{"id":48674,"date":"2014-10-20T12:00:49","date_gmt":"2014-10-20T11:00:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/?p=48674"},"modified":"2015-05-05T21:29:37","modified_gmt":"2015-05-05T20:29:37","slug":"new-evidence-links-cia-to-the-american-psychological-associations-war-on-terror-ethics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/2014\/10\/new-evidence-links-cia-to-the-american-psychological-associations-war-on-terror-ethics\/","title":{"rendered":"New Evidence Links CIA to the American Psychological Association\u2019s \u201cWar on Terror\u201d Ethics"},"content":{"rendered":"

Psychologists and Torture<\/em><\/p>\n

\"Botero<\/a>

Botero \u2013 Guantanamo, exhibition in Santiago.<\/p><\/div>\n

\u201cThe position of the American Psychological Association is clear and unequivocal: For more than 25 years, the association has absolutely condemned any psychologist participation in torture.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2013 Statement<\/a> by the APA, November 2013<\/p>\n

\u201cThe American Psychological Association, the largest professional organization for psychologists, worked assiduously to protect the psychologists who did get involved in the torture program.\u201d<\/em>
\n\u2013James Risen, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War<\/em>, October 2014<\/p>\n

14 Oct 2014 – <\/em>New information may soon be revealed by the Senate Intelligence Committee\u2019s yet-to-be-released report<\/a> on the CIA\u2019s post-9\/11 abusive and torturous detention and interrogation operations. But what already has been clear for a long time \u2013 through reports from journalists<\/a>, independent task forces<\/a>, congressional investigations<\/a>, and other documents<\/a> \u2013 is that psychologists and other health professionals were directly involved in brutalizing \u201cwar on terror\u201d prisoners in U.S. custody. Of particular note, contract psychologists James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen have been identified<\/a> as the architects of the CIA\u2019s \u201cenhanced interrogation techniques,\u201d which included<\/a> waterboarding, stress positions, exposure to extreme cold, sensory and sleep deprivation, and isolation.<\/p>\n

At the same time, what has remained a matter of dispute is the extent to which the American Psychological Association (APA) collaborated with and worked to support the intelligence community and its program<\/a> of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment. Critics (including both of us) have argued<\/a> that the APA repeatedly failed to take the steps necessary to prevent the misuse of psychology, instead allowing perceived opportunities for a \u201cseat at the table\u201d to trump a firm commitment to professional ethics. In response to these allegations, the APA\u2019s leadership has issued denials and statements asserting that the Association has always been steadfast in its opposition to torture.<\/p>\n

Where the truth lies in this ongoing debate just became much clearer with the publication of James Risen\u2019s new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War<\/em><\/a>. In a chapter titled \u201cWar on Decency,\u201d the Pulitzer Prize winning investigative journalist offers fresh evidence from an unexpected inside source: Scott Gerwehr, a RAND Corporation analyst with close ties to the CIA, the Pentagon, and the APA. When Gerwehr died in a motorcycle accident in 2008, he left behind an archive of personal emails, which Risen obtained while conducting research for his book.<\/p>\n

These emails document that the CIA and the Bush Administration played a direct role in guiding APA\u2019s stance and actions in regard to the ethics of psychologists\u2019 involvement in national security detention and interrogation operations. As Risen writes:<\/p>\n

The e-mail archives of one researcher with ties to the CIA, who died on the cusp of becoming a whistleblower, provide a revealing glimpse into the tight network of psychologists and other behavioral scientists so eager for CIA and Pentagon contracts that they showed few qualms about helping to develop and later protect the interrogation infrastructure. The e-mails show the secret, close relationships among some of the nation\u2019s leading psychologists and officials at the CIA and Pentagon. And the e-mails reveal how the American Psychological Association (APA), the nation\u2019s largest professional group for psychologists, put its seal of approval on those close ties \u2013 and thus indirectly on torture. (pp. 178-179)<\/p>\n

The emails of particular interest are Gerwehr\u2019s correspondence over several years with a small group of regular confidants and collaborators: the CIA\u2019s chief behavioral scientist Kirk Hubbard (who introduced<\/a> Mitchell and Jessen to the CIA as \u201cpotential assets\u201d and then went to work for their firm when he retired from the CIA), White House science advisor Susan Brandon (who previously had been a senior scientist at the APA and is currently research director for the government\u2019s High Value Detainee Interrogation Group), and the APA\u2019s Director of Science Policy Geoff Mumford. Risen\u2019s book offers important details about that collaboration.<\/p>\n

