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Online Book Links Torture Tests to Government

'Torture bible' details studies

By Colleen Barry,  Newser Staff

Posted Sep 6, 2007 11:52 AM CDT

(Newser) – A "torture bible" recently unearthed online indicates that the US government sanctioned and funded the torture of test subjects in psychological experiments in the '50s, apparently to perfect interrogation techniques, Boing Boing reports. The studies were commissioned by the government and involve methods "likely to be regarded as highly unethical," says a post by Xeni Jardin.

The seven projects in the 1961 book, The Manipulation of Human Behavior, researched brainwashing and interrogation techniques by giving people drugs, placing subjects in sensory deprivation situations and hypnotizing them, among other things. The book has not been reprinted but has been making the rounds online.

Jade Lai holds a sign as she listens to speakers at a rally protesting the American Psychological Association participating in military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in San Francisco, Friday, Aug. 17, 2007. Psychologists will consider a measure banning members of their profession from working with interrogators at U.S. military...
Jade Lai holds a sign as she listens to speakers at a rally protesting the American Psychological Association participating in military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in San Francisco, Friday, Aug....   (Associated Press)
Ted Hexter, dressed as a prisoner, listens to speakers at a rally protesting the American Psychological Association participating in military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in San Francisco, Friday, Aug. 17, 2007. Psychologists will consider a measure banning members of their profession from working with interrogators at U.S. military detention...
Ted Hexter, dressed as a prisoner, listens to speakers at a rally protesting the American Psychological Association participating in military interrogations at Guantanamo Bay in San Francisco, Friday,...   (Associated Press)
Shackles are chained to the floor inside an interrogation room on a cell block in Camp 5 maximum security detention facility, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, Dec. 5, 2006.(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)
Shackles are chained to the floor inside an interrogation room on a cell block in Camp 5 maximum security detention facility, at Guantanamo Bay U.S. Naval Base, Cuba, Dec. 5, 2006.(AP Photo/Brennan Linsley)   (Associated Press)
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