A. Explanation of Purpose 1-2
B. Explanation of Organization 3
II . DEFINITIONS 4-5
III. LEGAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS 6-9
IV. THE INTERROGATOR 10-14
V. THE INTERROGATEE 15-29
A. Types of Sources: Intelligence Categories 15-19
B. Types of Sources: Personality Categories 19-28
C. Other Clues 28-29
VI. SCREENING AND OTHER PRELIMINARIES 30-37
A. Screening 30-33
B. Other Preliminary Procedures 33-37
C. Summary 37
VII. PLANNING THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 38-51
A. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation 38-42
B. The Interrogation Plan 42-44
C. The Specifics 44-51
VIII. THE NON-COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION 52-81
A. General Remarks 52-53
B. The Structure of the Interrogation 53-65
1. The Opening 53-59
2. The Reconnaissance 59-60
3. The Detailed Questioning 60-64
4. The Conclusion 64-65
C. Techniques of Non-Coercive Interrogation of Resistant Sources 65-81
IX. THE COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE
INTERROGATION OF RESISTANT SOURCES 82-104
A. Restrictions 82
B. The Theory of Coercion 82-85
C. Arrest 85-86
D. Detention 86-87
E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli 87-90
F. Threats and Fear 90-92
G. Debility 92-93
H. Pain 93-95
I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis 95-98
J. Narcosis 98-100
K. The Detection of Malingering 101-102
L. Conclusion 103-104
X. INTERROGATOR'S CHECK LIST 105-109
XI. DESCRIPTIVE BILIOGRAPHY 110-122
XII. INDEX 123-128
----------------------
I. Introduction
A. Explanation of Purpose
This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator.
At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes
of poor interrogators.
Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation,
and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant
sources. Designed as an aid for interrogators and others immediately
concerned, it is based largely upon the published results of extensive
research, including scientific inquiries conducted by specialists
in closely related subjects.
There is nothing mysterious about interrogation. It consists of
no more than obtaining needed information through responses to questions.
As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than
others; and some of their superiority may be innate. But sound interrogation
nevertheless rests upon a knowledge of the subject matter and on
certain broad principles, chiefly psychological, which are not hard
to understand. The success of good interrogators depends in large
measure upon their use, conscious or not, of these principles and
of processes and techniques deriving from them. Knowledge of subject
matter and of the basic principles will not of itself create a successful
interrogation, but it will make possible the avoidance of mistakes
that are characteristic of poor interrogation. The purpose, then,
is not to teach the reader how to be a good interrogator but rather
to tell him what he must learn in order to become a good interrogator.
1 [page break]
The interrogation of a resistant source who is a staff or agent
member of an Orbit intelligence or security service or of a clandestine
Communist organization is one of the most exacting of professional
tasks. Usually the odds still favor the interrogator, but they are
sharply cut by the training, experience, patience and toughness of
the interrogatee. In such circumstances the interrogator needs all
the help that he can get. And a principal source of aid today is
scientific findings. The intelligence service which is able to bring
pertinent, modern knowledge to bear upon its problems enjoys huge
advantages over a service which conducts its clandestine business
in eighteenth century fashion. It is true that American psychologists
have devoted somewhat more attention to Communist interrogation techniques,
particularly "brainwashing", than to U. S. practices. Yet they have
conducted scientific inquiries into many subjects that are closely
related to interrogation: the effects of debility and isolation,
the polygraph, reactions to pain and fear, hypnosis and heightened
suggestibility, narcosis, etc. This work is of sufficient importance
and relevance that it is no longer possible to discuss interrogation
significantly without reference to the psychological research conducted
in the past decade. For this reason a major purpose of this study
is to focus relevant scientific findings upon CI interrogation. Every
effort has been made to report and interpret these findings in our
own language, in place of the terminology employed by the psychologists.
This study is by no means confined to a resume and interpretation
of psychological findings. The approach of the psychologists is customarily
manipulative; that is, they suggest methods of imposing controls
or alterations upon the interrogatee from the outside. Except within
the Communist frame of reference, they have paid less attention to
the creation of internal controls -- i.e., conversion of the source,
so that voluntary cooperation results. Moral considerations aside,
the imposition of external techniques of manipulating people carries
with it the grave risk of later lawsuits, adverse publicity, or other
attempts to strike back.
2 [page break]
B. Explanation of Organization
This study moves from the general topic of interrogation per se
(Parts I, II, III, IV, V, and VI) to planning the counterintelligence
interrogation (Part VII) to the CI interrogation of resistant sources
(Parts VIII, IX, and X). The definitions, legal considerations, and
discussions of interrogators and sources, as well as Section VI on
screening and other preliminaries, are relevant to all kinds of interrogations.
Once it is established that the source is probably a counterintelligence
target (in other words, is probably a member of a foreign intelligence
or security service, a Communist, or a part of any other group engaged
in clandestine activity directed against the national security),
the interrogation is planned and conducted accordingly. The CI interrogation
techniques are discussed in an order of increasing intensity as the
focus on source resistance grows sharper. The last section, on do's
and dont's, is a return to the broader view of the opening parts;
as a check-list, it is placed last solely for convenience.
3 [page break]
----------------------
II. Definitions
Most of the intelligence terminology employed here which may once
have been ambiguous has been clarified through usage or through KUBARK
instructions. For this reason definitions have been omitted for such
terms as burn notice, defector, escapee, and refugee. Other definitions
have been included despite a common agreement about meaning if the
significance is shaded by the context.
1. Assessment: the analysis and synthesis of information, usually
about a person or persons, for the purpose of appraisal. The assessment
of individuals is based upon the compilation and use of psychological
as well as biographic detail.
2. Bona fides: evidence or reliable information about identity, personal
(including intelligence) history, and intentions or good faith.
3. Control: the capacity to generate, alter, or halt human behavior
by implying, citing, or using physical or psychological means to
ensure compliance with direction. The compliance may be voluntary
or involuntary. Control of an interrogatee can rarely be established
without control of his environment.
4. Counterintelligence interrogation: an interrogation (see #7) designed
to obtain information about hostile clandestine activities and persons
or groups engaged therein. KUBARK CI interrogations are designed,
almost invariably, to yield information about foreign intelligence
and security services or Communist organizations. Because security
is an element of counterintelligence, interrogations conducted to
obtain admissions of clandestine plans or activities directed against
KUBARK or PBPRIME security are also CI interrogations. But unlike
a police interrogation, the CI
4 [page break]
interrogation is not aimed at causing the interrogatee to incriminate
himself as a means of bringing him to trial. Admissions of complicity
are not, to a CI service, ends in themselves but merely preludes
to the acquisition of more information.
5. Debriefing: obtaining information by questioning a controlled
and witting source who is normally a willing one.
6. Eliciting: obtaining information, without revealing intent or
exceptional interest, through a verbal or written exchange with a
person who may be willing or unwilling to provide what is sought
and who may or may not be controlled.
7. Interrogation: obtaining information by direct questioning of
a person or persons under conditions which are either partly or fully
controlled by the questioner or are believed by those questioned
to be subject to his control. Because interviewing, debriefing, and
eliciting are simpler methods of obtaining information from cooperative
subjects, interrogation is usually reserved for sources who are suspect,
resistant, or both.
8. Intelligence interview: obtaining information, not customarily
under controlled conditions, by questioning a person who is aware
of the nature and perhaps of the significance of his answers but
who is ordinarily unaware of the purposes and specific intelligence
affiliations of the interviewer.
5 [page break]
----------------------
III. Legal and Policy Considerations
The legislation which founded KUBARK specifically denied it any
law-enforcement or police powers. Yet detention in a controlled environment
and perhaps for a lengthy period is frequently essential to a successful
counterintelligence interrogation of a recalcitrant source. [approx.
three lines deleted] This necessity, obviously, should be determined
as early as possible.
The legality of detaining and questioning a person, and of the
methods employed, [approx. 10 lines deleted]
Detention poses the most common of the legal problems. KUBARK has
no independent legal authority to detain anyone against his will,
[approx. 4 lines deleted] The haste in which some KUBARK interrogations
have been conducted has not always been the product of impatience.
Some security services, especially those of the Sino-Soviet Bloc,
may work at leisure, depending upon time as well as their own methods
to melt recalcitrance. KUBARK usually
6 [page break]
cannot. Accordingly, unless it is considered that the prospective
interrogatee is cooperative and will remain so indefinitely, the
first step in planning an interrogation is to determine how long
the source can be held. The choice of methods depends in part upon
the answer to this question.
[approx. 15 lines deleted]
The handling and questioning of defectors are subject to the provisions
of [one or two words deleted] Directive No. 4: to its related Chief/KUBARK
Directives, principally [approx. 1/2 line deleted] Book Dispatch
[one or two words deleted] and to pertinent [one or two words deleted].
Those concerned with the interrogation of defectors, escapees, refugees,
or repatriates should know these references.
