) with a wholly unrelated and equally illogical query. Sometimes
two or more questions are asked simultaneously. Pitch, tone, and
volume of the interrogators' voices are unrelated to the import of
the questions. No pattern of questions and answers is permitted to
develop, nor do the questions themselves relate logically to each
other. In this strange atmosphere the subject finds that the pattern
of speech and thought which he has learned to consider normal have
been replaced by an eerie meaninglessness. The interrogatee may start
laughing or refuse to take the situation seriously. But as the process
continues, day after day if necessary, the subject begins to try
to make sense of the situation, which becomes mentally intolerable.
Now he is likely to make significant admissions, or even to pour
out his story, just to stop the flow of babble which assails him.
This technique may be especially effective with the orderly, obstinate
type.
Regression
There are a number of non-coercive techniques for inducing regression,
All depend upon the interrogator's control of the environment and,
as always, a proper matching of method to source. Some interrogatees
can be repressed by
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persistent manipulation of time, by retarding and advancing clocks
and serving meals at odd times -- ten minutes or ten hours after
the last food was given. Day and night are jumbled. Interrogation
sessions are similarly unpatterned the subject may be brought back
for more questioning just a few minutes after being dismissed for
the night. Half-hearted efforts to cooperate can be ignored, and
conversely he can be rewarded for non-cooperation. (For example,
a successfully resisting source may become distraught if given some
reward for the "valuable contribution" that he has made.) The Alice
in Wonderland technique can reinforce the effect. Two or more interrogators,
questioning as a team and in relays (and thoroughly jumbling the
timing of both methods) can ask questions which make it impossible
for the interrogatee to give sensible, significant answers. A subject
who is cut off from the world he knows seeks to recreate it, in some
measure, in the new and strange environment. He may try to keep track
of time, to live in the familiar past, to cling to old concepts of
loyalty, to establish -- with one or more interrogators -- interpersonal
relations resembling those that he has had earlier with other people,
and to build other bridges back to the known. Thwarting his attempts
to do so is likely to drive him deeper and deeper into himself, until
he is no longer able to control his responses in adult fashion.
The placebo technique is also used to induce regression The interrogatee
is given a placebo (a harmless sugar pill). Later he is told that
he has imbibed a drug, a truth serum, which will make him want to
talk and which will also prevent his lying. The subject's desire
to find an excuse for the compliance that represents his sole avenue
of escape from his distressing predicament may make him want to believe
that he has been drugged and that no one could blame him for telling
his story now. Gottschelk observes, "Individuals under increased
stress are more likely to respond to placebos."(7)
Orne has discussed an extensions of the placebo concept in explaining
what he terms the "magic room" technique. "An example... would be...
the prisoner who is given a hypnotic suggestion that his hand is
growing warm. However,
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in this instance, the prisoner's hand actually does become warm,
a problem easily resolved by the use of a concealed diathermy machine.
Or it might be suggested... that... a cigarette will taste bitter.
Here again, he could be given a cigarette prepared to have a slight
but noticeably bitter taste." In discussing states of heightened
suggestibility (which are not, however, states of trance) Orne says,
"Both hypnosis and some of the drugs inducing hypnoidal states are
popularly viewed as situations where the individual is no longer
master of his own fate and therefore not responsible for his actions.
It seems possible then that the hypnotic situation, as distinguished
from hypnosis itself, might be used to relieve the individual of
a feeling of responsibility for his own actions and thus lead him
to reveal information."(7)
In other words, a psychologically immature source, or one who has
been regressed, could adopt an implication or suggestion that he
has been drugged, hypnotized, or otherwise rendered incapable of
resistance, even if he recognizes at some level that the suggestion
is untrue, because of his strong desire to escape the stress of the
situation by capitulating. These techniques provide the source with
the rationalization that he needs.
Whether regression occurs spontaneously under detention or interrogation,
and whether it is induced by a coercive or non-coercive technique,
it should not be allowed to continue past the point necessary to
obtain compliance. Severe techniques of regression are best employed
in the presence of a psychiatrist, to insure full reversal later.
As soon as he can, the interrogator presents the subject with the
way out, the face-saving reason for escaping from his painful dilemma
by yielding. Now the interrogator becomes fatherly. Whether the excuse
is that others have already confessed ("all the other boys are doing
it"), that the interrogatee had a chance to redeem himself ("you're
really a good boy at heart"), or that he can't help himself ("they
made you do it"), the effective rationalization, the one the source
will jump at, is likely to be elementary. It is an adult's version
of the excuses of childhood.
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The Polygraph
The polygraph can be used for purposes other than the evaluation
of veracity. For example, it may be used as an adjunct in testing
the range of languages spoken by an interrogatee or his sophistication
in intelligence matters, for rapid screening to determine broad areas
of knowledgeability, and as an aid in the psychological assessment
of sources. Its primary function in a counterintelligence interrogation,
however, is to provide a further means of testing for deception or
withholding.
A resistant source suspected of association with a hostile clandestine
organization should be tested polygraphically at least once. Several
examinations may be needed. As a general rule, the polygraph should
not be employed as a measure of last resort. More reliable readings
will be obtained if the instrument is used before the subject has
been placed under intense pressure, whether such pressure is coercive
or not. Sufficient information for the purpose is normally available
after screening and one or two interrogation sessions.
Although the polygraph has been a valuable aid, no interrogator
should feel that it can carry his responsibility for him. [approx.
7 lines deleted] (9)
The best results are obtained when the CI interrogator and the
polygraph operator work closely together in laying the groundwork
for technical examination. The operator needs all available information
about the personality of the source, as well as the operational background
and reasons for suspicion. The CI interrogator in turn can cooperate
more effectively and can fit the results of technical examination
more accurately into
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the totality of his findings if he has a basic comprehension of
the instrument and its workings.
The following discussion is based upon R.C. Davis' "Physiological
Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information."(7) Although improvements
appear to be in the offing, the instrument in widespread use today
measures breathing, systolic blood pressure, and galvanic skin response
(GSR). "One drawback in the use of respiration as an indicator,"
according to Davis, "is its susceptibility to voluntary control."
Moreover, if the source "knows that changes in breathing will disturb
all physiologic variables under control of the autonomic division
of the nervous system, and possibly even some others, a certain amount
of cooperation or a certain degree of ignorance is required for lie
detection by physiologic methods to work." In general, "... breathing
during deception is shallower and slower than in truth telling...
the inhibition of breathing seems rather characteristic of anticipation
of a stimulus."
The measurement of systolic blood pressure provides a reading on
a phenomenon not usually subject to voluntary control. The pressure
"... will typically rise by a few millimeters of mercury in response
to a question, whether it is answered truthfully or not. The evidence
is that the rise will generally be greater when (the subject) is
lying." However, discrimination between truth-telling and lying on
the basis of both breathing and blood pressure "... is poor (almost
nil) in the early part of the sitting and improves to a high point
later."
The galvanic skin response is one of the most easily triggered
reactions, but recovery after the reaction is slow, and "... in a
routine examination the next question is likely to be introduced
before recovery is complete. Partly because of this fact there is
an adapting trend in the GSR with stimuli repeated every few minutes
the response gets smaller, other things being equal."
Davis examines three theories regarding the polygraph. The conditional
response theory holds that the subject reacts to questions that
strike sensitive areas, regardless of whether he is telling the truth
or not. Experimentation has not sub-
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stantiated this theory. The theory of conflict presumes that a
large physiologic disturbance occurs when the subject is caught between
his habitual inclination to tell the truth and his strong desire
not to divulge a certain set of facts. Davis suggests that if this
concept is valid, it holds only if the conflict is intense. The
threat-of-punishment theory maintains that a large physiologic response
accompanies lying because the subject fears the consequence of failing
to deceive. "In common language it might be said that he fails to
deceive the machine operator for the very reason that he fears he
will fail. The 'fear' would be the very reaction detected." This
third theory is more widely held than the other two. Interrogators
should note the inference that a resistant source who does not fear
that detection of lying will result in a punishment of which he is
afraid would not, according to this theory, produce significant responses.
Graphology
The validity of graphological techniques for the analysis of the
personalities of resistant interrogatees has not been established.
There is some evidence that graphology is a useful aid in the early
detection of cancer and of certain mental illnesses. If the interrogator
or his unit decides to have a source's handwriting analyzed, the
samples should be submitted to Headquarters as soon as possible,
because the analysis is more useful in the preliminary assessment
of the source than in the later interrogation. Graphology does have
the advantage of being one of the very few techniques not requiring
the assistance or even the awareness of the interrogatee. As with
any other aid, the interrogator is free to determine for himself
whether the analysis provides him with new and valid insights, confirms
other observations, is not helpful, or is misleading.
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----------------------
IX. Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation
of Resistant Sources
A. Restrictions
The purpose of this part of the handbook is to present basic information
about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation
situation. It is vital that this discussion not be misconstrued
as constituting authorization for the use of coercion at field discretion
. As was noted earlier, there is no such blanket authorization.
[approx. 10 lines deleted]
For both ethical and pragmatic reasons no interrogator may take
upon himself the unilateral responsibility for using coercive methods.
Concealing from the interrogator's superiors an intent to resort
to coercion, or its unapproved employment, does not protect them.
