'TRUTH' DRUGS IN INTERROGATION

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP78-04491A000200020001-0
• Release Decision: RIPPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 20
• Document Creation Date: November 16, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 17, 2000
• Sequence Number: 1
• Publication Date: January 1, 1961
• Content Type: REPORT

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Effects of narcosis and consider-
ations relevant to its possible
counterintelligence use.
"TRUTH" DRUGS IN INTERROGATION
The search for effective aids to interrogation is probably
as old as man's need to obtain information from an unco-
operative source and as persistent as his impatience to short-
cut any tortuous path. In the annals of police investigation,
physical coercion has at times been substituted for painstak-
ing and time-consuming inquiry in the belief that direct meth-
ods produce quick results. Sir James Stephens, writing in
1883, rationalizes a grisly example of "third degree" practices
by the police of India: "It is far pleasanter to sit comfort-
ably in the shade rubbing red pepper in a poor devil's eyes
than to go about in the sun hunting up evidence."
More recently, police officials in some countries have turned
to drugs for assistance in extracting confessions from accused
persons, drugs which are presumed to relax the individual's
defenses to the point that he unknowingly reveals truths he
has been trying to conceal. This investigative technique,
however humanitarian as an alternative to physical torture,
still raises serious questions of individual rights and liberties.
In this country, where drugs have gained only marginal ac-
ceptance in police work, their use has provoked cries of "psy-
chological third degree" and has precipitated medico-legal con-
troversies that after a quarter of a century still occasionally
flare into the open.
The use of so-called "truth" drugs in police work is simi-
lar to the accepted psychiatric practice of narco-analysis; the
difference in the two procedures lies in their different objec-
tives. The police investigator is concerned with empirical
truth that may be used against the suspect, and therefore
almost solely with probative truth: the usefulness of the sus-
pect's revelations depends ultimately on their acceptance in
evidence by a court of law. The psychiatrist, on the other
hand, using the same "truth" drugs in diagnosis and treat-
ment of the mentally ill, is primarily concerned with psy-
chological truth or psychological reality rather than empirical
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fact. A patient's aberrations are reality for him at the time
they occur, and an accurate account of these fantasies and
delusions, rather than reliable recollection of past events, can
be the key to recovery.
The notion of drugs capable of illuminating hidden re-
cesses of the mind, helping to heal the mentally ill and pre-
venting or reversing the miscarriage of justice, has provided
an exceedingly durable theme for the press and popular lit-
erature. While acknowledging that "truth serum" is a mis-
nomer twice over-the drugs are not sera and they do not
necessarily bring forth probative truth-journalistic accounts
continue to exploit the appeal of the term. The formula is
to play up a few spectacular "truth" drug successes and to
imply that the drugs are more maligned than need be and
more widely employed in criminal investigation than can of-
ficially be admitted.
Any technique that promises an increment of success in ex-
tracting information from an uncompliant source is ipso facto
of interest in intelligence operations. If the ethical considera-
tions which in Western countries inhibit the use of narco-
interrogation in police work are felt also in intelligence, the
Western services must at least be prepared against its pos-
sible employment by the adversary. An understanding of
"truth" drugs, their characteristic actions, and their poten-
tialities, positive and negative, for eliciting useful informa-
tion is fundamental to an adequate defense against them.
This discussion, meant to help toward such an understand-
ing, draws primarily upon openly published materials. It has
the limitations of projecting from criminal investigative prac-
tices and from the permissive atmosphere of drug psycho-
therapy.
Scopolamine as "Truth Serum"
Early in this century physicians began to employ scopola-
mine, along with morphine and chloroform, to induce a state
of "twilight sleep" during childbirth. A constituent of hen-
bane, scopolamine was known to produce sedation and drowsi-
ness, confusion and disorientation, incoordination, and am-
nesia for events experienced during intoxication. Yet physi-
cians noted that women in twilight sleep answered questions
accurately and often volunteered exceedingly candid remarks.