The kinds of counterintelligence information to be sought in a
CI interrogation are stated generally in Chief/KUBARK Directive and
in greater detail in Book Dispatch [approx. 1/3 line deleted].
The interrogation of PBPRIME citizens poses special problems. First,
such interrogations should not be conducted for reasons lying outside
the sphere of KUBARK' s responsibilities. For example, the
7 [page break]
[approx. 2/3 line deleted] but should not normally become directly
involved. Clandestine activity conducted abroad on behalf of a foreign
power by a private PBPRIME citizens does fall within KUBARK's investigative
and interrogative responsibilities. However, any investigation, interrogation,
or interview of a PBPRIME citizen which is conducted abroad because
it be known or suspected that he is engaged in clandestine activities
directed against PBPRIME security interests requires the prior and
personal approval of Chief/KUDESK or of his deputy.
Since 4 October 1961, extraterritorial application has been given
to the Espionage Act, making it henceforth possible to prosecute
in the Federal Courts any PBPRIME citizen who violates the statutes
of this Act in foreign countries. ODENVY has requested that it be
informed, in advance if time permits, if any investigative steps
are undertaken in these cases. Since KUBARK employees cannot be witnesses
in court, each investigation must be conducted in such a manner that
evidence obtained may be properly introduced if the case comes to
trial. [approx. 1 line deleted] states policy and procedures for
the conduct of investigations of PBPRIME citizens abroad.
Interrogations conducted under compulsion or duress are especially
likely to involve illegality and to entail damaging consequences
for KUBARK. Therefore prior Headquarters approval at the KUDOVE level
must be obtained for the interrogation of any source against his
will and under any of the following circumstances:
1. If bodily harm is to be inflicted.
2. If medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are
to be used to induce acquiescence.
3. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
8 [page break]
The CI interrogator dealing with an uncooperative interrogatee
who has been well-briefed by a hostile service on the legal restrictions
under which ODYOKE services operate must expect some effective delaying
tactics. The interrogatee has been told that KUBARK will not hold
him long, that he need only resist for a while. Nikolay KHOKHLOV,
for example, reported that before he left for Frankfurt am Main on
his assassination mission, the following thoughts coursed through
his head: "If I should get into the hands of Western authorities,
I can become reticent, silent, and deny my voluntary visit to Okolovich.
I know I will not be tortured and that under the procedures of western
law I can conduct myself boldly." (17) [The footnote numerals in
this text are keyed to the numbered bibliography at the end.] The
interrogator who encounters expert resistance should not grow flurried
and press; if he does, he is likelier to commit illegal acts which
the source can later use against him. Remembering that time is on
his side, the interrogator should arrange to get as much of it as
he needs.
9 [page break]
----------------------
IV. The Interrogator
A number of studies of interrogation discuss qualities said to
be desirable in an interrogator. The list seems almost endless -
a professional manner, forcefulness, understanding and sympathy,
breadth of general knowledge, area knowledge, "a practical knowledge
of psychology", skill in the tricks of the trade, alertness, perseverance,
integrity, discretion, patience, a high I.Q., extensive experience,
flexibility, etc., etc. Some texts even discuss the interrogator's
manners and grooming, and one prescribed the traits considered desirable
in his secretary.
A repetition of this catalogue would serve no purpose here, especially
because almost all of the characteristics mentioned are also desirable
in case officers, agents, policemen, salesmen, lumberjacks, and everybody
else. The search of the pertinent scientific literature disclosed
no reports of studies based on common denominator traits of successful
interrogators or any other controlled inquiries that would invest
these lists with any objective validity.
Perhaps the four qualifications of chief importance to the interrogator
are (1) enough operational training and experience to permit quack
recognition of leads; (2) real familiarity with the language to be
used; (3) extensive background knowledge about the interrogatee's
native country (and intelligence service, if employed by one); and
(4) a genuine understanding of the source as a person.
[approx. 1/2 line deleted] stations, and even a few bases can call
upon one or several interrogators to supply these prerequisites,
individually or as a team. Whenever a number of interrogators is
available, the percentage of successes is increased by careful matching
of questioners and sources and by ensuring that rigid prescheduling
does not prevent such matching. Of the four traits listed, a genuine
insight into the source's character and motives is perhaps
10 [page break]
most important but least common. Later portions of this manual explore
this topic in more detail. One general observation is introduced
now, however, because it is considered basic to the establishment
of rapport, upon which the success of non-coercive interrogation
depends.
The interrogator should remember that he and the interrogatee are
often working at cross-purposes not because the interrogates is malevolently
withholding or misleading but simply because what he wants front
the situation is not what the interrogator wants. The interrogator's
goal is to obtain useful information -- facts about which the interrogatee
presumably have acquired information. But at the outset of the interrogation,
and perhaps for a long time afterwards, the person being questioned
is not greatly concerned with communicating his body of specialized
information to his questioner; he is concerned with putting his best
foot forward. The question uppermost in his mind, at the beginning,
is not likely to be "How can I help PBPRIME?" but rather "What sort
of impression am I making?" and, almost immediately thereafter, "What
is going to happen to me now?" (An exception is the penetration agent
or provocateur sent to a KUBARK field installation after training
in withstanding interrogation. Such an agent may feel confident enough
not to be gravely concerned about himself. His primary interest,
from the beginning, may be the acquisition of information about the
interrogator and his service.)
The skilled interrogator can save a great deal of time by understanding
the emotional needs of the interrogates. Most people confronted by
an official -- and dimly powerful -- representative of a foreign
power will get down to cases much faster if made to feel, from the
start, that they are being treated as individuals. So simple a matter
as greeting an interrogatee by his name at the opening of the session
establishes in his mind the comforting awareness that he is considered
as a person, not a squeezable sponge. This is not to say that egotistic
types should be allowed to bask at length in the warmth of individual
recognition. But it is important to assuage the fear of denigration
which afflicts many people when first interrogated by making it clear
that the individuality of the interrogatee is recognized. With this
common understanding established, the interrogation can move on to
impersonal matters and will not later be thwarted or interrupted
--
11 [page break]
or at least not as often -- by irrelevant answers designed not to
provide facts but to prove that the interrogatee is a respectable
member of the human race.
Although it is often necessary to trick people into telling what
we need to know, especially in CI interrogations, the initial question
which the interrogator asks of himself should be, "How can I make
him want to tell me what he knows?" rather than "How can I trap him
into disclosing what he knows?" If the person being questioned is
genuinely hostile for ideological reasons, techniques of manipulation
are in order. But the assumption of hostility -- or at least the
use of pressure tactics at the first encounter -- may make difficult
subjects even out of those who would respond to recognition of individuality
and an initial assumption of good will.
Another preliminary comment about the interrogator is that normally
he should not personalize. That is, he should not be pleased, flattered,
frustrated, goaded, or otherwise emotionally and personally affected
by the interrogation. A calculated display of feeling employed for
a specific purpose is an exception; but even under these circumstances
the interrogator is in full control. The interrogation situation
is intensely inter-personal; it is therefore all the more necessary
to strike a counter-balance by an attitude which the subject clearly
recognizes as essentially fair and objective. The kind of person
who cannot help personalizing, who becomes emotionally involved in
the interrogation situation, may have chance (and even spectacular)
successes as an interrogator but is almost certain to have a poor
batting average.
It is frequently said that the interrogator should be "a good judge
of human nature." In fact, [approx. 3 lines deleted] (3) This study
states later (page "Great attention has been given to the degree
to which persons are able to make judgements from casual observations
regarding the personality characteristics of another. The consensus
of research is that with respect to many kinds of judgments, at least
some judges perform reliably better than chance...." Nevertheless,
"... the level
12 [page break]
of reliability in judgments is so low that research encounters difficulties
when it seeks to determine who makes better judgments...." (3) In
brief, the interrogator is likelier to overestimate his ability to
judge others than to underestimate it, especially if he has had little
or no training in modern psychology. It follows that errors in assessment
and in handling are likelier to result from snap judgments based
upon the assumption of innate skill in judging others than from holding
such judgments in abeyance until enough facts are known.
There has been a good deal of discussion of interrogation experts
vs. subject-matter experts. Such facts as are available suggest that
the latter have a slight advantage. But for counterintelligence purposes
the debate is academic. [approx. 5 lines deleted]
It is sound practice to assign inexperienced interrogators to guard
duty or to other supplementary tasks directly related to interrogation,
so that they can view the process closely before taking charge. The
use of beginning interrogators as screeners (see part VI) is also
recommended.
Although there is some limited validity in the view, frequently
expressed in interrogation primers, that the interrogation is essentially
a battle of wits, the CI interrogator who encounters a skilled and
resistant interrogatee should remember that a wide
___________________
*The interrogator should be supported whenever possible by qualified
analysts' review of his daily "take"; experience has shown that such
a review will raise questions to be put and points to be clarified
and lead to a thorough coverage of the subject in hand.
13 [page break]
variety of aids can be made available in the field or from Headquarters.
