BOOK REVIEW: THE HAVANA SYNDROME: SECRET WEAPONS, A GOVERNMENT COVER-UP, AND THE GREATEST SPY MYSTERY OF OUR TIME
By Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados / Crown
Reviewed by: Michael J. Ard
The Reviewer: Michael J. Ard is a former CIA analyst and Deputy National Intelligence Officer for the Western Hemisphere. Ard is program director for the Master of Science in Intelligence Analysis program at Johns Hopkins University.
REVIEW: In “The Havana Syndrome,” the 60 Minutes journalists Michael Rey and Oriana Zill de Granados (henceforth, R&Z) claim that a worldwide, clandestine campaign by Russian intelligence using a secret weapon has attacked perhaps as many as 1,500 U.S. diplomats and intelligence officers, causing debilitating injuries such as headaches, hearing loss, memory problems, and vertigo, known colloquially as “the Havana Syndrome.” Moreover, the authors accuse the U.S. intelligence community, led by the CIA, of covering this Russian campaign up “to protect the building.”
These are bold claims. If R&Z are right, the “Havana Syndrome” case represents one of the most comprehensive intelligence, counterintelligence, and security failures in U.S. government history, made worse by a cynical campaign to sacrifice government employees and hide the truth.
But are they right? Fortunately, they almost certainly are not. Despite offering some circumstantial evidence, R&Z make highly disputable claims about Russian attacks. As for their allegation of a CIA cover-up, the best evidence indicates the opposite. Much like their four 60 Minutes episodes on the syndrome, R&Z only offer testimony that confirms their theory. This is a shame, because after nine years of researching the Havana Syndrome, they could have helped ease the minds of many anxious and suffering victims with a more realistic account of what probably happened to them, and a more honest account of the CIA’s and other agencies’ efforts to uncover the truth.
At the heart of R&Z’s tale is a fallacy common to conspiracy theories: that great consequences must have a great cause. It is far more compelling to believe that these Havana Syndrome illnesses were the result of enemy attacks than more prosaic explanations like stress and anxiety, spread by social contagion.
Before examining R&Z’s claims, let’s recap the story. Beginning in late 2016, about two dozen members of the U.S. diplomatic mission in Havana, Cuba, started complaining of mysterious ailments brought on by sudden “attacks.” Some U.S. physicians diagnosed these patients as having suffered neurological or vestibular injury. Initially, the Trump administration and the State Department blamed the Cuban government for these attacks, but subsequent investigations debunked this claim.
By 2018, cases had spread to U.S. diplomatic posts, hotel rooms, and private residences throughout the world, including locations in the United States. The FBI concluded that many of the victims may have suffered from a mass psychogenic illness, but others still suspected foreign adversary attacks. Some scientists disputed earlier findings about the Havana Syndrome in medical journals, casting doubt on the nature and extent of the injuries. Government-commissioned panels concluded different things: one positing a radio frequency (RF) weapon as the potential cause, another saying this was scientifically implausible. For a good summary of the case prior to 2020, the reader might wish to consult “Havana Syndrome” by Robert W. Baloh and Robert E. Bartholomew.
Decisively, in 2021 CIA Director William Burns ordered the creation of a new task force to further investigate the cause of the Havana Syndrome and the circumstances of alleged attacks. The task force investigated all aspects of the Havana Syndrome case, including numerous alleged attack sites around the world. This lengthy investigation resulted in two Intelligence Community Assessments, with unclassified versions released in 2023 and 2025, which concluded it was “very unlikely” a foreign adversary caused these illnesses, with coordinating agencies holding different degrees of confidence in the conclusions.
“The Havana Syndrome” traces the main developments in this narrative. The strength of R&Z’s book rests on its descriptions of several victims’ experiences and the heart-wrenching ailments of many Havana Syndrome victims. The book leaves the reader with no doubt that these symptoms are serious and real and that the victims urgently need medical treatment. Sadly, it is unsurprising to learn that many sufferers at times encountered confusion and insensitivity on the part of intelligence community bureaucracies.
This brings us to R&Z’s two central claims: (1) that Russian intelligence clandestinely used an energy weapon to attack U.S. officials at home and abroad, and (2) that the U.S. intelligence community, in an effort at damage control, covered up this fact.
