Yet detention in a controlled environment and perhaps for a lengthy period is frequently essential to a successful counterintelligence interrogation of a recalcitrant source. This necessity, obviously, should be determined as early as possible.
Detention poses the most common of the legal problems.
Some security services, especially those of the Sino-Soviet Bloc, may work at leisure, depending upon time as well as their own methods to melt recalcitrance. Accordingly, unless it is considered that the prospective interrogatee is cooperative and will remain so indefinitely, the first step in planning an interrogation is to determine how long the source can be held. The choice of methods depends in part upon the answer to this question. Those concerned with the interrogation of defectors, escapees, refugees, or repatriates should know these references. If bodily harm is to be inflicted.