(These are discussed in Part VIII.) The intensely personal nature
of the interrogation situation makes it all the more necessary that
the KUBARK questioner should aim not for a personal triumph but for
his true goal -- the acquisition of all needed information by any
authorized means.
14 [page break]
----------------------
V. The Interrogatee
A. Types Of Sources: Intelligence Categories
From the viewpoint of the intelligence service the categories of
persons who most frequently provide useful information in response
to questioning are travellers; repatriates; defectors, escapees,
and refugees; transferred sources; agents, including provocateurs,
double agents, and penetration agents; and swindlers and fabricators.
1. Travellers are usually interviewed, debriefed, or queried through
eliciting techniques. If they are interrogated, the reason is that
they are known or believed to fall into one of the following categories.
2. Repatriates are sometimes interrogated, although other techniques
are used more often. The proprietary interests of the host government
will frequently dictate interrogation by a liaison service rather
than by KUBARK. If KUBARK interrogates, the following preliminary
steps are taken:
a. A records check, including local and Headquarters traces.
b . Testing of bona fides .
c. Determination of repatriate's kind and level of access while
outside his own country.
d. Preliminary assessment of motivation (including political orientation),
reliability, and capability as observer and reporter.
e. Determination of all intelligence or Communist
15 [page break]
relationships, whether with a service or party of the repatriate's
own country, country of detention, or another. Full particulars are
needed.
3. Defectors, escapees, and refugees are normally interrogated
at sufficient length to permit at least a preliminary testing of
bona fides . The experience of the post-war years has demonstrated
that Soviet defectors (1) almost never defect solely or primarily
because of inducement by a Western service, (2) usually leave the
USSR for personal rather than ideological reasons, and (3) are often
RIS agents.
[approx. 9 lines deleted]
All analyses of the defector-refugee flow have shown that the Orbit
services are well-aware of the advantages offered by this channel
as a means of planting their agents in target countries.
[approx. 14 lines deleted]
4. Transferred sources referred to KUBARK by another service
16 [page break]
for interrogation are usually sufficiently well-known to the transferring
service so that a file has been opened. Whenever possible, KUBARK
should secure a copy of the file or its full informational equivalent
before accepting custody.
5. Agents are more frequently debriefed than interrogated. [approx.
3 lines deleted] as an analytic tool. If it is then established or
strongly suspected that the agent belongs to one of the following
categories, further investigation and, eventually, interrogation
usually follow.
a. Provocateur. Many provocation agents are walk-ins posing as escapees,
refugees, or defectors in order to penetrate emigre groups, ODYOKE
intelligence, or other targets assigned by hostile services. Although
denunciations by genuine refugees and other evidence of information
obtained from documents, local officials, and like sources may result
in exposure, the detection of provocation frequently depends upon
skilled interrogation. A later section of this manual deals with
the preliminary testing of bona fides . But the results of preliminary
testing are often inconclusive, and detailed interrogation is frequently
essential to confession and full revelation. Thereafter the provocateur
may be questioned for operational and positive intelligence as well
as counterintelligence provided that proper cognizance is taken of
his status during the questioning and later, when reports are prepared.
b. Double agent. The interrogation of DA's frequently follows a
determination or strong suspicion that the double is "giving the
edge" to the adversary service. As is also true for the interrogation
of provocateurs, thorough preliminary investigation will pay handsome
dividends when questioning gets under way. In fact, it is a basic
principle of interrogation that the questioner should have at his
disposal, before querying starts, as much pertinent information as
can be gathered without the knowledge of the prospective
17 [page break]
interrogatee.
[2/3 of page deleted]
d. Swindlers and fabricators are usually interrogated for prophylactic
reasons, not for counterintelligence information. The purpose is
the prevention or nullification of damage to KUBARK, to other ODYOKE
services Swindlers and fabricators have little of CI significance
to communicate but are notoriously skillful timewasters. Interrogation
of them is usually inconclusive and, if prolonged,
18 [page break]
unrewarding. The professional peddler with several IS contacts
may prove an exception; but he will usually give the edge to a host
security service because otherwise he cannot function with impunity.
B. Types of Sources: Personality Categories
The number of systems devised for categorizing human beings is
large, and most of them are of dubious validity. Various categorical
schemes are outlined in treatises on interrogation. The two typologies
most frequently advocated are psychologic-emotional and geographic-cultural.
Those who urge the former argue that the basic emotional-psychological
patterns do not vary significantly with time, place, or culture.
The latter school maintains the existence of a national character
and sub-national categories, and interrogation guides based on this
principle recommend approaches tailored to geographical cultures.
It is plainly true that the interrogation source cannot be understood
in a vacuum, isolated from social context. It is equally true that
some of the most glaring blunders in interrogation (and other operational
processes ) have resulted from ignoring the source's background.
Moreover, emotional-psychological schematizations sometimes present
atypical extremes rather than the kinds of people commonly encountered
by interrogators. Such typologies also cause disagreement even among
professional psychiatrists and psychologists. Interrogators who adopt
them and who note in an interrogatee one or two of the characteristics
of "Type A" may mistakenly assign the source to Category A and assume
the remaining traits.
On the other hand, there are valid objections to the adoption of
cultural-geographic categories for interrogation purposes (however
valid they may be as KUCAGE concepts). The pitfalls of ignorance
of the distinctive culture of the source have "[approx. 4 lines deleted]
19 [page break]
[approx. 8 lines deleted]." (3)
The ideal solution would be to avoid all categorizing. Basically,
all schemes for labelling people are wrong per se; applied arbitrarily,
they always produce distortions. Every interrogator knows that a
real understanding of the individual is worth far more than a thorough
knowledge of this or that pigeon-hole to which he has been consigned.
And for interrogation purposes the ways in which he differs from
the abstract type may be more significant than the ways in which
he conforms.
But KUBARK does not dispose of the time or personnel to probe the
depths of each source's individuality. In the opening phases of interrogation,
or in a quick interrogation, we are compelled to make some use of
the shorthand of categorizing, despite distortions. Like other interrogation
aides, a scheme of categories is useful only if recognized for what
it is -- a set of labels that facilitate communication but are not
the same as the persons thus labelled. If an interrogatee lies persistently,
an interrogator may report and dismiss him as a "pathological liar."
Yet such persons may possess counterintelligence (or other) information
quite equal in value to that held by other sources, and the interrogator
likeliest to get at it is the man who is not content with labelling
but is as interested in why the subject lies as in what he lies about.
With all of these reservations, then, and with the further observation
that those who find these psychological-emotional categories pragmatically
valuable should use them and those who do not should let them alone,
the following nine types are described. The categories are based
upon the fact that a person's past is always reflected, however dimily,
in his present ethics and behavior. Old dogs can learn new tricks
but not new ways of learning them. People do change, but what appears
to be new behavior or a new psychological pattern is usually just
a variant on the old theme.
20 [page break]
It is not claimed that the classification system presented here
is complete; some interrogatees will not fit into any one of the
groupings. And like all other typologies, the system is plagued by
overlap, so that some interrogatees will show characteristics of
more than one group. Above all, the interrogator must remember that
finding some of the characteristics of the group in a single source
does not warrant an immediate conclusion that the source "belongs
to" the group, and that even correct labelling is not the equivalent
of understanding people but merely an aid to understanding.
The nine major groups within the psychological-emotional category
adopted for this handbook are the following.
1. The orderly-obstinate character. People in this category are
characteristically frugal, orderly, and cold; frequently they are
quite intellectual. They are not impulsive in behavior. They tend
to think things through logically and to act deliberately. They often
reach decisions very slowly. They are far less likely to make real
personal sacrifices for a cause than to use them as a temporary means
of obtaining a permanent personal gain. They are secretive and disinclined
to confide in anyone else their plans and plots, which frequently
concern the overthrow of some form of authority. They are also stubborn,
although they may pretend cooperation or even believe that they are
cooperating. They nurse grudges.
The orderly-obstinate character considers himself superior to other
people. Sometimes his sense of superiority is interwoven with a kind
of magical thinking that includes all sorts of superstitions and
fantasies about controlling his environment. He may even have a system
of morality that is all his own. He sometimes gratifies his feeling
of secret superiority by provoking unjust treatment. He also tries,
characteristically, to keep open a line of escape by avoiding any
real commitment to anything. He is -- and always has been -- intensely
concerned about his personal possessions. He is usually a tightwad
who saves everything, has a strong sense of propriety, and is punctual
and tidy. His money and other possessions have for him a personalized
quality; they are parts of himself. He often carries around shiny
coins, keepsakes, a bunch of keys, and other objects having for himself
an actual or symbolic value.
21 [page break]
Usually the orderly-obstinate character has a history of active
rebellion in childhood, of persistently doing the exact opposite
of what he is told to do. As an adult he may have learned to cloak
his resistance and become passive-aggressive, but his determination
to get his own way is unaltered. He has merely learned how to proceed
indirectly if necessary. The profound fear and hatred of authority,
persisting since childhood, is often well-concealed in adulthood,
For example, such a person may confess easily and quickly under interrogation,
even to acts that he did not commit, in order to throw the interrogator
off the trail of a significant discovery (or, more rarely, because
of feelings of guilt).