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In 1922 it occurred to Robert House, a Dallas, Texas, ob-
stetrician, that a similar technique might be employed in the
interrogation of suspected criminals, and he arranged to in-
terview under scopolamine two prisoners in the Dallas county
jail whose guilt seemed clearly confirmed. Under the drug,
both men denied the charges on which they were held; and
both, upon trial, were found not guilty. Enthusiastic at this
success, House concluded that a patient under the influence of
scopolamine "cannot create a lie . . . and there is no power
to think or reason." 14 His experiment and this conclusion
attracted wide attention, and the idea of a "truth" drug was
thus launched upon the public consciousness.
The phrase "truth serum" is believed to have appeared first
in a news report of House's experiment in the Los Angeles
Record, sometime in 1922. House resisted the term for a while
but eventually came to employ it regularly himself. He pub-
lished some eleven articles on scopolamine in the years 1921-
1929, with a noticeable increase in polemical zeal as time went
on. What had begun as something of a scientific statement
turned finally into a dedicated crusade by the "father of
truth serum" on behalf of his offspring, wherein he was
"grossly indulgent of its wayward behavior and stubbornly
proud of its minor achievements." 11
Only a handful of cases in which scopolamine was used for
police interrogation came to public notice, though there is
evidence suggesting that some police forces may have used it
extensively.2. 16 One police writer claims that the threat of
scopolamine interrogation has been effective in extracting
confessions from criminal suspects, who are told they will
first be rendered unconscious by chloral hydrate placed co-
vertly in their coffee or drinking water.'?
Because of a number of undesirable side effects, scopolamine
was shortly disqualified as a "truth" drug. Among the most
disabling of the side effects are hallucinations, disturbed per-
ception, somnolence, and physiological phenomena such, as
headache, rapid heart, and blurred vision, which distract: the
subject from the central purpose of the interview. Further-
more, the physical action is long, far outlasting the psycho-
logical effects. Scopolomine continues, in some cases, to make
anesthesia and surgery safer by drying the mouth and throat
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and reducing secretions that might obstruct the air passages.
But the fantastically, almost painfully, dry "desert" mouth
brought on by the drug is hardly conducive to free talking,
even in a tractable subject.
The Barbiturates
The first suggestion that drugs might facilitate communi-
cation with emotionally disturbed patients came quite! by ac-
cident in 1916. Arthur S. Lovenhart and his associates at
the University of Wisconsin, experimenting with respiratory
stimulants, were surprised when, after an injection of sodium
cyanide, a catatonic patient who had long been mute and rigid
suddenly relaxed, opened his eyes, and even answered a few
questions. By the early 1930's a number of psychiatrists
were experimenting with drugs as an adjunct to established
methods of therapy.
At about this time police officials, still attracted by the pos-
sibility that drugs might help in the interrogation of suspects
and witnesses, turned to a class of depressant drugs known
as the barbiturates. By 1935 Clarence W. Muehlberge:r, head
of the Michigan Crime Detection Laboratory at East Lansing,
was using barbiturates on reluctant suspects, though police
work continued to be hampered by the courts' rejection of
drug-induced confessions except in a few carefully circum-
scribed instances.
The, barbiturates, first synthesized in 1903, are among the
oldest of modern drugs and the most versatile of all depres-
sants. In this half-century some 2,500 have been prepared,
and about two dozen of these have won an important place
in medicine. An estimated three to four billion doses of bar-
biturates are prescribed by physicians in the United States
each year, and they have come to be known by a variety of
commercial names and colorful slang expressions: "goofballs,"
Luminal, Nembutal, "red devils," "yellow jackets," "pink la-
dies," etc. Three of them which are used in narcoanalysis
and have seen service as "truth" drugs are sodium amytal
(amobarbital), pentothal sodium (thiopental), and to a lesser
extent seconal (secobarbital).
