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In late 2017, while traveling to Moscow on official duty, I experienced a sudden, debilitating health incident. After a long and arduous battle with the CIA to obtain treatment, military doctors at the Walter Reed National Military Medical Center outside Washington ultimately diagnosed and treated me for a line-of-duty traumatic brain injury. I was never the same after the incident and years of painful recovery continue to this day.

I served for 26 years in the U.S. intelligence community, rising to the Senior Intelligence Service’s top ranks and receiving the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal upon retirement. Yet my departure from government was not voluntary, it was by necessity.

Since 1996, intelligence officers, diplomats, and military servicemembers have reported hundreds of cases of what is commonly known as Havana Syndrome — a misnomer for a condition officially designated by the U.S. government as “Anomalous Health Incidents.” I am one of them.

After several internal reviews, the CIA and the Office of the Director of National Intelligence under the Biden administration issued judgments that downplayed the possibility of foreign involvement, often attributing Havana Syndrome symptoms to “environmental factors” or pre-existing conditions without further explanation. At the CIA, senior leaders in the office of the Chief Operating Officer, the Office of Medical Services, and the Directorate of Analysis often privately denigrated victims — including me — by accusing us of fabricating our conditions for financial gain. After I retired, I testified in closed sessions to Congress about my experiences with such gaslighting. On one occasion, then-Sen. Marco Rubio was in the audience. He seemed like such an advocate for us when we spoke afterwards — but has very surprisingly done nothing since.

In my view, the U.S. intelligence community’s assessment of Havana Syndrome reflected a serious medical and analytic bias — anchored by early CIA senior leadership judgments — that shaped how medical professionals and analysts treated the issue. To date, there has been little visible accountability for those decisions made by CIA senior leaders from both the first Trump administration and then more critically, the Biden team at the agency.

Since late 2024, however, new public reporting and official government statements signaled a possible shift. On Dec. 5, 2024 the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence released an unclassified summary that challenged prior assessments. A month later, the National Security Council put out a press statement saying earlier judgments were under review. Both documents, now in the public record, questioned the assessment that there was no intelligence suggesting foreign involvement with Havana Syndrome. Something had changed.

In January of last year, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence then-chairman Rep. Mike Turner went further, stating that “a foreign adversary is likely responsible.” A CIA Subcommittee report criticized the intelligence community for thwarting congressional investigation and said there was “direct evidence” that a 2023 assessment “was developed in a manner inconsistent with analytic integrity.” As of Dec. 2025, Rep. Rick Crawford, the current chairman of the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence, committed to further investigation and transparency. Press reporting in Oct. 2025 indicated that the committee sent criminal referrals to the Department of Justice, due to potential illegal actions by intelligence officials. Even before these developments, the tide began to turn during the final months of the Biden administration.

On Nov. 12, 2024, senior National Security Council staff invited multiple affected intelligence officers — including me — to a White House Situation Room meeting. By that point, some of us had been meeting with the council for years, as it had pressed a recalcitrant CIA on Havana Syndrome. Many of us leaned on the council’s intelligence shop as an ally — albeit an imperfect one — while our parent agencies had been involved in gaslighting us and rejecting our medical claims. This unclassified session in the Situation Room was extraordinary.

Several senior officials told us directly: “We believe you.” One even admitted, “We failed you.” For those of us long dismissed and doubted, these words mattered. I left the meeting feeling that perhaps the U.S. government had turned a corner. Later, one of the senior officials at the meeting, Dr. David Relman, the senior advisor in the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response Policy at the White House, urged that Havana Syndrome be taken seriously.

Even before the Nov. 2024 Situation Room meeting, a few National Security Council officials privately conceded to the victims — including me — that the intelligence community’s approach had been terribly flawed. They acknowledged that CIA leaders and analysts had resisted and ultimately ignored compelling intelligence that challenged their beliefs. From my perspective, the CIA’s resistance in particular caused victims to suffer without care, unable to access government medical facilities.

During the meeting, Dr. Paul Friedrichs, the director of the Office of Pandemic Preparedness and Response at the White House, did in fact apologize to the victims — including me. He said that he had never seen such neglect for victims in over three decades of practicing military medicine. For those of us who had suffered for years, we felt vindicated.

