Doctors Aided CIA Interrogators, Participated in Human Experimentation

I gave a three hour lecture sponsored by the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency at the San Diego Naval Base in mid-May 2002. I was invited to speak about how American troops and American personnel could use what is known about learned helplessness to resist torture and evade successful interrogation by their captors. This is what I spoke about.

I was told then that since I was (and am) a civilian with no security clearance that they could not detail American methods of interrogation with me. I was also told then that their methods did not use "violence" or "brutality." James Mitchell and Bruce Jessen were in the audience of between 50 and 100 others at my speech.

A report dated August 31, 2009 by the Physicians for Human Rights states:

"In fact, on at least two occasions, Seligman presented his learned helplessness research to CIA contract interrogators referred to in the Inspector General's report."

This is false. On one occasion, the two contractors the report referred to (presumably Mitchell and Jessen) were present in an audience of about 50-100 people when I presented my research on learned helplessness. I did not present it "to them." I presented it "to" the Joint Personnel Recovery Agency. I spoke about how American troops and American personnel could use what is known about learned helplessness to evade successful interrogation by their captors. There was no other occasion on which I presented my research to Mitchell and Jessen or to any other people associated with this controversy.

I have not had contact with JPRA or SERE since that meeting. I have had no professional contact with Jessen and Mitchell since then. I have never worked under government contract (or any other contract) on any aspect of torture, nor would I be willing to do work on torture.

I have never worked on interrogation; I have never seen an interrogation and I have only a passing knowledge of the literature on interrogation. With that qualification, my opinion is that the point of interrogation is to get at the truth, not to get at what the interrogator wants to hear. I think learned helplessness would make someone more passive, less defiant and more compliant, but I know of no evidence that it leads reliably to more truth-telling.

I am grieved and horrified that good science, which has helped so many people overcome depression, may have been used for such dubious purposes.

Most importantly, I have never and would never provide assistance in torture. I strongly disapprove of it.

Martin Seligman

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