Educing Information: Interrogation - National Intelligence University

information on our adversaries’ preparations, planning, and intentions. Particularly
in the contemporary threat environment, where the likelihood of local terrorist
attacks greatly exceeds that of invasion by a foreign state, it would be difficult to
overstate the importance of human source intelligence. Both policymakers and
practitioners therefore need reliable information about effective and appropriate
strategies and techniques to educe accurate information from human sources who
may possess information vital to our national security and who appear unwilling
to provide it.
The need to understand what approaches, techniques, and strategies are
likely to produce accurate, useful information from an uncooperative human
source seems self-evident. Surprisingly, however, these questions have received
scant scientific attention in the last 50 years. Almost no empirical studies in the
social and behavioral sciences directly address the effectiveness of interrogation
in general practice, or of specific techniques in generating accurate and useful
information from otherwise uncooperative persons.
Policies that govern how U.S. personnel obtain information must take
into consideration issues of legality, ethics, morality, and national values. Yet,
effectiveness remains the paramount issue. This paper and the larger study from
which it is drawn seek to address these issues as part of an ongoing effort to improve
human intelligence collection, and thereby protect U.S. national security.
Background
Most of the scientific articles dealing with interrogation-related topics apply
to, and are derived from, a law enforcement (LE) context. However, the nature
and objectives of police interrogations differ significantly from those in military
or intelligence contexts. In essence, most LE interrogations seek to obtain a
confession from a suspect, rather than to gather accurate, useful information from
a possibly — but not necessarily — cognizant source. These are very different
tasks. Moreover, there are remarkably few studies of actual interrogations
in either criminal or intelligence contexts. Training manuals, materials, and
anecdotes contain information about common and recommended practices and
the behavioral assumptions on which they are based, but virtually none of those
documents cites or relies upon any original research. It even appears that some of
the conventional wisdom that has guided training and policy for half a century is
at odds with existing scientific knowledge.
Without a scientific literature or systematic analysis — at least one available in
open-source information — practitioners (i.e., “boots-on-the-ground” assets) and
policymakers must make decisions on the basis of other sources and considerations.
Primary among them are the iconic 17 techniques described in U.S. Army Field
Manual 34-52, Intelligence Interrogation, which serves as the model or guide to
intelligence interrogations for all the armed forces. These exact techniques have
been included in successive editions for more than 50 years, yet even people
intimately familiar with 34-52 are unaware of any studies or systematic analyses
that support their effectiveness, or of any clear historical record about how the
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