00;00;00;21 -00;00;37;10

Jonathan Hafetz

Hi, I'm Jonathan Hafetz and welcome to Law and Film, a podcast that explores the rich connections between law and film. Law is critical to many films. Films, in turn, tell us a lot about the law. In each episode, we'll examine a film that's noteworthy from a legal perspective. What legal issues does the film explore? What does it get right about the law and what does it get wrong?

00;00;37;12 - 00;01;09;11

Jonathan Hafetz

And what does the film teach us about the law in the larger social and cultural context in which the law operates? Our two films for this episode are the RAC from 1956 and The Manchurian Candidate from 1962. The rack directed by Arnold Levin and written by Rod Serling originally for television, tells the story of a decorated war hero, Captain Edward Hall Junior, played by Paul Newman, who returns to the U.S. after being captured and held as a POW in the Korean War.

00;01;09;14 - 00;01;33;17

Jonathan Hafetz

While a P.O.W. who, it turns out, all was subjected to various forms of mental torture and ultimately collaborated with his captors, including by providing information and assisting in their propaganda efforts. Paul is then court martialed, and he and his attorney, Lieutenant Colonel Frank Bosnich, played by Edmond O'Brien, seek to justify his conduct by demonstrating the pressure he was under and pain and suffering he endured.

00;01;33;19 - 00;02;08;05

Jonathan Hafetz

All is found guilty because ultimately, he concedes, he could have resisted more as some soldiers who experienced physical torture did. Our second movie is the acclaimed Manchurian Candidate 1962, directed and produced by John Frankenheimer from a screenplay by George Axelrod, which was based on the 1959 novel of the same name by Richard Condon. The film centers on the story of a highly decorated soldier, Sergeant Raymond Shaw, played by Laurence Harvey, who, along with the Army platoon he commanded, was captured during the Korean War.

00;02;08;07 - 00;02;35;01

Jonathan Hafetz

During captivity, Shaw, along with other members of the platoon, including Major Bennett, Marco, played by Frank Sinatra, were psychologically manipulated or brainwashed by their Chinese Communist captors. Shaw was programed to serve as a sleeper agent and to serve as a pawn in a communist fascist plot to take over the United States under a banner of McCarthyism, and then impose martial law through a rising wave of anti-communist hysteria.

00;02;35;04 - 00;03;01;01

Jonathan Hafetz

The twist and spoiler alert is that his handler in the US is none other than his mother, Eleanor Shaw, played by Angela Lansbury, who received an Oscar nomination for Best Supporting Actress, who schemes ruthlessly to have her alcoholic and mccarthyite husband, Senator John Iselin, played by James Gregory, become vice president and then president. Courtesy of a well-timed assassination by Raymond Shaw, who was acting under the brainwashing program.

00;03;01;03 - 00;03;23;28

Jonathan Hafetz

In the end, Major Marco exposes the plot to Raymond, who then shoots his mother and her husband, Senator Iceland, the vice presidential candidate rather than the party's presidential nominee, before turning the gun on himself. Our guest today to talk about these two films and Hollywood during the Cold War era is Professor Lisa Hajar. Professor Hajar is the chair of the sociology department at UC Santa Barbara.

00;03;24;05 - 00;03;49;25

Jonathan Hafetz

Professor Aja is an international reputation for work on sociology of law and conflict, human rights, political violence, and contemporary international affairs. She's an interdisciplinary scholar who contributes to multiple fields in the social sciences and humanities, including Middle East Studies, American Studies, and law and society. Her current research focuses primarily on the U.S. war on terror, particularly around the issues of torture, targeted killing, and Guantanamo.

00;03;49;27 - 00;04;21;20

Jonathan Hafetz

She's the only social scientist who's traveled to Guantanamo 14 times to date, where she conducts research and writes about the Guantanamo military commissions. Another area of her current research focuses on human rights in the Arab world. Lisa's books include, most recently, The Warren Court Inside the Long Fight Against Torture, published by University of California Press in 2022. Her earlier books are Portia a Sociology of Violence and Human Rights, published by Routledge Press in 2013 and quoting conflict.

00;04;21;20 - 00;04;49;01

Jonathan Hafetz

The Israeli Military Court System in the West Bank and Gaza, published by UC press in 2005. Lisa is also the author of numerous scholarly articles, including an article in Film in History entitled From the Manchurian Candidate to Zero Dark 30 Reading the CIA's History of Torture Through Hollywood Thrillers. And her journalistic writings have been published by The Nation, Al Jazeera English, Middle East Report, and Julia.

00;04;49;03 - 00;05;12;24

Jonathan Hafetz

It's my pleasure to introduce Lisa to talk about the Rack and The Manchurian Candidate and Hollywood in the Cold War era. Welcome, Lisa. Thank you. Lisa. Both movies centered on U.S. service members or soldiers captured during the Korean War and held prisoner, who then returned to the United States after the war. Can you talk a little bit more about the context of these two films?

00;05;12;26 - 00;05;55;13

Lisa Hajjar

Well, I had, only seen The Rack probably, you know, maybe the for the first time a decade ago, but because I've been working on torture since the 90s, it really attracted my attention. And so the context and what really fascinates me about each of the films and how they, reflect each other, is that is the significance of the Korean War and the experience of U.S. P.O.W. who were captured and what they were subjected to in that war as it came to play a major role in the U.S. history of torture, and specifically the way that the CIA took certain lessons from Communist, particularly Chinese torture technique, you know, around mind control in order

00;05;55;13 - 00;06;27;26

Lisa Hajjar

to develop their own, you know, human experimentation and the MKUltra program. So these two films, you know, they both kind of resonate with each other around the topic and the time frame, and they deal with the same issue. What happened to POW in Chinese custody in the Korean War? And so, you know, in some sense, that's the fascinating context that people often, you know, refer to the Korean War as the forgotten war, because, you know, Vietnam comes on its heels and occupies a much greater place in American public imagination.

00;06;27;26 - 00;06;36;26

Lisa Hajjar

But the Korean War, I think, particularly around these kind of questions, had some really incredible novel elements to them. And these two films really capture them.

00;06;37;02 - 00;06;54;17

Jonathan Hafetz

So interesting. And I hadn't seen The Rack until we were talking about this part, because I'd never seen it before. It's not well known, but it's a really interesting film. Yeah. When you read it together with The Manchurian Candidate, you really do see this kind of emerging nucleus of films about the Korean War and the separate issues they raise.

00;06;54;24 - 00;07;09;27

Jonathan Hafetz

You mentioned it predates Vietnam, but also post dates, World War two and so it has its own set of issues. And although closer in time, of course, to World War two, it's very different, I think, in terms of its take on soldiers and what happened to P.O.W..

00;07;09;29 - 00;07;33;07

Lisa Hajjar

I think coming out of World War Two, the sense of victory and heroism, you know, in the sense that, you know, American soldiers just did the impossible. They defeated fascism, etc.. And then getting into this military operation in Korea, especially what the rack captures is what happened in Korea was unprecedented, ended, and the US military was completely unprepared to deal for it.

00;07;33;07 - 00;07;58;05

Lisa Hajjar

And essentially what happened was the kind of, as you mentioned, the psychological manipulation of P.O.W. through certain kinds of techniques that did not look like torture, you know? And so when P.O.W. started coming back and the government realized how many of them who'd been captured had been seriously indoctrinated, it was this sense of a the fact that soldiers could break under.

00;07;58;05 - 00;08;22;07

Lisa Hajjar

What did not look like, quote, torture. And they weren't beaten. They weren't burnt with at least the ones that were indoctrinated, were not beaten or burned with cigarets or other conventional torture techniques. And so the rack perfectly captures the incomprehensibility of what happened and the incomprehensibility of how some P.O.W. was. A fair number of them were able to be so quickly indoctrinated.

