This book is included in the US Intelligence Agencies, US Security Organizations & Threat Assessments section.
Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation
July 1963
TABLE OF CONTENTS
1. INTRODUCTION
a. Explanation of Purpose
b. Explanation of Organization
2. DEFINITIONS
3. LEGAL AND POLICY CONSIDERATIONS
4. THE INTERROGATOR
5. THE INTERROGATEE
a. Types of Sources: Intelligence Categories
b. Types of Sources: Personality Categories
c. Other Clues
6. SCREENING AND OTHER PRELIMINARIES
a. Screening
b. Other Preliminary Procedures
c. Summary
7. PLANNING THE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION
a. The Nature of Counterintelligence Interrogation
b. The Interrogation Plan
c. The Specifics
8. THE NON-COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION
a. General Remarks
b. The Structure of the Interrogation
(1) The Opening
(2) The Reconnaissance
(3) The Detailed Questioning
(4) The Conclusion
c. Techniques of Non-Coercive Interrogation of Resistant
Sources
9. THE COERCIVE COUNTERINTELLIGENCE INTERROGATION OF
RESISTANT SOURCES
a. Restrictions
b. The Theory of Coercion
c. Arrest
d. Detention
e. Deprivation of Sensory Stimuli
f. Threats and Fear
g. Debility
h. Pain
i. Heightened Suggestibility and Hypnosis
j. Narcosis
k. The Detection of Malingering
l. Conclusion
10. INTERROGATOR's CHECKLIST
11. DESCRIPTIVE BIBLIOGRAPHY
12. INDEX
1. INTRODUCTION
a. Explanation of Purpose
This manual cannot teach anyone how to be, or become, a good interrogator. At
best it can help readers to avoid the characteristic mistakes of poor
interrogators.
Its purpose is to provide guidelines for KUBARK interrogation, and particularly
the counterintelligence interrogation of resistant sources. Designed as an aid
for interrogators 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 responses to questions. As is true of all
craftsmen, some interrogators are more able than others; and some of 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
of subject matter and of basic principles will not of 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 of a resistant source who is a staff or agent member of an
Orbit intelligence or security service or of a clandestine Communist
organization is one of the most exacting of professional tasks. Usually the odds
still favor the interrogator, but they are sharply cut by the training,
experience, patience and toughness of the interrogatee. In such circumstances
the interrogator needs all the help he can get. And a principle source of aid
today is scientific findings. The intelligence service which is able to bring
pertinent, modern knowledge to bear upon its problems enjoys huge advantages
over a service which conducts its clandestine business in eighteenth century
fashion. It is true that American psychologists have devoted somewhat more
attention to Communist interrogation techniques, particularly "brainwashing",
than to U. S. practices. Yet they have conducted scientific inquiries into many
subjects that are closely related to interrogation: the effects of debility and
isolation, the polygraph, reactions to pain and fear, hypnosis and heightened
suggestibility, narcosis, etc. This work is of sufficient importance and
relevance that it is no longer possible to discuss interrogation significantly
without reference to the psychological research conducted in the past decade.
For this reason a major purpose of this study is to focus relevant scientific
findings upon CI interrogation. Every effort has been made to report and
interpret these findings in our own language, in place of the terminology
employed by the psychologists.
This study is by no means confined to a resume and interpretation of
psychological findings. The approach of the psychologists is customarily
manipulative; that is, they suggest methods of imposing controls or alterations
upon the interrogatee from the outside. Except within the Communist frame of
reference, they have paid less 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 of later lawsuits, adverse publicity, or
other attempts to strike back.
b. Explanation of Organization
This study moves from the general topic of interrogation per se (Parts I, II,
III, IV, V and VI) to planning the counterintelligence interrogation (Part VII)
to the CI Interrogation of resistant sources (Parts VIII, IX, and X). The
definitions, legal considerations, and discussions of interrogators and sources,
as well as section VI on screening and other preliminaries, are relevant to all
kinds of interrogations. Once it is established that the source is probably a
counterintelligence target (in other words, is probably a member of foreign
intelligence or security service, a Communist, or a part of any other group
engaged in clandestine activity directed against the national security), the
interrogation is planned and conducted accordingly. The CI interrogation
techniques are discussed in an order of increasing intensity as the focus on
source resistance grows sharper. The Last section, on do's and dont's, is a
return to the broader view of the opening parts; as a check-list, it is placed
last solely for convenience.
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