O "relatório Kubark"

Em 1997 o Governo Americano desconfidencializou o manual de tortura da CIA publicado, internamente, em 1963, e em que obviamente foram instruídos os "técnicos" da PIDE após a crise de Cuba. A aplicação destes princípios, provavelmente a partir da data de encerramento do Aljube e do início do uso sistemático de Caxias como local de detenção e interrogatório (1965), é notória no caso de "Os conquistadores de almas".
Seguem-se extractos muito significativos do referido manual.

IX. Coercive Counterintelligence Interrogation of Resistant Sources
Coercive procedures are designed not only to exploit the resistant source's internal conflicts and in­duce him to wrestle with himself but also to bring a superior outside force to bear upon the subject's resistance. Non-coercive methods are not likely to succeed if their selection and use is not predi­ca­ted upon an accurate psychological assessment of the source.
The changes of success rise steeply, nevertheless, if the coercive technique is matched to the source's personality.
All coercive techniques are designed to induce regression. As Hinkle notes in "The Physiological State of the Interrogation Subject as it Affects Brain Function"(7), the result of external pressures of sufficient intensity is the loss of those defenses most recently acquired by civilized man: "...
One subjective reaction often evoked by coercion is a feeling of guilt. Meltzer observes, "In some lengthy interrogations, the interrogator may, by virtue of his role as the sole supplier of satisfaction and punishment, assume the stature and importance of a parental figure in the prisoner's feeling and thinking. Although there may be intense hatred for the interrogator, it is not unusual for warm feel­ings also to develop. This ambivalence is the basis for guilt reactions, and if the interrogator nour­ishes these feelings, the guilt may be strong enough to influence the prisoner's behavior.... Guilt makes compliance more likely...."(7).
Farber says that the response to coercion typically contains "... at least three important elements: debility, dependency, and dread."
Once a true confession is obtained, the classic cautions apply. The pressures are lifted, at least enough so that the subject can provide counterintelligence information as accurately as possible. In fact, the relief granted the subject at this time fits neatly into the interrogation plan. He is told that the changed treatment is a reward for truthfulness and an evidence that friendly handling will con­tinue as long as he cooperates.
When an interrogator senses that the subject's resistance is wavering, that his desire to yield is growing stronger than his wish to continue his resistance, the time has come to provide him with the acceptable rationalization: a face-saving reason or excuse for compliance.
Therefore the interrogator should intensify the subject's desire to cease struggling by showing him how he can do so without seeming to abandon principle, self-protection, or other initial causes of resistance. If, instead of providing the right rationalization at the right time, the interrogator seizes gloatingly upon the subject's wavering, opposition will stiffen again.
These findings suggest - but by no means prove - the following theories about solitary confinement and isolation:
1. The more completely the place of confinement eliminates sensory stimuli, the more rapidly and deeply will the interrogatee be affected. Results produced only after weeks or months of imprison­ment in an ordinary cell can be duplicated in hours or days in a cell which has no light (or weak ar­tificial light which never varies), which is sound-proofed, in which odors are eliminated, etc. An environment still more subject to control, such as water-tank or iron lung, is even more effective.
2. An early effect of such an environment is anxiety. How soon it appears and how strong it is de­pends upon the psychological characteristics of the individual.
3. The interrogator can benefit from the subject's anxiety. As the interrogator becomes linked in the subject's mind with the reward of lessened anxiety, human contact, and meaningful activity, and thus with providing relief for growing discomfort, the questioner assumes a benevolent role. (7)4. The deprivation of stimuli induces regression by depriving the subject's mind of contact with an outer world and thus forcing it in upon itself. At the same time, the calculated provision of stimuli during interrogation tends to make the regressed subject view the interrogator as a father-figure. The result, normally, is a strengthening of the subject's tendencies toward compliance.
The threat of coercion usually weakens or destroys resistance more effectively than coercion itself. The threat to inflict pain, for example, can trigger fears more damaging than the immediate sensa­tion of pain. In fact, most people underestimate their capacity to withstand pain. The same principle holds for other fears: sustained long enough, a strong fear of anything vague or unknown induces regression, whereas the materialization of the fear, the infliction of some form of punishment, is likely to come as a relief. The subject finds that he can hold out, and his resistances are strength­ened. "In general, direct physical brutality creates only resentment, hostility, and further defiance."
It is especially important that a threat not be uttered in response to the interrogatee's own expressions of hostility. These, if ig­nored, can induce feelings of guilt, whereas retorts in kind relieve the subject's feelings.
It is not enough that a resistant source should placed under the tension of fear; he must also discern an acceptable escape route.
The available evidence suggests that resistance is sapped princi­pally by psychological rather than physical pressures.
The problem of overcoming the resistance of an uncooperative interrogatee is essentially a problem of inducing regression to a level at which the resistance can no longer be sustained.

A brief summary of the foregoing may help to pull the major concepts of coercive interrogation to­gether:
1. The principal coercive techniques are arrest, detention, the deprivation of sensory stimuli, threats and fear, debility, pain, heightened suggestibility and hypnosis, and drugs.
2. If a coercive technique is to be used, or if two or more are to be employed jointly, they should be chosen for their effect upon the individual and carefully selected to match his personality.
3. The usual effect of coercion is regression. The interrogatee's mature defenses crumbles as he be­comes more childlike. During the process of regression the subject may experience feelings of guilt, and it is usually useful to intensify these.
4. When regression has proceeded far enough so that the subject's desire to yield begins to overbal­ance his resistance, the interrogator should supply a face-saving rationalization. Like the coercive technique, the rationalization must be carefully chosen to fit the subject's personality.
5. The pressures of duress should be slackened or lifted after compliance has been obtained, so that the interrogatee's voluntary cooperation will not be impeded.No mention has been made of what is frequently the last step in an interrogation conducted by a Communist service: the attempted conversion. .... If the inter­rogatee remains semi-hostile or remorseful after a successful interrogation has ended, less time may be required to complete his conversion (and conceivably to create an enduring asset) than might be needed to deal with his antagonism if he is merely squeezed and forgotten.