REPORT TO THE SPECIAL COMMITTEE OF THE BOARD OF DIRECTORS OF THE AMERICAN PSYCHOLOGICAL ASSOCIATION (2015)

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TABLE OF CONTENTS

SUMMARY TABLE OF CONTENTS

Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

II.

INVESTIGATION PROCESS AND LIMITATIONS

III.

SUMMARY OF THE INVESTIGATION’S CONCLUSIONS

Conclusions Regarding PENS Task Force and APA/Defense

Department Collusion (2005 - 2008)

Conclusions Regarding Secret Joint Venture Between APA and DoD

Officials In Years After PENS

Conclusions Regarding APA’s and Psychology’s Ties with the CIA,

2001 - 2004

Conclusions Regarding Changes to Ethics Code Task Force in 2002,

Including “Nuremberg Defense”

Conclusions Regarding Improper Application of APA Ethics

Disciplinary System to Protect CIA and DoD Psychologists

IV.

ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSED BY THE CHARGE

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

BACKGROUND ON PSYCHOLOGISTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

THE 2002 ETHICS CODE REVISION

APA INTERACTIONS WITH CIA AND DoD: 2001—2004

124

THE PRESIDENTIAL TASK FORCE ON ETHICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

(“PENS”) AND INITIAL AFTERMATH

206

THE POST-PENS PERIOD - LATE 2005 TO EARLY 2009

347

APA’S HANDLING OF DISCIPLINARY CASES AGAINST NATIONAL SECURITY

PSYCHOLOGISTS

464

FINANCIAL REVIEW

523

GLOSSARY

529

ATTACHMENT A (INTERVIEWS CONDUCTED OR ATTEMPTED)

533

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Page

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

II.

INVESTIGATION PROCESS AND LIMITATIONS

III.

SUMMARY OF THE INVESTIGATION’S CONCLUSIONS

Conclusions Regarding PENS Task Force and APA/Defense

Department Collusion (2005 - 2008)

Key players

Conflict of interest

APA’s motive to please DoD

Other motivations

Subordination of ethics analysis

The creation of the Task Force and selection of its members

Discussions before the meeting

Task Force meeting and report

Key DoD Task Force members

Efforts by non-DoD Task Force members

Ultimate “approval” by non-DoD Task Force members ...25

“Safety Monitor” argument

Other issues in the Task Force report

Application of Ethics Code

Ethical obligation to detainee

Access/use of medical data

Research

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10.

“Emergency” action by the Board

11.

Quick transformation of PENS into strict human rights

document through misleading public statements as PR strategy ...35

Conclusions Regarding Secret Joint Venture Between APA and DoD

Officials In Years After PENS

APA/DoD close and secret collaboration on public

statements and media strategy

Behnke as DoD contractor providing training as part of BSCT

psychologist interrogation training program

Actual and attempted trips to Guantanamo

Policy victory

Abandonment of PENS “casebook” plan

Obstruction on amending Ethics Code Standard 1.02

Behind-the-scenes attempts to manipulate Council of

Representatives actions in collusion with, and to remain aligned

with DoD

Conclusions Regarding APA’s and Psychology’s Ties with the CIA,

2001 - 2004

Overview

Initial contacts and 2002 Conference

Martin Seligman

Joseph Matarazzo

Melvin Gravitz and his opinion for James Mitchell on ethics

and interrogations

Philip Zimbardo

Robert Sternberg

2003 and 2004 conferences

Role of Susan Brandon

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Conclusions Regarding Changes to Ethics Code Task Force in 2002,

Including “Nuremberg Defense”

Conclusions Regarding Improper Application of APA Ethics Disciplinary

System to Protect CIA and DoD Psychologists

IV.

ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSED BY THE CHARGE

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

BACKGROUND ON PSYCHOLOGISTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

THE EARLY HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

II.

THE WORLD WARS

World War I

World War II

III.

PSYCHOLOGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY DURING THE COLD WAR..76

The CIA

The U.S. Military

IV.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MILITARY AFTER THE COLD WAR

Ties Between Psychologists and the Military

APA’s 1991-2004 Ban on Military Advertising

PRESCRIPTIVE AUTHORITY

THE 2002 ETHICS CODE REVISION

BACKGROUND

Participants and Process

Meeting Discussions

II.

ISSUES RAISED IN ECTF DISCUSSIONS

Nuremberg Defense

Dispensing with Informed Consent for Research

iii

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Creation of Police & Public Safety Psychology, Correctional Psychology,

and Military Psychology Seat

Conflict Between Ethics and Law - Standard 1.02

102

Concerns from correctional and military psychologists

104

Concerns from private practitioners and forensic psychologists .110

Nuremberg not discussed

113

Human Rights Standards

116

Seligman comment

117

October 2001 meeting

118

Nightingale concern

118

Changes to Principles After September 11, 2001

120

Do No Harm

121

APA INTERACTIONS WITH CIA AND DoD: 2001—2004

124

BACKGROUND: GOVERNMENT POLICY AND PRACTICE

124

Origins of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

125

The First Application of Enhanced Interrogation Techniques

127

Legal Guidance

129

Behavioral Science Consultation Teams

130

Guantanamo Request for Authorization to Use SERE-Based

Interrogation Techniques

132

Enhanced Interrogations at Guantanamo

135

Growing Opposition to the Enhanced Interrogation Program

136

Continued Involvement of Mitchell and Jessen

138

Evolution of the BSCT Role

142

Department of Defense Research Policy

144

Public Awareness of Abusive Interrogations

149

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II.

APA’S INITIAL COUNTERTERRORISM RESPONSE: SEPTEMBER 2001-

NOVEMBER 2001

153

The Board of Directors’ Response

153

Relationships with the Department of Defense

154

Developing Contacts with the FBI

155

Broadening Relationships with the CIA

156

Professional Standards Advisory Committee

156

Operational Assessment Division’s role in interrogations

157

Advisory Committee members’ inquiries to APA members

and staff

159

III.

GROWING RELATIONSHIPS WITH GOVERNMENT AGENCIES:

DECEMBER 2001 - FEBRUARY 2002

161

Continued Science Directorate Outreach

161

Seligman Gathering

162

Meeting of the CIA Advisory Committee

165

FBI Conference: “Countering Terrorism: Integration of Theory and

Practice”

166

IV.

BROADENING AND STRENGTHENING CONNECTIONS:

MARCH 2002 - MARCH 2004

169

Congressional Outreach

169

Continued Interactions with Executive Agencies

171

Meetings with APA Presidents at the CIA

172

CIA Conference: “The Science of Deception: Integration of

Practice and Theory”

173

Continued Interactions with CIA Contractors

180

Awareness of Abusive Interrogations

182

ETHICAL RUMBLINGS: MARCH 2004 - JULY 2004

183

Ethical Inquiries from CIA

183

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FBI and NIJ Conference: “The Nature and Influence of Intuition

in Law Enforcement: Integration of Theory and Practice”

186

CIA Conference: “Interpersonal Deception: Integration of Theory

and Practice”

188

The Task Force on the Psychological Effects of Efforts to Prevent

Terrorism

189

Abu Ghraib Media and Internal Response

191

The Legal Framework

193

Requests for Ethical Guidance

194

Additional Interactions with Mitchell and Jessen

196

VI.

ETHICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY: JULY 2004 - NOVEMBER 2004...197

July 20, 2004 APA Ethics and National Security Forum

198

Follow Up to the National Security Forum

203

THE PRESIDENTIAL TASK FORCE ON ETHICS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

(“PENS”) AND INITIAL AFTERMATH

206

CREATION OF PENS TASK FORCE AND SELECTION OF MEMBERS .206

November 29, 2004-January 4, 2005: Neil Lewis’s New York

Times Article and Early Discussions of a Task Force

206

The November 30 article and resulting internal APA

discussions and reaction

206

Follow up discussions, including of Newman/Dunivin

conflict of interest

211

Initial Board discussion of the Task Force

213

Preliminary Suggestions for Task Force Members, and Russ

Newman’s Involvement: January 4 - 18, 2005

215

Strategic discussions about lack of “evidence”; Mumford’s

unsuccessful attempt to raise the Newman/Dunivin conflict

of interest

215

Staff recommendations regarding task force nominees,

and initial involvement of Morgan Banks

219

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APA-Defense Department interactions, and Board Approval of Task

Force: January 19 - February 17, 2005

223

APA attempt to influence DoD policy, and link to task force

member selection process

223

Involvement of Russ Newman and Morgan Banks

225

Board approval of task force

230

February 17 - March 18, 2005: Influence of Debra Dunivin; task

force finalized

231

Some early communications about task force nominees

231

Influence of Debra Dunivin

233

Final selection of task force members

237

Overall observations

242

Task force Members Announced and Concerns Arise: April 2005

243

II.

PENS LISTSERV AND RELATED DISCUSSIONS

247

Listserv begins: Gelles’s Opening Thoughts, Behnke’s Handling of

Moorehead-Slaughter, Tensions between Gelles and Shumate

247

Banks and Others Weigh-In, Arrigo Raises Issues, Koocher-Arrigo

Exchanges: May 2005

249

Observers Considered, Newman’s Conflict of Interest,

Choosing “Safe, Legal, Ethical, and Effective”: June 2005

253

Task force observers

253

Newman’s conflict of interest

256

Failed observers

258

Using “safe, legal, ethical, and effective”

260

Shumate’s and Mumford’s messages

261

Overall Observations

262

III.

PENS MEETINGS AND REPORT

264

Overall Impressions of Task Force Members

264

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DoD Task Force members

264

Non-DoD Task Force members

266

Day One: June 24, 2005

268

Day one conversations

268

International law

273

Confidentiality of meetings

278

Day Two: June 25, 2005

280

Discussions about research

280

PENS second draft report

286

Other day two conversations

291

Day Three: June 26, 2005

292

PENS Report Analysis

293

Psychologists as “safety officers”

293

Need for specificity and limits

296

Other report issues: do no harm, medical records,

mixing roles, confidentiality, enforceability

302

Positive aspects of the report

306

Need for robust ethics analysis

307

IV.

REPORT APPROVAL

308

Internal discussions and military pressures

309

Ethics Committee and Task Force Re-Approval

311

Board takes emergency action

312

PENS INITIAL AFTERMATH AND RELATED ISSUES

317

Immediate Aftermath: July 2005-September 2005

317

Banks-Behnke exchange on answering psychological distress ...317

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Another Neil Lewis article, overstating the utility of the

PENS report

318

Listserv discussions

323

Notable military/government conversations

326

Responses to Physician for Human Rights and Division 48

330

Council actions and Standard 1.02

334

Casebook failure: January 2006-February 2006

336

Wessells’s resignation from task force

336

Shumate’s casebook concerns, other DoD members follow

337

Arrigo and Democracy Now! fallout: August-September 2007

342

APA policy victories in 2006

344

THE POST-PENS PERIOD - LATE 2005 TO EARLY 2009

347

GUANTANAMO BAY TRIP

347

Beginnings of the Trip

347

Levant’s Meetings Before the Trip

349

II.

APA SUPPORT OF THE MCCAIN AMENDMENT

353

III.

FEBRUARY-AUGUST 2006: COUNCIL RESOLUTION AND APA’S

PUBLIC STATEMENTS

355

February-April 2006: Proposed Council Resolution

355

March-June 2006: DoD Training, APA Media Strategy, and

Other Issues

358

Behnke As DoD Training Instructor

358

Close collaboration on media strategy and related issues

361

Manipulation of the August 2006 Council Meeting:

June 2006 - August 2006

371

IV.

CONTINUING CLOSE COORDINATION BETWEEN APA AND DoD

OFFICIALS: AUGUST 2006 - JANUARY 2007

381

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CONTINUING COORDINATION ON MEDIA STRATEGY AND

PUBLIC STATEMENTS: JULY 2006 - JULY 2007

388

VI.

BEHIND-THE-SCENES COORDINATION WITH DoD REGARDING

THE 2007 COUNCIL RESOLUTION: AUGUST 2006 - AUGUST 2007

396

VII. LATE 2007-EARLY 2008: MORE CLOSE COORDINATION BETWEEN

APA AND DoD OFFICIALS ON PUBLIC STATEMENTS

428

VIII. THE 2008 PETITION RESOLUTION AND THE 2009 PRESIDENTIAL

ADVISORY GROUP REPORT

429

IX.

APA’S RESISTANCE TO REVISIONS TO STANDARD 1.02, LED BY

BEHNKE

450

APA’S SHIFT IN COURSE DURING THE TRANSITION BETWEEN

ADMINISTRATIONS

461

APA’S HANDLING OF DISCIPLINARY CASES AGAINST NATIONAL

SECURITY PSYCHOLOGISTS

464

ETHICS ADJUDICATIONS

464

Adjudications Program Overview

464

Ethics Office and the Ethics Committee

464

Type of Matters Adjudicated

466

Show cause matters

466

Sua sponte matters

467

Complainant matters

467

Filing a complaint

467

Preliminary Evaluation

468

Preliminary Investigation

469

Case Investigation

471

Review and Resolution by the Committee

471

Limitations of the Adjudication Process

472

Paper Only Review

472

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

INTRODUCTION

In November 2014, the Board of Directors of the American Psychological Association

engaged our Firm to conduct an independent review of allegations that had been made regarding

APA’s issuance of ethical guidelines in 2002 and 2005, and related actions. These ethical

guidelines determined whether and under what circumstances psychologists who were APA

members could ethically participate in national security interrogations.

The gist of the allegations was that APA made these ethics policy decisions as a

substantial result of influence from and close relationships with the U.S. Department of Defense

(DoD), the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), and other government entities, which purportedly

wanted permissive ethical guidelines so that their psychologists could continue to participate in

harsh and abusive interrogation techniques being used by these agencies after the September 11

attacks on the United States. Critics pointed to alleged procedural irregularities and suspicious

outcomes regarding APA’s ethics policy decisions and said they resulted from this improper

coordination, collaboration, or collusion. Some said APA’s decisions were intentionally made to

assist the government in engaging in these “enhanced interrogation techniques.” Some said they

were intentionally made to help the government commit torture.

Allegations along these lines had been most recently and most prominently made in a

book by New York Times reporter James Risen, published in October 2014, based in part on new

evidence he had obtained. Such allegations had also been made for many years—since APA’s

issuance of ethical guidelines in 2005—by numerous APA critics both within and without APA.

APA engaged us to look back at these events that occurred years ago, to conduct a

“definitive” and “thorough” investigation into the allegations and all relevant evidence, and to

report what happened and why. The APA Board instructed us to go “wherever the evidence

leads” and to be completely independent, and we have been. A Special Committee of the APA

Board of Directors was formed, which stressed to us that our inquiry should be broad, so that the

allegations could be addressed in a full and complete manner. We have done our best within the

past seven months to fulfill that mandate.

The specific question APA has asked us to consider and answer is whether APA officials

colluded with DoD, CIA, or other government officials “to support torture.” The allegations we

have been asked to address frame the question more broadly at times. As a result of our

investigation, we can report what happened and why. And as part of that description, we answer

whether there was collusion between APA and government officials, and if so, what its purpose

was.

**********************************************

Fourteen years later, the attacks of 9/11 remain seared in the memories of all Americans

old enough to recall them. Beyond the 2,977 killed, many others were personally and

permanently affected by the attacks. All of us can remember where we were, and the horrific

and shocking images of the attacks’ immediate consequences.

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The attacks resulted in the nation going to war in Afghanistan and, later, Iraq, and at

home created virtually universal feelings of anger, patriotism, and unity of purpose against those

who had committed the attacks. There was a common, shared desire to help our national and

local governments respond, either specifically with regard to the attacks or generally with regard

to the threat of terrorism.

As we engaged in our task of looking back at important events relating to APA that

occurred in the years after 9/11, we have kept firmly in mind the strong and widespread feelings

and perceptions from that time regarding the attacks themselves and the threat of future harm.

Certainly, those feelings and perceptions were different one week, one year, four years, and ten

years after 9/11. Being appropriately sensitive to the mindset of the time would therefore require

some precision about which time is at issue. But in general, we remain aware that the passage of

time may cause one to forget the sharpness of the feelings immediately after 9/11. And as we

have engaged in our historical task, we have done our best to remember with clarity the feelings

of these times.

One critical part of the national government’s response to the attacks was an attempt to

obtain information about how the attacks occurred, whether future attacks were being planned,

and where future threats might come from. An important part of that attempt was the

interrogation of individuals who had been captured in Afghanistan and elsewhere and were in

U.S. custody at Guantanamo Bay and other locations, to determine if they had relevant

information. The heart of our inquiry relates to APA’s issuance of ethical guidelines that

determined when psychologists could ethically participate in such interrogations.

In June 2005, APA convened a task force on the topic. The task force issued a report,

largely drafted during the three-day meeting by the APA Ethics Director in consultation with the

task force. The report concluded that psychologists could ethically play a role in such

interrogations and articulated some ethical guidelines regarding their participation. Less than

one week later, the APA Board of Directors, in an emergency session, adopted the report as APA

policy and publicized it.

Almost immediately, and for the next ten years, the report and APA’s actions in

convening the task force, selecting its members, conducting the meeting, drafting the report, and

reacting to attempts to change the report’s policy have created widespread and intense

controversy within APA and the broader psychology community. Among other things, the

critics have charged that the policy set few meaningful limits on the participation of

psychologists in interrogations, despite widespread concerns about abusive conduct in such

interrogations, and must therefore have been closely coordinated with the government (perhaps

principally the Defense Department and the CIA) and motivated by a desire to curry favor with

the government.

The defenders of the task force report and APA’s actions, inside and outside APA, say

that the criticism is baseless, and denounce the actions of the critics as bullying and their words

as false and defamatory. They have accused the critics of recklessly damaging reputations and

told us that the critics must be acting out of a political and financial motivation unrelated to the

merits of their position. Others have accused the critics of being automatically anti-military,

such that any involvement by psychologists in national security endeavors would be considered

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unethical. To these defenders, the APA staff and members who worked most closely on APA’s

ethics policies are (as they have told us) American heroes, and the fact that they have been

attacked rather than thanked for their service to their profession and the country is a tragedy.

**********************************************

Within about a year after 9/11, information began to emerge publicly about the manner in

which individuals taken into U.S. custody abroad in the war on terror were being treated.

Fourteen years later, a great deal of information has become publicly available about this

treatment, including from reports by the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence (2014) and the

Senate Armed Services Committee (2008), although more information emerges on an ongoing

basis.

This information establishes that in the months following 9/11, the President authorized

the CIA to engage in “enhanced interrogation techniques.” These techniques were not methods

of asking questions of a detainee, but were rather ways of attempting to break the will of

uncooperative detainees so that they would answer the interrogators’ questions and provide

intelligence information. These “techniques” included waterboarding, harsh physical actions

such as “walling,” forced “stress positions,” and the intentional deprivation of necessities, such

as sleep and a temperature-controlled environment. The Secretary of Defense authorized the

Defense Department to engage in a similar set of “enhanced interrogation techniques,” although

waterboarding was excluded.

The Justice Department office in charge of authoritatively interpreting U.S. law, the

Office of Legal Counsel, wrote memos to the CIA in 2002 defining “torture” in a very narrow

way. Acts intentionally causing pain to individuals in U.S. custody abroad could only rise to the

level of torture, they said, if the effect was equivalent to the pain of a “serious physical injury

such as organ failure, impairment of bodily function or even death.” Acts intentionally causing

psychological harm to such captives would only count as torture if they caused “significant

psychological harm” that lasted “for months or even years,” such as the development of an actual

mental disorder. The memos emphasized that understanding “the context” of the act was

important, and that “it is difficult to take a specific act out of context and conclude that the act in

isolation would constitute torture.” The memos added that, regardless of what actions causing

psychological harm were taken by interrogators, the actions could not be considered torture if the

interrogator could show that he “did not intend to cause severe mental pain.” Interrogators could

show that they lacked this intent by “consulting with experts or reviewing evidence gained in

past experience.”

In 2003, based in part on these Justice Department memos, Defense Department attorneys

wrote a report concluding that a U.S. law barring torture by military personnel was inapplicable

to interrogations of detainees, and that causing harm to an individual in U.S. custody abroad

could be justified “in order to prevent further attacks” on the United States by terrorists. The

report, which essentially repeated the conclusions of the DOJ memos regarding the narrow

definition of torture, and became the basis for an authorization to the military command at

Guantanamo Bay to use certain interrogation techniques not included in the Army Field Manual.

The authorization repeated that the Geneva Conventions were not applicable to the detainees

held at Guantanamo.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

By June 2005, much of this information had been made public, including the analysis of

the Justice Department memos and the Defense Department report. In addition, numerous

detailed allegations and accounts of abusive interrogation practices had been made public,

including from the International Committee for the Red Cross, which monitored activity at

Guantanamo Bay, and from media reports, which quoted military interrogation logs and

government officials who described abusive interrogation practices at CIA “black sites.”

As we write this report, the CIA’s use of “enhanced interrogation techniques” is well

documented, including in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 report. Among other things,

psychologist and CIA contractor Jim Mitchell described in a recent, nationally-broadcast TV

interview how he engaged in waterboarding detainees—including how he decided whether to

pour water over the strapped-down and blindfolded detainee’s face for 10 seconds, 20 seconds,

or 40 seconds. The Defense Department’s use of enhanced interrogation techniques has also

been documented to some degree, including in the Senate Armed Services Committee’s 2008

report.

The critics of APA’s actions, decisions, and statements relating to this issue, including

the 2005 task force report, say that they are horrified by the involvement of psychologists in

these types of abusive interrogation methods, and find APA’s actions that facilitated or allowed

such involvement to be atrocious. They are most critical of the 2005 task force report, but also

sharply criticize subsequent APA policy actions on this issue, its handling of related disciplinary

complaints against certain members, and some of the key ethics code revisions that APA made in

2002.

Based on the evidence available to them of important interactions between APA and parts

of the government, they believe that the only logical explanation for APA’s action is collusion or

close coordination with the government. They describe APA’s apparent motive and intent in

different ways, from a desire to curry favor with the government to an intent to help government

officials engage in torture. And some are convinced that a comparison of the timing of APA’s

actions and the timing of the Bush Administration’s actions establishes that APA was acting in

explicit and close coordination with high-level Administration officials. Some label APA’s

actions “criminal,” and have called out by name the APA officials and employees most involved

with this issue, with a request that they be prosecuted. They have said that APA’s refusal to

strictly limit—if not prohibit—the involvement of psychologists in national security

interrogations on ethical grounds created an indelible stain on the entire profession, and a warped

and improper definition of what it means to be a psychologist.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

II.

INVESTIGATION PROCESS AND LIMITATIONS

We recognize the substantial limitations on our ability to definitively inquire into this

extraordinarily intense dispute. First, we are not psychologists and, until this matter, were not

familiar with the people, processes, organization or history of APA. Gaining this familiarity has

not been quick or easy. Psychology is a very large profession of great importance to the well

being of our citizens, our nation, and the world. And APA, one of psychology’s leading

professional organizations, is a 122-year-old body with 54 divisions and over 120,000 members.

As attorneys and members of our own professional associations, we of course appreciate the

importance of what it means to be a profession, and the importance to psychology of APA as its

principal professional organization. But we cannot promise that we have been able to conduct

this inquiry with the same insights into human behavior that psychologists may have as a result

of their professional training and experience. And it took us some time to learn and appreciate

the manner in which APA operates, how it is organized, and who the key people are and were—

all essential insights in order to investigate the matter.

Second, we are not government investigators, and do not have the powers (such as

subpoena power) or the same access to government information that such investigators typically

have. Although most individuals were quite cooperative and willing to meet with us, that

sentiment was not universal, and there were several individuals who declined to meet with us or

did not respond to our requests. Since this topic relates in part to the activities of the military and

the intelligence community, attempts to obtain information about these activities can be

complicated by the fact that some information may be classified. And as non-government

investigators, we do not have a security clearance. In addition, our ability to assess whether we

are receiving accurate information from former government officials trained in intelligence

operations may be limited, especially when combined with the limits on our ability to gather

government information on this topic. Some of the best investigators in this area, from the

government or otherwise, are people who have been doing so for some time and who therefore

have developed sources, among other things. We are obviously not in the same position.

This inquiry is made more difficult by the amount of time that has elapsed since the

important events occurred. The key events relating to the APA task force report occurred 10 to

11 years ago, and the events relating to the ethics code revision occurred 13 to 19 years ago.

Both because memories fade (and change, as psychologists tell us) and because fewer documents

remain available as time goes on, any investigation into events this long ago will have inherent

limitations.

In addition, this report simply reflects a summary of our knowledge on this topic at a

moment in time. Among other things, there is more investigative work that could be done. New

information was continuing to come into our investigation up to the time of our drafting of this

report, while some attempts to gather information remain pending (for instance, from witnesses

who have to date refused to speak with us or have yet to respond to our request, or from

government agencies with whom we still have pending document requests). Being able to call

an investigation of this magnitude truly “comprehensive” would likely require many additional

months. And in light of the inherent limitations described above, attempting to gather definitive

information from government resources may be a very time-consuming process. Our

descriptions in this report, especially of the actions and potential motives of government actors,

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

must therefore be seen not as necessarily complete, definitive descriptions, but as a summary of

our best effort to find facts and draw conclusions based on the time we have been provided and

the evidence we have been able to review.¹

Nevertheless, after actively investigating this matter for nearly eight months with a team

of six attorneys and conducting investigative activity that we think is fairly characterized as

thorough, we have been able to reach conclusions about most of the key issues under dispute

based on the extensive evidence we have reviewed.

**********************************************

At the outset of our investigation, we established a special email address

(apareview@sidley.com) and phone line that anyone could use to share information with Sidley.

We received nearly 300 emails to the special email address and more than 30 phone calls to the

phone line from individuals who wanted to provide us with information.

We have reviewed over 50,000 documents, the most important of which were a very high

volume of emails from APA that remained from many years ago. At the beginning of the

investigation, we did not know whether APA’s computer systems would contain substantial

email or other documentary evidence from 10 to 15 years ago. We were pleasantly surprised to

learn that a very large volume of emails and other documents remained based on voluntary

decisions to save emails and documents, especially from 2004 forward, although we know that

we have a necessarily incomplete set because of deletions over time and the loss of data

associated with departed employees.

From APA, we received an immense volume of emails, electronic files, and hard copy

documents, including contemporaneous handwritten notes. These documents consisted of files

collected from the Executive Management Group, the Ethics Office, the Ethics Committee, the

Executive Office, the Science Directorate, the Office of General Counsel, the CFO, the Board of

Directors, and the Council of Representatives. The files contained, among other things, Board

meeting materials, Council meeting materials, Ethics Code Task Force materials, PENS Task

Force materials, APA financial statements, information on APA grants and contracts, APA rules

¹ To be clear, APA has not placed a time limit on our investigation. On the other hand, the Special

Committee of the APA Board has made it clear to us that APA has a very strong preference that it be able

to send our report, along with recommendation from the Board, to the APA Council of Representatives in

advance of that body’s August 2015 meeting so that the matter can be considered by the Council at its

meeting. And in order to meet that time frame, the Special Committee requested that we provide our

report to the APA Board by late June 2015. As set out below, our extensive investigation has allowed us

to reach certain clear conclusions relating to the actions, decisions, and motivations of APA and its key

officials and employees on this topic. While further investigation may provide fuller information

regarding these conclusions, and could conceivably lead to new conclusions regarding these APA actors

or others, we are clearly able to reach the conclusions set out in this report based on the evidence we

reviewed, conclusions which address the principal questions at the heart of our inquiry. Any decisions

about whether to disseminate this report beyond the APA Board of Directors are being made by the

Board. We are providing our report to the APA Board, and then they will take whatever actions regarding

our report they believe are appropriate.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

and policies, Ethics Committee Rules and Procedures, and adjudications files. In addition, we

reviewed data from seven APA listservs.²

We have also received electronic files, hard copy files, and contemporaneous handwritten

notes from a wide variety of individuals outside APA, ranging from former APA officials, to

former government officials, to important APA critics who have collected a huge volume of

information on this topic over the years. We sent document requests to government agencies

under FOIA (some of which remain pending at the time of this report), as well as former APA

Presidents, Ethics Code Task Force members, PENS Task Force members and observers, former

Board members, and former APA employees. Many of these individuals searched their files and

sent us relevant documents, which we reviewed. We also met with a former APA President at his

home in Ohio and searched his electronic and hard copy files to collect relevant documents.

We received numerous helpful documents from the files of APA critics, including Steven

Reisner, Stephen Soldz, and Nathaniel Raymond, including the collection of emails from the late

RAND Corporation analyst and CIA contractor, Scott Gerwehr, which formed the basis for some

of the analysis in Risen’s book, and for a subsequent report issued by these three critics. In

addition, we received and reviewed documents from the PENS Archives established by Jean

Maria Arrigo at the University of Colorado-Boulder.

We have conducted well over 200 interviews of 148 people.³ Many of these were in

person, and we conducted interviews in 14 different cities and 10 different states, including

California, Illinois, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, New York, North Carolina, Ohio,

Oregon, and Pennsylvania. We interviewed individuals from virtually every perspective on these

issues, including all the principal APA critics; many current and former APA employees,

officers, Presidents, Board members, committee members, and task force members; numerous

former government officials including key individuals from the CIA and Defense Department;

and outside experts on ethics.