It places them, and KUBARK, in unconsidered jeopardy.
B. The Theory of Coercion
Coercive procedures are designed not only to exploit the resistant
source's internal conflicts and induce him to wrestle with himself
but also to bring a superior outside force to bear upon the subject's
resistance. Non-coercive methods are not
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likely to succeed if their selection and use is not predicated upon
an accurate psychological assessment of the source. In contrast,
the same coercive method may succeed against persons who are very
unlike each other. The changes of success rise steeply, nevertheless,
if the coercive technique is matched to the source's personality.
Individuals react differently even to such seemingly non-discriminatory
stimuli as drugs. Moreover, it is a waste of time and energy to apply
strong pressures on a hit-or-miss basis if a tap on the psychological
jugular will produce compliance.
All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression. As Hinkle
notes in "The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as
it Affects Brain Function"(7), the result of external pressures of
sufficient intensity is the loss of those defenses most recently
acquired by civilized man: "... the capacity to carry out the highest
creative activities, to meet new, challenging, and complex situations,
to deal with trying interpersonal relations, and to cope with repeated
frustrations. Relatively small degrees of homeostatic derangement,
fatigue, pain, sleep loss, or anxiety may impair these functions."
As a result, "most people who are exposed to coercive procedures
will talk and usually reveal some information that they might not
have revealed otherwise."
One subjective reaction often evoked by coercion is a feeling of
guilt. Meltzer observes, "In some lengthy interrogations, the interrogator
may, by virtue of his role as the sole supplier of satisfaction and
punishment, assume the stature and importance of a parental figure
in the prisoner's feeling and thinking. Although there may be intense
hatred for the interrogator, it is not unusual for warm feelings
also to develop. This ambivalence is the basis for guilt reactions,
and if the interrogator nourishes these feelings, the guilt may be
strong enough to influence the prisoner's behavior.... Guilt makes
compliance more likely...."(7).
Farber says that the response to coercion typically contains "...
at least three important elements: debility, dependency, and dread."
Prisoners "... have reduced viability, are helplessly dependent on
their captors for the
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satisfaction of their many basic needs, and experience the emotional
and motivational reactions of intense fear and anxiety.... Among
the [American] POW's pressured by the Chinese Communists, the DDD
syndrome in its full-blown form constituted a state of discomfort
that was well-nigh intolerable." (11). If the debility-dependency-dread
state is unduly prolonged, however, the arrestee may sink into a
defensive apathy from which it is hard to arouse him.
Psychologists and others who write about physical or psychological
duress frequently object that under sufficient pressure subjects
usually yield but that their ability to recall and communicate information
accurately is as impaired as the will to resist. This pragmatic objection
has somewhat the same validity for a counterintelligence interrogation
as for any other. But there is one significant difference. Confession
is a necessary prelude to the CI interrogation of a hitherto unresponsive
or concealing source. And the use of coercive techniques will rarely
or never confuse an interrogatee so completely that he does not know
whether his own confession is true or false. He does not need full
mastery of all his powers of resistance and discrimination to know
whether he is a spy or not. Only subjects who have reached a point
where they are under delusions are likely to make false confessions
that they believe. Once a true confession is obtained, the classic
cautions apply. The pressures are lifted, at least enough so that
the subject can provide counterintelligence information as accurately
as possible. In fact, the relief granted the subject at this time
fits neatly into the interrogation plan. He is told that the changed
treatment is a reward for truthfulness and an evidence that friendly
handling will continue as long as he cooperates.
The profound moral objection to applying duress past the point
of irreversible psychological damage has been stated. Judging the
validity of other ethical arguments about coercion exceeds the scope
of this paper. What is fully clear, however, is that controlled coercive
manipulation of an interrogatee may impair his ability to make fine
distinctions but will not alter his ability to answer correctly such
gross questions as "Are you a Soviet agent? What is your assignment
now? Who is your present case officer?"
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When an interrogator senses that the subject's resistance is wavering,
that his desire to yield is growing stronger than his wish to continue
his resistance, the time has come to provide him with the acceptable
rationalization: a face-saving reason or excuse for compliance. Novice
interrogators may be tempted to seize upon the initial yielding triumphantly
and to personalize the victory. Such a temptation must be rejected
immediately. An interrogation is not a game played by two people,
one to become the winner and the other the loser. It is simply a
method of obtaining correct and useful information. Therefore the
interrogator should intensify the subject's desire to cease struggling
by showing him how he can do so without seeming to abandon principle,
self-protection, or other initial causes of resistance. If, instead
of providing the right rationalization at the right time, the interrogator
seizes gloatingly upon the subject's wavering, opposition will stiffen
again.
The following are the principal coercive techniques of interrogation:
arrest, detention, deprivation of sensory stimuli through solitary
confinement or similar methods, threats and fear, debility, pain,
heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis, and induced regression.
This section also discusses the detection of malingering by interrogatees
and the provision of appropriate rationalizations for capitulating
and cooperating.
C. Arrest
The manner and timing of arrest can contribute substantially to
the interrogator's purposes. "What we aim to do is to ensure that
the manner of arrest achieves, if possible, surprise, and the maximum
amount of mental discomfort in order to catch the suspect off balance
and to deprive him of the initiative. One should therefore arrest
him at a moment when he least expects it and when his mental and
physical resistance is at its lowest. The ideal time at which to
arrest a person is in the early hours of the morning because surprise
is achieved then, and because a person's resistance physiologically
as well as psychologically is at its lowest.... If a person cannot
be arrested in the early hours..., then the next best time is in
the evening....
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[approx. 10 lines deleted]" (1)
D. Detention
If, through the cooperation of a liaison service or by unilateral
means, arrangements have been made for the confinement of a resistant
source, the circumstances of detention are arranged to enhance within
the subject his feelings of being cut off from the known and the
reassuring, and of being plunged into the strange. Usually his own
clothes are immediately taken away, because familiar clothing reinforces
identity and thus the capacity for resistance. (Prisons give close
hair cuts and issue prison garb for the same reason.) If the interrogatee
is especially proud or neat, it may be useful to give him an outfit
that is one or two sizes too large and to fail to provide a belt,
so that he must hold his pants up.
The point is that man's sense of identity depends upon a continuity
in his surroundings, habits, appearance, actions, relations with
others, etc. Detention permits the interrogator to cut through these
links and throw the interrogatee back upon his own unaided internal
resources.
Little is gained if confinement merely replaces one routine with
another. Prisoners who lead monotonously unvaried lives "... cease
to care about their utterances, dress, and cleanliness. They become
dulled, apathetic, and depressed."(7) And apathy can be a very effective
defense against interrogation. Control of the source's environment
permits the interrogator to
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determine his diet, sleep pattern, and other fundamentals. Manipulating
these into irregularities, so that the subject becomes disorientated,
is very likely to create feelings of fear and helplessness. Hinkle
points out, "People who enter prison with attitudes of foreboding,
apprehension, and helplessness generally do less well than those
who enter with assurance and a conviction that they can deal with
anything that they may encounter.... Some people who are afraid of
losing sleep, or who do not wish to lose sleep, soon succumb to sleep
loss...." (7)
In short, the prisoner should not be provided a routine to which
he can adapt and from which he can draw some comfort -- or at least
a sense of his own identity. Everyone has read of prisoners who were
reluctant to leave their cells after prolonged incarceration. Little
is known about the duration of confinement calculated to make a subject
shift from anxiety, coupled with a desire for sensory stimuli and
human companionship, to a passive, apathetic acceptance of isolation
and an ultimate pleasure in this negative state. Undoubtedly the
rate of change is determined almost entirely by the psychological
characteristics of the individual. In any event, it is advisable
to keep the subject upset by constant disruptions of patterns.
For this reason, it is useful to determine whether the interrogattee
has been jailed before, how often, under what circumstances, for
how long, and whether he was subjected to earlier interrogation.
Familiarity with confinement and even with isolation reduces the
effect.
E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli
The chief effect of arrest and detention, and particularly of solitary
confinement, is to deprive the subject of many or most of the sights,
sounds, tastes, smells, and tactile sensations to which he has grown
accustomed. John C. Lilly examined eighteen autobiographical accounts
written by polar explorers and solitary seafarers. He found "...
that isolation per se acts on most persons as a powerful stress....
In all cases of survivors of isolation at sea or in the polar night,
it was the first exposure which caused
87 [page break]
the greatest fears and hence the greatest danger of giving way to
symptoms; previous experience is a powerful aid in going ahead, despite
the symptoms. "The symptoms most commonly produced by isolation are
superstition, intense love of any other living thing, perceiving
inanimate objects as alive, hallucinations, and delusions." (26)
The apparent reason for these effects is that a person cut off
from external stimuli turns his awareness inward, upon himself, and
then projects the contents of his own unconscious outwards, so that
he endows his faceless environment with his own attributes, fears,
and forgotten memories. Lilly notes, "It is obvious that inner factors
in the mind tend to be projected outward, that some of the mind's
activity which is usually reality-bound now becomes free to turn
to phantasy and ultimately to hallucination and delusion."
A number of experiments conducted at McGill University, the National
Institute of Mental Health, and other sites have attempted to come
as close as possible to the elimination of sensory stimuli, or to
masking remaining stimuli, chiefly sounds, by a stronger but wholly
monotonous overlay. The results of these experiments have little
applicability to interrogation because the circumstances are dissimilar.
