Изображения страниц
PDF
EPUB

The CHAIRMAN. The Chair may say one thing that gives this committee jurisdiction of the subject matter, and that is what is our Government doing to prepare our Armed Forces for these eventualities or contingencies and to inform our people, even the prospective soldiers, to acquaint the prospective draftee with what can be anticipated in the event he should ever become a captive of a Communist military force or government. I think this committee may be rendering some service not only to our Government but to our people in getting this information out and disseminating it and giving it from a factual standpoint and not just on some theory or what somebody has guessed or speculated upon.

I hope that some real good is going to come from the hearings that we are having.

You may proceed with your summary, Doctor.

Dr. WOLFF. The methods used in Communist countries for the interrogation and indoctrination of persons regarded as enemies of the state have their roots in secret police practices which go back for many years. These methods have been refined and systematized by much use and experience. The general dynamic features which underlie them are understandable.

Men under the complete control of Communist police have been made to say and do many things which their captors desire and some people have proved to be much more ameliorable than others. But under the most strenuous circumstances some men are remarkably refractory and refuse to cooperate with their captors up to the point at which they develop confusional states and delirium.

Those who live in Communist states recognize there are times the state police are almost unlimited in their power and their acts may be swift and arbitrary. When residents of such communities become aware that they are suspected by the police, their feelings are impotence and uncertainty are greatly augmented. As they are increasingly avoided by their friends and associates they feel isolated and rejected and develop intense anxiety, often colored by feelings of guilt. Their sudden seizure under dramatic circumstances is additionally traumatizing. They usually enter upon their prison experience feeling fearful, vaguely guilty, helpless, and completely uncertain of their fate.

When the initial period of imprisonment is one of total isolation, such as used by the KGB, the complete separation of the prisoner from the companionship and support of others his utter loneliness and his prolonged uncertainty have a further disorganizing effect upon him. Fatigue, sleep loss, pain, cold, hunger, and the like augment the injury induced by isolation.

The cumulative effects of the entire experience may be almost intolerable. With the passage of time the prisoner usually develops intense need to be relieved of the pressure put upon him and to have some human companionship. He may have a very strong urge to talk to any human, be utterly independent upon anyone who will help him or befriend him.

At about this time he also becomes mentally dull and loses his capacity for discrimination. He becomes ameliorable, suggestible, and in some instances he may confabulate.

The interrogator exploits the prisoner's need for companionship. He uses items from the prisoner's biography derived from police files

and from hours of interrogation to arouse further guilt, conflict, and anxiety. He makes use of the dependence of the prisoner which is strengthened by the intimate sharing of information about his life. He frustrates and further disorganizes the prisoner by rejecting his statements. He scolds, punishes, and threatens him when he does not cooperate and approves and rewards him when he does.

Then by suggesting that the prisoner accept half truths and plausible distortion of the truth, he makes it possible for the prisoner to rationalize and thus accept the interrogator's viewpoint as the only way out of an intolerable situation.

The methods of interrogation and indoctrination used in Communist China are in many respects similar to those of the Russian state police from which they were in part derived, but in some respects they are quite different because of the special needs and traditions of the Chinese. In the Chinese prison the individual interrogator is still important and in occasional cases the management of the prisoner may quite closely duplicate that of the KGB. But in most instances the efforts of the interrogator are supplemented by the effects of the interaction beween the prisoner and 6 or 8 of his fellow prisoners with whom he is incarcerated in a crowded cell. Here the group replaces the interrogator as the focus of the prisoner's relationships. In this setting of complete lack of privacy there is an unremitting routine of selfcriticism sessions, group discussion sessions, rote learning, and constant repetition of Communist viewpoints, and the repeated rewriting and rejection of autobiographical essays. The group exploits the feeling of emotional nakedness and unworthiness which the self-criticism sessions engender, dwelling upon items obtained from the prisoner's life history during those sessions which arouse in him guilt, conflict and anxiety.

These feelings are greatly potentiated when the group rejects, isolates, and reviles him because of his improper attitude and past behavior.