A small number of important witnesses refused our requests for an interview. One

especially important witness with strong links to the CIA, prominent psychologist Mel Gravitz,

declined to meet with us. Gravitz, who worked for many years with the CIA as a contractor, is

nearing 90 and politely informed us by phone that he did not think he recalled anything from this

time. But Gravitz, an expert in memory and hypnosis, also declined to meet with us to see if

documents he either wrote or was named on would refresh his recollection. In addition, a former

member of the 2002 APA task force on the revision of the ethics code (and former CEO of the

APA Insurance Trust), Bruce Bennett, refused to meet with us, although he said he would make

himself available for written questions. (After our third request, Bennett said he would not be

² We reviewed the following listservs: PENS Task Force, COR (Council of Representatives), COLI

(Committee on Legal Issues), DIV13SECURITYSIG (Division 13 - Members in National Security

Settings), DIV24ETH (Discussions concerning ethics education and ethical issues), EMG (Executive

Management Group), SPIN (Science Policy Insider News) (on file with Sidley).

³ Attachment A to this report is a list of the individuals we interviewed during our investigation, as well as

those individuals we attempted to interview but were unable to either because they declined our request or

did not respond.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

available for an in-person interview until September, and would not make himself available for a

phone or video interview.) As of the date of this report, we have not received Bennett’s written

answers. Dr. Martin Seligman also insisted on answering only written questions, although he

proactively made himself available to us and answered our questions promptly. Virtually all

CIA and DoD officials for whom we have evidence of interaction with APA agreed to our

requests for an interview, though some of the other CIA and DoD officials we sought to

interview declined or did not respond to our interview requests.

Other witnesses significantly delayed meeting with us. Scott Shumate, an important

PENS Task Force member and former CIA and DoD official (Director of Behavioral Science at

DoD’s Counter Intelligence Field Activity agency), refused to speak with us for months. He

retained an attorney to negotiate meeting with us, and only made himself available for a grudging

interview toward the very end of our investigation after numerous attempts at contacting him.

And the chair of the 2002 Ethics Code revision task force, Celia Fisher, the most important

witness regarding the ethics code revision, refused to speak with us for several months, slowing

down our investigation on this topic substantially. Ultimately, however, she was very

cooperative and answered fully and promptly all our inquiries in person and in writing.

We received complete cooperation from APA, which opened up all its electronic and

hard-copy files to us, gave direct instructions to all its employees to cooperate fully with regard

to interviews and documents, and acted promptly to fulfill our numerous requests. All APA

employees made themselves available to us promptly and for extensive periods of time,

sometimes at substantial sacrifice to personal commitments, and always acted professionally

despite sometimes feeling very challenged in uncomfortable ways by our questions. Many

people who formerly served in important APA positions or important government positions

generously gave us much of their time, despite having no obligation to do so, including many

who welcomed us into their homes to be interviewed.

**********************************************

We are cognizant that our report and its findings cannot and will not resolve all the

intense disputes on this issue; but it is not meant to. We provided conclusions where the

evidence allowed us to reach them, but otherwise we described the evidence thoroughly so as to

present as many facts as we were able to discover. In this way, we attempted to stay true to our

task to go where the evidence would lead us. Sometimes it led us to answers, but sometimes it

led us to more questions. As a result, our report and its findings will not be considered satisfying

or sufficient to all who read it. But we are also confident that it represents conclusions about

what happened, and why, that are based on and squarely supported by the extensive evidence we

have reviewed.

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III.

SUMMARY OF THE INVESTIGATION’S CONCLUSIONS

Our principal findings relate to the 2005 task force, which was formally empanelled by

the APA President and was called the Presidential Task Force on Ethics and National Security,

or “PENS.” The task force finalized a report on June 26, 2005 containing 12 ethical guidelines

that were adopted as official APA ethics policy by the APA Board on an emergency basis less

than one week later.

Our investigation determined that key APA officials, principally the APA Ethics Director

joined and supported at times by other APA officials, colluded with important DoD officials to

have APA issue loose, high-level ethical guidelines that did not constrain DoD in any greater

fashion than existing DoD interrogation guidelines. We concluded that APA’s principal motive

in doing so was to align APA and curry favor with DoD. There were two other important

motives: to create a good public-relations response, and to keep the growth of psychology

unrestrained in this area.

We also found that in the three years following the adoption of the 2005 PENS Task

Force report as APA policy, APA officials engaged in a pattern of secret collaboration with DoD

officials to defeat efforts by the APA Council of Representatives to introduce and pass

resolutions that would have definitively prohibited psychologists from participating in

interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and other U.S. detention centers abroad. The principal APA

official involved in these efforts was once again the APA Ethics Director, who effectively

formed an undisclosed joint venture with a small number of DoD officials to ensure that APA’s

statements and actions fell squarely in line with DoD’s goals and preferences. In numerous

confidential email exchanges and conversations, the APA Ethics Director regularly sought and

received pre-clearance from an influential, senior psychology leader in the U.S. Army Special

Operations Command before determining what APA’s position should be, what its public

statements should say, and what strategy to pursue on this issue.

We did not find evidence to support the conclusion that APA officials actually knew

about the existence of an interrogation program using “enhanced interrogation techniques.” But

we did find evidence that during the time that APA officials were colluding with DoD officials to

create and maintain loose APA ethics policies that did not significantly constrain DoD, APA

officials had strong reasons to suspect that abusive interrogations had occurred. In addition,

APA officials intentionally and strategically avoided taking steps to learn information to confirm

those suspicions. Thus, we conclude that in colluding with DoD officials, APA officials acted (i)

to support the implementation by DoD of the interrogation techniques that DoD wanted to

implement without substantial constraints from APA; and (ii) with knowledge that there likely

had been abusive interrogation techniques used and that there remained a substantial risk, that

without strict constraints, such abusive interrogation techniques would continue; and (iii) with

substantial indifference to the actual facts regarding the potential for ongoing abusive

interrogations techniques.

While we found many emails and discussions regarding how best to position APA to

maximize its influence with and build its positive relationship with the Defense Department, and

many emails and discussions regarding what APA’s messaging should be in a media

environment it perceived as hostile, we found little evidence of analyses or discussions about the

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

best or right ethical position to take in light of the nature of the profession and the special skill

that psychologists possess regarding how our minds and emotions work—a special skill that

presumably allows psychologists to be especially good at both healing and harming.

We found that current and former APA officials had very substantial interactions with the

CIA in the 2001 to 2004 time period, including on topics relating to interrogations, and were

motivated to curry favor with the CIA in a similar fashion to DoD. But we did not find evidence

that the relationship with the CIA contributed to the outcome of the PENS Task Force,

apparently because APA’s key CIA contact for the APA retired in 2005 before the PENS Task

Force met, and perhaps because the CIA’s enhanced interrogation technique program was on the

wane in 2005, as reported by the Senate Intelligence Committee in its 2014 report.

With regard to the revisions of the Ethics Code in 2002—and most notably a revision to

Standard 1.02, providing that psychologists who experienced a conflict between an APA ethical

obligation and a law or order from a superior could follow the law or the order without

committing an ethical violation, if the conflict could not be resolved (labeled a “Nuremberg

defense” by critics)—we found that the meaningful changes occurred prior to 9/11 and were not

influenced by an effort to help the government’s interrogation efforts. We did find, however,

that the “Nuremberg defense” issue was raised to APA officials during the Ethics Code revision

process, but that they failed to follow up on it.

Finally, we found that the handling of ethics complaints against prominent national

security psychologists was handled in an improper fashion, in an attempt to protect these

psychologists from censure.

We set out a summary of the evidence and our findings below. We then turn, in Section

IV of this Executive Summary, to answers to the questions presented in the charge, in light of the

evidence and our findings. And in Section V of this Executive Summary, we provide some

closing comments.

Conclusions Regarding PENS Task Force and APA/Defense Department

Collusion (2005 - 2008)

The evidence establishes that the composition of the PENS Task Force, the key ethical

statements in the task force report, and many related APA public statements and policy positions

were the result of close and confidential collaboration with certain Defense Department officials

before, during, and after the task force met. The details and level of this coordination varied over

time, ranging from some coordination to a very close partnership, in which key APA officials

were operating in a virtual joint venture with key Defense Department officials. Their joint

objective was to, at a minimum, create APA ethics guidelines that went no farther than—and

were in fact virtually identical to—the internal guidelines that were already in place at DoD or

that the key DoD officials wanted to put in place. Thus, their joint objective was to create APA

ethics guidelines that placed no significant additional constraints on DoD interrogation practices.

For the APA officials who played the lead role in these actions, their principal motive

was to curry favor with the Defense Department for two main reasons: because of the very

substantial benefits that DoD had conferred and continued to confer on psychology as a

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

profession, and because APA wanted a favorable result from the critical policy DoD was in the

midst of developing that would determine whether and how deeply psychologists could remain

involved in intelligence activities. APA’s motive to curry favor with DoD was enhanced by

personal relationships between APA staff and DoD personnel, an important conflict of interest

that was intentionally ignored; as a result, —powerful executive leaders—who was married to

one of the military’s lead psychologists who supported interrogations at Guantanamo Bay—

became involved in important ways in the development of both the task force itself and the

ethical guidelines it issued.

APA officials had two important secondary motives: First, APA wished to implement a

media communications strategy in which APA could portray itself as very engaged in the issue

and very concerned about ethical issues, as a reaction to APA’s perception that it was receiving

and would otherwise continue to receive negative press coverage on this issue. And second,

APA wanted to foster the growth of the profession of psychology by supporting military and

operational psychologists, rather than restricting their work in any way.

The evidence supports the conclusion that APA officials colluded with DoD officials to,

at the least, adopt and maintain APA ethics policies that were not more restrictive than the

guidelines that key DoD officials wanted, and that were as closely aligned as possible with DoD

policies, guidelines, practices, or preferences, as articulated to APA by these DoD officials.

Notably, APA officials made their decisions based on these motives, and in collaboration with

DoD officials, without serious regard for the concerns raised that harsh and abusive techniques

were occurring, and that they might occur in the future. APA chose its ethics policy based on its

goals of helping DoD, managing its PR, and maximizing the growth of the profession. APA

simply took the word of DoD officials with whom it was trying to curry favor that no such abuse

was occurring, and that future DoD policies and training would ensure that no such abuse would

occur. APA officials did so even in the face of clear and strong indications that such abuse had

in fact occurred (and APA did not even inquire with CIA officials on the topic, despite public

allegations that the CIA had engaged in abusive interrogation techniques). Based on strategic

goals, APA intentionally decided not to make inquires into or express concern regarding abuses

that were occurring, thus effectively hiding its head in the sand.

APA remained deliberately ignorant even in light of obvious countervailing concerns that

counseled in favor of crafting clear policies: Strict ethics rules that clearly and specifically

constrain undesirable behavior can be critical in preserving the integrity of a profession,

especially in situations when other methods of constraining such behavior (e.g., consultation,

adjudication) are less feasible, as here. Being involved in the intentional harming of detainees in

a manner that would never be justified in the U.S. criminal justice system could do lasting

damage to the integrity and reputation of psychology, a profession that purports to “do no harm.”

And engaging in harsh interrogation techniques is inconsistent with our fundamental values as a

nation and harms our national security and influence in the world. These countervailing

concerns were simply not considered or were highly subordinated to APA’s strategic goals.

Although APA officials insisted at the time, and for years after, that all their actions were

based on independent ethics and policy judgments about how to provide appropriate ethical

guidance for psychologists who worked in this area, we found that this was not the case. Instead,

key APA officials were operating in close, confidential coordination with key Defense

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Department officials to set up a task force and produce an outcome that would please DoD, and

to produce ethical guidelines that were the same as, or not more restrictive than, the DoD

guidelines for interrogation activities.

On the most important issue the PENS Task Force was asked to consider—where to draw

the line for psychologists between unethical and ethical interrogation practices—the key APA

official who drafted the report (the APA Ethics Director) intentionally crafted ethics guidelines

that were high-level and non-specific so as to not restrict the flexibility of DoD in this regard,

and proposed key language that was either drafted by DoD officials or was carefully constructed

not to conflict with DoD policies or policy goals.

The leading ethical constraint in the report was that psychologists could not be involved

in any way in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment. But it was well known to APA

officials at the time of the report that the Bush Administration had defined “torture” in a very

narrow fashion, and was using the word “humane” to describe its treatment of detainees despite

the clear indications that abusive interrogation techniques had been approved and used. Thus,

APA knew that the mere use of words like “torture,” “inhuman,” or “degrading” was not

sufficient to provide guidance or draw any sort of meaningful line under the circumstances.

Although the relatively small number of non-DoD voting members of the task force made

some efforts to push for greater specificity and for definitions based on the Geneva Conventions,

their efforts were rejected by the DoD members of the task force, the APA Ethics Director, and

the other key APA officials who were included in the meeting. And a key passage of an earlier

draft that would have created an ethical prohibition on psychologists being involved in

interrogation techniques that intentionally caused psychological distress (albeit with a big

loophole) was replaced in the final version by language handwritten by the key DoD official on

the panel that created no such prohibition whatsoever.

Key players

The APA official who led this behind-the-scenes coordination with the DoD officials was

the Ethics Director, Stephen Behnke, and the key DoD official he partnered with was Morgan

Banks, the chief of psychological operations for the U.S. Army Special Operations Command

and the head of the Army SERE Training program at Ft. Bragg. During the task force’s pre-

meeting communications, during its three-day meetings, and in preparing the task force report,

Behnke and Banks closely collaborated to emphasize points that followed then-existing DoD

guidance (which used high-level concepts and did not prohibit techniques such as stress positions

and sleep deprivation), to suppress contrary points, and to keep the task force’s ethical statements

at a very general level in order to avoid creating additional constraints on DoD. They were aided

in that regard by the other DoD members of the task force (who, for the most part, also did not

want ethical guidance that was more restrictive than existing DoD guidance), and by high-level

APA officials who participated in the meeting.

Other leading APA officials intimately involved in the coordinated effort to align APA

actions with DoD preferences at the time of PENS were then-APA President Ron Levant, then-

APA President-Elect Gerald Koocher, and then-APA Practice Directorate chief Russ Newman.

Then-APA Board member Barry Anton participated in the selection of the task force members

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

along with Levant, Koocher, and Behnke and in the task force meeting, but was involved

substantially less than the others. Other members of the APA executive management group—

namely, CEO Norman Anderson, Deputy CEO Michael Honaker, General Counsel Nathalie

Gilfoyle, and communications director Rhea Farberman were involved in relevant

communications, as described below.

The other DoD official who was significantly involved in the confidential coordination

effort was Debra Dunivin, the lead psychologist supporting interrogation operations at

Guantanamo Bay at the time who worked closely with Banks on the issue of psychologist

involvement in interrogations. At times, they were coordinating their activities with the Army

Surgeon General’s Office. There is evidence that Banks was consulting with other military

leaders, likely in the Army Special Operations Command and the Joint Task Force -

Guantanamo, although this was not the focus of our investigation, in part because of our limited

ability to access DoD documents and personnel. Another important DoD official involved in

some coordination with Behnke was PENS task force member Scott Shumate, a former CIA

official who was head of behavioral sciences for a newly-created counter intelligence unit

(CIFA) within DoD, which reported to the Under Secretary of Defense for Intelligence.

For Banks, Dunivin, and others at DoD, the attention on the abusive treatment of

detainees as a result of the media disclosures of Abu Ghraib, the torture memos, the DoD

working group report, and other related events created uncertainty and worry about whether the

involvement of psychologists in interrogations would be deemed unethical. Some in DoD, such

as civilians Shumate and Kirk Kennedy at CIFA, were pushing APA to move forward with

action that would show support for national security psychologists and help end the uncertainty

by declaring that psychologists’ participation in interrogations (with some then-undefined limits)

was ethical. Others, like military officers Banks and Dunivin, reacted to APA’s movement

toward the creation of the task force with concern that APA could head in a negative direction if

the task force was not properly set up and controlled, and with awareness that this was an

opportunity for DoD.

Conflict of interest

One of the key APA officials who participated in the task force meeting was Russ

Newman, the powerful head of the APA Practice Directorate, the most influential unit within

APA headquarters. Newman also participated in numerous internal discussions, at the Board and

staff levels, involving the creation of the task force, and had apparently consulted with Banks

regarding the language of the task force proposal prior to the Board meeting at which the

creation of the PENS Task Force was approved.

Newman had an obvious conflict of interest, since his wife, Debra Dunivin, was highly

interested in the outcome of this policy decision by APA and was one of the DoD psychologists

who would be most affected, positively or negatively, by the ethical position about which APA

was supposed to be deliberating. Newman owed a duty of loyalty to APA, which was in the

midst of determining its ethical position on this critical issue. In doing so, APA needed to

determine how to balance at least two important values: (i) the importance of psychologists

assisting the government in getting accurate intelligence information about potential future

attacks in order to protect the public; and (ii) the importance of psychologists not intentionally

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

doing physical or psychological harm to individuals, perhaps especially in the situation in which

the individual is in custody and is outside the protections of the criminal justice system. In

determining its position, APA also needed to balance the views and positions of military and

national security psychologists with the views and positions of those outside the military, and

national security systems.

Because of Dunivin’s obvious and strong interest and bias on these points, Newman had

a classic conflict of interest. It was therefore incumbent upon him and APA to keep him out of

the discussions and deliberations on this topic, and to disclose the conflict. In fact, the opposite

occurred. No disclosure was made. Newman and Dunivin were included at many of the key

points of the process, including the task force selection process and the task force deliberations;

and both Newman and Dunivin inserted themselves and influenced the process and outcome in

important ways. The various APA officials who were aware of the conflict and of all or some of

Newman’s and Dunivin’s involvement—including principally Ethics Director Behnke, Deputy

CEO Michael Honaker, APA President Ron Levant, and APA President-Elect Gerald Koocher,

and also including to a lesser extent CEO Norman Anderson and General Counsel Nathalie

Gilfoyle—took no steps to disclose or resolve the conflict.

APA’s motive to please DoD

The very substantial benefits APA obtained from DoD help explain APA’s motive to

please DoD, and show that APA likely had an organizational conflict of interest, which it needed

to take steps to guard against. DoD is one of the largest employers of psychologists and provides

many millions of dollars in grants or contracts for psychologists around the country. The history

of DoD providing critical assistance to the advancement and growth of psychology as a

profession is well documented, and includes DoD’s creation of a prescription-privileges

“demonstration project” in which psychologists were certified to prescribe psychiatric drugs

within DoD after going through a two-year training course. While APA took one significant step

in 1991 that disappointed many military psychologists—refusing to allow DoD ads in APA’s

publications because of DoD’s discriminatory position regarding gays and lesbians in the

military—APA had lifted its advertising ban in 2004. And by the time of the PENS Task Force,

contemporaneous internal discussions show that improving APA’s already strong relationship

with DoD was a clear priority for those APA officials working on the PENS Task Force.

In addition, at the time of the task force’s creation, DoD was in the midst of developing

policy about how psychologists and psychiatrists could participate in interrogations and other

intelligence-collection activities. APA wanted to positively influence DoD regarding this policy

so that psychologists would be included to the maximum degree possible, and psychologists

would not lose the lead role to psychiatrists. APA used the pro-DoD task force composition and

report to show its strong support to DoD, with the hope or expectation that APA would be

rewarded with a very prominent role for psychologists in this new policy. And in fact, the policy

did provide a very prominent role for psychologists, a fact celebrated by the APA officials who

had worked most closely on the task force.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Other motivations

The other two principal motivations of the lead APA officials—PR strategy and growing

the profession of psychology—also played an important role in the way APA handled the PENS

Task Force process and outcome. As some in the APA leadership group discussed candidly,

well in advance of the PENS process, advancing these goals created a dilemma: on the one hand,

they wanted to take a position that allowed psychologists to be as involved as possible in

interrogations, including in some of the less extreme efforts to “break down” uncooperative

detainees; but on the other hand, they knew that to articulate this publicly in any sort of detail

would look horrible. They also worried about what they saw as negative press reports that made

APA appear to be stumbling and unsure about this issue. The only solution that met all these

goals was an outcome that allowed them to take a public position that pleased DoD, that did not

significantly restrict an important group of psychologists, and that avoided the difficult issue by

keeping ethical guidelines at a high level.

Subordination of ethics analysis

What is also clear from the evidence is that the decisions from the key APA officials

about how to proceed regarding the PENS Task Force—its composition, the substance of the

report, how to adopt it as policy, what public explanations to make, and whether and how to

change the policy once there was pressure to do so—were not based in any meaningful way on

ethics analysis.

To advance its PR strategy, APA issued numerous misleading statements that hid its true

motives, in an attempt to explain and justify its ethics policy and the PENS Task Force report in

positive terms. At times, APA’s statements stressed a pro-human-rights message: the task force

report and APA policy were issued to provide “strict ethical boundaries” that carefully protected

human rights and ensured that psychologists were not involved in harsh and abusive techniques.

At the same time, the misleading public statements stressed that APA could not be expected to

be more detailed than it had been: they said APA needed to respect that the issue was

complicated, that they did not have all the facts or context necessary to make ethical judgments,

that the issue needed more time to develop, and that the task force report was just an initial step.

At other times, APA said that they were just following the will of a diverse group of task force

members who had adopted the report in either a unanimous or consensus fashion.

We found that none of these explanations accurately reflected APA’s true reasons for

proceeding as it did. The fact that a robust ethics analysis was not part of this ethics process led

by the Ethics Director was surprising to us, but is consistent with two additional observations

revealed by our investigation.

First, Ethics Director Behnke often acted as APA’s chief of staff on this issue, taking the

lead in recommending and drafting virtually all APA decisions and statements on this issue,

whether relating to Board strategy, PR, Capitol Hill lobbying, or APA Council of

Representatives management and strategy, among others. As we have learned in this

investigation, Behnke is a brilliant and highly educated psychologist and lawyer, a nice and

charming person, a highly gifted and fast writer, and a very sophisticated and nuanced strategist

and communicator. Whatever organizational or personality dynamic led to APA allowing him

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

to play this remarkably expansive role, well beyond the expected duties of APA Ethics Director,

the result was a highly permissive APA ethics policy based on strategy and PR, not ethics

analysis.

Second, APA leaders had decided in the 1990s (before Behnke’s arrival at APA in 2000)

that APA’s ethics policies and practices had been too aggressive against psychologists, and that a

more protective and less antagonistic ethics program was appropriate. They wanted a greater

focus on ethics education and consultation, and much less emphasis on strict rules and robust

enforcement of disciplinary complaints. Revisions to the Ethics Code focused in part on making

the rules more precise to ensure that psychologists had proper notice about what behavior was

considered unethical, and to minimize APA’s litigation risk from lawsuits by sanctioned

psychologists. A provision about how to handle conflicts between legal and ethical obligations

(Ethics Code Standard 1.02) was expanded so that psychologists could follow court orders or

military orders requiring them to engage in conduct otherwise prohibited by the Ethics Code, as

long as they attempted to resolve the conflict first. Behnke was hired specifically to pursue an

ethics program that was more “educative,” and he fulfilled these goals. During his tenure, APA

disciplinary adjudications plummeted, and the focus shifted to “supporting” psychologists, not

getting them in trouble—a strategy consistent with the ultimate mission of growing psychology.

Thus, when the time became ripe to consider what ethical constraints to put on an

important group of psychologists, two factors that could conceivably have created internal

pressure in APA for those ethical constraints to be strong—an Ethics Director focused

principally on an analysis of ethics, torture, and psychological distress by those in captivity, and

an ethics approach that had a robust focus on the integrity of the profession and the protection of

the public - were not present.

The creation of the Task Force and selection of its members

The idea of the PENS Task Force arose from the intersection of two forces: First, one of

the CIA’s lead psychologists (Kirk Hubbard), who had been working closely with the APA

Science Directorate (as summarized in section III.C below), emailed APA in March 2004 to say

that he and CIA contractor psychiatrist Andy Morgan had concerns that psychologists were

assisting interrogations in ways that contradicted the APA Ethics Code. (There is reason to

doubt whether Hubbard actually shared this concern; the more likely explanation appears to be

that Hubbard was passing on a concern shared by Morgan and one of Hubbard’s colleagues, Kirk

Kennedy, who was undercover at the time and is now at the FBI.) This email prompted internal

discussions that led to a July 2004 confidential meeting at APA for CIA, DoD, FBI, and

academic psychologists and psychiatrists to discuss the issue. Second, the April 2004 media

disclosure of the Abu Ghraib abuses led to intense media coverage on this issue, which led to

requests from APA members to APA leadership that it address the issue. Behnke took the lead

on the issue and, in internal emails and meetings in May 2004, suggested that APA take a

“cautious” approach (perhaps by studying the issue through a task force), and that the approach

be “forward looking, positive, [and] supportive” to national security psychologists and not “cast

a shadow” on such psychologists or suggest that they were under suspicion.

Little happened after this July 2004 confidential meeting, despite some attempts by two

DoD (and former CIA) psychologists, Kirk Kennedy and Scott Shumate, to push APA to take

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

some concrete steps on the issue. Then, on November 30, 2004, the New York Times published

an article revealing allegations from a leaked report by the International Committee of the Red

Cross that psychologists at Guantanamo had been involved in psychological and physical

coercion that was “tantamount to torture.”

The article prompted an immediate and sustained effort by APA executives, including

Behnke, to figure out how to address the issue from a messaging perspective. Within days, the

idea of a task force—suggested at that time by President-Elect Koocher, clearly in part as a

reaction to the threat that a pro-human-rights division in APA would push for an aggressive

resolution in the Council of Representatives that would likely be very negative for DoD and

intelligence psychologists—was discussed, and internal steps were taken to implement it. The

Board tentatively approved the idea at its December 2004 meeting, and work on selecting

potential task force members began in early January (accelerated by another concerning article

on the topic by Gregg Bloche and Jonathan Marks in the New England Journal of Medicine).

Although the ultimate PENS Task Force was intentionally weighted in favor of the DoD

(a critical factor in its outcome), the initial staff-recommended task force members were more

equally divided. By mid-January, Behnke and staffers in the APA Science Directorate had

chosen ten recommended task force members and about ten to fifteen back up candidates. The

ten recommended names included five non-military/government psychologists (including three

who wound up on the task force—Jean Maria Arrigo, Olivia Moorehead-Slaughter, and Michael

Wessells), one non-military/government psychologist who had conducted trainings for the

military and FBI, and four military/DoD psychologists (including Debra Dunivin, and one who

wound up on the task force—Michael Gelles).

However, things had changed by the February 2005 Board meeting. Prior to the Board

meeting and vote, APA (apparently through Russ Newman) confidentially consulted with

Morgan Banks about the language of the actual Board agenda item defining the fask force

proposal before the APA Board voted on it, and Banks provided written comments. At the

Board meeting, with Levant, Koocher, and Newman participating in the discussion on this item,

the Board authorized the creation of the task force but decided not to accept the staff

recommendations and decided instead to solicit task force nominations from APA divisions and

members.

Almost immediately, Dunivin intervened in the process, insisting to Levant and Behnke

that Banks must be included in the task force, and that the composition of the task force was

“critical to accomplishing its mission.” Dunivin then delivered a strongly-worded letter to

Behnke the day before the March 2005 meeting of the task force selection committee (Levant,

Koocher, APA Board member Barry Anton, and Behnke), in which she identified all but one of

the six DoD members initially chosen for the task force. This letter was the sole outside

document present before the selection committee during its deliberations. The other document

was a thick binder of the 111 prominent psychologists who had been nominated for the task

force, about 70% of whom were non-military/government psychologists.

Nevertheless, the selection committee chose six (out of the 10) military/DoD

psychologists. They were Banks, Shumate, Larry James (an Army Colonel who was deployed to

Guantanamo as the lead BSCT psychologist prior to Dunivin, and was also deployed to Iraq after

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the Abu Ghraib controversy to help address the problem), Michael Gelles (a Navy Criminal

Investigative Services psychologist), Bryce Lefever (a Navy psychologist who previously had

been a SERE instructor), and Robert Fein (a DoD contractor who worked in CIFA with Shumate,

and also had been appointed by the Director of Intelligence to the Intelligenc Science Board). Of

the other four, one (Moorehead-Slaughter, the Vice-Chair of the APA Ethics Committee) was

made the non-voting chair of the task force by the selection committee, and she later went along

with the direction that the military/DoD psychologists and Behnke pursued at the meeting. The

others were Jean Maria Arrigo, Nina Thomas, and Michael Wessells. The result was a task force

tilted 6 - 3 in favor of DoD officials. In addition, Koocher and Anton were named Board liaisons

to the task force, and Koocher, in particular, took aggressive and vocal positions against the three

non-DoD members: thus, the split was effectively 7 - 3 while Koocher was at the meeting.

These importantly-timed and confidential consultations with Banks and Dunivin appear

to have been unique—we did not find evidence of APA having similar consultations with other

individuals or constituencies. And they were highly influential.

Discussions before the meeting

A task force listserv for TF members and key APA officials (Behnke, Koocher, and

Anton) was established in April 2005. At least four important things occurred during the

discussions on the listserv between April and June, leading up to the task force meeting. First,

the behind-the-scenes communications show that Behnke was actively managing the direction of

the discussions on the listserv, in part by drafting emails in which decisions were made or topics

suggested for the task force chair (Moorehead-Slaughter), who would then send them to the

listserv verbatim. An analysis of her emails on the listserv shows that virtually all of

Moorehead-Slaughter’s postings were written by Behnke, which Moorehead-Slaughter and

Behnke conceded to us.