Some of the findings point toward hypotheses that seem relevant to
interrogation, but conditions like those of detention for purposes
of counterintelligence interrogation have not been duplicated for
experimentation.
At the National Institute of Mental Health two subjects were "...
suspended with the body and all but the top of the head immersed
in a tank containing slowly flowing water at 34.5 [degrees] C (94.5
[degrees] F)...." Both subjects wore black-out masks, which enclosed
the whole head but allowed breathing and nothing else. The sound
level was extremely low; the subject heard only his own breathing
and some faint sounds of water from the piping. Neither subject stayed
in the tank longer than three hours. Both passed quickly from normally
directed thinking through a tension resulting from unsatisfied hunger
for sensory stimuli and concentration upon the few available sensations
to private reveries and fantasies and eventually to visual imagery
somewhat resembling hallucinations.
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"In our experiments, we notice that after immersion the day apparently
is started over, i. e., the subject feels as if he has risen from
bed afresh; this effect persists, and the subject finds he is out
of step with the clock for the rest of the day."
Drs. Wexler, Mendelson, Leiderman, and Solomon conducted a somewhat
similar experiment on seventeen paid volunteers. These subjects were
"... placed in a tank-type respirator with a specially built mattress....
The vents of the respirator were left open, so that the subject breathed
for himself. His arms and legs were enclosed in comfortable but rigid
cylinders to inhibit movement and tactile contact. The subject lay
on his back and was unable to see any part of his body. The motor
of the respirator was run constantly, producing a dull, repetitive
auditory stimulus. The room admitted no natural light, and artificial
light was minimal and constant." (42) Although the established time
limit was 36 hours and though all physical needs were taken care
of, only 6 of the 17 completed the stint. The other eleven soon asked
for release. Four of these terminated the experiment because of anxiety
and panic; seven did so because of physical discomfort. The results
confirmed earlier findings that (1) the deprivation of sensory stimuli
induces stress; (2) the stress becomes unbearable for most subjects;
(3) the subject has a growing need for physical and social stimuli;
and (4) some subjects progressively lose touch with reality, focus
inwardly, and produce delusions, hallucinations, and other pathological
effects.
In summarizing some scientific reporting on sensory and perceptual
deprivation, Kubzansky offers the following observations:
"Three studies suggest that the more well-adjusted or 'normal'
the subject is, the more he is affected by deprivation of sensory
stimuli. Neurotic and psychotic subjects are either comparatively
unaffected or show decreases in anxiety, hallucinations, etc." (7)
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These findings suggest - but by no means prove - the following theories
about solitary confinement and isolation:
1. The more completely the place of confinement eliminates sensory
stimuli, the more rapidly and deeply will the interrogatee be affected.
Results produced only after weeks or months of imprisonment in an
ordinary cell can be duplicated in hours or days in a cell which
has no light (or weak artificial light which never varies), which
is sound-proofed, in which odors are eliminated, etc. An environment
still more subject to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is
even more effective.
2. An early effect of such an environment is anxiety. How soon
it appears and how strong it is depends upon the psychological characteristics
of the individual.
3. The interrogator can benefit from the subject's anxiety. As
the interrogator becomes linked in the subject's mind with the reward
of lessened anxiety, human contact, and meaningful activity, and
thus with providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner
assumes a benevolent role. (7)
4. The deprivation of stimuli induces regression by depriving
the subject's mind of contact with an outer world and thus forcing
it in upon itself. At the same time, the calculated provision of
stimuli during interrogation tends to make the regressed subject
view the interrogator as a father-figure. The result, normally, is
a strengthening of the subject's tendencies toward compliance.
F. Threats and Fear
The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more
effectively than coercion itself. The threat to inflict pain, for
example, can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensation
of pain. In fact, most people underestimate their capacity to withstand
pain. The same principle holds for other fears: sustained long enough,
a strong fear of anything vague or unknown induces regression,
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whereas the materialization of the fear, the infliction of some
form of punishment, is likely to come as a relief. The subject finds
that he can hold out, and his resistances are strengthened. "In general,
direct physical brutality creates only resentment, hostility, and
further defiance." (18)
The effectiveness of a threat depends not only on what sort of
person the interrogatee is and whether he believes that his questioner
can and will carry the threat out but also on the interrogator's
reasons for threatening. If the interrogator threatens because he
is angry, the subject frequently senses the fear of failure underlying
the anger and is strengthened in his own resolve to resist. Threats
delivered coldly are more effective than those shouted in rage. It
is especially important that a threat not be uttered in response
to the interrogatee's own expressions of hostility. These, if ignored,
can induce feelings of guilt, whereas retorts in kind relieve the
subject's feelings.
Another reason why threats induce compliance not evoked by the
inflection of duress is that the threat grants the interrogatee time
for compliance. It is not enough that a resistant source should placed
under the tension of fear; he must also discern an acceptable escape
route. Biderman observes, "Not only can the shame or guilt of defeat
in the encounter with the interrogator be involved, but also the
more fundamental injunction to protect one's self-autonomy or 'will'....
A simple defense against threats to the self from the anticipation
of being forced to comply is, of course, to comply 'deliberately'
or 'voluntarily'.... To the extent that the foregoing interpretation
holds, the more intensely motivated the [interrogatee] is to resist,
the more intense is the pressure toward early compliance from such
anxieties, for the greater is the threat to self-esteem which is
involved in contemplating the possibility of being 'forced to' comply...."
(6) In brief, the threat is like all other coercive techniques in
being most effective when so used as to foster regression and when
joined with a suggested way out of the dilemma, a rationalization
acceptable to the interrogatee.
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The threat of death has often been found to be worse than useless.
It "has the highest position in law as a defense, but in many interrogation
situations it is a highly ineffective threat. Many prisoners, in
fact, have refused to yield in the face of such threats who have
subsequently been 'broken' by other procedures." (3) The principal
reason is that the ultimate threat is likely to induce sheer hopelessness
if the interrogatee does not believe that it is a trick; he feels
that he is as likely to be condemned after compliance as before.
The threat of death is also ineffective when used against hard-headed
types who realize that silencing them forever would defeat the interrogator's
purpose. If the threat is recognized as a bluff, it will not only
fail but also pave the way to failure for later coercive ruses used
by the interrogator.
G. Debility
No report of scientific investigation of the effect of debility
upon the interrogatee's powers of resistance has been discovered.
For centuries interrogators have employed various methods of inducing
physical weakness: prolonged constraint; prolonged exertion; extremes
of heat, cold, or moisture; and deprivation or drastic reduction
of food or sleep. Apparently the assumption is that lowering the
source's physiological resistance will lower his psychological capacity
for opposition. If this notion were valid, however, it might reasonably
be expected that those subjects who are physically weakest at the
beginning of an interrogation would be the quickest to capitulate,
a concept not supported by experience. The available evidence suggests
that resistance is sapped principally by psychological rather than
physical pressures. The threat of debility - for example, a brief
deprivation of food - may induce much more anxiety than prolonged
hunger, which will result after a while in apathy and, perhaps, eventual
delusions or hallucinations. In brief, it appears probable that the
techniques of inducing debility become counter-productive at an early
stage. The discomfort, tension, and restless search for an avenue
of escape are
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followed by withdrawal symptoms, a turning away from external stimuli,
and a sluggish unresponsiveness.
Another objection to the deliberate inducing of debility is that
prolonged exertion, loss of sleep, etc., themselves become patterns
to which the subject adjusts through apathy. The interrogator should
use his power over the resistant subject's physical environment to
disrupt patterns of response, not to create them. Meals and sleep
granted irregularly, in more than abundance or less than adequacy,
the shifts occuring on no discernible time pattern, will normally
disorient an interrogatee and sap his will to resist more effectively
than a sustained deprivation leading to debility.
H. Pain
Everyone is aware that people react very differently to pain. The
reason, apparently, is not a physical difference in the intensity
of the sensation itself. Lawrence E. Hinkle observes, "The sensation
of pain seems to be roughly equal in all men, that is to say, all
people have approximately the same threshold at which they begin
to feel pain, and when carefully graded stimuli are applied to them,
their estimates of severity are approximately the same.... Yet...
when men are very highly motivated... they have been known to carry
out rather complex tasks while enduring the most intense pain." He
also states, "In general, it appears that whatever may be the role
of the constitutional endowment in determining the reaction to pain,
it is a much less important determinant than is the attitude of the
man who experiences the pain." (7)
The wide range of individual reactions to pain may be partially
explicable in terms of early conditioning. The person whose first
encounters with pain were frightening and intense may be more violently
affected by its later infliction than one whose original experiences
were mild. Or the reverse may be true, and the man whose childhood
familiarized him with pain may dread
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it less, and react less, than one whose distress is heightened by
fear of the unknown. The individual remains the determinant.
It has been plausibly suggested that, whereas pain inflicted on
a person from outside himself may actually focus or intensify his
will to resist, his resistance is likelier to be sapped by pain which
he seems to inflict upon himself. "In the simple torture situation
the contest is one between the individual and his tormentor (....
and he can frequently endure). When the individual is told to stand
at attention for long periods, an intervening factor is introduced.