00;08;22;13 - 00;08;33;22

Lisa Hajjar

And so that's why Paul Newman's character in The Rack is an anti-hero. He's a guy who was broken, you know? And then, you know, the film kind of goes into what actually happened to him. Why was he broken?

00;08;33;24 - 00;08;58;12

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, the numbers are very are significant. I think, you know, and and your film and history piece, you cite that number right? There were, I think it was estimated by the military that one out of every ten of the 4400 or so American had, quote unquote, collaborated with the enemy, of whom about 13% were deemed guilty of serious collaboration, like writing disloyal tracks, agreeing to spy organized for the communists after the war.

00;08;58;17 - 00;09;08;09

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's a big problem, as the army sees it, they've got in their hand, and the film dramatizes it through the story of, the Paul Newman character, Captain Edward Paul.

00;09;08;11 - 00;09;36;10

Lisa Hajjar

Because the military really collaborated with this filmmaking. It is. I mean, in some sense, I characterize it as a really didactic film. It's like putting forward the contemporary understanding of capture, patriotism, cowardice, etc. that really kind of drives home what the military was thinking at the time. But I mean, in terms of the real history, which I think the film does a good representation of, albeit, you know, as you said, it's not a great film.

00;09;36;10 - 00;09;55;21

Lisa Hajjar

It's like but it it's an important one was that, you know, when all these P.O.W. started coming back and they realized something's happened to them. And even while they were in captivity, numerous P.O.W. were writing letters home to their families, talking about, like, how great the communists were. And there was all kinds of other sort of very disconcerting phenomena.

00;09;55;21 - 00;10;21;02

Lisa Hajjar

And so the army did a study afterwards of all of, 215 former POWs in order to understand what had happened to them. And so through that study of talking to people and the Paul Newman character, you know, with Peter Mises, what they learned was that you know, they were subjected to exhaustion, isolation, humiliation, and then the constant demand for autobiographical information.

00;10;21;02 - 00;10;34;25

Lisa Hajjar

And those weren't the tactics that the U.S. or anybody had any experience with prior to the Korean War. So it's both the tactics and their shockingly effective and rapid consequences on the psyches of Jews.

00;10;34;27 - 00;10;58;15

Jonathan Hafetz

And Paul Newman, the Paul Newman character is accused of essentially succumbing to these tactics. I mean, and he's a decorated military hero. So the film really sets it up in terms of the power of these tactics. He's someone who has demonstrated his bravery, is from a very proud military family, actually appears he he does resist for a period of time, but ultimately he succumbs and he's court martialed for collaborating with the enemy.

00;10;58;21 - 00;11;16;09

Jonathan Hafetz

Let's play a clip now, from the film. And this is a discussion of this new form of mental torture or what Paul Newman's counsel, defense counsel, Lieutenant Colonel Frank was actually by Edmund O'Brien, calls a new form of duress. So I'll play the clip now.

00;11;16;12 - 00;11;43;29

Film Dialogue

This, gentlemen, this is the new duress. It isn't brainwashing. It never was. No drugs were used. No attempt was made to eradicate the mind. But every device we use to make it suffer. And Captain Hole, we have a strong man whose comeback record shows him capable of withstanding immense physical pain without giving an inch. Yet the same man had no chance when forced to undergo a program of confession and mental agony.

00;11;44;01 - 00;12;05;27

Film Dialogue

This program worked in stages. First, you create an atmosphere of terror and uncertainty. Then you take away the leaders, tear down health and morale and face right the ranks with informers. And when you can't get informers, spread the word that you've got them anyhow, turning an army into a nightmare school and the soldiers into small boys who depend on you for childish rewards and punishments.

00;12;06;03 - 00;12;27;17

Film Dialogue

Make them all lonely and distrustful. Then pick out the loneliest and go to work on him. Make him think that you alone hold the power to forgive. Then find the personal hidden key. And once you've found it, turn it hard. Every one of us has that key. The defense rests.

00;12;27;20 - 00;12;35;02

Jonathan Hafetz

Can you elaborate a little more about how this film treats this new form of duress, this mental rack? In terms of the larger context we've been talking about?

00;12;35;05 - 00;13;05;22

Lisa Hajjar

Well, so as a courtroom film, I mean, like much of the film itself takes place in the courtroom. And so O'Brien is the defense lawyer, and Wendell Corey plays the prosecutor. And so what's really being played out are these two kinds of visions of what a soldier in captivity should do. And so what the defense is arguing in the courtroom and in that clip kind of illustrates it, is they're trying to, you know, make the argument that what, Hall did or how he responded to his treatment is a normal human behavior.

00;13;05;22 - 00;13;34;04

Lisa Hajjar

You know, the defense doesn't challenge the allegations. He did sign, like a propaganda tract did do all the things that he's accused of. But what the defense is trying to argue is why did he do that? And so in order to make the argument, they're really, you know, narrating this kind of what he said, the can do form of duress, which is really tactics that were not well known or common or anything that US soldiers captured in previous wars had been subjected to, you know, and then that's contradicted.

00;13;34;04 - 00;13;55;00

Lisa Hajjar

Then by the understanding that none of that, as you know, the prosecutor says, constitutes a legally valid form of torture, you know, and therefore he should have toughened up and been able to endure. So, you know, one of the real tensions in the courtroom scene is what can a human being endure? What kind of conditions caused someone to break?

00;13;55;00 - 00;13;58;29

Lisa Hajjar

And that's like sort of the larger story about why this film is so significant.

00;13;59;01 - 00;14;20;19

Jonathan Hafetz

And in terms of the definition of torture, it's interesting. They don't. They will. It's an assumption built in that torture comes in the form of the physical act. And the Paul Newman characters, contrasted with Captain John Miller, played by Lee Marvin, the Lee Marvin character who's subjected to physical torture. Right. He's subjected to, quote unquote, real torture, his stripped naked arm from his ankle like a hog and burn the cigarets.

00;14;20;24 - 00;14;40;00

Jonathan Hafetz

So the film accepts, that's torture. But you're right, it doesn't accept what happened to Paul Newman as psychological torture. And then the legal issue is, as the film breaks it out in terms of the military or the court martial prosecution, is whether Paul Newman could have resisted longer, whether he willingly gave aid and support to the enemy.

00;14;40;02 - 00;14;55;22

Jonathan Hafetz

And the assumption is that if he tried to use the language of the film under physical torture, right, if he'd been actually hung on a put on a physical rack and stretched or something sharp under his fingernails or whatever, various form of physical torture you want to think about, his will would have been broken, he would be cleared.

00;14;55;26 - 00;14;56;09

Film Dialogue

And it would be.

00;14;56;09 - 00;15;18;22

Lisa Hajjar

Legible. It would be legible to the military's understanding at the time. You know, so the military was just like, we see the burns, you know, that Lee Marvin experience. That's torture. And he didn't break. And all of you, you know, Paul Newman were subjected to was being held in a dank underground cell and forced to keep your back straight for months at a time and, you know, sleep in the muddy puddle.

00;15;18;22 - 00;15;19;24

Lisa Hajjar

You know, that's not torture.

00;15;19;25 - 00;15;41;19

Jonathan Hafetz

Exactly. And here's a clip of the cross-examination you mentioned by the prosecutor, Major Sam Moulton, the character's name, played by Wendell Corey. He's kind of reluctant prosecutor. He's not a gung ho prosecutor. He sort of feels he has to do his duty to uphold the law, but he does it quite effectively. So here's Wendell Corey character cross-examining the Paul Newman character, Captain No.

