English

DTIC ADA484038: Communist Attempts to Elicit False Confessions from Air Force Prisoners of War

This journal article discusses the coercive methods used by Chinese Communists to extract false confessions from U.S. Air Force men who were captured during the Korean War. Specifically, the methods were meant to induce compliance -- to undermine the resistance of the prisoner. The article includes a chart showing an outline of these methods, classified into eight general types, some illustrations of the specific forms these methods take, and the author's judgment of the effect of each. The methods are as follows: isolation, monopolization of perception, induced debilitation or exhaustion, threats, occasional indulgences, demonstrating omnipotence and omniscience, degradation, and enforcing trivial demands. The kind of confession discussed consists of considerably more than the signing of a piece of paper which says On such and such a date I committed such and such a crime-signed John Jones. It consists of considerably more than making an equivalent oral statement in a court. These confession-extortion efforts involve the attempt to manipulate the individual so that he behaves over an extended period as if: (1) he actually committed certain concrete acts which he can describe with

Sign in with your free account to read, download EPUBs or listen.