The immediate source of pain is not the interrogator but the victim
himself. The motivational strength of the individual is likely to
exhaust itself in this internal encounter.... As long as the subject
remains standing, he is attributing to his captor the power to do
something worse to him, but there is actually no showdown of the
ability of the interrogator to do so." (4)
Interrogatees who are withholding but who feel qualms of guilt
and a secret desire to yield are likely to become intractable if
made to endure pain. The reason is that they can then interpret the
pain as punishment and hence as expiation. There are also persons
who enjoy pain and its anticipation and who will keep back information
that they might otherwise divulge if they are given reason to expect
that withholding will result in the punishment that they want. Persons
of considerable moral or intellectual stature often find in pain
inflicted by others a confirmation of the belief that they are in
the hands of inferiors, and their resolve not to submit is strengthened.
Intense pain is quite likely to produce false confessions, concocted
as a means of escaping from distress. A time-consuming delay results,
while investigation is conducted and the admissions are proven untrue.
During this respite the interrogatee can pull himself together. He
may even use the time to think up new, more complex "admissions"
that take still longer to disprove. KUBARK is especially vulnerable
to such tactics because the interrogation is conducted for the sake
of information and not for police purposes.
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If an interrogatee is caused to suffer pain rather late in the
interrogation process and after other tactics have failed, he is
almost certain to conclude that the interrogator is becoming desperate.
He may then decide that if he can just hold out against this final
assault, he will win the struggle and his freedom. And he is likely
to be right. Interrogatees who have withstood pain are more difficult
to handle by other methods. The effect has been not to repress the
subject but to restore his confidence and maturity.
I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis
In recent years a number of hypotheses about hypnosis have been
advanced by psychologists and others in the guise of proven principles.
Among these are the flat assertions that a person connot be hypnotized
against his will; that while hypnotized he cannot be induced to divulge
information that he wants urgently to conceal; and that he will not
undertake, in trance or through post-hypnotic suggestion, actions
to which he would normally have serious moral or ethical objections.
If these and related contentions were proven valid, hypnosis would
have scant value for the interrogator.
But despite the fact that hypnosis has been an object of scientific
inquiry for a very long time, none of these theories has yet been
tested adequately. Each of them is in conflict with some observations
of fact. In any event, an interrogation handbook cannot and need
not include a lengthy discussion of hypnosis. The case officer or
interrogator needs to know enough about the subject to understand
the circumstances under which hypnosis can be a useful tool, so that
he can request expert assistance appropriately.
Operational personnel, including interrogators, who chance to have
some lay experience or skill in hypnotism should not themselves use
hypnotic techniques for interrogation or other operational purposes.
There are two reasons for this position. The first is that hypnotism
used as an operational tool by a practitioner who is not a psychologist,
psychiatrist, or M.D. can produce irreversible psychological damage.
The
95 [page break]
lay practitioner does not know enough to use the technique safely.
The second reason is that an unsuccessful attempt to hypnotize a
subject for purposes of interrogation, or a successful attempt not
adequately covered by post-hypnotic amnesia or other protection,
can easily lead to lurid and embarrassing publicity or legal charges.
Hypnosis is frequently called a state of heightened suggestibility,
but the phrase is a description rather than a definition. Merton
M. Gill and Margaret Brenman state, "The psychoanalytic theory of
hypnosis clearly implies, where it does not explicitly state, that
hypnosis is a form of regression." And they add, "...induction [of
hypnosis] is the process of bringing about a regression, while the
hypnotic state is the established regression." (13) It is suggested
that the interrogator will find this definition the most useful.
The problem of overcoming the resistance of an uncooperative interrogatee
is essentially a problem of inducing regression to a level at which
the resistance can no longer be sustained. Hypnosis is one way of
regressing people.
Martin T. Orne has written at some length about hypnosis and interrogation.
Almost all of his conclusions are tentatively negative. Concerning
the role played by the will or attitude of the interrogates, Orne
says, "Although the crucial experiment has not yet been done, there
is little or no evidence to indicate that trance can be induced against
a person's wishes." He adds, "...the actual occurrence of the trance
state is related to the wish of the subject to enter hypnosis." And
he also observes, "...whether a subject will or will not enter trance
depends upon his relationship with the hyponotist rather than upon
the technical procedure of trance induction." These views are probably
representative of those of many psychologists, but they are not definitive.
As Orne himself later points out, the interrogatee "... could be
given a hypnotic drug with appropriate verbal suggestions to talk
about a given topic. Eventually enough of the drug
96 [page break]
would be given to cause a short period of unconsciousness. When
the subject wakes, the interrogator could then read from his 'notes'
of the hypnotic interview the information presumably told him." (Orne
had previously pointed out that this technique requires that the
interrogator possess significant information about the subject without
the subject's knowledge.) "It can readily be seen how this... maneuver...
would facilitate the elicitation of information in subsequent interviews."
(7) Techniques of inducing trance in resistant subjects through preliminary
administration of so-called silent drugs (drugs which the subject
does not know he has taken) or through other non-routine methods
of induction are still under investigation. Until more facts are
known, the question of whether a resister can be hypnotized involuntarily
must go unanswered.
Orne also holds that even if a resister can be hypnotized, his
resistance does not cease. He postulates "... that only in rare interrogation
subjects would a sufficiently deep trance be obtainable to even attempt
to induce the subject to discuss material which he is unwilling to
discuss in the waking state. The kind of information which can be
obtained in these rare instances is still an unanswered question."
He adds that it is doubtful that a subject in trance could be made
to reveal information which he wished to safeguard. But here too
Orne seems somewhat too cautious or pessimistic. Once an interrogatee
is in a hypnotic trance, his understanding of reality becomes subject
to manipulation. For example, a KUBARK interrogator could tell a
suspect double agent in trance that the KGB is conducting the questioning,
and thus invert the whole frame of reference. In other words, Orne
is probably right in holding that most recalcitrant subjects will
continue effective resistance as long as the frame of reference is
undisturbed. But once the subject is tricked into believing that
he is talking to friend rather than foe, or that divulging the truth
is the best way to serve his own purposes, his resistance will be
replaced by cooperation. The value of hypnotic trance is not that
it permits the interrogator to impose his will but rather that it
can be used to convince the interrogatee that there is no valid reason
not to be forthcoming.
97 [page break]
A third objection raised by Orne and others is that material elicited
during trance is not reliable. Orne says, "... it has been shown
that the accuracy of such information... would not be guaranteed
since subjects in hypnosis are fully capable of lying." Again, the
observation is correct; no known manipulative method guarantees veracity.
But if hypnosis is employed not as an immediate instrument for digging
out the truth but rather as a way of making the subject want to align
himself with his interrogators, the objection evaporates.
Hypnosis offers one advantage not inherent in other interrogation
techniques or aids: the post-hypnotic suggestion. Under favorable
circumstances it should be possible to administer a silent drug to
a resistant source, persuade him as the drug takes effect that he
is slipping into a hypnotic trance, place him under actual hypnosis
as consciousness is returning, shift his frame of reference so that
his reasons for resistance become reasons for cooperating, interrogate
him, and conclude the session by implanting the suggestion that when
he emerges from trance he will not remember anything about what has
happened.
This sketchy outline of possible uses of hypnosis in the interrogation
of resistant sources has no higher goal than to remind operational
personnel that the technique may provide the answer to a problem
not otherwise soluble. To repeat: hypnosis is distinctly not a do-it-yourself
project. Therefore the interrogator, base, or center that is considering
its use must anticipate the timing sufficiently not only to secure
the obligatory headquarters permission but also to allow for an expert's
travel time and briefing.
J. Narcosis
Just as the threat of pain may more effectively induce compliance
than its infliction, so an interrogatee's mistaken belief that he
has been drugged may make him a more useful interrogation subject
than he would be under narcosis. Louis A. Gottschalk cites a group
of studies as indicating "that 30 to 50 per cent of individuals are
placebo reactors, that is, respond
98 [page break]
with symptomatic relief to taking an inert substance." (7) In the
interrogation situation, moreover, the effectiveness of a placebo
may be enhanced because of its ability to placate the conscience.
The subject's primary source of resistance to confession or divulgence
may be pride, patriotism, personal loyalty to superiors, or fear
of retribution if he is returned to their hands. Under such circumstances
his natural desire to escape from stress by complying with the interrogator's
wishes may become decisive if he is provided an acceptable rationalization
for compliance. "I was drugged" is one of the best excuses.
Drugs are no more the answer to the interrogator's prayer than
the polygraph, hypnosis, or other aids. Studies and reports "dealing
with the validity of material extracted from reluctant informants...
indicate that there is no drug which can force every informant to
report all the information he has. Not only may the inveterate criminal
psychopath lie under the influence of drugs which have been tested,
but the relatively normal and well-adjusted individual may also successfully
disguise factual data." (3) Gottschalk reinforces the latter observation
in mentioning an experiment involving drugs which indicated that
"the more normal, well-integrated individuals could lie better than
the guilt-ridden, neurotic subjects." (7)
Nevertheless, drugs can be effective in overcoming resistance not
dissolved by other techniques. As has already been noted, the so-called
silent drug (a pharmacologically potent substance given to a person
unaware of its administration) can make possible the induction of
hypnotic trance in a previously unwilling subject. Gottschalk says,
"The judicious choice of a drug with minimal side effects, its matching
to the subject's personality, careful gauging of dosage, and a sense
of timing... [make] silent administration a hard-to-equal ally for
the hypnotist intent on producing self-fulfilling and inescapable
suggestions... the drug effects should prove... compelling to the
subject since the perceived sensations originate entirely within
himself." (7)
99 [page break]
Particularly important is the reference to matching the drug to
the personality of the interrogatee. The effect of most drugs depends
more upon the personality of the subject than upon the physical characteristics
of the drugs themselves. If the approval of Headquarters has been
obtained and if a doctor is at hand for administration, one of the
most important of the interrogator's functions is providing the doctor
with a full and accurate description of the psychological make-up
of the interrogatee, to facilitate the best possible choice of a
drug.
