Front Burner - Energy weapon, enemy state ruled out on Havana Syndrome

Episode Date: March 7, 2023

In 2016, a handful of American and Canadian government employees working in Cuba came down with mysterious symptoms: nausea, ringing ears, headaches, and minor memory loss. Their illness came to be known as Havana Syndrome. Theories about what caused it have included microwaves fired by Russia, insecticides, and even crickets. Now, a new report from US intelligence agencies rejects the idea that an enemy with an energy weapon is to blame. Shane Harris is an Intelligence and National Security Reporter for the Washington Post. He has spoken to sources who’ve seen the new report, and walks us through its findings. For transcripts of this series, please visit: https://www.cbc.ca/radio/frontburner/transcripts

In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem. Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. This is a CBC Podcast. Hi, I'm Jamie Poisson. More than 20 American diplomats and at least five Canadians experienced bizarre health problems. Dizziness, hearing loss, fatigue. The cause? Unknown.

People have tried to figure out for years now what caused the so-called Havana syndrome. I couldn't stand up. I was falling over in my room. I thought I was going to vomit. I had this incredible ringing in my ears. After a career really doing some crazy things in my life, this was the most terrifying moment of my life. Researchers told CNN it causes a concussion without actually causing a concussion, the immaculate concussion. They said, so... There have been lots of theories about some kind of new weapon. It's believed the ailment may be caused by what's called a directed energy attack.

The diplomats have been exposed to an advanced device that operated outside the range of audible sound and had been deployed either inside or outside their residences. The main culprit is likely some kind of microwave weapon. Targeted with some sort of mysterious beam of energy. And a lot of finger pointing has been directed towards Russia. Well, the immediate thought, I think, of all of my colleagues is that the Russians are the

most likely ones to have done this kind of activity. And what countries have developed this kind of technology in the past? Well, we know Russia has it. But finally, after almost seven years of investigation, new findings from five U.S. agencies are starting to put some of the speculation to rest. A new report says Havana syndrome is not caused by a foreign adversary using some kind of energy weapon. Shane Harris has spoken to two intelligence sources who have seen the new report. He's an intelligence and national security reporter for The Washington Post. Hey, Shane, thanks so much for coming on to FrontBurner.

Oh, thanks for having me. It's great to have you. So in 2016, people will remember, of course, this new syndrome pops up amongst American workers at the American embassy in Cuba. Initially, it was only a couple dozen Americans and Canadians as well getting sick. And why was it taken so seriously by the government and the media at the time? Well, I think one of the reasons why was because it was so mysterious. And of course, these individuals were working in Cuba, not exactly a place that the U.S. has had the friendliest relations with over the years. And obviously a place where there are a lot of Russian intelligence operatives, a big Russian intelligence presence.

So when they became sort of mysteriously ill and all complaining of the same symptoms, I think people initially suspected whether or not these symptoms were in Cuba, reminding that country's government that it has an international obligation to protect its diplomats. It also expelled two Cuban embassy officials from Washington. theory began to take hold that what we now know as Havana syndrome was potentially the result of some kind of an attack or even maybe the byproduct of some kind of surveillance, electronic surveillance by a foreign government. Officials are telling our Patrick Oppmann in Havana they don't think it was kind of eavesdropping. It was more of some kind of sonic attack, you know, attacking the brainwaves. Maybe the people involved didn't know the kind of damage they were causing. The Cubans have said they don't know what happened.

They had nothing to do with it. But the FBI is investigating. Right, right. There are people who were reporting symptoms in Switzerland and Austria. And how did American officials respond to that? Well, initially, according to people who I've interviewed and others have interviewed as well who were suffering from these symptoms, I think they would tell you that they were initially not taken very seriously or they felt not seriously enough by senior leaders in their various agencies like the CIA or in the State Department where some of these people worked. CIA or in the State Department where some of these people worked. And, you know, they had trouble getting people to get proper medical care for them, to get seen by doctors. At the same time,

you know, intelligence officials and others were trying to investigate this and find out whether there was a source for these attacks. But it really wasn't until the Biden administration came in when there was kind of this real pivot among officials, both at the on the medical side of things, you know, trying to take these cases more seriously, trying to get them appropriate medical care. The fact that some of these brave women and men have been subjected to these serious health issues by unknown attackers is unacceptable. attackers is unacceptable. That their own government did not believe them when they were injured or denied them proper medical attention and care is beyond the pale. And then ultimately, the Biden administration forming essentially a task force of many agencies, including the CIA, to try and figure out whether or not they could actually attribute these attacks to a foreign actor or to some kind of energy

