The Flesh Is Weak

INVITATION TO Moscow (360 pp.) Z. Stypulkowski -- Thames & Hudson ($3.50).

The first order that came to Zbigniew Stypulkowski, Polish underground leader in his cell in Moscow's Lubianka prison, made him laugh. A handsome, strapping girl of about 20 entered the cell, yapped one word: "Undress." She had to repeat it twice before he took her seriously, stripped self-consciously to the buff. Poking about clinically, she asked, "Have you syphilis?" and then stalked out.

In the next 70 days, the commissars of the NKVD tried to strip his mind and spirit in more systematic ways. How close they came without actually succeeding makes up the chilling better half of Invitation to Moscow, a book of vivid wartime reminiscences by one of Poland's top lawyers and political men. Taut, spare, sharply observed and recorded, it is the most convincing account yet of that indigenous Soviet phenomenon, the phony confession. Beside it, even Arthur Koestler's brilliant Darkness at Noon bulges a bit at the suppositional seams.

Satan-Smooth at 3 a.m. The invitation to Moscow began as a luncheon date for March 28, 1945. Stypulkowski and 15 other members of the Polish underground government were invited to be Marshal Zhukov's guests, ostensibly to discuss future Polish-Russian relations and the security of the Red army then fighting in Poland. Actually, the Russians had laid plans to smear the Polish underground, stifle its "uncooperative" patriots, and set up their own puppet regime. Promptly on arrival, the 16 delegates were clapped into Lubianka to be "interrogated." The charge: that they had conspired with the Germans against the Red army and the Soviet Union. Neither drugs nor storybook tortures were used, yet 14 out of the 15 who stood trial (one was too ill) "confessed" their "guilt." The story of the lone exception, Stypulkowski, shows why.

Each prisoner had his personal inquisitor. Stypulkowski's was a stocky, yellow-faced major named Tichonov. Meshing physical with psychological tactics, Tichonov soon tightened his prisoner's nerves till they hummed. First, there was the long ominous walk from the cell to the examining room,hands pinned back. Dry-mouthed with anxiety, Stypulkowski might find Tichonov cajoling or coercive but never twice in a row the same. "You German hireling!" (or sometimes, "British spy"), he would rant. "Don't try to cheat the Soviet Union. . . We know everything." Or, satan-smooth at 3 a.m.: "How are you, sir? Sorry I woke you ... Are you really so well off here that you want to prolong your stay indefinitely? We are only interested in getting ... the facts . . . [then] you will return home to work for the Poland you love so much."

Hot-Water Jag. The shortest interrogation ran three hours, several lasted a grueling 15. Officially, prisoners slept between 10 p.m. and 6 a.m., but Stypulkowski was hauled out of bed 69 nights out of 70. Sleep at any time was a virtual miracle. A lumpy mattress and a single blanket left him aching and cold. By prison rules, hands had to be kept outside the blanket, and a naked light bulb was always trained on his head. Any attempt to tuck in frozen fingers or face away from the light brought a barked reprimand from the guard at the peephole.

For breakfast he got two slices of bread plus a kettle of hot water; for lunch, a cup of colorless soup; for supper, two spoonfuls of groats and another kettle of hot water. His face and feet began to swell, he was so weak that the hot water gave him a mild jag. Some days he had the will power to ration his bread, other days he wolfed it down. His faith as a Christian was unrationed. Sometimes, as he knelt with clasped hands and bowed head, he heard one guard whisper to another, "Look, he prays."

Meanwhile, Tichonov showed him the signed depositions of friends, asked him if he didn't want to live for his mother and son. At the end of six interrogations, Stypulkowski had figured that 20 would be his limit. He endured 141. Around the 70th, he was close to cracking, cried out: "You can murder me! I shan't say any more, because I don't know more."

Mental Jujitsu. But Tichonov's nerves were fraying too. About the 100th session, the inquisitorial marble cracked a moment and Tichonov blurted: "I know what you are waiting for. You hope you will hold out longer than I. But you are mistaken. I am the stronger." From then on, Stypulkowski knew he had won. A friendly cell mate helped him brush up on his Russian, and he conducted his own defense before the supreme court of the U.S.S.R. It was the first time since the revolution that a defendant tried before the supreme court had not pleaded guilty. He got off with a four-month sentence, later escaped to England.

As Stypulkowski sees it, the forced confession is achieved by a kind of mental jujitsu. A man's own weaknesses, induced and inherent, defeat him. A shrewd inquisitor who presses the right buttons can reduce his victim to a whimpering automaton. A courageous man and a clever one, Lawyer Stypulkowski might not have survived his ordeal if he had not bolstered the weaknesses of the flesh. In his darkest moments he had called on one ally Tichonov knew nothing about: Almighty God.

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