Get the Truth E-Book

Michael Floyd

• Herausgeber: Icon Books
• Kategorie: Geisteswissenschaft
• Sprache: Englisch
• Veröffentlichungsjahr: 2015

Seitenzahl: 390

Beschreibung

Former CIA agents and the bestselling authors of Spy the Lie, Philip Houston, Mike Floyd and Susan Carnicero are among the world's best at recognising deceptive behaviour and drawing out the truth from even the most accomplished liars. Using techniques developed in real-life counterterrorism and criminal investigations, in Get the Truth they present a step-by-step guide that empowers readers to elicit the truth from others – whether that's in the boardroom, the classroom, or our own homes. Using thrilling anecdotes from their careers in counterintelligence, and with easy-to-follow instructions, the authors provide a foolproof means of getting absolutely anybody to give an honest answer. Get the Truth is the easy and effective way to learn how to get to the truth every time.

Leseprobe

GET

THE

TRUTH

ALSO BY PHILIP HOUSTON, MICHAEL FLOYD, AND SUSAN CARNICERO

Spy the Lie

GET

THE

TRUTH

FORMER CIA OFFICERS TEACH YOU HOW TO PERSUADE ANYONE TO TELL ALL

PHILIP HOUSTON. MICHAEL FLOYDAND SUSAN CARNICERO

Commentary by PETER ROMARY Written by DON TENNANT

First published in the United States in 2015 by St Martin’s Press

First published in the UK in 2015 by Icon Books Ltd, Omnibus Business Centre, 39–41 North Road, London N7 9DP email: [email protected]

Sold in the UK, Europe and Asia by Faber & Faber Ltd, Bloomsbury House, 74–77 Great Russell Street, London WC1B 3DA or their agents

Distributed in the UK, Europe and Asia by TBS Ltd, TBS Distribution Centre, Colchester Road, Frating Green, Colchester CO7 7DW

Distributed in Australia and New Zealand by Allen & Unwin Pty Ltd, PO Box 8500, 83 Alexander Street, Crows Nest, NSW 2065

Distributed in South Africa by Jonathan Ball, Office B4, The District, 41 Sir Lowry Road, Woodstock 7925

Distributed in India by Penguin Books India, 7th Floor, Infinity Tower – C, DLF Cyber City, Gurgaon 122002, Haryana

ISBN: 978-184831-667-6

Text copyright © 2015 Philip Houston, Michael Floyd and Susan Carnicero

The authors have asserted their moral rights.

No part of this book may be reproduced in any form, or by any means, without prior permission in writing from the publisher.

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the authors and do not reflect the official positions or views of the CIA or any other U.S. Government agency. Nothing in the contents should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. Government authentication of information or Agency endorsement of the authors’ views. This material has been reviewed by the CIA to prevent the disclosure of classified information.

Designed by Steven Seighman

Printed and bound in the UK by Clays Ltd, St Ives plc

For all whose pursuit of the truth keeps us safe

CONTENTS

Preface

1.Of Espionage and Infomercials: The Extraordinary Power of Short-Term Thinking

2.The Best-Case/Worst-Case Continuum

3.Transitioning to Interrogation Mode: The DOC and the DOG

4.Uncovering a Spy: The Art of Creating the Monologue

5.How to Deliver Your Monologue

6.How to Tailor Your Monologue

7.How to Handle Resistance During Your Monologue

8.Going for the Gold: Collecting Nuggets of Information

9.Crafting a Sincere, Empathetic Monologue: Fiction As an Option

10.Do No Harm

11.An Elicitation Case Study

12.If O. J. Simpson Did It: The Interrogation That Might Have Been

13.The Elephant in the Room

Appendix IElaboration on Applying the Elicitation Model in Business, in Law, and in Everyday Life: Chapter Commentary by Peter Romary

Appendix II It All Begins with Preparation by Peter Romary

Appendix III Transcript of the Actual Initial Interview of O. J. Simpson

Glossary

Acknowledgments

Index

PREFACE

It’s still dark out—the sun won’t rise for another couple of hours. You’re standing in front of a heavily secured door that opens to a small, musty, windowless room in a nondescript building at a secret location outside the United States. On the other side of the door is a man who had been brought to the room several hours earlier, after a clandestine operation executed by U.S. military forces and intelligence operatives led to his capture. This man may have been involved in orchestrating the September 11 attacks that had changed life as you and the rest of the Western world had known it.

The man, classified by the U.S. government as a “high value detainee,” won that distinction for a reason: The knowledge he possesses could be a treasure trove of information not only about the planning and execution of the September 11 attacks, but potentially about other attacks, possibly even more heinous, that are being plotted. At this moment, there is no higher priority in the War on Terror than extracting that information from this man. The lives of what could be thousands, or even tens of thousands, of innocent people—men, women, and children—could hang in the balance. Your job is to get the man to tell you everything he knows. It’s difficult to conceive of a more daunting task, with as much at stake. What approach, what techniques, give you the best possible chance of succeeding when you walk through that door?