source. And fair for me to say this is where this new report sprung from, right? That's right. What we're seeing now and what I've been briefed on is the result of that investigation that was formally set up during the Biden administration. But really, you know, as you pointed out, goes back to 2016 when these first cases were reported. The investigators looked at the universe of those cases. So what we're seeing now is the finding of that intelligence agency-led investigation. And talk to me a little bit about what it says, what these agencies have concluded. Well, the top line conclusion is that Havana syndrome, which the government calls anomalous health incidents or AHIs, doesn't exactly roll off the tongue as easily,

is not the result of a foreign actor doing something intentionally, either with a so-called energy weapon, which would be like a device that would be directing a beam or a pulse of energy at someone, or with a surveillance device that has as a byproduct these physical symptoms, including headaches, nausea, ringing in the ears. Seven agencies looked at this. Five determined that it was very unlikely that this was the result of a foreign actor. Another agency said unlikely. One agency abstained from the question, but when asked whether anybody would sign on to an alternative hypothesis, which was to say that we think this could have been a foreign actor or whether they would dissent from that

overall finding, essentially no one raised their hand. I've covered intelligence for about 20 years, and rarely do you see such an emphatic conclusion or determination by intelligence agencies that always like to leave themselves sort of a little wiggle room and are always very reluctant to say something is certain. This is about as close to that as I've seen, particularly on a big controversial question like this. So the official word is not a foreign actor, not an energy weapon, not the byproduct of surveillance. And what's your sense of why they seem so confident that it's not? Well, one reason is that they have no pattern or kind of obvious connection between any of these cases. So what that means, for instance, is that they can't necessarily link, you know, cases that were occurring in Vienna with cases

that occurred in Havana. They can't find, for instance, patterns of when someone got sick, matched up with potentially when a Russian intelligence officer might have been in the area or when a hostile government could have been able to get close to those individuals. There's just no kind of pattern of behavior that ties them together. They also have no intelligence that would suggest that a foreign leader is aware of such an effort to use an energy weapon against US personnel. And they might know those things, for instance, from intercepted communications, U.S. personnel. And they might know those things, for instance, from intercepted communications, from human spies that might be able to tell, for instance, the CIA what a particular foreign leader is doing or what they're authorizing. They just don't have any of that. So there's

nothing that shows up to indicate that. They also say that they don't have any intelligence that would say that a foreign government has built a device that would be capable of causing these kinds of symptoms. And what the intelligence agencies looked for was essentially whether or not someone or some government had built a device that could be concealed, that was portable, that could be aimed and essentially shoot a beam at someone. They find no evidence of that. And even they say in some cases where people got sick, they can't understand how someone, even if they had such a device, would have been able to aim it at that individual. There was no direct line of sight or there were walls that were too

thick for a beam to penetrate. So the intelligence agencies basically find an absence of any proof that would bear out this hypothesis that a foreign actor used a source of energy to make people sick. Parallel to this report, which encompasses the opinion of multiple intelligence agencies, the Biden administration did pull together a panel of experts, right? And they came up with a slightly different conclusion. And can you tell me what they found and whether those findings are at odds with this report that we've been talking about? Yeah, this is a really interesting piece of the investigation. So along with that official investigation, which was looking at the whole range of questions

of who might have done this, what might they have used, when could they have done it, the government convened this independent expert panel that was tasked with looking at the question of a mechanism. Could someone or some government build a mechanism like an energy weapon to actually cause these symptoms? And the expert panel came back and essentially said, yes, we think that it's plausible that someone could design a device that was able to be concealed, that was portable, that could direct a sufficient amount of energy at someone at a target. And even more, they went further and said that various plausible scenarios they looked at for how

these injuries or these symptoms could have been caused, they believe that electropulsed energy was actually the most plausible explanation for it. So these panel experts basically come up and say, no, this is very much within the realm of possibility. And we think it would actually explain what's happening to these individuals. And that is at odds with what the intelligence community found and is a real point of friction. And for people who have been afflicted by Havana syndrome and who say they're suffering these symptoms, they point to the Independent Experts Panel as a kind of validation and a refutation in many ways of what the intelligence agencies found. Right. Is it fair for me to say that what this panel found was that a device like this could conceivably have been used, but what the report came to the conclusion that there's no evidence that one actually does exist or was actually used.

