Former CIA officer criticizes the agency’s investigation into Havana Syndrome

This 60 Minutes investigation was performed in collaboration with Michael Weiss at TheInsider.ru, who supplied further reporting.

Former CIA Officer Marc Polymeropoulos is amongst the victims of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI) hoping for vindication after experiences of a categorised mission.

The mission acquired a beforehand unknown weapon doubtlessly linked to the mysterious sicknesses, generally often known as Havana Syndrome, reported by US authorities and army officers for greater than a decade. Polymeropoulos labored for the CIA for almost 30 years and rose to an government stage, incomes a number of awards for service.

“I did some very interesting things for the US government, always with the idea that they would have my back if I got jammed up,” the former CIA officer mentioned. “I just needed to get medical care when I came back, and they wouldn’t even do that. So this moral injury, this sense of betrayal is so acute with me. That’s something that I can never forgive them for.”

Victims hope experiences of newly found weapon will vindicate them

Polymeropoulos, who mentioned he isn’t a disgruntled former worker, mentioned the CIA didn’t defend him after he was struck in 2017 in a resort room in Moscow. He remembers waking up with vertigo, a blinding headache, and tinnitus.

“It was a terrifying feeling where I lost control. You know, something had seriously happened to me,” Polymeropoulos mentioned. “I remember feeling, you know, that this is so unusual. I’d been shot at in places like Iraq and Afghanistan. I’d been in physical danger. But this was terrifying.”

I’ve skilled vertigo, extreme migraines, lack of imaginative and prescient, and bother with reminiscence and focus. Disabled, I’ve retired. Polymeropoulos and different victims have been doubted by the US authorities for years.

“This is a massive CIA cover-up, and I say this with great regret,” Polymeropoulos mentioned. “It’s an organization that I loved. I believe in the mission. I was really good at this job. To this day I want to see the CIA operate in a strong and effective manner.”

Dr. David Relman, a Stanford University professor who was requested by the authorities to steer two scientific investigations into Havana Syndrome, mentioned he additionally believes there was a authorities cover-up, though he mentioned he doesn’t consider it was pre-planned. He additionally mentioned his research had been downplayed by elements of the US authorities.

“And not only downplayed but dismissed, in some cases, buried,” Relman mentioned.

Dr. Relman and Polymeropoulos had been each amongst those that attended a gathering at the Biden White House shortly earlier than the finish of the president’s time period in 2024. Dr. Relman was a White House adviser at the time who helped set up the assembly. He mentioned some in the Biden White House had come to consider that the victims’ accidents weren’t brought on by recognized medical or environmental situations, as the CIA has asserted. Members of the National Security Council advised Polymeropoulos and 5 different victims at the White House assembly, “We believe you,” in response to Relman and Polymeropoulos.

“What the Biden administration was telling us was, something had changed,” Polymeropoulos mentioned. “New intelligence had come in. Now, I don’t have a security clearance, and this was an unclassified meeting, so they could not put forth that this was based on new intelligence, but it was clear to me that that was what they were insinuating.”

Dr. Paul Friedrichs, a retired main normal and previously considered one of the Pentagon’s prime medical doctors, introduced a message to the assembly. Polymeropoulos mentioned Friedrichs personally apologized to victims for the method they’d been handled.

“I have chills now thinking about it. I had chills then,” Polymeropoulos mentioned. “It was an indication that at least some people in the Biden administration, in the Biden White House, believed us.”

Sources advised 60 Minutes the Biden White House wrote a public assertion backing the victims, however by no means launched it. So far, the Trump administration has not modified the phrases in the 2023 Intelligence Community Assessment that it’s “very unlikely“The victims had been attacked by a overseas adversary. But sources additionally mentioned the Trump administration has briefed prime intelligence officers in Congress and proven them a categorised image of a newly bought machine. At the Pentagon, a few of the individuals who have investigated the assaults for the Department of Defense have been moved to a unit that develops new weapons, sources mentioned.

The Department of Defense declined to touch upon the 60 Minutes report. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 intelligence companies, together with the CIA, mentioned a brand new evaluation of AHI will likely be “comprehensive and complete” with the remaining workplace “committed to delivering the truth.” (See ODNI’s full assertion at the backside of this text.)

A Havana Syndrome investigation

The ODNI, which oversees the CIA, made an official willpower on Havana Syndrome that it was “very unlikely victims” had been attacked by a state actor or overseas adversary. The report, referred to as an Intelligence Community Assessment, was issued in 2023 and up to date in 2025, each underneath the Biden administration.

A former CIA officer who labored on the agency’s investigation into AHI alleged the CIA’s investigation primarily resulted in 2022 and that it appeared to him his superiors needed to push the conclusion that AHIs had been psychosomatic, atmospheric, and environmental. He additionally mentioned they made enjoyable of AHI victims. The former officer says this bothered him after he personally witnessed the impression of AHI on fellow officers whereas at a posting overseas in Central Asia.

