GaryBaumgarten

GaryBaumgarten
Location
New York, New York, USA
Title
Director of News and Programming
Company
Paltalk.com
Bio
Award winning journalist Gary Baumgarten hosts the News Talk Online show on Paltalk.com. He asks critical questions, and invites people from all around the world to talk directly to his newsmaker guests using Paltalk's voice over IP technology. Gary came to Paltalk as director of news and programming from CNN where he was the radio bureau chief and correspondent in New York for a decade, where he covered, among other things, the 9/11 attacks in New York and Hurricane Katrina. He was previously reporter and assistant news director at CBS all news radio station WWJ in Detroit. Prior to that he was managing editor at Detroit Radio News Service and a reporter for the Jackson (MI) Citizen-Patriot, the Detroit News and a number of weekly newspapers. Paltalk is the largest multimedia interactive program on the Internet with more than 4 million unique users. News Talk Online is also syndicated by CRN Digital Talk Radio to cable systems serving an additional 12 million households.

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Editor’s Pick
MAY 28, 2009 12:33PM

Forget Waterboarding. Try Chocolate Chip Cookies

Rate: 14 Flag

Terrorist interrogator's best friend

According to the print media industry publication Editor and Publisher, a story that will appear in tomorrow's Time Magazine reveals that an interrogation technique that worked with one of the world's most notorious terrorists involved feeding him sugar free chocolate chip cookies.

That's right. Time correspondent Bobby Gosh reports that a former FBI interrogator gave Osama bin Laden lieutenant Abu Jandal - a diabetic - sugar free chocolate chip cookies to soften him up. Gosh reports that the interrogator, Ali Soufan, told members of Congress that showing Jandal respect softened him up and he sang like a canary.

Former FBI agent Jack Cloonan, who also interrogated terrorism suspects, said in an interview on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com that he too rejected torture. He said doing small favors for suspects often resulted in them giving him information vital to national security. Torture, he said, only would cause a suspect to tell you what they think you want to know just to get the interrogator to stop.

We talk about issues like these and more weekdays at 5 PM New York time on News Talk Online on Paltalk.com

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Photo credit: http://www.flickr.com/photos/rachelfordjames/3431949081/

Author tags:

waterboarding, torture, terrorism, paltalk, news talk online, gary baumgarten, abu jandal

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Of course, our greatest strength is exactly the Constitution and our best traditions. That may be why the military-industrial complex works so hard to undermine them.
Eric Root
May 28, 2009 01:20 PM
Hah. Great post. I heard about some of this a while back on NPR. It sounds so right; I’d give up my grandmother for a brownie.
David Decker
May 28, 2009 02:47 PM
One of the most effective means of gathering information in WWII was to allow the German officers to live in relative comfort and let them hang out together in a really nice parlor and discuss matters over a cup of coffee, while the allies recorded every conversation. It seriously makes you wonder about Bush and co.
ocularnervosa
May 28, 2009 03:03 PM
Rated for chocolate chip cookies. I LOVE chocolate chip cookies.
BeastOfBurden
May 28, 2009 03:14 PM
I read that this morning. I had also heard that during WWII Americans had the most success interrogating German prisoners by feeding them steak and playing chess with them. I think the torturing was Cheney's wet dream.
latethink
May 28, 2009 03:33 PM
Such Irony! Chocolate Chip Cookies... I couldn't believe it when I read that story this morning.

The EQ at the CIA must be below minimal...
ktm
May 28, 2009 04:30 PM
This post immediately brought to mind an old Doonesbury book I remember from my childhood:
http://www.amazon.com/Even-Revolutionaries-Like-Chocolate-Cookies/dp/B000ILIFAS
Alan Nothnagle
May 28, 2009 05:28 PM
In my fraternity initiation, they put us in a small dark room and played a song called Fluffy, picked from the worst songs of the Seventies almbum, for hours.
They should try that; it will break anyone.
Don Rich
May 28, 2009 05:42 PM
To every future incarcerator, interrogator, and torturer of mine I have only one thing to say--chocolate cake.
Max the Communist
May 28, 2009 05:45 PM
I've heard more than once that truly effective police, interviewers and interrogators always use sympathy, empathy and other "soft" skills to get people to talk. It makes complete sense to me.

Now can someone please feed Dick Cheney something that will soften him up??
Nelle Engoron
May 28, 2009 07:19 PM
Unfortunately, chocolate chip cookies are not so effective at eliciting false information/confessions, from what I hear. Now brownies (not junior girl scouts, the food!), they might do it. Especially if you pull them out of the oven once or twice and drop them from a height of about 18" to make them as dense as possible. And black walnuts, I think.
LeslieCA
May 28, 2009 10:57 PM
OH MY GOD!!!!!!! I have a terrible craving for chocolate chip cookies now!!!
Blackflon
May 29, 2009 08:54 AM
Additional studies have shown that combining chocolate chip confections and waterboarding techniques generally only succeeds in suspects tossing their cookies.
mr e
May 29, 2009 11:07 AM
OMG, Mr. E, you are hilarious this morning!
LeslieCA
May 29, 2009 11:18 AM
Gimme a cookie! I'll sing like a canary!
Phillyart
May 29, 2009 11:53 AM
I just read about this in Time magazine...maybe there is hope we will find a better way!
mamoore
May 31, 2009 08:36 AM