00;15;41;20 - 00;16;03;20

Film Dialogue

During the period of isolation you described yesterday, we were struck or beaten. I mean, when you subjected to physical torture of any kind. Not you question that links under adverse physical condition. Yes. Result of which among other things, you informed on? Definitely. I didn't know he'd escaped. It doesn't matter whether you do that does. You know, you signed a document informing on him.

00;16;03;22 - 00;16;30;18

Film Dialogue

A document which soon will be used by the communists to break the will of other men, or a plan to escape prisoner. Afternoon. How many officers were there in the camp? About 60. Did any of them sign documents or make speeches or make threats to run away? Not to my knowledge. It's not the fact the overwhelming majority of officers, when asked to cooperate, volunteered only their name, their rank and serial numbers have been trained to escape the military, even under torture, I guess.

00;16;30;19 - 00;16;56;01

Film Dialogue

So was it not also a fact that those who did not hold intercourse with their captors, other than what was followed by other regulations, gave the Chinese nobody, no opportunity of pride. They said much better than you did. Yes. Otherwise, captain Hope, you received the treatment you received only because at the outset you showed willingness to collaborate. I was not correct.

00;16;56;03 - 00;17;24;28

Film Dialogue

Maybe I, of course, that you're nervous in the beginning. The most exalted. Yes or no? Yes. Despite his exalted reasons. You know, one of the few officers who saw fit to betray his country. Objection. Sustained. Very well. Not Captain. Let's examine for a moment this so-called breaking point of your eyes, your horizon of endurable anguish as a defense counsel so poetically describe it.

00;17;25;01 - 00;17;46;10

Film Dialogue

I do believe you reached your breaking point. Yes. Who's going to break Captain Hall? We know it was a starvation early. Yes. And you didn't think you were going to freeze to death? No, it wasn't a pain. You're right. Major break now. Or the threat of death. They said I was a war criminal. I thought it was. They might kill me if they never threatened to execute.

00;17;46;15 - 00;18;11;13

Film Dialogue

It never was enough. No, no, I mean, certainly no, it wasn't just because you weren't comfortable. I didn't make it very quiet. Nothing comfortable. Nobody is very comfortable. We know that. Well, it isn't any of those things. The thing that made you collapse was loneliness. Isn't that what you said? Yes. Oh, this matter of loneliness interest me. I'd like to examine the.

00;18;11;15 - 00;18;33;24

Film Dialogue

I have some water, please. I'm sorry. Captain, how can you tell me about some special time where it's. Loneliness was very bad some time before you in Korea with a special day or what? Yes, a day would be fine. Well, I don't know. Some days were worse than others, I guess. You mean there was no day when the loneliness was so bad that you just couldn't stand it?

00;18;33;24 - 00;18;37;05

Film Dialogue

You made it sound like a toothache. You must have one tooth worse than the others.

00;18;37;05 - 00;18;37;20

Film Dialogue

What do you mean?

00;18;37;20 - 00;19;04;24

Film Dialogue

One day, what was the loneliest day? You remember though my mother died a day of murder. We heard from your autobiography. The Chinese made you write where they found you were a very lonely boy. You. Is that right? Yes. I admitted I was lonely. You admitted to yourself? Yes. For the first time. For the first time. Never before in your life did you ever save yourself.

00;19;04;26 - 00;19;21;28

Film Dialogue

And let's face it, I'm lonely. Yes, I may have been, if you were aware of it. It wasn't any news to you. So why did you decide to take that special night? To go? I read the book. It was a night that I. I found out about my brother. His name was Pete. Pete? Yes. What made you even more lonely?

00;19;22;00 - 00;19;42;12

Film Dialogue

Yes. It made just like there was nothing all of a sudden. Sort of a hopeless feeling. Hopeless? Yes. Like when my mother died. Your mother died. You felt the same way. So you just couldn't stand attention. But you found your ghost and you went on. I had to come as you were going on, after you heard about Pete.

00;19;42;14 - 00;20;14;07

Film Dialogue

Maybe I could have. Maybe here. Then why didn't you, captain? Did you ever reach your horizon? Endurable anguish? Or were you only afraid that you might couldn't have gone on a little longer every day? No. Even a minute. Think very carefully to have a break. Did you ever really break? No, I didn't look. No further questions.

00;20;14;09 - 00;20;36;25

Jonathan Hafetz

So, because Paul Newman, the Paul Newman character, admits that he could have resisted longer, that he didn't even take it all the way, the Army could have fallen on him for collaborating. He's ultimately found guilty. And as we mentioned, he's contrasted with the Lee Marvin character, who is subjected to physical torture and who the Paul Newman character, informs on, although he doesn't really know he's informing on him.

00;20;36;25 - 00;21;00;21

Jonathan Hafetz

He says that Miller was the Lee Marvin character was playing to escape. Although we didn't know that the Lee Marvin character was actually trying to do so, but only when he kind of indirectly rat him out. But you know, Lee Marvin character is subjected to brutal physical torture and he doesn't break. Yeah. Just talk a little bit more about the message the film is sending about breaking or non breaking and what makes people break and why that matters so much to the military point of view.

00;21;00;22 - 00;21;02;12

Jonathan Hafetz

Coming out of the Korean War.

00;21;02;14 - 00;21;24;26

Lisa Hajjar

Well, let me just slightly angle that question because in the larger picture, what was so surprising was that very few P.O.W. were subjected to those kind of brutal physical techniques like the vast majority were subjected to. I mean, not that they were nonphysical, but that they weren't the, you know, coming out of that kind of imaginary of like the brutality of torture.

00;21;24;26 - 00;21;49;06

Lisa Hajjar

And so the ones who were tortured, the way the Lee Marvin characters were characterized by their communist captors as reactionary, in other words, if they refused to submit to the indoctrination, whereas the other ones like Hall, were more compliant. And so even in the Army study that was done, like sort of navigating this new phenomenon that very few people were brutally tortured, but many were broken.

00;21;49;06 - 00;22;14;22

Lisa Hajjar

The film itself, you know, Wendell Corey in his courtroom presentation is almost literally quoting from the Army study, which really sort of elevates and says, torture is like the best tornado or the Iron Maiden or the rack or the water dripping continuously on the head, or the splinters under the fingernails, like, that's torture. And, you know, uncomfortable treatment, you know, soldiers should be capable of withstanding that.

00;22;14;22 - 00;22;38;08

Lisa Hajjar

I mean, battle is a, you know, already uncomfortable thing, but, you know, it bears mentioning, like, you probably the thing that really affected Hall the most was the protracted isolation. And of course, that becomes a big part of the plot, like what happened to him and being alone and lonely. But the film, in its didactic way, mocks his response to being held in protracted isolation.

00;22;38;08 - 00;22;57;25

Lisa Hajjar

So it's like you were lonely, you were a lonely guy, you were lonely. And so there, like flattening out this experience, we now know that, you know, protracted isolation does constitute torture. But at the time it didn't. And they couldn't even comprehend it as anything but like a human weakness to not be able to handle a little bit of loneliness in a communist prison camp.

00;22;57;27 - 00;23;01;05

Lisa Hajjar

I mean, really, it's a brilliant snapshot of the era.

00;23;01;07 - 00;23;16;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It does. I mean, in terms of how these techniques were viewed and like, it's belittled in a way like, yeah, loneliness that wasn't so hard. And that may tie it into this kind of family psychodrama with Paul Newman. You know, he wants to prove his father. And what makes him break in the end is news of his brother's death.

