Since Joe Biden took office, about two dozen U˳S˳ intelligence officers, diplomats, and other government officials in Vienna have reported experiencing mysterious afflictions similar to the Havana Syndrome˳ U˳S˳ officials say the number of possible new cases in the Austrian capital—long a nexus of U˳S˳ and Russian espionage—is now greater than the number reported by officials in any city except for Havana itself, where the first cases were reported˳
The exact cause of the ailments in Vienna, which U˳S˳ government agencies formally refer to as “anomalous health incidents” or “unexplained health incidents,” remains unknown, but in response to the surge the C˳I˳A˳, the State Department, and other agencies are redoubling their efforts to determine the cause, and to identify the culprit or culprits˳ A C˳I˳A˳ spokesperson said that the agency’s director, William Burns, was “personally engaged with personnel affected by anomalous health incidents and is highly committed to their care and to determining the cause of these incidents˳” Privately, Burns has called the maladies “attacks” rather than incidents˳ A State Department spokesman said, “In coordination with our partners across the U˳S˳ government, we are vigorously investigating reports of possible unexplained health incidents among the U˳S˳ Embassy Vienna community˳”
The Havana Syndrome derives its name from the Cuban capital, where C˳I˳A˳ officers and State Department employees first reported experiencing strange sensations of sound and pressure in their heads in 2016 and 2017˳ Some of the patients said the sensations seemed to follow them around their homes, apartments, and hotel rooms in the Cuban capital˳ Some of the patients described feeling as though they were standing in an invisible beam of energy˳ Many of them suffered debilitating symptoms, from headaches and vertigo to vision problems˳ Specialists at the University of Pennsylvania’s Center for Brain Injury and Repair used advanced MRIs to study the brains of forty of the original patients from Havana˳ They found no signs of physical impact to the patients’ skulls—it was as if they had “a concussion without a concussion,” one specialist told me—and the team detected signs of damage to their brains˳
Senior officials in the Trump and Biden Administrations suspect that the Russians are responsible for the syndrome˳ Their working hypothesis is that operatives working for the G˳R˳U˳, the Russian military-intelligence service, have been aiming microwave-radiation devices at U˳S˳ officials, possibly to steal data from their computers or smartphones, which inflicted serious harm on the people they targeted˳ But American intelligence analysts and operatives have so far been unable to find concrete evidence that would allow them to declare that either microwave radiation or the Russians were to blame˳
The F˳B˳I˳ launched its own investigation into the events in Havana but agents have so far found no dispositive evidence of any attacks˳ Profilers with the Bureau’s Behavioral Analysis Unit conducted their own assessments of the Havana patients without interviewing them directly˳The unit concluded that they were suffering from a mass psychogenic illness, a condition in which a group of people, often thinking that they have been exposed to something dangerous, begin to feel sick at the same time˳ The patients themselves—as well as their University of Pennsylvania doctors and many government officials who have met with them—were infuriated by the Behavioral Analysis Unit’s assessment, which was based on transcripts of previous interviews that the F˳B˳I˳ had done with some of the patients, and on “patient histories” compiled by the individuals’ doctors, who had already ruled out mass psychogenic illness as the cause˳ According to these doctors, many of the patients didn’t know that the other people were sick, and their bodies could not have feigned some of the physical symptoms that they were exhibiting˳ A U˳S˳ official told me that the F˳B˳I˳ is now reassessing its mass-psychogenic-illness conclusion in light of the newly reported cases˳
After the events in Cuba, a handful of potentially related cases involving C˳I˳A˳ and State Department personnel emerged in other countries; one of them involved a C˳I˳A˳ officer who, in 2017, woke up in a Moscow hotel room with severe vertigo˳ In 2018, American diplomats at the consulate in Guangzhou, China, reported more possible cases, though State Department officials have never disclosed how many of those patients were confirmed to have the syndrome˳ In early June, 2019, two White House staffers reported Havana Syndrome-like episodes in a hotel room in London during a state visit by then President Donald Trump˳ One of those victims subsequently reported an incident outside her home in Virginia˳ By mid-2020, at the direction of Trump’s National Security Council, government agencies started to report possible syndrome cases to a special unit within the Office of the Director of National Intelligence˳ In the months that followed, dozens of American officials, including members of the U˳S˳ military, came forward to report similar episodes˳ Among them were at least two other White House staff members who said they were afflicted while crossing the Ellipse, near the White House˳ Other cases were reported in Colombia, Kyrgyzstan, and Uzbekistan, among other places˳
On December 3, 2020, Gina Haspel, Trump’s C˳I˳A˳ director, whom White House national-security officials described as “skeptical” that the syndrome was real, sent a message to C˳I˳A˳ officers worldwide, encouraging them to report any unexplained health incidents that might be Havana Syndrome˳ The State Department and other government agencies sent similar messages to their employees˳ When Trump left office, there were no reported cases at the U˳S˳ Embassy in Vienna, whose C˳I˳A˳ station is one of the largest in the world˳
