TRUTH SERUMS & TORTURE
____________________________________________________________________

By Martin A. Lee
http://www.consortiumnews.com/2002/060402a.html

On U.S. pundit shows this year, a hot topic has been whether captured
Taliban fighters and alleged al-Qaeda operatives should be subjected to
"truth serums" or physical torture to make them talk.

Hundreds of captured Taliban and al-Qaeda belligerents have been grilled,
but apparently little useful has been gleaned. Frustrated U.S.
interrogators have complained that Afghan battlefield prisoners employ
aliases, deceit and other tactics to withstand interrogations.

In debating how to extract more information, cable-TV commentators and
other pundits
generally have treated "truth serum" as a softer means of
extracting information compared to more traditional torture, with
commentators weighing the pros and cons of the two approaches. But beyond
the question -- does "truth serum" work? -- is a long history of practice
that blurs the moral lines between the use of interrogation drugs and more
overt methods of torture.

Former CIA and FBI director William Webster put the "truth serum" issue
into prominent play in April when he urged use of drugs to loosen the
tongues of suspects, such as Osama bin Laden's aide Abu Zubaida and
captives held in cages at Camp X-Ray at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba.

The debate soon spread to cable-TV talk shows. On Fox News' "The O'Reilly
Factor," for instance, retired Marine Lt. Col. Bill Cowan said he doubted
"truth serum" would work but hoped Webster's suggestion would lead the Bush
administration to try torture. "Mayb
e it'll be an entrée to take us to the
next step," Cowan said. "I kid around with people about plugging them up to
a 110-volt outlet and flipping the switch if they don't want to talk."

Guest host John Kasich demurred that many experts don't see torture as an
effective interrogation technique either, "and I'm not talking about
somebody who's worrying about being politically correct," but even "people
inside of some of our best intelligence organizations."

Cowan disputed the view that torture is ineffective. "I'll be honest by
saying that I served a lot of time in Vietnam, and in some cases where I
worked on prisoner operations, we did go a little bit beyond what normal
interrogation techniques would give you, and we got phenomenal
information," he said. [Fox News, April 26, 2002]

Wish List

Yet, U.S. spymasters -- knowing that torture subjects may simply tell an

interrogator what he wants to hear ? have long yearned for a drug that
could pull reliable information out of an unwilling subject.

A sure-fire truth drug has been high on the wish list of U.S. intelligence
agencies at least since 1942, when scientists working for the Office of
Strategic Services (OSS), the CIA's wartime predecessor, were asked to
develop a chemical substance that could break down the psychological
defenses of enemy spies and POWs, thereby making it easier to obtain
information from them.

After testing several compounds, the OSS scientists selected a potent
extract of marijuana as the best available "truth serum." The cannabis
concoction was given the code name TD, meaning Truth Drug. When injected
into food or tobacco cigarettes, TD helped loosen the reserve of
recalcitrant interrogation subjects.

The effects of the drug were described in a once-classified OSS report: "TD
app
ears to relax all inhibitions and to deaden the areas of the brain which
govern an individual's discretion and caution. . . . [G]enerally speaking,
the reaction will be one of great loquacity and hilarity."

In the end, marijuana didn't fit the bill as the ultimate "truth serum,"
but it proved to be a gateway drug that set U.S. military and espionage
scientists on a path to creating more powerful and dangerous chemicals.
After World War II, American intelligence stepped up efforts to find a more
effective "truth serum."

In 1947, the U.S. Navy launched Project Chatter, which included experiments
with mescaline, a hallucinogenic drug derived from the peyote cactus (with
effects similar to LSD). Mescaline was studied as a possible
speech-inducing agent after the Navy learned that Nazi doctors at the
Dachau concentration camp had used it in mind-control experiments. The
Nazis concluded that it was "im
possible to impose one's will on another
person, even when the strongest dose of mescaline had been given."