Persons burdened with feelings of shame or guilt are likely to
unburden themselves when drugged, especially if these feelings have
been reinforced by the interrogator. And like the placebo, the drug
provides an excellent rationalization of helplessness for the interrogatee
who wants to yield but has hitherto been unable to violate his own
values or loyalties.
Like other coercive media, drugs may affect the content of what
an interrogatee divulges. Gottschalk notes that certain drugs "may
give rise to psychotic manifestations such as hallucinations, illusions,
delusions, or disorientation", so that "the verbal material obtained
cannot always be considered valid." (7) For this reason drugs (and
the other aids discussed in this section) should not be used persistently
to facilitate the interrogative debriefing that follows capitulation.
Their function is to cause capitulation, to aid in the shift from
resistance to cooperation. Once this shift has been accomplished,
coercive techniques should be abandoned both for moral reasons and
because they are unnecessary and even counter-productive.
This discussion does not include a list of drugs that have been
employed for interrogation purposes or a discussion of their properties
because these are medical considerations within the province of a
doctor rather than an interogator.
100 [page break]
K. The Detection of Malingering
The detection of malingering is obviously not an interrogation
technique, coercive or otherwise. But the history of interrogation
is studded with the stories of persons who have attempted, often
successfully, to evade the mounting pressures of interrogation by
feigning physical or mental illness. KUBARK interrogators may encounter
seemingly sick or irrational interrogatees at times and places which
make it difficult or next-to-impossible to summon medical or other
professional assistance. Because a few tips may make it possible
for the interrogator to distinguish between the malingerer and the
person who is genuinely ill, and because both illness and malingering
are sometimes produced by coercive interrogation, a brief discussion
of the topic has been included here.
Most persons who feign a mental or physical illness do not know
enough about it to deceive the well-informed. Malcolm L. Meltzer
says, "The detection of malingering depends to a great extent on
the simulator's failure to understand adequately the characteristics
of the role he is feigning.... Often he presents symptoms which are
exceedingly rare, existing mainly in the fancy of the layman. One
such symptom is the delusion of misidentification, characterized
by the... belief that he is some powerful or historic personage.
This symptom is very unusual in true psychosis, but is used by a
number of simulators. In schizophrenia, the onset tends to be gradual,
delusions do not spring up full-blown over night; in simulated disorders,
the onset is usually fast and delusions may be readily available.
The feigned psychosis often contains many contradictory and inconsistent
symptoms, rarely existing together. The malingerer tends to go to
extremes in his portrayal of his symptoms; he exaggerates, overdramatizes,
grimaces, shouts, is overly bizarre, and calls attention to himself
in other ways....
"Another characteristic of the malingerer is that he will usually
seek to evade or postpone examination. A study
101 [page break]
of the behavior of lie-detector subjects, for example, showed that
persons later 'proven guilty' showed certain similarities of behavior.
The guilty persons were reluctant to take the test, and they tried
in various ways to postpone or delay it. They often appeared highly
anxious and sometimes took a hostile attitude toward the test and
the examiner. Evasive tactics sometimes appeared, such as sighing,
yawning, moving about, all of which foil the examiner by obscuring
the recording. Before the examination, they felt it necessary to
explain why their responses might mislead the examiner into thinking
they were lying. Thus the procedure of subjecting a suspected malingerer
to a lie-detector test might evoke behavior which would reinforce
the suspicion of fraud." (7)
Meltzer also notes that malingerers who are not professional psychologists
can usually be exposed through Rorschach tests.
An important element in malingering is the frame of mind of the
examiner. A person pretending madness awakens in a professional examiner
not only suspicion but also a desire to expose the fraud, whereas
a well person who pretends to be concealing mental illness and
who permits only a minor symptom or two to peep through is much likelier
to create in the expert a desire to expose the hidden sickness.
Meltzer observes that simulated mutism and amnesia can usually
be distinguished from the true states by narcoanalysis. The reason,
however, is the reverse of the popular misconception. Under the influence
of appropriate drugs the malingerer will persist in not speaking
or in not remembering, whereas the symptoms of the genuinely afflicted
will temporarily disappear. Another technique is to pretend to take
the deception seriously, express grave concern, and tell the "patient"
that the only remedy for his illness is a series of electric shock
treatments or a frontal lobotomy.
102 [page break]
L. Conclusion
A brief summary of the foregoing may help to pull the major concepts
of coercive interrogation together:
1. The principal coercive techniques are arrest, detention, the
deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, debility, pain,
heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, and drugs.
2. If a coercive technique is to be used, or if two or more are
to be employed jointly, they should be chosen for their effect upon
the individual and carefully selected to match his personality.
3. The usual effect of coercion is regression. The interrogatee's
mature defenses crumbles as he becomes more childlike. During the
process of regression the subject may experience feelings of guilt,
and it is usually useful to intensify these.
4. When regression has proceeded far enough so that the subject's
desire to yield begins to overbalance his resistance, the interrogator
should supply a face-saving rationalization. Like the coercive technique,
the rationalization must be carefully chosen to fit the subject's
personality.
5. The pressures of duress should be slackened or lifted after
compliance has been obtained, so that the interrogatee's voluntary
cooperation will not be impeded.
No mention has been made of what is frequently the last step in
an interrogation conducted by a Communist service: the attempted
conversion. In the Western view the goal of the questioning is information;
once a sufficient degree of cooperation has been obtained to permit
the
103 [page break]
interrogator access to the information he seeks, he is not ordinarily
concerned with the attitudes of the source. Under some circumstances,
however, this pragmatic indifference can be short-sighted. If the
interrogatee remains semi-hostile or remorseful after a successful
interrogation has ended, less time may be required to complete his
conversion (and conceivably to create an enduring asset) than might
be needed to deal with his antagonism if he is merely squeezed and
forgotten.
104 [page break]
----------------------
X. Interrogator's Check List
The questions that follow are intended as reminders for the interrogator
and his superiors.
1. Have local (federal or other) laws affecting KUBARK's conduct
of a unilateral or joint interrogation been compiled and learned?
2. If the interrogatee is to be held, how long may he be legally
detained?
3. Are interrogations conducted by other ODYOKE departments and
agencies with foreign counterintelligence responsibilities being
coordinated with KUBARK if subject to the provisions of Chief/KUBARK
Directive [one-word deletion] or Chief/KUBARK Directive [one-word
deletion] ? Has a planned KUBARK interrogation subject to the same
provisions been appropriately coordinated?
4. Have applicable KUBARK regulations and directives been observed?
These include [approx. 1/2 line deleted], the related Chief/KUBARK
Directives, [approx. 1/2 line deleted] pertinent [one or two words
deleted], and the provisions governing duress which appear in various
paragraphs of this handbook.
5. Is the prospective interrogatee a PBPRIME citizen? If so, have
the added considerations listed on various paragraphs been duly noted?
6. Does the interrogators selected for the task meet the four criteria
of (a) adequate training and experience, (b) genuine familiarity
with the language to be used, (c) knowledge of the geographical/cultural
area concerned, and (d) psychological comprehension of the interrogatee?
105 [page break]
7. Has the prospective interrogatee been screened? What are his
major psychological characteristics? Does he belong to one of the
nine major categories listed in pp. 19-28? Which?
8. Has all available and pertinent information about the subject
been assembled and studied?
9. Is the source [approx. 2/3 line deleted], or will questioning
be completed elsewhere? If at a base or station, will the interrogator,
interrogatee, and facilities be available for the time estimated
as necessary to the completion of the process? If he is to be sent
to a center, has the approval of the center or of Headquarters been
obtained?
10. Have all appropriate documents carried by the prospective interrogatee
been subjected to technical analysis?
11. Has a check of logical overt sources been conducted? Is the
interrogation necessary?
12. Have field and headquarters traces been run on the potential
interrogatee and persons closely associated with him by emotional,
family, or business ties?
13. Has a preliminary assessment of bona fides been carried out?
With what results?
14. If an admission of prior association with one or more foreign
intelligence services or Communist parties or fronts has been obtained,
have full particulars been acquired and reported?
15. Has LCFLUTTER been administered? As early as practicable? More
than once? When?
16. Is it estimated that the prospective interrogatee is likely
to prove cooperative or recalcitrant? If resistance is expected,
what is its anticipated source: fear, patriotism, personal considerations,
political convictions, stubbornness, other?
