Normally, I'd just to link to a story like this on the mini-blog to the right, but Rebecca Lemov's article on the history of "soft torture" is extra-good, so it should go here. In the 1950s the CIA tried to figure out special techniques to "break" people during interrogations—experiments which included feeding unsuspecting johns LSD, and electroshock therapy—but all they ever was how to turn a person into a "confused and desperate human being."