Twilight Zone

The CIA also embarked upon an extensive research program geared toward
developing unorthodox interrogation techniques. Two methods showed promise
in the late 1940s. The first involved narco-hypnosis. A CIA psychologist
attempted to induce a trance state after administering a mild sedative.

A second technique relied on a combination of two different drugs with
contradictory effects, which were injected intravenously into both arms of
an interrogation subject. Flick the switch and a heavy dose of barbiturates
would knock a person out, and then a stimulant, usually some type of
amphetamine, was administered through the other intravenous feed to wake a
person up. As the subject started to emerge from a somnambulant state, he
or she would reach a groggy, in-between condition prior to becoming fu
lly
alert.

Described in CIA documents as "the twilight zone," this semiconscious limbo
was considered useful for special interrogations. But keeping a person
suspended in the twilight zone was not a precise science, and the results
were not always satisfactory.

The CIA was still searching for a viable "truth serum" -- the Holy Grail of
the cloak-and-dagger trade ? when it initiated Operation Artichoke in the
early 1950s and began utilizing LSD during interrogation sessions.
Odorless, colorless, and tasteless, LSD was hailed as a "potential new
agent for unconventional warfare," according to a classified CIA report
dated Aug. 5, 1954. But even a surreptitious dose of LSD, the most potent
mind-bending drug known to science, could not guarantee that an
interrogation subject would spill the beans.

Perhaps the concept of a "truth serum" was a bit farfetched, for it
presupposed that the
re was a way to chemically bypass the mind's censor and
turn the psyche inside out, unleashing a profusion of secrets. After much
trial and error, the CIA realized that it doesn't quite work that way.

Eventually, CIA experts figured out the most effective way to employ LSD as
an aid to interrogation. They used its terrifying effects on some prisoners
as a third-degree tactic. A skillful interrogator could gain leverage over
prisoners by threatening to keep them in a crazed, tripped-out state
forever unless they agreed to talk. This method sometimes proved successful
where others had failed. LSD has been used for interrogations on an
operational basis -- albeit sparingly -- since the mid-1950s.

U.S. Army interrogators also employed EA-1729 (the code for LSD) as an
intelligence-extracting aid. Similar to the strategy of their CIA
counterparts, Army interrogators used the drug to scare the daylights out
of people who w
ere zonked and terror-stricken on acid.

Documents pertaining to Operation Derby Hat record the results of several
EA-1729 interrogations conducted by the Army in the Far East during the
early 1960s. One subject vomited three times and stated that he "wanted to
die" after he had been slipped some LSD. His reaction was described as
"moderate."

After another target absorbed triple the dose normally used in such
sessions, he kept collapsing and hitting his head on a table. "The subject
voiced an anti-communist line," an Army report noted, "and begged to be
spared the torture he was receiving. In this confused state he even asked
to be killed in order to alleviate his suffering."

International Standards

In calling for use of "truth serums" on Taliban and al-Qaeda captives,
Webster said any information extracted from the prisoners should be used
only "for the protection of the country." He s
aid legal safeguards should
be in place to prevent prosecutors from turning admissions against the
detainees.

The former CIA and FBI director also opposed use of torture on the
prisoners. That distinction, however, misses the point that the application
of drugs during interrogations often has become a form of torture.

Amnesty International maintains that employing "truth serums" for espionage
purposes could violate international treaties and the Convention Against
Torture that the United States had signed. But neither the CIA nor the
military has renounced the use of LSD as an interrogation weapon.

"It's a slippery slope," admits Vincent Cannistraro, a former CIA chief of
counterterrorism. "Once you've used [truth drugs] for national security
cases, then it becomes a standard. Sodium pentothal is not that effective,
and so you have to use something stronger. It's a short skip and a hop to
LS
D, or something worse."

Martin A. Lee is the author of Acid Dreams and The Beast Reawakens.

Copyright 2002 The Consortium for Independent Journalism

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