It was long suspected that the CIA was in the business of torture. But in 1997, the American public saw chilling, irrefutable written proof. But the document is not easy to read, writes Laura Smith in Timeline. Read on:
It was long suspected that the CIA was in the business of torture. But in 1997, the American public saw chilling, irrefutable written proof.
Thirty years before that, the agency put together what would become known as the Bible of “coercive interrogations.” Drawn from human studies from the National Institute of Mental Health, the manual is a sort of “how-to” for getting information out of resistant sources, laying the foundation for techniques that would be used for years to come: “arrest, detention, deprivation of sensory stimuli through solitary confinement or similar methods, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis, and induced regression.”
KUBARK, as the manual was known (a reference to the CIA’s codeword for itself), was a 128-page document. It contains two references to the use of electric shock, warning that since interrogation under duress might involve illegality, agents should get approval “if medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are to be used to induce acquiescence.”
It also cautioned that when selecting an interrogation site, “the electric current should be known in advance, so that transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if needed.”
Many of the recommended techniques rely on sensory deprivation: “An environment still more subject to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more effective.”
On the nature of pain, one disturbingly matter-of-fact passage explains:
KUBARK was born into the climate of fear of the spread of Communism after the Cuban Revolution. The U.S. was propping up pro-American governments in Latin America — even if the opposition was democratically elected, as was the case in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Nicuragua, and El Salvador, to name a few.
In 1983, KUBARK became the basis for the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual, another CIA interrogation document, with whole passages lifted from KUBARK. Additions from Army field manuals known as “Project X,” an effort to battle communism in Latin America, were also added. “Project X” advocated tactics such as kidnapping rebels’ family members. Similar Spanish-language manuals were circulated by the CIA and Green Berets to train American-friendly militia in the 1980s.
The 1983 manual was discussed in Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1988 because of human rights atrocities committed by the CIA-trained Honduran military, Battallion 316, which the Center for Justice and Accountability called a “death squad.” CIA operatives trained them “side by side” with torturers from Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Demonstrations were done on live prisoners.
Battalion 316 would arrive in unmarked cars and whisk people away for violent interrogations. They disappeared 184 people whose bodies were never found, not to mention the many who were tortured and survived — many of whom were “peaceful leftists.”
After the congressional investigation into Battalion 316, George Washington University’s National Security Archive noted that the CIA attempted to anodize the manual by crossing things out and editing by hand, leaving the original text clearly visible beneath.
The passage, “We will be discussing two types of techniques, coercive and non-coercive. While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them” became “while we deplore the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so that you may avoid them.”
In 1997, the Baltimore Sun obtained copies of the two manuals, both the 1963 KUBARK and the 1983 manual through the Freedom of Information Act. A less heavily redacted version was released by the government in 2014 after the manuals were discussed during investigations into the United States’ post 9/11 torture programs.
KUBARK’s influence can be traced to more recent tactics at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. As Joseph Margulies, the lead counsel in one of the first case on behalf of Guantanamo detainees explained, the sensory deprivation developed from the KUBARK manual directly shaped the methods used in Guantanamo. “Everybody saw, I think, the first pictures of prisoners arriving at Guantanamo and they were in blackout goggles and soundproof earmuffs. That in itself is part of the overarching approach.”
For all of its horror, the original KUBARK manual offered a prophetic warning that would be repeatedly disregarded in the ensuing years: “The routine use of torture lowers the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those that rely on it….”
It was long suspected that the CIA was in the business of torture. But in 1997, the American public saw chilling, irrefutable written proof.
Thirty years before that, the agency put together what would become known as the Bible of “coercive interrogations.” Drawn from human studies from the National Institute of Mental Health, the manual is a sort of “how-to” for getting information out of resistant sources, laying the foundation for techniques that would be used for years to come: “arrest, detention, deprivation of sensory stimuli through solitary confinement or similar methods, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, narcosis, and induced regression.”
KUBARK, as the manual was known (a reference to the CIA’s codeword for itself), was a 128-page document. It contains two references to the use of electric shock, warning that since interrogation under duress might involve illegality, agents should get approval “if medical, chemical, or electrical methods or materials are to be used to induce acquiescence.”
It also cautioned that when selecting an interrogation site, “the electric current should be known in advance, so that transformers and other modifying devices will be on hand if needed.”
Many of the recommended techniques rely on sensory deprivation: “An environment still more subject to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more effective.”
On the nature of pain, one disturbingly matter-of-fact passage explains:
KUBARK was born into the climate of fear of the spread of Communism after the Cuban Revolution. The U.S. was propping up pro-American governments in Latin America — even if the opposition was democratically elected, as was the case in Brazil, Chile, Argentina, Nicuragua, and El Salvador, to name a few.
In 1983, KUBARK became the basis for the Human Resource Exploitation Training Manual, another CIA interrogation document, with whole passages lifted from KUBARK. Additions from Army field manuals known as “Project X,” an effort to battle communism in Latin America, were also added. “Project X” advocated tactics such as kidnapping rebels’ family members. Similar Spanish-language manuals were circulated by the CIA and Green Berets to train American-friendly militia in the 1980s.
The 1983 manual was discussed in Senate Intelligence Committee hearings in 1988 because of human rights atrocities committed by the CIA-trained Honduran military, Battallion 316, which the Center for Justice and Accountability called a “death squad.” CIA operatives trained them “side by side” with torturers from Argentina’s “Dirty War.” Demonstrations were done on live prisoners.
Battalion 316 would arrive in unmarked cars and whisk people away for violent interrogations. They disappeared 184 people whose bodies were never found, not to mention the many who were tortured and survived — many of whom were “peaceful leftists.”
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| Torture tactics used on Iraqi prisoners at Abu Ghraib adhere to those described in a 1963 CIA manual. (AP) |
The passage, “We will be discussing two types of techniques, coercive and non-coercive. While we do not stress the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them” became “while we deplore the use of coercive techniques, we do want to make you aware of them so that you may avoid them.”
In 1997, the Baltimore Sun obtained copies of the two manuals, both the 1963 KUBARK and the 1983 manual through the Freedom of Information Act. A less heavily redacted version was released by the government in 2014 after the manuals were discussed during investigations into the United States’ post 9/11 torture programs.
KUBARK’s influence can be traced to more recent tactics at Guantanamo and Abu Ghraib. As Joseph Margulies, the lead counsel in one of the first case on behalf of Guantanamo detainees explained, the sensory deprivation developed from the KUBARK manual directly shaped the methods used in Guantanamo. “Everybody saw, I think, the first pictures of prisoners arriving at Guantanamo and they were in blackout goggles and soundproof earmuffs. That in itself is part of the overarching approach.”
For all of its horror, the original KUBARK manual offered a prophetic warning that would be repeatedly disregarded in the ensuing years: “The routine use of torture lowers the moral caliber of the organization that uses it and corrupts those that rely on it….”
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