The appeals of communism: Extracting confessions from the communist subject in the Vietnam war

Abstract

This plenary examines the historical relationship between confession, power, and military intelligence in US empire through an analysis of the RAND Corporation's ‘Motivation and Morale’ Project during the Vietnam War (1964–1968). Drawing on theoretical frameworks from Hannah Arendt, Frantz Fanon, and Michel Foucault, I trace how Western confessional practices evolved from religious to psychological domains, and instrumentalised to unique effect in Cold War military interrogation programs. I focus on the attempt of American social scientists to understand and categorise the ‘Communist personality type’ through ex-Communist confessional literature and prisoner interviews. I argue that RAND's interrogation methods in Vietnam emerged from this broader intellectual context, reflecting both the period's anti-Communist ideology and colonial power relations. Through extensive archival research, the plenary demonstrates how RAND researchers' attempts to extract ‘psychological truths’ from Vietnamese prisoners and defectors ultimately produced distorted cultural representations that reinforced American military assumptions. I connect these historical practices to contemporary instances of prisoner interrogation and torture (Guantamano Bay, Abu Ghraib).