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| Leon G. Turrou |
In 1938, FBI Special Agent Leon G. Turrou (1895-1986) led an investigation into a Nazi German spy ring operating in the United States. The following is Chapter 15 of his book (ghostwritten by David G. Wittels), Nazi Spies in America (New York: Random House, 1938, 1939), which describes what is likely the FBI's first use of the polygraph in an espionage investigation. (The FBI laboratory received its first polygraph instrument in 1935.) Page numbers are indicated in curly braces for citation purposes. Although Turrou makes reference to "control questions," the technique used is the "relevant-irrelevant test," which the U.S. Government still uses for counterintelligence purposes. (For more on this simplistic and completely discredited technique, see Chapter 3 of The Lie Behind the Lie Detector.)
The most important suspect interrogated with the polygraph was Dr. Ignatz Theodor Griebl. According to Turrou, the results of a polygraph examination administered to Dr. Griebl on 5 May 1938 "made us relax all vigilance, all watchfulness over him." Five days later, Griebl fled to Germany aboard the S.S. Bremen.
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Chapter Fifteen
Before we examine the results of the "lie detector" tests upon some of the witnesses in this Nazi spy case, it is necessary to understand exactly what the "lie detector" is and how it operates. So much bunk has been written about it, and so much misinformation and so many misconceptions engendered that some people think it a magical instrument which peers into the heart and mind of the subject, while others dismiss it as a silly, worthless gadget. Actually it is an extremely valuable, soundly scientific device--but worthless except when operated by an expert. I am referring only to the type used by the F.B.I., the Polygraph, developed by Professor Leonardo Keeler in the Northwestern University Scientific Crime Detection Laboratory. Of the merits or demerits of other types I know nothing, therefore can make no comparisons. I have seen the Keeler Polygraph in operation many times. I began with skepticism and wound up with enthusiasm.
The inventor calls it "a diagnostic method for detecting deceptions." It does not report whether the subject is lying. All it does is measure and record the rate of respiration and the rate of the systolic and diastolic pulsations of the heart. Sometimes it is rigged also to record the muscu-{214}lar reflexes of the arm or leg. From these measurements and recordings the expert deduces whether the subject is lying.
Basically the machine is a sort of twin aneroid barometer; it is in principle much like the apparatus for recording atmospheric pressure. Its active principle, like that of the twin aneroid barometer, is the effect of pressure upon a thin-walled vacuum chamber. If the pressure increases, the walls are depressed, and the change in pressure is reflected in the rise of a column of mercury. If the pressure decreases, the thin metal walls react outward and the column of mercury drops.
In the barometer the atmosphere supplies the fluctuations in pressure. In the Polygraph the fluctuations are caused by the rise and fall of the chest, due to expansion and contraction of the lungs, and by the systole and diastole of the heart action--the contraction and expansion as the heart pulses blood through the network of arteries.
Repeated tests have proved that normal persons--that is, all except madmen, low-grade morons and idiots and sometimes (I am not being facetious) women in love--show definite distortions in the rate of heart beat and breathing when lying. That has been demonstrated so often that it is accepted as scientific fact. Why that is leads to some argument, however, with the leading theory being that deliberate lying, based on fear and a desire to mislead because the truth would be dangerous, dose something to secretions of the endocrine glands, which in turn affect the breathing and heart beat.
Here is how it is applied:
The subject is ushered to a chair close to the apparatus, an innocuous-looking box about the size of and with somewhat the appearance of an old-fashioned table radio. {215} Two, and sometimes three, rubber-covered tubes lead out from it. One ends in a blood-pressure cuff, such as used by your physician. It is fastened around the bared upper right arm, where it can be affected by pulsations of the brachial artery. It is inflated to midway between the systolic and diastolic blood pressures--to neutral, in other words. The second tube ends in a broad rubber tube which is fixed around the chest at the point of maximum expansion during normal breathing. The third tube, not often used, is fastened around the bared leg, to check on muscular reflex. Let's drop that third tube in this picture.
Inside the machine the tubes are connected to slender steel pens, each of which touches a strip of paper about six inches wide which unwinds from one reel onto another at the rate of six inches a minute.