This book will answer that question.

At its core, it’s a book about influence. It’s about the process of exerting influence to elicit truthful information from a person who has a reason—not uncommonly, a reason that involves life-altering consequences—to want to withhold that information. Some of the techniques that in recent years have been associated with this process have sparked an intense, emotional debate in the United States and around the world. It’s especially intense and emotional when the discussion focuses on the organization to which we have largely dedicated our careers, and indeed much of our lives: the Central Intelligence Agency.

In our world, the process is commonly referred to as interrogation. Of course, it’s difficult to mention interrogation and the CIA in the same sentence without readily conjuring up preconceived notions, and disturbing mental images, of what the process must entail in our high-stakes world of counter-espionage and counterterrorism. Such preconceptions can easily be forgiven, because there has been more than sufficient public disclosure of methods that have been employed since the War on Terror was declared on September 11, 2001, to substantiate the conclusions that many have legitimately drawn. “Enhanced interrogation techniques” is the euphemism of choice among its proponents. But it remains exactly that: a euphemism.

Sometimes, when the task at hand is to describe what something is, it’s helpful to describe what it isn’t. This book is not a position paper on interrogation techniques employed by the Central Intelligence Agency, or any other agency or institution. It is not a vehicle for the delivery of an argument, nor an apology for anything that anyone sees as warranting an apology, nor is it an attempt to stifle any debate. But to the extent that the debate will continue over the interrogation techniques that we as a nation should be prepared to employ in the interest of protecting our national security, it is a debate that will continue outside these pages. Simply put, that’s not our call.

All we can do is speak from our own experiences, drawn from careers that, in essence, were built around a single, quantifiable, yet extraordinarily challenging goal: getting people to tell the truth. We’ve pursued that goal for decades, along career paths that intersected in a way that has enabled us to learn from each other, and to meld our individual experiences into a comprehensive, cohesive body of work. It is upon that body of work that our activities as a team, and specifically our methodology for getting to the truth, have been established.

Perhaps the creation and sophistication of that methodology can best be described as a team sport, with Phil Houston acting as the player-coach. Phil, who served in senior positions within the Office of Security during the course of his twenty-five years at the Agency, is widely considered by his peers, and by some senior officials in the U.S. government, to be among the best interrogators the CIA has ever had. Indeed, his track record includes successes in some of the highest-profile cases in the Agency’s history. Michael Floyd, meanwhile, parlayed his experience and reputation as one of the nation’s foremost polygraph authorities to become a key resource in the fields of interviewing and interrogation not only in the CIA, but in the National Security Agency, as well. Susan Carnicero’s CIA career began as an operative under deep cover in the Agency’s Directorate of Operations, now known as the National Clandestine Service. Susan’s unique skill set, including her expertise in criminal psychology, would prove to be an invaluable asset in establishing her as one of the Agency’s most accomplished interrogators and screening specialists.

Our team was, to be sure, a formidable one. And smart enough to draft an ideal new player when the opportunity arose. That new player is Peter Romary, a seasoned trial attorney, educator, and internationally recognized expert in mediation and negotiation. Peter has devoted his career to service that is ultimately best encapsulated as pursuing the same goal as that of the rest of the team: getting people to tell the truth. With the team in place, then, the story of what we do and how we do it, and of how it can be practiced by anyone in any situation that involves eliciting truthful information from someone else, can be fully shared.

We took a similar tack in our previous book, Spy the Lie: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Detect Deception, authored by the original trio of Phil, Michael, and Susan. In that book, we shared our methodology for determining whether or not someone is lying, and showed how it can be applied in everyday life. Those skills, as immensely valuable as they are, constitute a separate set of tools that need not be acquired in order to understand and apply our methodology for getting someone to tell you the truth. In other words, while it would be helpful, reading Spy the Lie is not a prerequisite for reading Get the Truth. That said, readers of Spy the Lie will recognize several familiar characters when they read this book. In that book, we showed how we determined that those characters were lying. In this one, the stories will revolve around how we got them to tell us the truth.

There’s another connection that’s worth mentioning. In Spy the Lie, we dispelled quite a few myths, and challenged widespread presumptions, that have long been relied upon to spot deception. In short, we shared our own real-life experiences, which have shown that a lot of the techniques people rely upon to determine whether someone is lying simply aren’t as reliable as they would have us believe. The interrogation methodology we will share in this book may come as an even more surprising challenge to conventional wisdom. In the minds of many, interrogation, almost by definition, is a harsh, confrontational encounter. In truth, that’s more likely to define a failed interrogation. Perhaps an apt analogy is the difference between war and diplomacy: You can seek your objective by means of trampling the enemy, or you can opt instead for the art of negotiation and influence. We’ve found the latter option to be overwhelmingly more effective.