00;23;16;27 - 00;23;22;28

Jonathan Hafetz

So it's kind of reduced to this family drama when the actual isolation is something that causes great hardship.

00;23;23;01 - 00;23;40;29

Lisa Hajjar

Well, one of the most dramatic scenes, I mean, it's really the kind of turning point in the film is when the father, who's played by Walter Pidgeon, he's like, delighted that his son has survived. I mean, you know, the other son died in the war. That's sad. But he's like, just so happy. And he's like his war hero son who survived a communist prison camp.

00;23;40;29 - 00;23;57;19

Lisa Hajjar

And then the night this, you know, Paul Newman actually comes out of the hospital and returns home and there's a party. And at the end of the party, another general comes and thinks that, you know, Walter Pidgeon, the father spitting Polish soldier himself, has already learned that his son is up for court martial and he doesn't know this.

00;23;57;19 - 00;24;17;25

Lisa Hajjar

And when he's, you know, told by this other general, like your son collaborated with the enemy, he goes running up the stairs. It's like, why didn't you die? Why didn't you die? You know, like it was. It's so shameful. It's so incomprehensible that somebody would break in and do what they're being accused of. And then sort of you get through the courtroom drama.

00;24;17;25 - 00;24;25;11

Lisa Hajjar

The different ways in which people understand, you know, the different interpretations of that kind of experience.

00;24;25;14 - 00;24;43;14

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah. It's so interesting the way the film sets that up. It's contrasted with the Lee Marvin character and the idea. Right. What's a soldier supposed to do when they're captured? It's kind of become a cliche name, rank and serial number. You mentioned in your article that's actually was encapsulated by an executive order.

00;24;43;17 - 00;25;12;00

Lisa Hajjar

As a result of these experiences in Korea and the fact that such a high proportion of US use were broken, etc., collaborated with the enemy, Eisenhower issues an executive order, basically sort of affirming and insisting that the only thing us prisoners of war are allowed to do should do, and the only thing that's acceptable is the name, rank and serial number, and that they must withhold all other information, like there's really no room for human weakness.

00;25;12;00 - 00;25;39;00

Lisa Hajjar

It's like this is the policy, and the policy is based on national security needs, etc.. So there's no sense that any other alternative would approach. But so what's then becomes interesting is like, can I just put this in context and like several things happen. So the official line of the government, as you know, the rack captures and Eisenhower's executive order captures, you know, so the military and the CIA in real life take two different courses.

00;25;39;00 - 00;26;19;06

Lisa Hajjar

The military establishes a program called the Survival, evasion, Resistance and Escape Program, or Sere program. And that program basically trains soldiers. It started in the Air Force with pilots that might be at risk of being shot down by countries and taken captive by countries that didn't respect the Geneva Conventions and the kind of techniques that were used, you know, that they were learning from the P.O.W. they institute this into the Sere training program so that soldiers are actually put through a torture regimen on the assumption that if they've experienced those things, you know, they'll be better prepared if it ever happens to them in real life.

00;26;19;06 - 00;26;41;13

Lisa Hajjar

So the CIA program, it was originally established for the Air Force and then by Vietnam, it sort of was expanded to all other divisions of the military. But it really was about training US soldiers to withstand communist torture. And it uses the Communist torture techniques as a way to train them, like waterboarding, isolation, you know, nakedness, etc. all the kinds of things that they learned.

00;26;41;16 - 00;27;08;23

Lisa Hajjar

Communist interrogators using in Korea. But the CIA takes a different lesson, which is, let's see what those techniques of the Chinese were doing to such great effect on our US and let's, you know, start working on that. So that really launches the whole CIA's mind control experimentation in the mid 1950s, which many people have written about. But it's most famously, you know, referred to as the MKUltra program.

00;27;08;25 - 00;27;21;24

Lisa Hajjar

That was the evolving experimentation and use of torture by the CIA in a very clandestine way that builds on this, you know, sort of experience of Korea in order to basically beat the commies at their own game.

00;27;21;29 - 00;27;42;04

Jonathan Hafetz

And the CIA develops it, and then it uses it in the counterinsurgency in Vietnam, working with the right wing governments and death squads in Latin America during the Dirty Wars, the late 70s, in the 80s. It's really interesting the way you lay that out, because you've got a couple things going on. It sounds like one, you've got the military, the official line, which is adopted in good part, I think, by the film.

00;27;42;04 - 00;27;57;27

Jonathan Hafetz

I think the film does give some credit to the fact that it was a form of suffering. And even the, Lee Marvin character warms up a bit back up to Paul Newman, even though Paul Newman ratted him out or ratted them out about his escape, the movie props up kind of the army line about a stiff upper lip and psychological torture.

00;27;57;28 - 00;28;14;12

Jonathan Hafetz

Real soldiers don't break under psychological torture. If they break it all right, then you got the military thing. Well, we. Wait a minute. Something's going on here. We got to study this and train our soldiers. They can resist. And then you got the CIA, and I guess the military intelligence, saying. Wait a minute. You know, we're fighting the last war.

00;28;14;12 - 00;28;20;17

Jonathan Hafetz

We've got to learn how to exploit these techniques, not just to protect our soldiers, but to use against insurgents in other conflicts.

00;28;20;22 - 00;28;45;10

Lisa Hajjar

Right? I mean, like from the 50s on, as they would say, like the mind was a Cold War battlefield, but I would just, like, actually draw one other point, like the end of the rack when after Newman has been convicted of most of the crimes that he's been charged with, but then he takes a stand and kind of concedes, he's like, I had a chance to be great and hold out, but I lost my opportunity to be magnificent.

00;28;45;10 - 00;28;56;10

Lisa Hajjar

I mean, it's really like the cherry on the on the side of this. Like lesson that the military wants to convey is that you really must be able to hold out no matter what.

00;28;56;17 - 00;29;16;24

Jonathan Hafetz

I mean, no, Brian, I think is terrific in the role as the defender. He has a really good job, maybe better than the film wanted to do. The director wanted to do of portraying the suffering and the real conflict that Paul Newman has. But the end of the day, it resolves with Paul Newman being found guilty of most of the charges and then, as you say, kind of going up and trying to, you know, encourage soldiers to resist.

00;29;16;24 - 00;29;18;04

Jonathan Hafetz

And if he could have done better.

00;29;18;06 - 00;29;43;04

Lisa Hajjar

Well, even just for the film buffs who really enjoy watching films as some of your earlier episodes have captured was like military court martial. So, I mean, this is a very, at least in my very limited experience, a very accurate way of like the kind of politics between the prosecution and the defense, because they're all, you know, respectable officers, you know, but they're playing with these life and death kind of issues and has a really good job just kind of representing that.

00;29;43;04 - 00;29;48;28

Lisa Hajjar

The tropes and the, you know, the scenarios one would find in a serious court martial.

00;29;49;00 - 00;30;12;26

Jonathan Hafetz

Absolutely. I mean, it seems like if the, if the rack has a large foot or large part in the 50s, The Manchurian Candidate shifts fully. And it's really a movie of the 1960s, and it reflects very different, and it's got a very different message. So psychological manipulation is central to The Manchurian Candidate. And I'll play a clip now from that movie.

00;30;12;26 - 00;30;40;12

Jonathan Hafetz

It's one of the many famous scenes where Major Bennett, Marco, played by Frank Sinatra, begins to recall in a nightmare how he and Sergeant Raymond Shaw, played by Laurence Harvey, and other members of the Army platoon, were, quote unquote brainwashed or conditioned to use the phrase of their Chinese interrogators. And in the scene, the men are programed to think they're awaiting out a storm in the lobby of a small hotel in new Jersey where a Lady's Garden Club is meeting.

