Spy Agencies Again Dismiss Foreign Role in Havana Syndrome

Intel officials knock down ‘60 Minutes’ report on Russian role, but two spy agencies lodge mild dissents

The U.S. intelligence community, wading once again into a controversy that has divided U.S. government officials, reaffirmed its conclusion Friday that it is “very unlikely” that a foreign adversary has caused the range of debilitating health incidents known as “Havana Syndrome.” 

The new intelligence community findings, however, are not likely to end an acrimonious and seemingly intensifying debate about the origins of baffling medical symptoms — including sharp painful sounds in the ear, excruciating headaches, vertigo and in some cases even brain injuries — that have been reported by hundreds of U.S. government officials and their dependents. These symptoms were originally reported in 2016 among U.S. officials in the U.S. Embassy in Havana— hence the name Havana Syndrome, although the U.S. government officially calls them Anonymous Health Incidents or AHI. 

A new assessment released by the National Intelligence Council on Friday did, for the first time, reveal that two of seven intelligence agencies that participated in the community’s updated review had mild dissents, having found evidence that unidentified foreign actors have made progress in developing advanced weapons that could have caused a small number of incidents. 

One of those agencies concluded with “low confidence” that there was a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor may have used such a weapon against a “small, undetermined subset of U.S. government personnel.” A second agency—also, with “low confidence”— concluded that there was a “roughly even chance” that a foreign actor had developed “a novel weapon or prototype device” that could have been deployed against a small number of U.S. officials but not that it had actually been used. 

But five other intelligence agencies, one of them being the CIA, rejected those dissents and stood by its previous positions, concluding there was simply no evidence that foreign actors were involved in “any” such attacks on U.S. personnel. Among those agencies, two had “moderate to high confidence” in those judgments and three had “moderate confidence.” 

One reason for those confidence levels, according to an official who briefed reporters, is that the U.S. intelligence community had information that “points away” from foreign actors being involved, an apparent reference to sensitive signals intelligence that was obtained during the time such alleged attacks had taken place or when they were first reported. In fact, the official said, that intelligence indicated that relevant officials of the country most suspected of engaging in such attacks — a likely reference to Russia — were “either expressing surprise or denying their involvement privately.” 

Knock on 60 Minutes

At the same time, in an extraordinary move, the U.S. intelligence official conducting Friday’s briefing, an officer with the Office of the Director of National Intelligence, sharply criticized a CBS 60 Minutes report last year that accused Russian intelligence of using a directed energy or acoustic weapon to attack multiple U.S officials, both inside the country and overseas. 

The 60 Minutes report, which got widespread attention last March and revived congressional interest in the subject, “does not hold up to scrutiny,” the official said in response to a question from SpyTalk.  

Without addressing most of the specific incidents cited in the 60 Minutes report, the official added: “What I can say is that we've evaluated these pretty extensively, and the IC (the intelligence community) does not find them credible, and we have information that contradicts it.” A CBS spokeswoman and Scott Pelley, the anchor and lead reporter on the 60 Minutes report, did not respond to email requests for comment.

Absence of Evidence

Among U.S. intelligence professionals, there have been many other reasons for skepticism about the claims surrounding Havana Syndrome. Despite years of investigation, nobody has identified, much less located, an actual weapon— whether microwave, acoustic or directed energy— that could have produced the reported symptoms. And the random nature of the reported incidents— involving in most cases mid-level officers or diplomats, and their spouses, across the globe— seems to make no strategic sense, especially when there have been no public reports of any such “attacks” where the most likely candidate, the Russians, have the most compelling interest—either in Ukraine or Poland where Russian agents have been actively involved in trying to sabotage the weapons flow to Kiev. The U.S. intelligence official who conducted the briefing (and under the ground rules cannot be identified publicly) emphasized that the intelligence community’s conclusions were not reached casually. Instead, they were the product of an analytic team consisting of “a range of experts,” including medical doctors, scientists, engineers and experts in counter Intelligence and foreign weapons research and development.

The official also emphasized that its findings were in no way intended to disparage the many CIA officers, diplomats and others who have reported AHI symptoms. 

“No IC component calls into question the experiences or suffering of U.S. government personnel or dependents” the official said. “These are our colleagues and friends. All components recognize that these personnel and their dependents experience genuine, sometimes painful and traumatic physical symptoms and sensory phenomena, and they honestly and sincerely reported those events as possible.” 

Such words did little to satisfy critics who have become increasingly angry over how the CIA and other U.S. agencies have responded to reports of Havana Syndrome, debunking the claims of foreign involvement and— in some instances— not providing adequate medical care.   

Mark Zaid, a national security lawyer who represents many AHI victims, said that the new intelligence community assessment “disgracefully continues to hide the truth behind a cloak of secrecy.” “There should be no mistake on how to actually evaluate the ICA findings,” Zaid added in a statement. “The document reveals agencies within the Intelligence Community are in disagreement with one another.” 

Zaid pointed to a recent House intelligence subcommittee report that strongly criticized the intelligence community’s handling of AHI and concluded—influenced in part by the 60 Minutes report—that it was “increasingly likely” that a foreign adversary was behind “some” AHIs. More provocatively, he also asserted that CIA Director William Burns, a former U.S. ambassador to Russia, holds a dissenting view, saying in his statement that “multiple sources” have told him Burns “privately told Agency victims he thought Russia was responsible.” Contacted by SpyTalk, Zaid said in a text message that none of his sources were in a position to speak to a reporter about what Burns had told them in a private meeting last October.  

An agency spokesperson confirmed that Burns once had “assumptions” that Russia was involved when he first took office. But the spokesperson vigorously disputed the notion that Burns now has a view different from that of his team of experts who have forcefully rejected the idea of any foreign involvement.  

“On the question of Russian involvement, as the director has said, he had his own assumptions when he became director so much so that he even warned his Russian counterparts in late 2021,” the spokesperson said in a statement read to SpyTalk. “But as he has said, our analysts’ job is not to validate his assumptions but to ensure an intensive and professional effort to get as close to ground truth as we can. And that is what we have done and continue to do.

“We left no stone unturned” trying to get to the bottom of Havana Syndrome, added an agency official who, as is par for the course, asked not to be identified publicly speaking about a sensitive matter. “No one cares more about understanding this than we do . These are our friends and colleagues! As we said before, we applied the agency’s very best operational, analytic, and technical tradecraft and very best personnel to what is one of the largest and most intensive investigations in the agency’s history.”

Not Over

For all the confidence U.S. intelligence agencies have expressed in dismissing most of the conspiratorial claims about Havana Syndrome, there is little reason to believe the controversy will end anytime soon. In his statement, Zaid called on the incoming Trump administration “to ensure the CIA can no longer lie to the public and instead require full disclosure of what the government knows.”o

And there is even evidence that senior Biden administration officials have doubts about the intelligence community’s assessment. The Miami Herald reported this week that at a recent meeting with AHI victims in the White House Situation Room, Mahar Bitar, the National Security Council coordinator for intelligence, said that there was indeed evidence of foreign attacks and that the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment “was no longer valid.” 

That meeting, according to the Herald report, was on Nov. 18, nearly two months before the National Intelligence Council, the ODNI and the CIA all publicly affirmed that their previous judgments were valid indeed.