Over the years, we’ve had to defend that position under some pretty intense circumstances. But there’s one thing we’ve never had to do: We’ve never had to come up with a socially or politically palatable euphemism for what it is we’re engaged in. The following pages will explain why. More important, they will explain how what we do can be adapted, with remarkable effectiveness, by anyone, in any capacity, whose aim is to get the truth.

I do not like that man. I must get to know him better.

—ABRAHAM LINCOLN

1.

OF ESPIONAGE AND INFOMERCIALS: THE EXTRAORDINARY POWER OF SHORT-TERM THINKING

The headquarters of the Central Intelligence Agency in Langley, Virginia, has changed a lot over the years. But the original headquarters building, designed in the 1950s by the same New York architectural firm that designed the United Nations building in New York, is a massive concrete structure that hadn’t changed much at all by the early 1980s, when Phil Houston began his assignment as a polygraph examiner in the Office of Security’s Polygraph Division. The compartmented nature of the work of the CIA meant that few employees had routine access to any work area in the building beyond their own departments, so there was only one work area in which virtually all employees would have occasion to find themselves at one time or another. That area was the Polygraph Division.

The workload of the Agency’s polygraph examiners was, as a natural consequence, consistently heavy. Between the screening of job applicants, the routine reinvestigation of Agency employees, and the occasional investigation of alleged improper or criminal conduct, the days had precious little downtime.

For Phil, the pace was as exhilarating as the work itself. A relatively junior employee in those early years, he was finding that despite his lack of tenure he was getting good at this stuff, and he loved the opportunity that each encounter provided to hone his skills. He welcomed the assignment he received one morning to conduct a routine reinvestigation of a CIA employee we’ll call “Mary,” just as he did every other assignment that came his way. There appeared to be nothing out of the ordinary in this particular case, but that was okay. Phil recognized that handling the run-of-the-mill cases was part of the job.

Mary was a midlevel manager who had spent at least one tour overseas, a somewhat plain woman who had never been married, and who had likely turned few heads in her travels. She had been through the polygraph drill before, so she was familiar with the process, and seemed comfortable as Phil began running through the standard list of questions in the pretest. But any comfort she was feeling was short-lived. When Phil got to the requisite question about whether she had ever worked for a foreign intelligence service, Mary’s behavior indicated that the question troubled her for some reason. Sure enough, when Phil asked her the question during the polygraph examination, it was clear there was an issue.

It was equally clear that if there was one issue that required immediate resolution, it was a bad response to the “have you ever worked for the bad guys” question. As critical as the situation was, Phil’s sense was that whatever was causing Mary’s concern with the question was unlikely to be anything monumental. After all, Mary appeared to fit the mold of a reserved spinster much more readily than that of a cloak-and-dagger temptress. In his naturally low-key, easygoing, North Carolinian style, Phil began the process of getting to the root of the problem.

“Mary, this happens all the time with people we talk to, because they’ll have something in their mind that’s no big deal, but, for any number of reasons, the more they think about it, the more they’re bothered by it,” Phil assured her. “Sometimes it’s just a harmless oversight, sometimes it’s just a minor lapse in judgment that we blow out of proportion because we’re so concerned about doing the right thing.”

Mary nodded.

“I think that’s it. There was a security violation,” she said. Mary went on to explain that during her recent overseas tour, she had used government resources to do an unauthorized favor for one of the locals. After she recounted the details of the incident, Phil was relieved. No doubt, what Mary had done was a blatant violation of regulations. But Phil knew it happens far more frequently than U.S. government employees working overseas would care to admit. Still, the matter needed to be fully resolved.

“I understand,” Phil nodded consolingly. “You’re not the first one to do that.” He smiled. “Let’s talk about it so we can get it completely off your chest, okay? Was this local an acquaintance of yours?”

Yes, he was an acquaintance, Mary said. And there was more. Much more. The conversation led to a series of admissions that would leave Phil stunned. This acquaintance, whom we’ll call “Charmer,” happened to work for the local government. As the interview progressed, Mary confided to Phil that Charmer, in fact, worked for the local government as an intelligence officer. The revelations became steadily more serious as the hours passed. By the end of the second day, Mary had admitted that she and Charmer had become romantically involved.

Phil now recognized that he was sitting across from a midlevel CIA manager who had been in bed with a foreign intelligence officer. What might she have shared with Charmer during their intimate moments? Phil knew it was essential to get Mary to share anything that she might have divulged to Charmer. Mary’s embarrassment by that point was obvious, and she was crying. Phil did his best to make it as painless for her as he could.

“Mary,” Phil said gently, “let’s not lose sight of what we’re dealing with here. It’s not like you’re a spy. It’s not like you gave him everything. If there was some pillow talk, we just need to talk about it so we can clear this up.”

