I for the life of me cannot see what you found offensive about the letter in response to a letter by you and your colleagues to myself. The latter originated in a query I directed toward you and your co-authors because you had done research on the effects of SERE training. I wondered whether this training could have been used to somehow train others in abusive techniques. You and your colleagues replied in the negative. But later documentation in the form of a report by the Inspector General of the Department of Defense verified my worst fears.

At the time, I suggested that given the circumstances you may wish to consult your university department about any ethical concerns that therefore could arise in your work with SERE. It seems you took offense at this. I am thinking of publicizing the letters now, as it may be the only way I can counter the charges you have made publicly about me.

Perhaps you are upset because I also have a blog and write about the politics in APA around torture. While doing so, I have never broken a confidentiality, or made a false charge. I have never mentioned any correpsondence between us. I was honest with you and your colleagues. I am writing a scholarly article, now near completion, on the history of psychological research and abusive interrogations. I gave an abstract of this at the same “mini-convention” where you spoke, but I don’t remember seeing you in the audience. You can read my presentation online at the Invictus blog.

I am also perturbed that you would say you couldn’t “trust” me (as you told me and a huge audience at the APA convention). I find that you have not always been straightforward yourself. I challenged you on your credentials at the APA convention, because I thought you were hiding associations that were very relevant to the occasion. I did not make anything up. I suggest that you go to the webpage http://www.apa.org/ppo/issues/lawenforcementintuition.pdf. When it comes up, do a search on “Charles A. Morgan”. (Remember the conference on the “Nature and Influence of Intuition in Law Enforcement, June 2004 at Marymount University?) I think you’ll see that it was yourself or APA that outed you, not me.

While both involved in the area of behavioral science (although I am much more involved from a clinical aspect), we are on oppositie sides ideologically, as well as on the specific issue of interrogations. As such, you are correct, we don’t have much basis for a “conversation”.

You were right about one other matter as well, and I’d like to correct myself. In my letter that you found so infamous I suggested that you did not have much experience in psychological research around deception. I couldn’t have been more wrong, and hereby take back that characterization. I am sure you are an expert on the subject.

Oh, and by the way, under whatever credentials, you were at that APA/CIA/Rand workshop on deception that looked at how to use sensory overload to overwhelm someone’s system, weren’t you? Now that is one subject I would have a conversation about, if you were ever up to it.

After seeing your response to our letter from the National Center for PTSD regarding our work, and after seeing your display of behavior at the APA, I am convinced that you are not interested in a curteous or reasonable dialogue. I cannot see any point in continuing a conversation with you. If at some point you are more interested in conversing as a colleague and less as an activist or grand inquisitor, I’d be happy to resume a dialogue.

My education, too, is in the history of science and psychology, although I am now mainly a clinician by training and predilction. By worshipping at “the altar of empiricism”, I did not mean to derogate empiricism, per se. I meant a narrow empiricism that is, ironically enough, given your statement, ahistorical and unattached to real-world concerns and research contexts. I think this is what Dr. Soldz was also getting at.

My quip about “Eliciting Control” gets to the heart of my critique. It was Watson who said psychology was about prediction and control, so I am not so very far off, am I? The new version of “educing information” is precisely about controlling those from whom one wishes to obtain information. Otherwise you could call it, “Asking Politely for Information.”

Your version of empiricism touts an objectivism that lies above the question of research programs and the construction of scientific projects.

For instance, why should, say, studying the stress of capitivity and capture, or of neurophysiological correlates of battlefield stress be questions of empirical concern? Such a question is relevant to how this research is done, what paradigms are used, what assumptions are made, etc. This was true in the 19th century as well, when medical researchers studied tendencies of slaves to run away (“drapetomania”), or measured empirically the head circumferences of different races to look at questions of so-called racial differences.

Also, I think that much of your indignation stems from the fact that your job and research might be at stake if psychologists were to leave the field of national security interrogations. I could be wrong, but if so, it would be honest to say it. As for myself, I profit neither way, from the existence of coercive interrogations, or their banning, from the participation of psychologists in BSCT teams, or from their absence from same, from government funding, or a paucity of the latter.

Frankly I look forward to hearing more substantive remarks about the issue of educing information as it is larger than the circumscribed issue of interrogation.

I also look forward to you correcting the errors in your blog. You imply that the report has been made available through being leaked; Although some information about the report was available prior to final edits, the report was, as originally intended, published.

Finally, you imply that Volume II of the report should be titled, “Eliciting Control”; This misrepresents both the purpose and content of the report. It is unworthy of you (and reveals a non-scholar approach) to misrepresent the careful work performed by the authors who contributed to the EI report.

Stephen, you have hit the nail on the head in your conclusion, but it should have been highlighted at the beginning:

The lack of scientific knowledge on how to “educe information” will, no doubt be trotted out by the APA leadership as yet another reason why psychologists must “engage” with the intelligence community by participating in interrogations.

Touting the “lack” of knowledge means tons of big bucks for psychologists, and organizations like Mitre Corporation, as government contracts are made to explore evidence that is already more than sufficient.

The least read portion of the report will likely be its Bibliography. I suggest all read it. It lists over 50 years of such evidence, going back to our studies on POWs returning from North Korea, where, through the Chinese, we discovered a kind of torture (consisting of sleep deprivation, sensory deprivation/isolation, and inducement of fear) that was extremely effective in breaking down individuals. There has been a tremendous amount of research done over the years, much of it still classified. The proposition that there has not been enough research on interrogation methods is a bald lie.

The search of information through torture is a misunderstanding. Torture is almost never about educting information. The unreliability of the technique has been demonstrated over and over. It is about evincing total control and rule by fear.

Volume II of the report should be titled, “Eliciting Control”, a worthy follow-up to the Orwellian-named first volumen, “Educing Information”.

Those behind Educing Information are NOT “pure” scientists. They are advocates for aiding the “national security” efforts of one country, the US. They play major policy-making roles in the administration and are actively involved in the interrogation process. this is not science.

We can debate the role of science in regards to our “national security,” and, indeed, what “national security” means. But meaningful debate can only occur in the full light of public discourse, not in secret, classified venues. given the sorry record of our government and of its intelligence establishment in terms of human rights (and in terms of protecting the countries citizens instead of magnifying the number of enemies exponentially), there is no reason to believe these people will do a reasonable job here.

I am not “mindlessly adopting” anything, but, rather, being quite mindful of decades of history and experience.