As with most drugs, little is known about the way bar-
biturates work or exactly how their action is related to their
chemistry. But a great deal is known about the action it-
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self. They can produce the entire range of depressant effects
from mild sedation to deep anesthesia-and death. In small
doses they are sedatives acting to reduce anxiety and respon-
siveness to stressful situations; in these low doses, the drugs
have been used in the treatment of many diseases, including
peptic ulcer, high blood pressure, and various psychogenic dis-
orders. At three to five times the sedative dose the same
barbiturates are hypnotics and induce sleep or unconscious-
ness from which the subject can be aroused. In larger doses a
barbiturate acts as an anesthetic, depressing the central
nervous system as completely as a gaseous anesthetic does.
In even larger doses barbiturates cause death by stopping:
respiration.
The barbiturates affect higher brain centers generally.
The cerebral cortex-that region of the cerebrum commonly
thought to be of the most recent evolutionary development
and the center of the most complex mental activities-seems
to yield first to the disturbance of nerve-tissue function
brought about by the drugs. Actually, there is reason to be-
lieve that the drugs depress cell function without discrimina-
tion and that their selective action on the higher brain'-cen-
ters is due to the intricate functional relationship of cells in
the central nervous system. Where there are chains of inter-
dependent cells, the drugs appear to have their most pro-
nounced effects on the most complex chains, those, control-
ling the most "human" functions.
The lowest doses of barbiturates impair the functioning of
the cerebral cortex by disabling the ascending (sensory) cir-
cuits of the nervous system. This occurs early in the seda-
tion stage and has a calming effect not. unlike a drink or two
after dinner. The subject is less responsive to stimuli. At
higher dosages, the cortex no longer actively integrates in-
formation, and the cerebellum, the "lesser brain" sometimes
called the great modulator of nervous function, ceases to per-
form as a control box. It no longer compares cerebral out-
put with input, no longer informs the cerebrum command
centers of necessary corrections, and fails to generate correct-
ing command signals itself. The subject may become hyper-
active, may thrash about. At this stage consciousness is lost
and coma follows. The subject no longer responds even to
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noxious stimuli, and cannot be roused. Finally, in the last
stage, respiration ceases.' 0. 28
As one pharmacologist explains it, a subject coming under
the influence of a barbiturate injected intravenously goes
through all the stages of progressive drunkenness, but the
time scale is on the order of minutes instead of hours. Out-
wardly the sedation effect is dramatic, especially if the sub-
ject is a psychiatric patient in tension. His features slacken,
his body relaxes. Some people are momentarily excited; a
few become silly and giggly. This usually passes, and most
subjects fall asleep, emerging later in disoriented sem'. wake-
fulness.
The descent into narcosis and beyond with progressively
larger doses can be divided as follows :
I. Sedative stage.
II. Unconsciousness, with exaggerated reflexes (hyper-
active stage).
III. Unconsciousness, without reflex even to painful
stimuli.
IV. Death.
Whether all these stages can be distinguished in any given
subject depends largely on the dose and the rapidity with
which the drug is induced. In anesthesia, stages I and II
may last only two or three seconds.
The first or sedative stage can be further divided:
Plane 1. No evident effect, or slight sedative effect.
Plane 2. Cloudiness, calmness, amnesia. (Upon recovery,
the subject will not remember what happened at
this or "lower" planes or stages.)
Plane 3. Slurred speech, old thought patterns disrupted,
inability to integrate or learn new patterns.
Poor coordination. Subject becomes unaware of
painful stimuli.
Plane 3 is the psychiatric "work" stage. It may last only
a few minutes, but it can be extended by further slow in-
jection of the drug. The usual practice is to bring the sub-
ject quickly to Stage II and to conduct the interview as he
passes back into the sedative stage on the way to full con-
sciousness.
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Clinical and Experimental Studies
The general abhorrence in Western countries for the use
of chemical agents "to make people do things against their
will" has precluded serious systematic study (at least as pub-
lished openly) of the potentialities of drugs for interrogation.
Louis A. Gottschalk, surveying their use in information-seek-
ing interviews,13 cites 136 references; but only two touch upon
the extraction of intelligence information, and one of these
concludes merely that Russian techniques in interrogation
and indoctrination are derived from age-old police methods and
do not depend on the use of drugs. On the validity of con-
fessions obtained with drugs, Gottschalk found only three pub-
lished experimental studies that he deemed worth reporting.