106 [page break]
17. What is the purpose of the interrogation?
18. Has an interrogation plan been prepared?
19. [approx. 5 lines deleted]
20. Is an appropriate setting for interrogation available?
21. Will the interrogation sessions be recorded? Is the equipment
available? Installed?
22. Have arrangements been made to feed, bed, and guard the subject
as necessary?
23. Does the interrogation plan call for more than one interrogator?
If so, have roles been assigned and schedules prepared?
24. Is the interrogational environment fully subject to the interrogator's
manipulation and control?
25. What disposition is planned for the interrogatee after the
questioning ends?
26. Is it possible, early in the questioning, to determine the
subject's personal response to the interrogator or interrogators?
What is the interrogator's reaction to the subject? Is there an emotional
reaction strong enough to distort results? If so, can the interrogator
be replaced?
27. If the source is resistant, will noncoercive or coercive techniques
be used? What is the reason for the choice?
28. Has the subject been interrogated earlier? Is he sophisticated
about interrogation techniques?
29. Does the impression made by the interrogatee during the
107 [page break]
opening phase of the interrogation confirm or conflict with the
preliminary assessment formed before interrogation started? If there
are significant differences, what are they and how do they affect
the plan for the remainder of the questioning?
30. During the opening phase, have the subject's voice, eyes, mouth,
gestures, silences, or other visible clues suggested areas of sensitivity?
If so, on what topics?
31. Has rapport been established during the opening phase?
32. Has the opening phase been followed by a reconnaissance? What
are the key areas of resistance? What tactics and how much pressure
will be required to overcome the resistance? Should the estimated
duration of interrogation be revised? If so, are further arrangements
necessary for continued detention, liaison support, guarding, or
other purposes?
33. In the view of the interrogator, what is the emotional reaction
of the subject to the interrogator? Why?
34. Are interrogation reports being prepared after each session,
from notes or tapes?
35. What disposition of the interrogatee is to be made after questioning
ends? If the subject is suspected of being a hostile agent and if
interrogation has not produced confession, what measures will be
taken to ensure that he is not left to operate as before, unhindered
and unchecked?
36. Are any promises made to the interrogatee unfulfilled when
questioning ends? Is the subject vengeful? Likely to try to strike
back? How?
37. If one or more of the non-coercive techniques discussed on
pp. 52-81 have been selected for use, how do they match the subject's
personality?
38. Are coercive techniques to be employed? If so, have all field
personnel in the interrogator's direct chain of command
108 [page break]
been notified? Have they approved?
39. Has prior Headquarters permission been obtained?
40. [approx. 4 lines deleted]
41. As above, for confinement. If the interrogates is to be confined,
can KUBARK control his environment fully? Can the normal routines
be disrupted for interrogation purposes?
42. Is solitary confinement to be used? Why? Does the place of
confinement permit the practical elimination of sensory stimuli?
43. Are threats to be employed? As part of a plan? Has the nature
of the threat been matched to that of the interrogatee?
44. If hypnosis or drugs are thought necessary, has Headquarters
been given enough advance notice? Has adequate allowance been made
for travel time and other preliminaries?
45. Is the interrogatee suspected of malingering? If the interrogator
is uncertain, are the services of an expert available?
46. At the conclusion of the interrogation, has a comprehensive
summary report been prepared?
47. [approx. 4 lines deleted]
48. [approx. 4 lines deleted]
49. Was the interrogation a success? Why?
50. A failure? Why?
109 [page break]
----------------------
XI. Descriptive Bibliography
This bibliography is selective; most of the books and articles
consulted during the preparation of this study have not been included
here. Those that have no real bearing on the counterintelligence
interrogation of resistant sources have been left out. Also omitted
are some sources considered elementary, inferior, or unsound. It
is not claimed that what remains is comprehensive as well as selective,
for the number of published works having some relevance even to the
restricted subject is over a thousand. But it is believed that all
the items listed here merit reading by KUBARK personnel concerned
with interrogation.
1. Anonymous [approx. 1/3 line deleted], Interrogation , undated.
This paper is a one-hour lecture on the subject. It is thoughtful,
forthright, and based on extensive experience. It deals only with
interrogation following arrest and detention. Because the scope is
nevertheless broad, the discussion is brisk but necessarily less
than profound.
2. Barioux, Max, "A Method for the Selection, Training, and Evaluation
of Interviewers," Public Opinion Quarterly , Spring 1952, Vol. 16,
No. 1. This article deals with the problems of interviewers conducting
public opinion polls. It is of only slight value for interrogators,
although it does suggest pitfalls produced by asking questions that
suggest their own answers.
3. Biderman, Albert D., A Study for Development of Improved Interrogation
Techniques : Study SR 177-D (U), Secret, final report of Contract
AS 18 (600) 1797, Bureau of Social Science Research Inc., Washington,
D. C., March 1959. Although this book (207 pages of text) is principally
concerned with lessons derived from the interrogation of American
POW's by Communist services and with the problem of resisting interrogation,
it also deals with the interrogation of resistant subjects. It has
the added advantage of incorporating the findings and
110 [page break]
views of a number of scholars and specialists in subjects closely
related to interrogation. As the frequency of citation indicates,
this book was one of the most useful works consulted; few KUBARK
interrogators would fail to profit from reading it. It also contains
a descriminating but undescribed bibliography of 343 items.
4. Biderman, Albert D., "Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confession
from Air Force Prisoners of War", Bulletin of the New York Academy
of Medicine , September 1957, Vol. 33. An excellent analysis of the
psychological pressures applied by Chinese Communists to American
POW's to extract "confessions" for propaganda purposes.
5. Biderman, Albert D., "Communist Techniques of Coercive Interrogation",
Air Intelligence , July 1955, Vol. 8, No. 7. This short article
does not discuss details. Its subject is closely related to that
of item 4 above; but the focus is on interrogation rather than the
elicitation of "confessions".
6. Biderman, Albert D., "Social Psychological Needs and 'Involuntary'
Behavior as Illustrated by Compliance in Interrogation", Sociometry
, June 1960, Vol. 23. This interesting article is directly relevant.
It provides a useful insight into the interaction between interrogator
and interrogatee. It should be compared with Melton W. Horowitz's
"Psychology of Confession" (see below).
7. Biderman, Albert D. and Herbert Zimmer, The Manipulation of
Human Behavior , John Wiley and Sons Inc., New York and London, 1961.
This book of 304 pages consists of an introduction by the editors
and seven chapters by the following specialists: Dr. Lawrence E.
Hinkle Jr., "The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject
as it Affects Brain Function"; Dr. Philip E. Kubzansky, "The Effects
of Reduced Environmental Stimulation on Human Behavior: A Review";
Dr. Louis A. Gottschalk, "The Use of Drugs in Interrogation"; Dr.
R. C. Davis, "Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information"
(this chapter deals with the polygraph); Dr. Martin T. Orne, "The
Potential Uses of Hypnosis In Interrogation"; Drs. Robert R. Blake
and Jane S. Mouton, "The Experimental Investigation of Interpersonal
Influence"; and Dr. Malcolm L. Meltzer, "Countermanipulation through
Malingering." Despite the editors preliminary announcement that the
book has "a particular frame of reference; the interrogation of an
unwilling subject", the stress is on the listed psychological specialties;
111 [page break]
and interrogation gets comparitively short shrift. Nevertheless,
the KUBARK interrogator should read this book, especially the chapters
by Drs. Orne and Meltzer. He will find that the book is by scientists
for scientists and that the contributions consistently demonstrate
too theoretical an understanding of interrogation per se. He will
also find that practically no valid experimentation the results of
which were unclassified and available to the authors has been conducted
under interrogation conditions. Conclusions are suggested, almost
invariably, on a basis of extrapolation. But the book does contain
much useful information, as frequent references in this study show.
The combined bibliographies contain a total of 771 items.
8. [approx. 14 lines deleted]
10. [approx. 9 lines deleted]
11. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
112 [page break]
[approx. 3 lines deleted]
12. [approx. 9 lines deleted]
13. Gill, Merton, Inc., and Margaret Brenman, Hypnosis and Related
States: Psychoanalytic Studies in Regression , International Universities
Press Inc., New York, 1959. This book is a scholarly and comprehensive
examination of hypnosis. The approach is basically Freudian but the
authors are neither narrow nor doctrinaire. The book discusses the
induction of hypnosis, the hypnotic state, theories of induction
and of the hypnotic condition, the concept of regression as a basic
element in hypnosis, relationships between hypnosis and drugs, sleep,
fugue, etc., and the use of hypnosis in psychotherapy. Interrogators
may find the comparison between hypnosis and "brainwashing" in chapter
9 more relevant than other parts. The book is recommended, however,
not because it contains any discussion of the employment of hypnosis
in interrogation (it does not) but because it provides the interrogator
with sound information about what hypnosis can and cannot do.
14. Hinkle, Lawrence E. Jr. and Harold G. Wolff, "Communist Interrogation
and Indoctrination of Enemies of the State", AMA Archives of Neurology
and Psychiatry , August 1956, Vol. 76, No. 2. This article summarizes
the physiological and psychological reactions of American prisoners
to Communist detention and interrogation. It merits reading but not
study, chiefly because of the vast differences between Communist
interrogation of American POW's and KUBARK interrogation of known
or suspected personnel of Communist services or parties.