Yet Friedrichs’s words were more than an apology — they were a signal that the narrative was changing. The Biden administration’s own National Security Council conceded that something was rotten in the intelligence community, particularly in the CIA. Personally, I believed for some time that a massive coverup was going on. What happened in the Situation Room that day confirmed my suspicion.

The National Security Council told us they wanted to pass on a playbook to the incoming Trump administration to finally get Havana Syndrome right. There was reason to be hopeful.

Current Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard has promised a fresh look at addressing the issue, including the possibility of drafting a new Intelligence Community Assessment. In her confirmation hearings and subsequent statements, she committed to this. The victims applauded this decision and in private backchannels to the Trump administration urged her to move swiftly. Personally, I find myself in unusual territory. I have been a frequent and at times acerbic critic of this administration. I agree with it on virtually nothing. Yet in the case of Havana Syndrome, I was encouraged by what I was hearing from Gabbard and others. If the administration does the right thing on this issue, I will be the first to offer sincere public thanks, including to the president himself. The ball is in his court to fix this.

However, despite all the promises from Gabbard, CIA director John Ratcliffe, and the House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence to reopen the investigation and recall previous flawed analysis, there is still no visible progress. Recent news that the U.S. government purchased a device on the black market that produces pulsed radio waves and contains Russian components, and that the Norwegian government investigated and tested such a device, contradicts earlier assessments that such things do not exist.

Victims are feeling a creeping sense of betrayal once again. I cannot help but wonder whether the intelligence community, especially the CIA, is continuing to stonewall us.

The Trump administration should act now get to the truth, honor the victims, and ensure the safety of U.S. government personnel on the front lines. Three steps remain essential:

Accountability

First, the administration and Congress should clarify by whom, how, and why earlier intelligence judgments were made, why victims were denied timely care, and why participation in research was required as a condition for treatment. As important, victims should know why they were denigrated by Biden-era CIA senior leaders. Transparency is vital, including declassification and public release of the 2022 CIA Inspector General report. Victims and the American public deserve this. Accountability at the CIA should follow.

Access to Health Care

Second, victims and their family members should have guaranteed access to the best available medical care. Treatment should err on the side of action, not denial. When I asked Walter Reed senior staff how much our month-long intensive traumatic brain injury treatment cost, they told me a startling $37 ­— roughly the price to check a bag on a flight. That treatment saved lives. All victims should receive lifelong access to Walter Reed — or equivalent care — especially given the CIA’s historical and continued lack of internal capacity to provide adequate medical support.

Attribution

Finally, a foreign adversary appears likely responsible for causing Havana Syndrome. That possibility demands sustained resources and a whole-of-government investigation, not one led solely by a biased CIA. If evidence confirms a hostile power targeted U.S. personnel, the government should respond forcefully. If it is Russia, then the administration should have the courage to act, regardless of consequences. The stakes — for U.S. national security and for those who are called to serve overseas — are too high for equivocation.

The U.S. government asks its intelligence officers, diplomats, and military servicemembers to operate in some of the world’s most challenging environments. They deserve the confidence knowing that if injured in the line of duty, their government will stand with them.

For the victims of Havana Syndrome, the past several years have been marked by physical, emotional, and professional loss. None of us is the same person we were before our injuries. Even more painful has been the sense of moral injury and betrayal — first by the incidents themselves, and then by an institutional response from our own government across multiple administrations that left us isolated and disbelieved.

It is time to formally acknowledge what the victims knew long ago: We were right.

Marc Polymeropoulos served for 26 years at the CIA and retired in 2019 from the Senior Intelligence Service. He served in operational and management roles across the Middle East and South Asia, including extensive time in Iraq and Afghanistan. He is the recipient of the Distinguished Intelligence Medal, the Intelligence Commendation Medal, the Intelligence Medal of Merit, the Distinguished Career Intelligence Medal, and the George H. Bush Award for Excellence in Counterterrorism. He is a MSNOW national security contributor and a nonresident senior fellow at the Atlantic Council. 

All statements of fact, opinion, or analysis expressed are those of the author and do not reflect the official positions or views of the U.S. government. Nothing in the contents of this article should be construed as asserting or implying U.S. government authentication of information or endorsement of the author’s views.

Image: Midjourney