The preparations so far have, naturally, not aided the subject's poise if he has anything to hide, or expects to tell lies. With everything set, the tiny motor activating the machine is started. Not a word is said as the two needles write down the simple record of the subject's breathing and heart beat in order to determine "normal."
Let Professor Keeler take up the explanation from there, as he did in an article in The American Journal of Police Science:
"A record is obtained for two or three minutes to ascertain the individual's normal fluctuations, heart condition and respiration. Following this brief period of silence a preamble is read: 'This machine to which you are connected has been used for some years on criminal suspects, and so far has proved a very reliable means of detecting innocence or guilt of a man, and I'm sure we will not fail in your case. Now sit {216} as quietly as possible and answer my questions just "Yes" or "No." If you have any explanations to make just reserve them until the completion of the test.'
"A few irrelevant questions are then asked. An innocent individual will seldom react in any marked degree to these questions. He takes them at their face value. A mentally defective (borderline), whether innocent or guilty, will show but slight disturbance at these questions. However, a mentally alert, guilty individual will construe these as being camouflaged questions regarding his crime.
"Following the irrelevant questions, direct questions pertaining to the supposed crime are asked in a quiet, monotonous voice. Time is allowed between questions for the bodily responses to occur and to return to equilibrium. "The guilty individual becomes more disturbed as the test progresses, the general blood-pressure curve rising and the rapid fluctuations increasing in intensity and frequency. The blood pressure response to each lie causes an increase in both systolic and diastolic pressure."
Ordinary physical abnormalities, such as high blood pressure and irregular pulse, or emotional instability caused by fear unrelated to the fear of detection, anger or other disturbing factors, do not interfere with the test because these irregularities are brought out in the control part of the record and by the questions asked.
I must stress again the point that the machine or the tests are of no value except in the hands of experts. I have watched and taken part in scores of such tests, yet I would not take it upon myself to consider my reading of the re-{217}sults absolute. Though I stood by and aided in the tests in the cases in which I was interested, I never allowed myself to draw conclusions until the report of the expert, based on careful study of the results, came in.
Remember, too, that in most courts the results of lie-detector tests are not admissible as evidence. Therefore in the following examples of some of the results of the tests on some of the spy witnesses, there is no intention of pointing an accusing finger. I am citing those examples merely because I found them highly interesting and think that perhaps you will, too.
The subjects we placed under the Polygraph test in the Nazi spy investigation were:
1.--Martin Schade, the New York apartment-house manager who was accused by two members of the spy ring of working with them, and to whom Karl Schluter, spy contact man, addressed a letter, but who denied any complicity and was released completely.
2.--Captain William Drechsel, superintendent of the Hapag-Lloyd Piers in New York, who aided our investigation, and who was placed under the test to determine if his co-operation was real.
3.--Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Herrmann, Gestapo chief in New York.
4.--Wilhelm Boening, Bund official and Storm Troop leader, who tried to aid the spy ring.
5.--John Baptiste Unkel, Bund official who boasted he had United States defense secrets.
6.--Miss Kate Moog, Junoesque sweetheart of Dr. Griebl, whom the Nazi spy chiefs tried to get to play the role of a Mata Hari in this Nazi spy ring.
7.--Dr. Ignatz T. Griebl, director and clearing house for all Nazi spy and propaganda activities in this country.
{218}The tests were made in my office in F.B.I. headquarters at New York, by two F.B.I. experts from Washington. The questions were carefully thought out and chosen to give the maximum and most enlightening results, and I first went over them with the experts, explaining their significance and enlightening them on the background so that they could better understand the results.
Some of the questions were without meaning, such as: "Have you had breakfast this morning?" Those questions were to "cool off" the subject, and to be used as controls to determine whether the subject's reactions to other questions were due to lying, or to other emotional disturbances.
With Martin Schade we got nowhere. He turned out to be one of those extremely rare individuals--so stolid, phlegmatic and controlled that the test was worthless. The experts spotted that almost immediately, and after a few questions gave up. He was freed with a clean slate. The experts' formal comment was: "This subject was quite unresponsive insofar as any changes in blood pressure or respiration were concerned during the test. This unresponsiveness is believed to be physiological in part and to be characteristic of the subject. For this reason no opinion whatsoever can be rendered concerning his truthfulness or sincerity and the test was discontinued after the preliminary stages."