Second, Banks and Behnke collaborated behind the scenes about the eventual content of

the task force’s report, with the result that the key high-level framework set out in the then-draft

DoD policy regarding the participation of psychologists in interrogations was (i) proposed by

Banks on the listserv as a good framework for the task force, and then (ii) recommended by

Behnke (through Moorehead-Slaughter) as a good framework for the task force. (This draft DoD

policy was written by Banks and Dunivin and later converted almost verbatim to official DoD

policy.) The framework—interrogation practices must be “safe, legal, ethical and effective”

(“SLEE”) —was touted by Banks as a safeguard that would somehow ensure the humane

treatment of detainees. In reality, however, it was a malleable, high-level formula that easily

allowed for subjective judgments to be made, including by people such as Banks who interpreted

the formula to permit stress positions and sleep deprivation in some circumstances. The

evidence shows that minutes before Behnke sent Moorehead-Slaughter a draft email from his

computer laying out the argument for the SLEE framework (which she posted verbatim minutes

later), Banks had made the final edits on a document on his computer highlighting some of the

same arguments for the SLEE framework (a document that was then likely shared with Behnke).

And the SLEE framework became one key portion of the task force’s report.

Third, the meeting group was expanded in a careful way by adding two “observers” who

were affiliated with the military and intelligence community. After several days of internal staff

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consultation and planning about how to add observers to the task force meeting, Behnke (through

Moorehead-Slaughter) posted an email on the listserv inviting observer recommendations. In a

coordinated fashion, twenty minutes after Moorehead-Slaughter’s post, Barry Anton

recommended APA Practice Directorate chief Russ Newman as an observer (despite Newman’s

conflict arising from his marriage to Dunivin, the Army’s lead interrogation-support psychologist

at Guantanamo, described above). Ten minutes later, Banks posted that he agreed. And a short

time later, Moorehead-Slaughter declared that Newman would be included. Michael Gelles

subsequently recommended long-time CIA contractor/psychologist Mel Gravitz (sometimes

called the “father of operational psychology”), and he was quickly “confirmed” by Moorehead-

Slaughter. Our investigation uncovered that Gravitz had played an important role inside the CIA

in clearing the way for CIA contract psychologist Jim Mitchell to continue participating in CIA

interrogations in 2003 after some within the CIA protested that his work was unethical, and had

also attempted to influence an APA 2002 disciplinary proceeding against Michael Gelles.⁴

In contrast to the quick approval of Newman and Gravitz as observers, suggestions by

others (such as the suggestion from non-DoD task force member Jean Maria Arrigo that the

medical ethicist for the American Medical Association be invited) were ignored.⁵ Both Gravitz

(who was there for the second and third days of the meeting) and Newman spoke during the

meeting in ways that supported the military/DoD psychologists. And Newman spoke forcefully

about the importance of achieving APA’s PR goals in a manner that was inconsistent with the

efforts by some of the non-DoD psychologists to push for stricter, more specific ethical

guidelines.

Fourth, efforts by Jean Maria Arrigo to set a broad agenda for the discussion and to ask

whether certain assumptions behind the task force were correct (for instance, whether it was

⁴ In 2003, in response to an internal dispute within the CIA about whether it was ethical for CIA contract

psychologist Jim Mitchell to continue to participate in interrogations, Gravitz provided a written ethics

opinion to Mitchell and the CIA in which he concluded that the APA Ethics Code should be “flexibly”

interpreted and important weight given to the “ethical obligation” to protect the nation from harm. As a

result of Gravitz’s opinion, we were informed, Mitchell was able to continue his participation in the

interrogation program. This is discussed in Section III.C of the Executive Summary, below. We also

learned that in 2002, when Gelles was being investigated by the Ethics Office for a disciplinary complaint

(as has been publicly reported) relating to his interaction with a soldier under criminal investigation for

espionage, Gravitz made a point of speaking to Behnke about the case and warning him that action

against Gelles could harm national security. Behnke said that this had no effect on him, but he later took

over the investigation from the assigned investigator (who strongly believed that Gelles had committed an

ethical violation) in an unusual fashion during her temporary absence, causing the investigator to say that

Behnke was manipulating the situation and taking advantage of her absence. After Behnke’s

involvement, the APA Ethics Committee voted unanimously to find no violation against Gelles. This is

discussed in Section III.E of the Executive Summary, below.

⁵ Behnke invited two FBI psychologists to attend as observers, but they declined. While Newman,

Gravitz, Koocher, and Levant sat at the table with the task force members, other observers sat in chairs

along the side of the room. These were all APA staffers, including Science Directorate staffers Mumford

and Kelly, but also included former APA Science Fellow and then White House science staffer Susan

Brandon. Brandon did not speak at the meeting but contributed language to part of the report, as

discussed below.

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realistic to create a system of enforceable ethical guidelines for psychologists operating in a

classified environment, since enforcement by a professional association would likely be

impossible), were quickly rebuffed by Koocher in aggressive listserv posts. This was an

intentional effort to curb dissent to the frame of reference APA had already decided upon—that

the task force would issue a report at the end of three-day meeting that would conclude that

psychologists could ethically support interrogations, thus pleasing DoD, and that would be

written in a manner that would provide APA with a good media statement to respond to the

perceived negative press.

Task Force meeting and report

Our understanding of what occurred at the task force meeting and the behind-the-scenes

drafting of the report was aided by interviews with every task force member and all but one

observer, and the review of many documents and previously-undisclosed contemporaneous

handwritten notes.

The 2 ½ day meeting on June 24-26 in the APA board room resulted in a report drafted

by Steve Behnke over those three days that, with two minor changes by the APA Ethics

Committee a few days later, became the PENS Task Force Report. The report said that

psychologists could serve as consultants to national security interrogations consistently with the

Ethics Code, and articulated two high-level limitations on that activity, without further

significant definition: psychologists could not be involved in torture or cruel, inhuman or

degrading treatment, and psychologists should attempt to ensure that interrogation methods were

safe, legal, ethical and effective.

As one of the DoD task force members who thought the report should have gone farther

told us, this language was “loose” and “not defined.”As he noted, key issues - whether a

psychologist could cause psychological distress or physical pain to a detainee; if so, whether it

was important to differentiate between “harm” and distress / pain; and if so, how one drew the

line—were not addressed in the report despite the fact that an early draft of the report did attempt

to cover those issues. (At Banks’s request, and to a lesser extent James’s, the report did not

restrict psychologists from continuing to access detainee medical records, and instead prohibited

psychologists from using them to the detriment of the detainee’s safety and well-being.) As this

DoD task force member said and a wide variety of evidence confirms, these “loose” limitations

were intentionally chosen by Behnke because they reflected what Morgan Banks and key parts of

DoD wanted.

Key DoD Task Force members

Of the six DoD task force members, Banks and Scott Shumate appeared to have the most

prominent positions within DoD, and Banks worked integrally on interrogation support issues.

(Shumate, apparently, did not, although he apparently had done so while at the CIA.) As

Command Psychologist for the Army Special Operations Command and the senior Army SERE

psychologist, Banks worked closely with and was involved with the Army psychologists at

Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere who supported interrogations, including Dunivin. Banks came

into the task force with a concrete idea of what the task force report should say, and should not

say, as he and Dunivin had already drafted what would become Army (and therefore DoD)

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policy regarding the details and limitations on using psychologists in interrogations (a

confidential internal Army document that he distributed at the meeting).

The evidence shows that at the meeting, Banks was “persistent” about his agenda, in the

words of a DoD task force member. His agenda was to get the APA’s “good housekeeping” seal

of approval for the involvement of psychologists in interrogations, and to otherwise keep the

status quo and avoid limits or constraints beyond the ones the Army or DoD had in place (or

would decide to put in place in the future).

Banks told task force members that he had consulted with his generals within his U.S.

Army Special Operations Command and had already come to an agreement with his leaders that

the “safe, legal, ethical, and effective” framework was the appropriate way forward. He also

made a reference to “his generals” during the meeting, presumably a reference to the

commanding generals of Army Special Operations Command and the Army Medical Command

(the Army Surgeon General), and perhaps of the U.S. Special Operations Command, the Joint

Task Force - Guantanamo, and the U.S. Southern Command. And the evidence shows that the

Army Surgeon General’s Office was in fact in the midst of developing DoD policy on this issue.

Banks said and gave the impression that he did not want other DoD members to deviate

from the direction he was pursuing. For most of the DoD members, this was either

unobjectionable or in line with what they wanted to achieve. Gelles and James both believed

psychologists should continue to be involved as consultants in interrogations, and at the time this

remained a significant part of Gelles’s job as a criminal investigator with NCIS. And both

Gelles and James indicated in the meeting, in different ways, that a high-level report would

probably be preferable to a more specifically-defined one. Shumate made it clear that he was

uncomfortable with public disclosure of specific examples that might provide further guidance;

that he thought “coercive” was too broad a word to be used in this context; and that he wanted to

manage the task force’s public message by using words that softened the reality of the pressure

DoD psychologists faced to help produce actionable intelligence. Fein, a DoD contractor within

Shumate’s unit, did not say as much but was not going to object to the positions of actual DoD

officials.

Lefever, different than the other DoD members, believed the task force would accomplish

little if it did not provide specific, defined guidance about when a psychologist could

intentionally inflict physical pain or psychological distress, and how to determine an

approximate line between pain and harm. In his desire for greater specificity, Lefever was

actually in agreement with the task force’s two substantial dissenters—Wessells and Arrigo—

although he was in sharp disagreement with them about where to draw specific lines. Lefever

said that once it became clear to him that the task force’s APA leadership (Behnke, Koocher,

Anton and Newman) and chair (Moorehead-Slaughter) were not going to insist that the report go

beyond a high-level, loose set of guidelines, he stopped trying to push for greater specificity and

accepted the result, which he saw as unobjectionable but a clear failure of leadership.

Efforts by non-DoD Task Force members

There were two very strong pushes by Wessells during the meeting that—if accepted—

would have created a report with tighter, more specific ethical constraints on national security

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psychologists involved in interrogations, in ways that would have been inconsistent with the

strong preferences of Banks and DoD. The first, an attempt to use the provisions of the Geneva

Conventions or other common international law sources to define the high-level terms being

discussed at the meeting, was joined strongly by Arrigo and Nina Thomas. This attempt was

rejected by the other members of the task force, and was therefore rejected in the Behnke-drafted

task force report. The second, a subsequent attempt to create specificity within the document in

other ways, by discussing where to draw the line between permissible and impermissible

interrogation techniques was primarily pushed by Wessells, and was also rejected.

First, Wessells argued strenuously during the meeting’s first day that the government’s

explicit departure from the applicability of Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions was

wrong, and that regardless of the government’s position, psychologists should declare that they

would be bound by its terms and common understandings. Wessells, a Columbia University

public health and psychology professor who is an expert in the protection of children during

international conflicts and who spent the vast majority of his time and work abroad in war zones,

wanted to tap into established language in some of the most basic and longstanding international

human-rights documents.⁶ At the meeting, he argued that it was important for APA to go

beyond the narrow U.S. government definitions in setting ethical guidelines for psychologists:

What kind of damage [will be done] to APA if we say we do not support human

rights as defined in the Geneva Conventions and other conventions? What about

[the] damage to our national security? If we engage in human rights violations,

the message that sends to other countries [is damaging to our national security].

They therefore become our enemies and attack

The standards [on

international human rights] are not an issue for debate at this point. . . [The] APA

Code commits us to human rights. Does American law trump international law?

As a professional society, do we have commitments in [the] human rights

direction? If we aspire to these things, can we throw international human rights

away? APA is diverse but the diversity is not represented here

We would

damage ourselves as an association if we support American law when it

contradicts international law. DoD has defined a set of standards not congruent

with international law. If we endorse that, we damage our credibility

As a

professional association, at a moment of national panic, [we must] take a high

standard.

Thomas and Arrigo spoke up in favor of this position.

⁶ Common Article 3 of the Geneva Conventions provides that detainees shall be “treated humanely” and

that therefore “violence to life and person, in particular . . . cruel treatment and torture,” and “outages

upon person dignity, in particular humiliating and degrading treatment” were prohibited. The United

Nations Convention Against Torture (Art. I, § 1) defines “torture” as an act that intentionally inflicts

“severe [physical or mental] pain or suffering” on someone for one of several purposes, including

obtaining information or a confession, punishing him, or intimidating or coercing him or a third person.

Customary international human rights law, as defined by the International Committee on the Red Cross,

defines “inhuman treatment” the same way as this definition of “torture” but without the specific-purpose

requirement, and defines “degrading treatment” as acts that humiliate, degrade, or otherwise violated the

person’s dignity. See https://www.icrc.org/customary-ihl/eng/docs/v1_rul_rule90.

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The DoD members suggested that they agreed in principle with the Geneva Convention

provisions but said they could not accept a position that varied from the requirements of U.S.

law. (“[I] cannot take a public stand opposed to the U.S. government,” said one.) In other

words, as DoD officials they could not agree to be bound by constraints on their behavior that

went beyond the constraints set by U.S. law.

While this position may have been understandable as a statement of U.S. governmental

policy (as opposed to APA policy), APA President-Elect Koocher also attacked the idea of the

APA tapping into international law definitions in crafting ethical guidance, calling it a

“distraction” to draw international law into APA’s ethics guidance. As a result of this opposition

the report rejected the use of or reference to international law, except to the extent it was

incorporated into and consistent with U.S. law (as then defined, including through the DOJ

memos).

Some say that this conclusion shows the automatic impact that selecting a majority of

DoD officials had on the task force’s conclusion. But we think that it actually shows an even

more intentional decision by the APA task force leaders and the DoD psychologists not to

voluntarily commit psychology as a profession to a more robust set of ethical limitations. To do

so would have shown leadership on the issue in a way that likely would have put APA at odds

with DoD and the Administration. This may have caused a conflict that would have caused DoD

to employ fewer psychologists or to write policy that subordinated the role of psychologists in

interrogation and detention matters; and it may have prompted some DoD psychologists to leave

APA membership (although Banks was already outside the APA).

But sometimes, leadership in this manner causes external change rather than just conflict.

Thus, taking this direction (especially if the other leading health-care professional associations

also took ethical positions that were less accepting of the Administration’s position, as they

ultimately did) may have caused, or placed pressure on, DoD or the Administration to change its

position regarding the use of international-law definitions in these circumstances. By going

along with the “simply follow U.S. law” position of the DoD task force members, the APA task

force leadership was making an explicit choice to follow what DoD wanted rather than making

an independent decision about what were the appropriate ethical rules for psychologists in these

situations (other than the decision that what was best for DoD was best for APA).

Second, Wessells argued during the meeting’s second day that the report should contain

sufficient specificity regarding what interrogation techniques psychologists could be involved or

consult on.⁷ The context for this discussion was Behnke’s draft report, circulated at the

beginning of the day, that included a paragraph prohibiting psychologists from “consult[ing] on

techniques that would cause psychological distress,” with a very large loophole— “except for a

clear, legitimate purpose, such as to prevent future acts of violence.” The loophole was limited

by the next sentence which provided, “Punishment and obtaining a confession do not constitute

legitimate purposes.” This language incorporated a portion of the United Nations Convention

⁷ Behnke told us during his interviews that the issue of where to specifically draw the line between proper

and improper interrogation techniques was not one of the Task Force’s key issues and therefore did not

garner his close attention as much as other issues. We did not find this statement credible or supported by

the evidence.

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Against Torture’s definition of torture, which provided that for an act to be considered torture of

an individual, it must be done for one of several purposes, including obtaining “information or a

confession” from a detainee, “punishing him,” or “intimidating or coercing him or a third

person.” Behnke used the “confession” and “punishment” limitations, but left out the “obtaining

information,” “intimidating,” and “coercing” limitations.⁸ Thus, Behnke’s draft allowed

psychologists to recommend an interrogation technique that would cause psychological distress

as long as their purpose was to get information in order to prevent future acts of violence, and

was not to “punish” or obtain a “confession.”

Even this fairly minimal restriction on causing psychological distress provoked

opposition from several of the DoD task force members, especially Banks. And Banks ended up

writing out by hand completely different language (based on an additional side concern raised by

Arrigo) that created no restrictions whatsoever and became the new version of this paragraph.

The language provided that psychologists who consult on interrogation techniques “are mindful

that the individual being interrogated may not have engaged in untoward behavior and may not

have information of interest to the interrogator.”⁹

Wessells clearly recalls speaking up forcefully about the need for specific prohibitions

regarding either (i) certain interrogation techniques, such as stress positions and sleep

deprivation, or (ii) how to describe whether pain or distress can be intentionally inflicted. The

contemporaneous notes (albeit sketchier from the second day because a note-taking blackout was

imposed toward the end of the first day) corroborate him. The notes show sleep deprivation and

“the disorientation techniques” being discussed, as well as concerns that “the gray areas” were

not being addressed by the document and that it needed to address what “point on the dial”

(regarding interrogation techniques) was too far. Wessells argued that the discrepancies between

the U.S. government’s position and the U.N. Convention Against Torture, arguing that the report

allowed psychologists to engage in “unethical procedures,” and saying, “our reputation in this

profession depends on this document.”

Behnke, however, said that the task force needed to “attend to [the] level of specificity in

[the] document so as not to cause difficulties.” And some of the DoD members made it clear

that they agreed. Thus, what was then discussed - and promised to Wessells and the other non-

DoD task force members - was that the more specific prohibitions and guidance desired by

Wessells would occur in a follow up “casebook”-like document that would contain examples to

⁸ Behnke’s draft also created a strange second limitation - that psychologists in these situations needed to

follow the restrictions set out in a research provision of the Ethics Code, Standard 8.07, which provides

that psychologists do not deceive prospective research participants about research that is reasonably

expected to cause “physical pain or severe emotional distress.” Behnke said he could not recall why he

included this provision as a type of limitation. Brandon’s contemporaneous handwritten notes record that

she found this provision “disingenuous” because “distress in research is not equal to stress in

interrogation.” HC00017699; Brandon Notes (undated) (on file with Sidley).

⁹ Banks said, “[o]ften we do try to exploit psychological distress,” but added, “[w]e need the boundaries.”

Nevertheless, his proposal for revising this paragraph shows that he did not want the Task Force report to

impose additional boundaries beyond any that were created by his high-level “safe, legal, ethical and

effective” language. Arrigo PENS Meeting Notes (June 25, 2005).

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guide psychologists about where the ethical line was. Shumate was mostly against the idea: he

said the examples “would be awful” and “would alarm people,” and pointed out that APA could

generate a casebook independent of the government’s position, but “DoD psychologists can’t”

(since they inherently could not be independent of DoD). Neverthless, Behnke promised

Wessells, Arrigo, and Thomas (as they clearly recall) that the task force report was just “an

initial step,” and that the casebook would be issued by APA after some sort of consultation with

the task force members. Wessells clearly recalls pressing Behnke to commit to a time frame for

the casebook, and Behnke promising it would be completed in four to six months.

Thus, two pushes for ethics positions that would have made the task force report a very

different document were explicitly made but rejected by the DoD task force members and the

APA task force leadership. The three non-DoD members acknowledge that if they had firmly

and officially dissented and refused to accept the task force report, this might have made a

difference. And in fact, Behnke and other APA leaders have consistently cited the final sign-off

on the report by the three non-DoD members as proof that the document does not merely reflect

a pro-DoD position.

Ultimate “approval” by non-DoD Task Force members

The three non-DoD task force members clearly came to regret going along with the report

at the end of the meeting. They insist that their failure to issue a final and overall dissent should

not be taken as approval of APA’s claim (made one day after the task force report was made

public) that the report set out “strict ethical boundaries,” since they had been told that APA only

considered the report a first step and that the actual “boundaries” would be set out in a follow-up

casebook. For Wessells in particular, and for Arrigo as well, the explicit promise that the report

was simply an interim step to be quickly followed by a more thorough set of specific guidelines

was crucial to their agreeing to sign off on the report. Wessells clearly felt duped when he was

told six months later that nothing had been done on the casebook. He resigned from the task

force six months later.

Arrigo and Thomas also cited a feeling of intense group pressure from the much larger

group of DoD task force members and APA leaders (all men, they point out) to go along at the

end, in order to enable APA to make a clear and positive public statement that APA was “against

torture.” Arrigo, Thomas, and Wessels all cited to us the “groupthink” psychological

phenomenon as something that may have been a factor in their going along at the end, in addition

to their belief that this was not—and would not be portrayed by APA—as a final, strong set of

“strict ethical guidelines.” In addition, many of the task force members and observers (both DoD

and non-DoD) told us that there was a real “us vs. them” split in the room between DoD and

non-DoD task force members, and that all the DoD members except for Banks sat on one side of

the table, across from the non-DoD members.

Adding to this dynamic was the participation of Koocher (on the first day) and Newman

(throughout the meeting) who both spoke up forcefully in opposition to some of the key points of

the non-DoD task force members.¹⁰ Banks and the DoD task force members had allies in

¹⁰ Koocher’s aggressive style of going on the attack against the non-DoD Task Force members continued

after the meeting, when he attacked Wessells’s resignation as meaningless because the Task Force no

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Koocher, Newman, and Behnke. These APA officials agreed with the strategy of deferring to

DoD’s preferences and shared the goal of ensuring that the result of the meeting was a document

that APA could use for positive PR purposes, which “calm[ed] the issues,” avoided “rekindling

the fires,” and “clarified” and “simplified” the message that press accounts had “messed up.” In

their view, APA needed a clear, straightforward, public statement—without delay—that would

solve the PR problem by portraying APA as a professional association that was taking action to

set ethical guidelines rather than sitting on the sidelines, while keeping DoD psychologists as

involved and unconstrained as possible.

Based on what we have seen in our investigation, we agree with the three contributing

non-DoD task force members that it is unfair for defenders of the APA task force report to use

their end-of-report approval as evidence that the report simply reflected the consensus of a

diverse task force rather than an intentional pro-DoD approach. The behind-the-scenes evidence

squarely contradicts this, and a proper reading of the meeting proceedings is inconsistent with

this as well.

“Safety Monitor” argument

One of the primary points emphasized by Behnke and Banks in their interviews with us

was that having psychologists involved in interrogations to observe the interrogators was of

critical importance in ensuring the safety of the detainee. The rationale is that psychologists’

training in human behavior makes them uniquely situated to watch for and stop “behavioral

drift” —the phenomenon identified in Philip Zimbardo’s famous Stanford prison experiment and

elsewhere that when individuals use their position of authority and absolute control over others

to cause them discomfort or pain, the individuals with this power will often tend to drift toward

greater and greater uses of that power unless stopped. Banks, along with Lefever and others who

taught at military SERE schools say that this is a key and legitimate role for psychologists at

SERE training, since without such a “safety monitor,” even SERE instructors pretending to be

captors of U.S. soldiers may go too far. In fact, when Air Force SERE personnel were brought to

Guantanamo Bay in December 2002 to provide guidance about “employing ‘SERE’ techniques

during detainee interrogations,” the instructors’ Standard Operating Procedure memo used the

longer existed. This comment was highly disingenuous since Wessells’ resignation came in reaction to an

email to the Task Force from its chair stating that the Task Force’s work continued in order to help

consult regarding the potential “casebook.” In his criticism of Wessells, Koocher also called the head of

the rival American Psychiatric Association “an idiot full of sound and fury” (quoting Shakespeare), and

months later attacked Arrigo for having “personal [] biases” and a “troubled upbringing” because she had

revealed at the beginning of the Task Force meeting that her father had been involved in torture with the

CIA’s predecessor agency, the OSS. PENS listserv (Jan. 15, 2006); APA_0095571. Newman was

known as a “bulldog,” in the words of his former APA colleagues, and he told us that when he spoke up

at the task force meeting, he was doing so with the clear purpose of trying to strongly influence the

outcome.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

term “Watch Officer” as a standard position within SERE procedures (although the memo did

not specify that the Watch Officer needed to be a psychologist).¹¹

Psychologists ranging from the APA’s leading critics to Susan Brandon and Michael

Gelles have expressed doubt that psychologists are uniquely or well situated for this role,

especially outside of a SERE training context. For purposes of our discussion here, we assume

that having someone monitor interrogators for “behavioral drift” would be an important part of

the interrogation process if the interrogator is intentionally inflicting some form of physical

coercion or psychological distress (as in SERE training). And it seems reasonable that the

training and experience of psychologists would make them among the best candidates for

playing the role of “safety monitor” or “watch officer” by watching the behavior of the

interrogators.

However, Banks, Dunivin, Behnke, and others who emphasize this role for psychologists

in interrogations, and who tend to use it as the primary (and positive-sounding) justification for

including psychologists in the interrogation support process,¹² are also quick to say that

psychologists should be included in interrogation support because they help make the

interrogations “effective.” This was one of the four pillars of the Banks/Dunivin “safe, legal,

ethical and effective” formula that the PENS report adopted. And the PENS report made it an

ethical obligation of psychologists working on interrogations to try to rely on methods that are

“effective.”

Their theory is therefore that when psychologists are involved in an interrogation of a

non-cooperative foreign detainee considered an “unlawful combatant” suspected of knowing

important information, in an environment of intense pressure to produce actionable intelligence

to protect the American public and in which the protections of the criminal justice system do not

apply, psychologists should be playing two roles at the same time: (1) strict monitor of the

interrogator, including promptly telling the interrogator (or telling his supervisor or commander)

that he is going too far and needs to stop, and (2) partner of the interrogator in trying to engage in

interrogation techniques that will be effective in getting the detainee to be cooperative and to tell

the truth about what he knows.

This strikes us as either naïve or intentionally disingenuous. The pressures on the

psychologist in this situation not to stop the interrogator from becoming more aggressive are

very significant - both because the interrogator and psychologist are working together to make

the interrogation effective and likely have a need to work together on an ongoing basis on other

interrogations; and because the psychologist likely would be utilizing his subjective judgment in

telling the interrogator that he has gone “too far” (a judgment that can easily be subject to

criticism and second guessing) rather than an objective judgment based on clear lines drawn by

external sources (e.g., DoD or APA guidelines). One would think that mature, confident

¹¹ JTF GTMO “SERE” Interrogation Standard Operating Procedure, Guidelines for Employing “SERE”

Techniques During Detainee Interrogations (Dec. 10, 2002), available at

http://nsarchive.gwu.edu/torturingdemocracy/documents/20021210.pdf

¹² See PENS Report at 1 (“psychologists are in a unique position to assist in ensuring that [interrogation]

processes are safe and ethical for all participants”).

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

psychologists primarily committed to the role of “safety monitor” would be able to overcome

these pressures in most situations. But this would depend on the individual psychologist, and the

context of the individual situation. In other words, it might work or it might not.

Just as it makes little sense to say that SERE techniques can be “reverse engineered” for

detainee interrogations with little fear of lasting psychological damage because they are used

safely in controlled environments on informed, consenting U.S. soldiers, so too does it make

little sense to say that a “watch officer” will always be solely motivated to stop an aggressive

interrogation of a detainee because it works successfully in SERE training when there is no

actual concern that public safety will be compromised if the “interrogators” do not get

“actionable information” from the pretend “detainee.” This is especially true when the “watch

officer” is also being asked to help make the interrogation as effective as possible.

If Banks and Behnke really believed that safety was the only reason a psychologist

needed to be involved in interrogations, they could have written the PENS report to limit a

psychologist’s role in interrogations to this function. The report could have said that

psychologists may support interrogations only by playing the role of safety monitor to ensure the

safety of the detainee by watching the interrogator to ensure that behavioral drift does not occur.

But as Gelles pointed out, this would mean that a psychologist could not consult in the way

psychologists typically do in law enforcement situations, by advising on interrogations and

investigations to make them effective in environments in which the protections of the criminal

justice system apply. And neither Banks, Dunivin and DoD nor Behnke and APA wanted to

impose such a significant limit on the involvement of psychologists in national security

operations.

Similarly, some APA defenders told us that they only intended the PENS task force

report to allow psychologists to support interrogations by recommending “rapport-building”

techniques, not physical or aggressive ones. But the report does not say this, although it could

have. Given (i) the public awareness of the Bush Administration’s narrow understanding of key

terms like “torture” and “inhumane” and its claim that the Geneva Conventions did not apply, (ii)

the widespread media reports about abusive interrogation techniques, and (iii) the explicit

discussions at the PENS meeting and the media about specific techniques like stress positions

and sleep deprivation, it was obvious to everyone involved in the PENS Task Force that national

security psychologists would be asked to advise on interrogation techniques that went well

beyond rapport building. The PENS Task Force report could have said that psychologists may

support interrogations only by recommending techniques that constitute rapport building. But as

with the other limitations, this was not consistent with Banks’ and DoD’s preferences (and

therefore Behnke’s and APA’s) that the role of psychologist not be limited beyond whatever

constraints DoD itself had in place.

Some critics who have correctly alleged that APA-government collusion led to the PENS

Task Force report further allege that APA’s motive must have been based on the rationale of the

Justice Department memo, under which harsh interrogation techniques are not torture if a

psychologist or other relevant expert says the technique to be applied will not cause severe

physical or psychological suffering. We did not find evidence that this Justice-Department-

memo rationale was part of the thinking or motive of APA officials. We obviously cannot

determine whether this was an important, behind-the-scenes rationale for some government

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

actors. But we did not see evidence that this rationale was discussed with or was an important

consideration for APA officials.

Other issues in the Task Force report

Application of Ethics Code

At the July 2004 meeting at APA with CIA, DoD and FBI psychologists - the precursor

to the PENS meeting—CIA psychologist Kirk Hubbard argued that the APA Ethics Code should

not apply to work by psychologists in national security operations, such as interrogations,

because a code written for the ethical treatment of patients was not a good fit for this different

context.¹³

The PENS report explicitly rejected this argument and noted in its introduction that

the Ethics Code binds psychologists whenever they take actions as a psychologist and therefore

applies to work on national security interrogations. The report also made it clear in one of its 12

ethical guidelines that the Ethics Code provision prohibiting “multiple relationships” meant that

it was unethical for a psychologist to both consult on a detainee’s interrogation on behalf of the

government and act as the detainee’s health care provider.