One of these reported experiments by D. P. Morris in which
intravenous sodium amytal was helpful in detecting malin-
gerers.22 The subjects, soldiers, were at first sullen, nega-
tivistic, and non-productive under amytal, but as the inter-
view proceeded they revealed the fact of and causes for their
malingering. Usually the interviews turned up a neurotic or
psychotic basis for the deception.
The other two confession studies, being more relevant to
the highly specialized, untouched area of drugs in intelligence
interrogation, deserve more detailed review.
Gerson and Victoroff 12 conducted amytal interviews with
17 neuropsychiatric patients, soldiers who had charges against
them, at Tilton General Hospital, Fort Dix. First they were
interviewed without amytal by a psychiatrist, who, neither
ignoring nor stressing their situation as prisoners or suspects
under scrutiny, urged each of them to discuss his social and
family background, his army career, and his version of the
charges pending against him.
The patients were told only a few minutes in advance that
narcoanalysis would be performed. The doctor was consid-
erate, but positive and forthright. He indicated that they
had no choice but to submit to the procedure. Their attitudes
varied from unquestioning compliance to downright refusal.
Each patient was brought to complete narcosis and per-
mitted to sleep. As he became semiconscious and could be
stimulated to speak, he was held in this stage with additional
amytal while the questioning proceeded. He was questioned
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rst about innocuous matters from his background that he
had discussed before receiving the drug. Whenever possible,
he was manipulated into bringing up himself the charges pend-
ing against him before being questioned about them. If he
did this in a too fully conscious state, it proved more ef-
ective to ask him to "talk about that later" and to inter-
ose a topic that would diminish suspicion, delaying the in-
terrogation on his criminal activity until he was back. in the
roper stage of narcosis.
The procedure differed from therapeutic narcoanalysis in
everal ways: the setting, the type of patients, and the kind
f "truth" sought. Also, the subjects were kept in Lwilight
onsciousness longer than usual. This state proved richest
In yield of admissions prejudicial to the subject. In it his
peech was thick, mumbling, and disconnected, but his dis-
retion was markedly reduced. This valuable interrogation
eriod, lasting only five to ten minutes at a time, could be
einduced by injecting more amytal and putting the patient
ack to sleep.
The interrogation technique varied from case to case ac-
ording to background information about the patient, the
eriousness of the charges, the patient's attitude under nar-
osis, and his rapport with the doctor. Sometimes it was use-
ul to pretend, as the patient grew more fully conscious, that
e had already confessed during the amnestic period of the
nterrogation, and to urge him, while his memory and sense
f self-protection were still limited, to continue to elaborate
he details of what he had "already described." When it was
bvious that a subject was withholding the truth, his denials
ere quickly passed over and ignored, and the key questions
ould be reworded in a new approach.
Several patients revealed fantasies, fears, and delusions ap-
roaching delirium, much of which could readily be distin-
uished from reality. But sometimes there was no way for
he examiner to distinguish truth from fantasy except by
eference to other sources. One subject claimed to have a
hild that did not exist, another threatened to kill on sight
stepfather who had been dead a year, and yet another con-
essed to participating in a robbery when in fact he had only
Purchased goods from the participants. Testimony concern-
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ing dates and specific places was untrustworthy and often
contradictory because of the patient's loss of time-sense. His
veracity in citing names and events proved questionable. Be-
cause of his confusion about actual events and what he
otbr feared had happened, the patient at times man-
aged to conceal the truth unintentionally.
As the subject revived, he would become aware that he was
being questioned about his secrets and, depending upon his
personality, his fear of discovery, or the degree of his disil-
lusionment with the doctor, grow negativistic, hostile, or physi-
cally aggressive. Occasionally patients had to be forcibly re-
strained during this period to prevent injury to themselves
or others as the doctor continued to interrogate. Some pa-
tients, moved by fierce and diffuse anger, the assumption
that they had already been tricked into confessing, and a still
limited sense of discretion, defiantly acknowledged their
guilt and challenged the observer to "do something about it."
