C. Other Clues
[approx. 4 lines deleted]
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.
Contents
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
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 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 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)
Contents
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 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.
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]
[entire page redacted, except for "4." about 3/4 of
the way down the page]
[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.
Contents
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.
Contents
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:
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."
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 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 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.
Contents
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]
[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]
[1/3 of page deleted]
Contents
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, 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 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 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 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, 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 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 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.)
Contents
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