These were positive points in the PENS report, and the first one constituted a refusal to

go along with a position previously advanced by the APA’s lead contact at the CIA (although the

CIA appeared be effectively unrepresented at the PENS Task Force, with the possible exception

of Mel Gravitz in light of his substantial connections to the CIA). On the other hand, Behnke

described these as clear and easy points to make, and we note that the DoD officials were not

opposed to them.

Ethical obligation to detainee

The 11^th PENS ethical guideline says that psychologists have “ethical obligations to

individuals” who are not their clients, including “to ensure that their activities in relation to the

individual are safe, legal, and ethical.” In making this statement, the PENS report cites Ethics

Code standard 3.04 (“Avoiding Harm”), which says that “psychologists take reasonable steps to

avoid harming . . . others with whom they work, and to minimize harm where it is foreseeable

and unavoidable.” The PENS report statement does not specifically mention interrogations, but

the statement means that psychologists consulting on interrogations have an obligation to follow

standard 3.04 with regard to detainees.

However, if physical pain and psychological distress do not automatically equate to

“harm,” as some of these DoD psychologists said, then the failure to provide any specificity

about how to determine whether interrogation techniques that intentionally cause pain or distress

constitute “harm” means that standard 3.04 may not provide substantial protection. For instance,

¹³ Former CIA colleagues of Hubbard’s, Kirk Kennedy and Andy Morgan, told us that prior to this

meeting, Hubbard had given them the opposite impression—that he believed the APA Ethics Code did

apply and should be applied to the involvement of psychologists in interrogations. That Hubbard’s belief

was the one he described during the July 2004 meeting surprised and disappointed them, they said. After

retiring, Hubbard wrote an article in 2007 that suggested that this was his position. Kirk M. Hubbard,

Psychologists and Interrogations: What’s Torture Got to Do with It?, Analyses of Social Issues and

Public Policy (2007) at 2.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Banks’s view was that some stress positions were “safe” and therefore might be properly used as

interrogation techniques.

(He cited the “push up” stress position to us as an example.) Similar,

the PENS report refused to take a position on sleep deprivation despite being asked to do so.

Furthermore, we found it highly notable that the PENS report introduction omits the “do

no harm” principle from its discussion of the key Ethics Code principles. The Ethics Code sets

out aspirational principles “to guide and inspire psychologists toward the very highest ethical

ideals of the profession.” The very first sentence in the first principle says, “Psychologists strive

to benefit those with whom they work and take care to do no harm.” Remarkably, the PENS

report avoids this sentence and quotes instead from the next sentence: “In their professional

actions, psychologists seek to safeguard the welfare and rights of those with whom they interact

professionally and other affected persons”. Behnke told us he could not recall why he did not

include the “do no harm” sentence but did not think its exclusion had much significance. Our

conclusion is that because of the ambivalence within the DoD task force members about how to

define “harm” as it relates to physical pain and distress, and the desire by Behnke and Banks not

to take a hard-and-fast position that psychologists in interrogation situations can never “do harm”

(despite the Ethics Code principle), Behnke intentionally left out the “do no harm” language.

Addressing this issue specifically would have been feasible in a wide variety of ways, for

instance by providing a non-exclusive list of prohibited specific techniques, or by describing

prohibited conduct by using words such as “abuse,” “physically coercive,” or “intentionally

inflicting physical pain or mental suffering other than mental suffering incidental to lawful

sanctions.” The decision not to do so reflects an intentional decision to keep the PENS report at

a high level of generality at Banks’ request.

Access/use of medical data

One allegation identified in media reports leading up to the PENS Task Force meeting

was that physicians and psychologists were learning of a detainee’s vulnerabilities (such as

phobias) through his medical records and then passing that information to interrogators as part of

the effort to try to break down non-compliant detainees. Notably, the PENS report does not deny

psychologists access to a detainee’s medical records. Instead, it prohibits psychologists from

making improper use of the records (“to the detriment of the individual’s safety and well-

being”). This was based on a request from Banks, who said that having access to a detainee’s

medical records was important so that a psychologist would have the necessary insight to

determine that a legitimate interrogation technique (such as providing a cooperative detainee

with a candy bar) might cause health problems (by seeing that the detainee was diabetic, for

instance). Because of Banks’s request, the PENS report allowed this access.

APA critic and Georgetown psychiatrist and law professor Gregg Bloche, who knew

Behnke from law school, lobbied Behnke strenuously after the PENS report to change this “no

improper use” provision to a “no access” provision, because of the strong potential for abuse that

could occur as a result of access to detainee records. Behnke did not change it.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

However, one year later, when a Guantanamo Bay “BSCT”¹⁴ psychologist sought a

confidential ethics consultation with Behnke in order to complain that BSCT psychologists’

access to detainee medical records had recently been halted, Behnke strongly urged her not to

push for access to the medical records. But the rationale Behnke articulated was not exclusively

an ethical one, but a PR one as well—that if the media knew that DOD psychologists supporting

interrogations were pushing for access to medical records, even if for legitimate reasons, it would

look horrible. However, when Banks took the same position within the confidential PENS Task

Force meeting, Behnke adopted the position as part of the report.

Behnke and the APA’s position on this issue therefore fits the pattern we saw in this

investigation regarding PENS: positions were taken to please DoD based on confidential behind-

the-scenes discussion and with an eye toward PR strategy.

Research

The PENS Task Report contained several recommendations that further research be

conducted. This included a paragraph “encourag[ing] . . . further research to . . . examine the

efficacy and effectiveness of information-gathering techniques, with an emphasis on the quality

of information obtained

Also valuable will be research on cultural differences in the

psychological impact of particular information-gathering methods and what constitutes cruel,

inhuman, or degrading treatment.” A subsequent section recommended that APA encourage

psychologists to engage in research into “methods for gathering information that is accurate,

relevant, and reliable. Such research should be designed to minimize risks to research

participants such as emotional distress, and should be consistent with standards of human subject

research protection and the APA Ethics Code.”

The evidence shows that Mumford, Brandon, Newman, and Gravitz made drafting

suggestions regarding the research recommendations, and at least some of Brandon’s drafting

suggestions made it into the final version.

Critics have pointed to some of this language as an indication that APA was intentionally

attempting to provide ethical support for research on detainees at Guantanamo or elsewhere by

the CIA or DoD, or was otherwise attempting to allow for research that involved harsh

interrogation techniques without the proper human-subject-research protections.

On the one hand, we found two notes in Behnke’s handwritten notes from the PENS Task

Force meeting in which the phrase “research on detainees” or “detainees as research subjects”

was noted. Behnke provided no explanation for these notes, and we found no emails or other

documentary evidence relating to them. In addition, in a meeting at the Department of

Homeland Security about two years earlier attended by Mumford and Brandon, one of the

subjects discussed was collecting data relating to detainees. Sources have told us without

corroboration that there is evidence of the CIA engaging in activity regarding detainee

interrogations that would constitute improper research.

¹⁴ Behavioral Science Consultant Team (“BSCT”) psychologists provided support to interrogation and

detention operations at Guantanamo Bay and similar military sites.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Further, ethics experts have told us that the language in the PENS report quoted above

was woefully deficient in terms of the language that would typically be expected in order to

communicate proper protections. And the language quoted above recommending research into

“what constitutes cruel, inhuman, or degrading treatment” in light of “cultural differences” is

ambiguous, and so may easily be read to suggest that the research being recommended is to

determine if interrogation techniques that Americans would find cruel, inhuman or degrading

may not be consider so bad by other cultures.

On the other hand, we did not see evidence linking these recommendations to any actions

by APA officials regarding research, or suggesting that the recommendations provided

authorization or assistance to the government to conduct human-subjects research without

informed consent. We noted that these recommendations are not within the PENS report’s 12

ethical guidelines, and therefore do not have the force of ethical guidelines for psychologists, in a

way that might be pointed to as a justification for a psychologist’s actions.

We found this a topic on which it was difficult to draw clear conclusions; our discussion

and analysis of the evidence continues in the detailed PENS section below.

10.

“Emergency” action by the Board

After the task force report was finalized in Sunday, June 26, the Board of Directors acted

in a highly unusual fashion to declare an “emergency” and to adopt the report as “APA policy,”

an act normally reserved for the APA Council of Representatives. The Board was not required

to take any quick action with regard to the task force. Behnke had arranged for expedited

approval by the Ethics Committee, and if there was a desire to formally adopt the report as APA

policy, the Council of Representatives was meeting about six weeks later. But the evidence

shows that the Board acted in this unusual fashion motivated principally by the desire of APA

Board members Ron Levant (APA President) and Gerry Koocher (APA President-Elect) to (1)

create a PR message that would be perceived as backed not just by a public statement but by

actual substance (a new APA ethics policy) and that could be used in a fluid PR situation

perceived as negative, and (2) curry favor with DoD which had communicated that it wanted a

prompt release of the report so it could use the report for its own purposes (which were both PR

and policy purposes).¹⁵

¹⁵ In addition to the intensive press coverage on issues of potential abuse of detainees during this time, the

Commander of the Joint Task Force - Guantanamo was testifying before the House Armed Services

Committee during the week of June 27 on the issue of detention conditions at Guantanamo. Reports of

the hearing make it clear that the Pentagon was attempting to provide positive answers in response to

concerns about abuse and improper conditions at Guantanamo. See Reuters, Democrats See

“Whitewash” of Guantanamo Problems, June 29, 2005. A report from a third party (APA) saying that

psychologists could ethically be involved in interrogations at Guantanamo had the great potential to be a

positive story for DoD, from its perspective, and the emails show that DoD was thrilled with the content

of the PENS report. Aside from the PR issues, the Army Surgeon General’s Office was in the midst of

developing its policy for the involvement of psychologists and psychiatrists in interrogations, based on

Banks and Dunivin’s draft policy document, and this closely-aligned, highly supportive report from APA

was of great assistance to that effort, as the emails between Banks, Dunivin and Behnke show. This is

discussed in greater detail in the detailed PENS section below.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

The New York Times had run an article on Friday, June 24, the first day of the task force

meeting, reporting that “[m]ilitary doctors at Guantanamo have aided interrogators in conducting

and refining coercive interrogations of detainees, including providing advice about how to

increase stress levels and exploit fears.” The article quoted both Behnke and the ethics

committee chairman of the American Psychiatric Association and compared the positions of the

two organizations: “While the American Psychiatric Association has guidelines that specifically

prohibit the kinds of behaviors described by the former interrogators for their members who are

medical doctors, the rules for psychologists are less clear

[I]n a statement issued in

December, the American Psychological Association said the issue of involvement of its members

in ‘national security endeavors’ was new.”¹⁶ APA President Levant worried that the article

made APA look bad because it “portrayed APA as unsure of where the ethical boundaries lie.”¹⁷

To Levant and Koocher, managing APA’s image required it to show that the task force report

was more than simply a set of high-level, “loose” statements that might be justified as a tentative

“initial step,” but was instead a clear and “strict” statement of the actual ethical boundaries. The

fact that the PENS report was nothing of the sort did not stand in the way of their strategic

attempt to create the best possible media response.

By the last day of the task force meeting, Behnke had received information that an in-

depth article by Jane Mayer on the policy and practice of aggressive interrogation techniques

would be published in the New Yorker as soon as Tuesday, July 5,¹⁸ and advised Board members

Koocher and Anton (along with Anderson, Farberman and Gilfoyle) of this. In response,

Farberman said that if the PENS report was “fully approved” by that date, “we have very strong

talking points. Without it we’re not in as strong a position.”¹⁹

In addition, Behnke was communicating to Levant, Koocher, Anton, and APA

management that DoD was very eager to get a copy of the PENS report, especially with The New

Yorker article due to come out. Banks wrote Behnke to express appreciation for APA

“support[ing]” DoD in the report: “I just finished with the [Army] Surgeon General and he will

be in front of the Senate soon, on this issue. (He is very supportive.) Having APA’s support will

mean a lot.”

And on the afternoon of Thursday, June 30, Science Directorate staff Heather Kelly

informed Behnke, Farberman and others that Secretary of Defense Rumsfeld was personally

waiting to receive the report on an expedited basis:

¹⁶ Neil Lewis, Interrogators Cite Doctors’ Aid at Guantanamo, The New York Times (June 24, 2005),

available at

http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9400E2DA1F3BF937A15755C0A9639C8B63.

¹⁷ APA_0040505.

¹⁸ Behnke’s handwritten notes from on or around the last day of the PENS task force meeting, June 26,

show that he received a briefing on the article from someone (presumably from Banks or Gelles, who

both had been interviewed by Mayer). His brief notes say “Mitchell” and “Jim Mitchell” and the word

“SERE”, among other things. HC00010682.

¹⁹ APA_0040518.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Rumsfeld’s exec assistant will apparently be waiting by the fax for this! His

super secret direct access fax line. They’re just a tad interested.²⁰

That same afternoon, the Board was sent the PENS report along with a note that President

Ron Levant was working on a proposal to the Board. There was one significant Board comment

in response: Board member Diane Halpern (APA President in 2004) had “one very strong

recommendation - that somewhere we add data showing that torture is ineffective in obtaining

good information.” This prompted an internal staff email exchange in which Gilfoyle asked

whether it was true that “torture has been demonstrated to be ineffective.” Behnke’s response

showed once again that his primary goal was to stay completely aligned with DoD: “the Task

Force did not make such a clear, blanket, statement, and my sense is that the Task Force may not

have felt entirely comfortable doing so.” In other words, because at least some of the DoD

members were not ready to agree that torture was effective, Behnke wanted to block this Board

member’s suggestion. (For instance, Lefever’s view from his experience with SERE was that

waterboarding was often effective at getting U.S. soldiers in the program to reveal accurate

information that was supposed to be secret.) Farberman agreed: “Hopefully, Diane’s suggestion

is dead in the water.”²¹

In this context of vigorous media coverage and intense demand from DoD, President Ron

Levant suggested to the APA Board not just that it declare an emergency and act in an expedited

manner regarding the report, but that it take action to actually “adopt the task force report as

policy.” In an email to the Board early in the morning of Friday, July 1, Levant asked for the

views of the Board about “declaring an emergency to adopt” the report, “the emergency being

that APA and psychology are getting pretty well trashed in the media, damaging our public

image.”

Barry Anton had received the draft resolution that contemplated the Board “adopting the

report as policy,” and emailed Behnke with a “concern”: “I’m not sure it can go out as policy

without [Council of Representatives] approval. The [Board] can certainly accept the report.” It

is likely that the plan to declare an “emergency” was in response to Anton’s concern that the

Board could not normally adopt something as APA policy, since this was the Council’s function.

By Friday, July 1, without an in-person or phone meeting or discussion, but simply some

short emails, all the Board members who responded to Levant’s question had voted in favor of

declaring an emergency and adopting the report as APA policy.

Some of the most long-serving Board members and APA management members

confirmed to us that it was highly unusual for the Board to declare an emergency. One long-time

executive said this was the only declaration of an emergency they could recall other than a time

when the Board needed to taking a refinancing action swiftly in order to avoid an interest rate

hike. Long-serving Board member Koocher agreed that other than emergency actions relating to

financial situations requiring immediate action (such as the refinancing situation), or one

²⁰ APA_0040495.

²¹ APA_0040500; APA_0051185.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

situation many years earlier when immediate action was required to avoid a negative government

regulatory action, he did not believe the Board had ever declared an emergency in order to take a

specific action.

In looking back on this Board action, it was brought to our attention that under the

Washington DC law applicable to not-for-profit corporations like APA, Board votes taken

outside of an in-person meeting require a unanimous, written vote from all Board members by

sending in signed proxy statements. Not only are there no such signed proxy statements, but

APA has no records of all Board members voting by email. Our search of APA’s emails

uncovered votes from 11 of the 12 Board members, but we did not find a vote or email response

from Board member Jessica Henderson Daniel, who did not remember voting on this. Thus, it

may be that the Board action adopting the PENS report as APA policy in 2005 was not a valid

action of the Board on procedural grounds.

11.

Quick transformation of PENS into strict human rights document through

misleading public statements as PR strategy

When APA made the PENS report public on July 5, 2005, it issued a statement

emphasizing that psychologists could in fact serve in consultative roles to national security

interrogations consistent with the Ethics Code, exactly the message that was pleasing to DoD.

However, the criticism was immediate, including a negative story in the New York Times on July

6. The article pointed out the lack of specificity in the report and said it appeared “to avoid

explicit answers” on key topics.

The day before this, Banks and Behnke had anticipated that APA would get asked about

the “real issue,” as Banks said, which they defined as: “What is the level of psychological

distress that moves it into abuse?” This was an issue PENS had intentionally avoided, as

described above. Behnke told Behnke he would think about “how to package” the best response

to this issue.

The day of the Times story, Behnke drafted a response letter to the editor for Levant,

which was published in the Times over Levant’s name on July 7. In the letter, Levant claimed

that the PENS report contained “strict ethical guidelines” and then repeated some of the

statements in the PENS report. From this point on, the media strategy was clear: emphasize that

PENS said that psychologists could not engage in torture or cruel, inhuman or degrading

treatment and claim PENS as a strong, pro-human-rights document. The principal purpose of

PENS - to state that psychologists could in fact engage in interrogations consistent with the

Ethics Code - was relegated to the sidelines, since any message seen as pro-DoD or permissive

regarding the involvement of psychologists in interrogations was deemed bad media strategy in

light of the intense and quick criticism of PENS. And of course, the principal motivation for

Behnke and other APA officials in drafting PENS the way they did - pleasing DoD - remained

fully concealed.

These were misleading public statements and this was a disingenuous media strategy. A

document that was intentionally very limited, non-specific, and evasive on the key issue in order

to, principally, please DoD, now came to be described principally as a strong anti-torture and

pro-human-rights document.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Conclusions Regarding Secret Joint Venture Between APA and DoD Officials

In Years After PENS

From the time of the PENS Task Force through at least the next three years, and through

the end of the Bush Administration, Behnke led the extensive efforts by APA to defend the

PENS report, to beat back criticisms on the issue through public statements and interviews, and

to defeat efforts by the APA Council of Representatives to pass resolutions that would have

definitively prohibited psychologists from participating in interrogations at Guantanamo Bay and

other U.S. detention centers abroad.

In these efforts, Behnke effectively formed an undisclosed joint venture with Banks -

sometimes joined by Dunivin and some of the DoD officials who had served on the PENS Task

Force - to ensure that APA’s statements and actions fell squarely in line with DoD’s goals and

preferences. In numerous confidential email exchanges and conversations, Behnke regularly

collaborated and coordinated with Banks to determine what APA’s position should be, what its

public statements should say, and what strategy to pursue on this issue. Before responding to an

APA Board member, before drafting a statement for the APA President, before giving a news

interview, before advising the APA Ethics Committee, and before crafting strategy regarding

potential Council resolutions, Behnke very regularly checked with Banks first to make sure

Behnke and APA were in line with what DoD wanted, as articulated by Banks. On many of

these occasions, Behnke was effectively seeking, and received, Banks’ pre-clearance for an APA

action or statement before Behnke proceeded.

APA/DoD close and secret collaboration on public statements and media

strategy

Virtually every time the issue of psychologists’ involvement in interrogations arose

publicly in an important way - when a national reporter would ask Behnke for a comment or

interview for an article being prepared; when Behnke would be preparing for an interview on

NPR; when Behnke was preparing a draft letter from the APA President or other APA officials

to be published or sent to an APA listserv for the Council of Representatives or other groups; to

cite some examples—Behnke reached out to Banks to ensure that APA’s statements and

positions were in line with the military’s policies and preferences and to coordinate what APA

should say and how it should proceed strategically. Behnke was, in effect, the lead strategist and

spokesperson for APA on this issue and worked hard to stay in control of every word that APA

officials uttered on the issue. Our review of the contemporaneous documents and

communications makes it clear that his closest partner and collaborator in this endeavor was

Banks, joined at times by other DoD officials such as Dunivin, James, and Shumate. Often there

was a predictable pattern to Behnke’s activity: upon observing that APA would need to make a

statement or issue a response, he would email Banks within a very short amount of time to seek

his guidance or to suggest that APA take a particular an approach or use specific language, and

then would ask if Banks approved of, or wanted to change, the approach or language.

Behnke shared with Banks and Dunivin that APA’s “media strategy” was to claim that

APA’s ethics position on psychologists’ involvement in interrogations was very similar to the

position of the American Psychiatric Association and the American Medical Association. And

Behnke turned to the two of them, and Banks in particular, for assistance in crafting strategic

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messages and specific language that would help advance this strategy. We saw numerous

examples of Behnke partnering with Banks as a virtual joint communications strategy team for

APA.

Banks, too, used Behnke to help determine what DoD officials should say on the issue of

psychologists being involved in interrogations. In one instance, the Commander of the DoD

Joint Task Force at Guantanamo asked Banks to draft a statement on the issue, and Banks turned

to Behnke for drafting help.

In another instance, Behnke worked behind the scenes with Banks to help DoD lobby the

APA President on this issue, by helping Banks write a strong letter to the APA President after the

President received a strong letter from APA members concerned about reports of psychologists

being involved in abusive interrogations. In effect, the APA Ethics Director was secretly

drafting a letter from DoD to the APA President to help DoD influence the APA President’s

position on an issue.

Behnke and Banks worked to keep their collaboration highly confidential. In an email to

Banks during one of the many instances in which Behnke sought his review and pre-clearance of

a draft APA statement, Behnke told Banks that “discretion about prior review is essential.” They

titled numerous emails “Eyes Only”, and we found two emails in 2007 (shortly before their email

traffic diminished, based on the emails in APA’s system) in which they discussed ensuring that

the emails themselves were securely deleted.

Other APA officials were sometimes involved in these collaborations, such as Koocher,

Levant, Farberman, and Kelly. But for the most part, the email evidence of the collaboration

with Banks and other DoD officials shows Behnke as the clear leader of this effort.

Banks, Dunivin, and other DoD officials thanked Behnke profusely, called him a hero

and their “knight in shining armor,” and shored him up when he took criticism. They invited

him in 2005 to speak at the previously closed-off small annual conference for national security

psychologists with security clearances, and to provide paid²² instruction at the confidential

military interrogation-and-detention-operations two-week training course newly created in 2006

to train psychologists and psychiatrists in interrogation support, as described below.

Behnke as DoD contractor providing training as part of BSCT

psychologist interrogation training program

Behnke became a DoD contractor and, from 2006 to the present, has taught ethics to

BSCT psychologists (and occasionally psychiatrists) “in support of interrogation/detention

operations” at Fort Huachuca in Arizona, the DoD base that houses the U.S. Army Intelligence

Center. Banks and Dunivin coordinated with him about what he should tell and not tell the APA

²² The evidence (on file with Sidley) appears to show that the payments, ranging from $1,250 to $5,000

per class, were made to APA, not Behnke, except for two instances when Behnke said he received the

payments directly and wrote APA a check for the payment amount less his expenses, although there is

some contracy evidence as DoD had Behnke’s bank account information, presumably for direct deposits.

Our investigation was still receiving evidence from APA on this issue at the time of our report.

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Board about these activities, wanting to conceal some aspects of the tight partnership they had

created in light of the criticism within the APA community on this issue.

In fact, Behnke never informed the Board of his participation in the DoD interrogation

training program for BSCT psychologists, his status as a DoD contractor, or the payments from

DoD to APA. He did, however, tell his supervisor, APA Deputy CEO Michael Honaker, that he

turned to Banks as an advisor from time to time, and that he was regularly giving a paid ethics

lecture at an Army base as part of the interrogation training course for BSCT psychologists.

Honaker did not provide this information to CEO Norman Anderson or the Board. When

Anderson learned from Sidley during the investigation that Behnke had been providing this

training as a DoD contractor, he appeared stunned and was visibly upset that the matter had not

been discussed with the Board. Honaker said that it did not occur to him that the Board would

need to know or discuss this information, because he saw it as a standard example of Behnke

providing ethics training to an important group of psychologists, as he does in a variety of

settings.

Honaker and Behnke claimed that the trainings were clearly revealed in the Ethics

Office’s publicly-available annual reports. But in 2006 and 2007, the reports only listed the

trainings as “workshops” in Sierra Vista, Arizona relating to the PENS report, and beginning in

2008, they began being described as “workshops on ethics training for military psychologists.”

The reports do not state that the “workshops” were at a DoD facility or the U.S. Army

Intelligence Center or were part of the military’s official interrogation training program for

BSCT psychologists. Emails between Behnke and Dunivin show that this was by design;

Behnke proposed to Dunivin that he describe the trainings in his “yearly report to the Board”

with “something simple” like “training on ethics and interrogations” and “Sierra Vista, Arizona.”

Dunivin agreed that he should “leave it Sierra Vista and simple.” And in Behnke’s annual

reports in 2006 and 2007, he even removed the word “interrogations.”

Actual and attempted trips to Guantanamo

In late 2006 and early 2007, when a BSCT psychologist at Guantanamo Bay reached out

to Behnke and Banks to seek a confidential in-person ethics consultation at Guantanamo from

Behnke about an ethics issue, it became apparent to Behnke that the APA Board might not

support such a trip in light of the controversy within the APA ignited by PENS. Confidentially

plotting with Banks about how to get the APA Board to agree to let Behnke travel to

Guantanamo, Behnke ended up asking the BSCT psychologist to write a formal memo

requesting his in-person consultation for a confidential ethics consultation. The psychologist did

so and prepared a formal travel plan as well. However, at a meeting with the Board, Behnke was

told that he could not travel to Guantanamo, but could provide the requested ethics consultation

in the United States. Behnke therefore offered instead to consult with the BSCT psychologist in

Washington if an in-person consultation was required. The Board’s decision triggered a strongly

worded email to three Board members from Dunivin (who had apparently heard that Behnke’s

inability to travel was due to a Board decision), accusing them of being not interested in

providing assistance to military psychologists and questioning their ability to make sound

decisions to support military psychologists in light of the PENS report. When Banks inquired

whether this had been “destructive on” Behnke,” Behnke assured Banks that “[n]othing could

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diminish . . .my commitment to continue to support all of your efforts, and the efforts of the great

men and women who protect our country and our freedoms.”

There had been two trips to Guantanamo by APA Presidents after the PENS report,

accompanied by Behnke on one of them. In October 2005, DoD invited APA President Ron

Levant as well as the President of the American Psychiatric Association and others to a half-day

visit at Guantanamo, as later reported in the press. And in November 2006, APA President

Gerald Koocher and Behnke went on a similar trip to Guantanamo. For the Levant trip, Behnke

arranged for Banks and Dunivin to provide a phone briefing and talking points to Levant so that

he would be “on message” during and after his trip. Behnke similarly had Banks brief Koocher

before his 2006 trip. Both trips consisted of meetings with Guantanamo leaders who provided

positive information about the facility and detainee treatment. The trips were mostly PR trips for

DoD, but after the 2005 trip, Assistant Secretary of Defense Winkenwerder and Surgeon General

Kiley had a dinner with the group to discuss their observations and any concerns. Koocher told

us that he found the opportunity to see the actual Guantanamo facility and receive in-person

briefings helpful. Upon his return, Koocher prepared an extensive power point presentation with

many photos provided to him by DoD showing the detention center and detainee facilities. The

presentation was very positive about the Guantanamo facility and its value, including a slide that

highlighted the “interrogation yield.” Koocher said that the slides simply represented what DoD

had told the group, and that he would orally provide this caveat when he gave the presentation.

But on its face, the presentation is an uncritical, highly positive presentation of Guantanamo.

Policy victory

One of the key benefits that APA sought from its close collaboration with DoD was a

positive outcome regarding the official policy DoD was developing on the issue of interrogations

and the involvement of psychologists, psychiatrists, and other “behavioral science consultants.”

And APA received exactly what it wished for, as DoD official doctrine and Medical Command

policy explicitly provided a large role for psychologists (and not as much for psychiatrists) in the

support of interrogation and detention operations - an outcome that clearly was due in substantial

part to what was seen by DoD as the very “supportive” position taken by APA in the PENS

report.

Spurred largely by the draft policy document that Morgan Banks (along with other SERE

psychologists in Army Special Operations Command and Debra Dunivin) drafted in and around

2004 to provide guidance and instructions to BSCT psychologists regarding interrogations and

detention operations, the Army Surgeon General’s Office started a formal effort in late 2004 and

early 2005 to draft an official Medical Command policy which would apply to all behavioral

science consultant involved in interrogations. As the Executive Agent for the administration of

DoD detainee policy, the Army Surgeon General’s Office’s policy would cover the entire

Medical Command. The draft document that Banks had drafted by the first half of 2005 (and

which he distributed at the PENS meeting) became the official Medical Command policy (almost

verbatim in all key respects) in October 2006.

APA had learned of this policy development effort in early January 2005 as it was

starting to put together the PENS Task Force, and it was clearly one of the lead motivating

factors for APA in selecting task force members and producing a task force report that would

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please DoD. In effect, APA assured that its ethics policy would be completely aligned with

DoD’s policy by (i) taking the key framework in Banks’ draft policy document (“safe, legal,

ethical, and effective”) and using it as the key framework in the PENS report, and (ii) following

Banks’s lead in all other important policy respects in the PENS report. Banks’s draft policy

document thus became the basis for both the PENS report and official DoD policy, making it a

foregone conclusion that APA and DoD policy were perfectly aligned. In fact, the most recent

version of this DoD policy (2013) still contains the full PENS report as a formal part of its policy

document.