Suddenly, Mary stopped crying, and she looked up. “Phil, you don’t understand,” she whispered. “I did give him everything.”

Those words hit Phil squarely in the gut, instantly evoking a mix of emotions that must be close to what a first responder feels when he arrives at the scene of some tragic event. As the enormity of the task at hand presents itself, instinct takes over, emotions are pushed aside, and the safety and security of others becomes paramount. In Phil’s job, it was a matter of tapping what psychologists call ideational fluency—the ability to shift one’s thinking instantaneously as the situation warrants. Phil’s fluency seemed inborn.

“Okay, well, let’s talk about that,” Phil said. He began what would be several days of debriefing, and the admissions from Mary spilled unabated into the open. She had indeed given Charmer the whole works. She had identified every station officer. She had disclosed every operation. She had taken and handed over photos of the entire station complex. And she had passed along the identities and photos of every human asset she was aware of. There was only one word for the activity she had engaged in: espionage.

In all, Phil spent eight days working with Mary. One of those days was spent on the question of what Charmer had given her in return for the information. Mary admitted to receiving “a few pieces of jewelry” from him, but would go no further. She failed the polygraph on the question of additional compensation.

The Agency’s counterintelligence team was kept fully briefed throughout the process, as was the FBI. As Phil spoke with Mary, dots were being connected in the background. Although Mary never admitted it, Charmer, it turned out, wasn’t just working for the local intelligence operation. He was an agent for the hostile intelligence service of another foreign government. And it got worse. During Mary’s assignment at that overseas location, one of the Agency’s assets there had been killed. The Agency had no doubt that the killing was intelligence-related, but no one at the time could figure out how the operation had been compromised. Mary admitted to Phil that that was one of the operations she had disclosed to Charmer.

Phil hated Mary for that. Whether those feelings were right or wrong, when Phil learned of her betrayal—not just of the Agency, but of every man, woman, and child in the country—he absolutely despised Mary. Yet as the debriefing continued, Phil’s gentleness never faltered. At the end of the eighth day, when it was all over, Mary approached Phil, and hugged him.

“Thank you, Phil,” she said. “Thank you for understanding.”

The enormity of the case was lost on no one at the FBI, least of all the Bureau’s assistant director for intelligence. The day after Mary admitted that she had given “everything” to Charmer, the assistant director was in the office of William Kotapish, the CIA’s director of security, being briefed by Phil. When Phil recounted what Mary had admitted to having passed to Charmer, the FBI assistant director was ready to take over what he saw as a clear-cut espionage case. A senior Agency counterintelligence officer, who was also in the meeting, chimed in that Phil’s debriefing of Mary was ongoing.

“For whatever reason, she likes talking to him,” the counterintelligence officer said. Phil didn’t appreciate the slight, lowly employee or not. “Hey, I can hear you,” he muttered to himself. It was hardly a matter of Mary liking her conversations with Phil. It was that Phil had followed a meticulously choreographed process to get her to that point.

The counterintelligence officer proclaimed that another issue stood in the way of the Bureau taking over the case: The admissions that Phil had elicited from Mary were classified. And declassifying any of it was out of the question.

Kotapish suggested the Bureau conduct its own investigation, a suggestion the FBI assistant director readily embraced. He picked up the gray line—the secure telephone line linking government agencies—and called the Bureau’s Washington field office. He arranged for two FBI agents to interview Mary at her home that evening.

As it turned out, the FBI’s investigation was over almost before it began. The two agents who interviewed Mary got nowhere. It was probably the worst of all possible outcomes: Yes, she told the Agency all of those things, Mary said. But she had made it all up. None of it was true. She agreed to a polygraph examination by the Bureau, and, naturally, she failed it. But with no evidence against her, and with the Agency unable to declassify the information Phil had elicited from her, the Bureau had no choice but to cut Mary loose.

When Phil learned of that outcome, he was very much aware of what had gone wrong. He had worked tirelessly to keep Mary firmly in what we call “short-term thinking mode.” That is, he interacted with her in a way that kept her focused where he wanted her. He had kept the number of factors in her decision making as narrow, and as immediate, as he possibly could. When Mary spoke with the two FBI agents, those decision-making factors expanded dramatically, and were radically reprioritized. She had switched into long-term thinking mode. Now, other factors were influencing her—like the prospect of prison and the end of life as she knew it.

The way it all played out can’t be disclosed, but we can share one dimension of the outcome. One evening during that eight-day span, Phil was at home, and the phone rang. It was the Agency’s Security Duty Office.

“Phil, do you know a woman by the name of Mary Smith?” the officer asked. Phil said he did, and the officer continued.

“She called us a little while ago and claimed that she has been in a polygraph conversation with you, and that we should call you. She said she had left some valuables in the ladies’ restroom this afternoon before she left the building. She said to call you, and you would authorize us to release it to her.”

