Hosted by Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove
Guest
Episode Summary
In this episode of One Decision In Brief, hosts Christina Ruffini and Sir Richard Dearlove, former head of MI6, dive into a very controversial and perplexing mystery, Havana Syndrome. The hosts break down a range of surveillance devices possibly used in Havana, Cuba, against U.S diplomats and embassy staffers, and explore whether foreign rivals like Russia, China, or Cuba could be responsible. Sir Richard speaks on his intelligence experience, providing real-world examples of Cold War espionage, including Soviet listening devices hidden in embassy walls, and how the accidental use of a laser beam allowed for the interception of private conversations. They examine how advanced eavesdropping tools and listening devices might unintentionally harm U.S. officials and whether the government has done enough to investigate cases or support those affected with long-term trauma.
Episode produced by Situation Room Studios. Original music composed and produced by Leo Sidran.
Listen & Subscribe
- Watch on YouTube
- Listen on Apple Podcasts
- Listen on Spotify
Transcript
INTRODUCTION
Raffini: Hello, welcome to One Decision In Brief. I'm Christina Raffini, joined today by my co-host, Richard Dearlove. Today, we're gonna talk about Havana syndrome. Okay. So for those who don't know quite what we're talking about, Havana syndrome started in around 2016 about a dozen overseas locations where embassies, intelligence officials, mostly in Havana, Cuba started reporting these kind of neurological symptoms. It was dizziness, it was cognitive problems, insomnia, headaches, and it got kind of a catchall diagnosis called Havana syndrome, but it's been very controversial. Some people have said it doesn't exist. Some people have said these people are trying to get benefits they don't deserve. The people who've been affected by it, I mean, I know when I was at CBS sixty Minutes did a whole thing by it, have said it was debilitating. It was really a struggle to get taken seriously, and it's kind of waned in the last couple years, but the issue is still out there. So what is your understanding of of what caused this, and why do you think it is a real phenomenon?
ANALYSIS WITH SIR RICHARD DEARLOVE
Dearlove: I don't know. I'm guessing. But I'm guessing from my background, and I think it's possibly something to do with an energy source, and that energy source is being fired at the building. Let's put it in the most general terms, for purposes of eavesdropping or interception of the radiation from machines used in the embassy like cipher machines. So there could be a lot. I mean, this to me seems to be the only logical explanation. Look. If you are a US diplomat in Havana, the threat of eavesdropping and the threat of attacks on your building are multiple. I mean, that's just a fact of life when you're living in such a hostile environment. The same would apply to certain embassies when they were behind the iron curtain. And there various sophisticated means of eavesdropping which do not require access. What I mean by that is there's not gonna be a physical microphone in the room where you're trying to listen to a conversation, so you're firing an energy beam to pick up emanations of speech like vibrations of lampshades or windows.
Raffini: Well, right. I mean, look. I work in TV. I know what a parabolic mic is. You know? They can get vibrations off glass and things like that. FBI and intel agencies have been using them forever. Yeah. That was the theory is it could be the Russians. It could be the Chinese. It could be the Cubans beaming some sort of high energy whatever either to look at people's heat signatures, either to try to read documents, either to try to eavesdrop. There was some sort of spy device that was going on that was essentially kind of rattling, boiling people's brains when it was piercing through these embassies. And that doesn't seem out of the realm of possibility, but it seems like they were able to pinpoint what exactly it was.
Dearlove: Yeah, I find that surprising because, you know, if you have evidence that something like that is going on, you send a technical team in with all sorts of kit to measure what the hell's happening. I think what you have to bear in mind this is an area where you have like sort of escalation of sophistication. You've got new techniques being used and developed which may be difficult to detect, and you know once something is detected you're trying to develop something new. So this for me is really the only reasonable explanation, but I mean bear in mind that within embassies you have what's called safe speech areas which are specifically designed so that they cannot theoretically be eavesdropped. Right, a skiff. Yeah. Yeah, but it could well be an attack on the technology which supposedly can't be eavesdropped. So look, there are many different aspects which could explain this. And in my own mind, I think the symptoms described seem to tell me that, look, if you went and stood in a microwave tower energy beam, you would be very strongly affected by it.
