ANNE SPECKHARD: Talking to Terrorists

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Book Description

Publication Date: September 11, 2012
 

This is an account of traveling through the West Bank and Gaza, into the prisons of Iraq, down the alleyways of the Casablanca slums, to Chechnya, into the radicalized neighborhoods of Belgium, the UK, France and the Netherlands, of sitting with the hostages of Beslan and Nord Ost, and of talking to terrorists. Dr. Speckhard gives us the inside story of what puts vulnerable individuals on the terrorist trajectory and what might take them back off of it. With more than four hundred interviews with terrorists and their friends, family members and hostages, Dr. Speckhard is one of the few experts to have such a breadth of experience. She visited, and even stayed overnight, in the intimate spaces of terrorists' homes, interviewed them in their stark prison cells, or met them in the streets of their cities and villages. Dr. Speckhard gives us a rare glimpse of terrorists within their own contexts. From the mouths of terrorists, their family members, comrades-and even their hostages, we learn of the manipulation of human weakness that can lead to violent acts. Through careful research of culture and religion and a genuine desire to understand the factors that motivate individuals to embrace terrorism, Dr. Speckhard deftly defines the lethal cocktail that leads to the creation of a terrorist. An internationally recognized expert on the psychological aspects of terrorism and an expert in the area of posttraumatic stress disorder, Dr. Speckhard's research also produces a knowledge of how to disengage, deradicalize, rehabilitate, and reverse the trajectory of a terrorist. Dr. Speckhard's studies spanning over a decade provide us with a deeper understanding of one of the most dangerous and violent phenomena of our times.

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Editorial Reviews

Review

"
Few academics can equal the breadth and depth of Anne Speckhard's field research and the penetration of her specialist interviewing skills."--Robert Lambert, St. Andrews, UK
 
"A remarkable well-written, wholly unique and seminal study combining a deep understanding of the academic literature on terrorism with an extraordinary number of sensitive and revealing interviews with terrorists.  Everyone interested in terrorism will find this study fascinating and rewarding." --David Rapoport, Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence

"Talking to Terrorists is the inside story of how to approach the mind through the heart. As advisors to Detainee Task Force 134, I watched Anne in action at Camp Cropper, the world's largest detention center. Her empathy, smile, Belgian chocolates, and paper tissues for the occasional tears, worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." --Rohan Gunaratna, Author, "Inside al Qaeda: Global Network of Terror", Columbia University Press, New York

"She wisely understands the clear distinction between personal faith and belief tradition, and the possible perverted and brutal acts of a terrorist." --Mokhtar Benabdallaoui Hassan II Univ. Morocco




"A daring woman with an open heart." --Farhana Qazi, Counter Terrorism Expert

"A new approach for understanding the motivation of terrorists"--Boaz Ganor, ICT


"Reads like a gripping documentary movie."  --Joshua Sinai, Virginia Tech

"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr. Anne Speckhard is an exception; in the last ten years she conducted more than 400 interviews with terrorists ... making her work highly original and, indeed, unique. With her empathetic approach, she makes clear that most terrorists are both shockingly normal and human--but also tormented souls. Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness' than she has. An amazing achievement." --Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative

"Provides critical new insights into the terrorist mindset." --Bruce Hoffman, Georgetown 


"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies." --Yoram Schweitzer, Israel

"A fascinating study of pathways to violent radicalization" --Brynjar Lia, FFI

"A truly valuable read." --Arie Kruglanski, START


"Evocative interviews that have illuminated the mind of the extremist." --Jerrold Post, George Washington Univ

"An arresting, highly readable book"  --Stephen Sloan, MIPT

From the Back Cover

"The embarrassing truth about Terrorism Studies is that most writers on the subject have never met a terrorist. Dr. Anne Speckhard is an exception . . . Nobody has gotten closer to the 'heart of darkness' than she has. An amazing achievement." --Alex P. Schmid, Director, Terrorism Research Initiative

 "A remarkable well-written, wholly unique and seminal study" --David C. Rapoport, Founding and CoEditor, Journal of Terrorism and Political Violence

 "Anne is one of a handful who goes alone and without security into the lion's den to interview her subjects who most often have blood on their hands. This is a first-hand account and it's sensational!"--Peter S. Probst, Former CIA Officer

"Invaluable to those in the field of terrorism studies, as well as to the general public."  --Yoram Schweitzer, Israel's Institute for National Security Studies

"Few academics can equal the breadth and depth of Anne Speckhard's field research and the penetration of her interviewing skills"--Dr. Robert Lambert, Centre for the Study of Terrorism and Political Violence, U of St. Andrews, UK

 ". . . her access to these incarcerated perpetrators and supporting communities is unsurpassed . . ."--Dr. Joshua Sinai, Adj. Associate Professor, Virginia Tech

 "Talking to Terrorists is the inside story of how to approach the mind through the heart. I watched Anne in action at the world's largest detention center [as she] worked to enlist the cooperation of even the most hard-hearted and unrepentant killers." --Rohan Gunaratna, Author, "Inside al Qaeda"

"Talking to Terrorists is an arresting, highly readable book that has made a major and classic contribution to our study and understanding of terrorism."  --Stephen Sloan, The Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism

". . . a fascinating study of pathways to violent radicalization, based on her very impressive fieldwork." -- Dr Brynjar Lia,  Norwegian Defense Research Est.