He says the CIA didn’t need individuals suggesting a overseas adversary was behind mysterious sicknesses suffered by US nationwide safety officers. 60 Minutes agreed to not use the identify of the former officer, who in the end resigned in 2022, however verified his work at the CIA.

“I left because I saw the personal impact of this issue,” he mentioned. “And for me, it became a moral issue because they kept saying ‘Our people are our highest priority.’ But when it came down to it, that wasn’t the case from what I saw. And it was something that took me up emotionally.”

Despite the 2023 official intelligence evaluation that its “very unlikely” victims of Havana Syndrome had been attacked by a state actor or overseas adversary, Dr. Relman developed a distinct principle based mostly on the science. He says each panels decided, “the most plausible explanation for a subset of these cases was a form of radiofrequency or microwave energy.”

Sources say US obtained a weapon doubtlessly linked to Havana Syndrome

60 Minutes has discovered new particulars from three impartial sources from completely different authorities companies a couple of categorised mission involving Homeland Security brokers who, in 2024, bought a beforehand unknown miniaturized microwave weapon from a posh Russian felony community. Over $15 million in funding for the mission got here from the Pentagon. While the particular machine they bought was not linked to anybody AHI assault, it accommodates the pulsed microwave know-how that might doubtlessly trigger Havana Syndrome signs, sources say.

Sources say that some in the CIA believed that any microwave weapon able to inflicting the signs described by Havana Syndrome victims would must be the dimension of a truck, which suggests it would not be believable in the a whole bunch of instances.

But in response to sources, the microwave weapon obtained by brokers in 2024 is man-portable, concealable and makes use of comparatively little energy. The machine would not look something like a gun. It is silent and would not create warmth the method a microwave oven would. The machine, in response to sources, is programmable for various situations and will be operated by distant management. The vary of the beam is a number of hundred ft, and it might penetrate home windows and drywall.

Sources say the key to the machine will not be the {hardware}, however the software program. The programming types a singular, electromagnetic wave that rises and falls abruptly and pulses quickly.

Sources advised 60 Minutes the important elements had been made in Russia. TO Russian nexus was revealed throughout an earlier 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation.

Dr. Relman wouldn’t talk about categorised data however mentioned his panels’ analysis had discovered that Russian scientists had been perfecting the idea of a pulsed microwave weapon for many years.

“What the Russians spoke about was the importance of the energy being pulsed in order to have biological effects on humans,” Relman mentioned. “When you produce pulses like this, you can actually stimulate electrically active tissue like brain tissue and the heart, for that matter, mimicking what the brain normally does, but now you’re driving it with your pulses from the outside.”

Dr. Relman agreed this might be a perfect stealth weapon.

“Ideal, because literally the person feels as if this is in my head,” he mentioned.

Sources advised 60 Minutes the categorised weapon obtained by the authorities has been test in a US military lab for greater than a 12 months. Tests on rats and sheep present accidents in keeping with these seen in people with Havana Syndrome.

Also, of notice, sources have advised 60 Minutes of safety digicam movies that present Americans being hit abroad. The movies are categorised, and 60 Minutes hasn’t seen them, however they had been described by sources. One is safety digicam video from a restaurant in Istanbul which captures two FBI brokers on trip, sitting at a desk with their households. A person with a backpack walks in and, out of the blue, everybody at the desk grabs their heads, as if in ache. Sources mentioned one other video is from a stairwell in the US embassy in Vienna, exhibiting two individuals on the stairs out of the blue collapsing.

The troubling actuality forward

The sources who spoke with 60 Minutes mentioned the categorised mission to acquire the microwave weapon factors to a troubling actuality. They say there are probably many of those gadgets and if undercover brokers might buy one from gangsters, then the Russians have misplaced management of a stealth weapon that might be utilized by anybody, anyplace.

Looking again, the CIA officer who investigated Havana Syndrome at the company earlier than quitting in disgust mentioned that, in his view, the CIA was careless towards a ruthless adversary, which he says he believes is Russia. If a overseas adversary was discovered to be behind Havana Syndrome assaults, he says, the operation could be thought-about a larger success for that adversary.

“Let’s say one of these cases was real and it created all this fear, paranoia, anxiety here in the United States and overseas,” he mentioned. “The impact of that is astronomical. And it’s something you can’t almost even calculate.”

ODNI’s full assertion:

• The crew conducting the evaluation of AHI intelligence has been and continues to be relentless in its work and pursuit of the fact to finish the evaluation.
• ODNI’s evaluation of this problem will likely be complete and full earlier than it’s launched. DNI Gabbard has supplied the time, assets, and assist wanted to make sure the evaluation is fulsome and correct.
• We stay dedicated to delivering the fact that the American individuals deserve.