00;30;40;13 - 00;31;03;21

Jonathan Hafetz

There's a lot of talk about hydrangeas, and the architects of the conditioning program demonstrate this new tool of warfare to the other Chinese. And I think Soviet scientists in the audience, including by showing how powerful they are by getting Shaw to murder in cold blood, two members of the platoon. So here's this famous clip from The Manchurian Candidate.

00;31;03;23 - 00;31;26;07

Film Dialogue

Allow me to introduce our American visitor. I must ask you to forgive the somewhat lackadaisical manners, but I have conditioned them or brainwashed them, which I understand is the new American world, to believe that they are waiting out a storm. The lobby of a small hotel in new Jersey where a meeting of the Ladies Garden Club is in progress.

00;31;26;09 - 00;31;32;27

Film Dialogue

You will notice that I have told them they may smoke. I've allowed my people to have a little.

00;31;32;27 - 00;31;33;25

Lisa Hajjar

Fun in the.

00;31;33;25 - 00;31;50;11

Film Dialogue

Selection of bizarre tobacco substitutes. I will enjoy your cigaret and yes, ma'am, you have done. Oh, taste good like a cigaret should.

00;31;50;14 - 00;32;14;25

Film Dialogue

Now then, come right. May I present the famous Raymond shop? Young man, you float 8000 miles to this very spot. Manchuria to see Raymond. Put your chair over here. If I may. Please. I am sure you've all heard the old wives tale, but no hypnotized subject may be forced to do that which is repellent to his moral nature, whatever that may be.

00;32;14;28 - 00;32;51;10

Film Dialogue

Nonsense. Of course. Oh, you don't think it might set down a reminder to consult Redmond's paper experiments and the hypnotic Production of Antisocial and Self-Injurious Behavior, as well as 1941 paper, which is titled I believe emits in the hypnotic production of crime. Oh, of course. And results his remarkable book, Conditioned Reflex Therapy, to name only three horrible things you that only the West is working to manufacture more crime and bigger criminals against the modern shortages.

00;32;51;13 - 00;33;20;24

Film Dialogue

I suggest prison, of course, is primary violence motivation a sort of the unilateral suggestion to sow destruction. But then as you grow older, more along with it, and you get to the point as the man ever keeping you one has enough. I apologize, my dear Dimitri. I keep forgetting that you are a young country and your attention span is limited.

00;33;20;27 - 00;33;40;28

Film Dialogue

Tell me, Raymond, have you ever killed anyone? No, ma'am. Not even in combat. In combat? Yes, ma'am, I think so. Of course you have, Raymond. Raymond has been a crack shot since childhood. Marvelous outlet for his aggressions. Now have the bayonet, please.

00;33;41;00 - 00;33;42;16

Film Dialogue

Not with the knife. With the.

00;33;42;16 - 00;33;52;14

Film Dialogue

Hands, with the hand. Yeah. Have him use this. Doc? Doc? Raymond, whom do you dislike the least.

00;33;52;14 - 00;33;59;23

Film Dialogue

In your group here today? Police. That's right. Well, I guess Captain Markham, ma'am.

00;33;59;26 - 00;34;07;07

Film Dialogue

You notice how he is always drawn to a thoroughly. That won't do, Raymond. We need the captain to get you there. Met?

00;34;07;10 - 00;34;10;24

Film Dialogue

Who gets well, I guess. Admiralty, ma'am.

00;34;10;27 - 00;34;21;21

Film Dialogue

Oh, that's better. Now then, Raymond, take this gun and strangle Admiral. To death,

00;34;21;23 - 00;34;27;26

Film Dialogue

00;34;27;28 - 00;34;33;15

Jonathan Hafetz

So, Lisa, can you talk a little bit more about the term brainwashing, its origins, and the role it plays in the film?

00;34;33;17 - 00;34;53;07

Lisa Hajjar

So the concept of brainwashing as a result of the Korean War and that experience, you know, and the experience of POW and like, oh my God, the communists have these miraculous methods. And so there was this incredible, you know, anxiety about, you know, the ability of people to be if they're taken to just turn into like calculated operatives of economy.

00;34;53;07 - 00;35;12;07

Lisa Hajjar

So of course, there's an earlier history of that with like, you know, invasion of the Body Snatchers and others. But just for one second, going back to the rack, like when, you know, the Edmund O'Brien character is making the case about what happened to Paul Newman, he's like, it's not brainwashing. It never was. Whereas in The Manchurian Candidate, you know, the Chinese scientist, it's like we have washed their brains.

00;35;12;07 - 00;35;50;29

Lisa Hajjar

In fact, they're, you know, so washed. They've been dry cleaned though. So it's a really latching on to that, you know, kind of paranoia. But I think the, the concept of brainwashing or the term brainwashing was coined by like an American journalist who had done a lot of work sort of looking at how the Chinese regime was able to produce a kind of mass compliance by society, like in the Cultural Revolution and in earlier periods, and saying that brainwashing is not really a thing, but the word, the concept really captures the imagination and that capturing that imagination, that is the crux of The Manchurian Candidate, that, you know, it's possible under certain conditions and the

00;35;50;29 - 00;36;18;21

Lisa Hajjar

conditions, in the 1962 version of The Manchurian Candidate, the conditions that created these guys, where their memories were erased by their scientific interrogator handlers and replaced with new memories, you don't actually know what happens. All you see is in that, like, fascinating scene that shifts back and forth between a real scientific civilian and the you know, the old lady's talking about hydrangeas is, you know, just as you said, the efficacy of these effects, which is really incredible.

00;36;18;24 - 00;36;38;03

Jonathan Hafetz

It's amazing in the way that The Manchurian Candidate slips, as you said, back and forth between, well, temporally and between kind of different views of reality just makes it such a great film and so powerful and evocative. One of the lines I love from your article, you Said it, The Rack operates on the level of earnest debate over patriotism, its meaning and its limits.

00;36;38;05 - 00;36;48;08

Jonathan Hafetz

The Manchurian candidates operates on the level of satire of America's Cold War fears of communist world domination. Tell us a little bit more about that. I think that really, it's an element.

00;36;48;10 - 00;37;18;13

Lisa Hajjar

You know, in the film The Manchurian Candidate, it's and it has so much resonance for today, you know, that, as you said, the Angela Lansbury character, you know, she's ostensibly this hyper patriotic mccarthyite, woman, you know, and her idiot, you know, second husband is, you know, like, really framed like McCarthy himself. And it's, you know, the way in which you're articulates her anti-communist bona fetus is to call everybody who disagrees with her a socialist, you know, and then to be, like, hyperventilating about the dangers of communism.

00;37;18;13 - 00;37;54;04

Lisa Hajjar

And we must be tough and fight, fight, fight, you know, so that's like, that's the great ruse in the story where she's actually running, or at least a participant in this operation to have, programed killer come onto the scene. And so, you know, I just think that the notions, I mean, the Red scare, you know, the ability during the 1950s, the actual McCarthy trials and the lives shattered and the careers ruined, you know, as a result of this, like, extreme paranoia and literal, I mean, you know, like witch and your commie hunting throughout the government along with, like, at the same time back in the 50s, it was like homosexual and pig, you know,

00;37;54;04 - 00;38;22;28

Lisa Hajjar

sort of like the weak links in American society, those kind of things could justify all kinds of, you know, abuses or restrictions in the name of national security because of the idea that there's a legitimate danger out there. The danger of indoctrination, the danger of susceptibility to socialism. And then when you start pointing out like a bunch of socialists who are in government, you know, it just kind of affirms the gullibility of the American public to kind of be persuaded by this narrative.

