The C.I.A. has a long history of violating human rights and generally doing just about whatever they want in order to achieve their goals. And one of the most egregious examples of the C.I.A.'s disregard for human rights comes in the form of 1963's KUBARK handbook.
This manual explains how to carry out what the C.I.A. euphemistically refers to as "counterintelligence interrogation," but would more accurately be described as torture.
In service of carrying out these interrogations, the C.I.A. details exactly what methods of physical and mental torture can be used to coerce information or confessions out of unwilling prisoners.
After compiling these methods in the original handbook and then updating them in a similar handbook in 1983, the C.I.A. then disseminated these two manuals to Western-aligned dictators in South America throughout the 1980s, to use however they pleased. The C.I.A. also worked directly with many of these dictatorships, training their "interrogators" and bringing their techniques to America's Cold War allies around the globe.
Even after the Cold War, despite efforts by the Department of Defense to soften some of the handbooks' language, the tactics outlined in this handbook inspired many of the torture methods used by Americans at Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay during the War on Terror.
Above, you'll find some of the most interesting excerpts from this infamous document.
For more information on covert U.S. intelligence operations, read about the FBI's COINTELPRO, which targeted American political organizations in the 1950s and 1960s. Then, read up on the four most sinister CIA programs ever conducted.
