Get the Truth: Former CIA Officers Teach You How to Persuade Anyone to Tell All (13 page)

What Michael didn’t know at the time was that five years later he would be one of the savvy instructors in the gauntlet that critiqued students the morning after their interviews. One of those students was Phil Houston, a young CIA security officer whom the Agency sent to Chicago for training. To this day, Phil is fond of reminding Michael of the supposed mistreatment he suffered under the “arrogant and condescending” tutelage of Michael and his fellow instructors.

10.

DO NO HARM

A couple of years ago, Phil and Michael were on the premises of a client, a boutique construction company that builds customized homes and offices. They had been called in by the company’s director of security, whom we’ll call “Sandy,” to question an employee who was suspected of stealing high-value stone and other materials from several of the company’s construction sites. It wasn’t just a case of random pilfering—the losses were substantial, and there appeared to be a coordinated effort behind the thievery.

The suspect employee, whom we’ll call “Jake,” had adamantly denied any involvement in the theft of the materials. Phil and Michael met with him, and within about six hours he had not only admitted to stealing thousands of dollars worth of materials in the two years since he’d been hired, but he identified nearly a dozen other employees he had worked with to pull off the thefts. When Phil and Michael reported all of this to Sandy, she was torn between being glad to have the information, and being bummed that almost all of the company’s workers would have to be let go. Her immediate concern was Jake. It was late in the day on Friday, and she knew she wouldn’t be able to complete all the documentation to have Jake fired until Monday. But under the circumstances, she had to get Jake’s keys, badge, and company-owned devices, and escort him off the premises, immediately.

“Would you guys mind handling that?” Sandy asked.

Now, Jake was a formidable presence. He was about six-four, weighed about two-fifty, and had the build of a linebacker. Phil and Michael could picture him sticking a two-hundred-pound marble slab under his arm and walking out with it. They turned and looked at each other.

“I’m not telling him,” Phil said. “You tell him.”

“Yeah, right,” Michael scoffed. “There’s no way.
You
tell him.”

“Great,” Sandy said with a sigh.

Phil smiled. “We’re just messing with you,” he said. “We’ll take care of it.”

They went back to the room where they had questioned Jake, and joined him at the small conference table. Phil took the lead.

“Jake, look, first, and most importantly, we appreciate the way you’ve handled this situation. You’ve done the right thing. It’s not the easy thing, by any stretch of the imagination, but it’s the right thing.”

Time to plant the mind virus. Jake needed to have some notion that he might survive this because he’s done the right thing.

“We have no idea what the outcome of all this will be, because it’s not our job to make a decision about what happens here. Our job is just to figure out what the facts are, and to convey your level of cooperation—you’ve been extraordinarily cooperative with us, and we appreciate that. Unfortunately, as you might expect, this is going to take some time to sort out. As a result, what we’ve been asked to do is just to convey to you that you should go home and take it easy. Unfortunately, apparently the rules are that we need to hold on to your keys and badge, and anything else that belongs to the company. I know it’s been a really tough day, so just take it easy over the weekend. The company will be in touch with you on Monday to sort all of this out. I’m really sorry to have to hold on to your stuff in the meantime.”

“No, I understand,” Jake said. “Here you go.” He wasn’t happy, but he did it.

Phil and Michael walked Jake out to the employee parking lot, which was gated. As Jake got in his car, Phil and Michael went over to the gate—since Jake no longer had his badge, they had to key in the code to open it. The gate started to swing open, and as Jake approached it, he slowed and his window started to come down. That wasn’t good. The same thought overtook Phil and Michael simultaneously:
He’s got a gun
.

The car stopped, and Jake looked up at them. No gun.

“I just wanted to say it was really a pleasure meeting you guys,” he said. “I really wish I’d met you under different circumstances, but it was a real pleasure, and I appreciate it.” He stuck his hand out of the window and shook hands with both of them, and drove off. Jake was fired on Monday, and the company hasn’t heard from him since.

