President Donald Trump’s release of thousands of files connected to JFK’s assassination has included manuals connected to some of the most mysterious tools available in clandestine operations.
One nearly 400-page trove of documents reveals a CIA fixation on brainwashing. At some point in the late 1950s or early 1960s, the intelligence agency created a digest of nearly all the available literature in almost every language on brainwashing experiments and techniques since the 1920s.
Many of the documents have unclear origins and little context. Some manuscripts appear to be missing pages or are misplaced somewhere in the collection, leaving some incomplete or disjointed.
However, they all share a common theme and methodically dissect the practical elements of how other countries interrogated and brainwashed people.
Soviet Interrogation and Brainwashing Techniques
One document is introduced as “Dr. Bauer’s paper is directed at the question of the purported Soviet origins of Communist techniques of “brainwashing.” It is a reaction against the popularly held belief that “brainwashing” is a deliberate exploitation of Pavlovian psychology.” It is not immediately clear who this doctor is or how the CIA came to obtain his expertise.
A later document that appears to fit this description describes the Soviets as both deliberately and incidentally brainwashing German prisoners. It reads that prisoners would be worn down by “(1) conscious Soviet efforts to manipulate the prisoners’ environment, (2) direct attacks upon the prisoners’ belief systems, and (3) the general physical and sanitary conditions of captivity which in large part were ‘unintended’ and the direct result of the war, or living conditions inside the Soviet Union.”
The paper’s author described the various forces that could be employed to brainwash groups.
“Under conditions of extreme physical and mental stress accepted group norms tend to break down and the ensuing situation may best be described as one of ‘everyone for himself’. The Soviets fostered and accelerated this process by breaking up formal and informal groups, and by segregating prominent resistance leaders who otherwise might have enforced compliance with previous group norms. By introducing a system of rewards and punishment the Soviets channeled changed behavior in the direction of collaboration.”
One passage describes the Soviet tactic for breaking resistance from individuals.
“A familiar method to break the resistance of subjects was to ask them about matters on which the Soviets were well informed anyway. Upon subject’s refusal to supply the information, or upon the submission of misleading information, punishment would follow immediately, and subject would then be shown that the Soviets had the answers all the time. This obviously was designed to create the impression that the Soviets had all the answers and that it was, therefore, not worth while [sic] to continue resistance and inflict punishment.”
The document noted that German officers who had served at the Battle of Stalingrad and suffered elevated levels of psychological trauma were disproportionally likely to become “permanent collaborators” with the communist regime. Five of the twelve collaborators the paper examined had been officers in Stalingrad. Many of these permanent collaborators eventually held high office in East Germany for significant periods of their post-war adult lives.
Brainwashing could be constantly reinforced by asking prisoners to complete tasks with a pro-communist bent, such as answering questions about “capitalist exploitation” or signing leaflets.
In some instances, prisoners would be forced to take an “anti-fascist oath” and divorce their wives if the wives were deemed “unreliable.”
Chinese Communists Interrogation and Brainwashing Techniques
Another set of CIA documents described the Chinese as embracing a drastically different method of brainwashing. The documents describe far fewer instances of depravation and violence against prisoners. One document of unclear origin describes a “lenient policy” among the Chinese captors wherein the Chinese did not brutalize their captives and instead attempted to re-educate Americans with “unawakened” views.
One document said the Chinese favored repetitious forms of questioning:
- “Another principle utilized might be called the principle of pacing. Of all the demands the Chinese made, the first ones were always trivial, but became progressively harder and harder to meet as time went on. If, in interrogation, a man once got into the habit of giving answers to trivial questions it was not long before he was asked more meaningful ones, until eventually he was asked to divulge highly important information. In persuading a man to participate he was often asked simply to repeat a statement or to write down the questions and thus was gradually brought to the point of giving original or spontaneous material or engaging in self-criticism and mutual criticism spontaneously.
Describing one method of interrogation for prisoners of war, a document said:
- “The writing of autobiographies, the group discussions, the mutual criticisms, and so on, all demand that the POW take an active role in the process, rather than merely to sit back and passively listen to the lectures. Repetition was apparent in almost everything the Chinese did. Points were repeated in lectures over and over again. If the “thought conclusions” arrived at in group discussions were not satisfactory, the men had to listen to the lecture again and repeat the group discussion.”
The documents include observations that Chinese interrogations of Americans captured during the Korean War involving self and mutual criticism were not effective as the Chinese lacked a sophisticated understanding of English and American idioms.
The files reviewed by The Dallas Express do not represent the entirety of the 80,000 files. This brief review is one of the outlet’s first attempts to highlight interesting parts of the files in the hours after the first batches became available. More stories will soon follow.