The ‘Havana Syndrome’ Coverup Exposed

By Noah Rothman

Friday, January 10, 2025

 

An interagency fight appears to be brewing within the outgoing Biden administration over the origins of so-called “Havana Syndrome.”

 

In advance of an intelligence assessment slated for release today, the Miami Herald revealed the details of a November 18 meeting in the White House Situation Room in which National Security Officials confessed that the conclusions about the phenomenon U.S. intelligence officials arrived at in 2023 “were no longer valid.” That assessment asserted that it was “very unlikely” that the hundreds of U.S. governmental personnel who exhibited symptoms associated with the affliction suffered as a result of a clandestine operation conducted by a hostile foreign power. The victims’ symptoms — which include nausea, headaches, memory loss, tinnitus, and dizziness, often after “hearing a noise coming from a particular direction” — were attributed to their individual preexisting medical and psychological conditions.

 

“They said they believe us,” one of the sources who was in the room at the time told the Herald, a “Havana Syndrome” sufferer. The NSC’s functionaries are not alone. A December report published by the House Intelligence subcommittee investigating the phenomenon also concluded that at least some of the episodes of trauma experienced by America’s civil servants in foreign posts were attributable to a “foreign power.” That report also included the stunning allegation that intelligence officials “attempted to thwart the Subcommittee’s investigative efforts to uncover the truth at every turn” and “withheld valuable information” to leave investigators with a more “politically palatable” conclusion about the nature of these episodes.

 

The Herald’s reporting substantiates the subcommittee’s conclusions. It maintains that the report U.S. intelligence agencies are preparing to release will still maintain that “Havana Syndrome” is not the work of enemy action. But there is “a caveat,” the dispatch notes: “One of the several intelligence agencies involved would dissent from the conclusions, sources said. The sources believe that organization is the National Security Agency.”

 

There seems to be a significant level of disagreement among experts about the potential for directed energy weapons to be used to incapacitate U.S. officials. One source who spoke with the Herald observed, however, that an expert panel convened by the CIA and Director of National Intelligence did conclude “that energy weapons built with readily available technology were likely the culprit.”

 

We can be charitable and allow for the prospect of genuine disagreement among intelligence officials about the nature of these events and perhaps even low confidence in attributing them to America’s adversaries abroad. But it seems beyond dispute now that elements within the intelligence community are afraid of the conclusions that policymakers might reach if they determine that these events constitute attacks on the United States by a hostile foreign power. The intelligence community’s role is not to set policy but to provide policymakers with accurate information. Anything less is an abdication of their duty.

 

Moreover, the alleged coverup imbued America’s cynics with undue confidence, leading them to dismiss what might constitute a serious provocation.

 

“Some US politicians have seized on these reports to construct conspiracy theories in which they imagine a mysterious disease-causing ‘sound ray gun,’” the Guardian reported in 2018, “something that isn’t possible with today’s technology” (an authoritative conclusion that was in dispute even at the time it was published). “One could also argue that there was no evidence of extraterrestrial involvement, but that doesn’t prove space aliens weren’t targeting victims with a ray gun,” The Skeptic’s Robert Bartholomew observed, citing a National Institutes of Health study he co-authored that attributes the affliction to “psychosomatic” responses. “It’s a conspiracy theory that is essentially evidence-free at this point,” investigative reporter Michael Isikoff declared, citing CIA director Bill Burns’s decision to rule out the prospect of hostile foreign action (a conclusion that should have led to more skepticism in the CIA’s approach to the issue). “These are phantom weapons involving phantom attacks.”

 

At the very least, there’s now ample reason to be skeptical of the debunking campaign designed to cast doubt on the notion that “Havana Syndrome” was real, much less a deliberate enterprise. It’s unreasonable to expect that these latest developments will impose some humility on the commentary class, but it should.