The officer went on to explain that he had gone up to retrieve the valuables, which turned out to be a large bag of jewelry. He said Mary told him that she had been keeping the bag in her safe at work because some of it was extremely valuable, and she felt it would be safer there. Phil got in touch with Bill Kotapish, the director of security, and filled him in. The two agreed that most, if not all, of the jewelry was likely the booty she had received from Charmer, and that now she wanted to hide it. In the end, there was no need. The CIA’s Office of the General Counsel determined that the Agency had no right to confiscate it. The jewelry was returned to Mary.

For Phil, Mary’s case was by no means the total debacle it might have been. Through it, he gained insights that would serve him and others in the Agency and beyond extremely well in the years that followed. Perhaps most significantly, it helped to crystallize a concept that would be a critical underpinning of our interrogation methodology: the psychology of short-term thinking.

To fully appreciate the power—and the ubiquity—of the concept, consider a contrivance that most of us probably see more frequently than we might acknowledge, or perhaps even realize: the infomercial.

Almost all of us have watched our fair share of them—earnest, often unapologetically kitschy productions, touting products we never knew we needed, from blankets with sleeves to weights you shake. Why do these pitches work? Why do so many people find themselves picking up the phone to buy a little putting green to use while sitting on the toilet? The reason is that these marketers take full advantage of the psychology of short-term thinking to influence our decision making in a way that compels us to do what they want us to do—buy a product that we wouldn’t necessarily be inclined to buy.

To accomplish that, the marketers capitalize on four factors that propel us into short-term thinking mode: our inherent vulnerability to influence; repetition; loss of independent thinking; and a lack of immediately identifiable consequences. Let’s take a look at how that works.

Inherent vulnerability to influence

When we’re watching an infomercial, we’re at a disadvantage in that there’s a one-way flow of information. We have no means of asking any questions or challenging any claims. Consequently, the marketer’s message is our sole source of data upon which to base our decision.

Repetition

It’s a psychological truism that the higher the number of instances we hear something, the greater the likelihood we’ll accept it, or at least open the door to the possibility of accepting it. A fundamental characteristic of infomercials is the repetition of visual imagery that illustrates application of the product under various circumstances, or by various individuals.

Loss of independent thinking

How frequently do you make the conscious decision to turn on the TV for the purpose of watching an infomercial so you can purchase a product you’ve never even heard of? Probably not all that frequently. The very act of viewing the infomercial is one that likely wasn’t actively chosen of your own accord.

Lack of immediately identifiable consequences

There’s a reason why these marketers don’t tell you to take out your checkbook, or to get your credit card number handy. All they ask you to do is make a telephone call. What harm is there in that? In fact, if you call in the next ten minutes, they’ll double the offer! Where’s the downside?

What’s happening here is that you have any number of reasons why you wouldn’t want to buy, say, a pair of plastic sandals with built-in exfoliating brushes. But you’re introduced to multiple reasons why you might be interested in buying them. The marketers are working to make the reasons you wouldn’t want to buy them go away, or to at least reprioritize them so that the reasons you might want to buy them go up on top. Before you know it, you have a snazzy new pair of plastic exfoliating sandals sitting in your closet.

Successfully bringing those four factors to bear compels people to do whatever it is we want them to do. It involves temporarily replacing the factors they’re inclined to focus on with those we want them to focus on, or to at least reprioritize them so the ones we want them to focus on are on top. That’s the concept of short-term thinking. We tap the very same principle in any interrogation scenario we encounter, whether the aim is to get a terrorist to disclose the details of a bomb plot, a serial killer to confess to a murder, a job applicant to share his drug-related indiscretions, or a child to admit she didn’t do her homework.

SHORT-TERM THINKING: FOUR FACTORS

Inherent vulnerability to influenceRepetitionLoss of independent thinkingLack of immediately identifiable consequences

2.

THE BEST-CASE/WORST-CASE CONTINUUM

They say sometimes it’s better to be lucky than good. They’re probably right.

The moment Mary dropped the bombshell in that interview with Phil that she had had a romantic relationship with a man who was working as a foreign intelligence officer, everything changed. With that admission, the situation Phil confronted became a matter of urgent concern. In the position she held at that overseas location, Mary had access to information that, if disclosed to a hostile intelligence service, would cause irreparable harm to the United States’ interests there, and would put the lives of individuals loyal to the United States in imminent danger. If Mary had shared any classified information at all with Charmer, it was absolutely essential that the Agency know, so it could determine what might have been compromised. Phil instantly set out on that quest.

Reacting to Mary’s startling revelation in a harsh or adversarial manner, Phil well knew, would thwart his chances of getting that information, since it would almost certainly cause Mary to throw up her defenses, or even to shut down. The stakes were too high. Mary could easily have said something she shouldn’t have said in an intimate moment, and Phil needed Mary to be willing to open up to him.