First, let’s look at how R&Z make the case for Russian attacks with a “pulsed RF weapon.” The original theory was that the Cubans had attacked American (and Canadian) diplomatic personnel with a sonic weapon. That theory fell apart when it was discovered that the strange sound the victims heard was a local species of cricket and when victims began turning up in other countries. Then the attack theory evolved toward an RF weapon wielded by the Russians.
The trouble is that U.S. scientists doubted such a weapon existed because the physics would not work. The government’s JASON advisory group of scientists cast strong doubt on an RF weapon causing these symptoms in their 2018 classified report, later publicly released. Other scientific experts have long shared these doubts. R&Z acknowledge this but lean instead on a 2020 National Academies of Sciences report that found directed, pulsed RF energy to be the most plausible mechanism. R&Z also cite at length the theories of a retired Defense Intelligence Agency (DIA) analyst who claims a Russian weapon produced the injuries, although his home agency later endorsed the ICAs’ conclusions that no foreign actor caused the injuries. R&Z never resolve that inconsistency.
Moreover, as R&Z’s account reveals, no weapon was ever spotted by a victim, and we still have no evidence that one capable of operating clandestinely and producing these injuries exists. (Early this year, reports surfaced that the Defense Department had spent more than a year testing a portable device acquired in late 2024, but still no conclusive results have been reported.) Without an identified and capable weapon linked to an attack site, the Russian attack theory rests on shaky ground.
Even if such a weapon existed, R&Z fail to explain how Russian operatives could have used it in police states like Cuba, China, and Vietnam, clearly against the host countries’ interests, let alone in the United States and allied countries. Implausibly, Russian teams would have had to stage dozens of attacks and never get caught. But in R&Z’s own telling, alleged Russian operatives ineptly conduct operations with their cell phones activated.
Compared to the flimsy Russian attack theory, R&Z’s insistence on a CIA cover-up appears even more far-fetched. Far from ignoring the issue, all the affected U.S. agencies had established task forces to investigate Havana Syndrome incidents. The FBI attributed the problem to mass psychogenic illness in 2018 but did not have “a vice grip on the narrative,” as R&Z allege. The CIA’s new 2021 task force was a high-priority investigation, well-resourced and staffed with top agency experts. The operating assumption of Director Burns and his task force was that evidence of attacks probably would be found.
After two years of investigation, the National Intelligence Council issued the Intelligence Community Assessment that concluded that foreign adversary attacks were “very unlikely.” The intelligence community could not confirm that a single attack took place, nor could it discover the existence of the mystery weapon. R&Z ignore the extensive research conducted by the CIA’s task force, which included investigating scores of alleged attack sites abroad, establishing new collection requirements, targeting, surveillance, counterintelligence investigations, and weapons research. These details are explained in the 2023 ICA appendix.
Despite these efforts, R&Z accuse the former CIA chief operating officer (who retired in 2022, well before the ICAs’ publication) and the CIA deputy director of being “firmly in the camp that viewed the entire Havana Syndrome as a problem for the CIA that needed to go away” and of steering the task force’s analysis toward the no-foreign-attack conclusion. But R&Z’s theory simply does not fly. An effort to impose an analytic line on the task force would have grossly violated CIA’s norms and procedures and would have met strong resistance from the managers and analysts. Moreover, their assumed motive makes no sense. Why would identifying Russian attacks on U.S. personnel at home and abroad not be of critical interest to the CIA and the entire intelligence community? Far from being soft on Russia, the CIA was in the middle of assisting Ukraine’s fight against Russia.
Also highly questionable is the notion that CIA leadership could impose an analytic line on the task force and have it signed off by four other intelligence agencies. R&Z demonstrate remarkable ignorance of the independent analytic process in the U.S. intelligence community, to say nothing of their disrespect for the integrity of CIA professionals.
In June, outgoing Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard “rescinded” the two ICAs on the Havana Syndrome, alleging tradecraft issues but probably intending to snub the “deep state” intelligence community and the Biden administration. Yet Gabbard offered no alternative explanation for the syndrome’s origins. So, the controversy staggers on, with strong emotions likely to linger. Despite its multiple flaws, some readers will see “The Havana Syndrome” as validating their own theories. Meanwhile, the rest of us must wait for more impartial authors to tell the complete story of our intelligence community and the Havana Syndrome tragedy.
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