In July 2004, shortly after the shocking photos from Abu Ghraib prison became public, senior APA staff from the Ethics Office and Science Directorate arranged a private meeting with officials from intelligence agencies and the Department of Defense (DOD). The email invitation from APA Ethics Office Director Stephen Behnke \u2013 to Hubbard from the CIA, Kirk Kennedy from DOD, and Gerwehr from RAND, among others \u2013 noted that the purpose of the meeting, at least in part, was to \u201cidentify the important questions, and to discuss how we as a national organization can better assist psychologists and other mental health professionals sort out appropriate from inappropriate uses of psychology\u201d (p. 198).<\/p>\n

But it is unclear how or why these particular invitees would be considered well suited to provide instruction to the APA on psychological ethics. Indeed Risen suggests a different motivation:<\/p>\n

The invitation to the lunch meeting showed that the APA was opening the door to psychologists and other behavioral science experts inside the government\u2019s national security apparatus to provide advice and guidance about how to address the furor over the role of psychologists in torture before the APA went to its own membership. The insiders were being given a chance to influence the APA\u2019s stance before anyone else. (p. 199)<\/p>\n

According to Gerwehr\u2019s emails, APA\u2019s Behnke also highlighted the following in his invitation:<\/p>\n

I would like to emphasize that we will not advertise the meeting other than this letter to the individual invitees, that we will not publish or otherwise make public the names of attendees or the substance of our discussions, and that in the meeting we will neither assess nor investigate the behavior of any specific individual or group. (p. 198)<\/p>\n

It is difficult to discern how such constraints and reassurances could have served the interests of the public or the profession, or how they could have helped \u201csort out appropriate from inappropriate uses of psychology\u201d as Behnke stated in his invitation. Rather, these pre-conditions ensured that the actions of the psychologists in question would be protected from scrutiny rather than questioned \u2013 and that the CIA and DOD would take the lead role in establishing the ethics for psychologists in U.S. counter-terrorism and counter-intelligence activities. The national security psychologists would also guide the APA\u2019s response to resistance or uproar from the public or its own members.<\/p>\n

From this private meeting of undisclosed participants emerged a proposal for the creation of the APA\u2019s Presidential Task Force on Psychological Ethics and National Security (PENS). This task force met in June of 2005 at APA headquarters in Washington, DC. The small group quickly decided that it was ethical for psychologists to serve in various national security-related roles, including as consultants to detainee interrogations. Risen describes the events leading up to the weekend meeting this way:<\/p>\n

Gerwehr\u2019s e-mails show for the first time the degree to which behavioral science experts from within the government\u2019s national security apparatus played roles in shaping the PENS task force. They show that APA officials were secretly working behind the scenes with CIA and Pentagon officials to discuss how to shape the organization\u2019s position to be supportive of psychologists involved in interrogations \u2013 long before the task force was even formed. (p. 197)<\/p>\n

In this regard, critics have long noted irregularities and possible collusion in the PENS process<\/a> and the report<\/a> itself. For example, most members selected for the task force worked for the military or intelligence agencies, and several had served in chains of command where detainee abuses reportedly took place. There were several participant-observers whose identities were never officially disclosed; among them were Susan Brandon, who had just recently left a position at the White House, and Russ Newman, a senior APA official whose spouse was a BSCT<\/a> psychologist at Guantanamo. APA staff withheld the names of the task force members in response to press inquiries, and these names never appeared on the published report. The APA Board quickly adopted the PENS report in an inexplicable \u201cemergency\u201d session, without bringing it to the Association\u2019s full governing body for review. The report included language nearly identical to the DOD language provided to the task force before the meeting had even started \u2013 namely, that psychologists serve to keep detention and interrogation operations safe, legal, ethical, and effective. And the task force and report prioritized the Bush Administration\u2019s contorted interpretations of U.S. law over longstanding and broadly respected principles of international human rights law and health profession ethics.<\/p>\n

Another email in Gerwehr\u2019s archive reinforces these significant concerns. As Risen writes:<\/p>\n

