Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

to public execution. This saved the poor soul from eternal damnation and only
incidentally reinforced the power of religious and secular authorities. 6
The 13th century saw the proliferation of “how to” manuals for religious
persons to help illuminate motives and circumstances, and to aid in evaluating the
magnitude of an offense, as well as how to overcome the obstacles of fear, shame,
presumption, despair, and denial in order to elicit a good confession. The earliest
manual, Processus inquisitionis (1248-49), was relatively simple, but the manuals
grew in size, complexity and sophistication. Nicholas Eymerich, Inquisitor
General of Aragon (1350s), enumerates various ruses the inquisitor can use to
elicit the truth. These approaches reappear in the KUBARK Manual (1963).
In addition, specific guidance regarding “evasive discourse” or how to tell
when suspects are not telling the truth, is found in the 13th-century manuals.
Nicholas Eymerich wrote of “ten ways in which heretics seek to hide their errors.”
They are: equivocation, adding a condition to the original question, redirecting
questions, feigned astonishment, twisting the meaning of words, changing the
subject, self-justification, feigned illness, feigning stupidity or madness, and
the use of sanctity or the “holier than thou” method. 7 Eymerich addresses the
nature of intimidation and of foot-dragging, of tool-breaking and petty sabotage,
of playing one off against another; the differences between men and women,
social connections, and occupations, as well as how to overcome “evasion and
deception.”
Although these three approaches to the control or acquisition of information
have developed sequentially, they are often overlapping, and frequently congruent.
To some extent, the U.S. Intelligence Community is “stuck” with this history.
PUNISHMENT
CONFESSION
TRUTH
PURPOSE AUTHORITY VENUE TECHNIQUE RESULT EDUCTOR
Group
repression
Cleanse;define
in-group and
out-group
Empire Public Physical
Fear to
Autocrat
brutality
elicit obedience
Church
Private,
Mental
and
secret,
and
state
then
physical
public
Promote loyalty
Zealot
and group
cohesion
Information,
Intelligence
to prevent
further
violence
State Secret Mental Useful and
timely
information
Professional
interrogator
Evolution of Information Elicitation by Authorities in the Common Era
Source: Compiled by author.
6
Maureen Flynn, “Mimesis of the Last Judgment: the Spanish auto de fe,” Sixteenth Century
Journal 22 (2), (Summer 1991): 281-297
7
Found in James V. Given, Inquisition and Medieval Society: Power, Discipline and Resistance in
Languedoc (Ithaca, NY: Cornell University Press, 1997).
xvii