Authors of Interrogation Handbook Abuse Their Sources
July 6, 2008
In a piece called “Mind Games: Remembering Brainwashing” from today’s New York Times, Tim Wiener points to one of the more irresponsible uses of historical documents that I have seen this summer. Apparently “American military and intelligence officers” (he is not more specific) decided in 2002 to examine Cold War CIA studies of Chinese interrogation methods during the Korean War. After all, these Communists were the supposed masters who fed the kinds of fears that later gave rise to a movie like “The Manchurian Candidate.” In one major study the officers found examples of what are now often called “harsh interrogation techniques” when the more negatively valued term “torture” is being deliberately avoided. “They reprinted a 1957 chart describing death threats, degradation, sleep deprivation—and worse—inflicted by Chinese captors. And they made it part of a new handbook for interrogators at Guantánamo.”
The provenance of these techniques might give pause, but here’s the real bombshell:
The irony is that the original author of that chart, Albert D. Biderman, a social scientist who had distilled interviews with 235 Air Force P.O.W.’s, wrote that the Communists’ techniques mainly served to “extort false confessions.” And they were the same methods that “inquisitors had employed for centuries.” They had done nothing that “was not common practice to police and intelligence interrogators of other times and nations.”
This story reminds me of the student who hurriedly pulls a bunch of quotes from a book without actually reading or studying the book as a whole, let alone thinking about its historical context. The student then slaps the material together in a paper that might confirm his own beliefs, but whose conclusions bear no tangible relationship to the source that he supposedly read and analyzed. Is that what happened here? Or was the document perhaps too complex for them? Perhaps they needed to invest in some historians who were not afraid to dig through this kind of thing in an honest manner, no matter what conclusions the documents might suggest.
Entry Filed under: Cold War, using and abusing history, war on terror. Tags: Brainwashing, Cold War, Guantanamo Bay, war on terror.
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1. Kevin Goodman | July 13, 2008 at 9:22 pm
This actually contradicts what I had read in ‘The Age of Propaganda’
An old but still interesting read – I am recounting from memory of reading this book that the North Korean interrogation methods were anything but harsh. The Koreans successfully converted American POWs to their point of view and several studies were done to figure out how patriotic Americans could become communist sympathizers. It is purported that the Koreans showed generosity and kindness while forcing Americans POWs to question ‘why communism was bad’ – the captors demonstrated that they were the victims with generosity..and American prisoners ideologically folded.
But I’m really asking -
2. Mark Stoneman | July 13, 2008 at 9:25 pm
Who wrote the book to which you refer? And when? What sources did he or she have available for the project?
3. Kevin Goodman | July 13, 2008 at 11:35 pm
Pratkanis, A., & Aronson, E. (2000, 1991). Age of Propaganda: The everday use and abuse of persuasion. New York: W.H. Freeman and company.
Elliot Pratkanis is a professor of psychology at the University of California. Elliot Aronson is professor emeritus at University of California and visiting professor at Stanford.
But having looked through the book I now can say that I was wrong – there is lots of trivial mention on the Korean war but nothing as I had stated.
My source was really
Cialdini, R. (2001). Influence: Science and Practice. Needham Heights: Allyn and Bacon.
Robert Cialdini is professor of Pychology at Arizona State University.
“During the Korean War, many captured American soldiers found themselves in prisoner-of-war camps run by the Chinese Communists. It became clear early in the conflict that the Chinese treated captives quite differently that did their allies, the North Koreans, who favored harsh punishment to gain compliance. Specifically avoiding the appearance of brutality, the Red Chinese engaged in what they termed their “lenient policy,” which was, in reality, a concerted and sophisticated psychological assault on their captives. “ (Cialdini, 2001)
This is the start – but Cialdini continues to describe an approach that is as I first reported. The Chinese according to Cialdini strived to build connections and relationships with the prisoners – instead of humiliating or dehumanizing them as with torture.
@ Stoneman, thnx for keeping my honest.
4. Mark Stoneman | July 13, 2008 at 11:52 pm
Thanks. Might come in handy someday.
Of course, the real point of my post had to do with the selective use of documentary evidence. I heard on a radio show from a linguist who mentioned we don’t actually read whole texts anymore, but instead use the search function for electronic documents. I assume that didn’t happen here, but the point about not reading whole texts might be painfully true. (I think I was listening to the Diane Rehm Show last week. Need to check into that again soon.)
5. Kevin Goodman | July 14, 2008 at 12:22 am
I hope we’ve moved beyond the social science of 1957 :)
Yeah I agree it really doesn’t seem to add up.