How They Do It

COMMUNISTS How They Do It

The U.S. State Department last week published a remarkable document. It was one answer to a question which has interested the West since the famous Moscow purge trials of 1936-38, a question which has become increasingly urgent with such postwar trials as that of Hungary's Cardinal Mindszenty, Bulgaria's 15 Protestant leaders and the U.S.'s Robert Vogeler: How do Communist secret police extort "confessions?"

The Communists' first victim to tell his first-hand story is Michael Shipkov, a Bulgarian. Shipkov was a translator for the U.S. Legation in Sofia, which moved out two weeks ago when the U.S. broke diplomatic relations with Bulgaria. He is now in the hands of the Bulgarian State Security Militia (secret police) for the second time. The first time, he was tortured into a false confession that he had been an espionage agent for the U.S. and Britain. Then the secret police sent him back to spy on the U.S. Legation for the militia. Instead, he wrote an account of his 32-hour interrogation, turned it over to U.S. Minister Donald Heath, with instructions to make it public if the Communists used his confession. The account was released last week when the State Department heard that Shipkov had been officially indicted for espionage in Sofia.

This is Shipkov's story.

Doodling. "On leaving the legation building at 2 p.m. on Saturday, Aug. 20, 1949, I bicycled down toward the tennis club . . . When I had reached the little park on Shipka Street, I was overtaken and passed by a civilian on a bicycle that did not bear any license plate, a matter which came instantly to my attention. This person crossed my line of progress, summoned me to descend, asked for my name and ordered me to walk alongside of him up Shipka Street. . .

"I was taken between two escorts up two flights of stairs into a small office . . . On the wall to my left was a picture of Lenin, on the opposite wall a frame with the phrase 'Merciless Fight Against Foreign Agents' . . .

"[There were] seven functionaries who dealt with me throughout my stay in the building. There were two relays of lesser agents, working in teams of two, one of which was always on hand. Then there were two higher ranking functionaries, aged between 30 and 40, who conducted the interrogation proper--the lesser ones merely kept up the tension . . . They all had the practice of taking notes from what I spoke . . . but I did see on frequent occasions that they merely scribbled or doodled on their papers . . . The head of the team--a short, stout, pasty-faced individual--. . . [was] very sharp and cunning, very highly strung and tense, very self-assured. He professed and indicated more knowledge of me than even myself

... He went off [reminiscing] about an anti-patriotic act of mine as far back as 1945, when I had gone shooting ducks with [British] General Oxley at Belem, on the Danube . . . [saying] that he had been there personally, shadowing us in the guise of a local huntsman ..."

Pressure. "I was ordered to stand facing the wall upright at a distance which allowed me to touch the wall with two fingers of my outstretched arms. Then to step back some twelve inches, keep my heels touching the floor, and maintain balance only with the contact of one finger on each hand. And while standing so, the interrogation continued ... I recall that the muscles on my legs and shoulders began to get cramped and to tremble, that my two fingers began to bend down under the pressure, to get red all over and to ache, I remember that I was drenched with sweat and that I began to faint, although I had not exerted myself in any way. If I would try to substitute [fingers], I would be instantly called to order . . . And when the trembling increased up to the point when I collapsed, they made me sit and speak. I did get several minutes respite, catching my breath and wiping my face, but when I had uttered again that I was innocent, it was the wall again . . .

"After a time of this, I broke down. I told them I was willing and eager to tell them all they wanted . . ."

Blows. "Here I want to describe their methods of interrogation: you are a spy and a traitor; tell us what tasks you were given to do, who gave them to you, in what manner and with whose help you achieved them, and to whom and in what manner did you report? . . . One of the superiors insisted that I add specific information as to my secret preference for the British and on my spying for them on the Americans . . .

"No generalities, no overall statements of guilt accepted. And this went on, hour after hour, throughout the night, throughout the day, without respite or end. How can I best explain? The only straw for which I could reach is the impression that I had, in my emptied, vacant thoughts, of some sentence that had pleased them, or that had conformed with the pattern I had so often seen in the newspapers. And if I were to stop and plead fatigue, or poor memory, or ask to rest--the wall again, and the slaps, and the blows in the nape [of the neck]. And I remembered I would come up gasping and talk and talk and feel utterly broken . . .

"You plead with them not to force you to incriminate innocent persons, persons whom you know have never engaged in any such activity--no response. Speak on, tell us more . . ."

Satisfaction. "I rarely could perceive [in the interrogation] any personal hatred or enmity for me--contempt certainly, but sooner an academic, detached dealing with an annoying problem in order to achieve the goal, and a fanatic, rabid -obsession of devotion to Communism and hatred for Anglo-American resistance to them--all the newspaper talk is to them gospel truth. And in this respect they are to be taken as disciples and fervent followers of the dogma. Not much imagination, nor quick brains nor much intellectual baggage nor sensitivity--but enormous stores of character, undeviating loyalty to their creed, fanatic belief in their own cause, fanatic hatred and mistrust of anything else . . ."

[By this time Shipkov had invented espionage incidents involving many of his friends and several members of the U.S. Legation staff.]

"Toward the evening of Sunday, I had given them satisfaction. They gave me a glass of water, a bit of bread which I could not eat, and altered their bearing ... I was given a cigarette, and time to relax and control my trembling--hands, feet, teeth, so that I could write down what I had told them . . ."

Truth. "[After signing an agreement to spy on the Americans], I was led out of the building, and left in a very friendly manner in front of the tram stop . . . Got home, washed, opened a can of sausage with some red wine, and went to bed ...

"Clear memory came back to me on Monday morning, Aug. 22, when I started out to work. My most anxious thoughts then and thereafter were to cleanse myself of some of this depravity and baseness ... by giving the Legation a true statement of the whole affair . . . Therefore, I state in full earnestness and truth, freely and eagerly, that any statement that I may have made orally or in writing to the militia ... is false, untrue, and dragged out of me against my will . . . I want the Legation to bring to the knowledge of the militia that any attempt of theirs to make use of that statement of mine will be countered by exposure of this letter . . ."

Before he left Sofia, Heath tried hard to get the Bulgarian government's permission for Shipkov to leave with him. He failed. Last week's indictment of Shipkov not only demanded his trial but also frankly insisted that he was "to be found guilty and punished."

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