Editing KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation Review: Observations of an Interrogator (section)

==The Challenge of Apathy==
Little is gained if confinement merely replaces one routine with another. Prisoners who lead monotonously unvaried lives “cease to care about their utterances, dress, and cleanliness. They become dulled, apathetic, and depressed.” And apathy
can be a very effective defense against interrogation.101

Little is known about the duration of confinement calculated to make a subject shift from anxiety, coupled with a desire for sensory stimuli and human companionship, to a passive, apathetic acceptance of isolation and ultimate pleasure in the negative state. Undoubtedly, the rate of change is determined almost entirely by the psychological characteristics of the individual.102
Once again, this observation demonstrates the unique challenge of source management: a challenge made even more complex by the introduction of coercive measures. Perhaps the principle to be drawn here is that the interrogator may use the advantage of physical setting (i.e., confinement, routine, movement) to his advantage...but only to a point. The prolonged effort to influence psychological set by controlling the physical setting can quickly and unexpectedly become counterproductive when, as in the scenario cited above, the source’s routine existence and distant hope of release cause him to view his circumstances — and his life, his future, and the prospects for change — with apathy.

This brings up a larger point about the fundamental nature of interrogation as either a “push” or “pull” (“control” or “rapport”) phenomenon. In the former, the interrogator seeks to use his control advantages to introduce external, “moving away” pressure on the source to comply. For example, the interrogator can place the source in isolation; establish mind-numbing routine or constant, unsettling change in the source’s daily activities; or introduce physicality into the interaction. The myriad forms of coercive methods essentially attempt to obtain capitulation in this manner.

101 KUBARK, 86.
102 KUBARK, 87.


By contrast, the “pull” approach views interrogation as not unlike a recruitment. The interrogator, having invested sufficient time in assessing the source’s personality and — most important — that which the source values, seeks to introduce internal, “moving toward” pressure. When this is deftly accomplished, the interrogator presents the source with an attractive goal (i.e., freedom, better treatment, communication with family) that appears to be within the source’s sphere of influence through cooperative behavior. In essence, the source comes to recognize — through implicit or explicit communication from the interrogator — that the source’s actions can achieve these goals. For the interrogator, the challenge is to ensure that the path to the source’s objectives will lead directly through the accomplishment of the interrogator’s own objectives. In a recruitment, this might mean that to achieve the source’s goal (e.g., removing the autocratic regime currently ruling his country, sending his children to college in the United States, etc.), the source would need to help the case officer by agreeing to serve as an agent reporting on specific targets of intelligence interest. In an interrogation, the line between the source and his or her goal (e.g., early release) runs directly through the interrogator’s objective (i.e., actionable intelligence on priority information requirements).

While a dearth of evidence exists regarding the efficacy of either the “push” or “pull” model of interrogation, there are two important considerations, one relating to time intensity and the other to the scope of information. Both approaches are likely to be time-intensive (despite the seemingly popular belief that coercive measures are more likely to produce the desired intelligence in time to resolve the “ticking time-bomb” scenario). But in the best of circumstances, it is anticipated that the control model would obtain information only in direct response to the specific questions posed. In contrast, the “rapport” model is more likely to obtain not only similar kinds of information, but also additional information within the scope of the source’s knowledgeability that was not necessarily addressed by the interrogator. In the former, the source seeks minimal fulfillment of requirements to move away from the pressure of control; in the latter, the source is more prone to provide satisfaction of requirements and additional self-initiated reporting to enhance rapport...and expedite movement toward objectives.