After succeeding in getting the PENS task force to endorse the continued involvement of psychologists in the interrogation program, congratulations were in order among the small number of behavioral scientists with connections to the national security community who had been part of the effort. In a July 2005 e-mail to Hubbard from Geoffrey Mumford (on which Gerwehr was copied), Mumford thanked Hubbard for helping to influence the outcome of the task force. \u201cI also wanted to semi-publicly acknowledge your personal contribution\u2026 in getting this effort off the ground,\u201d Mumford wrote. \u201cYour views were well represented by very carefully selected task force members.\u201d Mumford also noted that Susan Brandon had served as an \u201cobserver\u201d at the PENS task force meetings and \u201chelped craft some language related to research\u201d for the task force report. (p. 200).<\/p>\n

In unmistakable terms, the APA\u2019s Science Policy Director Mumford first thanked Hubbard \u2013 a top CIA official with close professional ties to Mitchell and Jessen \u2013 for initiating the collaboration that led to the PENS report and then assured him that the task force members were carefully chosen with Hubbard\u2019s own expressed objectives in mind. As well, the same email reveals that part of the responsibility for drafting the PENS report \u2013 a report that was supposed to reflect a full and careful consideration of the APA\u2019s ethics code \u2013 was given to Susan Brandon, who only weeks earlier was working for the Bush White House.<\/p>\n

Beyond the evidence highlighted here, Risen also offers a broader description of psychologists\u2019 and the APA\u2019s involvement with and acquiescence to U.S. government torture and abuse. Based on his research, he reports that those psychologists who supported the White House and CIA agenda \u201cwere showered with government money and benefits,\u201d and that the APA \u201cworked assiduously to protect the psychologists who did get involved in the torture program.\u201d Risen also notes that changes to the APA\u2019s ethics code in 2002 \u201cgave greater professional cover for psychologists who had been helping to monitor and oversee harsh interrogations.\u201d Indeed, he suggests that the entire \u201cenhanced interrogation\u201d program may have depended upon the willingness of the APA to go along with it. Finally, he refers to the desperate \u201cspin control\u201d that absorbed senior APA staff once journalists began to uncover the extent to which psychologists played essential roles in the torture program.<\/p>\n

It is reasonable to wonder whether Risen\u2019s investigative work will matter. For the past decade the APA\u2019s leadership has repeatedly denied any collaboration with the military or intelligence agencies that engaged in torture and abuse. Such APA statements have consistently been coupled with a professed resolute commitment to defend the profession\u2019s do-no-harm ethics. Even when these pronouncements have strained credulity, the APA\u2019s rank-and-file members \u2013 eager to believe that critics\u2019 assertions could not possibly be true \u2013 have accepted the claims of innocence and independence. This insistent benefit of the doubt, along with unwarranted deference to APA\u2019s leaders, continues to insulate the Association from calls for investigations, accountability, and reform. To date, no psychologist has been held accountable for involvement in the abuse and torture of detainees, and no APA official has been held accountable for facilitating or protecting government programs that violated core professional ethics.<\/p>\n

Several questions will be answered in the days immediately ahead, as the world\u2019s largest organization of psychologists grapples with the damning revelations in Pay Any Price<\/em>. Will APA members once again dutifully follow the Association\u2019s leaders and drink from a polluted well of tired clich\u00e9s and obfuscating language? Will they still find feeble justifications and implausible denials palatable? Or will the membership and the governing Council of Representatives finally demand the substantive independent investigation that is so long overdue? With the profession\u2019s ethics and credibility hanging in the balance, we believe it is certainly time to hold the APA accountable for the choices it has made.<\/p>\n

________________________________<\/p>\n

Roy Eidelson is a member of the TRANSCEND Network. He is a clinical psychologist and the president of Eidelson Consulting<\/a>, where he studies, writes about, and consults on the role of psychological issues in political, organizational, and group conflict settings. He is a past president of Psychologists for Social Responsibility<\/a>, associate director of the Solomon Asch Center for Study of Ethnopolitical Conflict at Bryn Mawr College, and a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology<\/a>. Roy can be reached at reidelson@eidelsonconsulting.com<\/a>.<\/em><\/p>\n

Trudy Bond<\/em> is a counseling psychologist in independent practice in Toledo, Ohio. She is a member of the Coalition for an Ethical Psychology and on the steering committee of Psychologists for Social Responsibility.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Based on revelations in James Risen\u2019s new book, ‘Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War.’ The only matter of dispute is the extent to which the APA collaborated with and worked to support the program of torture and cruel, inhuman, and degrading treatment.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[40],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-48674","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-transcend-members"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48674","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=48674"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/48674\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=48674"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=48674"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.transcend.org\/tms\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=48674"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}