Deuce the Ace

Somebody—I think it might even be Proust—once said that you can get to go to bed with just anybody if you sit up and listen to them until three o’clock in the morning.

My friend Scott has a milder version: if you sit up and listen to somebody until three o’clock, you hear a lot of dull stuff, but once in a while you hear somebody incredibly interesting.

I was thinking of Scott (and Proust) yesterday when I read the long, fascinating New York Times report about (no kidding) Deuce Martinez, ace debriefer and his work as an Al Qaeda interrogator (link). And he made me a remember a lesson I learned (and could have learned better) back in my days doing newspaper journalism.

Of course, we did not have the option of beating the living shit out of our subjects, but we did know: it is absolutely amazing what people will tell you if you just still and listen.

I remember one of the best I ever knew—he went on to a distinguished career but I won’t embarrass him by outing him here—who used to sit back there in the corner with his old fashioned headset on saying “yeh…uh huh…no kidding…yeh…yeh.” And his copy was just spilling over with wonderful stuff.

It isn't quite a snap of the fingers, of course. It takes tact, preparation, a certain skill at manipulation and of course p-a-a-t-ience, which may be the hardest part of all. Maybe it doesn’t work every time, but it sure works often. Lots of lowly hacks know it. How come the Vice-president’s office never got the memo?