The takeaway here has to do with a precept that we’ve borrowed from the medical profession: Do no harm. The employee was fired, but it was done in a way that preserved some equity in his relationship with the employer. You don’t have to hear too many stories of a bitter ex-employee returning the next day with an assault weapon and a few hundred rounds of ammunition to appreciate how essential that equity is. In this case, Phil and Michael not only had to get Jake to tell them something he desperately wanted to withhold, but they had to get him to hand over items he certainly didn’t want to lose. They used precisely the same methodology to influence Jake in both instances.

It worked because of the way Jake was treated. There was no admonishment, no beating him down to create an adversarial environment. Having to tell somebody else what you’ve done wrong is a lousy situation to be in, and it makes you feel pretty low. But Jake likely felt that he had been treated fairly, and that under the circumstances he couldn’t have been treated any better. He might even have felt that he was treated better than he probably deserved.

* * *

One of the most essential elements of the mantra to do no harm is the avoidance of sitting in judgment of anyone. The simple fact is that no good can come from being judgmental of a person in an interrogation situation—in fact, it can severely harm the process. When you’re judging someone, you’re necessarily displaying a bias, and bias can only have a negative impact on your ability to get the truth. Of course, we’re all human, and sometimes we have a natural inclination to judge people who mess up. One of the best ways we’ve found to fight that inclination is to remember a fundamental verity in life: Sometimes good people do stupid things.

Remembering that verity has helped us on countless occasions over the years, as it did one day when Phil was serving as chief of security at the CIA’s primary training facility, known as The Farm. That particular assignment was one of the most critical of Phil’s career—the day-to-day activity at The Farm included training for some of the Agency’s most sensitive operations, so security was always an especially serious concern. Individuals entrusted with access to The Farm had to be absolutely beyond reproach.

One afternoon, Phil was approached by a female employee who reported a disturbing incident. She told Phil that she had left her purse in a secure area when she went to lunch, and when she returned she found that $40 had been taken from it. The only other person who had access to that particular area at the time was an employee we’ll call “Ronald,” so it appeared that Ronald had some explaining to do. It would have been a bad situation in any working environment, but in this one, where practically all of the information retained on site was highly classified, it was dire. If Ronald was capable of stealing money from a colleague’s purse, what else might he be capable of stealing?

Phil called Ronald to his office, and conveyed to him what the woman had reported. Ronald’s response was somewhat peculiar. Rather than address the topic that Phil had raised, he asked Phil to come with him to the parking lot so he could show him something. Phil had no intention of walking out to the parking lot with Ronald, and when Ronald recognized that, he told Phil what he had wanted him to see: The trunk of his car was filled with Bibles, which he distributed to people on behalf of his church. It was Ronald’s way of telling Phil that he was not the type of person who would steal money from a colleague’s purse.

What Ronald didn’t take into account was that Phil would never allow this good-hearted community service to sway him. Any bias he might have in favor of someone who would perform such an admirable service had to be managed as part of the process of ascertaining the truth of the matter. But what was equally true was that Phil had to manage any bias he might have
against
a trusted employee who would steal his colleague’s money. Such a bias could easily cause him to be judgmental of Ronald’s actions, and that could cause the encounter to deteriorate into an adversarial confrontation that would make it far more difficult to get Ronald to confess to the theft.

Rather than sit in judgment, Phil launched into his monologue:

“Ronald, first of all, let’s get some things straight here—let’s make sure we’re on the same sheet of music. What we’re talking about here is forty dollars. We’re not talking about someone meticulously planning a bank robbery. This is a situation where, I promise you, there are a couple of things going on with the person who did this. This person did this on the spur of the moment. And that begs the question of why he felt he had to do it. It’s probably because he’s under some kind of pressure that most other people don’t know about.”