". . . provides critical new insights into the contemporary terrorist mindset." --Professor Bruce Hoffma

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Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Dies At Age 78

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US/1; ATTN: /All STILL EXTANT

Retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf Dies At Age 78

huffingtonpost.com WASHINGTON -- A U.S. official says retired Gen. H. Norman Schwarzkopf, who commanded the U.S.-led international coalition that drove Saddam Hussein's forces out of Kuwait in 1991, has died. He was 78.




 

THERE IS NO STATUTE OF LIMITATIONS FOR REDRUM: Suit Planned Over Death of Man C.I.A. Drugged

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ANX/2; US/1; ATTN: HST/2

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NYT, November 26, 2012

By JAMES RISEN 
WASHINGTON — Nearly 60 years after the death of a government scientist who had been given LSD by the Central Intelligence Agency without his knowledge, his family says it plans to sue the government, alleging that he was murdered and did not commit suicide as the C.I.A. has long maintained. 

Eric and Nils Olson, whose father, Frank Olson, was the scientist, said they plan to file a lawsuit in United States District Court here on Wednesday accusing the C.I.A. of covering up the truth about Mr. Olson’s death in 1953, one of the most infamous cases in the agency’s history. 

During the intelligence reforms in the 1970s, the government gave the Olson family a financial settlement after the C.I.A. was forced to acknowledge that Mr. Olson had been given the hallucinogenic drug nine days before his death. President Gerald R. Ford met with the Olson family at the White House and apologized. 

At the time, the government said Mr. Olson had killed himself by jumping out of a hotel window in Manhattan. But the Olsons came to believe that he had been murdered to keep him from talking about disturbing C.I.A. operations that he had uncovered. 

Mr. Olson’s sons said that their past efforts to persuade the agency to open its files and provide them with more information had failed, and that a court challenge is the only way to find out the truth. 

“The evidence points to a murder, and not a drug-induced suicide,” said Eric Olson, Frank Olson’s older son, who has devoted much of his life to investigating his father’s death. When the government told his family that his father had committed suicide, “one set of lies was replaced with another set of lies,” he said.

Jennifer Youngblood, a C.I.A. spokeswoman, said the agency does not comment on pending court cases, but she noted that the C.I.A.’s most controversial episodes from the early cold war years, like Mr. Olson’s death, “have been thoroughly investigated over the years, and the agency cooperated with each of those investigations.” 

The Olson case was one of the most explosive revelations about the C.I.A. during the post-Watergate investigations of the United States intelligence community in the mid-1970s, and was part of a series of disclosures about a C.I.A. program known as MK-Ultra, which included brainwashing, mind control and other human behavioral control experiments during the early days of the cold war. 

Over the decades, the Olson case has gained a kind of pop culture status as one of the signature examples of government secrecy and abuse, and references to the death have been made in television, film, books and music. 

“The C.I.A.’s wrongful conduct in this case continues under the present administration,” said Scott Gilbert, a Washington lawyer representing the Olson brothers. “I have met personally with senior agency officials who still refuse to acknowledge the truth and to provide us with all documents relevant to this matter.” 

Frank Olson was a bioweapons expert working at the special operations division of the Army’s Biological Laboratory at Fort Detrick in Maryland. The C.I.A. worked jointly with the special operations division, researching biological agents and toxic substances. 

In 1953, Mr. Olson traveled to Europe and visited biological and chemical weapons research facilities. The Olson family lawsuit alleges that during that trip, Mr. Olson witnessed extreme interrogations, some resulting in deaths, in which the C.I.A. experimented with biological agents that he had helped develop. Intelligence officials became suspicious of him when he seemed to have misgivings about what he had seen, the lawsuit contends. Eric Olson said Frank Olson also appeared to have deep misgivings about the use of biological weapons that was alleged in the Korean War. 

A few months later, he attended a meeting with officials from both the special operations division and the C.I.A. at Deep Creek Lake, Md. Sometime during the meeting on Nov. 19, 1953, he was given a drink of Cointreau that had been secretly spiked with LSD by C.I.A. officials. 

Mr. Olson returned home, and over the following weekend told his wife that he wanted to leave his job. Eric Olson said his mother later recalled that Frank Olson did not seem suicidal or psychotic that weekend, but was reflective about his work. 

 

On Nov. 24, Mr. Olson told a colleague that he wanted to resign, according to the lawsuit. Instead, he and several C.I.A. officials traveled to New York, supposedly for a psychiatric evaluation. On Nov. 28, Mr. Olson fell to his death from his room in the Statler Hotel. His sons now express skepticism about the government’s official story that he had committed suicide because he was given LSD more than a week earlier. 

In the 1990s, the family had Mr. Olson’s body exhumed and an autopsy performed, and the New York district attorney’s office later conducted an inconclusive investigation into the death. 

 Eric Olson says that his father’s death and its aftermath had devastating consequences for his family. He said his mother, who is now dead, suffered from alcoholism. “We want justice,” Mr. Olson said. “This has cost me an immense amount of time and years of my life.” 

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