As the excitement passed, some fell back on their original
stories and others verified the confessed material. During
the follow-up interview nine of the 17 admitted the validity
of their confessions; eight repudiated their confessions and
reaffirmed their earlier accounts.
With respect to the reliability of the results of such in-
terrogation, Gerson and Victoroff conclude that persistent,
careful questioning can reduce ambiguities in drug interroga-
tion, but cannot eliminate them altogether.
At least one experiment has shown that subjects are capa-
ble of maintaining a lie while under the influence of a bar-
biturate. Redlich and his associates at Yale 25 administered
sodium amytal to nine volunteers, students and professionals,
who had previously, for purposes of the experiment, revealed
shameful and guilt-producing episodes of their past and then
invented false self-protective stories to cover them. In nearly
every case the cover story retained some elements of the guilt
inherent in the true story.
Under the influence of the drug, the subjects were cross-
examined on their cover stories by a second investigator. The
results, though not definitive, showed that normal individuals
who had good defenses and no overt pathological traits could
stick to their invented stories and refuse confession. Neu-
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gtIiC'I ti viduals with strong unconscious self-punitive tend-
encies, on the other hand, both confessed more easily and
were inclined to substitute fantasy for the truth, confessing
to offenses never actually committed.
In recent years drug therapy has made some use of stimu-
lants, most notably amphetamine (Benzedrine) and its rela-
tive methamphetamine (Methedrine). These drugs, used
either alone or following intravenous barbiturates, produce
an outpouring of ideas, emotions, and memories which has
been of help in diagnosing mental disorders. The potential
of stimulants in interrogation has received little attention,
unless in unpublished work. In one study of their psychiatric
use Brussel et al.7 maintain that methedrine gives the liar
no time to think or to organize his deceptions. Once the
drug takes hold, they say, an insurmountable urge to pour
out speech traps the malingerer. Gottschalk, on the other
hand, says that this claim is extravagant, asserting without
elaboration that the study lacked proper controls.13 It is evi-
dent that the combined use of barbiturates and stimulants,
perhaps along with ataraxics (tranquillizers), should be fur-
ther explored.
Observations from Practice
J. M. MacDonald, who as a psychiatrist for the District
Courts of Denver has had extensive experience with narco-
analysis, says that drug interrogation is of doubtful value
in obtaining confessions to crimes. Criminal suspects under
the influence of barbiturates may deliberately withhold in-
formation, persist in giving untruthful answers, or falsely
confess to crimes they did not commit. The psychopathic
personality, in particular, appears to resist successfully the
influence of drugs.
MacDonald tells of a criminal psychopath who, having agreed
to narco-interrogation, received 1.5 grams of sodium amytal
over a period of five hours. This man feigned amnesia and
gave a false account of a murder. "He displayed little or no
remorse as he (falsely) described the crime, including burial
f the body. Indeed he was very self-possessed and he ap-
eared almost to enjoy the examination. From time to time
1e would request that more amytal be injected." 21
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MacDonald concludes that a person who gives false infor-
mation prior to receiving drugs is likely to give false informa-
under narcosis, that the drugs are of little value
rYiing g deceptions, and that they are more effective in
eleasing unconsciously repressed material than in evoking
onsciously suppressed information.
Another psychiatrist known for his work with criminals,
L. Z. Freedman, gave sodium amytal to men accused of vari-
ous civil and military antisocial acts. The subjects were men-
ally unstable, their conditions ranging from character dis-
orders to neuroses and psychoses. The drug interviews proved
psychiatrically beneficial to the patients, but Freedman found
that his view of objective reality was seldom improved by
heir revelations. He was unable to say on the basis of
he narco-interrogation whether a given act had or had not
occurred. Like MacDonald, he found that psychopathic in-
dividuals can deny to the point of unconsciousness crimes
that every objective sign indicates they have committed.10
F. G. Inbau, Professor of Law at Northwestern University,
who has had considerable experience observing and participat-
ing in "truth" drug tests, claims that they are occasionally
effective on persons who would have disclosed the truth any-
ay had they been properly interrogated, but that a person
determined to lie will usually be able to continue the decep-
tion under drugs.