Yeah, you've got it exactly right. The experts say, you know, that you could build such a device, but the intelligence agencies come back and say, okay, but we have no evidence that anyone has. And furthermore, we have no evidence that any government is cognizant of such an effort to do this. Basically, the evidence doesn't bear out the hypothesis here. Yeah. Are the people on the panel commenting on the new report at all? Well, I did interview an individual named David Relman, who was the co-chair of the panel. And he gave me a statement.

And important to know, he gave this statement before he'd actually had a chance to see the report himself or get a briefing on it. But, you know, I shared with him what the findings were going to be, and he was disappointed. He felt that the intelligence agencies had not given enough credence to the independent experts panel. And, you know, in reporting on this over the years, what I found is there's a lot of frustration, I think, within that expert community that they not only did the intelligence agencies not take seriously enough what they were finding, but sometimes they felt that they were not fully brought into the process and not really part of the full investigation. Now, the intelligence agencies will counter and say, look, we convened this panel of experts to look at one particular piece of this puzzle, not the entire puzzle. So what they're saying is not that we ignored their findings, but rather we took them into consideration and we come to a different conclusion based on more evidence and based on a fuller picture in their mind of what they were looking at. In the Dragon's Den, a simple pitch can lead to a life-changing connection. Watch new episodes of Dragon's Den free on CBC Gem.

Brought to you in part by National Angel Capital Organization, empowering Canada's entrepreneurs through angel investment and industry connections. Hi, it's Ramit Sethi here. You may have seen my money show on Netflix. I've been talking about money for 20 years. I've talked to millions of people and I have some startling numbers to share with you.

Did you know that of the people I speak to, 50% of them do not know their own household income? That's not a typo, 50%. That's because money is confusing. In my new book and podcast, Money for Couples, I help you and your partner create a financial vision together. To listen to this podcast, just search for Money listening to U.S. officials over the years talk about this. There's one person that comes to mind, a retired CIA senior intelligence officer, Mark Polly Maropolis, who's spoken out a lot about this. To me, it's quite obvious there's an adversary doing this. I think the leading candidate are the Russians because they've had such weapons in their arsenal in the past.

But ultimately, this is a weapon designed to terrorize. It's an act of war, in my view. And I guess one question I have is, has this whole thing fed into narratives American politicians have used to stoke distrust of countries like Cuba and Russia? can say about Russia and Cuba to prove that point. On the Cuban relations questions, it's been very interesting. During the Obama administration, of course, relations were normalized again to a degree between the US and Cuba. And then that was reversed under the Trump administration. And there have been some who have wondered whether or not Havana syndrome kind of became a convenient excuse for people in the Trump administration to sever those relations. And that may be, you know, true that some, you know, that it certainly added, I think, you know,

to the perception that maybe, you know, in some people's minds that, you know, Cuba was not such a friendly government and at the same time, you know, that we were rushing ahead and repairing those relations. I will also say, though, you know, officials that I spoke to before this report came out would often note that, you know, there was not necessarily proof that it was the Cuban government that was doing this to personnel at the embassy there, although they did feel that if it were another government, say Russia, that were operating in the country and doing this, that the Cuban government would have known about it. So there's no doubt that this has been a big irritant in U.S.-Cuba relations. And now it'll be very interesting to see, now that this is effectively, according to the government anyway, not the result of actions

by Cuba or any other government, does that essentially, that impediment get taken off the table? And could you see relations normalize again? Yeah. Are these agencies offering any other explanations for what they think it is? As far as I know, they are not. I mean, and to be clear, we've been briefed on the report. The intelligence community hasn't released the full findings. They've released declassified pieces of it, but they're not offering an explanation here. And I think that there was some speculation that they might try to do that. And in particular, there was some sensitivity around this issue. There were those who wondered whether or not the experts would say that this was

essentially a psychogenic condition, which is to say that these are symptoms that are caused by a psychological, have a psychological cause and not a physical one. They didn't really go there. And that may be because they have no real clear evidence of that. That's also been a very big kind of hot button issue over the years for people in this victim community as well. So it's both a declarative report in that it rules out certain causes, It's both a declarative report in that it rules out certain causes, but it also kind of with a weapon theory has been eroded, right? I remember back in, I think, 2017, U.S. personnel made recordings in Havana trying to document what that sound was like.

