In a 2008 essay for which he was voluntarily abducted and waterboarded, Christopher Hitchens detailed the experience of controlled drowning “as if a huge, wet paw had been suddenly and annihilatingly clamped over my face.” The author’s apt description—along with an [accompanying video](/video/2010/08/594157164001) of the brave experiment—caused Attorney General Eric Holder to launch an investigation into the interrogation practices that George W. Bush sanctioned during his presidency, according to Dan Klaidman’s new book, Kill or Capture: The War on Terror and the Soul of the Obama Presidency.

An excerpt from the book appeared on Mike Allen’s “Playbook” on Tuesday:

After reading the article, Holder viewed the accompanying video online, at Vanity Fair's website. He sat in his study, engrossed in the macabre spectacle. Hitchens lasted for fewer than ten seconds before asking for mercy, sputtering and gagging as the cloth used in the demonstration was removed from his mouth. Watching the video, Holder was both mesmerized and repulsed. Over the next few weeks he plunged into classified reports and briefings on the CIA's interrogation program. He was increasingly convinced that he would need to launch an investigation, or at least a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a full-blown probe was warranted.

Hitchens, who concluded his famous essay by declaring he still wished that his experience “were the only way in which the words ‘waterboard’ and ‘American’ could be mentioned in the same (gasping and sobbing) breath,” would likely have been pleased that he got Holder’s attention.

Watch the original waterboarding video of Christopher Hitchens, and read his moving essay, “Believe Me, It’s Torture” here: