MANIPULATION, INTIMIDATION, AND RAPPORT

Man cannot so far know the connection of causes and events,
as that he may venture to do wrong in order to do right.

—Samuel Johnson, Rasselas, XXXIV.30

 

 

 

 

 

 

It was obvious from the outset, to me at least, that interrogation had to be founded on a human relation, which I would exploit, but which had to exist as a real, mutual psychological bond. It was absurd, to my mind, to think denunciations, or perhaps pain, sufficed to elicit or pry the information we sought from CAPTUS. One needed to play upon all aspects of a person’s mind and personality, not reduce him in our minds to nothing but a guilty and frightened object, who was not part of the human interrogation dynamic. He was an enemy, perhaps. He had information we needed, perhaps. But he was surely a three-dimensional man, and I would so treat him during the interrogation, to the extent that I was able to do so.

I quickly found that interrogation called for the same skills and approaches as those of a good case officer: developing rapport, personal trust, a bond between the two individuals, and, of course, manipulation, sometimes seen, more often performed behind affirmations of purity and altruism. Interrogation, done right, was intensely intimate, far more than I had anticipated. I found myself developing a strong personal relationship with CAPTUS, and liking him, a man we considered so implicated in the horrific business of al-Qa’ida that we had seen fit to kidnap him.

The relationship a case officer (a CIA spy, to the man on the street) has with his “assets”—the men and women we recruited and convinced to commit treason, to provide us classified information, often at the risk of their lives—is the most intense personal relationship in one’s life, more intense even than with one’s spouse. Whenever you manage to meet, you look into the asset’s eyes, demand and earn his total trust, hold his life in your hands, and manipulate his life for your government’s own good purposes. Trust is critical, and we convince an asset to trust us with his life. Protecting your asset is a case officer’s greatest responsibility. And we take that responsibility very seriously. Recruiting and running a spy is intoxicating, the thrill of the high wire, an experience of veiled power and intimacy that calls for uniquely controlled personalities, capable of deep, sincere emotional attachment and cynical intellectual detachment simultaneously. Convincing people to commit treason for a living calls for a bizarre mix of clarity of purpose and integrity, the ability to thrive in a world of duplicity, the recognition that morality is relative and can change from moment to moment, and yet that one must adhere to a firm moral (and legal) compass.

But we also make cynical jokes about our relations with our assets back in the office, for we know that our first obligation really is always to our country. This bizarre mix of devotion, love, and cynicism creates wearing emotional dissonance, too. Our first obligation, of course, is always to our country; policies change, relationships are sacrificed, and the requisite emotional detachment takes officers at times toward the definition of sociopathy: friendly and considerate, but these attributes are used to blind others to the agenda behind the officer’s behavior. I’ve had to “terminate” an asset (cut off all contact), knowing that meant he would not be able to afford or obtain life-sustaining medication. I’ve worked closely with an asset, describing how my government supported his cause . . . to see us bomb his country not long afterward. Such calculating, obligatory personal detachment hurts and can take a toll on an officer over the years; if it does not take some toll, the officer is losing the humanity that makes him decent, and able to function as a good officer. Hard men can be great recruiters sometimes. But it takes compassion to win the most subtle targets’ fealty and information. This was my view, although it was not one to mention in the DO; it was taken to be soft by the callous, and to be harmful to one’s career if stated out loud. This was the job, and hand-wringing about it indicated professional unsuitability. It is easy to ask why one would put oneself in situations that wear so on the soul. For many, there is no compelling answer, they cannot handle the intimate compromises, and they leave the service to pursue more normal, humane professions.

To interrogate a High Value Target, or HVT, properly is a hugely labor-intensive operation. Run-of-the-mill detainees, like almost all of those held in Guantanamo, know little and are the grunts or “men with guns” picked up in any war. They may be committed and willing to die, but they pose more of a security problem than an interrogation challenge—what do you do with people who may be intent on killing you, but who may not fit the definition of “enemy combatant,” and for whom you have little evidence that would stand up in a court of law? In intelligence, there are never more than a handful of targets, or “nodes,” or individuals who have information that merits clandestine collection. High Value Targets, however, are among the few who have information about the senior personnel, plans, organization, and intentions of a terrorist organization. They hold, or are themselves, the keys to an organization.

An HVT interrogation team will consist of representatives from throughout the Intelligence Community, bringing their respective areas of interest and expertise to the interrogation process, including a psychologist and medical professionals, to monitor the detainee’s mental and physical states and guarantee that he is stable, healthy, and compos mentis.

Then, with CAPTUS, there was the particular complication of having to work with liaison, who were not in my chain of command or under my direct control. But whatever happened, I was not going to “just walk out of the room,” as Wilmington had coldly suggested.

I was going to fulfill my orders, though. The goal was to induce him to cooperate, not terrify him into blurting out anything. I wanted to get in CAPTUS’s head, and convince and lead him to cooperate himself. Psychological pressures and manipulations were much more likely to be effective than physical intimidation . . . or pain, what I considered crude “enhanced techniques, involving physical or psychological pressure beyond standard techniques,” as the CIA’s declassified guidelines for interrogation put it. It was clear to me that this “enhanced techniques” jargon was transparent sophistry for a dirty business. Yet I was interrogating him, not simply debriefing him as though he were a colleague.

I was finding very quickly, just as the KUBARK manual advised,

although it is often necessary to trick a subject into telling you what you need to know . . . and to induce mental discomfort [the key to a successful interrogation was] understanding the emotional needs of the subject and relieving the fear which he feels when he is subjected to “questioning.”

It was another irony that the maligned KUBARK manual was significantly more astute and sensitive psychologically than the procedures and approach taking shape around me post-9/11.

I had begun to establish a relationship with CAPTUS in the first session. This was central to how I intended to conduct the interrogation. It would take time. I believed it was the approach most likely to succeed.