4717 lines
226 KiB
Plaintext
4717 lines
226 KiB
Plaintext
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KUBARK COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
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INTERROGATION
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July 1963
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
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I. INTRODUCTION 1-3
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A. Explanation of Purpose 1-2
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B. Explanation of Organization 3
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II . DEFINITIONS 4-5
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III. LEGAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS 6-9
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IV. THE INTERROGATOR 10-14
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V. THE INTERROGATEE 15-29
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A. Types of Sources: Intelligence Categories 15-19
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B. Types of Sources: Personality Categories 19-28
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C. Other Clues 28-29
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VI. SCREENING AND OTHER PRELIMINARIES 30-37
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A. Screening 30-33
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B. Other Preliminary Procedures 33-37
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C. Summary 37
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VII. PLANNING THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 38-51
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A. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation 38-42
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B. The Interrogation Plan 42-44
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C. The Specifics 44-51
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VIII. THE NON-COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 52-81
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A. General Remarks 52-53
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B. The Structure of the Interrogation 53-65
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1. The Opening 53-59
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2. The Reconnaissance 59-60
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3. The Detailed Questioning 60-64
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4. The Conclusion 64-65
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C. Techniques of Non-Coercive Interrogation of Resistant Sources 65-81
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IX. THE COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
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INTERROGATION OF RESISTANT SOURCES 82-104
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A. Restrictions 82
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B. The Theory of Coercion 82-85
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C. Arrest 85-86
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D. Detention 86-87
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E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli 87-90
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F. Threats and Fear 90-92
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G. Debility 92-93
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H. Pain 93-95
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I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis 95-98
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J. Narcosis 98-100
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K. The Detection of Malingering 101-102
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L. Conclusion 103-104
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X. INTERROGATOR'S CHECK LIST 105-109
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XI. DESCRIPTIVE BILIOGRAPHY 110-122
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XII. INDEX 123-128
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I. Introduction
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A. Explanation of Purpose
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This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator.
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At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes
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of poor interrogators.
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Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation,
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and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant
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sources. Designed as an aid for interrogators and others immediately
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concerned, it is based largely upon the published results of extensive
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research, including scientific inquiries conducted by specialists
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in closely related subjects.
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There is nothing mysterious about interrogation. It consists of
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no more than obtaining needed information through responses to questions.
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As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than
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others; and some of their superiority may be innate. But sound interrogation
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nevertheless rests upon a knowledge of the subject matter and on
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certain broad principles, chiefly psychological, which are not hard
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to understand. The success of good interrogators depends in large
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measure upon their use, conscious or not, of these principles and
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of processes and techniques deriving from them. Knowledge of subject
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matter and of the basic principles will not of itself create a successful
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interrogation, but it will make possible the avoidance of mistakes
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that are characteristic of poor interrogation. The purpose, then,
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is not to teach the reader how to be a good interrogator but rather
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to tell him what he must learn in order to become a good interrogator.
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1 [page break]
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The interrogation of a resistant source who is a staff or agent
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member of an Orbit intelligence or security service or of a clandestine
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Communist organization is one of the most exacting of professional
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tasks. Usually the odds still favor the interrogator, but they are
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sharply cut by the training, experience, patience and toughness of
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the interrogatee. In such circumstances the interrogator needs all
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the help that he can get. And a principal source of aid today is
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scientific findings. The intelligence service which is able to bring
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pertinent, modern knowledge to bear upon its problems enjoys huge
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advantages over a service which conducts its clandestine business
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in eighteenth century fashion. It is true that American psychologists
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have devoted somewhat more attention to Communist interrogation techniques,
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particularly "brainwashing", than to U. S. practices. Yet they have
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conducted scientific inquiries into many subjects that are closely
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related to interrogation: the effects of debility and isolation,
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the polygraph, reactions to pain and fear, hypnosis and heightened
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suggestibility, narcosis, etc. This work is of sufficient importance
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and relevance that it is no longer possible to discuss interrogation
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significantly without reference to the psychological research conducted
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in the past decade. For this reason a major purpose of this study
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is to focus relevant scientific findings upon CI interrogation. Every
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effort has been made to report and interpret these findings in our
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own language, in place of the terminology employed by the psychologists.
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This study is by no means confined to a resume and interpretation
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of psychological findings. The approach of the psychologists is customarily
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manipulative; that is, they suggest methods of imposing controls
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or alterations upon the interrogatee from the outside. Except within
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the Communist frame of reference, they have paid less attention to
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the creation of internal controls -- i.e., conversion of the source,
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so that voluntary cooperation results. Moral considerations aside,
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the imposition of external techniques of manipulating people carries
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with it the grave risk of later lawsuits, adverse publicity, or other
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attempts to strike back.
