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Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001300020001-6 CONFIDENTIAL ST-CS-01~-169-72 July 1972 Psychological Association — were being used to undermine the dignity and destroy the effectiveness of the Catholic minority of Northern Ireland. The case of one 40-year old released prisoner has been reported. Upon release, the man's mental and physical condition suggested senility - a condition inconsistent with his health at the time of his internment. The man walks like he is 65, whimpers in the dark and has an attention span so short he cannot carry on a conversation. 6. (U) The Northem Ireland procedure can be expected to greatly increase the pliability of detainees under interrogation since sensory deprivation increases suggestability and lowers intellectual competence. Stress-isolation techniques can reach the extent of eliciting false confessions where both prisoner and interrogator are convinced the statements rendered are true. It is hoped that the above examples impart to the reader a feeling for the type of mind manipulating procedures that will be discussed later in this report. ; 7. (U) Since it appears that the research behind sensory deprivation has been put to current use on humans, the interested reader might peruse Biderman and Zimmer's 1961 publication entitled "The Manipulation of Human Behavior" (4). The book represents a critical examination of some of the conjectures about the application of scientific knowledge to manipulation of human behavior. The problem is explored within a particular frame of reference: the interrogation of an unwilling subject. Attention has been focused on interrogation because of the central position this topic has had in public discussions of prisoner of war (PW) behavior. PART B - Events in the Soviet Union 1. (C) The use of psychiatric detention to silence political dissenters appears to be a method being utilized by the Soviet Union. There is extensive documention from "samizdat" (self- published) sources in the Soviet Union, notably "A Question of Madness" by Soviet geneticist Zhores Medvedev, excerpts from which were published in the Sunday New York Times Magazine of November 7, 1971 (5). British Sovietologist Peter Reddaway asserts that the number of such political detainees in the USSR has grown sharply in the last two years, perhaps to several humdred (6). Peter Reddaway has published several articles that give brief accounts of several political detainees as well as publishing letters received from the Soviet underground (7,8,9). 3 NO FOREIGN DISSEMINATION CONFIDENTIAL Approved For Release 2003/09/10 : CIA-RDP96-00788R001300020001-6