While the Surgeon General’s Office was finalizing its Medical Command policy, based

on Banks’s document, and getting approval from various parts of DoD, higher-level DoD

doctrine documents were required before the Medical Command policy could be issued. The

highest-level of these doctrine documents was a “DoD Directive,” (or “DoDD”). In November

2005, the Acting Secretary of Defense issued a DoDD on “Intelligence Interrogations, DoD

Debriefings, and Tactical Questioning.” The eight-page document contained an explicit mention

of “behavioral science consultants” assisting interrogations, an inclusion that was seen as a huge

victory for SERE and other military psychologists. Right after it was issued, a SERE

psychologist with the DoD Joint Personnel Recovery Agency sent a congratulatory note to the

team that had helped make this a success - Behnke, Banks, and two Air Force SERE

psychologists: “Thanks to all for your hard work, we are now in an official DoDD.”

The next step in DoD doctrine was a “DoD Instruction” on the topic (“DoDI”). In June

2006, the Assistant Secretary of Defense for Health Affairs, William Winkenwerder, issued a

DoDI that explicitly prioritized psychologists over psychiatrists in the role of “behavioral science

consultants” who supported interrogations and related activities. The document provided that

“physicians [i.e., psychiatrists] are not ordinarily assigned duties as [behavior science

consultants], but may be so assigned, with the approval of the [Assistant Secretary of Defense],

in circumstances when qualified psychologists are unable or unavailable to meet critical mission

needs.” And in comments to the media about the new DoDI, Winkenwerder explicitly mentioned

that the “clear support” from the APA regarding the role of psychologists in interrogations (a

reference to PENS) “influence[d] our thinking” because, he noted, the American Psychiatric

Association had not taken a similarly supportive position.

This was a very large victory for those who were focused on growing opportunities for

employment and influence for psychologists, especially compared to psychiatrists. By winning

the primary position with DoD regarding which mental health professionals would provide

support for DoD interrogations, APA cemented its position with DoD in a manner that is likely

to produce substantial employment and other financially-beneficial opportunities for psychology.

Abandonment of PENS “casebook” plan

One of the key arguments made by Behnke toward the end of the PENS meeting, and for

years later, was that the lack of specificity in the PENS report was necessitated by the

complexity of the topic and the fact that PENS was just an “initial step” in the process. The next

step - crucial, he said, in the development of meaningful guidance to psychologists - would be a

“casebook commentary” that would be produced by APA with input from the PENS Task Force

and the Ethics Committee. The book would provide examples and the kind of clear, specific

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guidance psychologists sought, he said. Several of the DoD psychologists on the task force were

highly dubious that this was feasible or desirable, including Scott Shumate, who made his views

on this plain. Nevertheless, Behnke promised Mike Wessells that the casebook would be done in

six months, a promise that was crucial for Wessells in signing off on the task force report.

Ultimately, Behnke did virtually nothing to pursue a casebook for years, effectively

abandoning an essential element of his (disingenuous) claim that APA’s development of ethical

guidance on the issue would be a multi-step process. Behnke made the argument to us during his

interviews that because the Council of Representatives began passing resolutions in 2006 that

provided more specific guidance for psychologists, he believed a casebook was unnecessary.

We do not think this is true, since as set out below, Behnke was the lead APA strategist in

attempting to manipulate and water down Council resolutions to minimize the effect on DoD.

The real reason there was no casebook is that there was never a real desire to create one, because

it would necessarily create the same problems that specificity within the PENS report would

have had (as APA staff had identified as early as December 2004) - drawing a line that allowed

psychologists substantial latitude in supporting interrogations, as DoD desired, created

substantial PR problems. The only solution to this dilemma was to keep the guidance non-

specific.

That this was actually Behnke’s thinking is corroborated by the internal emails he sent in

January 2011, when he finally created a 30-page draft document on this topic that was something

well short of a book. The document contained “vignettes” and Ethics Committee responses. In

sending the draft document to Anderson, Honaker, Gilfoyle, Farberman, and two others, he

explained that “[o]ur primary focus was to write responses that would not cause us any

problems.” He expressed satisfaction that there had been almost no discussion of “this piece of

the interrogation issue for some time,” and said that his plan was “to post this text, quietly, very

quietly on the Ethics webpage.” Thus, six years after PENS, the great promise of a casebook as

the proper means of providing specificity and resolving the unavoidably (said Behnke) limited

nature of the PENS report had shrunk to the form of a 30-page document, intentionally created to

avoid any “problems,” which was snuck into a corner of the APA website with the fervent hope

that it would be entirely ignored.

Obstruction on amending Ethics Code Standard 1.02

At the Council meeting in August 2005 following the PENS report, the Council passed a

motion instructing the Ethics Committee to explore adding language to Ethical Standard 1.02 to

ensure that that provision could only be used in a manner “consistent with basic principles of

human rights.” That provision (as revised in 2002) provided if there was a conflict between a

psychologist’s ethical obligations and her obligations under the “law, regulations, or other

governing legal authority” (which included military orders), she had to try to resolve the conflict,

but if she could not, she could follow the “law, regulations, or other governing legal authority”

without committing an ethical violation. The Introduction to the APA Ethics Code (which was

not binding) repeated this language of 1.02 and added the phrase, “consistent with basic

principles of human rights.” Council’s motion required the Ethics Committee to make a

recommendation about whether to revise 1.02 by adding the language in the Introduction.

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Behnke drafted a document for the Ethics Committee in September 2005, which the

Committee adopted, rejecting the suggestion that 1.02 be amended in this way. For the next four

years, Behnke engaged in a wide variety of actions to intentionally delay and obstruct efforts to

amend 1.02, despite increasingly clear calls to do so. Standard 1.02 was clearly a provision that

was of importance to national security psychologists. Behnke coordinated his efforts at times

with Banks and Dunivin by, for instance, having them help create “opposition” to the calls to

revise 1.02.

Ultimately, it was not until Council explicitly instructed the Ethics Committee to take

action resolving the discrepancy between Standard 1.02 and the language in the Introduction of

the Ethics Code, and set a February 2010 deadline, that anything changed. As a result of

Council’s insistence, Standard 1.02 was amended in February 2010 to include the requirement

that the provision not be used “to justify or defend violating human rights.”

Behind-the-scenes attempts to manipulate Council of Representatives

actions in collusion with, and to remain aligned with DoD

Finally, one of the most significant ways in which Behnke and APA secretly collaborated

with DoD officials was in Behnke’s extensive efforts to manipulate Council of Representatives

actions from 2006 to 2009, in an effort to undermine attempts to keep psychologists from being

involved in national security interrogations and to minimize the damage to DoD psychologists

who might have been threatened from more aggressive potential Council actions. Especially in

2006 and 2007, but also to some extent in 2008 and February 2009, Behnke became APA’s chief

legislative strategist, taking a very active and sophisticated role in manipulating the resolution

process and the proponents of these measures in order to achieve this goal.

Behnke was the authorized APA leader in this effort, and he was obviously taking these

steps on behalf of APA. There were other APA officials involved with Behnke in these efforts,

including at times Koocher, Anderson, Honaker, Farberman, Gilfoyle, and (in 2008-09) Ellen

Garrison. Their involvement is discussed in the detailed section of the report. But no one was as

thoroughly and consistently involved as Behnke was, and he was clearly (as one of the DoD

officials said to him after he revealed some of his plans) “a superb strategist” - a compliment to

which he responded with an email wink emoticon.

The pattern we saw from the evidence was that Behnke would use a sophisticated mix of

strategies to either delay the passage of resolutions that would create negative implications for

DoD or manage them so that the negative implications would be minimized. First, he would

attempt to bring the proponents of aggressive resolutions into his fold by “working with them”

on their resolutions, a gesture with the appearance of support that was almost always taken at

face value and accepted by the proponents. Once he began “working with them,” Behnke would

act like a partner and teammate to encourage the view that he could help them achieve a good

outcome. Second, Behnke would then use his very substantial language skills to wordsmith the

draft resolutions in order to excise the parts that were negative for DoD and to substitute

alternative language that appeared to achieve some of the proponents’ original goals, but often

achieved less than they thought because of nuanced drafting moves. Third, Behnke would

attempt to convince the proponents that they should bring in the division of APA that represented

military psychologists on the theory that the proponents should not want to be “divisive” within

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APA, and that it was best to form a “consensus.” Fourth, Behnke would engage in active and

sophisticated behind-the-scenes lobbying in both direct and indirect ways in order to ensure

passage of the more moderate alternative he had crafted and to avoid a revolt in the direction of

more aggressive measures. This even extended to his micro-managing when invitations for

lunch with the APA President were issued (to nip “organizing” in the bud) and where the invitees

would sit for lunch during the Council meeting (to increase “visibility”).

In essence, Behnke’s insight was that when faced with the potential for an aggressive

Council action that he viewed as negative for DoD, the best strategy was not to oppose it directly

but to create an alternative that could be seen as a middle ground with enough credibility to

attract support from a substantial percentage of the people who would have otherwise supported

the aggressive action. And through the mechanisms set out above, he was confident he could

manipulate the “middle ground” alternative to make it positive or tolerable for DoD.

Behnke engaged in his usual highly confidential communications with Banks (as well as

Dunivin and James, and sometimes Gelles) in order to jointly determine what strategy or position

was best for DoD, to seek pre-clearance of specific language, and to work on drafts of key

documents together.

The Council did in fact pass resolutions in 2006 and (especially) 2007 that created

additional restrictions on national security psychologists as a matter of “APA policy” (although

these were not enforceable ethical standards), but they were much milder as a result of Behnke’s

intense behind-the-scenes manipulation, done in close coordination with DoD officials such as

Banks. While these two resolutions were being drafted and prepared for Council’s

consideration, Behnke engaged in a two-pronged approach: (1) engage with and defer to Banks

in crafting language that would not create any problems for DoD, and (2) actively gather

opposition against the membership-generated resolutions by direct communications with those

he knew would be against the resolution and by ghost-writing opposition letters from prominent

DoD individuals such as Michael Gelles and Larry James.

In 2008, in a highly atypical action, a membership “petition resolution” received

sufficient support to result in a vote of APA membership on the petition. The petition provided

that “psychologists may not work in settings where persons are held . . . in violation of either

International Law (e.g., the UN Convention Against Torture and the Geneva conventions) or the

US Constitution.” The petition passed. After this, APA formed an “advisory committee” to

make recommendations to the Council on how to implement the petition. The advisory

committee’s report, presented to Council during the February 2009 Council meeting, was

considered a highly negative action by Banks.

Banks sent a long email - largely drafted by Behnke - to a very large group of DoD and

national security psychologists calling on them to oppose the advisory group’s report. James

was designated as the Council point person and he promptly met with Behnke to “develop a

battle plan of attack” (in James’s words). After the Council meeting, James reported back to the

DoD group that victory had been achieved and the resolution would have no practical effect,

because the word “unlawful” had been inserted in the title of the resolution, and DoD had just

issued an official report (following a request from President Obama) that Guantanamo complied

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with the Geneva Conventions. Thus, DoD had no such “unlawful” facilities. In his interview

with us, James said with some pride that the “other side” simply hadn’t done its homework.

Conclusions Regarding APA’s and Psychology’s Ties with the CIA, 2001 - 2004

Overview

From 2001 through 2004, there was a great deal of interaction on issues related to

interrogations between key CIA psychologists and both APA staff and prominent psychologists,

who were considered elder statesmen in psychology or were former or current APA Presidents.

These interactions were occurring precisely during the time that the CIA was using “enhanced

interrogation techniques”—including waterboarding—in vigorous fashion against certain

detainees, and had given a key role in the development and implementation of the enhanced

interrogation techniques to contract psychologists Jim Mitchell and Bruce Jessen. These

interactions clearly raise the question whether APA was providing direct and important support

to the CIA’s interrogation program and the enhanced interrogation techniques.

One of the CIA psychologists who brought Mitchell and Jessen into the CIA and with

whom they worked closely was Kirk Hubbard. Hubbard headed the Research and Analysis

Branch of the CIA’s Operational Assessment Division, a unit primarily focused on psychological

assessment of spies and potential spies, and he does not appear to have been directly involved in

CIA interrogations. During this time, Hubbard worked closely with two APA staffers—Geoff

Mumford and Susan Brandon (who later moved to the White House Office of Science and

Technology Policy)—and a CIA contractor who worked for the RAND Corporation, Scott

Gerwehr, to put on confidential conferences at which academics in behavioral science could

meet with national security psychologists from the CIA, DoD, and the FBI on subjects like

“detecting deception.” This was a vitally important concept to Mitchell and Jessen in

implementing their apparent theory that harsh interrogation techniques can actually yield

accurate information if the interrogators are able to determine when the interrogation subject is

lying.

Also during this time, Hubbard created a “Professional Standards Advisory Committee”

(“PSAC”) consisting of three leading outside psychologists—former APA Presidents Ron Fox

and Joe Matarazzo, and former APA Division 30 (Hypnosis) President and security-cleared CIA

contractor Mel Gravitz. Mitchell and Brandon also attended at least one of the PSAC meetings,

at which the focus was psychological assessment issues. Yet Matarazzo and Gravitz were also

used by Hubbard and others at the CIA as consultants on a limited number of important issues to

the interrogation program—for example, Matarazzo was asked to provide an opinion about

whether sleep deprivation constituted torture. And following a controversy within the CIA about

whether Mitchell could continue to participate in interrogations, Gravitz was asked to provide a

written analysis to define the ethical boundaries for psychologists participating in interrogations.

In addition, Hubbard, Mitchell and other CIA psychologists met with former APA President

Martin Seligman at his home to fully understand the psychological theory of “learned

helplessness,” a theory that Mitchell and others at the CIA were clearly incorporating into the

CIA interrogation program. Seligman and Matarazzo also spoke at the SERE training academies

where Mitchell and Jessen had been instructors, with Seligman doing so at Hubbard and

Mitchell’s request.

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It was also clear during this time that APA staff, principally Mumford, were keenly

interested in establishing strong and lasting relationships with the CIA, and were intent on trying

to please Hubbard and the CIA. In one 2004 email from Mumford to Hubbard in response to

Hubbard’s request that Mumford not disclose Mitchell and Jessen’s affiliation with the CIA,

Mumford emphasized that “[we] don’t want to (and won’t) do anything to jeopardize our

harmonious working relationship.”

Despite these extensive interactions and APA’s clear desire to please the CIA, it appears

that the actual actions that APA took during this period that may have assisted the CIA in its

interrogation program were limited to putting on a small number of conferences with the CIA for

academics and key national security psychologists (including Hubbard, Mitchell, and Jessen). It

may be that the discussions at these conferences were of great value to CIA psychologists like

Mitchell and Jessen, who were alternating between (a) interrogating and waterboarding detainees

in secret CIA sites abroad and (b) having meetings and conferences in the U.S. on topics that

might assist them in attempting to extract information through torture and other abusive

interrogation techniques. But we did not find evidence that current APA officials like Mumford

and Brandon were read into or were aware in any significant way of the CIA’s interrogation

program, which was classified, or had any meaningful knowledge of what Mitchell, Jessen, or

other CIA personnel involved in interrogations were doing.

There were certainly important snippets of information in front of Mumford and Brandon

that would have caused a reasonable person to suspect that Mitchell, Jessen, and other at the CIA

might be engaging in abusive interrogation techniques, including detailed media reports about

interrogation abuses at CIA “black sites”; the public disclosure of the Justice Department memos

that narrowly defined “torture” and explicitly applied to CIA interrogations; particular interest by

Mitchell at the “detecting deception” conference in the empirical evidence on the topic; and a

2003 email from Hubbard to Mumford and Brandon that Mitchell and Jessen are “doing special

things to special people in special places, and generally are not available.”

But we did not find evidence that went beyond these points, and found Mumford’s and

Brandon’s denials that they knew about the CIA’s interrogation program to be credible. CIA

contract psychiatrist Andy Morgan told us that he saw no indication that APA officials were read

into or received any information about the interrogation program or the interrogation activities of

Mitchell, Jessen, or others. We consider Morgan a credible source of information based on his

close working relationship with Hubbard and others at the CIA at the time, his knowledge of the

CIA’s bureaucracy and how it generally communicated internally about the interrogation

program, and his opposition to the “enhanced interrogation techniques” portions of the CIA’s

interrogation program.

On the other hand, as with APA officials who intentionally avoided seeking more

information in the face of substantial indications of psychologist involvement in abuses at

Guantanamo, as described above, Mumford and Brandon took no steps to inquire about the clear

concerns these pieces of information would have raised if their focus had been a concern about

the involvement of psychologists in abusive conduct toward detainees. But this was not their

focus. Instead, their focus was on building good relationships with the CIA and other

government agencies, and successfully acting as conduits between national security

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psychologists at the CIA (and elsewhere) and the academic psychology community that had

potentially helpful expertise and research.

APA did not have the same close and longstanding relationship with the CIA as it did

with DoD, and the potential financial advantages for psychology from a close relationship with

the CIA would likely have appeared smaller than with DoD. But for APA Science Directorate

and its staff, having a partnership with the CIA was of great benefit. The CIA paid tens of

thousands of dollars for the expense of setting up conferences and reimbursing participants for

their travel expenses, and these conferences allowed APA to showcase its relevance, visibility,

and leadership on subjects of interest to psychology. Building that relationship held the promise

for more CIA-funded conferences and other joint projects in the future that might similarly

highlight (or suggest) APA’s leadership and influence.

Although some of the details of APA’s interactions with the CIA were kept secret (such

as the identities of some of the people who attended the conferences), the APA Science

Directorate disclosed its partnership with the CIA fairly openly in its publications to APA

membership, and described the title and purpose of the conferences. The APA staff created very

detailed summaries of the conferences, including the list of participants and details about who

said what, and circulated them broadly to all the academics and others who attended the

conferences. Thus, unlike what we saw with the APA-DoD interactions in the context of the

PENS Task Force and subsequent actions, we did not see here anything close to the level of

concealment, behind-the-scenes plotting, or close coordination about APA actions—other than as

to the planning of the conferences. The conferences were not open to the public, but a large

variety of academics and government officials from outside the CIA (including the FBI) attended

the conferences and received the summaries, so we did not conclude that there was any

meaningful effort to keep the existence or much of the content of the conferences secret.

As to the actions and knowledge of the former APA officials listed above (Fox, Gravitz,

Matarazzo, and Seligman), some of them were clearly brought closer to the circle of knowledge

through important interactions with Hubbard and Mitchell, as described further below. But we

did not find evidence that there was a significant link between APA and their interactions or

communications with the CIA. It is a fair question whether important interactions between these

very prominent former APA officials also entailed, led to, or were connected to important

interactions between APA and CIA. Except for very limited instances, we did not see any

evidence of this in our examination of APA emails and other documents, and in our interviews,

despite having found a very substantial amount of email and documentary evidence establishing

important interactions between APA and government officials in other contexts, as set out above

and below. On the one hand, this makes sense, since prominent psychologists who are former

APA Presidents and Board members would not necessarily think that their interactions with the

CIA about these issues would call for them to contact the APA, unless the CIA had specifically

requested something from APA. On the other hand, we keenly recognize that in investigating

activities involving the CIA, an agency that trains people to keep things secret for a living, we

are especially limited in our ability to determine definitively what occurred, and therefore we are

aware that our conclusions can only be based on the evidence available to us. This is especially

true when the interactions are between CIA officials and individuals who were not APA officials

or employees at the time, since their emails would not necessarily have been within APA’s

system.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Finally, as we got deeper into our investigation and had reviewed more evidence and had

a greater understanding of what we were seeing, we observed that in 2004 and 2005, during the

year leading up to the PENS Task Force, the APA’s interactions with CIA officials on this issue

slowed dramatically, and its interactions with DoD officials increased dramatically. As a result,

the collaboration between APA officials and government officials regarding the PENS process

and related follow up events was dominated by APA-DoD interactions, with no evidence of

significant CIA interactions regarding PENS.

Clearly, there were important APA-CIA interactions on the topic of ethics and

interrogations in 2004, including a key set of emails between Hubbard, Mumford, and Behnke in

which Hubbard indicated that Andy Morgan and Hubbard (although likely just Morgan) had

concerns about activities of national security psychologists that appeared inconsistent with the

requirements of the APA Ethics Code. Those emails launched internal APA discussions that led

to a confidential July 2004 roundtable meeting at APA on the topic for about 15 national security

psychologists from the CIA, DoD and the FBI (including Hubbard, Shumate, Fein, and Gelles),

and some academics and APA staffers (including Behnke)—which in turn was the precursor of

the PENS Task Force.

However, after this July 2004 meeting, we saw no evidence of follow up discussions with

Hubbard or the CIA on the topic, and no apparent CIA interest in the PENS Task Force, in the

evidence we reviewed. Likely explanations for this are that (i) Hubbard, APA staff’s main point

of contact at the CIA, retired from the CIA in April 2005 (two months before PENS), leaving

APA staff with no significant contact at the CIA, and (ii) the CIA’s enhanced interrogation

program was apparently in its waning days by late 2004 and early 2005, according to the 2014

Senate Intelligence Committee report.²³

One potential exception to this is the participation of “observer” Mel Gravitz at the PENS

Task Force meetings. Gravitz, who is approximately 90 and refused several requests for an

interview, had worked as a contractor for years for the CIA. A leading expert on hypnosis and

considered by some the founder of operational psychology, it is conceivable that Gravitz was at

the task force in order to advance some interest of the CIA in the result of PENS, and was

communicating with CIA officials in advance of and during PENS. However, we have seen no

evidence of this, and it seems unlikely to us in light of what appears to be the very limited role

Gravitz played at PENS and the absence of other visible APA-CIA communications—which we

would expect to have been apparent to us based on our visibility into the substantial

communications between Hubbard and APA. On the other hand, as set out in the detailed PENS

section below, Gravitz contributed a small suggested paragraph to the draft PENS report

regarding the recommendation that research be encouraged, and he had a prior relationship with

Behnke.

²³ Senate Select Committee on Intelligence, Committee Study of the Central Intelligence Agency’s

Detention and Interrogation Program, 113^th Congress, 143 (2014) (“In the fall of 2004, CIA officers

began considering ‘end games,’ or the final disposition of detainees in CIA custody

By the end of

2004, . . . [m]ost of the detainees remaining in [CIA] custody were no longer undergoing active

interrogations; rather, they were infrequently questioned and awaiting a final disposition.”).

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We know that some of the most significant critics of APA—who have had access to the

emails of the RAND employee and CIA contractor (Scott Gerwehr, now deceased), which

revealed frequent emails with Hubbard, Mumford, and Brandon—have posited that there must

have been significant CIA influence regarding the outcome of the PENS Task Force in light of

the substantial APA-CIA interactions shown in these emails and the highly suspect content of the

PENS report. Without the same access we had to APA emails and documents showing extensive

APA-DoD collaboration in and after the time of the PENS Task Force, this is an understandable

inference, once one reaches the conclusion that the PENS Task Force could only be explained by

some sort of governmental influence. But with the benefit of the additional information

discovered in our investigation, one can understand more clearly how very substantial APA-CIA

interaction in the 2001 to 2004 time period did not lead to substantial CIA interactions with APA

in relation to the PENS Task Force.

Initial contacts and 2002 Conference

It appears that the relationship between APA staff and Hubbard began as a result of the

proactive effort by the Science Directorate shortly after 9/11 to reach out and offer assistance

from psychological science to government agencies involved in counter-terrorism—principally

the FBI and the CIA, and eventually the Department of Homeland Security as well. Mumford,

the head of government relations for the Science Directorate, asked Brandon, a relatively new

Science Fellow at APA (a one- to two-year position) who had been a psychology researcher at

Yale, to work on making the connections and setting up meetings. Kelly, a subordinate to

Mumford who was generally in charge of government relations with DoD for the Science

Directorate, was also involved.

This outreach led to discussions with Steve Band, Chief of the FBI Behavioral Science

Unit at the FBI Academy in Quantico, Virginia, about organizing a counter-terrorism conference

at which law enforcement and intelligence personnel would come together with academics and

researchers to brainstorm and compare ideas. The result was a February 2002 conference at the

FBI Academy, titled “Countering Terrorism: Integration of Theory and Practice,” that was

attended by about 70 people, including Hubbard, Mitchell, and other CIA personnel, FBI

personnel, other federal officials, state and local law enforcement personnel, a wide variety of

academics, and APA staffers including Mumford, Kelly, Brandon, and Behnke. Brandon and

Mumford produced a 50-page summary that listed the participants and the different “scenarios”

that were discussed by smaller groups. A small amount of the document discussed interrogation

and interview techniques, but there is no reference to physical, aggressive, or disorientation

techniques that might be used to get a non-compliant person to talk.

Martin Seligman

Interviews and emails indicate that the model for the 2002 conference was a December

2001 meeting at the home of Martin Seligman, prominent psychologist and former APA

President, commonly associated with the “learned helplessness” theory among other theories.

The 13-page summary of the meeting, entitled “How To Win the Peace,” lists the 18 participants,

including Hubbard, Mitchell, Band, and several prominent academics. The document lists six

policy recommendations with a summary of the rationale for each, including “Isolate Jihad Islam

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from Moderate Islam worldwide,” and “Subvert the social structure of terrorist organizations.”

Interrogations were not referenced.

Combining the statements made to us by Seligman, Hubbard, and Mitchell, it appears that

Hubbard met with Seligman at his house on two occasions—once along with Mitchell and

Jessen, and once along with two other CIA psychologists or attorneys. At these meetings,

learned helplessness was discussed (in substantial detail during at least one of the meetings), and

Seligman was invited to speak to a SERE conference in San Diego about learned helplessness.

Our evidence shows that Mitchell was very interested in the application of the learned

helplessness theory to interrogations of uncooperative detainees. Hubbard and Mitchell say that

they never discussed interrogations with Seligman and did not provide him information about the

interrogation program. Seligman agrees and says he thought their interest in learned helplessness

related to its insights for captured US personnel who are trained through the SERE program to

resist providing information in interrogations. We think it would have been difficult not to

suspect that one reason for the CIA’s interest in learned helplessness was to consider how it

could be used in the interrogation of others. But this probably depends on whether it would have

seemed likely in 2002 that the CIA would use SERE techniques to conduct interrogations. A

December 2002 article in the Washington Post quoting unnamed CIA officials as describing

highly abusive interrogation techniques at CIA black sites would have created this suspicion, but

we do not have enough information to know what Seligman knew or thought at the time. And

because we do not see any evidence that this was connected with actions or decisions by or

communications with APA officials, we did not spend further time investigating the matter.

Joseph Matarazzo

Hubbard says when he returned to CIA headquarters in 2000 from a covert assignment in

London to lead a new behavioral science research unit, he believed the CIA needed to be less

insular and he therefore formed the PSAC with Matarazzo, Gravitz, and Fox to enhance the

access of Hubbard’s unit to experts in the area of psychological assessment and related issues.

Contemporaneous emails from Brandon confirm that this was his approach. Matarazzo, Gravitz,

and Fox were apparently paid a small amount. Hubbard, Matarazzo, and Fox told us the

meetings focused almost exclusively on understanding and applying psychological assessment

models in various contexts, but that none of the contexts related to interrogations.

However, we gathered some pieces of evidence (including from Matarazzo himself, age

89, who was very responsive and proactively cooperative in our investigation) that Matarazzo

was making some efforts to assist the CIA on interrogation topics, which may have been separate

from the activities of the PSAC. First, Matarazzo recalled Hubbard asking him to provide an

opinion about whether sleep deprivation constituted torture. After querying some psychologists

with relevant expertise, Matarazzo told Hubbard that he did not believe sleep deprivation was

necessarily torture. Matarazzo recalled responding to a written inquiry from Hubbard on the

topic, but he did not have access to the document. Hubbard said he could not recall this.

Second, the head of the APA Science Directorate at the time, Kurt Salzinger, recalls Matarazzo

approaching him shortly after 9/11 to ask if Salzinger knew psychologists who worked in the

area of interrogation, or “getting information from people.” Salzinger said he made one inquiry

that went nowhere and then he dropped it. Finally, PENS Task Force member Michael Wessells

recalled Matarazzo approaching him at a 2002 psychology conference in Singapore and saying

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something to the effect of, “In this environment, things are different, and the CIA is going to

need some help. Things may get harsh. We may need to take the gloves off.” Wessells said he

was not sure what Matarazzo wanted, and could not tell if Matarazzo was asking him to help the

CIA or was simply trying to persuade Wessells that harsher treatment of detainees was justified.

Wessells said he told Matarazzo he disagreed and nothing further occurred.

In addition, corporate records show that Matarazzo was a 1% owner of Mitchell and

Jessen’s company (Mitchell Jessen & Associates), which apparently received a very large

contract from the CIA, as reported in the Senate Intelligence Committee’s 2014 report and

various media reports. Matarazzo insists that he was not an owner of this company but was

instead an owner of “Knowledge Works,” which was a continuing education company run by

Mitchell and Jessen, he says. The documents we have show that, at the time, “Knowledge

Works” was not a separate company but was a division of Mitchell Jessen & Associates that

received continuing-education accreditation from APA and conducted a relatively small number

of continuing-education classes for military personnel. Mitchell and Matarazzo gave us

statements describing Matarazzo’s role in the company as highly limited and solely related to the

continuing education portion of the company. We did not find any connection between this topic

and APA actions or decisions about its ethics policies or government interrogation policies or

activities, and therefore did not consider this a central part of our investigation. We therefore did

not take further steps to determine what Matarazzo’s role was in Mitchell Jessen & Associates.