The interrogator who is dealing with an orderly-obstinate character
should avoid the role of hostile authority. Threats and threatening
gestures, table-pounding, pouncing on evasions or lies, and any similarly
authoritative tactics will only awaken in such a subject his old
anxieties and habitual defense mechanisms. To attain rapport, the
interrogator should be friendly. It will probably prove rewarding
if the room and the interrogator look exceptionally neat. Orderly-obstinate
interrogatees often collect coins or other objects as a hobby; time
spent in sharing their interests may thaw some of the ice. Establishing
rapport is extremely important when dealing with this type.[approx
3 lines deleted] (3)
2. The optimistic character. This kind of source is almost constantly
happy-go-lucky, impulsive, inconsistent, and undependable. He seems
to enjoy a continuing state of well-being. He may be generous to
a fault, giving to others as he wants to be given to. He may become
an alcoholic or drug addict. He is not able to withstand very much
pressure; he reacts to a challenge not by increasing his efforts
but rather by running away to avoid conflict. His convictions that
"something will turn up", that "everything will work out all right",
is based on his need to avoid his own responsibility for events and
depend upon a kindly fate.
Such a person has usually had a great deal of over-indulgence in
early life. He is sometimes the youngest member of a large family,
22 [page break]
the child of a middle-aged woman (a so-called "change-of-life baby").
If he has met severe frustrations in later childhood, he may be petulant,
vengeful, and constantly demanding.
As interrogation sources, optimistic characters respond best to
a kindly, parental approach. If withholding, they can often be handled
effectively by the Mutt-and-Jeff technique discussed later in this
paper. Pressure tactics or hostility will make them retreat inside
themselves, whereas reassurance will bring them out. They tend to
seek promises, to cast the interrogator in the role of protector
and problem-solver; and it is important that the interrogator avoid
making any specific promises that cannot be fulfilled, because the
optimist turned vengeful is likely to prove troublesome.
3. The greedy, demanding character. This kind of person affixes himself
to others like a leech and clings obsessively. Although extremely
dependent and passive, he constantly demands that others take care
of him and gratify his wishes. If he considers himself wronged, he
does not seek redress through his own efforts but tries to persuade
another to take up the cudgels in his behalf -- "let's you and him
fight." His loyalties are likely to shift whenever he feels that
the sponsor whom he has chosen has let him down. Defectors of this
type feel aggrieved because their desires were not satisfied in their
countries of origin, but they soon feel equally deprived in a second
land and turn against its government or representatives in the same
way. The greedy and demanding character is subject to rather frequent
depressions. He may direct a desire for revenge inward, upon himself;
in extreme cases suicide may result.
The greedy, demanding character often suffered from very early
deprivation of affection or security. As an adult he continues to
seek substitute parents who will care for him as his own, he feels,
did not.
The interrogator dealing with a greedy, demanding character must
be careful not to rebuff him; otherwise rapport will be destroyed.
On the other hand, the interrogator must not accede to demands which
cannot or should not be met. Adopting the tone of an understanding
father or big brother is likely to make the subject responsive. If
he makes exorbitant requests, an unimportant favor may provide a
satis-
23 [page break]
factory substitute because the demand arises not from a specific
need but as an expression of the subject's need for security. He
is likely to find reassuring any manifestation of concern for his
well-being.
In dealing with this type -- and to a considerable extent in dealing
with any of the types herein listed -- the interrogator must be aware
of the limits and pitfalls of rational persuasion. If he seeks to
induce cooperation by an appeal to logic, he should first determine
whether the source's resistance is based on logic. The appeal will
glance off ineffectually if the resistance is totally or chiefly
emotional rather than rational. Emotional resistance can be dissipated
only by emotional manipulation.
4. The anxious, self-centered character. Although this person is
fearful, he is engaged in a constant struggle to conceal his fears.
He is frequently a daredevil who compensates for his anxiety by pretending
that there is no such thing as danger. He may be a stunt flier or
circus performer who "proves" himself before crowds. He may also
be a Don Juan. He tends to brag and often lies through hunger for
approval or praise. As a soldier or officer he may have been decorated
for bravery; but if so, his comrades may suspect that his exploits
resulted from a pleasure in exposing himself to danger and the anticipated
delights of rewards, approval, and applause. The anxious, self-centered
character is usually intensely vain and equally sensitive.
People who show these characteristics are actually unusually fearful.
The causes of intense concealed anxiety are too complex and subtle
to permit discussion of the subject in this paper.
Of greater importance to the interrogator than the causes is the
opportunity provided by concealed anxiety for successful manipulation
of the source. His desire to impress will usually be quickly evident.
He is likely to be voluble. Ignoring or ridiculing his bragging,
or cutting him short with a demand that he get down to cases, is
likely to make him resentful and to stop the flow. Playing upon his
vanity, especially by praising his courage, will usually be a successful
tactic if employed skillfully. Anxious, self-centered interrogatees
who are withholding significant facts, such as contact with a hostile
service,
24 [page break]
are likelier to divulge if made to feel that the truth will not
be used to harm them and if the interrogator also stresses the callousness
and stupidity of the adversary in sending so valiant a person upon
so ill-prepared a mission. There is little to be gained and much
to be lost by exposing the nonrelevant lies of this kind of source.
Gross lies about deeds of daring, sexual prowess, or other "proofs"
of courage and manliness are best met with silence or with friendly
but noncommittal replies unless they consume an inordinate amount
of time. If operational use is contemplated, recruitment may sometimes
be effected through such queries as, "I wonder if you would be willing
to undertake a dangerous mission."
5. The guilt-ridden character. This kind of person has a strong
cruel, unrealistic conscience. His whole life seems devoted to reliving
his feelings of guilt. Sometimes he seems determined to atone; at
other times he insists that whatever went wrong is the fault of somebody
else. In either event he seeks constantly some proof or external
indication that the guilt of others is greater than his own. He is
often caught up completely in efforts to prove that he has been treated
unjustly. In fact, he may provoke unjust treatment in order to assuage
his conscience through punishment. Compulsive gamblers who find no
real pleasure in winning but do find relief in losing belong to this
class. So do persons who falsely confess to crimes. Sometimes such
people actually commit crimes in order to confess and be punished.
Masochists also belong in this category.
The causes of most guilt complexes are real or fancied wrongs done
to parents or others whom the subject felt he ought to love and honor.
As children such people may have been frequently scolded or punished.
Or they may have been "model" children who repressed all natural
hostilities.
The guilt-ridden character is hard to interrogate. He may "confess"
to hostile clandestine activity, or other acts of interest to KUBARK,
in which he was not involved. Accusations levelled at him by the
interrogator are likely to trigger such false confessions. Or he
may remain silent when accused, enjoying the "punishment." He is
a poor subject for LCFLUTTER. The complexities of dealing with conscience-ridden
interrogatees vary so widely from case to case that it is almost
impossible to list sound general principles. Perhaps
25 [page break]
the best advice is that the interrogator, once alerted by information
from the screening process (see Part VI) or by the subject's excessive
preoccupation with moral judgements, should treat as suspect and
subjective any information provided by the interrogatee about any
matter that is of moral concern to him. Persons with intense guilt
feelings may cease resistance and cooperate if punished in some way,
because of the gratification induced by punishment.
6. The character wrecked by success is closely related to the guilt-ridden
character. This sort of person cannot tolerate success and goes through
life failing at critical points. He is often accident-prone. Typically
he has a long history of being promising and of almost completing
a significant assignment or achievement but not bringing it off.
The character who cannot stand success enjoys his ambitions as long
as they remain fantasies but somehow ensures that they will not be
fulfilled in reality. Acquaintances often feel that his success is
just around the corner, but something always intervenes. In actuality
this something is a sense of guilt, of the kind described above.
The person who avoids success has a conscience which forbids the
pleasures of accomplishment and recognition. He frequently projects
his guilt feelings and feels that all of his failures were someone
else's fault. He may have a strong need to suffer and may seek danger
or injury.
As interrogatees these people who "cannot stand prosperity" pose
no special problem unless the interrogation impinges upon their feelings
of guilt or the reasons for their past failures. Then subjective
distortions, not facts, will result. The successful interrogator
will isolate this area of unreliability.
7. The schizoid or strange character lives in a world of fantasy
much of the time. Sometimes he seems unable to distinguish reality
from the realm of his own creating. The real world seems to him empty
and meaningless, in contrast with the mysteriously significant world
that he has made. He is extremely intolerant of any frustration that
occurs in the outer world and deals with it by withdrawal into the
interior realm.
26 [page break]
He has no real attachments to others, although he may attach symbolic
and private meanings or values to other people.
Children reared in homes lacking in ordinary affection and attention
or in orphanages or state-run communes may become adults who belong
to this category. Rebuffed in early efforts to attach themselves
to another, they become distrustful of attachments and turn inward.
