The ideal interrogation, as described in the manual, is methodical, comprehensive, and meticulously planned. On the contrary, the goal is to generate maximum pressure, or at least as much as is needed to induce compliance. The difference is that the pressure is generated inside the interrogatee. Interrogators should recognize that even before questioning begins, many subjects will be in a jarred, vulnerable state, the manual says. Now he is likely to make significant admissions, or even to pour out his whole story, just to stop the flow of babble which assails him.
Confusion is presented as a reliable weapon for the interrogator.
This strategy is the basis of the more severe methods in the manual. All of the techniques employed to break through an interrogation roadblock, the entire spectrum from simple isolation to hypnosis and narcosis, are essentially ways of speeding up the process of regression. As Gill and Brenman have pointed out, regression is basically a loss of autonomy. The manual mentions techniques that are indeed violations of physical and psychological autonomy. There are hints in the manual about what lies at the harshest end of the CIA's coercion continuum.