Melvin Gravitz and his opinion for James Mitchell on ethics and

interrogations

We learned that in about late 2002, the head of the CIA’s Office of Medical Services,

psychologist Terrence DeMay, complained about Mitchell’s involvement in the interrogations

then being conducted. This led to a substantial dispute within the CIA, which led the head of the

CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, who oversaw Mitchell and Jessen’s involvement in

interrogations, to determine that an opinion should be sought regarding the ethics of a

psychologist participating in the CIA’s interrogations. It was decided within the CIA to ask Mel

Gravitz to provide the opinion.

Gravitz’s written opinion—a very interesting document—was provided to us. Entitled

“Ethical Considerations in the Utilization of Psychologists in the Interrogation Process,” the

version that we have was emailed from Gravitz to Mitchell on February 13, 2003, during a very

active period of the CIA’s enhanced interrogation program. The document says that “[r]ecently,

some questions have been raised regarding the ethical implications of psychologists applying

their skills by assisting in the interrogation process of certain persons who have been detained in

the currently ongoing world-wide war against terrorism.” It recites that it will analyze the APA

Ethics Code principles as they apply to “Agency staff psychologists and contractors, all of whom

are required by regulation to be licensed.” At the time, Mitchell was an APA member, as

described in greater detail in the “Ethics Adjudications” section below. The document states that

the services rendered by psychologists in interrogation, could include consulting to, observing, or

participating in interrogations. The document says that one of the Ethics Code’s stated goals is

“the protection of the individuals and groups with whom psychologists work, the latter including

the national interest.” No cite is given for this statement.

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The document then quoted, and at times discussed, various Ethical Standards in the

Ethics Code, including Standard 1.02 (conflict between ethics and law or orders). The document

cited the provision relating to “providing services in emergencies” (Standard 2.02, which relates

to providing mental health services in emergencies, even if it is not within the psychologist’s

area of competence) for the proposition that “there are also implications for a national security

emergency where lives may be at stake.” The document cited the provision that psychologists

base their work on “established scientific and professional knowledge” (Standard 2.04), and

added that “when there is a minimal knowledge base existing in science or practice, such

services may be informed by the psychologist’s prior and ongoing experience.” This appears to

be a reference to the relative paucity of research on the effectiveness of the “enhanced”

interrogation techniques, and a suggestion that Mitchell’s experience with SERE training or

other detainee interrogations could be relied upon. The document closed with a reminder that

“the psychologist has an obligation to [a] group of individuals, such as the Nation,” and that the

Ethics Code “must be flexible applied to the circumstances at hand.”

We were told that as a result of Gravitz’s opinion, the chief of the CIA Counterterrorism

Center was satisfied that Mitchell could continue participating in and supporting interrogations.

We found no evidence that Gravitz’s opinion was prepared in consultation with or with

the knowledge of anyone at APA. Given our knowledge of Behnke’s writing style and approach,

we do not believe he had any involvement in this document, as its style and mode of analysis are

very different than his.

Hubbard and Mitchell said generally that they never sought and were never aware of

Behnke or anyone from APA providing information or any communications about ethics issues,

interrogations or otherwise.

Mitchell described for us in general terms why he thought his involvement in

interrogations (including his personal involvement in waterboarding, based on his own

statements) was ethical under the APA Ethics Code. He said that it was appropriate under the

Ethics Code to weigh the potential harm to the individual being interrogated (in order to gather

information to prevent a terrorist attack) against the potential harm to other individuals (the

public) that would be caused from a terrorist attack. He said that based on the “chatter” he was

seeing, the balance of harms justified the interrogation techniques he and others used—which, he

emphasized, were legal at the time.

Gravitz’s opinion is notable for its emphasis on the consideration to be given to national

security interests and protecting the country, well beyond anything in the actual Ethics Code.

The document also emphasizes the supposed “flexibility” of the Code. Clearly, the Gravitz

document would have been seen as creating a wide open, unrestricted ethical path to engage in

virtually any acts a psychologist believed were appropriate to “protect . . . the national interest.”

It provides an excellent example of the importance of deciding whether loose or tight ethical

constraints are right for a particular context. An analysis of APA ethics guidance was not an

irrelevancy—even for Mitchell and the CIA. While there is no guarantee that a different ethics

opinion—one with a more constraining analysis—would have stopped Mitchell or other

psychologists from participating in abusive interrogations, the outcome of the analysis had the

potential to affect decisions about how the government would proceed.

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Mitchell, who resigned from his APA membership in June 2006, about nine months after

a disciplinary complaint was brought against him and not pursued by the APA Ethics Office (as

detailed below), said he could not recall why he resigned, but believed it was because he thought

APA was becoming “overly political” and was taking stances that were not consistent with his

beliefs.

Philip Zimbardo

Some of APA’s critics suggested that, based on information Zimbardo provided,

Seligman and Matarazzo may have tried to help Hubbard recruit Philip Zimbardo, APA

President in 2002, to assist the CIA, including with its interrogation efforts. Zimbardo and Kirk

Kennedy told us that Hubbard and Kennedy met with Zimbardo (although this may have been

two meetings instead of one), and Zimbardo remembers meeting with Hubbard. Zimbardo says

that Hubbard asked him to gave a talk on interrogations, based on his work on law enforcement

interrogations. Zimbardo said he did give a talk to a small group at the CIA (apparently

Hubbard’s unit), but that he declined any further involvement with Hubbard or the CIA,

including a suggestion from Hubbard (vaguely remembered by Zimbardo) that Zimbardo could

receive a research grant. (Hubbard said he did not recall making this suggestion.) We found no

evidence that these interactions between Zimbardo and Hubbard involved other APA officials or

staff, or that they led to any actions by or communications with APA. This does not mean that

there was no further connection between Zimbardo and the CIA, but we have no reason to

believe this was the case.

Some have told us that Hubbard may have been attempting to influence Zimbardo while

he was President to ensure that Ethics Code provisions governing informed consent in research

(which were changed in 2002 as part of the APA’s Ethics Code revision process) were changed.

We saw no evidence to support this, and the meaningful changes to the relevant provision were

proposed and agreed to by the Ethics Code Task Force prior to 9/11. As APA President, perhaps

Zimbardo would have been in position to roll back the changes to this provision drafted by the

Ethics Code Task Force before the Council of Representatives finally approved it in 2002, and in

that sense, perhaps one might have had a motive to lobby him to ensure the change was not

reversed before the Code was finalized. But we saw no evidence to support this. And getting

involved in trying to reverse any of the changes agreed to by the Ethics Code Task Force after a

five-year process (discussed below), even as APA President, seems like an unlikely endeavor to

undertake.

The evidence of Zimbardo’s involvement on national security issues when he was

President in 2002 is that he met on Capitol Hill with Senator Daniel Inouye, chairman of the

Senate Defense Appropriations Subcommittee, to generally express support (as APA typically

did) for the funding of DoD behavioral science research. Zimbardo recommended to APA staff

that they set up a meeting for him with National Security Advisor Condoleezza Rice, whom

Zimbardo knew when Rice was Provost of Stanford University. A meeting was set up with

Rice’s staff that Zimbardo, Heather Kelly and Susan Brandon attended, but Rice did not. Kelly

and Brandon recalled that the meeting was a relatively high-level discussion with Zimbardo

doing most of the talking and the National Security Council staff saying little of interest.

Contemporaneous emails reveal nothing else of interest.

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Robert Sternberg

The 2003 APA President, Robert Sternberg, made a presentation to Hubbard’s group at

the CIA in December 2002, accompanied by Brandon and Mumford. The presentation related to

the development of psychological assessment tools based on the theory of “successful

intelligence.” The Science Directorate publicized the visit in its newsletter under the headline,

“APA President Sternberg Visits the CIA,” and posted his power point presentation on the APA

website.

Sternberg was uncooperative with the investigation; he begrudgingly and briefly spoke to

Sidley and denied ever giving a presentation to the CIA or visiting the CIA.

2003 and 2004 conferences

Following the February 2002 conference at the FBI, Mumford and Brandon discussed

planning new conferences on topics that they thought would be of interest to Hubbard and the

CIA, based on their communications with Hubbard, especially the subject of deception. As part

of this effort, Brandon sent emails in May 2002 to a wide variety of researchers and academics,

most of whom she did not know, soliciting ideas for research regarding this issue. One of the

researchers who responded was RAND employee and CIA contractor Scott Gerwehr. Gerwehr

was an expert on the topic of detecting deception. Brandon, Mumford, and Gerwehr began

emailing about the topic and the possibility of creating a conference on the subject, and they

brought Hubbard into the email discussions. This developed into a close and friendly working

relationship between the four of them as they planned CIA- and RAND-sponsored conferences

in 2003 and 2004. By this point, Brandon had left the APA and had taken a position at the

National Institutes of Health. By the time of the 2004 conference, she had taken a position in the

Science Division of the Office of Science and Technology Policy within the Executive Office of

the President.

The 2003 conference, called “The Science of Deception: Integration of Practice and

Theory,” took place on July 17 and 18 at RAND’s headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. About 40

people attended, including Hubbard, Mitchell, Jessen, and about ten others from the CIA (some

of whom gave only their first names), Steve Band and two others from the FBI, Scott Shumate

(having moved by then from CIA to DoD), a SERE psychologist who worked with Morgan

Banks (Gary Hazlett), Andy Morgan, Brandon, Mumford, Gerwehr, and numerous academics

and researchers. As with the 2002 conference, a detailed written summary was created

describing the “scenarios” discussed, “research challenges,” and the participants. One of the

scenarios related to “law enforcement interrogation.” After discussing three main research

challenges, the written summary listed five additional research challenges, including “what

pharmacological agents are known to affect apparent truth-telling behavior,” and “what are

sensory overloads on the maintenance of deceptive behaviors.” Other than these notes, there

were no strong indications that interrogation topics were discussed that are relevant to our

inquiry. None of the conference participants we spoke to believed that there was any

information provided about what techniques the CIA was using or considering using in

interrogations or about its actual interrogation program, and we saw nothing from the

contemporaneous emails that contradicted this. As with the 2002 conference, details about the

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

2003 conference, including its sponsorship by the CIA, were published in APA’s Science

Directorate newsletter.

A 2004 two-day conference on “intuition in policing” was organized and held in similar

fashion. Brandon, Mumford, Gerwehr, and Hubbard organized an extra day of the conference on

the “detecting deception” topic. We found nothing more relevant regarding this conference than

the 2003 one.

Role of Susan Brandon

Some of APA’s critics have suggested that Brandon, because of her position at the Office

of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), may have played an important role in pushing APA

to support the Bush Administration and aggressive interrogation techniques. We think this likely

overstates Brandon’s position in the Administration, and her influence within APA.

OSTP is one of about 20 offices within the Executive Office of the President, which also

includes, for instance, the National Security Advisor, the Council of Economic Advisers, the

Office of Management and Budget, the Office of National Drug Control Policy, and the Office of

the U.S. Trade Representative. The head of OSTP is its Director who has a Director’s Staff.

There are currently five divisions within OSTP, including National Security and International

Affairs, Technology and Innovation, Environment and Energy, and Science. Each division is

headed by an Associate Director. Underneath each Associate Director are various Assistant

Directors and staff.

Brandon was an Assistant Director within the Science Division. Her title was Assistant

Director for Social, Behavioral and Education Sciences. She was therefore several levels below

the Director of OSTP. She said she had little contact with the Director, and we have not seen

email evidence that contradicts this. Emails from the time show that she occasionally expressed

her disappointment to Mumford that she was often thought of as an “education research” person

within OSTP, even though this was not her area of expertise.

It is not clear that the Science Division of OSTP (or OSTP as a whole) had any

significant influence at the time on the issue of detainee interrogations or related national

security issues. We have not seen evidence or public reporting that suggests that OSTP was a

significant player within the Bush Administration, and officials within CIA and DoD who we

asked about OSTP and Brandon thought there was no influence whatsoever.

Because OSTP is part of the Executive Office of the President, Mumford jokingly

referred to her as “White House Susan” and “Oval Office Susan.” But we saw no evidence

supporting the contention that she was a significant player within the Administration on these

issues.

As set out above, Brandon was an observer at the PENS Task Force and played a role in

drafting some portions of the recommendations regarding research. In that respect, she had some

influence on the PENS Task Force report. But otherwise, and except as set out above regarding

the conferences that APA organized with the CIA, the FBI, and RAND, we are not convinced

that she played an important role in APA decisionmaking or actions.

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Conclusions Regarding Changes to Ethics Code Task Force in 2002, Including

“Nuremberg Defense”

The evidence establishes that revisions to the 2002 Ethics Code (“Code”) were a response

to the perception that the Code was being used as a weapon against psychologists to create

liability in criminal, civil, and administrative proceedings. We did not see evidence that the

revisions were a response to, motivated by, or in any way linked to the attacks of September 11^th

or the subsequent war on terror. Nor did we see evidence that they were the product of collusion

with the government to support torture. Rather, psychologists felt that the length, breadth, and

broad application of the five aspirational general principles and over 100 enforceable ethical

standards in the Code provided a basis for state licensing boards, patients, and third-parties to

pursue unwarranted and unjust legal action against psychologists. The 14-member Ethics Code

Task Force (“ECTF”), comprised of members from a variety of practice areas, sought to revise

the Code to address this issue and create protections for psychologists within the Code to insulate

them from liability.

Over a six-year period, the ECTF, chaired by Celia Fisher, revised the Code to effect the

desired changes and address the concerns of psychologists. The revised code (“2002 Code”)

became effective June 1, 2003. The most significant changes relevant to our review were the

revisions to Standard 1.02 which addressed “Conflicts Between Ethics and Law.” In the 2002

Code, Standard 1.02 was revised to make clear that it applied to conflicts between ethical

obligations and the “law, regulations, or other governing legal authority” where the standard had

previously only included the term “law.” APA understood “regulations or other governing legal

authority” to include military orders from a superior. In the event of a conflict, psychologists

were required to make known their commitment to the Ethics Code and take steps to resolve the

conflict. If the conflict was unresolveable, psychologists were permitted to adhere to the

requirements of the law, regulations, or other governing legal authority - a concept that was not

included in the prior version of Standard 1.02. Standard 1.02, in the 2002 Code, was the first

time that the Code explicitly permitted psychologists to follow the law instead of their ethical

obligations when faced with a conflict between the two.

APA critics have alleged that the revisions to Standard 1.02 were the product of collusion

with the government and had the effect of providing psychologists with a defense to torture.

Specifically, they allege that the revised language in Standard 1.02 was developed with the

government to permit psychologists’ participation in interrogations and that it created a loophole

that allowed psychologists to ignore their ethical obligations when these obligations conflicted

with law, regulations, or other governing legal authority. In this way, critics allege that the

standard provided cover for psychologists to participate in or consult on interrogations that

employed enhanced techniques or methods that otherwise constituted torture. These

psychologists, the critics have alleged, could, and in fact did, avail themselves of the protections

of Standard 1.02 and the Nuremberg Defense²⁴ to excuse their unethical behavior on the grounds

that they were “only following orders.”

²⁴ The Nuremberg Defense commonly refers to one of the arguments employed by defendants charged

with war crimes and crimes against humanity at the Nuremberg trials after World War II. See The New

York Times, “Germans Disclaim Guilt Under Law,” July 5, 1946 (the defense argued that “everything that

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

Given what we now know about the role some psychologists played in designing the

enhanced interrogation program, the government’s narrow definition of “torture” during the early

years of the war on terror, and the way in which the military used psychologists as members of

the behavioral science consultation teams at Guantanamo, the critics’ argument is

understandable. But the evidence does not fully support that argument. While the revisions to

Standard 1.02 may have provided protection for some psychologists who were involved in

abusive interrogations, the evidence shows that this was an unintended consequence of the

ECTF’s desire to insulate psychologists from liability in other areas -unrelated to interrogations

and the way in which the government used psychologists during the war on terror. And the way

in which psychologists may have used Standard 1.02 post hoc as cover for unethical behavior

was not the focus of our inquiry. Instead we focused on the motivation, purpose, and process by

which the Code was revised during the ECTF process.

The evidence shows that the primary motivation for the revision to Standard 1.02 was to

protect psychologists who faced difficult choices when their ethical obligations of confidentiality

conflicted with legal directives in the form of subpoenas or court orders that required disclosure

of confidential patient information. ECTF members articulated two specific concerns, one raised

by clinicians and forensic psychologists, and one raised by military and correctional

psychologists, regarding ethical conflicts that drove the revisions to Standard 1.02. First,

clinicians and forensic psychologists wanted to make clear that they could follow the law when

they received subpoenas for treatment records (often in child custody cases) and faced the choice

of complying with the subpoena and breaching confidentiality or ignoring the subpoena and

being held in contempt. Second, military and correctional psychologists wanted to make clear

that they could comply with military or other lawful orders when they received orders that

required them to disclose confidential patient treatment records instead of being forced to choose

between complying with the orders and disregarding them and facing a court martial or adverse

employment consequences. Both groups of psychologists wanted the Ethics Code to make clear

that when faced with a conflict, they could follow the law or an equivalent order or directive.

The revisions to Standard 1.02 that effected this change were proposed in October 2000, nearly

one year prior to the attacks of September 11^th - and thus could not have been a response to or

motivated by the war on terror - or the result of collusion with the government in the wake of

September 11^th.

Creating an avenue for psychologists to follow the law and subordinate their ethical

obligations, particularly when the law included military orders, could have, and perhaps should

have, been a red flag to ECTF members and prompted them to consider the Nuremberg Defense.

And while we have no evidence that the ECTF considered this issue in connection with 1.02, he

ECTF did explicitly discuss the Nuremberg defense in the context of the closely-related Standard

8.03 (now 1.03), which addressed “Conflicts Between Ethics and Organizational Demands.”

The primary concern with regard to Standard 8.03 was whether it was fair to permit

psychologists working for an organization or corporation to engage in certain conduct without

Adolf Hitler had done in Germany was legal, and therefore those who followed his orders could not be

accused of criminal acts.”)

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ethical ramifications, while sanctioning independently practicing psychologists who engaged in

the same conduct but not pursuant to their employer’s directive.

Before the revisions to Standard 1.02, Standard 8.03 was the ethical standard to which

military and correctional psychologists would have looked for guidance. The revisions to 1.02

provided another source of guidance - arguably guidance that was clearer with regard to

conflicts. Given that the Nuremberg Defense was discussed in the context of Standard 8.03, one

would have expected someone to have raised it during discussion of Standard 1.02. Yet it

appears that no one did.

We have no evidence that the failure to discuss the Nuremberg Defense in the context of

revisions to Standard 1.02 was in any way connected to the work of psychologists in national

security settings or interrogations. The only documentary evidence that we found related to the

issue of interrogations in connection with the Code revision was an inquiry from a military

psychologist who was also a Council representative, in February 2002, asking whether

consultation with police interrogators who were trying to “break down” a suspect, or consultation

with national intelligence organizations, was covered in the general principles of the code and

whether principles on consultation could clarify what activities were covered by the Code. The

ECTF Chair responded that providing specific guidance on pathways psychologists could use to

address the dilemma was “beyond the scope of the code.”

Thus, while at least one psychologist contemplated application of the code to

psychologists consulting on interrogations, albeit police interrogations, we did not see evidence

that this issue was considered by the ECTF, other than the Chair. That the Nuremberg defense

and interrogations were not specifically discussed in the context of revisions to Standard 1.02

may suggest that the ECTF missed certain red flags, did not consider or contemplate all issues

facing military and correctional psychologists, and deemed certain issues beyond the scope of the

code. And this helped create a loophole in the Ethics Code that could be used later by

psychologists seeking to escape ethical sanctions for following orders to take actions that would

have otherwise violated the Code. But we did not find evidence that these revisions were the

product of collusion with the government. Instead, the evidence shows that the revisions were

born out of a desire to protect psychologists and a willingness to subordinate ethical obligations

to do so.

APA critics have also alleged that changes to Standard 8.05 - which pertains to

dispensing with informed consent for research - were the product of collusion with the

government to facilitate psychologists’ participation in abusive interrogations that constituted

torture. As revised in 2002, Standard 8.05 allowed psychologists to proceed with research

without informed consent from the subject where “permitted by law or federal or institutional

regulations.” Critics alleged this change allowed psychologists to conduct research on detainees

without their providing, or being able to provide, informed consent. As with the changes to 1.02,

we did not find any evidence that the changes to 8.05 were the result of collusion with the

government. Indeed, the change to the language that allowed dispensing with informed consent

if the law permitted it was added to the draft Code prior to September 11, 2001, and therefore

could not have been the result of collusion with the government in the subsequent War on Terror.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

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Conclusions Regarding Improper Application of APA Ethics Disciplinary

System to Protect CIA and DoD Psychologists

APA’s Ethics Office works jointly with the Ethics Committee in adjudicating ethics

complaints against APA members.²⁵ The “fundamental objectives” of the Ethics Committee,

among others, are to “maintain ethical conduct by psychologists at the highest professional level”

and “to endeavor to protect the public against harmful conduct by psychologists.”²⁶ Both the

Ethics Office and the Ethics Committee fell short of meeting these objectives when adjudicating

ethics complaints alleging improper involvement by national security psychologists in

interrogations.

APA critics have alleged that the Ethics Office has been unwilling to investigate or act on

complaints regarding psychologists who participated in, or were otherwise involved in

interrogations. The evidence supports this allegation and shows three primary factors led to the

Ethics Office’s failure to properly address these complaints: (1) when conducting investigations

the Ethics Office’s longstanding practice is not to pursue the full investigative steps permitted by

the Ethics Committee Rules and Procedures (“the Rules”); (2) the Ethics Office stretched the

interpretation of its procedural rules so as to be as favorable as possible to the accused

psychologist; and (3) at times the Ethics Director, Stephen Behnke, actively resisted taking any

action against psychologists who participated in interrogations.

The Ethics Committee has an established set of Rules and Procedures (the “Rules”) that

apply to the adjudication of ethics complaints. When adjudicating complaints, the Ethics

Committee and the Ethics Office are guided by these Rules as well as the longstanding practices

of the Ethics Office, some of which are not specifically outlined in the Rules. Based on the

Ethics Office’s practice, the adjudication process is typically a highly limited, “paper-only”

review, which means that the “investigation” consists merely of examining documents that are

sent to the Ethics Office by the parties to an ethics complaint. Investigators take no affirmative

steps to seek documents from other witnesses, and conduct no interviews, even though the Rules

explicitly permit them to do both, and suggest to outside observers that the Ethics Office will

take such normal investigative actions.²⁷ When faced with the choice of taking more

investigative steps, as permitted by the Rules, and taking fewer steps, the Ethics Office almost

always chooses the latter. Indeed, the “investigations” conducted by the Ethics Office do not

comport with any ordinary understanding of the term “investigation” and would be more

accurately described as a document review or case file assessment.

The limited steps taken by the Ethics Office to investigate ethics complaints facilitates

interpreting the Rules in a way that is most favorable to the accused psychologist, which at

times, is antithetical to a natural reading of the Rules. This strained reading of the Rules hinders

²⁵ APA Ethics Office, American Psychological Association, available at http://apa.org/ethics/index.aspx.

²⁶ APA Ethics Committee Rules and Procedures, Part I.1, American Psychological Association, available

at http://apa.org/ethics/code/committee.aspx#overview.

²⁷ See Rules Part V, Subsections 5.3.3, 6.2 (in deciding whether to open a full “case investigation,” and in

conducting a case investigation, “[a]dditional information may be requested from the complainant,

respondent, or any other appropriate source”).

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the Ethics Office’s ability to conduct any meaningful investigations into allegations of unethical

behavior. The limitation is evidenced by the way in which the Ethics Office “investigated” the

ethics complaints filed against Colonel Larry James and Major John Leso. The complaint filed

against James, in December 2007, generally alleged that under his command, psychologists

participated in abusive interrogations at Guantanamo, which included isolation and techniques

designed to disorient the detainee, among other things. The “investigation” of this complaint

consisted of a review of the documentation physically submitted by the complainant (but not

examining critical documents cited by the complainant that required slightly more than minimal

effort to obtain), after which the investigator, Stanley Jones (former APA Ethics Director hired

as a consultant to do work for the Ethics Office from time to time), recommended that the case

be closed without further action. Jones wrote that he did not think that there was “cause for

action” as defined in the Rules; that is, he thought that the alleged actions, if proved, would not

constitute a breach of ethics.

In recommending that the James matter be closed as not meeting the “cause for action”

standard, Jones wrote that the complainant “provide[d] no data that the respondent ever in fact

employed isolation or sensory deprivation at all, much less that he did so as part of an abusive

interrogation program.” This seems to suggest that the complainant would have to provide

evidence to show that James actually participated in an abusive interrogation in order to find

cause for action. Yet a plain reading of the Rules shows that the Rules do not require this

heightened level of proof. Rather, the Rules provide that a cause for action “shall exist when the

respondent’s alleged actions and/or omissions, if proved, would in the judgment of the decision

maker constitute a breach.”²⁸

Jones told Sidley that, with respect to the allegations set forth in the complaint against

James, he questioned whether a psychologist would have had “notice that the 2002 Ethics Code

meant that they could not be involved in activities that might create a degree of disorientation,

disorganization, and dependence,” and that he believed what James was allegedly doing “did not

appear to violate the 2002 Code.” At the time he was considering the matter, Jones also

questioned whether the alleged behaviors would violate the statements of APA as of 2007; he

was not sure that the alleged behavior would, in fact, be unethical under these standards. Jones’s

view that the alleged behavior was not, per se, unethical was shared by at least one other person

in the Ethics Office.

Although the way in which the Ethics Office handled the James matter was technically

permissible under the Rules, it demonstrates just how little effort the Ethics Office expends in its

“investigation” of ethics complaints, the way in which the Ethics Offices stretches to construe

the Rules in a way that is favorable to the accused, and how much the Ethics Office falls back on

the rationale that standards in the Ethics Code were too vague to put psychologists on proper

notice that certain interrogation techniques were unethical—a rationale that was never shared

with APA membership, or the general public.

The complaints filed against Leso, in 2007 and 2008, generally alleged that as a BSCT

psychologist, he established procedures for interrogating detainees and presided over

²⁸ Rules, Part V, Subsection 5.1.

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interrogation sessions in which abusive techniques were used. An actual “case investigation”

was never opened into the Leso matter. Instead, the Ethics Office merely opened a “preliminary

investigation,” which the Rules say is an investigation that may be conducted if the complaint

does not provide sufficient information to determine whether “cause for action” exists—that is,

whether the allegations, “if proven . . . would constitute a breach of ethics.” The “preliminary

investigation” into the allegations against Leso consisted of correspondence with one of the

complainants to request support for the allegations and correspondence with Leso to request his

response to the allegations. The Ethics Office stayed the matter when an action against Leso was

pending before a state licensing board. When the licensing board did not act against Leso, the

Ethics Office took the additional step of conducting internet searches to obtain additional

information and kept the matter open for a total of six years (still merely as a “preliminary

investigation”), with the explanation that they wanted to see if information related to Leso’s

actions would become publicly available. The Ethics Office did not take any affirmative steps to

request information from witnesses who might have had relevant information (including

individuals with whom APA had close ties, such as Banks, Dunivin, or James) or to seek

documents through, for instance, a FOIA request. As the Deputy Director of the Ethics Office

and the Director of Adjudication, Lindsay Childress-Beatty recommended closing the matter

because she thought there was a “reasonable basis to believe that the allegations cannot be

proved by a preponderance of the evidence.” This was a reference to another Rule, Rule 5.5,

which states that even if “cause for action” exists (that is, the allegation, if proved, would

constitute a breach of ethics), the case shall be closed if the Ethics Committee Chair and the

Ethics Office Director agree that “there is a reasonable basis to believe that the alleged violation

cannot be proved by a preponderance of the evidence.”

As in the James matter, the Ethics Office staff again questioned whether certain

techniques, such as “sleep deprivation, withhold food, isolation,” were actually unethical. In a

memorandum to the Ethics Committee Chair, Childress-Beatty wrote, “these techniques in and

of themselves may not be cruel, unusual, inhuman, degrading treatment or torture depending

upon factors such as the situational context, length of time used, and intensity.” Childress-

Beatty’s view is a departure from what Behnke told Sidley—that most of these techniques should

have been prohibited, especially in light of the PENS Report. Moreover, suggesting that

techniques such as sleep deprivation, withholding food, and isolation could not be proven to be

unethical by a preponderance of evidence even before an actual case investigation is conducted is

stretching the bounds of the Ethics Code so as to not find a violation of any standards. Notably,

Childress-Beatty’s statement was not based entirely on statements about insufficient evidence.

She was concluding in this statement that a psychologist may be able to ethically recommend

that a detainee outside the criminal justice system be deprived of sleep or food for the purpose of

trying to conduct an effective interrogation. Clearly, the effect of, for instance, sleep deprivation

depends on the amount of time involved. But the fact that it might ever be considered ethical for

psychologists to recommend sleep deprivation against detainees in this situation is a very notable

ethical conclusion by the APA Ethics Office and the Ethics Committee Chair who agreed with

the recommendation to close the matter. Certainly, it is not a conclusion that we are aware APA

has ever admitted making, either in the explanation to the complainant for closing the Leso

matter or its public statements. In effect, the only way for APA to close this case using the Rules

was to call interrogation techniques “potentially ethical” in light of APA’s supposedly vague

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ethical standards, when almost all APA’s post-PENS statements stressed that its ethical standards

(including PENS, according to Behnke) were strict and would clearly prohibit such techniques.

In short, while publicly proclaiming the strictness of their rules and their eagerness to

thoroughly investigate complaints of abusive interrogations, behind closed doors, the Ethics

Office crafted rationales that stressed the vagueness of their ethical standards and the highly

restricted nature of their “investigations” in order to close complaints, all the while using a

stretched interpretation of their procedural Rules.

