Mike, I’ll just comment on Major Moran’s memo, because I’m not familiar with Chip Morgan and I haven’t had the time to read the linked text of his material.Originally Posted by jmm99
Major Moran’s memo, despite its age and brevity, remains a very insightful and useful read for those interested in interrogation methodology and techniques. The author focuses on two aspects of interrogation (although he never uses that term in the memo): the attitude of the interrogator towards the source, and the interrogator’s knowledge and use of language.
As he states, the attitude of the interrogator is of primary importance and is critical to success or failure in the interrogation. The discussion of attitude in this memorandum is specifically focused on Japanese prisoners of war, but this is worth the time no matter what area of interrogation the reader may work or have an interest in. Considerations of environment, culture, physical condition of the source and the nature of the interrogator’s character as perceived by the source are critically important to any interrogation.
Dividing and defining language used in the conduct of interrogation into “knowledge” and “use” is an important point for interrogators to consider, even when working in their native language, but obviously more so when working in a second language. Regarding “knowledge” of language, the author stresses the importance of idiomatic language, as opposed to technical vocabulary, for rapidly developing rapport and initiating conversation with the source. (Oreste Pinto is another WWII interrogator who has written useful material on the understanding of language in interrogation) As for “use” of language, the author discusses in a simple and general manner concepts of rapport, cognition, questioning methodology and leveraging aspects of culture in questioning. He also describes the difference between empathy and sympathy, and the dangers of the latter, although not in such precise terms.
Mike, one comment you made about the article was that it illustrated that an interrogator could, ”…turn the "interrogation" (perceptionally adversarial) into an "interview" (perceptionally non-adversarial).” Your caveat about perception is astute – the interrogation remains adversarial in that we still need to extract information from the source that he is unwilling to share. However, developing rapport in such a way that it creates this type of source perception facilitates drawing out information from the source without his clear realization as to what he has just compromised.
One book that myself and others on this board have previously mentioned as regarded by military interrogators as “the” classic in the field is The Interrogator: The Story of Hanns Joachim Scharff: Master Interrogator of the Luftwaffe. Although he does relate some coercive psychological methods – such as faking the execution of a prison during an interrogation of another – the majority of the content provides an outstanding illustration of the manipulation of source perceptions from adversarial toward non-adversarial communication for effective elicitation of intelligence information.
Ted
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