It's a talk here in Cuba. What sounds did embassy workers really hear? Well, now scientists think they know. After analyzing the recordings, scientists believe the source of the sounds could simply be the echoing call of a cricket. And also, the Canadian government funded some research too. Researchers had brain scans of people, including before and after they went to Cuba, and they found markers of acquired brain injury, like real damage done. And the researchers, they came to the conclusion that it was low-dose exposure to neurotoxins from pesticides used in Cuba to combat the spread of Zika.

During 2016-2017, the government started the Zika campaign, and they fumigated all over the island, but mainly in Havana and in the cities and the urban areas with trucks in the houses. It was an army military operation. You know, I know that that doesn't help explain what happened in other countries outside Cuba. But did they take a run at any of these other theories that we've heard in recent years? No, they really didn't, as far as I know, at least in the public documentation, take on any of these individual explanations. It was more looking at a question of whether or not a foreign actor with some kind of weapon could have done this. And to be clear, when they say they're ruling out any form of weapon, they're not just saying only directed energy. say they're ruling out any form of weapon, they're not just saying only directed energy.

I mean, they're including in that other kinds of mechanisms or manipulation to the physical environment. For instance, you know, one of the things they pointed out in their findings was that the vast majority of these cases, and there were roughly a thousand people who reported symptoms, could be attributed to pre-existing medical conditions, other common illnesses, or even environmental factors. And when I pressed and said, well, what do you mean by environmental factors? They said, well, in some cases, you know, the air conditioning vents in a building could have been misaligned or malfunctioning, leading to fluctuations in pressure in a room, which could cause some of these symptoms. And so then I asked the question, you know, well, do you have any evidence that a Russian

agent got into a building and changed the settings on the air conditioning? And they said, no, we don't think that happened either. Now, this would have been something more accidental. So they essentially are being pretty categorical. And I think you could even say, you know, they did not bring up the neurotoxin issue specifically, but I think that based on the kind of, you know, declarative categorical nature of their conclusion, they would be ruling that out as well, unless it were something, unless that were something that fell under the category of environmental factors that had already been attributed to something specific to that individual.

It feels like there are still so many unanswered questions here. And I guess as someone who's been covering this for several years now, what are you ruminating on right now? What are you thinking about when it comes to this really mysterious story? Well, for me, it's really always come down to this few dozen or so cases of individuals whose symptoms cannot be attributed by experts to a pre-existing medical condition or to another illness or to some kind of environmental factor. So what about those people? Because, you know, I've interviewed some of them and of course I've read stories about others. And these are people who have real symptoms. In some cases, they have diagnosed traumatic brain injuries and it's not necessarily clear where they came from. So what exactly did

you offer to those people by way of explanation? And maybe we'll just never know. So that's one thing that's very mysterious to me. The other. It's also a pretty compelling case that the expert panel makes that it is plausible that one could. So I think, you know, with the intelligence findings, you're kind of left as a, you know, a common reader here of the report wondering if, you know, the evidence or the absence of evidence is the evidence of absence, if you know what I mean. Just because you didn't find it, are you sure that it doesn't exist? And, you know, I have no doubt from having interviewed analysts who participated in this review, I think they worked extremely hard. Many of them have described it as the biggest analytical challenge of their life. But when you come up empty in a way like this, of course, it just begs the question, well, did you miss something? Could there be, you know, is there some stone you didn't turn over? They insist that they feel, no, there's not.

But you're still left with these few dozen people who clearly have something wrong with them that medical experts cannot, you know, diagnose, that they can't really explain. So we'll see. The Defense Department is continuing its own investigation into this. Maybe they will come up with something that others missed or some different conclusion. Maybe they'll put weight the evidence differently. But for now, you know, the big investigation kind of comes up with this question mark, which I think is it's certainly unsatisfying to me as a reporter in many ways. But obviously for the victims themselves is incredibly frustrating. Well, I can't imagine how frustrating this has been for all of them the last several years. Shane, thank you so much for this. This was really interesting. As always,

the story is so fascinating. Thank you. Oh, thanks for having me on. I appreciate it. having me on. I appreciate it. All right, that to cbc.ca slash podcasts.