113 [page break]
15. Horowitz, Milton W., "Psychology of Confession." Journal of
Criminal Law, Criminology, and Police Science , July-August 1956,
Vol. 47. The author lists the following principles of confession:
(1) the subject feels accused; (2) he is confronted by authority
wielding power greater than his own; (3) he believes that evidence
damaging to him is available to or possessed by the authority; (4)
the accused is cut off from friendly support; (5) self-hostility
is generated; and (6) confession to authority promises relief. Although
the article is essentially a speculation rather than a report of
verified facts, it merits close reading.
16. Inbau, Fred E. and John E. Reid, Lie Detection and Criminal
Investigation , Williams and Wilkin Co., 1953. The first part of
this book consists of a discussion of the polygraph. It will be more
useful to the KUBARK interrogator than the second, which deals with
the elements of criminal interrogation.
17. KHOKHLOV, Nicolai, In the Name of Conscience , David McKay
Co., New York, 1959. This entry is included chiefly because of the
cited quotation. It does provide, however, some interesting insights
into the attitudes of an interrogatee.
18. KUBARK, Communist Control Methods , Appendix 1: "The Use of
Scientific Design and Guidance Drugs and Hypnosis in Communist Interrogation
and Indoctrination Procedures." Secret, no date. The appendix reports
a study of whether Communist interrogation methods included such
aids as hypnosis and drugs. Although experimentation in these areas
is, of course, conducted in Communist countries, the study found
no evidence that such methods are used in Communist interrogations
-- or that they would be necessary.
19. KUBARK (KUSODA), Communist Control Techniques , Secret, 2
April 1956. This study is an analysis of the methods used by Communist
State police in the arrest, interrogation, and indoctrination of
persons regarded as enemies of the state. This paper, like others
which deal with Communist interrogation techniques, may be useful
to any KUBARK interrogator charged with questioning a former member
of an Orbit intelligence or security service but does not deal with
interrogation conducted without police powers.
114 [page break]
20. KUBARK, Hostile Control and Interrogation Techniques , Secret,
undated. This paper consists of 28 pages and two annexes. It provides
counsel to KUBARK personnel on how to resist interrogation conducted
by a hostile service. Although it includes advice on resistance,
it does not present any new information about the theories or practices
of interrogation.
21. [approx. 15 lines deleted]
23. Laycock, Keith, "Handwriting Analysis as an Assessment Aid,"
Studies in Intelligence , Summer 1959, Vol. 3, No. 3. A defense
of graphology by an "educated amateur." Although the article is interesting,
it does not present tested evidence that the analysis of a subject's
handwriting would be a useful aid to an interrogator. Recommended,
nevertheless, for interrogators unfamiliar with the subject.
24. Lefton, Robert Jay, "Chinese Communist 'Thought Reform.': Confession
and Reeducation of Western Civilians," Bulletin of the New York
Academy of Medicine , September 1957, Vol. 33. A sound article about
Chicom brainwashing techniques. The information was compiled from
first-hand interviews with prisoners who had been subjected to the
process. Recommended as background reading.
115 [page break]
25. Levenson, Bernard and Lee Wiggins, A Guide for Intelligence
Interviewing of Voluntary Foreign Sources , Official Use Only, Officer
Education Research Laboratory, ARDC, Maxwell Air Force Base (Technical
Memorandum OERL-TM-54-4.) A good, though generalized, treatise on
interviewing techniques. As the title shows, the subject is different
from that of the present study.
26. Lilly, John C., "Mental Effects of Reduction of Ordinary Levels
of Physical Stimuli on Intact Healthy Persons." Psychological Research
Report #5 , American Psychiatric Association, 1956. After presenting
a short summary of a few autobiographical accounts written about
relative isolation at sea (in small boats) or polar regions, the
author describes two experiments designed to mask or drastically
reduce most sensory stimulation. The effect was to speed up the results
of the more usual sort of isolation (for example, solitary confinement).
Delusions and hallucinations, preceded by other symptoms, appeared
after short periods. The author does not discuss the possible relevance
of his findings to interrogation.
27. Meerlo, Joost A.M., The Rape of the Mind , World Publishing
Co., Cleveland, 1956. This book's primary value for the interrogator
is that it will make him aware of a number of elements in the responses
of an interrogatee which are not directly related to the questions
asked or the interrogation setting but are instead the product of
(or are at least influenced by) all questioning that the subject
has undergone earlier, especially as a child. For many interrogatees
the interrogator becomes, for better or worse, the parent or authority
symbol. Whether the subject is submissive or belligerent may be determined
in part by his childhood relationships with his parents. Because
the same forces are at work in the interrogator, the interrogation
may be chiefly a cover for a deeper layer of exchange or conflict
between the two. For the interrogator a primary value of this book
(and of much related psychological and psychoanalytic work) is that
it may give him a deeper insight into himself.
28. Moloney, James Clark, "Psychic Self-Abandon and Extortion of
Confessions," International Journal of Psychoanalysis , January/February
1955, Vol. 36. This short article relates the psychological release
obtained through confession (i. e., the sense of well-being following
surrender as a solution to an otherwise unsolvable
116 [page breaks]
conflict) with religious experience generally and some ten Buddhistic
practices particularly. The interrogator will find little here that
is not more helpfully discussed in other sources, including Gill
and Brenman's Hypnosis and Related States . Marginal.
29. Oatis, William N. "Why I Confessed," Life , 21 September 1953,
Vol. 35. Of some marginal value because it combines the writer's
profession of innocence ("I am not a spy and never was") with an
account of how he was brought to "confess" to espionage within three
days of his arrest. Although Oatis was periodically deprived of sleep
(once for 42 hours) and forced to stand until weary, the Czechs obtained
the "confessions" without torture or starvation and without sophisticated
techniques.
30. Rundquist, E.A., "The Assessment of Graphology, " Studies in
Intelligence , Secret, Summer 1959, Vol. 3, No. 3. The author concludes
that scientific testing of graphology is needed to permit an objective
assessment of the claims made in its behalf. This article should
be read in conjunction with No. 23, above.
31. Schachter, Stanley, The Psychology of Affiliation: Experimental
Studies of the Sources of Gregariousness , Stanford University Press,
Stanford, California, 1959. A report of 133 pages, chiefly concerned
with experiments and statistical analyses performed at the University
of Minnesota by Dr. Schachter and colleagues. The principal findings
concern relationships among anxiety, strength of affiliative tendencies,
and the ordinal position (i.e., rank in birth sequence among siblings).
Some tentative conclusions of significance for interrogators are
reached, the following among them:
a. "One of the consequences of isolation appears to be a psychological
state which in its extreme form resembles a full-blown anxiety attack."
(p. 12.)
b. Anxiety increases the desire to be with others who share the
same fear.
c. Persons who are first-born or only children are typically more
nervous or afraid than those born later. Firstborns and onlies are
also "considerably less willing or able to withstand pain than are
later-born children." (p. 49.)
117 [page break]
In brief, this book presents hypotheses of interest to interrogators
but much further research is needed to test validity and applicability.
32. Sheehan, Robert, Police Interview and Interrogations and the
Preparation and Signing of Statements . A 23-page pamphlet, unclassified
and undated, that discusses some techniques and tricks that can be
used in counterintelligence interrogation. The style is sprightly,
but most of the material is only slightly related to KUBARK's interrogation
problems. Recommended as background reading.
33. Singer, Margaret Thaler and Edgar H. Schein, "Projective Test
Responses of Prisoners of War Following Repatriation." Psychiatry
, 1958, Vol. 21. Tests conducted on American ex-POW's returned during
the Big and Little Switches in Korea showed differences in characteristics
between non-collaborators and corroborators. The latter showed more
typical and humanly responsive reactions to psychological testing
than the former, who tended to be more apathetic and emotionally
barren or withdrawn. Active resisters, however, often showed a pattern
of reaction or responsiveness like that of collaborators. Rorschach
tests provided clues, with a good statistical incidence of reliability,
for differentiation between collaborators and non-collaborators.
The tests and results described are worth noting in conjunction with
the screening procedures recommended in this paper.
34. Sullivan, Harry Stack, The Psychiatric Interview , W. W. Norton
and Co., New York, 1954. Any interrogator reading this book will
be struck by parallels between the psychiatric interview and the
interrogation. The book is also valuable because the author, a psychiatrist
of considerable repute, obviously had a deep understanding of the
nature of the inter-personal relationship and of resistance.
35. U.S. Army, Office of the Chief of Military History, Russian
Methods of Interrogating Captured Personnel in World War II , Secret,
Washington, 1951. A comprehensive treatise on Russian intelligence
and police systems and on the history of Russian treatment of captives,
military and civilian, during and following World War II. The appendix
contains some specific case summaries of physical torture by the
secret police. Only a small part of the book deals with interrogation.
Background reading.
118 [page break]
36. U.S. Army, 7707 European Command Intelligence Center, Guide
for Intelligence Interrogators of Eastern Cases , Secret, April 1958.
This specialized study is of some marginal value for KUBARK interrogators
dealing with Russians and other Slavs.
