The CIA's interrogation methods during the "War on Terrorism" have focused attention on a once obscure, out of print book called the "Manipulation of Human Behavior." The book, which some have dubbed the CIA's "torture bible," was a series of articles in book form that reviewed the state of interrogation research at the time of its publication, 1961. The furor over this book and its use by the CIA has deflected attention from another highly influential book that influenced the agency's offensive interrogation of research.

Joost Meerloo, a lecturer at Columbia University, published a book, The Rape of the Mind, in 1956 that reviewed mind control techniques and explored why people falsely confess. The book was inspired, in part, by numerous "false confessions" cases both inside and outside of the American military.

American soldiers were not the only subjects who had been reportedly “brainwashed” by the communists. Others, including a Hungarian cardinal, an ITT executive, and a number of journalists, offered public admissions to espionage charges after being “brainwashed.” Michael Otterman, in his book American Torture discusses the mind control" hysteria generated in part by the rise of communist regimes in the Soviet Union and China.

A 1954 story in the New York Times by Meerloo posed this lurid headline: "Pavlov’s Dog and Communist Brainwashers…totalitarians seek to enslave the human mind.” In the Times article Meerloo, a psychiatrist, describes in detail the techniques used by the Soviet Union to elicit confessions.

In stage one, the prisoner is dulled by rapid, continual questioning, forced to stand, denied access to showers, and exposed to cold, among other things. During this stage, as questioning continues, new interrogators confront the subject with errors in his statements and the subject is reduced to "an animal."

In stage two, “reconditioning” begins. For each act of compliance, his captors award the prisoner a small privilege, such as a shower, a warm cell, or a restful sleep. At this point, Meerloo writes, the victim enters a “hypnotic state” and is “ready to confess.” The interrogator can prompt the subject to "confess" to almost anything because of the breakdown in the subject's will and humanity.