The ability of the Ethics Office to conduct meaningful investigations into allegations

against psychologists who allegedly participated in abusive interrogations has been further

hindered by the actions of Behnke. The evidence shows that Behnke, at best, was resistant to

proceeding with complaints against psychologists involved in interrogations, and, at worst, took

affirmative steps to avoid presenting these cases to the full Ethics Committee. For instance,

when former APA President, Ron Levant, inquired into whether an ethics investigation should be

opened against Leso based on allegations against him in the media in 2005, Behnke stated

blatantly, and falsely, that Leso was not an APA member. The ethics complaints filed against

Michael Gelles and James Mitchell illustrate this resistance even more clearly. The complaint

against Gelles alleged that he behaved unethically during a session with a Naval Petty Officer

under investigation for espionage. The email evidence shows that Behnke actively looked for

ways to avoid proceeding with the complaint and suggested ways to avoid presenting the

complaint to the full Ethics Committee. In fact, Sidley uncovered evidence that suggests that

Mel Gravitz, an influential APA member, approached Behnke and tried to dissuade him from

moving forward with the Gelles ethics complaint. This was corroborated by Behnke. And

despite telling Sidley that he was not improperly influenced by Gravitz, emails from Behnke’s

custodial files show that he actively interfered with the Ethics Office investigator’s work,

deputized himself as the investigator while she was on administrative leave, and tried to stop the

case from proceeding.

The complaint filed in 2005 against Mitchell—while he was still an APA member—was

based on allegations from news reports that psychologists, including Mitchell suggested the use

of harsh interrogation techniques during the interrogation of detainees. The evidence shows that

the complainant contacted the Ethics Office several times prior to filing her complaint against

Mitchell and that each time Behnke or an Ethics Office staff member discouraged her from filing

the complaint. When the Ethics Office received the compliant, a staff member conducted a

search to determine whether James Mitchell was a member and thus whether the office had

jurisdiction over the complaint. The search showed that three individuals named “James

Mitchell” were APA members but no steps were taken to determine whether any of the

individuals named “James Mitchell” was the James Mitchell identified in news articles. Nor

were any other investigative steps taken in connection with the complaint against Mitchell. If

additional steps had been taken, the Ethics Office would have learned that one of the three

individuals was, in fact, the James Mitchell identified in news articles—articles that reported

Mitchell had suggested the use of harsh interrogation techniques. Instead, the Ethics Office

failed to take any action on the complaint—and Mitchell resigned from APA nine months later

while the complaint was pending.

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Despite his actions and resistance to proceeding with complaints against psychologists

who allegedly participated in abusive interrogations, Behnke made numerous statements touting

APA’s willingness to take action against these psychologists. The evidence shows that these

statements—strategically made in order to make it appear that APA stood ready to vigorously

investigate ethical complaints in this area and would take strong affirmative steps to dig out the

truth—were disingenuous and misleading. During the time that these ethics complaints were

pending, Behnke said:

If psychologists have engaged in any activity, and at this point the media reports

are long on hearsay and innuendo, short on facts, the [APA] wants the facts. And

when we have the facts, we will act on them. And if individuals who are members

of our association have acted inappropriately, the APA will address those very

directly and very clearly;²⁹

I would say that for us, the question is not whether psychologists may be

involved. We believe that there is an ethical role for psychologists to play. The

question is ‘[w]hat are the ethical boundaries within which psychologists must

remain when they are engaged in these activities?’ Certainly, if it is the case that

individuals have behaved unethically, the American Psychological Association

has an ethics committee that will respond to that situation through our process of

adjudication;³⁰

APA will adjudicate any allegation that an APA member has engaged in unethical

conduct. If you have information that a psychologist has engaged in torture, I ask

that you immediately bring this information to my attention;³¹

[the Ethics Office] thoroughly investigate[s] the complaint under a set of

extensive procedures that apply to all complainants and to all psychologists who

are subjects of a complaint;³²

[a]ny psychologist participation in a torture interrogation is absolutely prohibited.

It makes no difference whether the psychologist’s participation is direct or

indirect, supervisory, central or peripheral: Any psychologist participation in a

torture interrogation is prohibited.³³

The reality diverged greatly from these statements. Instead of “thoroughly

investigat[ing]” allegations that member psychologists had behaved unethically or participated in

²⁹ Psychological Warfare? A Debate on the Role of Mental Health Professionals in Military

Interrogations at Guantanamo, Abu Ghraib and Beyond, Democracy Now! (Aug. 11, 2005), available at

http://www.democracynow.org/2005/8/11/psychological_warfare_a_debate_on_the.

³⁰ Id.

³¹ APA_0073156 (emphasis added).

³² APA_0093377 (emphasis added).

³³ APA_0064994.

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IV.

ANSWERS TO THE QUESTIONS POSED BY THE CHARGE

The Board of Directors’ resolution asks us to report as to whether APA “colluded” with

government officials “to support torture.” As we embarked on our review, some APA critics

expressed concern that our charge was too narrow. These critics thought that the charge, as set

forth in the Board’s statement, would place limits on our ability to thoroughly investigate

relevant issues not specifically set forth in the charge, and was intentionally designed to lead to a

“no” answer, since in their view it would be very unlikely that one would be able to establish that

APA officials intended to help the government torture people. We understood this concern given

the language used to define our charge, and we saw how the charge could be narrowly construed.

In contrast, some of the APA officials we interviewed have stressed for us their view that

we could only reach some sort of negative finding if we concluded that APA engaged in

collusion “to support torture.” And some put definitions of “collusion” in front of us to

purportedly show its narrow contours. One APA staff member sought to narrow the scope of our

review by “confirm[ing that] the scope” of our review was defined by “three essential elements

of the review: . . . 1) collusion, that is, a mutually agree upon plan of action; 2) with the Bush

administration; and 3) the intended goal of advancing the Bush administration torture program.”

Approaching the review with these constraints would have meant that finding collusion between

APA and government officials or collusion for any goal other than intentionally advancing the

effort to torture people would have been outside the scope of our review.

The Special Committee rejected a narrow view of our scope and told us to understand our

charge broadly, so that the scope of our review included a review of the issues specifically

identified in the Board’s statement, the relevant issues in Risen’s book, and critics’ allegations

regarding the changes to APA policies and the driving forces behind those changes. The Special

Committee explained that the goal was a thorough review of these issues and all the available

evidence so that our report could set out our full understanding of what happened and why.

Nevertheless, we are called upon to answer the question whether APA colluded with

government officials to support torture, as well as three sub-questions set out in the Board’s

resolution: (1) “whether APA supported the development or implementation of enhanced

interrogation techniques that constituted torture”; (2) whether changes to Ethics Code Section

1.02 or the formation and/or the report of the PENS Task Force “were the product of collusion

with the government to support torture or intended to support torture; and (3) “whether any APA

action related to torture was improperly influenced by government-related financial

considerations,” including grants, contracts, or prescription-privileges policy for military

psychologists.

Collusion

With regard to the PENS Task Force and subsequent policy statements and decisions by

APA, there clearly was collusion between key APA officials who were acting on behalf of APA

and key DoD officials. We have seen various definitions of “collusion,” but common ones

define it as a secret agreement, understanding, or cooperation for some harmful, improper,

dishonest, or illegal purpose.

(In emails to us, Behnke defined “collusion” more broadly, as a

“mutually agreed upon plan of action”.) In our description above, we have intentionally used

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

terms such as coordination, collaboration, and joint venture, which we believe capture what

occurred. And we conclude that the evidence also shows that this constituted collusion.

The collusion here was, at the least, to adopt and maintain APA ethics policies that were

not more restrictive than the guidelines that key DoD officials wanted, and that were as closely

aligned as possible with DoD policies, guidelines, practices, or preferences, as articulated to

APA by these DoD officials. The existence and nature of this collaboration was kept

confidential outside of those APA officials who worked with Behnke and others on the PENS

Task Force and related matters. And this purpose could easily be described as improper or

dishonest, because it constituted the development, implementation and maintenance of APA

ethics policy not based solely on an independent judgment of what policy was best for APA, but

in very substantial part based on what policy was best for DoD.

One might say that APA was effectively making a policy judgment that what was best for

DoD was best for APA, but APA certainly did not claim that this was the policy judgment it was

making. This behind-the-scenes sacrifice of APA independence largely in order to pursue and

maintain policies that were pleasing to and requested by DoD officials constitutes collusion, in

our view.

We are asked whether this constituted collusion “to support torture.” One potentially

straightforward answer is that since the PENS report said clearly that no psychologist could

ethically be involved in torture, APA could not possibly have acted or intended to support

torture. But this is probably too simplistic an answer since, as discussed above, the artificially

narrow Justice Department definition of “torture” (known to APA and the public) meant that at

the time, a mere statement prohibiting “torture” did not necessarily prohibit acts that would

properly be considered torture at most other times.

We think the evidence clearly shows that the key APA officials acting on behalf of APA

intentionally implemented a policy that would allow DoD officials to continue to engage in their

existing practices based on the guidelines and procedures they had in place. At a minimum, this

was the purpose of the collusion. The question then arises, what did APA know about or believe

regarding DoD’s existing interrogation practices in which psychologists might be involved?

APA’s Knowledge

As summarized above and detailed further in this report, there were clear and strong

indications in front of APA officials that abusive interrogation techniques (such as stress

positions, sleep deprivation, threats, and playing on phobias) had occurred. There had even been

substantial public reporting and congressional inquiry on about the apparent (at the time)

waterboarding of two “high-value” detainees. In short, by June 2005, it would have been clear to

all well-informed observers that abusive interrogation techniques had almost certainly occurred

and that there was a substantial risk they were still occurring.

It is true that Banks and some of the other DoD psychologists on the PENS Task Force

said that psychologists were present for interrogations in order to make them safer, by using their

expertise in human behavior to watch the interrogators and stop them if they began engaging in

abusive activity as a result of so-called “behavioral drift.” Under this explanation, involving

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psychologists in interrogations would be a positive factor, and therefore the APA’s actions to

adopt and maintain the PENS Task Force report as policy could not be called an attempt to

support torture.

But Banks and the others also believed that psychologists had an important role to play in

helping to make interrogations “effective” by, among other things, making suggestions and

recommendations to the interrogators about how to proceed. Were these suggestions and

recommendations to be limited to ways of asking questions or building rapport? Not necessarily,

say Banks and the others. Stress positions or sleep deprivation, for instance, might be

appropriate techniques under some circumstances, depending on the nature of the stress positions

and sleep deprivation, they say. Banks told us that a six-week training course started in 2006 for

interrogators was needed to understand how to make these decisions, but once so trained,

interrogators and psychologists could make the decisions appropriately in a manner that was

“safe, legal, ethical and effective.” For instance, Banks told us that a “stress position” with a

detainee hanging from the ceiling with his head down would not pass this test because it would

not be safe, but a “stress position” in which a detainee was in the “push-up position” might pass

this test. The ethics guidelines in the PENS Task Force report allow a psychologist to consult

regarding an interrogation and help make it effective, although not regarding “torture or cruel,

inhuman or degrading treatment.” Yet at the time of PENS, neither Banks nor the other DoD

psychologists were willing to list stress positions or sleep deprivation as techniques that

automatically fell within those definitions. And Banks was unwilling to do so ten years later

when we spoke with him.

Thus, there were clear signs from the PENS Task Force meeting that DoD officials

believed that some of the “enhanced” interrogation techniques specifically described in the

media were not prohibited by the ethical guidelines in PENS. This in turn would have suggested

at the time that DoD may well have considered these techniques proper in some circumstances

and may well have been utilizing them. When combined with the private statements to Behnke

and others APA by CIA and DoD officials, and the widespread and powerful public reporting

about the apparent interrogation abuse, including numerous and corroborating quotes from

government officials and the Red Cross, there were very strong reasons to be concerned that

abusive interrogation techniques had occurred in the past and that there was a substantial risk

that they were continuing.

We have not seen evidence that Behnke or the other key APA officials knew definitively

that enhanced interrogation techniques were occurring at Guantanamo at the time of PENS. But

it is also clear that they made an intentional effort not to dig into these concerns and allegations

to try to determine whether they had occurred or were still occurring. Some of the key DoD

officials on the task force, principally Banks and Larry James, as well as Dunivin, were assuring

the key APA officials that past abuses had been stopped and the problem had been solved by

deploying better personnel and by ensuring that psychologists were present to stop behavioral

drift. But apart from these strong but self-serving and uncorroborated assurances, the APA

officials did not seek information to determine whether abusive techniques were still occurring

or were likely to occur in the future. Instead, they discussed internally their desire to be

“forward-looking” and supportive of military psychologists, and not to look backwards and make

accusations about psychologists. They therefore intentionally did make any effort to seek out

more information that might corroborate or contradict the DoD assurances, strategically

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emphasizing that they were unlikely to get definitive details regarding potential interrogation

abuses because the information would be classified.

“Deliberate avoidance”

In this situation in a criminal case, one would ask whether this intentional decision not to

seek more information constituted “willful blindness” or “deliberate avoidance,” such that a jury

instruction known as the “ostrich instruction” would be appropriate. A typical version of this

instruction says that a defendant acted “knowingly” if he had a strong suspicion that a certain

factual claim or statement was true and deliberately avoided learning the truth. One common

legal definition of “deliberate avoidance” in this context is “cutting off one’s curiosity through an

effort of the will.”

On the one hand, this fits the facts at hand. The approach that Behnke and Koocher

(principally) recommended and that APA took was to deliberately avoid probing or inquiring

into the widespread indications that had surfaced about harsh interrogation techniques being

conducted by the CIA and DoD, even though they knew that psychologists were involved in CIA

and DoD interrogations. And by June 2005, the media reports combined with the statements that

had been made to Behnke and others at APA by CIA and DoD officials would have made

anyone suspicious, and probably strongly suspicious, that some of these allegations were true. In

addition, if one compared the reports of harsh interrogation techniques to internationally-

accepted definitions of torture, such as in the UN Convention Against Torture, rather than the

bizarrely narrow definitions set out by the Justice Department in its memos, one would have

been suspicious that some of the harsh interrogation techniques allegedly being conducted by the

CIA and DoD constituted torture.

On the other hand, Behnke, Koocher and others at APA insisted that it would have been

impossible to determine definitively whether these allegations were true, because the information

relating to the interrogation programs and the specific interrogations was classified. It is very

likely true that information about specific interrogations was classified. However, it is notable

that APA did not make any effort in this regard. And given their contacts in the CIA and DoD,

they may well have been able to learn some significant information that would have helped them

assess the likelihood that the problem had occurred or was still occurring, and the risk that it

would occur in the future. But it is also appropriate to note that this is not the typical “deliberate

avoidance” situation in which an individual could likely have learned the relevant knowledge by

asking questions of people he had access to. Here, there was both a deliberate and strategic

attempt not to inquire, and an accurate (albeit strategically convenient) claim that gathering full

information would have been extremely difficult in light of the classified nature of the

underlying activities.

Purpose of the collusion

Thus, even after considering how the equivalent of an “ostrich instruction” might apply in

the context of this independent investigation, we think it would be difficult to conclude based on

the evidence we have seen that APA officials actually knew in 2005 that CIA or DoD

psychologists were participating in “torture”, even as properly defined. We therefore cannot

conclude that the collusion between APA officials and DoD officials was done with the actual

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

intent “to support torture.” A more accurate description is that the collusion was done to support

the implementation by DoD of the interrogation techniques DoD wanted to implement, without

substantial constraints from APA; with knowledge that there likely had been abusive

interrogation techniques used and that there remained a substantial risk that without strict

constraints, such abusive interrogation techniques would continue; and with substantial

indifference to the actual facts regarding the potential for ongoing abusive interrogation

techniques. The collusion relating to PENS and the post-PENS period—and the actions in

protecting national security psychologists from disciplinary sanctio—reflects a clear intent to

take actions in order to please and curry favor with DoD.

Despite the critics’ concerns about the narrowness of the question asked, we are confident

that APA will take no satisfaction from our answer in light of our other conclusions.

The APA Board also asked three sub-questions. The first sub-question was whether APA

“supported the development or implementation of enhanced interrogation techniques that

constituted torture.” The discussion above largely answers this question. Further, the APA

officials who led the PENS Task Force process pursued an ethics policy that intentionally sought

to please DoD and not place specific ethical constraints on it beyond the general formulations

DoD was comfortable with. The position was intentionally pursued to allow DoD to have

discretion, subject to its own internal constraints, to determine what interrogation techniques to

pursue under the individual circumstances. These APA officials took this position while

intentionally avoiding an effort to gather information about whether “enhanced” interrogation

techniques were still occurring—although they would have had every reason to believe that

stress positions and sleep deprivation (among others) were still being used at the time of PENS

because of the reluctance of Banks and other DoD officials to declare them prohibited. We

would not call this “supporting the implementation of enhanced interrogation techniques,” but

we would say this was supporting the implementation by DoD of the interrogation techniques it

wanted to implement, without substantial constraints from APA, and with knowledge that there

likely had been abusive interrogation techniques used, and there remained a substantial risk that

without strict constraints, such abusive interrogation techniques would continue.

The second sub-question asks whether changes to Section 1.02 of the Ethics Code or the

formation and/or the report of the PENS Task Force were the product of collusion with the

government to support torture or intended to support torture. The answer regarding PENS was

just covered in the preceding discussion, and the answer regarding Section 1.02 is no, as set out

above.

The third sub-question was “whether any APA action related to torture was improperly

influenced by government-related financial considerations,” including grants, contracts, or

prescription-privileges policy for military psychologists. As described above, the substantial

financial benefits in the form of employment, grants and contracts that DoD provided to

psychologists around the country had a strong influence on APA’s actions relating to the PENS

Task Force (and therefore “relating to torture”), since preserving and improving APA’s

relationship with DoD (including the benefits to psychology that flowed from it) formed an

important part of the motive behind APA’s actions. We did not find that APA was motivated by

a specific contract or grant, or that APA itself actually received any substantial grants, contracts,

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

or other payments from DoD during this period. The financial motivations for APA related to

the substantial benefits that flowed from DoD to the profession of psychology.

As for the prescription-privileges program, we found that APA believed that this program

had provided a very substantial benefit to psychology and APA, because obtaining prescription

privileges in order to better compete with psychiatry was one of APA’s leading priorities for

many years. DoD’s “demonstration project,” created in 1991 and in place through 1997, which

was initiated principally by Pat DeLeon (APA President in 2000) and his boss, Senator Daniel

Inouye (D-HI) and his Chief of Staff, psychologist Pat DeLeon (APA President in 2000),

allowed psychologists to have prescribing privileges in DoD and other federal locations, and

created a two-year certification program that could be recognized by a state that authorized

properly-certified psychologists to have prescription privileges like psychiatrists. Approximately

ten psychologists were trained and certified through the DoD demonstration project, including

Debra Dunivin. The demonstration project thus served a crucial unlocking function for

psychology and APA, since it established the legitimacy of a prescription-training program

outside of traditional medical school, thus providing a strong answer to the traditional critique

from psychiatrists that the only way to be trained in prescribing psychiatric medication was to

graduate from a traditional four-year medical school.

We do not believe that by 2005, APA officials were realistically seeking or expecting

anything further from DoD on the topic of prescription privileges. Nor do we believe that APA

officials actually worried that a failure to curry favor with DoD would cause DoD to reverse

course on prescription privileges by, for instance, disallowing previously-certified psychologists

from continuing to prescribe medication when they treated DoD personnel. Thus, we do not

believe that the prescription-privileges issue was a significant “financial consideration” for APA

in taking the actions it took in 2005.

Nevertheless, it is clear to us that the way in which DoD had supported psychology in

crucial ways in the prior years, including through the prescription-privileges program, played a

fundamental role in APA feeling motivated to curry favor with DoD. This was less a function of

APA seeking something concrete with regard to a specific contract or program (like prescription

privileges), but more a function of APA knowing very concretely how willing and able DoD was

to provide large-scale support to psychology as a profession—now and perhaps in the future in

unknown ways. This was support that APA did not want to risk jeopardizing by taking a position

that was at odds with what APA perceived as DoD’s clearly stated preferences within the PENS

process.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

CONCLUDING COMMENTS

Through their training and experience, psychologists possess a special skill regarding

how our mind and emotions work—a special skill that presumably allows psychologists to be

particularly good at healing damaged psyches. As with others who possess a special skill,

psychologists therefore have an enhanced ability to cause harm to the psyche as well.

One of the leading principles of the APA Ethics Code tells psychologists to “do no

harm.” But sometimes psychologists engage in legitimate acts that cause anxiety in a patient, or

contribute to negative lawful consequences for a criminal defendant or employee if their client is

a law enforcement agency or a company.

Our review has involved a very different situation—a psychologist using his or her

special skill to intentionally cause psychological (or physical) pain or harm to an individual who

is not the psychologist’s client, who is in custody, and who is outside the protection of the

criminal justice system.

By explicitly declaring it ethical for psychologists to be involved in interrogations of

detainees in DoD or CIA custody, while not setting strict and explicit limits on a psychologist’s

involvement in the intentional infliction of psychological or physical pain in these situations,

APA officials were intentionally setting up loose and porous constraints, not tight ones, on this

particular use of a psychologist’s skill. This was especially true in the context of the time, which

included (i) the government’s known legal contortions that sliced the definition of torture down

to a fragment, (ii) the widespread and credible claims that this kind of abuse had occurred, and

(iii) the existence of a large loophole in the Ethics Code that allowed CIA and DoD

psychologists to follow explicitly unethical orders and still be considered ethical as long as they

tried to “resolve” the conflict.

Adding to this system of porous constraints was the “third-party beneficience”

rationalization articulated by psychologists ranging from Jim Mitchell to Gerald Koocher, which

posited that harm to one individual (a detainee) must be weighed against the benefits to third

parties (the public) that would result if, for instance, information from the detainee stopped a

terrorist attack. Those taking this position would argue that strict ethical constraints on

psychologists in this situation would therefore be inappropriate. But even if, for the sake of

argument, one accepts the legitimacy of this subjective harm-balancing rationale, it is notable

that no limits whatsoever were placed on it, meaning that it provided another gaping hole in the

already porous wall of ethical and legal constraints that might have prohibited intentional harm

to detainees.

We have heard from psychologists who treat patients for a living that they feel physically

sick when they think about the involvement of psychologists intentionally using harsh

interrogation techniques. This is the perspective of psychologists who use their training and skill

to peer into the damaged and fragile psyches of their patients, to understand and empathize with

the intensity of psychological pain in an effort to heal it. The prospect of a member of their

profession using that same training and skill to intentionally cause psychological or physical

harm to a detainee sickens them. We find that perspective understandable.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

We assume that some of the detainees were hardened members of sophisticated terrorist

organizations, were well trained to resist interrogations, and had knowledge that would have

been relevant to efforts to prevent future terrorist attacks. This creates a dilemma for military

and intelligence policymakers who see this resistance as a successful barrier to obtaining

information that might protect the public.

But this is not the first time in the history of warfare that this dynamic has occurred, as

eloquently stated by an unknown military officer who was part of a DoD email exchange in

August 2003 between military intelligence officers. The email recipients were asked for

recommendations about interrogation techniques because “the gloves are coming off regarding

these detainees.” After one recipient suggested some “harsher” techniques and commented that

“fear of dogs and snakes appear to work nicely,” the unknown officer (whose name has been

redacted) wrote:

We need to take a deep breath and remember who we are. Those “gloves” are . . .

based on clearly established standards of international law to which we are

signatories and in part the originators. Those in turn derive from practices

commonly accepted as morally correct, the so-called “usages of war.” It comes

down to standards of right and wrong - something we cannot just put aside when

we find it inconvenient

[W]e have taken casualties in every war we have

ever fought - that is part of the very nature of war. We also inflict casualties,

generally many more than we take. That in no way justifies letting go of our

standards. We have NEVER considered our enemies justified in doing such

things to us

BOTTOM LINE: We are American soldiers, heirs of a long

tradition of staying on the high ground. We need to stay there.

This debate played out intensely within the Bush Administration. But however our

government defined and will define the nation’s position in this debate - as the decades proceed

and as administrations and foreign policies and world conflicts change - the profession of

psychology must also define for itself whether it is ethical and legitimate for psychologists to use

their special skill to intentionally inflict psychological or physical harm on individuals,

especially those in captivity outside the criminal justice system.

APA officials made such a decision in 2005. Their decision was to keep the limits on this

behavior loose and high-level. This was apparent to many from the words of the PENS report.

APA claimed that its PENS-based policy placed tight anti-torture limits on psychologists, but the

APA critics saw the statements as misleading and disingenuous.

Our investigation determined that on this point, the critics’ understanding of the PENS

report and process was correct. And our investigation determined that keeping the limits loose

and high-level was intentional, and was done in order to align APA and curry favor with the

Defense Department, to create a good PR response, and to keep the growth of psychology

unrestrained in this area.

Some of the subsequent efforts by APA representatives outside APA management to

tighten the limits, and to make this type of intentional infliction of harm more difficult for

psychologists to engage in, eventually succeeded, despite the confidential joint effort from APA

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EXECUTIVE SUMMARY

and DoD officials to defeat these efforts. The APA ethics policy on this issue is thus very

different today than it was in 2005.

Nevertheless, when we have heard some say that APA’s current response to this issue

will help define the meaning of psychology, we find it understandable. A profession that can

salve our emotional traumas and help catch a criminal while promising to “do no harm” and to

maintain “the highest standards of professional ethics and conduct” is a profession that society

should trust and rely on. When that profession allows for the potential that psychologists will

intentionally inflict pain on an individual with no ability to resist, regardless of the individual’s

background or motives, faith in the profession can diminish quickly. This is why many within

the profession have been so upset about APA’s ethics position on this issue in 2005, its tenacious

resistance to changing it, and the lack of public statements acknowledging the true motivations

behind APA’s actions in 2005 and afterwards.

Witnesses have asked whether we would make specific recommendations at the end of

our report, but APA has asked us not to do so, a request we do not see as problematic or unusual.

In investigative-report situations, the investigators are often asked to report their conclusions

about the evidence but to leave to management the issue of how to respond to any problems

identified. It is the province of APA governance to decide on, and take responsibility for, the

proper response here.

As APA governance considers what questions to address as part of this process, we note

that our investigation has uncovered serious concerns about the ability of APA officials - and

APA itself - to act independently from the presidential administration in power, and from

powerful government agencies that provide the profession of psychology with very substantial

benefits. And this is especially true of DoD. In some ways, DoD is like a rich, powerful uncle to

APA, helping it in important ways throughout APA’s life. Acting independently of a benefactor

like this is difficult. But APA’s bylaws demand that the Association not only “advance

psychology as a . . . profession” but also “advance psychology . . . by the establishment and

maintenance of the highest standards of professional ethics and conduct.” One question that

arises from this investigation is whether APA has taken sufficient steps to ensure that, as an

organization, its commitment to the highest standards of ethical integrity is sufficiently strong

and independent of powerful government benefactors.

As members of a different profession who have observed in this investigation the

incredible intensity of the anger, personal attacks, and highly aggressive statements that have

emanated from both sides of this debate, as well as the amount of energy that has been spent on

this important issue for a decade, we hope that this report and APA’s response will over time

allow the profession as a whole to feel that APA has properly dealt with its actions in the past,

that it has properly defined the ethical obligations of psychologists on this issue for the future,

and that vigorous discussions on this topic can occur in a culture of civility and mutual respect.

We say this with tremendous respect for a profession we now know fairly well, and whose

strength and integrity is of crucial and expanding importance to the well-being of our society.

*************************************

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

BACKGROUND ON PSYCHOLOGISTS AND NATIONAL SECURITY

THE EARLY HISTORY OF PSYCHOLOGY

Psychology began to be recognized as an independent scientific discipline in the 19^th

century; prior to that, it was generally considered a branch of philosophy.³⁴ Beginning in the

1860s, German scientists including Gustav Theodor Fechner and Wilhelm Wundt, demonstrated

that the experimental scientific method could be applied to answer certain psychological

questions.³⁵

Courses in experimental psychology were first offered in the United States in the

1870s, and by the end of the century, several psychological research laboratories had been

established at American institutions of higher education, including Johns Hopkins and Harvard.³⁶

Reflecting its evolution from experimental science, psychological work in the United

States in the 19th century was primarily focused on research, not treatment. That focus was

broadened in 1896, with Lightner Witmer’s founding of the world’s first psychological clinic at

the University of Pennsylvania.³⁷ This clinic, which focused primarily on the treatment of

children, became the prototype for other clinics, which were primarily located in universities;

consequently, Witmer is generally recognized as the founder of clinical psychology.³⁸ Witmer

believed that the relatively young field of psychology could be of immediate practical benefit to

individuals, and wrote that his goal was “to make his scientific knowledge as great a benefit as

possible to humanity.”³⁹

II.

THE WORLD WARS

World War I

On April 6, 1917, the day Congress declared war on the German Empire, APA President

Robert Yerkes convened a meeting of a group of psychologists to discuss how psychology could

assist in the war effort.⁴⁰

On April 21, a special meeting of APA’s Council established twelve

committees to assist the government in addressing psychological problems, including

committees on “the psychological examination of recruits,” “psychological problems of

incapacity, including those of shell shock,” and “recreation in the army and navy.”⁴¹

One of the largest endeavors undertaken with the assistance of psychologists in support

of the war effort involved the administration of tests to assess potential recruits. Before and

³⁴ Thomas C. Cadwallader, Historical Roots of the American Psychological Association, in The American

Psychological Association: A Historical Perspective, 3, 8 (1992).

³⁵ Id. at 4.

³⁶ Id. at 14, 18-20.