Any link to a group or country will be undependable and, as a rule,
transitory. At the same time the schizoid character needs external
approval. Though he retreats from reality, he does not want to feel
abandoned.
As an interrogatee the schizoid character is likely to lie readily
to win approval. He will tell the interrogator what he thinks the
interrogator wants to hear in order to win the award of seeing a
smile on the interrogator's face. Because he is not always capable
of distinguishing between fact and fantasy, he may be unaware of
lying. The desire for approval provides the interrogator with a handle.
Whereas accusations of lying or other indications of disesteem will
provoke withdrawal from the situation, teasing the truth out of the
schizoid subject may not prove difficult if he is convinced that
he will not incur favor through misstatements or disfavor through
telling the truth.
Like the guilt-ridden character, the schizoid character may be
an unreliable subject for testing by LCFLUTTER because his internal
needs lead him to confuse fact with fancy. He is also likely to make
an unreliable agent because of his incapacity to deal with facts
and to form real relationships.
8. The exception believes that the world owes him a great deal.
He feels that he suffered a gross injustice, usually early in life,
and should be repaid. Sometimes the injustice was meted out impersonally,
by fate, as a physical deformity, an extremely painful illness or
operation in childhood, or the early loss of one parent or both.
Feeling that these misfortunes were undeserved, the exceptions regard
them as injustices that someone or something must rectify. Therefore
they claim as their right privileges not permitted others. When the
claim is ignored or denied, the exceptions become rebellious, as
adolescents often do. They are
27 [page break]
convinced that the justice of the claim is plain for all to see
and that any refusal to grant it is willfully malignant.
When interrogated, the exceptions are likely to make demands for
money, resettlement aid, and other favors -- demands that are completely
out of proportion to the value of their contributions. Any ambiguous
replies to such demands will be interpreted as acquiescence. Of all
the types considered here, the exception is likeliest to carry an
alleged injustice dealt him by KUBARK to the newspapers or the courts.
The best general line to follow in handling those who believe that
they are exceptions is to listen attentively (within reasonable timelimits)
to their grievances and to make no commitments that cannot be discharged
fully. Defectors from hostile intelligence services, doubles, provocateurs,
and others who have had more than passing contact with a Sino-Soviet
service may, if they belong to this category, prove unusually responsive
to suggestions from the interrogator that they have been treated
unfairly by the other service. Any planned operational use of such
persons should take into account the fact that they have no sense
of loyalty to a common cause and are likely to turn aggrievedly against
superiors.
9. The average or normal character is not a person wholly lacking
in the characteristics of the other types. He may, in fact, exhibit
most or all of them from time to time. But no one of them is persistently
dominant; the average man's qualities of obstinacy, unrealistic optimism,
anxiety, and the rest are not overriding or imperious except for
relatively short intervals. Moreover, his reactions to the world
around him are more dependent upon events in that world and less
the product of rigid, subjective patterns than is true of the other
types discussed.
C. Other Clues
[approx. 4 lines deleted]
28 [page break]
The true defector (as distinguished from the hostile agent in defector's
guise) is likely to have a history of opposition to authority. The
sad fact is that defectors who left their homelands because they
could not get along with their immediate or ultimate superiors are
also likely to rebel against authorities in the new environment (a
fact which usually plays an important part in redefection). Therefore
defectors are likely to be found in the ranks of the orderly-obstinate,
the greedy and deriding, the schizoids, and the exceptions.
Experiments and statistical analyses performed at the University
of Minnesota concerned the relationships among anxiety and affiliative
tendencies (desire to be with other people), on the one hand, and
the ordinal position (rank in birth sequence) on the other. Some
of the findings, though necessarily tentative and speculative, have
some relevance to interrogation. (30). As is noted in the bibliography,
the investigators concluded that isolation typically creates anxiety,
that anxiety intensifies the desire to be with others who share the
same fear, and that only and first-born children are more anxious
and less willing or able to withstand pain than later-born children.
Other applicable hypotheses are that fear increases the affiliative
needs of first-born and only children much more than those of the
later-born. These differences are more pronounced in persons from
small families then in those who grew up in large families. Finally,
only children are much likelier to hold themselves together and persist
in anxiety-producing situations than are the first-born, who more
frequently try to retreat. In the other major respects - intensity
of anxiety and emotional need to affiliate - no significant differences
between "firsts" and "onlies" were discovered.
It follows that determining the subject's "ordinal position" before
questioning begins may be useful to the interrogator. But two cautions
are in order. The first is that the findings are, at this stage,
only tentative hypotheses. The second is that even if they prove
accurate for large groups, the data are like those in actuarial tables;
they have no specific predictive value for individuals.
29 [page break]
----------------------
VI. Screening and Other Preliminaries
A. Screening
[approx. 2/3 line deleted] some large stations are able to conduct
preliminary psychological screening before interrogation starts.
The purpose of screening is to provide the interrogator, in advance,
with a reading on the type and characteristics of the interrogatee.
It is recommended that screening be conducted whenever personnel
and facilities permit, unless it is reasonably certain that the interrogation
will be of minor importance or that the interrogatee is fully cooperative.
Screening should be conducted by interviewers, not interrogators;
or at least the subjects should not be screened by the same KUBARK
personnel who will interrogate them later.
[approx. 10 lines deleted]
Other psychological testing aids are best administered by a trained
psychologist. Tests conducted on American POW's returned to U. S.
jurisdiction in Korea during the Big and Little Switch suggest that
prospective interrogatees who show normal emotional responsiveness
on the Rorschach and related tests are likelier to prove cooperative
under interrogation than are those whose responses indicate that
they are apathetic and emotionally
30 [page break]
withdrawn or barren. Extreme resisters, however, share the response
characteristics of collaborators; they differ in the nature and intensity
of motivation rather than emotions. "An analysis of objective test
records and biographical information is a sample of 759 Big Switch
repatriates revealed that men who had collaborated differed from
men who had not in the following ways: the collaborators were older,
had completed more years of school, scored higher on intelligence
tests administered after repatriation, had served longer in the Army
prior to capture, and scored higher on the Psychopathic Deviate Scale
- pd.... However, the 5 percent of the noncollaborator sample who
resisted actively - who were either decorated by the Army or considered
to be 'reactionaries' by the Chinese - differed from the remaining
group in precisely the same direction as the collaborator group and
could not be distinguished from this group on any variable except
age; the resisters were older than the collaborators." (33)
Even a rough preliminary estimate, if valid, can be a boon to the
interrogator because it will permit him to start with generally sound
tactics from the beginning - tactics adapted to the personality of
the source. Dr. Moloney has expressed the opinion, which we may use
as an example of this, that the AVH was able to get what it wanted
from Cardinal Mindszenty because the Hungarian service adapted its
interrogation methods to his personality. "There can be no doubt
that Mindszenty's preoccupation with the concept of becoming secure
and powerful through the surrender of self to the greatest power
of them all - his God idea - predisposed him to the response elicited
in his experience with the communist intelligence. For him the surrender
of self-system to authoritarian-system was natural, as was the very
principle of martyrdom." (28)
The task of screening is made easier by the fact that the screener
is interested in the subject, not in the information which he may
possess. Most people -- even many provocation agents who have been
trained to recite a legend -- will speak with some freedom about
childhood events and familial relationships. And even the provocateur
who substitutes a fictitious person for his real father will disclose
some of his feelings about his father in the course of detailing
his story about the imaginary substitute. If the screener
31 [page break]
has learned to put the potential source at ease, to feel his way
along in each case, the source is unlikely to consider that a casual
conversation about himself if dangerous .
The screener is interested in getting the subject to talk about
himself. Once the flow starts, the screener should try not to stop
it by questions, gestures, or other interruptions until sufficient
information has been revealed to permit a rough determination of
type. The subject is likeliest to talk freely if the screener's manner
is friendly and patient. His facial expression should not reveal
special interest in any one statement; he should just seem sympathetic
and understanding. Within a short time most people who have begun
talking about themselves go back to early experiences, so that merely
by listening and occasionally making a quiet, encouraging remark
the screener can learn a great deal. Routine questions about school
teachers, employers, and group leaders, for example, will lead the
subject to reveal a good deal of how he feels about his parents,
superiors, and others of emotional consequence to him because of
associative links in his mind.
It is very helpful if the screener can imaginatively place himself
in the subject's position. The more the screener knows about the
subject's native area and cultural background, the less likely is
he to disturb the subject by an incongruous remark. Such comments
as, "That must have been a bad time for you and your family," or
"Yes, I can see why you were angry," or "It sounds exciting" are
sufficiently innocuous not to distract the subject, yet provide adequate
evidence of sympathetic interest. Tasking the subject's side against
his enemies serves the same purpose, and such comments as "That was
unfair; they had no right to treat you that way" will aid rapport
and stimulate further revelations.
It is important that gross abnormalities be spotted during the
screening process. Persons suffering from severe mental illness will
show major distortions, delusions, or hallucinations and will usually
give bizarre explanations for their behavior. Dismissal or prompt
referral of the mentally ill to professional specialists will save
time and money.