The prisoner is thus placed in a situation in which he cannot avoid having his past life reviewed and questioned and cannot avoid hearing an exposition of the Communist position. Moreover, for a period sometimes of years' duration he has access to nothing but Communist oriented history and Communist interpretation of current events.

Like the KGB interrogator, the group rewards and approves the prisoner when he cooperates and behaves in accordance with their aims, and thus indicates to him that the ony plausible way out of his intolerable situation is the acceptance of their point of view.

Under pressures such as these prisoners usually rationalize a change in attitude and hold it for an indefinite time. In general this change in attitude is only so great as the prisoner feels it must be to enable him to relieve himself of the intolerable pressures under which he labors. In the KGB pretrial interrogation the achievement of a successful rationalization and a satisfactory protocol is usually accompanied by a profound feeling of relief and unspoken agreement with the interrogator that may even have overtones of want and friendliness. In the Chinese group cell where the pressures are much more prolonged and the demands upon the prisoner are correspondingly more intense, the ultimate achievement of a proper rationalization and group acceptance is associated with feelings of relief that are occasion

ally exhilarating and sometimes show some of the features of a religious conversion.

The most effective features of the Communist procedure are those which would operate even in the absence of brutality or complete control. Prisoners who were not excessively abused and who encountered men who appeared to be dedicated, selfless and even idealistic in their attachment to the ostensible goals of communism, have acknowledged these features of their captors, and those who were presented with apparently plausible evidence have accepted it tentatively. When they have discovered they would be rejected, reviled, and punished for noncooperative behavior, they have refrained from doing or saying anything which would bring such treatment upon them when they were in Communist control.

Those whose past lives have been colored by feelings of much guilt, by lack of purpose or commitment, and those who were previously sympathetic to Communist views have been more amenable to Communist methods.

Finally, prisoners who have been released from Communist control and have been able to assure themselves that they will be no longer punished for improper opinions have gradually readjusted their attitudes to their new environment. Their memories of the punishments and brutalities which they have endured have been lively, and in most prisoners these memories override all of their other memories. When they have felt safe to acknowledge their resentment they have expressed extreme feelings of hostility toward those responsible for their bad prison experiences and they have nearly always rejected communism and all of those connected with it.

The CHAIRMAN. Thank you very much, Dr. Wolff and Dr. Hinkle. Senator Bender, any further questions?

Senator BENDER. Not at this time.

The CHAIRMAN. I will say to you again that we not only deeply appreciate but are grateful to you for your cooperation and your presentation. I regret that other members of the committee could not be here this morning and hear you. I am sure they will read your testimony. Unfortunately the work of a United States Senator today and his duties and responsibilities with so many committee assignments and so many Government activities and legislation awaiting his attention, make it just impossible for any of us to be everywhere that we should be all at one time.

I thank you very much.

The committee will stand in recess until 2 o'clock this afternoon, when we shall resume.

(Whereupon, at 12: 20 p. m. the committee was recessed, to reconvene at 2 p. m. the same day.)

AFTER RECESS

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will come to order.

(Members of the subcommittee present at the convening of the hearing were Senators McClellan and McCarthy.)

The CHAIRMAN. Dr. Hinkle, will you return to the stand a moment, please, sir?

Doctor, did you have some other documentary exhibits that you thought would be helpful to us which you would like to place in the record?

Dr. HINKLE. Yes, sir. We have a report which embodies the substance of Dr. Wolff's testimony this morning and additional elaborations which I think it would be helpful to place in the record.

The CHAIRMAN. It would not be necessary to print all of it in the record, would it? He read a great deal of that this morning, did he not?

Mr. KENNEDY. It is just as an exhibit for reference.

The CHAIRMAN. Will you identify it? What is it?

Dr. HINKLE. This is a report of an evaluation of the Communist interrogation and indoctrination techniques carried out by the group of which we are the representatives.

The CHAIRMAN. This is the report of the group of whom you are representative. It may be filed for reference as exhibit No. 14. After examination by the staff, there may be excerpts from it that we would like to print in the official record of the hearing.

(Exhibit No. 14 may be found in the files of the subcommittee.) Thank you very much, Doctor.