³⁷ Paul McReynolds, Lightner Witmer: A Centennial Tribute, 51 Am. Psychologist 237, 237 (1996).

³⁸ Id. at 237-38.

³⁹ Paul McReynolds, Lightner Witmer: His Life and Times, 126 (2012).

⁴⁰ Robert M. Yerkes, Psychology in Relation to the War, 25 Psych. Rev. 85, 85 (1918).

⁴¹ Id. at 92-93.

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BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

during the First World War, the U.S. Army administered a battery of tests similar to the Binet-

Simon intelligence scale to more than 1.7 million recruits to attempt to differentiate between

potential recruits who were unsuitable for service, those who would be suitable privates, and

those who could serve as officers.⁴² These tests constituted the first widespread attempt to

survey the intelligence of the population of the United States.⁴³ As part of the effort, the Army

established a Division of Psychology and a School for Military Psychology at its medical

officers’ training camp.⁴⁴

APA President Yerkes personally oversaw and directed the psychological examination

effort as a major in the Sanitary Corps of the U.S. Army.⁴⁵ During the war, Yerkes also served

as chairman of the Psychology Committee of the National Research Council,⁴⁶ which operated

during the war as the Department of Science and Research of the Council of National Defense

and as the Science and Research Division of the U.S. Signal Corps, and received substantial

support from the U.S. government.⁴⁷

World War II

During the Second World War, the effort to assess potential recruits expanded and, by

1945, more than 13 million people had been screened.⁴⁸ Military psychologists also developed

tests that were designed to identify promising candidates for specialized jobs. One such test was

the Air-Crew Classification Test Battery, which was administered to over 600,000 men to

identify potential pilots and navigators.⁴⁹

Psychologists also provided therapeutic services to

soldiers during the war, during which over 500 psychologists served in uniform.⁵⁰

A number of prominent psychologists also developed an intensive program designed to

assess the suitability of a candidate seeking to serve in the Office of Strategic Services (“OSS”),

which had been established by President Roosevelt as the agency responsible for intelligence

collection, espionage, subversion and psychological warfare. Prior to the establishment of this

three-day assessment program, many OSS agents who deployed overseas encountered

⁴² Shepherd Ivory Franz, Handbook of Mental Examination Methods, 166, 169-70 (1912).

⁴³ A. David Mangelsdorff, The Changing Face of National Security, in Psychology in the Service of

National Security, 9, 17 (2006).

⁴⁴ Col. Charles Lynch, Lieut. Col. Frank W. Weed, and Loy McAfee, The Medical Department of the

United States Army in the World War, 398 (1920).

⁴⁵ Robert M. Yerkes, Psychology in Relation to the War, 25 Psych. Rev. 85, 85 (1918).

⁴⁶ Ernest R. Hilgard, Robert Mearns Yerkes 1876-1956, in Biographical Memoirs, 385, 391 (1965).

⁴⁷ National Research Council, Organization and Members, 3 (1919).

⁴⁸ A. David Mangelsdorff, The Changing Face of National Security, in Psychology in the Service of

National Security, 9, 17 (2006).

⁴⁹ Id.

⁵⁰ Morgan T. Sammons, Navy Clinical Psychology: A Distinguished Past and a Vibrant Future, in

Psychology in the Service of National Security, 141, 142 (2006).

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BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

difficulties coping with the stress and hazards of their missions; after the assessment program

was established, the rate of reported problems related to stress fell dramatically.⁵¹

Psychologists’ participation in the war effort led directly to the creation of the modern

APA. In the early years of its existence, APA was “essentially an organization of college

teachers.”⁵²

APA’s constitution stated that its object “was the advancement of psychology as a

science,” but made no reference to promoting psychology as a profession.⁵³

In 1937, certain

applied psychologists, frustrated by APA’s focus on academia and by its failure to provide

licensing and educational opportunities for applied psychologists, formed the American

Association of Applied Psychologists (“AAAP”), which threatened to divorce psychology’s

research from its practice.⁵⁴

But opportunities from the government provided by the war led to

unity among psychologists.

In 1940, after the outbreak of the war in Europe and Asia, the National Research Council

sponsored a conference on psychology and government service which was attended by

representatives from both APA and AAAP, as well as smaller organizations of psychologists.⁵⁵

Representatives at the conference unanimously decided to establish a central coordinating group

called the Emergency Committee in Psychology, which became a “virtual war cabinet for

psychology and sponsored and coordinated the varied activities of psychologists in the military

services, government agencies, and volunteer organizations,” in which members of the various

organizations of psychologists worked collaboratively in a common enterprise.⁵⁶ Robert Yerkes,

the former APA president who had taken an active role in the mobilization of psychologists

during the First World War, was a member of the Emergency Committee.

Under the Emergency Committee’s authority, Yerkes convened a week-long conference

in 1942 to discuss long-range planning in psychology.⁵⁷ The conferees proposed creating a

“central American institute of psychology . . . to provide professional services of personnel,

placement, public relations, publicity and publication” and further proposed a convention among

the psychology organizations to discuss the proposal.⁵⁸ That convention began on May 29,

1943, and by May 31, agreement had been reached to merge AAAP into APA and to redefine the

mission of APA as advancing psychology as a science “and as a means of promoting human

welfare.”⁵⁹

APA and AAAP officially approved the proposal the following year, and the new

⁵¹ Id. at 85.

⁵² Gilbert J. Rich, A Code of Ethics is Needed, 7 Am. Psychologist 440 (1950).

⁵³ Dael Wolfle, The Reorganized American Psychological Association, 1 Am. Psychologist 3 (1946).

⁵⁴ Division 19 History, APA, available at http://www.apadivisions.org/division-19/about/history.aspx.

⁵⁵ James H. Capshew and Ernest R. Hilgard, The Power of Service: World War II and Professional

Reform in the American Psychological Association, in The American Psychological Association: A

Historical Perspective, 149, 151 (1992).

⁵⁶ Id. at 151-52.

⁵⁷ Id. at 154.

⁵⁸ Id. at 156.

⁵⁹ Id. at 166-67.

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BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

unified APA began operations on September 6, 1945.⁶⁰ The unification proved successful, and

in the decade following the war, APA grew from approximately 4,000 members to 14,000

members.⁶¹

In the 30 years that followed World War II, the federal government spent over $1.2

billion to fund psychological research, and much of this research was funded through the military

services.⁶²

III.

PSYCHOLOGY AND NATIONAL SECURITY DURING THE COLD WAR

The CIA

After World War II, the OSS was disbanded and its intelligence functions were

transferred to the Central Intelligence Agency (“CIA”), created in 1947. From its inception, the

CIA took an interest in psychological research, including research into possible mind-control

techniques and methods by which deception could be detected.

In the 1930s and 1940s, the Soviet Union and its satellites staged a series of show trials in

which prominent individuals publicly confessed to improbable crimes.⁶³ The 1949 show trial of

Hungarian Cardinal Jozsef Mindszenty was particularly concerning to CIA leadership and

prominent psychologists working on intelligence issues. In a 1949 study for the Air Force, Yale

psychologist Irving Janis argued that the transformation of Cardinal Mindszenty, previously

known for his “intransigent moral stamina,” into a man who confessed to treason “in a kind of

monotonous mechanical chant,” was the result of “a series of electroshock convulsions . . . being

administered . . . to reduce resistance to hypnotic suggestion.”⁶⁴ Similarly, a CIA memorandum

commenting on the trial argued that “some unknown force” had been brought to bear on the

Cardinal, and suggested that hypnosis had been used on him.⁶⁵ A 1950 CIA analysis of the

Soviet show trials of the 1930s concluded that the defendants’ public confessions could not have

been coerced by physical torture, and argued that they had instead been elicited using

psychosurgery, electroshock, or psychoanalytic methods.⁶⁶ In 1952, several American pilots

shot down in the Korean War and captured by Communist forces made false recorded

confessions that they had dropped bombs filled with germs on civilian populations.⁶⁷ By 1953,

⁶⁰ Id. at 171.

⁶¹ Id. at 172.

⁶² Martin E.P. Seligman and Raymond D. Fowler, Comprehensive Soldier Fitness and the Future of

Psychology, 66 Am. Psychologist 82, 83-84 (2011).

⁶³ John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, 23 (1979).

⁶⁴ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 22 (2006).

⁶⁵ John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, 23 (1979).

⁶⁶ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 23 (2006).

⁶⁷ See Robert A. Fein, U.S. Experience and Research in Educing Information: A Brief History, in Educing

Information, at xi (Intelligence Science Board2006).

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BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

CIA Director Allen Dulles publicly warned that the Soviet Union used drugs and electroshock to

deprive individuals of the ability to state their own thoughts.⁶⁸

Concerned that Communist countries would develop a weapon that the United States

could not match, the CIA undertook a decade-long program of psychological research into

potential mind control and interrogation techniques that cost several billion dollars.⁶⁹

In his

1949 report, Janis proposed that the intelligence community undertake a “systematic

investigation” of potential mind-control techniques, including drugs and electroshock

treatments.⁷⁰

The following year, the CIA began a project to investigate “the possibility of

control of an individual by application of special interrogation techniques” and “offensive uses

of unconventional interrogation techniques, including hypnosis and drugs,” called Project

Bluebird.⁷¹

In 1952, the CIA began another project, codenamed Artichoke, to investigate “the

application of tested psychiatric and psychological techniques including the use of hypnosis in

conjunction with drugs” to attempt to improve interrogation techniques.⁷² And in 1953, the CIA

unified both projects under the aegis of a third project called MKUltra.⁷³

These projects funneled substantial funding to nongovernmental researchers, including

psychologists. In 1950, the CIA funded a contract for $300,000 to a department of psychology at

an unnamed university, funneling the money through the Office of Naval Research.⁷⁴ Over the

following two years, the Office of Naval Research funded 117 contracts at fifty-eight universities

under its Psychological Sciences research program. Between 1953 and 1963, the CIA

“dispensed $25 million for human experiments by 185 nongovernmental researchers at eighty

institutions, including forty-four universities and twelve hospitals,” including the Boston

Psychopathic, Mt. Sinai, and Columbia University hospitals, which conducted experiments using

LSD.⁷⁵

These contracts, which were routinely routed through other federal agencies and

organizations, funded the work of important psychologists. For instance, Professor Charles

Osgood wrote to the CIA seeking its support for his research concerning cultural differences.

Shortly thereafter, in 1959, the “Human Ecology Society,” which was a conduit of CIA funds,

provided a grant to Osgood in the amount of $192,975. These funds allowed Osgood to create

⁶⁸ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 24 (2006).

⁶⁹ Id. at 25.

⁷⁰ Id. at 22.

⁷¹ Id. at 26.

⁷² Id. at 27.

⁷³ Id. at 28.

⁷⁴ Id. at 31.

⁷⁵ Id. at 29.

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BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

the most important work of his career, and in 1963, he was elected president of APA.⁷⁶ The

Human Ecology Society also made grants to B.F. Skinner, Carl Rogers, and Martin Orne.⁷⁷

The MKUltra program was suspended in 1963, but the information the CIA learned as

part of the program was synthesized in an interrogation handbook referred to as the “Kubark

Manual.”⁷⁸ The Kubark Manual, which has been declassified, describes itself as “based largely

upon the published results of extensive research, including scientific inquiries conducted by

specialists” and states that “sound interrogation” rests “on certain broad principles, chiefly

psychological, which are not hard to understand.”⁷⁹ It sets forth procedures to be followed when

interrogators decide that “bodily harm is to be inflicted” or “medical, chemical, or electrical

methods or materials are to be used to induce acquiescence.”⁸⁰ It includes extended discussions

of the circumstances under which infliction of pain, hypnosis, or surreptitious administration of

narcotics may assist in an interrogation.⁸¹ The manual also quotes extensively from prominent

psychologists, including Martin Orne, Margaret Brenman, and Malcolm Meltzer,⁸² and includes

an extensive bibliography, which cites numerous published and unpublished psychological

studies, including several funded by the CIA.⁸³

The Kubark Manual was used as the basis for an interrogation training program for CIA

agents. CIA agents taking part in the program played the roles of both interrogators and

captives, and those playing captives were subjected to harsh treatment, including sleep

deprivation, unappetizing food, isolation, mock executions, and placement in uncomfortable

physical conditions for long periods of time.⁸⁴ This program ran for approximately a decade

before ending in the mid-1970s.

The practices set forth in the Kubark Manual were also used operationally. For

approximately 30 years following the creation of the Kubark Manual, the CIA disseminated its

interrogation methods to military and police organizations around the world.⁸⁵ From 1962 to

1974, the CIA worked through the U.S. Agency for International Development to train more than

⁷⁶ John Marks, The Search for the Manchurian Candidate, 168 (1979).

⁷⁷ Id. at 171, 174.

⁷⁸ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 50 (2006).

⁷⁹ Kubark Counterintelligence Interrogation, 1 (July 1963), available at

http://www.uscrow.org/downloads/Survival%20Public%20Domain/Kubark_Counterintelligence_Interrog

ation_torture_manual1963.pdf.

⁸⁰ Id. at 8.

⁸¹ Id. at 82-104.

⁸² Id. at 96-97, 101-102.

⁸³ Id. at 110-122.

⁸⁴ Alfred W. McCoy, A Question of Torture, 53 (2006).

⁸⁵ Alfred W. McCoy, Cruel Science: CIA Torture and U.S. Foreign Policy, 19 New Eng. J. of Pub. Pol.

209, 221 (2005).

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

one million policemen in 47 nations; after 1971, the CIA also disseminated these tactics through

the U.S. Army’s Military Advisor Program.⁸⁶

The U.S. Military

Psychology had a close relationship with the military throughout the Cold War. The G.I.

Bill strengthened the profession of psychology both by expanding enrollments in institutions of

higher education, which improved employment opportunities for academic psychologists, and by

allowing some returning soldiers to train to become psychologists and join APA.⁸⁷ In 1950, the

National Science Foundation was founded as a clearinghouse for government funding of

research, and by 1952, it was funding psychological research.⁸⁸ Federal expenditures for

psychological research rose from $10.2 million in 1953 to $23.9 million in 1958, and though the

percentage of such funding provided by the military dropped throughout the period, it never fell

below approximately 25%.⁸⁹

The military also drove a major expansion in infrastructure supporting clinical

psychology. By the end of the war, the military and the Veterans Administration had created a

demand for psychologists to care for soldiers and veterans with mental and emotional problems

that was difficult for the universities then training psychologists to meet.⁹⁰

Concerned that this

demand would lead to unqualified or incompetent individuals being hired to provide mental

health services, APA embarked on a major program to ensure the quality of psychological

practice.⁹¹

It established a program of board certification, implemented criteria for accreditation

of programs providing graduate education in psychology, and organized efforts to license

psychologists at the state level.⁹²

Psychology had an important influence on the development of military doctrine regarding

interrogations. Beginning in at least 1956, the military forbade the use of tactics it deemed

coercive in interrogations.⁹³

The primary text on interrogation for the U.S. Military during the

Cold War was the U.S. Army Field Manual 34-52, Intelligence Interrogation, which served as

the guide to intelligence interrogations for all of the armed forces until it was replaced in 2006.⁹⁴

⁸⁶ Id. at 223, 228.

⁸⁷ Meredith P. Crawford, Rapid Growth and Change at the American Psychological Association: 1945 to

1970, in The American Psychological Association: A Historical Perspective, 177, 208 (1992).

⁸⁸ Id. at 209-210.

⁸⁹ Id. at 210.

⁹⁰ Id. at 221.

⁹¹ Id.

⁹² Id. at 221-227.

⁹³ See Department of the Army, Field Manual 27-10, The Law of Land Warfare, 107 (1956) (“No physical

or moral coercion shall be exercised against protected persons, in particular to obtain information from

them or from third parties.”).

⁹⁴ Randy Borum, Approaching Truth: Behavioral Science Lessons on Educing Information from Human

Sources, in Educing Information, 18 (Intelligence Science Board 2006); Department of the Army, Field

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

The manual describes 17 interrogation techniques that remained essentially unchanged for more

than 50 years.⁹⁵ The manual incorporates psychological observations, such as that “[a]n

individual’s value system is easier to bypass immediately after undergoing a significant

traumatic experience.”⁹⁶ Noting that the “circumstances of capture are traumatic for most

sources,” the manual states that a person is vulnerable to interrogation immediately following

capture, though it cautions that “this initial vulnerability passes quickly.”⁹⁷

Thus the manual,

while forbidding the coercive interrogation tactics discussed in the Kubark Manual, incorporates

lessons learned from psychological research.

Psychologists were and are also involved in efforts to train American soldiers to resist

interrogation. Following the “confessions” of American pilots shot down in the Korean War, the

U.S. Air Force established a training program to assist soldiers captured by enemy forces to

resist harsh treatment.⁹⁸ The U.S. Navy and Army did the same in the 1960s and 1980s,

respectively.⁹⁹

These programs became known as “SERE” schools, as they teach skills related to

“survival, evasion, resistance, and escape” by training soldiers in a simulated prisoner of war

environment. Psychologists participate in the SERE schools in several capacities. They identify

which applicants are likely to exhibit difficulties under stress, consult regarding the capacity of

students who exhibit dissociation in response to the stress of training to continue with the

program, and study the impact of stress on human cognition and perception.¹⁰⁰

IV.

PSYCHOLOGY AND THE MILITARY AFTER THE COLD WAR

Ties Between Psychologists and the Military

Following the fall of the Berlin Wall in 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in

1991, psychologists have continued to work closely with the United States military and related

agencies. As of 2011, approximately 600 clinical psychologists were employed by the Army,¹⁰¹

Manual 2-22.3, Human Intelligence Collector Operations, i (2006), available at

http://armypubs.army.mil/doctrine/DR_pubs/dr_a/pdf/fm2_22x3.pdf..

⁹⁵ Randy Borum, Approaching Truth: Behavioral Science Lessons on Educing Information from Human

Sources, in Educing Information, 18 (Intelligence Science Board 2006).

⁹⁶ Department of the Army, Field Manual 34-52, Intelligence Interrogation at 3-1 (1992).

⁹⁷ Id.

⁹⁸ M. Gregg Bloche, The Hippocratic Myth, 129 (2011).

⁹⁹ Distinguished Member of the Special Forces Regiment: Colonel James “Nick” Rowe, available at

http://www.soc.mil/SWCS/RegimentalHonors/_pdf/sf_rowe.pdf; Jeremy Allen, SERE School Celebrates

50 Years of Training (July 12, 2012), available at

http://www.navy.mil/submit/display.asp?story_id=68336.

¹⁰⁰ George Steffian et al., Code of Conduct and the Psychology of Captivitiy: Training, Coping, and

Reintegration, in Military Life: Operational Stress, 83, 89 (2006).

¹⁰¹ Bridget Murray Law, Service, In Plain Clothes, gradPSYCH Magazine, at 22 (2011).

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

while the Navy employs approximately 130.¹⁰²

The number of psychologists employed by the

Veterans Administration rose from approximately 1,500 in 2000 to nearly 3,400 in 2010, with

the largest gains coming between 2006 and 2010.¹⁰³ The Army, Navy, and Air Force sponsor

educational programs in psychology, including year-long clinical psychology internships and

postdoctoral residency programs.¹⁰⁴ The military also makes substantial grants for psychological

research. Between fiscal years 1994 and 2000, the U.S. Air Force, Army, and Navy spent over

one billion dollars on research in the behavioral, cognitive, and social science fields, for an

average of approximately 150 million dollars per year.¹⁰⁵ The funding level declined in the first

decade of the 21st century, though it remained substantial. In fiscal year 2004, total DoD

funding for behavioral and social sciences was $44.0 million; in 2005, $43.8 million; in 2006,

$41.8 million; and in 2007, $37.6 million.¹⁰⁶ More recently, since fiscal year 2007, more than

$730 million has been appropriated to the Department of Defense to fund research on

psychological health, post-traumatic stress disorder, and traumatic brain injury.¹⁰⁷ While these

research funds are distributed to researchers in a number of fields of inquiry, approximately $120

million in grants were awarded for research on the topic of behavioral, cognitive, and

psychological therapies between fiscal year 2007 and fiscal year 2011.¹⁰⁸

Within APA, there is a Society for Military Psychology, referred to as Division 19, which

encourages research and the application of psychological research to military problems.¹⁰⁹ The

Society disseminates psychological research of interest to the military community by publishing

a quarterly journal, presents annual awards to students and psychologists, and organizes

educational events.¹¹⁰

¹⁰² Clinical Psychology, U.S. Navy, available at http://www.navy.com/careers/healthcare/clinical-

care/clinical-psychology.html.

¹⁰³ Big Growth in the Number of VA Psychologists, American Psychological Association (June 2010),

available at http://www.apa.org/monitor/2010/06/va-psychologists.aspx.

¹⁰⁴ Society for Military Psychology, Becoming a Military Clinical Psychologist, American Psychological

Association, available at http://www.apadivisions.org/division-19/students-careers/becoming/index.aspx.

¹⁰⁵ See Department of Defense, Behavioral, Cognitive and Social Science Research in the Military, 34

(Aug. 1, 2000).

¹⁰⁶ National Research Council of the National Academies, Human Behavior in Military Contexts, 11

(2008).

¹⁰⁷ Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, Psychological Health/Traumatic Brain Injury,

Department of Defense, available at http://cdmrp.army.mil/phtbi/default.shtml.

¹⁰⁸ Congressionally Directed Medical Research Programs, Search Awards and Outcomes, Department of

Defense, available at http://cdmrp.army.mil/search.aspx.

¹⁰⁹ Society for Military Psychology, American Psychological Association, available at

http://www.apa.org/about/division/div19.aspx.

¹¹⁰ Id.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

APA’s 1991-2004 Ban on Military Advertising

In 1991, the APA enacted a resolution banning advertisements from the Department of

Defense and its branches in APA publications, mailings using APA mailing lists, and literature

distributed in APA meetings.¹¹¹ This ban was enacted in response to the Department of

Defense’s policy, then in effect, of refusing to admit bisexual, lesbian, or gay individuals to

military service, and was maintained after the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” policy was implemented

in 1993.

Revoking the advertising ban was a long-term goal of APA’s Division 19. In January

2003, members of Division 19 submitted a resolution to the APA Council of Representatives to

rescind the ban.¹¹²

The resolution was opposed by the APA’s Society for the Psychological

Study of Lesbian, Gay and Bisexual Issues, referred to as Division 44.¹¹³ Despite its opposition

to rescinding the ban, Division 44 proposed that a joint task force be formed between Division

19 and Division 44 to discuss issues surrounding gay, lesbian, and bisexual people serving in the

armed forces.¹¹⁴ Division 19 agreed to participate in the joint task force and recommended that

the task force discuss several issues in addition to the advertising ban, including proposals that

APA should (1) issue a statement condemning the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law as

discriminatory, (2) initiate a campaign aimed at repeal of the law, and (3) identify psychologists

who could assist DoD in developing programs to combat prejudice against gays and lesbians and

to prevent problems from arising in the event that the “Don’t Ask, Don’t Tell” law was

repealed.¹¹⁵

During the initial meeting of the task force in February 2003, both sides agreed that APA

was not doing anything effective to address the issues faced by gays, lesbians, and bisexual

people in the military.¹¹⁶

In January 2004, the Joint Task Force issued its final report, which

recommended that APA eliminate the prohibition on advertisements from the DoD, assess

opportunities for advocacy to eliminate discrimination in the military based on sexual

orientation, facilitate collection of data from military psychologists who are mental health

providers about the implementation of the law on homosexuality in the armed services, and

develop educational materials to improve the capacity of military psychologists to provide

effective services.¹¹⁷

The report noted that Debra Dunivin attended the task force meeting and

¹¹¹ Council Policy Manual, American Psychological Association, available at

http://www.apa.org/about/policy/chapter-12.aspx#defense-policy.

¹¹² New Business for APA Council of Representatives Meeting,19 The Military Psychologist 6, 6

(Winter/Spring 2003).

¹¹³ Id.

¹¹⁴ Division 19 Executive Committee Meeting, March 5, 2003, 19 The Military Psychologist 2, 4-5

(Summer/Fall 2003).

¹¹⁵ Efforts to Rescind the APA Advertising Ban, 19 The Military Psychologist 11, 15-16 (Summer/Fall

2003).

¹¹⁶ Id. at 16.

¹¹⁷ Report of the Task Force on Sexual Orientation and Military Service, 2 (2004).

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

consulted with the task force regarding the effect of the advertising ban.¹¹⁸

It also noted that the

task force consulted with Stephen Behnke regarding the ethical issues that might arise for

military psychologists.¹¹⁹

In July 2004, the APA Council of Representatives adopted the

resolution proposed by the Joint Task Force, thus rescinding the ban on advertisements from

DoD.¹²⁰

PRESCRIPTIVE AUTHORITY

The U.S. military has provided critical support for psychologists’ efforts to obtain

authority to write prescriptions. In a 1984 speech to the Hawaii Psychological Association, then-

Senator (and decorated World War II veteran) Daniel Inouye proposed that psychologists seek

prescriptive authority to address shortages in qualified prescribers of medications to individuals

who suffered from mental illness. In 1989, Congress appropriated funds for a pilot program to

train psychologists serving in the Department of Defense to prescribe medication.¹²¹ This

program, which was called the Psychopharmacology Demonstration Project (“PDP”), was

developed with direct input from APA staff, who served on a Department of Defense panel, to

create its curriculum.¹²²

In 1991, the PDP began with four participants. The initial curriculum involved two years

of classroom training followed by an additional year of clinical training, though the curriculum

was subsequently modified to remove one of the years of classroom training.¹²³ Over the six-

year life of the program, from 1991 to 1997, ten prescribing psychologists completed the training

and were granted authority to prescribe medications.¹²⁴ Of these, four served in the Navy, three

in the Army, and three in the Air Force.¹²⁵

In 1999, the U.S. General Accounting Office (“GAO”) found that PDP graduates were

well-integrated into the Military Health Service, that they held positions of responsibility and

treated a broad spectrum of patients, carrying patient caseloads that were comparable to those of

psychiatrists. It found that most of the graduates had been granted independent status, which

allowed them to operate with only the same level of review as psychiatrists at their locations.¹²⁶

The GAO further found that the graduates were evaluated as good to excellent, both by their

clinical supervisors, and an outside panel of psychiatrists and psychologists, and found no

¹¹⁸ Id. at 1.

¹¹⁹ Id.

¹²⁰ Draft Minutes of theCouncil (July 28 & 30, 2004) (on file with Sidley).

¹²¹ Robert E. McGrath, Prescriptive Authority for Psychologists, 6 Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 21, 23

(2010).

¹²² RxP: A Chronology, American Psychological Association, available at

http://apapracticecentral.org/advocacy/authority/prescription-chronology.aspx.

¹²³ United States General Accounting Office, Prescribing Psychologists, 3 (1999).

¹²⁴ Id. at 4.

¹²⁵ Id.

¹²⁶ Id. at 5.

INDEPENDENT REVIEW REPORT TO APA

BACKGROUND: PSYCHOLOGISTS & NATIONAL SECURITY

evidence of quality problems in their credential files.¹²⁷

However, the GAO also found that the

PDP program was more costly than the Department of Defense’s traditional mix of psychiatrists

and non-prescribing psychologists, and stated that the impact of the program on combat

readiness was minimal at best.¹²⁸

Psychologists used the generally positive findings of the GAO report and other

assessments of the PDP to support efforts to obtain prescriptive authority outside the military

context, with sporadic success. In 1993, two years after the PDP began, Indiana amended its

licensing law for psychologists to allow those participating in a “federal government sponsored

training or treatment program” to prescribe medication.¹²⁹ This revision was made specifically

to allow graduates of the PDP to prescribe medications in Indiana.¹³⁰ In 1996, the APA Council

of Representatives formally adopted model legislation extending prescriptive authority to

psychologists.¹³¹

In 1999, Guam allowed psychologists to prescribe medications in collaboration

with a physician.¹³² New Mexico granted prescriptive authority to psychologists working in

collaboration with the patient’s primary care physician in 2002.¹³³ Louisiana followed shortly

thereafter, enacting legislation in 2004 that allows psychologists to prescribe medication after

consulting with the patient’s physician.¹³⁴

And in 2014, Illinois authorized licensed

psychologists with specialized training in psychopharmacology to prescribe certain medications

for the treatment of mental health disorders.¹³⁵ Psychologists continue to lobby state legislatures

to grant them prescriptive authority.

At the federal level, psychologists are permitted to prescribe medications in the three

branches of the military that provide healthcare services, so long as they meet the standards set

independently by each branch.¹³⁶ Military psychologists who prescribe medications include

those trained in the PDP, as well as those who participated in a civilian program.¹³⁷ The number

of military psychologists capable of prescribing medication has grown slowly since the

¹²⁷ Id. at 8.

¹²⁸ Id. at 9, 11.

¹²⁹ Robert E. McGrath, Prescriptive Authority for Psychologists, 6 Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 21, 27

(2010).

¹³⁰ Id.

¹³¹ Ronald E. Fox et al., Prescriptive Authority and Psychology, 64 Am. Psychologist 257, 263 (2009).

¹³² Robert E. McGrath, Prescriptive Authority for Psychologists, 6 Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 21, 27

(2010).

¹³³ Id. at 29-30.

¹³⁴ Id. at 29.

¹³⁵ RxP: A Chronology, American Psychological Association, available at

http://apapracticecentral.org/advocacy/authority/prescription-chronology.aspx.

¹³⁶ Robert E. McGrath, Prescriptive Authority for Psychologists, 6 Annu. Rev. Clin. Psychol. 21, 30

(2010).

¹³⁷ Id.

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