Fort Hunt's Quiet Men Break Silence on WWII (WaPo Oct.6, 2007)

* I remember this being posted here before but I think it needs attention again*

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/10/05/AR2007100502492.html
By Petula Dvorak
Washington Post Staff Writer
Saturday, October 6, 2007; Page A01

The group of World War II veterans kept a military code and the decorum of their generation, telling virtually no one of their top-secret work interrogating Nazi prisoners of war at Fort Hunt.

When about two dozen veterans got together yesterday for the first time since the 1940s, many of the proud men lamented the chasm between the way they conducted interrogations during the war and the harsh measures used today in questioning terrorism suspects.

Back then, they and their commanders wrestled with the morality of bugging prisoners' cells with listening devices. They felt bad about censoring letters. They took prisoners out for steak dinners to soften them up. They played games with them.

"We got more information out of a German general with a game of chess or Ping-Pong than they do today, with their torture," said Henry Kolm, 90, an MIT physicist who had been assigned to play chess in Germany with Hitler's deputy, Rudolf Hess.

The veterans of P.O. Box 1142, a top-secret installation in Fairfax County that went only by its postal code name, were brought back to Fort Hunt by park rangers who are piecing together a portrait of what happened there during the war.

Nearly 4,000 prisoners of war, most of them German scientists and submariners, were brought in for questioning for days, even weeks, before their presence was reported to the Red Cross, a process that did not comply with the Geneva Conventions. Many of the interrogators were refugees from the Third Reich.

"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."

During the war, nearby residents watched buses with darkened windows roar toward the fort day and night. They couldn't have imagined that groundbreaking secrets in rocketry, microwave technology and submarine tactics were being peeled apart right on the grounds that are now a popular picnic area where moonbounces mushroom every weekend.

newspaper?

it was an open "secret"

They used a battle of wits and we know that that was not a strong skill under the prior administration.

<snip>
"During the many interrogations, I never laid hands on anyone," said George Frenkel, 87, of Kensington. "We extracted information in a battle of the wits. I'm proud to say I never compromised my humanity."
<snip>

unlike police interrogations (that happen every day, everywhere) it wasn't repeatedly asking the same question over and over and over until the perp trips up on their story and then the interrogator exposes them.

This was daily 8 hour conversations about any number of topics. The Fort Hunt guys were mean of letters (MIT person mentioned in the article) so the Nazi officers appreciated that they were talking to equals. They didn't have some "goon" screaming at them. They discussed any number of topics and over time the Nazis were convinced that either their side was losing and they needed some cover OR they appreciated the guy across the table and let on to training secrets (and others).

Some were just figuring out WHO the Nazis made officers and of what operation.

Again-police do this everyday to great effect. Torture not only doesn't work but it is totally unnecessary.


Cheney's torture techniques were taken from an Army report on what the Chinese did to American POW's in Korea. Those POW's were being forced to create lies for propaganda purposes....yes we used ways of creating lies to create "information" that they thought would "keep us safe". As with all Bush/Cheney type operations the word that best describes them is "naive".

The Repugs hate history because they don't understand it. That is why they are so dangerous and should never be in power again.

On the bus home one day a few years ago, I was overhearing a couple of Canadian soldiers talk about a wargame they'd recently finished up with some American troops. One of the Canadians was "captured" by the American forces and was talking about the experience. He said that partway through his "captivity" he'd realized he sang like a bird on things the opposing side wanted to know about, but the way he was being treated he didn't even think he was being interrogated.

I'd heard about similar things going on with captured Allied troops in WWII talking about their interrogators. Kind of depressing that something so simple and obvious got lost in favor of something simple-looking that meshes with what you see on TV half the time.

today. Reagan told them it was A-OK to be an asshole and they've been running with that in spades ever since. The neo-cons took it to the next level and bushco honed it to an evil unimaginable to most real Americans, certainly none of the ones mentioned in this article. They traded their souls for some power and a few years of dick swinging. Now they're just rich evil assholes that have to keep looking over their shoulder for fear that some lawman might be ready to nab their criminal ass.

convince the American people that our enemies were so scary, they could only beaten with inhumane methods.

with rule of law and half a brain intact.

motherfuckers. All they wanted was vengeance on the evil-doers. Cheney and the torture supporters are too stupid to realize that torture is counterproductive.