“Mary, let’s not lose sight of what we’re dealing with here,” Phil said, as you may recall. “It’s not like you’re a spy. It’s not like you gave him everything. If there was some pillow talk, we just need to talk about it so we can clear this up.”

You may also recall Mary’s response: “Phil, you don’t understand. I did give him everything.”

Call it providential. Call it sheer luck. Whatever it was, it was very, very fortunate. Because the route Phil was taking could easily have ended in a catastrophic derailment.

What if Mary had heard what Phil said, and had the presence of mind to capitalize on it? Suppose that instead of the way it actually went, it had gone something like this:

“When you said that, Phil, it made me think. Could I have said something at some point when we were lounging in bed with a bottle of wine? We did talk about our workdays in very general terms sometimes, just things like how crazy the day was, or that I had to work later than usual. I honestly don’t think I ever said anything to him that mattered, Phil. I hope to God I never said anything that mattered.”

No doubt, Phil could have worked with that response, and ultimately might well have gotten to the same place: an admission from Mary that she had given Charmer everything. But he might have been beaten. And if he had been, despite giving it his best shot, the reason would have been readily apparent: When it really counted, his aim was way too low.

To understand the target, think of a continuum that represents Mary’s actions. On one end of the continuum is the best-case scenario; on the other, the worst-case scenario. In Phil’s interview with Mary, the best-case scenario was probably that she was guilty of some serious indiscretions and that she had violated a trust by knowingly engaging in a relationship with a foreign intelligence officer, but no classified information had been compromised. The worst-case scenario was that she had been recruited by a foreign intelligence service, and that she had actively engaged in espionage against the United States.

When Mary admitted to Phil that she had been in a romantic relationship with Charmer, Phil’s assumption was that this lonely woman had simply allowed her heart to rule her head—that she had exercised exceedingly poor judgment, but with no real intent to cause any harm. Still, recognizing that people let their guard down and become more open in such circumstances, Phil was well aware of the urgency of the matter. He saw the immediate task at hand as determining what Mary might have said to Charmer in those unguarded moments.

Phil had pegged Mary’s activity very close to the “best-case” end of the continuum, without sufficient evidence to do so. That misreading led to the “pillow talk” question.

Mary’s confession would ultimately pinpoint where she really was on the continuum—as it turned out, she was squarely on the opposite end. Phil had missed it by a mile.

He vowed to never let that happen again.

At an overseas location about a year later, Phil was studiously reviewing a case file. He had been dispatched to the region to conduct security interviews with several foreign assets—individuals who had been recruited to serve as intelligence operatives. It was a routine procedure that these operatives were required to undergo on a fairly regular basis, just as Agency employees themselves underwent periodic security reinvestigations. The case Phil was reviewing was that of a foreign asset we’ll call “Omar,” a high-value, trusted local who had served the Agency well over the course of twenty years since he had been recruited. Omar’s record was impressive. Phil had reviewed the case files of dozens of assets all over the world, and it was easy to see why this guy stood out as an especially highly prized source. Beyond all that, no areas of concern had arisen in Omar’s previous security interviews. So when Phil closed the file and left his secure location for the meeting, he was confident this one would be a breeze. Two hours, tops, and then he’d be able to meet up with a co-worker to get some dinner.

The prearranged meeting place was a high-rise hotel in the center of the city. A suite on one of the higher floors had been secured for the interview, and when Omar showed up, Phil’s colleagues confirmed that the hookup had gone as planned—no signs of any surveillance. Phil greeted Omar with a friendly handshake, and the two exchanged a few pleasantries. Thankfully, Omar’s English was strong—there would be no need for an interpreter, which was always a welcome discovery. Interviewing an asset through a third party was certainly doable—we do it all the time—but it was suboptimal, at best. Too many times, we’ll ask a question during an interview of a non-English speaker, he’ll respond with what sounds like a lengthy diatribe, and the interpreter will turn to us and say something like, “Not really.” Determining what was lost in translation is always an adventure.

Phil and Omar made themselves comfortable in the sitting area of the suite. Phil got straight to work, methodically covering the prepared list of standard questions. It was all going as painlessly as Phil expected it would. And then he got to the question about whether Omar had ever worked for a foreign intelligence service.

“Omar, you’ve worked with us for years,” Phil said. “Have you ever worked with anybody else?”

There was a pause. Omar seemed to be gathering his thoughts as he shifted in his seat. He finally voiced his response.

“Can I pray?”

Another pause. Can you pray? What on earth do you mean, can you pray? Phil was scrambling to figure out what to make of the request. He was determined not to let his bewilderment show.

“Sure, no problem,” Phil said matter-of-factly, as if a prayer break was a typical element of his interviews. With instinctive reverence, given his Catholic upbringing, Phil found himself lowering his head slightly, but with his eyes squarely on Omar. He expected to see Omar bowing his head in prayer. Instead, he saw Omar rise from his chair and walk into the bathroom.