The second and related purpose of screening is to permit an educated
guess about the source's probable attitude toward the
32 [page break]
interrogation. An estimate of whether the interrogatee will be cooperative
or recalcitrant is essential to planning because very different methods
are used in dealing with these two types.
At stations or bases which cannot conduct screening in the formal
sense, it is still worth-while to preface any important interrogation
with an interview of the source, conducted by someone other than
the interrogator and designed to provide a maximum of evaluative
information before interrogation commences.
Unless a shock effect is desired, the transition from the screening
interview to the interrogation situation should not be abrupt. At
the first meeting with the interrogatee it is usually a good idea
for the interrogator to spend some time in the same kind of quiet,
friendly exchange that characterized the screening interview. Even
though the interrogator now has the screening product, the rough
classification by type, he needs to understand the subject in his
own terms. If he is immediately aggressive, he imposes upon the first
interrogation session (and to a diminishing extent upon succeeding
sessions) too arbitrary a pattern. As one expert has said, "Anyone
who proceeds without consideration for the disjunctive power of anxiety
in human relationships will never learn interviewing." (34)
B. Other Preliminary Procedures
[approx. 2 lines deleted] The preliminary handling of other types
of interrogation sources is usually less difficult. It suffices for
the present purpose to list the following principles:
1. All available pertinent information ought to be assembled and
studied before the interrogation itself is planned, much less conducted.
An ounce of investigation may be worth a pound of questions.
2. A distinction should be drawn as soon as possible between sources
who will be sent to [approx. 1/2 line deleted site organized and
equipped for interrogation and those whose
33 [page break]
interrogation will be completed by the base or station with which
contact is first established.
3. The suggested procedure for arriving at a preliminary assessment
of walk-ins remains the same [approx. 4 lines deleted]
The key points are repeated here for ease of reference. These preliminary
tests are designed to supplement the technical examination of a walk-in's
documents, substantive questions about claimed homeland or occupation,
and other standard inquiries. The following questions, if asked,
should be posed as soon as possible after the initial contact, while
the walk-in is still under stress and before he has adjusted to a
routine.
a. The walk-in may be asked to identify all relatives and friends
in the area, or even the country, in which PBPRIME asylum is first
requested. Traces should be run speedily. Provocation agents are
sometimes directed to "defect" in their target areas, and friends
or relatives already in place may be hostile assets.
b. At the first interview the questioner should be on the alert
for phrases or concepts characteristic of intelligence or CP activity
and should record such leads whether it is planned to follow them
by interrogation on the spot [approx. 1 line deleted]
c. LCFLUTTER should be used if feasible. If not, the walk-in may
be asked to undergo such testing at a later date. Refusals should
be recorded, as well as indications that the walk-in has been briefed
on the technique by another service. The manner as well as the nature
of the walk-in's reaction to the proposal should be noted.
34 [page break]
d. If LCFLUTTER, screening. investigation, or any other methods
do establish a prior intelligence history, the following minimal
information should be obtained:
[approx. 1/3 page deleted] (7
[approx. 1/2 page deleted]
h. [approx. 3 lines deleted]
35 [page break]
[entire page redacted, except for "4." about 3/4 of the way down
the page]
36 [page break]
[approx. 4 lines deleted]
5. All documents that have a bearing on the planned interrogation
merit study. Documents from Bloc countries, or those which are in
any respect unusual or unfamiliar, are customarily sent to the proper
field or headquarters component for technical analysis.
6. If during screening or any other pre-interrogation phase it
is ascertained that the source has been interrogated before, this
fact should be made known to the interrogator. Agents, for example,
are accustomed to being questioned repeatedly and professionally.
So are persons who have been arrested several times. People who have
had practical training in being interrogated become sophisticated
subjects, able to spot uncertainty, obvious tricks, and other weaknesses.
C. Summary
Screening and the other preliminary procedures will help the interrogator
- and his base, station, [one or two words deleted] to decide whether
the prospective source (1) is likely to possess useful counterintelligence
because of association with a foreign service or Communist Party
and (2) is likely to cooperate voluntarily or not. Armed with these
estimates and with whatever insights screening has provided into
the personality of the source, the interrogator is ready to plan.
37 [page break]
----------------------
VII. Planning the Counterintelligence Interrogation
A. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation
The long-range purpose of CI interrogation is to get from the source
all the useful counterintelligence information that he has. The short-range
purpose is to enlist his cooperation toward this end or, if he is
resistant, to destroy his capacity for resistance and replace it
with a cooperative attitude. The techniques used in nullifying resistance,
inducing compliance, and eventually eliciting voluntary cooperation
are discussed in Part VIII of this handbook.
No two interrogations are the same. Every interrogation is shaped
definitively by the personality of the source - and of the interrogator,
because interrogation is an intensely interpersonal process. The
whole purpose of screening and a major purpose of the first stage
of the interrogation is to probe the strengths and weaknesses of
the subject. Only when these have been established and understood
does it become possible to plan realistically.
Planning the CI interrogation of a resistant source requires an
understanding (whether formalized or not) of the dynamics of confession.
Here Horowitz's study of the nature of confession is pertinent. He
starts by asking why confessions occur at all. "Why not always brazen
it out when confronted by accusation? Why does a person convict himself
through a confession, when, at the very worst, no confession would
leave him at least as well off (and possibly better off)...?" He
answers that confessions obtained without duress are usually the
product of the following conditions:
38 [page break]
1. The person is accused explicitly or implicitly and feels accused.
2. As a result his psychological freedom - the extent to which
he feels able to do what he wants to - is curtailed. This feeling
need not correspond to confinement or any other external reality.
3. The accused feels defensive because he is on unsure ground.
He does not know how much the accuser knows. As a result the accused
"has no formula for proper behavior, no role if you will, that he
can utilize in this situation."
4. He perceives the accuser as representing authority. Unless he
believes that the accuser's powers far exceed his own, he is unlikely
to feel hemmed in and defensive. And if he "perceives that the accusation
is backed by 'real' evidence, the ratio of external forces to his
own forces is increased and the person's psychological position is
now more precarious. It is interesting to note that in such situations
the accused tends toward over response, or exaggerated response;
to hostility and emotional display; to self-righteousness, to counter
accusation, to defense.... "
5. He must believe that he is cut off from friendly or supporting
forces. If he does, he himself becomes the only source of his "salvation."
6. "Another condition, which is most probably necessary, though
not sufficient for confession, is that the accused person feels guilt.
A possible reason is that a sense of guilt promotes self-hostility."
It should be equally clear that if the person does not feel guilt
he is not in his own mind guilty and will not confess to an act which
others may regard as evil or wrong and he, in fact, considers correct.
Confession in such a case can come only with duress even where all
other conditions previously mentioned may prevail."
39 [page break]
7. The accused, finally, is pushed far enough along the path toward
confession that it is easier for him to keep going than to turn back.
He perceives confession as the only way out of his predicament and
into freedom. (15)
Horowitz has been quoted and summarized at some length because
it is considered that the foregoing is a basically sound account
of the processes that evoke confessions from sources whose resistance
is not strong at the outset, who have not previously-been confronted
with detention and interrogation, and who have not been trained by
an adversary intelligence or security service in resistance techniques.
A fledgling or disaffected Communist or agent, for example, might
be brought to confession and cooperation without the use of any external
coercive forces other than the interrogation situation itself, through
the above-described progression of subjective events.
It is important to understand that interrogation, as both situation
and process, does of itself exert significant external pressure upon
the interrogatee as long as he is not permitted to accustom himself
to it. Some psychologists trace this effect back to infantile relationships.
Meerlo, for example, says that every verbal relationship repeats
to some degree the pattern of early verbal relationships between
child and parent. (27) An interrogatee, in particular, is likely
to see the interrogator as a parent or parent-symbol, an object of
suspicion and resistance or of submissive acceptance. If the interrogator
is unaware of this unconcsious process, the result can be a confused
battle of submerged attitudes, in which the spoken words are often
merely a cover for the unrelated struggle being waged at lower levels
of both personalities. On the other hand, the interrogator who does
understand these facts and who knows how to turn them to his advantage
may not need to resort to any pressures greater than those that flow
directly from the interrogation setting and function.
Obviously, many resistant subjects of counterintelligence interrogation
cannot be brought to cooperation, or even to compliance, merely through
pressures which they generate
40 [page break]
within themselves or through the unreinforced effect of the interrogation
situation. Manipulative techniques - still keyed to the individual
but brought to bear upon him from outside himself - then become necessary.
