Since 2016, U.S. government officials overseas and their families have reported sudden, unexplained, brain injuries with symptoms of vertigo, confusion and memory loss.
The CIA, FBI and State Department are investigating a theory that some of these officials were injured by an unseen weapon. Who might be targeting Americans and why are unknown. Incidents have been reported in Europe, Asia, and Latin America, but our reporting has found senior national security officials who say they were stricken in Washington and on the grounds of the White House. The former officials you are about to meet are revealing their experiences for the first time.
Olivia Troye: It was almost like I couldn't really process. It was like a paralyzing panic attack. I've never had that. I've never felt anything like that. And so I-- you know, I-- I thought to myself,"I mean, do I have a brain tumor out of the blue? Is this what happens? Am I having a stroke?" It appears there are several. A senior member of the National Security Council says he was stricken in November 2020, on the same steps by the West Wing. That former official, whose incident was first reported in the New Yorker, asked us not to name him. But he described the incident to a close colleague, John Bolton, former national security adviser.
Miles Taylor: Your job is to oversee the roughly 250,000 men and women of the department that conduct a range of missions from aviation security to border security to cybersecurity.Miles Taylor: It was late one night in April 2018. I'd just become deputy chief of staff of the department, taking on some additional sensitive issues at DHS, and woke up in my apartment that night, a row house on Capitol Hill, to a really strange sound.
More than a fluke, a pattern across two administrations. Recent injuries among U.S. officials were reported in Vienna, Austria—ahead of a trip by the vice president to Vietnam and in India during a visit by the director of the CIA. In 2019, during a visit by President Trump to London, two members of John Bolton's national security staff became ill in a hotel.
They were evacuated and enrolled in a State Department treatment program at the University of Pennsylvania. Recently, Garfield told us his family was hit again during their year of treatment in Philadelphia. Persistent neurological symptoms are not the only fight these Americans have faced. Some of their early reports were dismissed as psychosomatic, or illnesses connected to an infection or exposure to pesticides. Some were told that they were suffering the effect of old sports injuries. One theory had it that the sound these victims heard during the incidents was actually a particular species of cicada.
With the first public reports coming from Cuba the affliction became known as"Havana Syndrome." More than two dozen embassy officials reported injury, but an early FBI report speculated it was all mass hysteria. His brain injuries left him disabled, essentially retired, at the age of 36. A weighted vest helps him balance. His service dog helps with walking and his loss of vision.
William Burns: Early on, I tripled the number of full-time medical personnel working on this issue. We streamlined access to Walter Reed, established new partnerships with other world-class medical providers, increased the number of case managers. And we're also making progress on the investigative side as well.
Dr. David Relman: This subset of cases had a very unusual, so-called acute sensory event, an experience that consisted of the abrupt onset of intense pressure or vibration in the face or head sometimes with the abrupt onset of sound. UNIDENTIFIED PERSON: And then this just loud sound just absolutely filled my room.
James Benford is a physicist and leading authority on microwaves. He was not part of the government studies, but he co-wrote the book on microwave transmission. These are portable microwave transmitters of the kind that could damage the tissues of the brain. The investigation is also trying to understand who could be behind this and their motive. Microwaves can be a tool for spies. Some devices are capable of collecting data, remotely, from phones and computers whatever is causing the brain injuries, a CIA interim report, last month, said there is no evidence of a massive, global, campaign to attack americans.
John Bolton: If we were at war and an adversary could disable the president and his top advisors, or commanders in the field. It could render us extraordinarily vulnerable. We don't know that that's the threat we're facing. But I would much rather focus on finding out the answer now, rather than finding out later when it may be too late.
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