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2 [page break]
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B. Explanation of Organization
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This study moves from the general topic of interrogation per se
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(Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI) to planning the counterintelligence
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interrogation (Part VII) to the CI interrogation of resistant sources
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(Parts VIII, IX, and X). The definitions, legal considerations, and
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discussions of interrogators and sources, as well as Section VI on
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screening and other preliminaries, are relevant to all kinds of interrogations.
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Once it is established that the source is probably a counterintelligence
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target (in other words, is probably a member of a foreign intelligence
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or security service, a Communist, or a part of any other group engaged
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in clandestine activity directed against the national security),
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the interrogation is planned and conducted accordingly. The CI interrogation
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techniques are discussed in an order of increasing intensity as the
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focus on source resistance grows sharper. The last section, on do's
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and dont's, is a return to the broader view of the opening parts;
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as a check-list, it is placed last solely for convenience.
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3 [page break]
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II. Definitions
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Most of the intelligence terminology employed here which may once
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have been ambiguous has been clarified through usage or through KUBARK
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instructions. For this reason definitions have been omitted for such
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terms as burn notice, defector, escapee, and refugee. Other definitions
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have been included despite a common agreement about meaning if the
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significance is shaded by the context.
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1. Assessment: the analysis and synthesis of information, usually
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about a person or persons, for the purpose of appraisal. The assessment
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of individuals is based upon the compilation and use of psychological
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as well as biographic detail.
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2. Bona fides: evidence or reliable information about identity, personal
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(including intelligence) history, and intentions or good faith.
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3. Control: the capacity to generate, alter, or halt human behavior
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by implying, citing, or using physical or psychological means to
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ensure compliance with direction. The compliance may be voluntary
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or involuntary. Control of an interrogatee can rarely be established
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without control of his environment.
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4. Counterintelligence interrogation: an interrogation (see #7) designed
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to obtain information about hostile clandestine activities and persons
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or groups engaged therein. KUBARK CI interrogations are designed,
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almost invariably, to yield information about foreign intelligence
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and security services or Communist organizations. Because security
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is an element of counterintelligence, interrogations conducted to
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obtain admissions of clandestine plans or activities directed against
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KUBARK or PBPRIME security are also CI interrogations. But unlike
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a police interrogation, the CI
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4 [page break]
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interrogation is not aimed at causing the interrogatee to incriminate
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himself as a means of bringing him to trial. Admissions of complicity
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are not, to a CI service, ends in themselves but merely preludes
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to the acquisition of more information.
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5. Debriefing: obtaining information by questioning a controlled
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and witting source who is normally a willing one.
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6. Eliciting: obtaining information, without revealing intent or
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exceptional interest, through a verbal or written exchange with a
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person who may be willing or unwilling to provide what is sought
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and who may or may not be controlled.
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7. Interrogation: obtaining information by direct questioning of
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a person or persons under conditions which are either partly or fully
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controlled by the questioner or are believed by those questioned
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to be subject to his control. Because interviewing, debriefing, and
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eliciting are simpler methods of obtaining information from cooperative
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subjects, interrogation is usually reserved for sources who are suspect,
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resistant, or both.
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8. Intelligence interview: obtaining information, not customarily
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under controlled conditions, by questioning a person who is aware
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of the nature and perhaps of the significance of his answers but
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who is ordinarily unaware of the purposes and specific intelligence
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affiliations of the interviewer.
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5 [page break]
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III. Legal and Policy Considerations
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The legislation which founded KUBARK specifically denied it any
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law-enforcement or police powers. Yet detention in a controlled environment
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and perhaps for a lengthy period is frequently essential to a successful
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counterintelligence interrogation of a recalcitrant source. [approx.
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three lines deleted] This necessity, obviously, should be determined
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as early as possible.
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The legality of detaining and questioning a person, and of the
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methods employed, [approx. 10 lines deleted]
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Detention poses the most common of the legal problems. KUBARK has
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no independent legal authority to detain anyone against his will,
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[approx. 4 lines deleted] The haste in which some KUBARK interrogations
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have been conducted has not always been the product of impatience.
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Some security services, especially those of the Sino-Soviet Bloc,
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may work at leisure, depending upon time as well as their own methods
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to melt recalcitrance. KUBARK usually
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6 [page break]
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cannot. Accordingly, unless it is considered that the prospective
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interrogatee is cooperative and will remain so indefinitely, the
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first step in planning an interrogation is to determine how long
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the source can be held. The choice of methods depends in part upon
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the answer to this question.
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[approx. 15 lines deleted]
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The handling and questioning of defectors are subject to the provisions
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of [one or two words deleted] Directive No. 4: to its related Chief/KUBARK
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Directives, principally [approx. 1/2 line deleted] Book Dispatch
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[one or two words deleted] and to pertinent [one or two words deleted].
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Those concerned with the interrogation of defectors, escapees, refugees,
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or repatriates should know these references.