It is a fundamental hypothesis of this handbook that these techniques,
which can succeed even with highly resistant sources, are in essence
methods of inducing regression of the personality to whatever earlier
and weaker level is required for the dissolution of resistance and
the inculcation of dependence. All of the techniques employed to
break through an interrogation roadblock, the entire spectrum from
simple isolation to hypnosis and narcosis, are essentially ways of
speeding up the process of regression. As the interrogatee slips
back from maturity toward a more infantile state, his learned or
structured personality traits fall away in a reversed chronological
order, so that the characteristics most recently acquired - which
are also the characteristics drawn upon by the interrogatee in his
own defense - are the first to go. As Gill and Brenman have pointed
out, regression is basically a loss of autonomy. (13)
Another key to the successful interrogation of the resisting source
is the provision of an acceptable rationalization for yielding. As
regression proceeds, almost all resisters feel the growing internal
stress that results from wanting simultaneously to conceal and to
divulge. To escape the mounting tension, the source may grasp at
any face-saving reason for compliance - any explanation which will
placate both his own conscience and the possible wrath of former
superiors and associates if he is returned to Communist control.
It is the business of the interrogator to provide the right rationalization
at the right time. Here too the importance of understanding the interrogatee
is evident; the right rationalization must be an excuse or reason
that is tailored to the source's personality.
The interrogation process is a continuum, and everything that takes
place in the continuum influences all subsequent events. The continuing
process, being interpersonal, is not
41 [page break]
reversible. Therefore it is wrong to open a counterintelligence
interrogation experimentally, intending to abandon unfruitful approaches
one by one until a sound method is discovered by chance. The failures
of the interrogator, his painful retreats from blind alleys, bolster
the confidence of the source and increase his ability to resist.
While the interrogator is struggling to learn from the subject the
facts that should have been established before interrogation started,
the subject is learning more and more about the interrogator.
B. The Interrogation Plan
Planning for interrogation is more important than the specifics
of the plan. Because no two interrogations are alike, the interrogation
cannot realistically be planned from A to Z, in all its particulars,
at the outset. But it can and must be planned from A to F or A to
M. The chances of failure in an unplanned CI interrogation are unacceptably
high. Even worse, a "dash-on-regardless" approach can ruin the prospects
of success even if sound methods are used later.
The intelligence category to which the subject belongs, though
not determinant for planning purposes, is still of some significance.
The plan for the interrogation of a traveller differs from that for
other types because the time available for questioning is often brief.
The examination of his bona fides , accordingly, is often less searching.
He is usually regarded as reasonably reliable if his identity and
freedom from other intelligence associations have been established,
if records checks do not produce derogatory information, if his account
of his background is free of omissions or discrepancies suggesting
significant withholding, if he does not attempt to elicit information
about the questioner or his sponsor, and if he willingly provides
detailed information which appears reliable or is established as
such.
[approx. 2 lines deleted]
42 [page break]
[approx. 5 lines deleted]
Defectors can usually be interrogated unilaterally, at least for
a time. Pressure for participation will usually come [approx. 1/2
line deleted] from an ODYOKE intelligence component. The time available
for unilateral testing and exploitation should be calculated at the
outset, with a fair regard for the rights and interests of other
members of the intelligence community. The most significant single
fact to be kept in mind when planning the interrogation of Soviet
defectors is that a certain percentage of them have proven to be
controlled agents; estimates of this percentage have ranged as high
as [one or two words deleted] during a period of several years after
1955. (22)
KUBARK's lack of executive powers is especially significant if
the interrogation of a suspect agent or of any other subject who
is expected to resist is under consideration. As a general rule,
it is difficult to succeed in the CI interrogation of a resistant
source unless the interrogating service can control the subject and
his environment for as long as proves necessary.
[approx. 20 lines deleted]
43 [page break]
[1/3 of page deleted]
C. The Specifics
1. The Specific Purpose
Before questioning starts, the interrogator has clearly in mind
what he wants to learn, why he thinks the source has the information,
how important it is, and how it can best be obtained. Any confusion
here, or any questioning based on the premise that the purpose will
take shape after the interrogation is under way, is almost certain
to lead to aimlessness and final failure. If the specific goals cannot
be discerned clearly, further investigation is needed before querying
starts.
2. Resistance
The kind and intensity of anticipated resistance is estimated.
It is useful to recognize in advance whether the information desired
would be threatening or damaging in any way to the interests of the
interrogates. If so, the interrogator should consider whether the
same information, or confirmation of it, can be gained from another
source. Questioning suspects immediately, on a flimsy factual basis,
will usually cause waste of time, not save it. On the other hand,
if the needed information is not sensitive from the subject's viewpoint,
44 [page break]
merely asking for it is usually preferable to trying to trick him
into admissions and thus creating an unnecessary battle of wits.
The preliminary psychological analysis of the subject makes it
easier to decide whether he is likely to resist and, if so, whether
his resistance will be the product of fear that his personal interests
will be damaged or the result of the non-cooperative nature of orderly-obstinate
and related types. The choice of methods to be used in overcoming
resistance is also determined by the characteristics of the interrogatee.
3. The Interrogation Setting
The room in which the interrogation is to be conducted should be
free of distractions. The colors of walls, ceiling, rugs, and furniture
should not be startling. Pictures should be missing or dull. Whether
the furniture should include a desk depends not upon the interrogator's
convenience but rather upon the subject's anticipated reaction to
connotations of superiority and officialdom. A plain table may be
preferable. An overstuffed chair for the use of the interrogatee
is sometimes preferable to a straight-backed, wooden chair because
if he is made to stand for a lengthy period or is otherwise deprived
of physical comfort, the contrast is intensified and increased disorientation
results. Some treatises on interrogation are emphatic about the value
of arranging the lighting so that its source is behind the interrogator
and glares directly at the subject. Here, too, a flat rule is unrealistic.
The effect upon a cooperative source is inhibitory, and the effect
upon a withholding source may be to make him more stubborn. Like
all other details, this one depends upon the personality of the interrogatee.
Good planning will prevent interruptions. If the room is also used
for purposes other than interrogation, a "Do Not Disturb" sign or
its equivalent should hang on the door when questioning is under
way. The effect of someone wandering in because he forgot his pen
or wants to invite the
45 [page break]
interrogator to lunch can be devastating. For the same reason there
should not be a telephone in the room; it is certain to ring at precisely
the wrong moment. Moreover, it is a visible link to the outside;
its presence makes a subject feel less cut-off, better able to resist.
The interrogation room affords ideal conditions for photographing
the interrogatee without his knowledge by concealing a camera behind
a picture or elsewhere.
If a new safehouse is to be used as the interrogation site, it
should be studied carefully to be sure that the total environment
can be manipulated as desired. For example, the electric current
should be known in advance, so that transformers or other modifying
devices will be on hand if needed.
Arrangements are usually made to record the interrogation, transmit
it to another room, or do both. Most experienced interrogators do
not like to take notes. Not being saddled with this chore leaves
them free to concentrate on what sources say, how they say it, and
what else they do while talking or listening. Another reason for
avoiding note-taking is that it distracts and sometimes worries the
interrogatee. In the course of several sessions conducted without
note-taking, the subject is likely to fall into the comfortable illusion
that he is not talking for the record. Another advantage of the tape
is that it can be played back later. Upon some subjects the shock
of hearing their own voices unexpectedly is unnerving. The record
also prevents later twistings or denials of admissions. [approx.
6 lines deleted] A recording is also a valuable training aid for
interrogators, who by this
46 [page break]
means can study their mistakes and their most effective techniques.
Exceptionally instructuve interrogations, or selected portions thereof,
can also be used in the training of others.
If possible, audio equipment should also be used to transmit the
proceedings to another room, used as a listening post. The main advantage
of transmission is that it enables the person in charge of the interrogation
to note crucial points and map further strategy, replacing one interrogator
with another, timing a dramatic interruption correctly, etc. It is
also helpful to install a small blinker bulb behind the subject or
to arrange some other method of signalling the interrogator, without
the source's knowledge, that the questioner should leave the room
for consultation or that someone else is about to enter.
4. The Participants
Interrogatees are normally questioned separately. Separation permits
the use of a number of techniques that would not be possible otherwise.
It also intensifies in the source the feeling of being cut off from
friendly aid. Confrontation of two or more suspects with each other
in order to produce recriminations or admissions is especially dangerous
if not preceded by separate interrogation sessions which have evoked
compliance from one of the interrogatees, or at least significant
admissions involving both. Techniques for the separate interrogations
of linked sources are discussed in Part IX.
The number of interrogators used for a single interrogation case
varies from one man to a large team. The size of the team depends
on several considerations, chiefly the importance of the case and
the intensity of source resistance. Although most sessions consist
of one interrogator and one interrogatee, some of the techniques
described later call for the presence of two, three, or four interrogators.
The two-man team, in particular, is subject to unintended antipathies
and conflicts not called for by assigned roles. Planning and
47 [page break]
subsequent conduct should eliminate such cross-currents before they
develop, especially because the source will seek to turn them to
his advantage.
Team members who are not otherwise engaged can be employed to best
advantage at the listening post. Inexperienced interrogators find
that listening to the interrogation while it is in progress can be
highly educational.