The two military psychiatrists who made the most exten-
ive use of narcoanalysis during the war years, Roy R.
rinker and John C. Spiegel, concluded that in almost all
cases they could obtain from their patients essentially the
same material and give them the same emotional release by
therapy without the use of drugs, provided they had sufficient
time.
The essence of these comments from professionals of long
experience is that drugs provide rapid access to information
that is psychiatrically useful but of doubtful validity as em-
pirical truth. The same psychological information and a less
adulterated empirical truth can be obtained from fully con-
scious subjects through non-drug psychotherapy and skillful
police interrogation.
All
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p ajgn to CI Interrogation
The almost total absence of controlled experimental studies
)f "truth" drugs and the spotty and anecdotal nature of
sychiatric and police evidence require that extrapolations
to intelligence operations be made with care. Still, enough
s known about the drugs' action to suggest certain considera
ions affecting the possibilities for their use in interrogations.
It should be clear from the foregoing that at best a drug
an only serve as an aid to an interrogator who has a sure
nderstanding of the psychology and techniques of normal
nterrogation. In some respects, indeed, the demands on his
kill will be increased by the baffling mixture of truth and
antasy in drug-induced output. And the tendency against
which he must guard in the interrogatee to give the responses
hat seem to be wanted without regard for facts will be
eightened by drugs: the literature abounds with warnings
hat a subject in narcosis is extremely suggestible.
It seems possible that this suggestibility and the lowered
ward of the narcotic state might be put to advantage in
he case of a subject feigning ignorance of a language or some
ther skill that had become automatic with him. Lipton 20
ound sodium amytal helpful in determining whether a for-
ign subject was merely pretending not to understand Eng-
ish. By extension, one can guess that a drugged interro-
atee might have difficulty maintaining the pretense that he
lid not comprehend the idiom of a profession he was trying
o hide.
There is the further problem of hostility in the interro-
ator's relationship to a resistance source. The accumulated
nowledge about "truth" drug reaction has come largely from
atient-physician relationships of trust and confidence. The
ubject in narcoanalysis is usually motivated a priori to co-
perate with the psychiatrist, either to obtain relief from
mental suffering or to contribute to a scientific study. Even
n police work, where an atmosphere of anxiety and. threat
nay be dominant, a relationship of trust frequently asserts
tself: the drug is administered by a medical man bound by a
trict code of ethics; the suspect agreeing to undergo narco-
nalysis in a ,desperate bid for corroboration of his testimony
rusts both drug and psychiatrist, however apprehensively;
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and finally, as Freedman and MacDonald have indicated, the
police psychiatrist frequently deals with a "sick" criminal,
and some order of patient-physician relationship necessarily
evolves.
F11RGIThas a drug interrogation involved "normal" in-
dividuals in a hostile or genuinely threatening milieu. It was
from a non-threatening experimental setting that Eric Linde-
mann could say that his "normal" subjects "reported a gen-
eral sense of euphoria, ease and confidence, and they exhibited
a marked increase in talkativeness and communicability." is
Gerson and Victoroff list poor doctor-patient rapport as one
factor interfering with the completeness and authenticity of
confessions by the Fort Dix soldiers, caught as they were in a
command performance and told they had no choice but to
submit to narco-interrogation.
From all indications, subject-interrogator rapport is usually
crucial to obtaining the psychological release which may
lead to unguarded disclosures. Role-playing on the part of
the interrogator might be a possible solution to the problem
of establishing rapport with a drugged subject. In therapy,
the British narcoanalyst William Sargant recommends that
the therapist deliberately distort the facts of the patient's
life-experience to achieve heightened emotional response and
abreaction.27 In the drunken state of narcoanalysis patients
are prone to accept the therapist's false constructions. There
is reason to expect that a drugged subject would communi-
cate freely with an interrogator playing the role of relative,
colleague, physician, immediate superior, or any other person
to whom his background indicated he would be responsive.