00;38;22;28 - 00;38;24;09

Lisa Hajjar

And we see that today.

00;38;24;11 - 00;38;48;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, absolutely. And it's so great how the real the hard McCarthy I like Iceland, the, you know, the second husband Lenin's brain. Angela's be right. They but they're really you know, they're riding this wave of anti-communist hysteria. But their plan is, you know, once they do that and they get the presidential nominee assassinated and Iceland comes in and takes over as president, I mean, Angela Lansbury doesn't want her son to be very upset that her son was picked to do it as opposed to someone else.

00;38;48;11 - 00;38;58;21

Jonathan Hafetz

But once that happens, then they're going to impose a kind of a communist fascist regime and emergency power that makes martial law look like a cakewalk. She said something to that effect, right?

00;38;58;21 - 00;38;59;07

Lisa Hajjar

Yeah, exactly.

00;38;59;07 - 00;39;00;17

Jonathan Hafetz

Which is actually a great satire.

00;39;00;22 - 00;39;18;28

Lisa Hajjar

But what really makes the movie timeless? I think it's like that, you know, it illustrates, again, coming up to the present, that hyper patriotism is the perfect foil for treason. Angela Lansbury, the most hyper patriotic socialist finding person, is, in fact, the biggest traitor of them all.

00;39;18;29 - 00;39;39;03

Jonathan Hafetz

Exactly right. Exactly. And the plot is outlandish, you know, in a literal sense, but there's some real things that resonate. So like, for example, there's this interchange between, you know, the left leaning Senator Thomas Jordan, played by John MacGyver, who's accused of being a communist. He's the object of the ire of Eleanor of Iceland, the Angela Lansbury character.

00;39;39;03 - 00;40;01;14

Jonathan Hafetz

But his daughter Jocelyn, right, Jordan's daughter Jocelyn, played by Leslie Parrish Shaw, is in love with her. And so Eleanor asks Jordan if he would block her husband Johnny's vice presidential nomination, and he responds, I quote. There are people who think of Johnny as a clown and a buffoon, but I do not. I despise Johnny, Iceland and everything that Iceland ism, a.k.a. McCarthyism, right, has come to say.

00;40;01;14 - 00;40;02;03

Lisa Hajjar

Trumpism.

00;40;02;10 - 00;40;13;02

Jonathan Hafetz

Or Trumpism, right? I think if Johnny Iceland were a paid Soviet agent, leave a pregnant pause there. He could not do more to harm this country than he's doing now. So sounds familiar, right?

00;40;13;04 - 00;40;33;09

Lisa Hajjar

Right. One of the things that's, I think, brilliant about the film is that, you know, I mean, Angela Lansbury is character is made to be unlikable, although you shift your unlike from her hyper patriotism to her, you know, communist traitor ism to, you know, use assassination. But it also is like the character of Laurence Harvey really is also an antihero.

00;40;33;17 - 00;41;05;19

Lisa Hajjar

But and if you even like, tease it back a little bit, like, how does the Laurence Harvey character, who's been literally brainwashed compared to the, you know, character Paul Newman, whose blood was broken as a result of certain kind of effects, and one of the, you know, kind of one of the brilliant elements in The Manchurian Candidate is that, you know, all of his, you know, people in his unit were brainwashed because he's really a despicable asshole, but they've all been brainwashed to think that whenever they're asked about him, he is the kindest, gentlest, most generous, brave person I've ever met, you know?

00;41;05;19 - 00;41;29;07

Lisa Hajjar

So that's also where, in fact, he's actually kind of a jerk. And then he becomes like a robot. But the one time when his human emotions come out, you know, and it's all like his humanity, his pliability, his unlikable character is literally in relationship to his overweening mother. You know, when he says, like, he's hated his mother, I mean, it's really added a bullet, but, you know, then he just talks about how he could be a lovable guy, a lovable guy.

00;41;29;07 - 00;41;45;23

Jonathan Hafetz

And I it's really interesting. I mean, well, one thing of all, his mother. Yeah, Angela's very, very domineering, horrible person. I mean, the book, I think she's worse. There's that famous scene in the movie where she. Angela kisses him on the mouth, but in the book, they have an affair, actually. So I think, oh, the guy which I left out of the movie.

00;41;45;23 - 00;42;07;05

Jonathan Hafetz

But she's horrible. They have that moment where Laurence Harvey character could have been someone else, right? Where they go back in time and they show him falling in love with Jocelyn Jordan, the daughter of the senator, Tom Jordan. Right. And they go back and he was like, becoming someone else. And then, you know, his mother puts him back on to the path and then basically he's programed to kill her, his love.

00;42;07;05 - 00;42;08;17

Jonathan Hafetz

And Senator Jordan. Right.

00;42;08;19 - 00;42;39;29

Lisa Hajjar

Actually, I you know, I didn't know I mean, I hadn't read the book. Well, he should have, but like, I didn't know about the incest element. I mean, there's sort of like a creepy thing in the movie, but when you put it in that context, it's like that further kind of explains in a filmic way how both the susceptibility and the, you know, and the hatred that he develops for his mother, like, you know, like having been subjected to a incestuous relationship, like talk about, you know, brainwashing or mind manipulation, like that's the original sin, you know, in that sense.

00;42;40;07 - 00;43;03;05

Jonathan Hafetz

Exactly. I mean, I think she's only three or so years older than Laurence Harvey in the movie. I mean, you know, but, it's creepy enough. Yeah, even without that detail. And then ultimately, he turns the gun on Angela Lansbury, right, in Iceland, because he knows that's the only way to stop him. But, yeah, what you said before, too, about the way that Raymond Shaw was so disliked that that's actually, I think one of the things that tips Frank Sinatra character off is everyone just praising him.

00;43;03;05 - 00;43;09;28

Jonathan Hafetz

Like, there's not like robots. Like, you know, Raymond Shaw is the greatest, bravest person ever. And it just like, why, you know, this guy is like, such a jerk.

00;43;10;00 - 00;43;33;23

Lisa Hajjar

Yeah. Like kind of the way in which the story really begins are that you mentioned it before it unfolds is that they were like brainwash in China according to this. And then once they'd been back for a year or two years, they start having nightmares and they're starting to realize like what they think they think they know and what they are saying and ostensibly know are two different things, as some of them go mad, you know, as a result of their dreams.

00;43;33;23 - 00;43;56;10

Lisa Hajjar

Like, that's what really drives Frank Sinatra to start figuring out. And he himself also has these disconcerting dreams that are completely different than what he thinks he thinks he knows. And one of the just to say like, as an aside, one brilliant thing about the film, when I rewatched it for the X number of times recently just for this podcast, was that one of the men in the unit who's black, the black soldier, when they're depicting his dreams.

00;43;56;16 - 00;44;12;25

Lisa Hajjar

All the women in the Garden Club are black. So I just think it's also like, just a really fascinating way of representing, like how people's own thoughts or preferences kind of get folded into these, layers of deception and reality.

00;44;12;28 - 00;44;32;04

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, that's a super interesting detail. And there's so much in this film that's really interesting. Well, The Manchurian Candidate was remade in 2004. You know, a lot of great people worked on it. Jonathan Demme directed it. The cast featured Denzel Washington, Liev Schreiber, Meryl Streep. It's not anywhere near as good as the original. I'm not going out on a limb here, I don't think, but it's interesting nonetheless.

