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INTELLIGENCE IN RECENT PUBLIC LITERATURE PSYCHOLOGICAL TECHNIQUES

THE MANIPULATION OF HUMAN BEHAVIOR. Edited by Albert D. Biderman and Herbert Zimmer. (New York and London: John Wiley and Sons. 1961. Pp. 323. $7.95.)

For all its sweeping title, this collection of seven scientific essays is specifically concerned, according to its editors, with " the application of scientific knowledge to . . . the interroga­tion of an unwilling subject," and it should therefore be like manna to the intelligence interrogator starving for scientific aid. Instead, it is a cruel mirage, for two chief reasons. The tirst of these is that the several authors, each having in mind some different and !Jndeftned concept of what interrogation is, rarely approach what the intelligence interrogator means by the interrogation of a resistant subject. The editors admit that some of "the contributors to this book were not them­selves highly conversant with interrogation practises"; the lamentable fact is that they display a range from unrelieved illiteracy to mitigated ignorance about interrogation. The second reason is the lack, which they complacently acknowl­edge, of virtually any experimental evidence to substantiate their vague extrapolated conclusions.

Writing about "The Physiological State of the Interroga­tion Subject as it Affects Brain Function," Lawrence E. Hinkle Jr. implicitly holds up the interrogation of prisoners of war as typical of all interrogation of resistant subjects. He con­cludes that "a man is best able to give accurate information when he is in an optimal state of health, rest, comfort, and alertness, and when he is under no threat. This would seem to be the optimal situation for interrogation." Whatever the validity of this statement with respect to a positive · interro­gation seeking, say, scientific or technical information, it has no application to a counterintelligence interrogation in which the sole initial purpose is to make the interrogatee tell truth­fully whether he is or is not a KGB spy. Whatever his state of health, he is not likely to be unable to communicate this simple fact correctly, i! he will.

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Philip .E. Kubansky's paper on "The Effects of Reduced En­vironmental Stimulation on Human Behavior" describes sev­eral experiments in which sensory stimuli were reduced by placing subjects in water tanks, iron lungs, etc. Samples were frequently small (one experiment used only two subjects) ; the period of sensory deprivation was almost always brief (sometimes a total of three to ten minutes); and the subjects knew that they were in the hands of reputable scientists and could end the confinement or isolation whenever they wished. The resemblance of such experiments to the treatment im­posed by a Communist security service is that of a lap dog to a gorilla. Recognizing this gult, the writer says, "There are no experimental data .. . on the relationship of isolation and deprivation to the amount and accuracy of information which can be obtained when under interrogation . . . . [The experi­ments conducted to date] have remained within the limita­tions posed by ethical considerations and have not pushed sub­jects to their ultimate limits." Science cannot add to knowl­edge about the interrogation of resistant subjects by such a delicate, humane, and tentative probing of its harsh aspects.

Louis A. Gottschalk, writing on "The Use of Drugs in Inter­rogation," tells us much about drugs but little about interro­gation under narcosis. His chapter ts one of the three best because he makes a consistent effort to relate his data to his stated subject. But he too is plagued by a lack of immediately relevant experimentation: "When one examines the literature for experimental and clinical studies that bear directly on the use of drugs in interrogation procedures, one finds rela­tively few studies." Therefore he has to rely on unscientlflc reports about the interrogation of crinitnal suspects and scien­tific findings which may be interpreted as meaning this or that about interrogation but lead to no firm conclusions.1

R. C. Davis' essay on "Physiological Responses as a Means of Evaluating Information" deals with the polygraph. Its pri­mary evidential basis is an experiment conducted at the Uni­versity of Indiana nine years ago. It advances three possible explanations of the measurable physiological changes which

• Dr. Gottschalk's ftndlnp are reviewed 1n areater detall 1n Intelli­gence Articles V2, " 'Truth' Drugs 1n Interrogation," p. AUr.; espedall7

.PP. A'7-A10.

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sometimes accompany lying but concludes that "present knowl­edge is not sufllcient to lead to a decision on which, if any, of these three theories is correct." Dr. Davis seems to know what he is talking about when he says:

The intelligence Interrogation. however, has certain pecullarlties. Studies directed speclftcally to these distinctive problems would be required for more rellable conclusions regarding the appllcabllity of ftnd1ngs from previous experimentation to practical employments 1n Intelligence Interrogations.

But soon he gives us a glimpse of what he thinks an interroga­tion is:

One may suppose that the person questioned, typically, Will have Uttle personal involvement in information sought. The questions frequently will not be about something he has done or tor which he feels respon.sible or guilty. He may or may · not know what information 1s important to h1s interrogator. Perhaps he 1s not very deeply motivated to conceal the speciflc items ot informa­tion . . . .

It would be a pleasure to hear Colonel Rudolf Abel's opinion of this passage--or the opinion of his U.S. interrogators.

