Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

language pool, as advised by the House Permanent Select Committee on
Intelligence. 642
Culture + Language = Tools for Building Operational Accord
One of an interrogator’s primary objectives is to establish a level of
operational accord with a source. Operational accord can be defined as a
relationship orchestrated by an interrogator with a source that is marked by a
degree of conformity and/or affinity and is based on a sense of understanding of,
and perhaps even guarded appreciation for, respective concerns, intentions, and
desired outcomes. 643
While often difficult to identify within the complex and (at least initially)
adversarial relationship between an interrogator and a source, success in gaining
meaningful information of potential intelligence value is the product of an accord:
the interrogator asks questions and the source provides constructive answers.
Operational accord reflects a calculated effort to gain and maintain the source’s
cooperation long enough to satisfy existing intelligence requirements while
effectively concealing acts on the part of the interrogator that might appear to the
source as manipulative or exploitive. 644
Establishing an accord of this nature can be extraordinarily difficult, with
the process made even more problematic by the linguistic/cultural barrier. The
interrogator who seeks to create an operational accord but who harbors cultural
myopia faces a difficult path. Conversely, an interrogator whose efforts are
supplemented by what has recently been termed “cultural intelligence” will
conscientiously seek to build a bridge that systematically incorporates knowledge
of the source’s culture. Perhaps the interrogator’s version of the Golden Rule
might best be expressed as “Do unto others as they would have you do unto
them.”
In many respects, the Global War on Terror contains seeds of Huntington’s
“Clash of Civilizations.” 645 Fortunately, the legacy of 20 th -century conflict provides
some powerful illustrations of U.S. forces demonstrating a positive, proactive
approach to turning former enemies into allies. During World War II, the United
642
Porter, Asymmetrical Warfare, Transformation, and Foreign Language
Capability, 15.
643
Jerry Richardson, The Magic of Rapport (Capitola, CA: Meta Publications, 1987), 13.
644
The term “rapport” has been commonly used to describe an approach that employs cultural,
linguistic, and interpersonal skills to establish a non-adversarial, productive relationship between
interrogator and source. The term “operational accord” also incorporates such an approach while also
encompassing a broader array of productive, intelligence-generating relationships. Further, “rapport,”
in the context of interrogation, has been so widely misused and misunderstood in recent years that its
value as a relevant descriptive term is questionable.
645
See Samuel P. Huntington, The Clash of Civilizations and the Remaking of World Order (New
York: Simon and Schuster, 1996). Huntington’s “Clash of Civilizations” theory in international relations
posits that the primary sources of conflict today are fundamental differences in culture, exacerbated by
the processes of globalization that bring major civilizations into unprecedented contact. Huntington
divides the world’s cultures into seven civilizations: Western, Latin American, Confucian, Japanese,
Islamic, Hindu, and Slavic-Orthodox.
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