A moment later, Omar emerged with a towel, and walked toward the window in the sitting area. If he didn’t know better, Phil would have thought his colleagues from the local operation were pranking him. He was struggling to make some sense of Omar’s actions, but to no avail.

What is this guy doing? Phil’s mind was racing. Is he going to try to signal somebody with the towel? How bad is this going to get?

As Omar unfolded the towel and gazed out the window, Phil suddenly remembered. Omar, a Muslim, was getting his bearings so he could face Mecca as he prayed. He spread the towel on the floor and prostrated himself on it. After about ten minutes of silent prayer, Omar arose, returned to his seat, and thanked Phil for accommodating his request.

“Of course,” Phil said. He asked Omar if he was ready to resume. Omar nodded.

“Okay,” Phil said. “Omar, have you ever worked for any other intelligence service?” Phil’s voice was just as relaxed as it had been earlier, perhaps just a bit quieter.

Omar looked at Phil. Again, he appeared to be conducting a mental search. Shifting his feet uneasily and dabbing the perspiration from his brow, he responded.

“Sir, why are you asking me this? Is there a concern?”

If ever there was a loaded word in the English language, it’s interrogation. It’s a word that stirs emotions and creates uneasiness. And for good reason. In the contexts that we most commonly hear and read it, the word evokes images of intense verbal abuse, even physical violence. It’s understood as being harsh, intimidating, often threatening. Consequently, we’ve found that in our discussion of the topic, we need to precede the word with a modifier to identify the form of interrogation to which we subscribe, the one that is most likely to result in a successful outcome: noncoercive. We should point out, moreover, that we use the word elicitation interchangeably with interrogation. All of this begs an obvious question: Regardless of what you call it, what is it?

The idea is pretty simple: Think of it as a process that’s designed to influence or persuade an individual to reveal information that he has reason to want to conceal. So what’s the difference between that and interviewing? Interviewing is a means of collecting from a person information that he has no reason to want to withhold. There’s another distinction that may not be as readily comprehensible: An interview is a dialogue. An interrogation, counterintuitive as it may seem, is a monologue.

As distinct as the two processes are, shifting from interview mode to interrogation mode needs to be accomplished seamlessly, imperceptibly. No doubt, Omar never recognized the switch.

Up until the point just after Omar paused to pray, when Phil repeated the question about whether Omar had ever worked for another intelligence service, Phil was squarely in interview mode. He had no reason up to that point to believe there was anything Omar felt compelled to conceal. That changed the moment Phil heard Omar’s response:

“Sir, why are you asking me this? Is there a concern?”

That behavior told Phil that Omar had a problem with the question—that there was something on his mind that he didn’t want to disclose. Phil’s task was to find out what that something was. Time to retrieve the best-case/worst-case continuum.

The best-case scenario, as Phil saw it, was that the question caused something relatively innocuous to pop into Omar’s mind. Perhaps he had been approached by someone he suspected of working for a foreign intelligence service, but failed to report it. Perhaps he had a friend or a relative with connections to a foreign intelligence service, and he never disclosed it. The worst-case scenario was chilling, given the ramifications: Omar was a double agent, and was actively engaged in espionage against the United States.

So where on the continuum did Omar’s problematic information likely lie? What facts did Phil have at his disposal upon which to base a decision? He knew that Omar had been a highly regarded asset for two decades, one upon whom Phil’s in-country colleagues had relied heavily in developing and executing key intelligence operations. He knew that Omar had undergone security reviews just like this one at regular intervals over the years, and that he had passed every one with flying colors. Phil had every reason to peg Omar on the best-case end of the continuum, did he not?

Perhaps he did. But as Phil sat in that hotel suite looking at Omar and assimilating his response, the memory of how he had been burned in Mary’s case flashed before him.

Never again.

“Omar, there’s clearly something here that you’re not telling me, that we need to talk about,” Phil said, his voice unrushed, his tone unruffled. Omar said nothing. Phil continued.

“Listen, I know how loyal you’ve been to us. We all know that, Omar. Our guys here talk about you with genuine admiration because of the help you’ve provided all these years. One guy told me he trusts you like he trusts his own family. Like his own family. I don’t think I’ve ever heard anyone I’ve worked with say that about anybody else. It’s a remarkable thing. So please don’t think I’m not fully aware of what you mean to this operation. I am. But I also know that sometimes things just happen, Omar. They just happen. Everybody’s in that boat. It’s just the way life is. And everybody knows that, Omar. You’re one of the good guys, but stuff happens to good guys, too. So whatever it is you’re worried about, we just need to talk about it so we can fix it and move on. There’s too much important work to do to get bogged down in something that’s not necessarily anybody’s fault. Whatever it is that you’re concerned about telling me is fixable. What is it, Omar?”