Captain Drechsel came through with flying colors. The experts reported, after a lengthy test, that "the attitude of this subject was that of unusual frankness and the Polygraph does not reflect any reactions which are particularly inconsistent with this attitude." At one point we got a reaction which looked bad. It came when he was asked if he had been sending any information to Germany. But {219} further questioning developed that when he answered "No," he realized that was not the truth since he had been reporting to his superiors, the steamship officials in Germany, our activities in regard to employees of the German steamship lines, as was his duty. Unable to explain because the experts' instructions were to answer just "yes" or "no" with no explanations, he had become upset, and his disturbance was reflected on the machine.
The results of the test on Karl Friedrich Wilhelm Herrmann were quite different. The experts reported that: "Pronounced reactions were obvious whenever we gave him a question which would involve him directly in the spy ring."
It is difficult to give samples of the questions and answers which led the experts to those conclusions. As you can see by the case of Captain Drechsel, an isolated example, a question and answer torn out of the context, or even a series of questions and answers can be misleading except when studied by experts. It is particularly difficult to illustrate the test and results in writing, for what the experts study are the wavy and jagged lines made by the steel pens on the moving paper. But in writing reports on such tests, a system of asterisks has been devised to give some indication of results. Thus, one asterisk after a response indicates a mild emotional reaction. Two asterisks indicate a strong emotional reaction, and three asterisks, quite an emotional reaction, such as would be found when the subject is telling a whopper.
Here are the last dozen questions asked Herrmann, and his replies. I cite them only to show how the apparatus works, and not as judgment one way or another on whether Herrmann was lying:
{220}Q.--Was it your ambition to do espionage work in this country?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Did you give plans to anyone on the S.S. Europa?
A.--No.
Q.--Did you conspire with Dr. Griebl?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Did you ever talk to Dr. Griebl about (military) plans?
A.--No. ***
Q.--(repeated) Did you ever talk to Dr. Griebl about plans?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Were you born in Germany?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did you tell Griebl about the plans for the fortification of New York?
A.--No. **
Q.--Have you had breakfast?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did you ever talk to Griebl about plans Unkel had?
A.--No.
Q.--Did you discuss the price of the plans with Griebl?
A.--No.
Q.--Did you ever discuss other plans of fortifications or ships?
A.--No. ***
The point of the questions about whether he was born in Germany, as he had been and had told us, and as to whether he had his breakfast, were to determine how {221} much the strong emotional reactions to other questions were due to nervousness and general fear. They were control questions. If he had shown reactions when answering truthfully those inane, harmless questions, the expert would have discounted considerably the reactions to the other questions.
Wilhelm Boening was next. After studying the results of the test on him, the experts concluded that while Boening was not entirely frank, and did not reveal everything, the case in which he confessed--the effort to get fortification plans from Unkel for the Nazi spy ring--was the only spy case in which he was implicated.
Some queer reactions popped up in the questioning of John Baptiste Unkel. But the experts drew no strong conclusions from the results, except that he was not telling all he could tell.
The questioning of Miss Moog under the lie detector, and her reactions, would have been amusing if the case were not so serious. She sat there smiling and flirting with us, and the atmosphere created by the preliminary stages had little effect on her. The results were not of much value. We have to be very careful in reading the results of a Polygraph test on most women. I am not necessarily referring to Miss Moog when I say that we have found that it is true that women can lie better than men. And as for a woman in love...
For instance, we knew definitely that Miss Moog was aware that her sweetheart, Dr. Griebl, was a member of the espionage ring. And when we questioned her about her own connection with the spy ring, the Polygraph showed reactions. But when we asked her if she knew Griebl was a member of the spy ring, she blandly said {222} "No." We expected a whopping reaction. The machine showed absolutely none!
We did not question her very long. The experts reported she was not telling the truth, but that there was no use continuing with further tests on her.
Dr. Griebl proved the most interesting subject of all.