37. U. S. Army, The Army Intelligence School, Fort Holabird, Techniques
of Interrogation , Instructors Folder I-6437/A, January 1956. This
folder consists largely of an article, "Without Torture," by a German
ex-interrogator, Hans Joachim Scharff. Both the preliminary discussion
and the Scharff article (first published in Argosy , May 1950) are
exclusively concerned with the interrogation of POW's. Although Scharff
claims that the methods used by German Military Intelligence against
captured U.S. Air Force personnel "... were almost irresistible,"
the basic technique consisted of impressing upon the prisoner the
false conviction that his information was already known to the Germans
in full detail. The success of this method depends upon circumstances
that are usually lacking in the peacetime interrogation of a staff
or agent member of a hostile intelligence service. The article merits
reading, nevertheless, because it shows vividly the advantages that
result from good planning and organization.
38. U. S. Army, Counterintelligence Corps, Fort Holabird, Interrogations,
Restricted, 5 September 1952. Basic coverage of military interrogation.
Among the subjects discussed are the interrogation of witnesses,
suspects, POW's, and refugees, and the employment of interpreters
and of the polygraph. Although this text does not concentrate upon
the basic problems confronting KUBARK interrogators, it will repay
reading.
39. U.S. Army, Counterintelligence Corps, Fort Holabird, Investigative
Subjects Department, Interrogations, Restricted, 1 May 1950. This
70-gage booklet on counterintelligence interrogation is basic, succinct,
practical, and sound. Recommended for close reading.
40. [approx. 5 lines deleted]
119 [page break]
41. Wellman, Francis L., The Art of Cross-Examination , Garden
City Publishing Co. (now Doubleday), New York, originally 1903, 4th
edition, 1948. Most of this book is but indirectly related to the
subject of this study; it is primarily concerned with tripping up
witnesses and impressing juries. Chapter VIII, "Fallacies of Testimony,"
is worth reading, however, because some of its warnings are applicable.
42. Wexler, Donald, Jack Mendelson, Herbert Leiderman, and Philip
Solomon, "Sensory Deprivation," A.M.A. Archives of Neurology and
Psychiatry , 1958, 79, pp. 225-233. This article reports an experiment
designed to test the results of eliminating most sensory stimuli
and masking others. Paid volunteers spent periods from 1 hour and
38 minutes to 36 hours in a tank-respirator. The results included
inability to concentrate effectively, daydreaming and fantasy, illusions,
delusions, and hallucinations. The suitability of this procedure
as a means of speeding up the effects of solitary confinement upon
recalcitrant subjects has not been considered.
120 [page break]
OTHER BIBLIOGRAPHIES
The following bibliographies on interrogation were noted during
the preparation of this study.
1. Brainwashing, A Guide to the Literature , prepared by the Society
for the Investigation of Human Ecology, Inc., Forest Hills, New York,
December 1960. A wide variety of materials is represented: scholarly
and scientific reports, governmental and organizational reports,
legal discussions, biographical accounts, fiction, journalism, and
miscellaneous. The number of items in each category is, respectively,
139, 28, 7, 75, 10, 14, and 19, a total of 418. One or two sentence
descriptions follow the titles. These are restricted to an indication
of content and do not express value judgements. The first section
contains a number of especially useful references.
2. Comprehensive Bibliography of Interrogation Techniques, Procedures,
and Experiences , Air Intelligence Information Report, Unclassified,
10 June 1959. This bibliography of 158 items dating between 1915
and 1957 comprises "the monographs on this subject available in the
Library of Congress and arranged in alphabetical order by author,
or in the absence of an author, by title." No descriptions are included,
except for explanatory sub-titles. The monographs, in several languages,
are not categorized. This collection is extremely heterogeneous.
Most of the items are of scant or peripheral value to the interrogator.
3. Interrogation Methods and Techniques , KUPALM, L-3, 024, 941,
July 1959, Secret/NOFORN. This bibliography of 114 items includes
references to four categories: books and pamphlets, articles from
periodicals, classified documents, and materials from classified
periodicals. No descriptions
121 [page break]
(except sub-titles) are included. The range is broad, so that a
number of nearly-irrelevant titles are included (e.g., Employment
psychology : the Interview , Interviewing in social research ,
and "Phrasing questions; the question of bias in interviewing", from
Journal of Marketing ).
4. Survey of the Literature on Interrogation Techniques , KUSODA,
1 March 1957, Confidential. Although now somewhat dated because of
the significant work done since its publication, this bibliography
remains the best of those listed. It groups its 114 items in four
categories: Basic Recommended Reading, Recommended Reading, Reading
of Limited or Marginal Value, and Reading of No Value. A brief description
of each item is included. Although some element of subjectivity inevitably
tinges these brief, critical appraisals, they are judicious; and
they are also real time-savers for interrogators too busy to plough
through the acres of print on the specialty.
122 [page break]
----------------------
XII. Index
A
Abnormalities, spotting of 32
Agents 17
Alice in Wonderland technique 76
All-Seeing Eye technique 67
Anxious, self-centered character 24-25
Arrests 35, 85-86
Assessment, definition of 4
B
Bi-level functioning of interrogator 48
Biographic data 62
Bona fides, definition of 4
C
Character wrecked by success, the 26
Coercive interrogation 82-104
Conclusion of interrogation see
Termination
Confession 38-41, 67, 84
Confinement (see also Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli) 86-87
Confrontation of suspects 47
Control, definition of 4
Conversion 51
Coordination of interrogations 7
Counterintelligence interrogation, definition of 4-5
Cross-examination 58-59
123 [page break]
D
Debility 83, 92-93
Debriefing, definition of 5
Defectors 16, 29, 43, 51, 63
Deprivation of sensory stimuli 87-90
Detailed questioning 60-64
Detention of interrogatees 6-8, 49, 86-87
Directives governing interrogation 7
Documents of defectors 36
Double agent 17-18
Drugs (see Narcosis)
Duress (see also Coercive Interrogation)
E
Eliciting, definition of 5
Environment, manipulation of 45-46, 52-53
Escapees 16
Espionage Act 8
Exception, the, as psychological type 27-28
F
Fabricators 18-19
False confessions 94
First children 29
G
Galvanic skin response and the polygraph 80
Going Next Door technique 66
Graphology 81
Greedy-demanding character 23-24
124 [page break]
Guilt, feelings of 39, 66, 83
Guilt-ridden character 25-26
H
Heightened suggestibility and hypnosis 95-98
I
Indicators of emotion, physical 54-56
Indirect Assessment Program 30
Informer techniques 67-68
Intelligence interview, definition of 5
Interpreters 74
Interrogatees, emotional needs of
Interrogation, definition of 5
Interrogation, planning of 42-44
Interrogation setting 45-47
Interrogator, desirable characteristics of 10
Interrogator's check list 105-109
Isolation 29
Ivan Is A Dope technique 72
J
Joint Interrogations 4, 43
Joint interrogators, techniques suitable for 47-48, 72-73
Joint suspects 47, 70-72
Judging human nature, fallacies about 12-13
K
Khokhlov, Nikolai 9
L
Language considerations 74
125 [page break]
LCFLUTTER 43
Legal considerations affecting KUBARK CI interrogations 6-9
Listening post for interrogations 47
Local laws, importance of 6
M
Magic room technique 77-78
Malingering, detection of 101-102
Matching of interrogation method to source 66
Mindszenty, Cardinal, interrogation of 31
Mutt and Jeff technique 72-73
N
Narcosis 98-100
News from Home technique 68
Nobody Loves You technique 67
Non-coercive interrogation 52-81
O
ODENBY, coordination with 8
Only children 29
Opening the interrogation 53-59
Optimistic character 22-23
Orderly-obstinate character 21-22
Ordinal position 29
Organization of handbook, explanation of 3
Outer and inner office technique 71
P
Pain 90, 93-95
Pauses, significance of 56
PBPRIME citizens, interrogation of 7-8
126 [page break]
Penetration agents 11, 18
Personality, categories of 19-28
Personalizing, avoidance of 12
Placebos 77-78
Planning the counterintelligence interrogation 7, 38-44
Police powers, KUBARK's lack of 6-7, 43-44
Policy considerations affecting KUBARK CI interrogations 6-9
Polygraph 79-81
Post-hypnotic suggestion 98
Probing 59-60
Provocateur 11, 17
Purpose of handbook 1-2
R
Rapport, establishment of 10-11, 56
Rationalization 41, 78, 85
Reconnaissance 59-60
Recording of interrogations 46-47
Refugees 16
Regression 40-41, 76-78, 96
Relationship, interrogator-interrogatee 40
Repatriates 15, 42-43
Reports of interrogation 61
Resistance of interrogatees 56-58
Resistance to interrogation 44-45
Respiration rate and the polygraph 80
S
Schizoid character 26-27
Screening 13, 30-33
Separation of interrogatees 47
Silent drugs 97-99
Spinoza and Mortimer Snerd technique 75
127 [page break]
Structure of the interrogation 53-65
Swindlers 18-19
Systolic blood pressure and the polygraph 80
T
Techniques of non-coercive interrogation 65-81
Termination of interrogation 50, 63-65
Theory of coercive interrogation 82-84
Threats and fear 90-92
Timing 49-50
Transfer of interrogates to host service 50
Transferred sources 16-17
Trauma 66
Travelers 15
W
Walk-ins 34-36
Witness techniques 68-70
Wolf in Sheep's Clothing technique 75
128 [document ends]