Who is the next witness?

Mr. KENNEDY. Capt. Bert Cumby.

The CHAIRMAN. Captain Cumby, come around, please.

Captain, will you be sworn? Čaptain, you do solemnly swear that the evidence you shall give before this Senate investigating subcommittee shall be the truth, the whole truth and nothing but the truth, so help you God?

Captain CUMBY. I do.

TESTIMONY OF CAPT. BERT CUMBY, UNITED STATES ARMY,

WASHINGTON, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. Be seated. Please state your name, your place of residence, and your occupation or profession.

Captain CUMBY. My name is Bert Cumby, captain, United States Army. I live in Washington, D. C.

The CHAIRMAN. How long have you been in the Service, Captain? Captain CUMBY. 14 years.

The CHAIRMAN. You have talked with members of the staff and of course know the general purpose of these hearings?

Captain CUMBY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. Also you have an idea of the line of interrogation that will be followed?

Captain CUMBY. Yes, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. I assume you do not feel the need of an attorney to counsel you while you testify?

Captain CUMBY. No, sir.

The CHAIRMAN. All right. Counsel, proceed.

Mr. KENNEDY. Captain Cumby, you have done a good deal of work with the prisoners who came back from Korea, is that correct? Captain CUMBY.. Yes, sir, I have had some experience.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will you outline to the committee the experience which you have had in that connection?

Captain CUMBY. My experience with this problem extends back to operation Little Switch of 1953. It terminated in December of 1955. When I say terminated, I no longer was working on the problem.

Mr. KENNEDY. What was your job in Little Switch? Will you give us that?

Captain CUMBY. On Little Switch my assignment was that of an interrogator.

Mr. KENNEDY. To question the prisoners who came back from North Korea?

Captain CUMBY. Yes, sir.

Mr. KENNEDY. Then what were you doing in Big Switch?

Captain CUMBY. On Big Switch I was chief of an interrogation

team.

The CHAIRMAN. Chief of the interrogation team?

Captain CUMBY. Chief of an interrogation team; yes, sir.

Mr. KENNEDY. Will you explain to us what occurred at Little Switch? What was the purpose of that, and what actually were the results of the Switch?

The CHAIRMAN. Tell us what the difference is between Little Switch and Big Switch, first.

Captain CUMBY. As you know, we had two intelligence operations in the Far East. We referred to them as Little Switch and Big Switch. Little Switch dealt with the exchange of prisoners in the sick and wounded category. That operation was conceived in the spring of 1953 as a result of agreement between the Communist forces and the United Nations forces in Korea, whereby they would exchange all sick and wounded prisoners held by the opposing forces.

The CHAIRMAN. What did Big Switch refer to?

Captain CUMBY. Big Switch was the general prisoner exchange which resulted from the armistice agreement whereby all prisoners held by the opposing forces, that is, the Communist forces and the United Nations forces, would be exchanged 30 days after the armistice was signed. The armistice was signed in July, and we started operation Big Switch on the fifth of August 1953.

The CHAIRMAN. I think that identifies and differentiates between Little Switch and Big Switch. So now let us go back to the question that counsel asked you with respect to Little Switch.

Mr. KENNEDY. Did the Communists in fact return the sick and wounded at that time?

Captain CUMBY. They allegedly returned all sick and wound prisoners in Little Switch. We returned all sick and wounded. But we received information during Little Switch that they did not return all the sick and wounded. We had information that there were a number of Americans left behind who didn't have legs, who didn't have arms. According to the information we received, they did not repatriate all of the sick and wounded prisoners because they didn't want to give the impression that the release of those badly wounded and maltreated prisoners would reflect cruelty and brutality on their part. So what they actually did, they sent back about 2 or 3 actually sick and wounded prisoners of the 133, I believe, and the rest of them were more or less cooperators, were persons who had supported them and given them their cooperation.

The CHAIRMAN. Let us see if we understand that. They only sent back 130-some-odd prisoners altogether in Little Switch?

Captain CUMBY. Sir, I don't have the correct figure, but it was about 125 or 130.

« ПредыдущаяПродолжить »