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

This 60 Minutes investigation was conducted in collaboration with Michael Weiss at TheInsider.ru, who provided additional reporting.

Former CIA Officer Marc Polymeropoulos is among the victims of Anomalous Health Incidents (AHI) hoping for vindication after reports of a classified mission.

The mission acquired a previously unknown weapon potentially linked to the mysterious illnesses, commonly known as Havana Syndrome, reported by U.S. government and military officials for more than a decade. Polymeropoulos worked for the CIA for nearly 30 years and rose to an executive level, earning multiple awards for service. 

“I did some very interesting things for the U.S. government, always with the idea that they would have my back if I got jammed up,” the former CIA officer said. “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 reports of newly discovered weapon will vindicate them

Polymeropoulos, who said he’s not a disgruntled former employee, said the CIA did not defend him after he was struck in 2017 in a hotel 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 said. “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.”

He experienced vertigo, severe migraines, loss of vision, and trouble with memory and concentration. Disabled, he retired. Polymeropoulos and other victims have been doubted by the U.S. government for years. 

“This is a massive CIA cover-up, and I say this with great regret,” Polymeropoulos said. “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 asked by the government to lead two scientific investigations into Havana Syndrome, said he also believes there was a government cover-up, though he said he does not believe it was pre-planned. He also said his studies were downplayed by parts of the U.S. government. 

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

Dr. Relman and Polymeropoulos were both among those who attended a meeting at the Biden White House shortly before the end of the president’s term in 2024. Dr. Relman was a White House adviser at the time who helped organize the meeting. He said some in the Biden White House had come to believe that the victims’ injuries were not caused by known medical or environmental conditions, as the CIA has asserted. Members of the National Security Council told Polymeropoulos and five other victims at the White House meeting, “We believe you,” according to Relman and Polymeropoulos.

“What the Biden administration was telling us was, something had changed,” Polymeropoulos said. “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 major general and formerly one of the Pentagon’s top doctors, brought a message to the meeting. Polymeropoulos said Friedrichs personally apologized to victims for the way they’d been treated. 

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

Sources told 60 Minutes the Biden White House wrote a public statement backing the victims, but never released it. So far, the Trump administration has not changed the words in the 2023 Intelligence Community Assessment that it is “very unlikely” the victims were attacked by a foreign adversary. But sources also said the Trump administration has briefed top intelligence officials in Congress and shown them a classified picture of a newly purchased device. At the Pentagon, some of the people who have investigated the attacks for the Department of Defense have been moved to a unit that develops new weapons, sources said. 

The Department of Defense declined to comment on the 60 Minutes report. The Office of the Director of National Intelligence, which oversees 18 intelligence agencies, including the CIA, said a new review of AHI will be “comprehensive and complete” with the office remaining “committed to delivering the truth.” (See ODNI’s full statement at the bottom of this article.)

A Havana Syndrome investigation 

The ODNI, which oversees the CIA, made an official determination on Havana Syndrome that it was “very unlikely” victims were attacked by a state actor or foreign adversary. The report, called an Intelligence Community Assessment, was issued in 2023 and updated in 2025, both under the Biden administration. 

A former CIA officer who worked on the agency’s investigation into AHI alleged the CIA’s investigation essentially ended in 2022 and that it appeared to him his superiors wanted to push the conclusion that AHIs were psychosomatic, atmospheric, and environmental. He also said they made fun of AHI victims. The former officer says this bothered him after he personally witnessed the impact of AHI on fellow officers while at a posting abroad in Central Asia. 

He says the CIA did not want people suggesting a foreign adversary was behind mysterious illnesses suffered by U.S. national security officials. 60 Minutes agreed to not use the name of the former officer, who ultimately resigned in 2022, but verified his work at the CIA.

“I left because I saw the personal impact of this issue,” he said. “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 tore me up emotionally.”

Despite the 2023 official intelligence assessment that its “very unlikely” victims of Havana Syndrome were attacked by a state actor or foreign adversary, Dr. Relman developed a different theory based on the science. He says both panels determined, “the most plausible explanation for a subset of these cases was a form of radiofrequency or microwave energy.”

Sources say U.S. obtained a weapon potentially linked to Havana Syndrome

60 Minutes has learned new details from three independent sources from different government agencies about a classified mission involving Homeland Security agents who, in 2024, purchased a previously unknown miniaturized microwave weapon from a complex Russian criminal network. Over $15 million in funding for the mission came from the Pentagon. While the specific device they purchased was not linked to any one AHI attack, it contains the pulsed microwave technology that could potentially cause Havana Syndrome symptoms, sources say.

Sources say that some in the CIA believed that any microwave weapon capable of causing the symptoms described by Havana Syndrome victims would need to be the size of a truck, which means it wouldn’t be plausible in the hundreds of cases.

But according to sources, the microwave weapon obtained by agents in 2024 is man-portable, concealable and uses relatively little power. The device doesn’t look anything like a gun. It is silent and doesn’t create heat the way a microwave oven would. The device, according to sources, is programmable for different scenarios and can be operated by remote control. The range of the beam is several hundred feet, and it can penetrate windows and drywall. 

Sources say the key to the device is not the hardware, but the software. The programming shapes a unique, electromagnetic wave that rises and falls abruptly and pulses rapidly. 

Sources told 60 Minutes the vital components were made in Russia. A Russian nexus was revealed during an earlier 60 Minutes Havana Syndrome investigation.

Dr. Relman would not discuss classified information but said his panels’ research had found that Russian scientists had been perfecting the concept of a pulsed microwave weapon for decades. 

“What the Russians spoke about was the importance of the energy being pulsed in order to have biological effects on humans,” Relman said. “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 could be an ideal stealth weapon. 

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

Sources told 60 Minutes the classified weapon obtained by the government has been tested in a U.S. military lab for more than a year. Tests on rats and sheep show injuries consistent with those seen in humans with Havana Syndrome.

Also, of note, sources have told 60 Minutes of security camera videos that show Americans being hit overseas. The videos are classified, and 60 Minutes hasn’t seen them, but they were described by sources. One is security camera video from a restaurant in Istanbul which captures two FBI agents on vacation, sitting at a table with their families. A man with a backpack walks in and, suddenly, everyone at the table grabs their heads, as if in pain. Sources said another video is from a stairwell in the U.S. embassy in Vienna, showing two people on the stairs suddenly collapsing. 

The troubling reality ahead

The sources who spoke with 60 Minutes said the classified mission to obtain the microwave weapon points to a troubling reality. They say there are likely many of these devices and if undercover agents could purchase one from gangsters, then the Russians have lost control of a stealth weapon that could be used by anyone, anywhere.

Looking back, the CIA officer who investigated Havana Syndrome at the agency before quitting in disgust said that, in his view, the CIA was careless against a ruthless adversary, which he says he believes is Russia. If a foreign adversary was found to be behind Havana Syndrome attacks, he says, the operation would be considered a major 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 said. “The impact of that is astronomical. And it’s something you can’t almost even calculate.”

ODNI’s full statement:

• The team conducting the review of AHI intelligence has been and continues to be relentless in its work and pursuit of the truth to complete the assessment.
• ODNI’s review of this issue will be comprehensive and complete before it is released. DNI Gabbard has provided the time, resources, and support needed to ensure the review is fulsome and accurate.
• We remain committed to delivering the truth that the American people deserve.