Even when rapport is poor, however, there remains one
facet of drug action eminently exploitable in interrogation-
the fact that subjects emerge from narcosis feeling they have
revealed a great deal, even when they have not. As Gerson
and Victoroff demonstrated at Fort Dix, this psychological
set provides a major opening for obtaining genuine confes-
sions.
Technical Considerations
It would presumably be sometimes desirable that a resist-
ant interrogates be given the drug without his knowledge.
For narcoanalysis the only method of administration used is
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Pr' & injection. The possibilities for covert or "silent"
dministration by this means would be severely limited ex-
ept in a hospital setting, where any pretext for intravenous
njection, from glucose feeding to anesthetic procedure, could
e used to cover it. Sodium amytal can be given orally, and
he taste can be hidden in chocolate syrup, for example, but
here is no good information on what dosages can be mmasked.
oreover, although the drug might be introduced thus with-
ut detection, it would be difficult to achieve and maintain
he proper dose using the oral route.
Administering a sterile injection is a procedure shor':ly mas-
ered, and in fact the technical skills of intravenous injec-
ion are taught to nurses and hospital corpsmen as a mat-
er of routine. But it should be apparent that there is more
o narcotizing than the injection of the correct amount of
odium amytal or pentothal sodium. Administering drugs
nd knowing when a subject is "under" require clinical judg-
ent. Knowing what to expect and how to react a 3propri-
tely to the unexpected takes both technical and clinical
kill. The process calls for qualified medical personnel, and
ober reflection on the depths of barbituric anesthesia will
onfirm that it would not be enough merely to have access
o a local physician.
I ossible Variations
In studies by Beecher and his associates,3-6 one-third to one-
alf the individuals tested proved to be placebo reactors, sub-
cts who respond with symptomatic relief to the administra-
ion of any syringe, pill, or capsule, regardless of what; it con-
ains. Although no studies are known to have been made
I f the placebo phenomenon as applied to narco-interrogation,
seems reasonable that when a subject's sense of guilt inter-
res with productive interrogation, a placebo for pseudo-nar-
osis could have the effect of absolving him of the responsibility
r his acts and thus clear the way for free communication.
It is notable that placebos are most likely to be effe 3tive in
tuations of stress. The individuals most likely to react to
lacebos are the more anxious, more self-centered, more de-
endent on outside stimulation, those who express their needs
more freely socially, talkers who drain off anxiety by con-
ersing with others. The non-reactors are those clinically
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more rigid and with better than average emotional control.
No sex or I.Q. differences between reactors and non-reactors
have been found.
o possibility might be the combined use of drugs
it otic trance and post-hypnotic suggestion: hypnosis
could presumably prevent any recollection of the drug experi-
ence. Whether a subject can be brought to trance against
his will or unaware, however, is a matter of some disagree-
ment. Orne, in a survey of the potential uses of hypnosis
in interrogation,23 asserts that it is doubtful, despite many
apparent indications to the contrary, that trance can be in-
duced in resistant subjects. It may be possible, he adds, to
hypnotize a subject unaware, but this would require a posi-
tive relationship with the hypnotist not likely to be found
in the interrogation setting.
In medical hypnosis, pentothal sodium is sometimes em-
ployed when only light trance has been induced and deeper
narcosis is desired. This procedure is a possibility for inter-
rogation, but if a satisfactory level of narcosis could be achieved
through hypnotic trance there would appear to be no need
for drugs.
Defensive, Measures
There is. no known way of building tolerance for a "truth"
drug without creating a disabling addiction, or of arresting
the action of a barbiturate once induced. The only full safe-
guard against narco-interrogation is to prevent the admin-
istration of the drug. Short of this, the best defense is to
make use of the same knowledge that suggests drugs for of-
fensive operations: if a subject knows that on emerging from
narcosis he will have an exaggerated notion of how much he
has revealed he can better resolve to deny he has said any-
thing.