"The Potential Uses of Hypnosis in Interrogation," by Mar­tin T. Orne, is an honest and thoughtful attempt to discuss scientific understanding of hypnosis in relationship to inter­rogation.' But this chapter shares with its predecessors a lamentable lack of directly relevant observation and experi­mentation. Dr. Orne says, "There is an utter dearth of lit­erature concerning the actual use of hypnosis in interroga­tion. . Either this technique has never been used, or it it has, no one has chosen to discuss it in print." The reader wonders why Dr. Orne, himself a hypnotist, has not conducted some research on this subject, for his suggestions are sometimes in­triguing. It occurs to him that an interrogator armed with some facts about the subject, facts that the subject does not

. know him to possess, might turn them to good advantage:

The informant could be given a hypnotic drug with appropriate verbal suggestiona to talk about a given tople. Eventually enough of the drug would be gtven to cause a short period ot unconacloua· ness. When the subject wakena, the interrogator could then read

• See Intelligence Articles IV 1, p. 37, tr., tor other dlscu.s.Uon ot this subject.

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from his 'notes' of the hypnotic interview the information pre~ sumably told him.

He also suggests that an interrogatee who is consciously r~ sistant could be placed in circumstances conducive to hypn~ sis, without being hypnotized. His submerged desire to divulge what the interrogator wants to lmow, in order to escape stress, could persuade him that he is or was hypnotized and thus provide him with a rationalization for capitulating. But, after a cogent discussion of other possibilities, Orne concludes that "there is no direct evidence that such techniques have been or will be employed by interrogators nor any evaulation of their effectiveness."

Why isn't there? In the sixth chapter, written by Robert R. Blake and Jane

S. Mouton and entitled "The Experimental Investigation of In~ terpersonal Infiuence," we encounter first the drear familiar fact that the evidence to be reviewed is not really related to interrogation: "The relevance of this review for the problem of the volume rests on the validity of the assumption that the dynamics of infiuence operate beyond the range of intensity of conffict which has been studied experimentally." We are further disheartened upon learning that the experimenU! ~ cussed are unrelated not only to interrogation but also to reality: "Many of the experiments reviewed . . . have em­ployed . . . conditions that are extremely artificial. As a r~ suit, conformity or resistance may develop under conditions that bear Uttle resemblance to actual situations... A typical experiment:

Jenness used lnltlallndlvtdual judgments of the number of beans 1n a Jar to asatp students with l.nltlally c:Uvergent estimates and those with lnlttally slm1lar estlmate3 to groups of three members and four members resPec:ttveiJ. After c:Uscusaion to arrive at a group estimate, the variation among 1nc:Uvldual judgments was reduced more 1n the three-member than 1n the four-member group.

The relevance to interrogation is indeed a little obscure. The last chapter, "Countermantpulation through Malinger·

ing/' by Dr. Malcolm L. Metzer, shares with those by Dr. Orne and Dr. Gottschalk two characteristics rarely found in the others--a sensible use of English and an interest, however in· expe~. in interrogation. Dr. Metzer d1scusses the possible

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feigning of mental illness to avoid, delay, or obfuscate interro­gation. But he too has found that his topic lacks experimen­tal underpinnings:

There is as yet little emplric&l work which would aJd 1n the pre­diction of the persons and the circumstances which might combine to produce a simulation ot psyehos1s. . . . The more specl1lc ques­tion of the type ot person who wtll attempt to simulate the role of the psychotic has not been investigated experLmentally.

Explaining that The Manipulation of Human Behavior was intended to communicate scientific information to scientists, its editors presumptuously remark, "If the present study also receives the attention of interrogators, it may offset their tendency to adopt the sensational stereotypes of interroga­tion on which many of them appear to have modeled their practice in the past." The book hlu received the disappointed attention of intelligence interrogators, who conclude that they had a right to expect more substantial support from the scientists. Perhaps the failure of this prolonged exploration of a scientiftc void will be obvious enough to stimulate expert­men tal efforts to fill the void. And if this review, addressed primarily to intelligence specialists, should (to paraphrase the editors) also receive the attention of psychologists and psy­chiatrists, it may offset their tendency to rely on the unex­amined stereotypes of interrogation which many of them ap­pear to have used as the basis for their theories in the past.

THOUGHT REFORM AND THE PSYCHOLOGY OF TOTAL­ISM. By Robert Jay Lifton. (New York: W. W. Norton. 1961. Pp. 510. $6.95.)

COERCIVE PERSUASION. By Edgar H. Schein with Inge Schneier and Curtis H.. Barker. (New York: W. W. Norton. 1961. Pp. 320. $6.75.)

Several years ago a group of American scientists-psychol­ogists, psychiatrists and neurophysiologists-who were trying to develop an understanding of the Russian and Chinese meth­ods of obtaining false confessions, compliant behavior, and the apparent conversion of beliefs interviewed a veteran member ot the State Security apparatus of an Eastern European na­tion. They asked him what, in his opinion, had been the

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