Raffini: I mean, I don't normally try to do that, but yes. Yes. Yes. Yeah. But the US intelligence community has come to competing conclusions even within itself. So there's a 12/05/2024 House report that concluded it is increasingly likely that a foreign adversary is responsible for symptoms known as Havana syndrome. And then in January 2025, two American intelligence agencies shifted their assessments to acknowledge that it's possible a foreign adversary developed or deployed a weapon causing some of these cases, although five agencies assess foreign involvement as quote, very unlikely. I think that these symptoms seem to be real. I do wonder if it is caused maybe by some of the other things you were talking about, devices, machines, things within the embassy themselves that could be doing exactly what you were talking about, leaking radiation. Or there is a phenomenon well known called sick building syndrome where, you know, people in a building experience health problems. They can't figure out what it is. In one case, it was found to be a really low frequency tone that was making people kind of sick, and you couldn't hear it, but something in the building, some mechanical thing was emitting this constant tone that was causing problems. I do wonder if it could be something like that. I mean, I do have a friend who works on building these embassies. I talked to her about Cuba specifically because she'd worked there, and she said, as far as she knows, there was nothing in the building that needed to be retrofitted. You know, they didn't find anything that could have been causing this. And in fact, I have another friend who was gonna deploy back to that embassy a couple years ago that didn't end up happening, but they didn't seem to think it was a threat anymore. But what do you do? I mean, if you were in the middle of the US government, what would you do about this? Would you just move on and hope it doesn't happen again?
Dearlove: Well, no, I think you'd have to go on investigating, you have to go on examining because it may be something that you haven't detected which is relatively new, which I said is some technological escalation where something new is being developed, something new is being used. I mean, let me, well, it's a rather banal example, but way way back in the sixties, I think it was even maybe a bit later than that, a device was found in the American embassy in Moscow. In fact, it was in I think it was in a seal, you know, US badge or seal in the embassy, and they found in it a weird metal device, which eventually it is called the transponder. It took the Americans a very, very, very long time to figure out what this was. Well, they thought it was eavesdropping device, which of course it was, but no one could make it work because the Russians were so advanced at that time. Basically, it worked, I think, by firing, let's say, a laser at the transponder which vibrated and then carried back out of the room everything that was being said in the room.
Raffini: That's a passive listening device, right? That way when they scan for bugs, it's not active.
Dearlove: Yeah, no power source, nothing, but it was like a membrane with an aerial that vibrated, and when it was activated by a beam it would transmit out of the building. And there's a famous case in the UK where a group of engineers were measuring the characteristics of a big cooling tower in a power station, and they like a mile or two away, and they were firing these laser devices out the cooling tower to measure sort of vibrations in it, and they suddenly realized they were listening as if they were right there to someone having a conversation. They were more than a mile away, and what had happened was that they were picking up the vibrations off the concrete of the voice, the echo, and it was coming back. It was a pure freak coincidence. So that gives you an idea of some of the technology which was then investigated and developed, and I'm in my own mind pretty sure that this Havana syndrome is something to do with that sort of area. Of course, what you have to bear in mind, the intelligence agencies had actually discovered what was causing it, they wouldn't necessarily want to go public and tell the public what the hell it was, would they? Because they would want to use it themselves.
Raffini: But if they found something, they may not say what it was, but I don't think they'd, well, who knows? You know, the House Intelligence Committee would want it in their report to say, yes, it was something. Yes, it wasn't something. The other thing complicating this is there are National Institute of Health here in the US studies from March 2024 found no MRI detectable brain injuries or biological abnormalities in affected people, although they acknowledge that the symptoms are very real. And, you know, they can happen even from events that aren't going to produce long term changes in neural imaging. So they seem to think this is real, but they also can't point to it on an MRI, which of course is complicating treatment and benefits for individuals who say they were damaged by this and making it, I think, all the more difficult for it to stay, you know, in the front of people's minds, in the front of lawmakers' minds, and to get benefits for it because, listen, health insurance here in the US is not something we get necessarily, and especially with so many people leaving the government, you know, they're gonna need help for those benefits if this is something that needs to be continued to be treated. I think we're gonna leave it there, for this episode. And on a personal note, we're gonna have to leave it there for me. This is my last recording for One Decision. I'm moving on to a new very exciting job, but, unfortunately, it means I will have to leave the podcast. And so Richard behind and our whole team, thank you to you, Richard. I never really knew that I would have such warm feelings, and genuine friendship with the former head of British Intelligence. But you are my favorite prime minister, and I've enjoyed every second of it. Thank you to Christine and Sharon and Brett and Scott and our whole team. I'm so grateful to have been a part of this.
Dearlove: Christine, it's been wonderful working with you. You're such a professional. I've learned so much from working with you because I'm not a professional. We'll really miss you, but we're definitely going to keep in touch and we're going to follow what I'm sure will continue to be an extraordinarily successful career. You are wonderful, and I've so much enjoyed working with you.
Raffini: Thank you so much. And we're quietly scheming to see if we can collaborate in the future. From me and Brutus, this is Brutus the dog who's been on our lap for every podcast. Thank you so much to everybody. Thank you for listening. Be sure to tune in for our full episode this Thursday. Check out our YouTube. Leave us a like. Leave us a comment, and someone will see you back here next week. Thank you so much.
