KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation/INTRODUCTION
| Project Name : | KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation |
|---|---|
| Inception Date: | July 1963 |
| Related Links : | KUBARK Counterintelligence Interrogation |
INTRODUCTION
[edit | edit source]This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, interrogator. At best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes of poor interrogators.
It's purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation, and particularly the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources. Designed as an aid for interrogator• 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 response s to questions. As is true of all craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than others: and some o£ 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 oi subject matter and of the basic principles will not o£ 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.
- The 'interrogation o! a. renistant source who is a otaif or agent membet: o( an Orbit intelligence or security service or o! a clandestine Cornm.uniet orgaoizatioil is one o! the most exacting of professional task&. Uoually the odds still h.vor the inte~rogator, but they are sharply cut by the traini:g. a.xpe~ience, patience and tougb.ness of the interrogatee. In Sl.lcb circun\stances the interrogator needs a.ll the help that be can get. And a.principal source of aid today is ocieotUic findings. The intelligence service which is able to bri,ng pertinent, modcra knowledge to bear upon its problema enjoys buge advantage& over a 9ervice which conducts its clandestine business in e ighteenth century fas hion. It is true that American psychologists have devoted somewhat more attention to Communist interrogation techniques, particularly "brainwasbing" , than to U. 5. ·practices. Yet they have conducted scienti.Cic inquiries into many subjects that arc closely related to interrogation: the effects oC debility and isolation, the polygraph, reactions to pain and fear, hypnosis and heightened s uggestibility, narcos is, etc. Thio work is o! suJ!icient i:nportance and relevance that it ia no longer possible to discuss interrogation significantly without reference to tb.e ps ycbological research conducted in the past decade. For this reason a. major purpose of this study is to !ocus relevant scientific findings upon Cl interrogation. Every effort bas been made to report and interpret these findings in our own language, in place o( the terminology employed by the psychologists. This study is by no means confined to a resume and interpretation o! psychological lindlngs. The approach o! the psychologists is cu.otomarily manipulative; that io, they suggest methods of imposing controls or alterations upon the interrogatee ft·om the outside. Except within the Com.mu.niet frame of reference, they have paid ieee 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 o! later lawsuits, adverse publicity, or other attempts to strike back.