Once questioning starts, the interrogator is called upon to function
at two levels. He is trying to do two seemingly contradictory things
at once: achieve rapport with the subject but remain an essentially
detached observer. Or he may project himself to the resistant interrogatee
as powerful and ominous (in order to eradicate resistance and create
the necessary conditions for rapport) while remaining wholly uncommitted
at the deeper level, noting the significance of the subjects reactions
and the effectiveness of his own performance. Poor interrogators
often confuse this bi-level functioning with role-playing, but there
is a vital difference. The interrogator who merely pretends, in his
surface performance, to feel a given emotion or to hold a given attitude
toward the source is likely to be unconvincing; the source quickly
senses the deception. Even children are very quick to feel this kind
of pretense. To be persuasive, the sympathy or anger must be genuine;
but to be useful, it must not interfere with the deeper level of
precise, unaffected observation. Bi-level functioning is not difficult
or even unusual; most people act at times as both performer and observer
unless their emotions are so deeply involved in the situation that
the critical faculty disintegrates. Through experience the interrogator
becomes adept in this dualism. The interrogator who finds that he
has become emotionally involved and is no longer capable of unimpaired
objectivity should report the facts so that a substitution can be
made. Despite all planning efforts to select an interrogator whose
age, background, skills, personality, and experience make him the
best choice for the job, it sometimes happens that both questioner
and subject feel, when they first meet,
48 [page break]
an immediate attraction or antipathy which is so strong that a change
of interrogators quickly becomes essential. No interrogator should
be reluctant to notify his superior when emotional involvement becomes
evident. Not the reaction but a failure to report it would be evidence
of a lack of professionalism.
Other reasons for changing interrogators should be anticipated
and avoided at the outset. During the first part of the interrogation
the developing relationship between the questioner and the initially
uncooperative source is more important than the information obtained;
when this relationship is destroyed by a change of interrogators,
the replacement must start nearly from scratch. In fact, he starts
with a handicap, because exposure to interrogation will have made
the source a more effective resister. Therefore the base, station,
[one or two words deleted] should not assign as chief interrogator
a person whose availability will end before the estimated completion
of the case.
5. The Timing
Before interrogation starts, the amount of time probably required
and probably available to both interrogator and interrogatee should
be calculated. If the subject is not to be under detention, his normal
schedule is ascertained in advance, so that he will not have to be
released at a critical point because he has an appointment or has
to go to work.
Because pulling information from a recalcitrant subject is the
hard way of doing business, interrogation should not begin until
all pertinent facts available from overt and from cooperative sources
have been assembled.
Interrogation sessions with a resistant source who is under detention
should not be held on an unvarying schedule. The capacity for resistance
is diminished by disorientation. The subject may be left alone for
days; and he may be returned to his cell, allowed to sleep for five
minutes, and brought back
49 [page break]
to an interrogation which is conducted as though eight hours had
intervened. The principle is that sessions should be so planned as
to disrupt the source's sense of chronological order.
6. The Termination
The end of an interrogation should be planned before questioning
starts. The kinds of questions asked, the methods employed, and even
the goals sought may be shaped by what will happen when the end is
reached. [approx. 3 lines deleted] If he is to be released upon the
local economy, perhaps blacklisted as a suspected hostile agent but
not subjected to subsequent counterintelligence surveillance, it
is important to avoid an inconclusive ending that has warned the
interrogates of our doubts but has established nothing. The poorest
interrogations are those that trail off into an inconclusive nothingness.
A number of practical terminal details should also be considered
in advance. Are the source's documents to be returned to him, and
will they be available in time? Is he to be paid? If he is a fabricator
or hostile agent, has he been photographed and fingerprinted? Are
subsequent contacts necessary or desirable, and have recontact provisions
been arranged? Has a quit-claim been obtained?
As was noted at the beginning of this section, the successful interrogation
of a strongly resistant source ordinarily involves two key processes:
the calculated regression of the interrogatee and the provision of
an acceptable rationalization. If these two steps have been taken,
it becomes very important to clinch the new tractability by means
of conversion. In other words, a subject who has finally divulged
the information sought and who has been given a reason for divulging
which salves his self-esteem, his conscience, or both will often
be in a mood to take the final step of accepting the interrogator'
s values and making common cause with him. If operational use is
now
50 [page break]
contemplated, conversion is imperative. But even if the source has
no further value after his fund of information has been mined, spending
some extra time with him in order to replace his new sense of emptiness
with new values can be good insurance. All non-Communist services
are bothered at times by disgruntled exinterrogatees who press demands
and threaten or take hostile action if the demands are not satisfied.
Defectors in particular, because they are often hostile toward any
kind of authority, cause trouble by threatening or bringing suits
in local courts, arranging publication of vengeful stories, or going
to the local police. The former interrogatee is especially likely
to be a future trouble-maker if during interrogation he was subjected
to a form of compulsion imposed from outside himself. Time spent,
after the interrogation ends, in fortifying the source's sense of
acceptance in the interrogator's world may be only a fraction of
the time required to bottle up his attempts to gain revenge. Moreover,
conversion may create a useful and enduring asset. (See also remarks
in VIII B 4.)
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VIII. The Non-Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation
A. General Remarks
The term non-coercive is used above to denote methods of interrogation
that are not based upon the coercion of an unwilling subject through
the employment of superior force originating outside himself. However,
the non-coercive interrogation is not conducted without pressure.
On the contrary, the goal is to generate maximum pressure, or at
least as much as is needed to induce compliance. The difference is
that the pressure is generated inside the interrogatee. His resistance
is sapped, his urge to yield is fortified, until in the end he defeats
himself.
Manipulating the subject psychologically until he becomes compliant,
without applying external methods of forcing him to submit, sounds
harder than it is. The initial advantage lies with the interrogator.
From the outset, he knows a great deal more about the source than
the source knows about him. And he can create and amplify an effect
of omniscience in a number of ways. For example, he can show the
interrogatee a thick file bearing his own name. Even if the file
contains little or nothing but blank paper, the air of familiarity
with which the interrogator refers to the subject's background can
convince some sources that all is known and that resistance is futile.
If the interrogatee is under detention, the interrogator can also
manipulate his environment. Merely by cutting off all other human
contacts, "the interrogator monopolizes the social environment of
the source."(3) He exercises the powers of an all-powerful parent,
determining when the source will be sent to bed, when and what he
will eat, whether he will be rewarded for good behavior or punished
for being bad. The interrogator can and does make the
52 [page break]
subject's world not only unlike the world to which he had been accustomed
but also strange in itself - a world in which familiar patterns of
time, space, and sensory perception are overthrown. He can shift
the environment abruptly. For example, a source who refuses to talk
at all can be placed in unpleasant solitary confinement for a time.
Then a friendly soul treats him to an unexpected walk in the woods.
Experiencing relief and exhilaration, the subject will usually find
it impossible not to respond to innocuous comments on the weather
and the flowers. These are expanded to include reminiscences, and
soon a precedent of verbal exchange has been established. Both the
Germans and the Chinese have used this trick effectively.
The interrogator also chooses the emotional key or keys in which
the interrogation or any part of it will be played.
Because of these and other advantages, " [approx. 6 lines deleted]
"(3)
B. The Structure of the Interrogation
A counterintelligence interrogation consists of four parts: the
opening, the reconnaissance, the detailed questioning and the conclusion.
1. The Opening
Most resistant interrogatees block off access to significant counterintelligen
ce
in their possession for one or more of four reasons. The first is
a specific negative reaction to the interrogator. Poor initial handling
or a fundamental antipathy can make a source uncooperative even if
he has nothing significant or damaging to conceal. The second cause
is that some sources are resistant "by nature" - i.e. by early conditioning
- to any compliance with authority. The third is that the subject
believes that the information sought will be
53 [page break]
damaging or incriminating for him personally that cooperation with
the interrogator will have consequences more painful for him than
the results of non-cooperation. The fourth is ideological resistance.
The source has identified himself with a cause, a political movement
or organization, or an opposition intelligence service. Regardless
of his attitude toward the interrogator, his own personality, and
his fears for the future, the person who is deeply devoted to a hostile
cause will ordinarily prove strongly resistant under interrogation.
A principal goal during the opening phase is to confirm the personality
assessment obtained through screening and to allow the interrogator
to gain a deeper understanding of the source as an individual. Unless
time is crucial, the interrogator should not become impatient if
the interrogatee wanders from the purposes of the interrogation and
reverts to personal concerns. Significant facts not produced during
screening may be revealed. The screening report itself is brought
to life, the type becomes an individual, as the subject talks. And
sometimes seemingly rambling monologues about personal matters are
preludes to significant admissions. Some people cannot bring themselves
to provide information that puts them in an unfavorable light until,
through a lengthy prefatory rationalization, they feel that they
have set the stage that the interrogator will now understand why
they acted as they did. If face-saving is necessary to the interrogatee
it will be a waste of time to try to force him to cut the preliminaries
short and get down to cases. In his view, he is dealing with the
important topic, the why . He will be offended and may become wholly
uncooperative if faced with insistent demands for the naked what