00;44;32;04 - 00;44;57;28

Jonathan Hafetz

So in some respects, the remake adheres to the main plot structure of the original. You've got a group of soldiers led by a decorated and well U.S officer I, i.e. the Raymond Shaw character who were captured by the enemy here. The war is the first Gulf War. They're psychologically manipulated, but here, through a much more direct, literal way, they have a chip implanted in their brain, and then they return to America to serve as pawns in a plot to overtake the U.S government.

00;44;58;04 - 00;45;21;17

Jonathan Hafetz

But the remake made some important changes in updating the story. Well, one you have the war change, right? Korean War where they are brainwashed by the Chinese and the actual Manchuria. In the remake, the Korean War is replaced by the Gulf War, and Manchurian is now the name of the nefarious multinational private equity company fighting with Raymond Shaw's mother, played by Meryl Streep, who now is a senator and not the wife of a senator.

00;45;21;20 - 00;45;29;24

Jonathan Hafetz

To take over the country. Can you talk about some of the changes they made, and what are some of the new fears or social realities that that the remake is trafficking in?

00;45;29;26 - 00;46;02;18

Lisa Hajjar

What really struck me about the contrast between the original and the remake, just in terms of what happens to these guys when they're like in the original Manchurian Candidate, you don't really see what happens, but it's like clearly set up by John Frankenheimer, the director to you know, satirize these things like the pavilion where they're in when they're being, you know, shown to the Russian and Chinese scientist has like giant posters of Stalin and Mao, you know, and there's a lot of, like, exchanges among the different communist observers, you know, about how their countries differ.

00;46;02;18 - 00;46;28;02

Lisa Hajjar

Whereas in the remake, you know, they're captured and tortured in the context of an Arab world. And so it's like overtly orientalist, like it brings like worst world orientalist tropes with science fiction, where they're like drilling into their heads. I mean, so there's nothing subtle about that manipulation. You know, I'm sure that the negative depictions of orientalist, nefarious Arabs would play well in the time frame, you know, 2004, I think.

00;46;28;02 - 00;46;49;11

Lisa Hajjar

So it loses some of the subtlety. And just to say that, you know, to the credit of the filmmakers of the remake, they're trying to capture a present danger. But unlike communism, which is very obvious, there's a whole war against it. Like this danger is like nefarious capitalism, like so it doesn't quite have the same, punch, you know, as the as.

00;46;49;11 - 00;46;51;06

Jonathan Hafetz

The jury edge and all that. Yeah.

00;46;51;08 - 00;47;00;12

Lisa Hajjar

Exactly. And global. And you don't really even know what mainstream global wants to do. It's like it's like you don't really how are they going to take over the world that doesn't already exist in our world?

00;47;00;14 - 00;47;04;19

Jonathan Hafetz

It's great. They remade it. So we can talk a little about it on the podcast, but other than that, I don't know.

00;47;04;21 - 00;47;07;03

Lisa Hajjar

If it's a must have. It's a must skip.

00;47;07;08 - 00;47;08;10

Film Dialogue

Yeah, yeah.

00;47;08;13 - 00;47;34;21

Jonathan Hafetz

But I guess to some extent, you know, it's the way that like, the word Manchurian has entered the lexicon and it's been going on for years. I mean, most recently you've got kind of trade offs. I Manchurian Trump, referred to as The Manchurian Candidate through the Russian influence, and Trump, referring to Biden as the Manchurian Candidate. I kind of wonder if I ever saw the movie, but, due to foreign influence over him, so, you know, it endures to is a movie about just about the Cold War era, but about conspiracy and conspiracy theories.

00;47;34;21 - 00;47;40;11

Lisa Hajjar

Yes, exactly. You know, sort of like plots and and evil characters. You know, in our midst.

00;47;40;13 - 00;48;02;02

Jonathan Hafetz

The Manchurian Candidate self became kind of part of the original Manchurian Candidate, part of the conspiracy story or conspiracy theories around the Kennedy assassination, because the film, which came out in 1962, in 1964, Frank Sinatra, you know, was lead in the film purchase that, or the rights to it. And he kept it out of release from 1964 to 1988.

00;48;02;02 - 00;48;18;08

Jonathan Hafetz

So it was got pulled from the shelves. He used the language of the day, I guess, and there were theories. The conspiracy theories were that, you know, it might have been connected via Sinatra to a cover up of the Kennedy assassination. Now, I think it's very clear it was really about a dispute over contract and money. So that was what it was.

00;48;18;08 - 00;48;21;25

Jonathan Hafetz

But even the film itself kind of got tied up in these larger conspiracy theories.

00;48;21;29 - 00;48;39;22

Lisa Hajjar

I mean, I just remember when I saw it for the first, I probably saw it when it comes back out sometime in the late 80s and was thinking like, where was this film all my life? I mean, since it came out, I've like watched it 20 times because of course I love film. I will watch them over and over again, but really that long missing period, you know, sort of strikes you once you see it.

00;48;39;22 - 00;48;40;12

Lisa Hajjar

Now.

00;48;40;14 - 00;49;02;11

Jonathan Hafetz

Lisa, let's move to some more roughly current events. So in some respect, both films I guess are really more particularly the rack. Issues around psychological torture resurface after nine over 11 when the CIA develops the torture program or the detention rendition interrogation program. And this appears in various films, including Zero Dark 30, which you talk about in your article.

00;49;02;11 - 00;49;07;17

Jonathan Hafetz

So can you talk about this kind of resurfacing and psychological torture in the rack?

00;49;07;20 - 00;49;27;16

Lisa Hajjar

Well, so I mean, if we really think about what happened to the CIA or the CIA in the Cold War era early on because of Korea latches on and developed this program that draws heavily from the torture techniques that were used by the comics and then institutes, and the military sets up its own VCR program to train people to withstand that.

00;49;27;16 - 00;49;52;27

Lisa Hajjar

But because the CIA had such like an ignominious history, coups and overthrowing of regimes and death squads and all the kind of things that they were doing throughout the Cold War, then we come to, for example, revelations in the 1970s, you know, through the exposure of Cointelpro. And I mean, the CIA always acts illegally, but the kind of beyond acceptable levels of illegality, you know, that really come to bear.

00;49;52;27 - 00;50;15;25

Lisa Hajjar

So in the 1990s, the cold War is ended. And so the CIA really shifts away and kind of leaves behind all the kind of human intelligence programs that they had been developing, using, applying and training others to use and etc. during the Cold War. And they really shift to signals intelligence, you know, like sort of eavesdropping, spying and so on.

00;50;15;25 - 00;50;41;26

Lisa Hajjar

And so after nine over 11, you know, the nation suddenly realizes we have a dearth of human intelligence. And like an organization like al-Qaida, you can't like aerially surveil them or find out in the way one could with a conventional enemy. And so the CIA essentially dusts off its manuals from the Cold War, the Cuban manual, or the one that was developed later, the human exploitation manual that becomes public in 1997 was from 1983.

00;50;41;26 - 00;51;02;25

Lisa Hajjar

And so essentially what the CIA does and we can talk in more detail about the CIA torture program, was they hired two people, James Mitchell and Bruce Chestnut, whose only claim to fame was that they were trained. They were psychologists, and they were trainers, military trainers for soldiers in the Sere program. And so the CIA hires them as contractors.

00;51;02;25 - 00;51;27;11

Lisa Hajjar

And so they put together a menu of interrogate tactics based on Sere, based on the Communist model. And they call this the re-engineering of Sere. And those techniques were what the Bush administration authorized. The Justice Department's Office of Legal Counsel, characterized as legal because they didn't rise to the level of torture, which is almost a throwback to what the RAC is saying, that torture is the boss, DiNardo and, you know, the Iron Maiden.

