False Confessions
It is justice is to punish a man for crimes he has in fact committed, but in some instances the trappings of justice are perverted to political purposes: to punish a man for crimes he has not committed but to which he has confessed. We can condemn as evil those who seek to extract false confessions, but we must also seek to understand why a person would give a false confession, particularly when he will suffer for having done so.
The Enforced Confession
There's mention of an American officer who, during the Korean war, signed a confession that the US was using biological weapons in violation of International law. It was not a simple statement, but a detailed account that included the names of people, details about missions and planning sessions. Once liberated, he naturally repudiated his confession - but noted that while the accusation was the enemy's insistence, all the details that he added were his own, made up to support their accusation.
In the medieval era, physical torture was used to extract a confession, but a person in a state of extreme physical pain can do little more than agree to whatever statements his accuser made. The modern method of brainwashing is more subtle, more prolonged, and more terrible in its effect: it disintegrates the mind of an intelligent victim to the point where he not only agrees with an accusation he knows to be false, but will apply himself to fabricating supporting evidence.
There's additional evidence of this sort of manipulation done by the Nazi party in Germany, who staged acts of violence and then used forced confessions in order to justify "retaliation" against an opposing faction or to gain public support in forcibly taking control to prevent further attacks. And ti was clear that the Bolsheviks used similar tactics to manufacture traitors and conspiracies as a means to gain public support for seizing or expanding control.
Mental Coercion and Enemy Occupation
The author, who lived in the Nazi occupied Netherlands during WWII, had become quite familiar of Gestapo tactics - to torture a person not only into confessing to a crime he did not commit, but also into giving evidence that implicated others, even their families and loved ones. The Gestapo could depopulate entire neighborhoods as they tortured prisoners to betray their friends, who would be rounded up and tortured to betray others, and so on.
Naturally, there was great interest in discovering ways to resist the torture tactics, including experiments with narcotics and other drugs. Unfortunately, while narcotics would dull the pain they would also dull the mind, making a person more vulnerable to mental pressure. Likewise, the use of pain control techniques such as meditation also mimic hypnosis, weakening the mental resistance to interrogation.
But in this was a glimmer of discovery: it is not the physical pain of torture that breaks people, but the mental distress. It is the fear of the pain that may come rather than the effect of pain already inflicted that causes a person to break.
He does mention one tactic that seemed to be effective in some cases, which is to talk too much. A person who prattled like a scatterbrained simpleton would also confuse the enemy so much that they would become frustrated at their inability to direct the conversation to the ends they desired, and would abandon their unproductive efforts and dismiss the subject as an idiot.
He was able to escape to London, where he led efforts to understand the methods of torture, largely by questioning escapees as to the tactics of the Germans, which led him to a second discovery: a person who collaborates under torture is one who has lost his dignity, reduced to a level of an animal who accepts that his survival means pleasing his captors by providing whatever they demand. In that regard, men can be broken without any physical torture at all: if you can take away a man's dignity and self-respect, then he no longer feels that his word has any value and he has no integrity to defend by being honest.
Religion and Torture
He then reaches back even further in history to the use of torture by religious organizations. The witch trials and inquisition are obvious examples in which physical torture was used to extract confessions of the innocent. But even in primitive tribes, torture is used to control those whose faith is not strong enough, and who are not willing enough to subordinate themselves to the demands of the clergy.
And again, it is not always an assault on the body, but often an assault on a person's esteem, that can be used to bend their will. The fear of being anathemized, outcast, or even ridiculed by others is often enough to make a person compliant. Religious cults are often seen to isolate individuals form society, stripping them of their rank and place (or seeking out those who are socially isolated or outcast) and offering them esteem if they are willing to subordinate themselves to the will of the cult leader.
It is here that the author considers the public nature of torture: rather than inflicting physical pain on a victim in private, torture was far more effective if carried on in full view of the public, to shame the victim and strip them of their dignity. In many instances, forms of torture that did no physical damage - merely being bound in the public square - were sufficient to gain compliance. Particularly in the trial of witches, the fear of being publicly disrobed and displayed for inspection was sufficient to elicit false confessions.
The Refinement of the Rack
It is generally observed that any knowledge can be used for good or for evil, an psychology is not exempt. It can be a remedy to the maladies of the mind, or a new means of torture and intrusion into the mind. A man will collapse and die if a physical torture goes too far, but there is no limit to the mental torture that a person can endure.
It is also interesting to note that damaging the body of another person is criminalized, but there are no laws in any society that punish damaging the mind. There is no remedy for psychological abuse in the civil courts, and no charge that can be filed in military courts to hold accountable those who have mentally tortured prisoners of war. While one cannot go so far as to say it is condoned, it is clearly neither punished nor discouraged.
And worse, the practice of torture and "menticide" are most often practiced by governments against their own citizens, making it an internal affair. It is also carried out under the pretense of promoting mental health or preserving public order - to turn dangerous dissidents into happy and benign supporters. If this can be done without any visible mutilation of the victim, there is little evidence that anything has been done wrong - and the well-pacified victim will be supportive and grateful for his treatment.
The victim of "brainwashing" is only horrified at the prospect of being brainwashed, and is perhaps horrified during the process of being brainwashed. But when the procedure is completed successfully, he has no objection and cannot be counted on to testify against his assailants. We see this in hostage situations, as well as among the members of religious cults: the victims defend and support their tormentors.
Failed attempts at mental control often result in individuals who will speak out against their tormentors, though more often they are tortured to the point that they have become insane, hence incapable of being believed. Physical mutilations and deaths are the result of ineffective methods, and as methods of mental control become more refined, there will be fewer unsuccessful attempts, hence fewer witnesses. Various techniques are mentioned, from hypnotism to psychoactive drugs to surgery upon the brain, that can be used to suppress a victim's ability to recount his treatment.
Menticide as a Weapon
The author gives a speculative account of the treatment of a prisoner who is being brainwashed: it is an assault on their feeling of self-worth that drags on for days, weeks, or months until they are worn down and broken. It's said that everyone has their breaking point, and reports about long-term prisoners of war in the Korean conflict indicated that "virtually all American POWs collaborated at one time or another, to one degree or another."
The Korean conflict was particularly unusual because torture was used not merely to compel a confession or extract military information, but in an attempt to get prisoners to adopt and endorse a political ideology (communism).
Various accounts are provided of ordeals inflicted on prisoners - none of them were physically damaging, merely caused to create discomfort: depriving prisoners of sleep, food, or drink; confining them in cramped spaces; compelling them to assume uncomfortable postures; leaving them exposed to heat or cold; and the like. To the prisoner, it seemed a matter of personal endurance to tolerate the discomfort ranted than comply with the demands placed upon them - even knowing that compliance would bring an end to their unpleasant ordeal.
It's suggested that totalitarians in general, and communists in specific, have made extensive studies into psychology and officially advocate more extensive use of it, against both foreign and domestic enemies. And for that reason, "free men in a free society" must learn to about this technique - to recognize and resist it, and to recognize when others have been influenced by it.
(EN: however, the very same techniques are used in "free" countries to compel individuals to conform to desired behaviors. Much of the treatment of patients in mental facilities involves using similar ordeals - and in some instances it is arguable whether their "illness" is a real medical condition, or simply a refusal to accept someone else's moral agenda.)