The Roots and Rationalizations of U.S. Torture in Vietnam

Abstract

This chapter traces the twin tales of the CIA’s and the U.S. military’s use of torture during the Vietnam War. The CIA’s interrogation program was rooted in the early days of the Cold War, when the agency was founded. U.S. foreign policy elites like Dwight Eisenhower and Allen Dulles were convinced that the Soviet Union’s freedom from norms and laws gave it an edge. As a result, the CIA began researching and practicing behavioral control techniques, using drugs and sensory deprivation to compete with Soviet programs. The agency’s KUBARK interrogation manual (1963) considered physical torture off-limits and ineffective, but recommended “maxim[izing] mental discomfort.” Likewise, CIA interrogators in Vietnam such as Frank Snepp believed isolation and sensory deprivation were both ethically and efficaciously superior to harsher alternatives. While racism and exasperation explain much of the U.S. military’s use of torture, soldiers also used water and electricity because the techniques were “unpleasant” but not “injurious.”