Comforting Spies

Joe Navarro, M.A. — Tue, 22 Apr 2008 06:26:48 -0700

At the height of the Cold War, the FBI and Army Intelligence learned of an espionage ring operating in Western Europe made up of American soldiers, including Clyde Lee Conrad (pictured above). To determine the size of the espionage operation and the extent of the damage caused by them, we had to conduct thousands of interviews. Those that were fruitful required further inquiries and more extensive interviews. One of the ways we found to conduct multiple interviews, and in one case more than 50 interviews before one individual was arrested, was accomplished by using nonverbal behaviors for establishing physical and psychological comfort.

Those of you who have read my book, What Every Body is Saying, know how much I emphasize achieving high comfort in furtherance of any task, including interviews. And in the area of deception, it is extremely important to get a baseline of comfort on the part of individuals in question. We do that in small part verbally and in large part nonverbally, through things such as location, attire, sitting distance, and even the angle of how we sit. By conducting interviews away form the office and in cafes, we found that this had the psychological effect of taking pressure off of the individual being interviewed. Our purpose in these lengthy interviews (which were all voluntary) was to obtain detailed facts. We found that the more relaxed the person was, the more information we were able to obtain.

Some of these interviews lasted more than 10 hours, as these individuals actually found comfort, some might say catharsis, in talking about the things that went on in Europe at the various military bases. In the end, a number of these interviews led to arrests both here and abroad. For me it was great validation to see that nontraditional “soft” techniques of interviewing, more like conversations, elicited more information than harsher interview and interrogations methods. For those interested, you can find details of these cases in Col. Stuart A. Herrington’s book, “Traitors Among Us: Inside The Spy Catcher’s World.”

Catching the Good Spy

Joe Navarro, M.A. — Tue, 01 Apr 2008 14:02:59 -0700

For 25 years I worked in the FBI catching spies. If you were to ask me what that work consisted of, I would have to be honest and say mostly observation and the use of psychology. In essence, I was a paid observer of human behavior. My greatest tool was the knowledge that had been acquired in the last half century on how the brain works.

In my latest book, What Every Body Is Saying, I write about the very broad aspects of psychology—how the brain works and reacts to the world around us and how this knowledge can be used to interpret the thoughts, feelings, and intentions of others. The book is based on my years of experience in the FBI speed-reading people, often based on only a few seconds of observation. My success was achieved by knowing how the brain works. We were often alerted to criminal activity even before it happened through the analysis of behavior. Take the case of Terry V. Ohio, in which the Supreme Court noted the validity of nonverbal behavior in presaging criminal acts. The Supreme Court, in essence, recognized that the brain controls all behavior and that we can know what people are thinking by their actions.

In the area of counterintelligence, we were up against professional intelligence officers (what the public calls spies) who were trained by foreign governments. The job of detecting their activities became all the more difficult when they were "good spies" (good at what they do). And yet, I can tell you that in almost every case I worked, it was through their nonverbal behavior that we determined what they were doing, what they had done, or whether or not they were deceptive.

I hope that in the coming months I can share with you how nonverbals can be used to decipher human behavior, thoughts, intentions, and feelings.

Psychology Today Blogs - Spycatcher

Comforting Spies

Catching the Good Spy