Recent revelations in James Risen’s new book, Pay Any Price: Greed, Power, and Endless War, add an additional dimension to this story–it appears that senior staff members of the American Psychological Association, the world’s largest association of psychologists, colluded with national security psychologists from the CIA, the Pentagon, and the White House to adapt APA ethics policy to suit the needs of the psychologist-interrogators.
Risen based his allegations on emails found on the personal computer of Scott Gerwehr, a researcher at the Rand Corp. and apparent CIA consultant, who died in a motorcycle accident in 2008. Gerwehr had established close ongoing collaboration with a group of “national security psychologists who had influence behind the scenes at key institutions throughout Washington.” Among them were Susan Brandon, behavioral science adviser at the Bush White House (she is now chief interrogation scientist for the Obama administration) and Kirk Hubbard, the CIA’s chief behavioral scientist. Hubbard has publicly admitted to bringing Mitchell and Jessen into the CIA to design the agency’s “enhanced interrogation” program.
Brandon, Hubbard, Gerwehr, and Geoff Mumford, APA’s director of science policy, had worked together since soon after the 9/11 attacks to bring psychologist-researchers together with psychologist-operatives to collaborate on issues related to national security interrogations and interrogations research. Mitchell and Jessen were among the operatives present at these invitation-only meetings.
Original story – New Evidence Links CIA to APA’s “War on Terror” Ethics | Counterpunch | by Roy Eidelson and Trudy Bond.
See my recent diary – Malarkey on the Potomac.