The machine works best on intelligent people. The more alert, the more aware, the more quick-witted the subject, the more marked the reactions. As a scientific man, Griebl knew what was happening. He knew that no matter how he tried, the chances were that whenever he lied his respiration and blood pressure would betray him.
He sat there with a half-smile on his face, but the corners of his mouth were twitching.
Here is the record:
Q.--Do you like in New York City?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Do you object to this test?
A.--No. (He had already given his permission. We always obtained consent first.)
Q.--Have you ever furnished military information to Kapitan-Leutnant Dr. Pheiffer at Bremen?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Have you had breakfast?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did you accompany Lonkowski to Canada? [You will recall that Griebl aided Lonkowski, the Nazi aviation spy, to escape to Canada, but did not accompany him. The following answer was therefore true. Note the absence of reaction, despite the disturbing nature of the question.]
A.--No.
Q.--Are you now a practicing physician?
A.--Yes.
{223}Q.--Did you ever give Schluter military information?
A.--No. **
Q.--Is today Friday?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did Schluter ever pay you for any military information?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Have you had breakfast this morning?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Did you take Lonkowski over the border?
A.--No.
Q.--Were you an espionage contact for Pheiffer?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Have you had breakfast?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Have you ever visited Rumrich's home?
A.--No. **
Q.--Is today Sunday?
A.--No.
Q.--Did Danielsen (a ship designer they tried to get to Germany) ever give you any military information for transmission to Pheiffer?
A.--No. *
Q.--Personally, have you obtained military information in Washington?
A.--No.
Q.--Did anybody ever give you any military information for transmission to Pheiffer?
A.--No. *
Q.--Did anybody ever give you any military information for transmission to Pheiffer?
A.--No. *
Q.--Do you live in New York?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Have you withheld any information from the F.B.I. agents?
A.--Yes.
{224}Q.--(repeated) Have you withheld any information from the F.B.I. agents?
A.--Yes.
(Note that while this was a very dangerous question, and Griebl must have realized that his answer was damaging to him, the Polygraph showed no reaction when he replied truthfully in the affirmative.)
Q.--Have you conspired with Miss Moog?
A.--No. *
Q.--Have you told me any lies?
A.--No. *
Q.--Is Miss Moog involved in the espionage ring?
A.--No. **
Q.--Are you double-crossing the agents?
A.--No.
Q.--Do you know the German contact with Gibbs and Cox?
A.--No. **
Q.--Have you been in Philadelphia?
A.--Yes.
Q.--Have you personally furnished espionage information to Dr. Pheiffer?
A.--No. ***
Q.--Is Miss Moog presently connected with this ring?
A.--No.
Q.--Are you presently conspiring with any of the ring?
A.--No. **
Q.--Are you sincere in present efforts to assist Federal agents?
A.--Yes.
Again, let me warn laymen against trying to read those results too closely. The experts' reaction was: "This individual was unusually responsive on the Polygraph. His reac-{225}tions were so pronounced that it is believed they can be definitely isolated, and for this reason it is believed that the conclusions were unusually reliable. As a result, it is believed that he was deeply involved in the espionage ring and in direct contact with Dr. Pheiffer. It is not believed from the questioning that he personally took Lonkowski over the border. It is believed that his present co-operation with the F.B.I. agents is sincere up to a certain point, but that he is still withholding much information concerning his own complicity in the espionage network."
It was on May 5th that he was questioned. He left F.B.I. headquarters with a worry he tried vainly to disguise. He knew he had given himself away. Yet there were two questions and two answers which made us relax all vigilance, all watchfulness over him.
They were, as you may have noted above:
Q.--Are you double-crossing the agents?
A.--No.
Q.--Are you sincere in present efforts to assist Federal agents?
A.--Yes.
I still believe he was telling the truth there--at that time. He was honestly working with us to expose the Nazi spy ring in order to save his own hide, and lying only about his own complicity--also to save his own hide. Something happened later to make him change.
To understand that picture, and what Griebl told us, and what it led us to, and how his love life was mixed up with his spy activities and with a house in Germany, we must go back to the time he visited Kapitan-Leutnant Pheiffer, and Colonel Busch and Kapitan-Leutnants von Bonin and Menzel in Germany.