00;51;27;11 - 00;51;55;29

Lisa Hajjar

And what we're doing is not torture. And so we can see that the torture authorized for the CIA, which they engage in, which then spreads to the military in the first years of the war on terror, there's a direct line from Korea. And so if you think or if you read any of the numerous autobiographies of former prisoners from Guantanamo, or anybody can read the statement by Majid Khan, who was one of the CIA prisoners who was held for years and then transferred to Guantanamo in 2006.

00;51;55;29 - 00;52;20;21

Lisa Hajjar

He finally pleaded guilty. And in 2021, I believe, at his sentencing hearing, it was the first time somebody who had been in CIA custody was able to really talk about what had been done to him by CIA interrogators and contractors, and what he describes, the kind of efforts to demoralize him and break him and the tactics that were used, you know, are very reminiscent of what the whole character went through in Iraq.

00;52;20;21 - 00;52;42;20

Lisa Hajjar

And so you're seeing the CIA has no qualms about utilizing the very tactics that had disgraced them two decades earlier. And technically, the government prior to 911 would have regarded as utterly unacceptable and illegal behavior. It becomes U.S. policy. And so we're still living in the shadow of the techniques that were created in Korea and adopted by the US government.

00;52;42;27 - 00;52;56;01

Jonathan Hafetz

And you have in the middle of Korea and 911 Watergate and the exposure of the CIA and the church Commission and all the various reforms exposing the very things the CIA was the FBI doing, the programs they ran. And then you have the resumption. Yeah.

00;52;56;03 - 00;53;23;14

Lisa Hajjar

I mean, former Vice President Dick Cheney, when Cheney came to office and he really took control of the national security portfolio after nine over 11 because Bush had no foreign policy or other experience. I mean, Cheney had been secretary of defense at one point, and one of his long running political agendas was to reverse the reforms that had been instituted in the 1970s, including, you know, the kind of guardrails put on to executive power as a result of the church Commission and other things.

00;53;23;20 - 00;53;38;04

Lisa Hajjar

And so you can see a direct hand that Cheney has in, you know, saying, the hell with those kind of restrictions, you know, the president should be allowed to do whatever he wants and let's, you know, authorize the full gamut of things and just say, national security justifies everything.

00;53;38;07 - 00;53;57;19

Jonathan Hafetz

It's kind of an amazing journey that these techniques take and go back to the rack for a second. And it's almost like coming full circle in an odd way, because the psychological torture, right, which the prosecution, the court and the rack say it's not real torture. You know, real soldiers resist, right? Those techniques later become adopted by the US and the US government after 911.

00;53;57;22 - 00;54;15;24

Jonathan Hafetz

And they, you know, realized these are the most effective ways. They think they're the most effective ways to get intelligence. I think the Feinstein report shows they didn't really get much of any valuable intelligence from them, but that becomes the way the US tries to get information. So kind of in a way, it's almost like a rebuttal to the prosecution's argument in Iraq being like, you think those don't really work?

00;54;15;24 - 00;54;37;27

Jonathan Hafetz

Then why is the US government using those techniques? And the language was exactly this, that they would try to render people sense of helplessness. That's what the US government sought to do through its nonphysical courts. Or some of it was physically, emotionally waterboarding physical, but torture. That's not meant to leave scars. The isolation, the sensory deprivation to create the sense of helplessness, which is exactly what's happening in the rack.

00;54;38;03 - 00;55;02;22

Lisa Hajjar

One way we can think about this, and you know this as well as anybody, that when the Justice Department was asked by the CIA and decided to legalize these tactics, you know, the infamous August 1st, 2002 memo, which basically redefines torture and then authorizes all the re-engineered Sere techniques, which was written by then deputy Assistant Attorney general of the Office of Legal Counsel, John Yoo, who now holds a distinguished chair at Berkeley Law School.

00;55;02;22 - 00;55;21;29

Lisa Hajjar

And to its everlasting shame, you know, the argument was, oh, those things don't rise to the level of torture. In other words, they're not real torture. They're not burning with cigarets. They're not this. So rejecting the significance of mental torture or even, as you said, the non scarring techniques that they aren't torture if they're not torture that are legal, if they're not illegal.

00;55;21;29 - 00;55;24;22

Lisa Hajjar

Therefore we can use them. Here's a license to torture.

00;55;24;24 - 00;55;40;07

Jonathan Hafetz

Thanks for pointing that out. It's quite a pivot. It's like they're effective, but we're going to have to find them as non torture because well it's illegal and it would harm the reputation. And a lot of this is about a war of ideas. So yeah they incorporate it. But they still don't treat it as torture because they can't afford to because it would be criminal.

00;55;40;10 - 00;56;11;16

Lisa Hajjar

And one of the things I would say, you know, I mean, again, to bring it up to like literally today, the in efficacy of the CIA's torture techniques is evident by the fact that the authorization of torture by the CIA made it impossible to prosecute the people who were accused of major crimes. I mean, the five suspects in the 911 case or another case of the regime on the share he was accused of being responsible for the bombing of the USS Cole, the torture techniques that they were subjected to by the CIA, which at the time the CIA's torture program was authorized.

00;56;11;16 - 00;56;30;29

Lisa Hajjar

The government had said, don't worry, just get the information. These guys will never see the light of day again. And then it's like, oops, because and this is what I write about in my book, The War in Court. So many lawyers like fought against the government on its torture program, just won a couple of battles that just took, you know, active use of torture off the table.

00;56;30;29 - 00;56;58;06

Lisa Hajjar

But you can't unring the torture bell. And so there have been no prosecutions. You know, there's been ongoing years and years of pretrial hearings. And the 911 case and in other cases after Guantanamo military commissions. And we are still, as a country, not coming to terms with not only what is torture and how terrible it is, but also the fact that a government that tortured people, it literally cannot prosecute them.

00;56;58;11 - 00;57;30;11

Lisa Hajjar

And so you get all these politicians today, like hyperventilate, waiting over the prospect of a plea bargain, negotiations for the nine over 11 case because it can't be prosecuted because of their torture. And everybody's saying like taking the death penalty off the table is unacceptable. These guys must die. It's just a further example of the American public understanding being completely manipulated by Partizan and in accurate understandings of reality, and then running with their kind of preferred talking point lines into nonsense.

00;57;30;11 - 00;57;30;28

Lisa Hajjar

Well.

00;57;31;01 - 00;57;39;16

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it seems like The Manchurian Candidate, why it's so relevant. It can't take the politics at face value. There's always a hidden message, and what seems to be true on the surface is often not the case.

00;57;39;19 - 00;58;04;07

Lisa Hajjar

But I would just encourage people to watch the original Manchurian Candidate and The Rack and just think about some of these issues in the context of how they bear on the contemporary period. This is one of the things I love about your podcast, and what I love about films, like films, really help us see well-made films about important topics or topics that really touched like a nerve in public sentiment really can have an edifying effect.

00;58;04;07 - 00;58;16;19

Lisa Hajjar

And so, you know, I'm a huge fan of film. I would say these two films definitely warrant a watching, especially The Rack, which hasn't been seen much. But if you keep watching on Turner Classic Movies of Me pop up again sometime soon.

00;58;16;21 - 00;58;31;22

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, I think The Rack is available on Amazon for a small fee, I think to rent. You know, you're right, these to watch these films together is really helpful in the way you've talked about on the podcast, and I encourage people to read your paper as well as your book, The War in Court, for a larger background. These issues.

00;58;31;24 - 00;58;33;02

Lisa Hajjar

Well, thank you for having me on.

00;58;33;06 - 00;58;35;09

Jonathan Hafetz

Yeah, it's been great to have you on and take care.