No resistance. “What do you mean?” Ronald asked. His calm voice evincing compassion, Phil pressed on:

“Ronald, look. Money is one of those things in life that we panic over. We need to look at this from that perspective. Think of your kids: If the phone rang and the person on the other end told you that one of your kids was in a car accident, there’s an element of panic—you’re not really thinking clearly. All you know is that you have to drop whatever you’re doing, no matter how important it is, and get to your kid. At that moment, that’s all you care about. It’s the same thing with money. There are some times when people do something they wish they hadn’t done—they just do it on the spur of the moment, because they’re not thinking clearly. What’s really important here, Ronald, are two things: Whether you’re sorry, and whether you’re willing to give it back. If we can cover those two bases, we can go a long way toward resolving this issue. As I’m sitting here, Ronald, you look like you’re feeling pretty bad.”

Ronald took a deep breath, and exhaled. “Yeah,” he said.

“Are you sorry?” Phil asked gently.

“Yeah, I am,” Ronald said. He pulled out his wallet, took out the two twenty-dollar bills, and handed them to Phil. The entire process had taken less than ten minutes. Yet if Phil had allowed the seriousness of the situation to stir his emotions, he might never have gotten to that point. Ronald likely would have become equally emotional, and the engagement might have degenerated into an acrimonious standoff.

Ronald, a good guy who did a stupid thing, ultimately kept his job. He received a reprimand and a memorandum for the record in his security file, but his career wasn’t ruined. Phil’s unemotional, nonjudgmental approach helped Ronald to man up—to admit his mistake, and to demonstrate remorse. Because of that, Ronald got a second chance.

* * *

In order to avoid doing harm, it’s helpful to understand the psychological dynamics at play in the interrogator’s quest to get the truth. Think of the interrogation as a stage with two actors whose roles have opposing agendas. The first actor did the bad thing, and his role in the production is to convince the second actor, the interrogator, that he didn’t do the bad thing. To accomplish his goal, the first actor must lie and deny, because he fears the consequences that could ensue from his bad behavior. He perceives the interrogator as the enemy—someone who is out to get him, someone who could cost him his job or his family, someone who could cause him embarrassment and shame, or even send him to jail. In essence, the interrogator is someone who could ruin his life.

This scenario describes the traditional view of an interrogation. It is, by its very nature, confrontational and adversarial. But this “me against you” approach is clearly counterproductive, and a nonstarter for a successful interrogation.

The far better approach is for the interrogator to distance himself from the decision makers who will determine the consequences of the confession. For that to happen, it’s essential for the interrogator to be perceived as a mediator or a negotiator—a middleman between the subject and a higher authority, whether that authority is the criminal justice system, the board of directors, the administration, upper management, the union, the teacher, or even a parent. On the interrogation stage, in other words, the actor playing the interrogator projects the image that his purpose is to accompany the actor playing the bad guy to help him navigate his way to a solution of his problem. The interrogator will begin to be seen as a confidant—someone who can be relied upon to help achieve an equitable outcome. Consequently, any hostile feelings that initially may have been projected onto the interrogator will likely subside.

Michael was once called in to help a small police department resolve a heinous felony child abuse case that provided an enlightening example of the power and effectiveness of this mediator approach. A young man we’ll call “Tommy” reported that he had discovered his live-in girlfriend’s eight-month-old daughter, whom we’ll call “Belinda,” had obvious head trauma, including bruising and extensive swelling. When the paramedics arrived, they found Belinda pale and unresponsive, with labored breathing and a faint pulse.

Michael interviewed Belinda’s mother, who said she had been at the welfare office when the baby suffered the injuries, and concluded that she had been truthful. The investigation therefore turned to Tommy, who claimed he had no idea how the child’s injuries had been sustained. Michael interviewed Tommy, and observed a large number of deceptive behaviors, so he switched into interrogation mode. Michael was proceeding with the interrogation when, to his surprise, the detective with whom he had been working on the case suddenly came into the interrogation room. He had decided that Michael wasn’t making any headway, and came in to release Tommy to give him a chance to “think it over.”