Dam breaks on intelligence community’s Havana syndrome Russia cover-up

The Office of the Director of National Intelligence said that while most IC agencies/”components” stand by a 2023 assessment that it is “very unlikely” a foreign actor is responsible for any Havana syndrome occurrences (what the government refers to as “Anomalous Health Incidents”), two agencies have moved away from this assessment.

We’re told that “one IC component judges there is a ‘roughly even chance’ a foreign actor has used a novel weapon or prototype device to harm a small, undetermined subset of the [U.S. government] personnel or dependents who reported medical symptoms or sensory phenomena as AHIs. Another IC component judges there is a ‘roughly even chance’ a foreign actor has developed a novel weapon or prototype device that could have harmed a small, undetermined subset of the USG personnel or dependents who reported medical symptoms or sensory phenomena as AHIs.”

Additionally, “One component assesses it is ‘likely’ a foreign actor has an RF antipersonnel capability and that this capability can cause biological effects consistent with some of the symptoms reported as possible AHIs. The other component assesses there is a ‘roughly even chance’ that a foreign actor has a capability that could have caused some of the experiences reported as possible AHIs.”

This new finding represents the first major breach in the dam of denial and politicized intelligence analysis that has afflicted this matter for many years. Members of Congress such as Rep. August Pfluger (R-TX) and Rep. Rick Crawford (R-AR) deserve immense credit for their courageous and diligent work in resisting the IC’s cover-up. (I’ll have more on Crawford’s work in another piece next week.) Their review of raw intelligence reporting has led them to the same assessment that has led the vast majority of operations officers in the IC to view Havana syndrome as partially the result of a foreign covert action campaign against the United States.

To put it bluntly, these operations officers view the Havana syndrome analysis by their various headquarters agencies as a joke. Where they know the truth and want it public, headquarters bureaucrats believe disclosing the truth will set their organizations on fire. Thus, those bureaucrats have decided to keep the truth imprisoned.

This is no small concern. Indeed, when the full story is written, it will lead to a national crisis of confidence in the IC akin to that which followed the IC’s mistaken assessment that Saddam Hussein retained weapons of mass destruction.

Havana syndrome incidents were first reported in 2016 by U.S. diplomats and CIA officers serving at the newly reopened U.S. Embassy in Havana, Cuba. Havana syndrome involves unexplained ailments, including dizziness, extreme pressure in the head, and unsteady gait. Some suspected victims now suffer serious, lifelong ailments. Others have even died prematurely. 

While there are a significant number of Havana syndrome patients who are actually suffering from a conventional illness, it is highly likely that others are victims of Russian intelligence service (and sometimes Cuban intelligence service) employment of nano-pulsed radio frequency weapons. It is highly likely that this device varies in size and capability, ranging from backpack-sized units to more powerful units that must be concealed in a van. Nanopulsed RF waves are nearly impossible to detect.

While this sounds like science fiction, Russia’s possession of these devices and scientific assessment of their Havana syndrome-associated effects on the human body is supported by a heavy weight of raw technical and signals-based intelligence reporting. My reporting on this subject is supported by exceptional sources (including some in active IC employment) with direct knowledge of raw intelligence held at highly classified levels.

Former Russian national security tsar Nikolai Patrushev is believed by a number of IC personnel with knowledge of relevant intelligence reporting to be the gatekeeper in control of Havana syndrome attacks on U.S. personnel. Weak human intelligence reporting is undergirded by the CIA’s inability to penetrate closed-access units of the Russian FSB and GRU. While at least one allied foreign intelligence service has provided extremely relevant and valuable intelligence reporting to the IC, the IC has limited the analytical value ascribed to this reporting because the reporting did not result from a U.S. line of effort.

Ultimately, however, Havana syndrome is secret in plain sight.

Indeed, as I’ve noted before, the Russian military and government gazette have previously openly reported on their RF weapons (though some of these reports have been taken down subsequent to my reporting on them). Due to fears of escalation with Russia over its acts of war against U.S. personnel and the associated risk of deterring U.S. government personnel from seeking Russia-related or foreign assignments, the IC has covered up its abundant intelligence portfolio, pointing toward Russian culpability.

This politicization of the intelligence process has been stark. It has led to a betrayal of IC operations officers and other Havana syndrome victims and the IC’s broader duty to diligent public service. It is a pathetic indication of this politicization that this new report was issued so close to the end of the Biden administration’s tenure, for example. Having said there was nothing to see here for years, the Biden administration is now lobbing this toxic bomb at the Trump administration.

Heads at the IC will have to roll for two reasons.

First, because senior leaders at the CIA and other agencies have variously chosen reliable proxies or put pressure on analysts to make selective use of intelligence to reach the desired assessment of “nothing to see here.” Congressional intelligence committees should ask CIA Deputy Director David Cohen whether, for example, the CIA’s operational effort to recover a Havana syndrome-causing device allowed officers assigned to this effort the authority to physically interdict Russian intelligence officers in suspected possession of devices or whether that authority was limited to situations in which visual and other technical evidence of a device being in use at any one moment had been gathered. Questions such as these matter because they underline the IC’s sustaining pretense of being able to tell Congress, “We attempted to find the truth,” while actually taking deliberate steps to avoid finding the truth.

There is a lot of fear in senior ranks of the IC and with retired officials with nice pensions about what might happen next. The IC’s unwillingness to engage honestly or take responsibility for its cover-up is dramatic. This is reflected by the increasingly tight control over which journalists are able to access IC findings and briefers. While I have covered this topic for years (see links to my articles below), I wasn’t even invited to the briefing on this report that was held for journalists. Sadly, too many journalists have blindly accepted the IC claims that there is no foreign nexus or device related to Havana syndrome. Hopefully, that will now change.

Here are my reports over the past four years on the subject. Perhaps pay special attention to the December 2021 article highlighted in bold. In reverse chronological order:

April 2024: CIA doubles down on “see no Russian” Havana Syndrome spin

March 2024: As the Havana Syndrome scandal rumbles on Nikolai Patrushev must be laughing

March 2023: The US intelligence community has proven it can’t investigate Havana Syndrome, it should let the UK and Australia try

January 2022: With ‘Havana Syndrome’ whitewash, CIA puts bureaucracy before officers

January 2022: Russia had weapons to cause ‘Havana Syndrome’ in the 1990s, why is the CIA casting doubt on this now?

December 2021: Was George W. Bush a victim of 2007 Russia-induced ‘Havana Syndrome?’

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October 2021: Why some US officials see new indications Russia could be behind Havana Syndrome

March 2021: US grapples with nervous system attacks amid heavy Russian suspicions