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The kinds of counterintelligence information to be sought in a
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CI interrogation are stated generally in Chief/KUBARK Directive and
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in greater detail in Book Dispatch [approx. 1/3 line deleted].
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The interrogation of PBPRIME citizens poses special problems. First,
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such interrogations should not be conducted for reasons lying outside
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the sphere of KUBARK' s responsibilities. For example, the
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7 [page break]
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[approx. 2/3 line deleted] but should not normally become directly
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involved. Clandestine activity conducted abroad on behalf of a foreign
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power by a private PBPRIME citizens does fall within KUBARK's investigative
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and interrogative responsibilities. However, any investigation, interrogation,
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or interview of a PBPRIME citizen which is conducted abroad because
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it be known or suspected that he is engaged in clandestine activities
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directed against PBPRIME security interests requires the prior and
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personal approval of Chief/KUDESK or of his deputy.
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Since 4 October 1961, extraterritorial application has been given
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to the Espionage Act, making it henceforth possible to prosecute
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in the Federal Courts any PBPRIME citizen who violates the statutes
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of this Act in foreign countries. ODENVY has requested that it be
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informed, in advance if time permits, if any investigative steps
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are undertaken in these cases. Since KUBARK employees cannot be witnesses
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in court, each investigation must be conducted in such a manner that
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evidence obtained may be properly introduced if the case comes to
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trial. [approx. 1 line deleted] states policy and procedures for
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the conduct of investigations of PBPRIME citizens abroad.
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Interrogations conducted under compulsion or duress are especially
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likely to involve illegality and to entail damaging consequences
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for KUBARK. Therefore prior Headquarters approval at the KUDOVE level
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must be obtained for the interrogation of any source against his
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will and under any of the following circumstances:
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1. If bodily harm is to be inflicted.
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2. If medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are
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to be used to induce acquiescence.
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3. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
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8 [page break]
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The CI interrogator dealing with an uncooperative interrogatee
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who has been well-briefed by a hostile service on the legal restrictions
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under which ODYOKE services operate must expect some effective delaying
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tactics. The interrogatee has been told that KUBARK will not hold
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him long, that he need only resist for a while. Nikolay KHOKHLOV,
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for example, reported that before he left for Frankfurt am Main on
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his assassination mission, the following thoughts coursed through
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his head: "If I should get into the hands of Western authorities,
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I can become reticent, silent, and deny my voluntary visit to Okolovich.
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I know I will not be tortured and that under the procedures of western
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law I can conduct myself boldly." (17) [The footnote numerals in
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this text are keyed to the numbered bibliography at the end.] The
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interrogator who encounters expert resistance should not grow flurried
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and press; if he does, he is likelier to commit illegal acts which
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the source can later use against him. Remembering that time is on
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his side, the interrogator should arrange to get as much of it as
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he needs.
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9 [page break]
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----------------------
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IV. The Interrogator
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A number of studies of interrogation discuss qualities said to
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be desirable in an interrogator. The list seems almost endless -
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a professional manner, forcefulness, understanding and sympathy,
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breadth of general knowledge, area knowledge, "a practical knowledge
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of psychology", skill in the tricks of the trade, alertness, perseverance,
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integrity, discretion, patience, a high I.Q., extensive experience,
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flexibility, etc., etc. Some texts even discuss the interrogator's
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manners and grooming, and one prescribed the traits considered desirable
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in his secretary.
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A repetition of this catalogue would serve no purpose here, especially
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because almost all of the characteristics mentioned are also desirable
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in case officers, agents, policemen, salesmen, lumberjacks, and everybody
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else. The search of the pertinent scientific literature disclosed
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no reports of studies based on common denominator traits of successful
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interrogators or any other controlled inquiries that would invest
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these lists with any objective validity.
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Perhaps the four qualifications of chief importance to the interrogator
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are (1) enough operational training and experience to permit quack
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recognition of leads; (2) real familiarity with the language to be
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used; (3) extensive background knowledge about the interrogatee's
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native country (and intelligence service, if employed by one); and
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(4) a genuine understanding of the source as a person.
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[approx. 1/2 line deleted] stations, and even a few bases can call
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upon one or several interrogators to supply these prerequisites,
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individually or as a team. Whenever a number of interrogators is
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available, the percentage of successes is increased by careful matching
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of questioners and sources and by ensuring that rigid prescheduling
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does not prevent such matching. Of the four traits listed, a genuine
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insight into the source's character and motives is perhaps
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10 [page break]
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most important but least common. Later portions of this manual explore
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this topic in more detail. One general observation is introduced
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now, however, because it is considered basic to the establishment
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of rapport, upon which the success of non-coercive interrogation
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depends.