By that point, the interview was entering its third hour. Phil remained patient. Omar stared distantly, as if trying to recall something. He shook his head, not in denial, but as if he was unable to remember. He looked at Phil.

“I don’t know,” Omar said, still appearing to be deep in thought. “I don’t know anyone who works for another intelligence service.”

It was an interesting response—interesting for its specificity. Phil hadn’t asked Omar whether he knew anyone who worked for another intelligence service. He simply asked what it was that Omar was concerned about telling him. It got more interesting. Much more interesting.

“Okay,” Phil said. Omar continued to shake his head, his expression pensive.

Then, it happened. Omar made a mistake. Without realizing it, he betrayed himself.

“No,” Omar said, sounding more decisive. “No, I don’t know any Menacians.” (Authors’ note: Due to the sensitivity of the matter, the foreign country involved can’t be disclosed. We’ll refer to it here by the fictitious name, Menacia, and to its citizens as Menacians.)

Bingo. The statement created an odd mix of exhilaration and apprehension within Phil. On the one hand, in hearing those words, he knew he had made a quantum leap in getting to the truth. On the other, the truth was looking manifestly ominous. Omar had just conveyed a quintessential example of what we call an “unintended message,” or what we sometimes refer to as “truth in the lie.” We’ve seen it time and time again: Without realizing it, deceptive people often convey a revealing message in the words they choose to articulate the lie. And the message in this case was sobering: This longtime, trusted asset at minimum had a Menacian connection.

Phil didn’t miss a beat. He resumed his monologue, but with a subtle shift. His general, “there’s something we need to talk about” approach needed to be narrowed.

“I understand, Omar. In this job, we meet so many people from so many different backgrounds, under so many different kinds of circumstances, that sometimes it’s really difficult to keep track of who’s who. My wife will tell you, I’ll meet one of her friends one week, and the next week she’ll mention the friend, and I’ll have no idea who she’s talking about. Okay, shame on me, but my wife doesn’t realize how many people we meet in this line of work.”

Omar was nodding appreciatively, as if thinking about his own wife. Phil continued.

“Hey, I’ve met Menacians, I’ve met Chinese, I’ve met people from all over—that’s the nature of the work we do. I can’t imagine that it wouldn’t be the same way with you. So just because you might have met a Menacian at some point doesn’t mean there’s a problem, Omar. It just means we need to disclose that so that everything’s done by the book and there are no misunderstandings.”

You get the drift. After a few more minutes, Phil paused to determine where Omar’s head was by that point. It was in a different place. Omar was starting to remember. Yes, he had met a Menacian. But it was a long time ago—more than twenty years ago. Yes, Omar acknowledged, the Menacian worked for his country’s intelligence service. And yes, the Menacian had tried to recruit him. Before long, Omar delivered the coup de grâce: Yes, the Menacian had been successful.

Phil reacted as if Omar had just told him that although he had sworn himself to vegetarianism twenty years ago, he had been eating cheeseburgers all along. As Omar’s stream of admissions continued to flow, he soon fell off the worst-case end of the continuum. Omar had been recruited by the Menacian Intelligence Service (MIS) all those years ago for a very specific mission: to operate as a double agent against the CIA.

Now the scope of Phil’s monologue had narrowed again. He had to find out as much as he could about Omar’s mission, and what he had passed to the Menacians.

“Omar, listen,” Phil said, as composed as he had been from the outset. “We can’t change history. But that’s what it is, Omar—it’s history. Whatever the Menacians have asked you to do, we can’t undo that. You can’t change it, and I can’t change it. All we can do to salvage this situation is to figure out what we’re going to do from here—what’s our best course of action.”

Omar bit on it. As if seizing an opportunity that would blossom by unburdening himself, he began to methodically disclose the details of the operations he had carried out at the behest of his MIS handler. One in particular was especially unsettling.

Omar confided that he had managed to get perilously close to the local CIA operation’s two communications, or “commo,” officers. To appreciate the magnitude of that, think of these commo officers as the predecessors of present-day systems administrators. Systems administrator is the position that was held by Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who publicly disclosed details of the NSA’s highly classified counterterrorism operations, beginning in the spring of 2013. Just as in the case of systems administrators, the nature of the commo officers’ job gives them full access to all of the information stored at, and transmitted to and from, their location.

The two commo officers shared a house in the city, and Omar had scored a huge win: He had recruited the servant who worked in the house. Having eyes and ears embedded in the home of the commo officers had Omar’s MIS handler salivating at the prospects. Fortunately for U.S. interests, the threat disappeared within a month. Omar said the servant got a better offer to work at the home of an employee with one of the other foreign missions in the city—one in which the MIS had absolutely no interest. When Omar gave the news to his handler, a hulking man who had been a competitive weightlifter, the Menacian was livid. He lashed out at Omar, who didn’t grasp the enormity of the situation.

“You fool!” the Menacian seethed, shaking with rage. “Those two had gold in their heads!”