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WTH Is Havana Syndrome? Catherine Herridge Discusses Whether Russia Is Responsible for Covert Neurological Attacks on US Personnel

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WTH Is Havana Syndrome? Catherine Herridge Discusses Whether Russia Is Responsible for Covert Neurological Attacks on US Personnel WTH is Havana Syndrome? Catherine Herridge discusses whether Russia is responsible for covert neurological attacks on US personnel Episode #112 | July 21, 2021 | Danielle Pletka, Marc Thiessen, and Catherine Herridge Danielle Pletka: Hi, I'm Danielle Pletka. Marc Thiessen: And I'm Marc Thiessen. Danielle Pletka: going on this week? Marc Thiessen: Well, we're talking about Havana Syndrome. So, about five years ago, a bunch of US diplomats in Havana, Cuba, all of the sudden started having this pressure in the head, loss of balance, ringing in the ears, all these mysterious neurological symptoms. And they were completely unexplained. And there was speculation, was some sort of weapon being used? This story happened and then it sort of went away for a while. Marc Thiessen: And then this started happening in other countries. It's happened now in six different countries. Most recently, Catherine Herridge of CBS News has reported that at least two cases have happened near the White House, so it's happening in the United States capital. Marc Thiessen: And so it seems like the Russians have developed a directed-energy weapon that they are deploying against US diplomats on multiple countries and multiple continents, and including in Washington, DC. Danielle Pletka: Alright so let's step back a second. For anybody who hasn't been paying close attention to this, this sounds like Dr. Strangelove on steroids. I mean, this is something out of Get Smart. Danielle Pletka: Marc, you said that these started being reported by our personnel in Havana and what is truly amazing is that for at least three years, if not more, these personnel, including very senior US government officials-these are not young puppies who've just gotten out there and are nervous-these are senior, seasoned, experienced, and well-traveled officials are reporting these symptoms, and for the most part, they are getting the brush-off from their agencies: the State Department, AID, and the Central Intelligence Agency. 2 Danielle Pletka: So they're complaining, and they are being accused of making it up, and, at worst, of suffering from mass hysteria, and they can't get anyone to take them seriously! Can you imagine to yourself something like this happening, and you go to your boss, up there in the chain of command, and they say, "What are you, stupid? What are you, nuts? That's not happening to you." It's heartbreaking. Marc Thiessen: Well, it sounds like they're getting taken seriously now, and that's in part fact thanks to Catherine's reporting. There are congressional hearings now taken place, Susan Collins is taking a leadership role up on Capitol Hill in addressing this. Whenever Congress gets involved, all the sudden, the administration starts to take things seriously. Marc Thiessen: Antony Blinken, our Secretary of State, actually testified on this and told the Senate that, he said, "Here's the hard reality right now. We do not know what caused these incidents. We don't know who, if anyone, is actually responsible." I don't know that that's true, that we don't know. The reality is that it seems like most of the victims are related to Russia, are involved in spying on Russia, or have Russia-related portfolios. Marc Thiessen: And I t's happening in places like Havana, where the Russians have had a long relationship with the Cuban regime, and basically consider it a satellite country. And in other places, it's happened in Moscow, against US officials. If you go and just look at the pool, I think Catherine's reported, there are like 130 individuals who have reported these kinds of attacks. Marc Thiessen: You can just look at the pool of people and what they do and where they were and draw some pretty good conclusions as to who's behind this. And it seems like it's intentional. It seems like it is directed by Russia or somebody related to Russia. And I don't know that the United States government is making this an issue with Moscow yet. Danielle Pletka: I don't either, and part of the reason is because this is really in a space that I think we are a little bit confused about, and this is part of the reason why these folks weren't taken seriously. Just to give our listeners a little bit of a taste for this, because when you talk about headaches, dizziness, pressure in your head, it sounds like something that may be an epiphenomenon. In fact, a couple of Canadians reported this to their government, Canadians who were working in Havana, and a Canadian newspaper suggested that with all of the Zika virus that was going on, and this is obviously before COVID, that maybe it had been the spraying against mosquitoes that was causing this. You can see how people might be frustrated. Danielle Pletka: But in Pennsylvania, researchers actually tried to dig into this a little better. And I want to read this out to our listeners. Danielle Pletka: What they did was they took 40 of the diplomats who had reported the symptoms, and then they took 48 healthy volunteers. People who basically roughly matched these guys in age, and ethnicity, and education, to have an apples-to-apple comparison, they gave them all MRIs. Danielle Pletka: Overall, the diplomats studied had 5% less white-matter volume in their brains AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 3 than the healthy volunteers did. And certain parts of their brains, including, in particular, the cerebellum, which controls voluntary movement, were marked by- and here, I'm reading from the Wall Street Journal coverage of this-"... by notable differences in brain tissue volume and the diffusion of water through the tissues. The diplomats' brains also had less connectivity in the networks responsible for hearing and visualizing and locating objects." Danielle Pletka: Just a last little word about this, because I think we're going to get to the heart of what is the challenge to us. The doctor who they interviewed says, "Something happened to these brains to cause a difference." This is a radiology professor and one of the authors of the study. She said, "What happened to the brains and what caused that difference, that's not so nd that's our challenge right now. Marc Thiessen: Well, we know the State Department is finally taking us seriously because Secretary Blinken said that the State Department is now starting baseline concussion testing for all US officials before they head out into the field. If you're a parent who has a kid playing sports, any contact sports, everybody does baseline concussion testing so you can know if you got a concussion on the field. We now have to do this for our diplomats, because our diplomats are in danger of traumatic brain injury just for being at station. This is a really serious matter. Marc Thiessen: Joe Biden came to the White House promising to get tough with Russia, right? We've had multiple podcasts about it this where we talked about, well, now, he's caved on the Nord Stream 2 pipeline. He gave Putin, during the summit... drew a red line around 16 sectors of the economy that were off-limits to cyber- attacks. I don't know, has he given him a list of 16 different US government positions that are off limits for traumatic brain injury attacks? I don't know. But I don't get the sense that the Biden administration is taking this all that seriously or actually ready to impose any consequences for these attacks. Danielle Pletka: So, look, I want to play people our interview, because we have actually Catherine Herridge, who we've been talking about from CBS who did all this reporting, but I want to put something in people's minds before you listen to the interview. Danielle Pletka: When you talk about anything like this, it feels a little bit less real, especially when it's a non-visible physical injury, whether it's a mental, psychological, or neurological injury, it seems less real. Danielle Pletka: Think about it this way, and this is one of the things I mentioned to Catherine: think about some foreign bad guy standing outside our diplomatic mission and shooting at just a bunch of the people who come out. Would that be okay? Would an administration do something about that? Danielle Pletka: I think the obvious answer to that is: any administration, Joe Biden, Donald Trump, Donald Duck would do something about this. And the question that has arisen in my mind, of course, is, as you say Marc, what the hell are they doing about this now that they figured out that something's up? Marc Thiessen: Let's find out what the hell is going on, and we've got the perfect person to do AMERICAN ENTERPRISE INSTITUTE | 1789 Massachusetts Ave, NW, Washington, DC 20036 | 202.862.5800 | aei.org 4 that Dany. Danielle Pletka: Catherine Herridge is a senior investigative correspondent at CBS news, but for many years, she was at Fox News channel, she actually joined them at their inception, and prior to that, she'd been a London-based correspondent for ABC News. Catherine truly is the gold-standard of national security reporting, the kind of person you'd like to see. And credit where credit is due, the CBS investigative unit that she worked with and her producer Andrew Bast really have done fine, fine work and some very difficult digging to bring you great information on Havana Syndrome.
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