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The interrogator should remember that he and the interrogatee are
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often working at cross-purposes not because the interrogates is malevolently
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withholding or misleading but simply because what he wants front
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the situation is not what the interrogator wants. The interrogator's
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goal is to obtain useful information -- facts about which the interrogatee
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presumably have acquired information. But at the outset of the interrogation,
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and perhaps for a long time afterwards, the person being questioned
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is not greatly concerned with communicating his body of specialized
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information to his questioner; he is concerned with putting his best
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foot forward. The question uppermost in his mind, at the beginning,
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is not likely to be "How can I help PBPRIME?" but rather "What sort
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of impression am I making?" and, almost immediately thereafter, "What
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is going to happen to me now?" (An exception is the penetration agent
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or provocateur sent to a KUBARK field installation after training
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in withstanding interrogation. Such an agent may feel confident enough
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not to be gravely concerned about himself. His primary interest,
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from the beginning, may be the acquisition of information about the
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interrogator and his service.)
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The skilled interrogator can save a great deal of time by understanding
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the emotional needs of the interrogates. Most people confronted by
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an official -- and dimly powerful -- representative of a foreign
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power will get down to cases much faster if made to feel, from the
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start, that they are being treated as individuals. So simple a matter
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as greeting an interrogatee by his name at the opening of the session
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establishes in his mind the comforting awareness that he is considered
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as a person, not a squeezable sponge. This is not to say that egotistic
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types should be allowed to bask at length in the warmth of individual
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recognition. But it is important to assuage the fear of denigration
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which afflicts many people when first interrogated by making it clear
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that the individuality of the interrogatee is recognized. With this
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common understanding established, the interrogation can move on to
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impersonal matters and will not later be thwarted or interrupted
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--
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11 [page break]
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or at least not as often -- by irrelevant answers designed not to
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provide facts but to prove that the interrogatee is a respectable
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member of the human race.
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Although it is often necessary to trick people into telling what
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we need to know, especially in CI interrogations, the initial question
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which the interrogator asks of himself should be, "How can I make
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him want to tell me what he knows?" rather than "How can I trap him
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into disclosing what he knows?" If the person being questioned is
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genuinely hostile for ideological reasons, techniques of manipulation
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are in order. But the assumption of hostility -- or at least the
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use of pressure tactics at the first encounter -- may make difficult
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subjects even out of those who would respond to recognition of individuality
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and an initial assumption of good will.
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Another preliminary comment about the interrogator is that normally
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he should not personalize. That is, he should not be pleased, flattered,
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frustrated, goaded, or otherwise emotionally and personally affected
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by the interrogation. A calculated display of feeling employed for
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a specific purpose is an exception; but even under these circumstances
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the interrogator is in full control. The interrogation situation
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is intensely inter-personal; it is therefore all the more necessary
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to strike a counter-balance by an attitude which the subject clearly
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recognizes as essentially fair and objective. The kind of person
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who cannot help personalizing, who becomes emotionally involved in
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the interrogation situation, may have chance (and even spectacular)
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successes as an interrogator but is almost certain to have a poor
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batting average.
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It is frequently said that the interrogator should be "a good judge
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of human nature." In fact, [approx. 3 lines deleted] (3) This study
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states later (page "Great attention has been given to the degree
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to which persons are able to make judgements from casual observations
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regarding the personality characteristics of another. The consensus
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of research is that with respect to many kinds of judgments, at least
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some judges perform reliably better than chance...." Nevertheless,
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"... the level
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12 [page break]
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of reliability in judgments is so low that research encounters difficulties
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when it seeks to determine who makes better judgments...." (3) In
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brief, the interrogator is likelier to overestimate his ability to
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judge others than to underestimate it, especially if he has had little
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or no training in modern psychology. It follows that errors in assessment
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and in handling are likelier to result from snap judgments based
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upon the assumption of innate skill in judging others than from holding
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such judgments in abeyance until enough facts are known.
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There has been a good deal of discussion of interrogation experts
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vs. subject-matter experts. Such facts as are available suggest that
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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]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
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.)
|
|
|
|
51 [page break]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
60 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
61 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
62 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
63 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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]
|
|
|
|
64 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
65 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
.
|
|
|
|
66 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
67 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
68 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
69 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
70 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
71 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
72 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
73 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
74 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
75 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
76 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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,
|
|
|
|
77 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
78 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
79 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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-
|
|
|
|
80 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
81 [page break]
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
|
----------------------
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
82 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
83 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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?"
|
|
|
|
84 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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....
|
|
|
|
85 [page break]
|
|
|
|
[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
|
|
|
|
86 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
88 [page break]
|
|
|
|
"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)
|
|
|
|
89 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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,
|
|
|
|
90 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
91 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
92 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
|
|
93 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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.
|
|
|
|
94 [page break]
|
|
|
|
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
|
|
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W
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Walk-ins 34-36
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Witness techniques 68-70
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Wolf in Sheep's Clothing technique 75
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128 [document ends]
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