The disadvantages and shortcomings of drugs in offensive
operations become positive features of the defense posture.
A subject in narco-interrogation is intoxicated, wavering be-
tween deep sleep and semi-wakefulness. His speech is garbled
and irrational, the amount of output drastically diminished.
Drugs disrupt established thought patterns, including the will
to resist, but they do so indiscriminately and thus also in-
terfere with the patterns of substantive information the in-
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minor way as aids in psychotherapy.
Since information obtained from a person in a psychotic
rug state would be unrealistic, bizarre, and extremely diffl-
een used to create experimental "psychotic states," and in
rPrgox~ seeks. Even under the conditions most favorable
or the interrogator, output will be contaminated by fantasy,
listortion, and untruth.
Possibly the most effective way to arm oneself against narco-
nterrogation would be to undergo a "dry run." A trial drug
nterrogation with output taped for playback would familiarize
n individual with his own reactions to "truth" drugs, and
his familiarity would help to reduce the effects of harass-
nent by the interrogator before and after the drug has been
dministered. From the viewpoint of the intelligence serv-
ce, the trial exposure of a particular operative to drugs might
rovide a rough benchmark for assessing the kind and amount
if information he would divulge in narcosis.
There may be concern over the possibility of drug addic-
ion intentionally or accidentally induced by an adversary
ervice. Most drugs will cause addiction with prolonged use,
nd the barbiturates are no exception. In recent studies at
he U.S. Public Health Service Hospital for addicts in Lexing-
on, Ky., subjects received large doses of barbiturates over a
eriod of months. Upon removal of the drug, they experi-
nced acute withdrawal symptoms and behaved in every re-
pect like chronic alcoholics.
Because their action is extremely short, however, and be-
muse there is little likelihood that they would be administered
egularly over a prolonged period, barbiturate "truth" drugs
resent slight risk of operational addiction. If the adversary
ervice were intent on creating addiction in order to exploit
withdrawal, it would have other, more rapid means of pro-
ucing states as unpleasant as withdrawal symptoms.
The hallucinatory and psychotomimetic drugs such as
mescaline, marihuana, LSD-25, and microtine are sometimes
.mistakenly associated with narcoanalytic interrogation.
hese drugs distort the perception and interpretation. of the
ensory input to the central nervous system and affect vision,
udition, smell, the sensation of the size of body parts and
heir position in space, etc. Mescaline and LSD-2 5 have
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cult to assess, the self-administration of LSD-25, which is ef-
fective in minute dosages, might in special circumstances of-
fer an operative temporary protection against interrogation.
Conceivably, on the other hand, an adversary service could
use such drugs to. produce anxiety or terror in medically un-
sophisticated subjects unable to distinguish drug-induced
psychosis from actual insanity. An enlightened operative
could not be thus frightened, however, knowing that the ef-
fect of these hallucinogenic agents is transient in normal in-
dividuals.
Most broadly, there is evidence that drugs have least ef-
fect on well-adjusted individuals with good defenses and good
emotional control, and that anyone who can withstand the
stress of competent interrogation in the waking state can do
so in narcosis. The essential resources for resistance thus
appear to lie within the individual.
Conclusions
The salient points that emerge from this discussion are
the following. No such magic brew as the popular notion of
truth serum exists. The barbiturates, by disrupting defensive
patterns, may sometimes be helpful in interrogation, but even
under the best conditions they will elicit an output contami-
nated by deception, fantasy, garbled speech, etc. A major
vulnerability they produce in the. subject is a tendency to be-
lieve he has revealed more than he has. It is possible, how-
ever, for both normal individuals and psychopaths to resist
drug interrogation; it seems likely that any individual who
can withstand ordinary intensive interrogation can hold out
in narcosis. The best aid to a defense against narco-inter-
rogation is foreknowledge of the process and its limitations.
There is an acute need for controlled experimental studies of
drug reaction, not only to depressants but also to stimulants
and to combinations of depressants, stimulants, and ataraxics.
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