During the past five years, US newspapers and magazines have published a number of articles about the Havana syndrome — a sudden onset of ringing in the ears, dizziness, imbalance, earache, headache, and changes in behavior — which originated in the city after which it is named, and soon afflicted several hundred Foreign Service and CIA officers around the world.
The most detailed of these articles appeared in The New Yorker in November 2018, under the title “The Mystery of the Havana Syndrome.”
It was written by Adam Entous and Jon Lee Anderson. Relying heavily on State Department and intelligence agency sources, Entous and Anderson informed their readers that no one in the United States government had any idea how the Havana syndrome was operating to adversely affect the people who were exposed to it. Other media echoed similar claims of ignorance about the syndrome.
These claims are open to question. I am a former staff writer at The New Yorker who, in 1976, wrote the first articles about the ability of microwave radiation to cause changes in the central nervous system and behavior, as well as other biological effects. They appeared in the magazine when the Soviet Union was bombarding the US embassy in Moscow with microwave radiation known as the “Moscow Signal.”
At the time, government officials surmised that the Soviets were using the radiation to activate listening devices hidden in the walls of the embassy. They also voiced concern that it was being employed to affect the behavior of US diplomats and other personnel who were stationed there.
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