Jim Bell's New Lifestyle

[TruthMonger <tm@dev.null>]

Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources

A. Restrictions 
The purpose of this part of the handbook is to present basic information
about coercive techniques available for use in the interrogation
situation. 

B. The Theory of Coercion
Coercive procedures are designed not only to exploit the resistant
source's internal conflicts and induce him to wrestle with himself but
also to bring a superior outside force to bear upon the subject's
resistance. 
All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression. As Hinkle
notes in "The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it
Affects Brain Function"(7), the result of external pressures of
sufficient intensity is the loss of those defenses most recently
acquired by civilized man: "...
Farber says that the response to coercion typically contains "... at
least three important elements: debility, dependency, and dread."
Prisoners "... have reduced viability, are helplessly dependent on their
captors for the satisfaction of their many basic needs, and experience
the emotional and motivational reactions of intense fear and anxiety.... 

Only subjects who have reached a point where they are under delusions
are likely to make false confessions that they believe. 
The profound moral objection to applying duress past the point of
irreversible psychological damage has been stated. Judging the validity
of other ethical arguments about coercion exceeds the scope of this
paper. 

The following are the principal coercive techniques of interrogation:
arrest, detention, deprivation of sensory stimuli through solitary
confinement or similar methods, threats and fear, debility, pain,
heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis, and induced
regression. 

C. Arrest 
The manner and timing of arrest can contribute substantially to the
interrogator's purposes. 

D. Detention 
If, through the cooperation of a liaison service or by unilateral means,
arrangements have been made for the confinement of a resistant source,
the circumstances of detention are arranged to enhance within the
subject his feelings of being cut off from the known and the reassuring,
and of being plunged into the strange. 

E. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli 
John C. Lilly found "... that isolation per se acts on most persons as a
powerful stress...." 
"The symptoms most commonly produced by isolation are superstition,
intense love of any other living thing, perceiving inanimate objects as
alive, hallucinations, and delusions." 
"It is obvious that inner factors in the mind tend to be projected
outward, that some of the mind's activity which is usually reality-bound
now becomes free to turn to phantasy and ultimately to hallucination and
delusion."

F. Threats and Fear 
The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more
effectively than coercion itself.
The same principle holds for other fears: sustained long enough, a
strong fear of anything vague or unknown induces regression.
Threats delivered coldly are more effective than those shouted in rage.

It is not enough that a resistant source should placed under the tension
of fear; he must also discern an acceptable escape route. 
In brief, the threat is like all other coercive techniques in being most
effective when so used as to foster regression and when joined with a
suggested way out of the dilemma, a rationalization acceptable to the
interrogatee.

G. Debility 
The available evidence suggests that resistance is sapped principally by
psychological rather than physical pressures. The threat of debility -
for example, a brief deprivation of food - may induce much more anxiety
than prolonged hunger.

H. Pain
"In the simple torture situation the contest is one between the
individual and his tormentor (.... and he can frequently endure). When
the individual is told to stand at attention for long periods, an
intervening factor is introduced. The immediate source of pain is not
the interrogator but the victim himself. The motivational strength of
the individual is likely to exhaust itself in this internal
encounter.... 

I. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis 
Merton M. Gill and Margaret Brenman state, "The psychoanalytic theory of
hypnosis clearly implies, where it does not explicitly state, that
hypnosis is a form of regression." And they add, "...induction [of
hypnosis] is the process of bringing about a regression, while the
hypnotic state is the established regression." 
The problem of overcoming the resistance of an uncooperative
interrogatee is essentially a problem of inducing regression to a level
at which the resistance can no longer be sustained. Hypnosis is one way
of regressing people.

J. Narcosis 
Just as the threat of pain may more effectively induce compliance than
its infliction, so an interrogatee's mistaken belief that he has been
drugged may make him a more useful interrogation subject than he would
be under narcosis. 
Nevertheless, drugs can be effective in overcoming resistance not
dissolved by other techniques. As has already been noted, the so-called
silent drug (a pharmacologically potent substance given to a person
unaware of its administration) can make possible the induction of
hypnotic trance in a previously unwilling subject.

K. The Detection of Malingering 
Another technique is to pretend to take the deception seriously, express
grave concern, and tell the "patient" that the only remedy for his
illness is a series of electric shock treatments or a frontal lobotomy.