Vienna has long been a den of spies˳ The city is home to many large U˳N˳ agencies, the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, and the International Atomic Energy Agency, among other international bodies that employ officials from around the world who have access to information of interest to U˳S˳ and foreign intelligence services˳ In addition to significant numbers of American, British, Chinese, French, and Russian spies, the Iranians, the Syrians, and the North Koreans, among others, are believed to have operatives on the ground in Vienna˳
Traditionally, Austria’s domestic-security services have turned a blind eye to foreign-intelligence operations on Austrian soil as long as those operations don’t threaten Austrian interests˳ “If you spy against other governments in Vienna, you’re left alone˳ That’s what everybody likes,” Siegfried Beer, the founder of the Austrian Center for Intelligence, Propaganda, and Security Studies, located on the campus of the University of Graz, said˳ “This is why, when spies are detected, they disappear quickly˳”
U˳S˳ intelligence officers, especially those with families, have long sought out assignments in Vienna because the city is seen as a safe, comfortable, and interesting place to live and work˳ “Our job is to try to get access to people and recruit them,” John Sipher, who retired from the C˳I˳A˳ in 2014 after a twenty-eight-year career in the National Clandestine Service, which included serving in Moscow and running the C˳I˳A˳’s Russia operations, said˳ “Vienna is perfect˳ Everyone is there˳ It’s good living and it’s good hunting—and you don’t have to worry too much about getting caught˳”
As famously depicted in the Graham Greene classic “The Third Man,” Austria was occupied by the Soviets, the Americans, the British, and the French after the Second World War˳ When the occupation ended, in 1955, the Austrian Parliament declared the country’s neutrality, committing to neither being in the U˳S˳ nor Soviet camp˳ Their hope was to be a bridge between East and West˳
When the Cold War ended, Austrian neutrality remained formally in place˳ At times, Vienna’s insistence on staying neutral, even in the face of blatant acts of aggression by Russian President Vladimir Putin and his intelligence services, became a source of frustration in Washington˳ One of those moments came in early 2018, when Trump’s national-security team tried to persuade the Austrians to join the British and other Europeans in expelling Russian spies to protest the G˳R˳U˳’s attempted assassination in Britain of Sergei Skripal, a former Russian military-intelligence officer who had been a double agent for the U˳K˳’s intelligence services˳ “Our point was, ‘Look, they’re using your territory as a proving ground,’ ” a former Trump Administration official told me˳ “And they said, ‘This isn’t our fight˳ We’ve never had problems like this˳ They’re actually kind of nice to us˳’ ”
Later that same year, Putin attended the wedding of Karin Kneissl, who at the time was Austria’s Foreign Minister˳ The two were seen embracing and dancing together at the event˳ White House officials were “gobsmacked” by the images, which undercut U˳S˳ and European Union foreign policy˳ “The Russians value Austria˳ They have always thought that they had a special relationship,” a former U˳S˳ diplomat told me˳ European officials told their American counterparts that they believed Putin himself had a vacation home on a lake somewhere in Austria˳
One of the Trump Administration’s foreign-policy objectives was to pull Central and Eastern European states, including Austria, closer to the United States˳ The former U˳S˳ Ambassador to Austria, Trevor Traina, told me that his message to the Austrian leadership was, “Despite your formal neutrality, you guys are with the West˳ We’re not just some casual friends˳ We’re allies˳” Traina and his allies in Washington arranged a flurry of high-level meetings between Austrian and American leaders—“the most in history,” Traina explained˳ The outreach effort even got its own German word—Verbundenheit—which translates as “new closeness” or “connectedness˳”
In support of Traina’s Verbundenheit campaign, Trump invited the conservative Austrian Chancellor, Sebastian Kurz, who is known in Europe for his hard-line stance against refugees, to meet with him at the White House˳ Some members of Trump’s National Security Council staff opposed the move and argued, “The Austrians were unhelpful on Russia,” according to the former Trump Administration official˳ Traina and his allies insisted that bringing the Chancellor into the Oval Office would improve bilateral relations and further isolate Russia˳ Asked how the Russians felt about the Verbundenheit campaign, the former U˳S˳ diplomat told me, “I think they hated it˳”
In September, 2019, three weeks before a snap Austrian election, Kurz’s conservative People’s Party disclosed that its computer networks had been hacked˳ Kurz said the goal of the hackers was “removing, inserting, manipulating and falsifying data” and to “damage us at the election˳” He added, “This is not just an attack on the People’s Party but also an attack on the democratic system˳” Then, in January, 2020, Austria’s Foreign Ministry was targeted by a cyberattack, which officials blamed on a state actor that they did not name˳ The former Trump Administration official said, of the cyber intrusions, “These were shots across Austria’s bow by the Russians˳ The Austrians were waking up˳”
