Havana Syndrome: Another Government Cover-Up?

by Sharon Rondeau

(Aug. 8, 2026) — In an interview with the four co-hosts of “The Big Weekend Show” on the Fox News Channel Saturday evening, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence Chairman Rick Crawford (R-AR1) was asked about a recent report in The New York Times claiming that the CIA has established a “covert task force” focused on bringing about political and economic change in communist Cuba.

The article is behind a paywall, but a summary at CubaHeadlines reads, in part:

The CIA has clandestinely created a dedicated task force aimed specifically at Cuba, with the mission to orchestrate a pressure campaign targeting economic,  political, and leadership transformations on the island. This was disclosed by The New York Times on Wednesday, citing individuals familiar with the initiative. 

This newly formed group is already integrating case officers skilled in spy recruitment and management, intelligence analysts, cyber operations specialists, and experts in covert influence operations. According to these sources, the establishment of this team will allow the agency to “swiftly allocate more financial, human, and technical resources towards Cuba.”

The mandate for this task force, as reported by the NYT, is narrowly focused compared to its historical predecessor: to create rifts within the Cuban political elite, aiming to pressure Cubans to replace leaders deemed hardline anti-American with more pragmatic figures willing to accommodate Trump’s demands.

Crawford said he has been to Cuba “many times,” including in 2016, when several diplomats at the U.S. Embassy in Havana first reported suffering “silent” injuries which came to be designated as “Havana Syndrome.”

Beginning in 2016, Crawford told the co-hosts, he was advocating for an increase in U.S. sales to Cuba of agricultural products, an effort detailed in a press release on his website in November 2018.

On Saturday evening Crawford was critical of the U.S. government’s response to the emergence of Havana Syndrome, which reportedly causes vertigo, cognitive and visual difficulties, loss of hearing, pain, severe headaches and other maladies. Those affected were stationed not only in Cuba but also in China, Australia, Vietnam, India, Austria, Colombia, Germany and Serbia.

Havana Syndrome is classified as an “anomalous health incident (AHI).”

In addition to the U.S. State Department, others reporting symptoms included CIA agents and U.S. military service personnel and their family members.

In September 2021, Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin issued a memorandum to “All Department of Defense Employees,” writing, in part:

Over the course of the last several years, and predominantly overseas, some DoD
personnel have reported a series of sudden and troubling sensory events such as sounds, pressure, or heat concurrently or immediately preceding the sudden onset of symptoms such as headaches, pain, nausea, or disequilibrium (unsteadiness or vertigo). As part of a government-wide effort, the Department is committed to finding the cause and the source of these AHi and ensuring that affected individuals receive appropriate medical care as quickly as possible when needed.

In April 2026, the military health system wrote of AHIs:

The Department of Defense and Defense Health Agency are committed to preventing, treatment, and recovering patients who report symptoms of an Anomalous Health Incident. DHA is actively developing a standard care pathway for both DOD and non-DOD beneficiaries to receive appropriate medical care as quickly as possible. To support this, patient resources have been developed to provide information on how to seek medical attention within the Military Health System and an overview of medical care coverage. Additionally, multiple provider resources are available to support care management and ensure proper documentation of treatment. This site will continue to be updated with products, trainings, and resources as they become available.

As chairman of the House Intelligence Committee prior to the 2024 elections, Crawford oversaw the release of what he termed “Interim Report 1.0” on AHIs.

At the time, Avril Haines was the director of national intelligence.

Dated December 5, 2024, the report begins:

Today, House Permanent Select Committee on Intelligence CIA Subcommittee Chairman Rick Crawford (AR-01) released an unclassified interim report on the Committee’s investigation into Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs), also commonly known as “Havana Syndrome,” and the increasing likelihood a foreign adversary is responsible for some of the reported AHI cases. This interim report also criticizes the Intelligence Community (IC) for thwarting the Committee’s investigation into AHIs. The IC’s conclusions that foreign adversaries aren’t responsible for targeting U.S. personnel are dubious at best and misleading at worst. Additionally, this interim report encourages the U.S. government to codify and establish clear, effective medical care for AHI-affected personnel.

In his opening statement, Crawford wrote:

After years of traveling the world holding meetings and hearings with credible whistleblowers and leaders in our Intelligence Community (IC), I have discovered that there is reliable evidence to suggest that some Anomalous Health Incidents (AHIs) are the work of foreign adversaries. Sadly, the IC has actively attempted to impede our investigation, but we have nonetheless been able to gather significant evidence, and I have reason to believe that its claims of environmental or social factors explaining AHIs are false. This interim report is just the beginning, and our investigative work through the CIA subcommittee will continue until we get full cooperation and thorough answers from the IC.

On January 9, 2025, the National Intelligence Council released a report stating:

Scope Note: This Intelligence Community (IC)-drafted and coordinated Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA) addresses the IC’s
evaluation of new information possibly related to anomalous health incidents (AHIs) since the publication of the ICA Updated Assessment of Anomalous Health Incidents, ICA 2023-02286, on 1 March 2023.

In line with the 2023 Intelligence Community Assessment (ICA), most of the IC continues to assess that it is “very unlikely” a foreign adversary is responsible for the events reported as possible anomalous health incidents (AHIs). IC components base this overall judgment on updates to the three lines of inquiry identified in the 2023 ICA: (1) whether collection either indicates a foreign actor was seeking to target US Government (USG) personnel who reported events as possible AHIs or links a foreign actor to events reported as possible AHIs; (2) the feasibility and existence of a deliberate causal mechanism, such as a pulsed RF energy weapon or prototype device, that could cause the types of symptoms and sensory phenomena reported as possible AHIs; and (3) the state and reliability of medical analysis on whether at least some of the USG personnel reporting AHIs had a common set of physical injuries.

The Intel Subcommittee’s analysis of the 2023 intelligence community assessment (ICA) claimed the conclusions “lacked analytic integrity and was highly irregular in its formulation.”

“…The Subcommittee’s long history of oversight regarding the extensive vetting of IC
personnel before being hired and granted a security clearance—including psychological testing and evaluations—leads the Subcommittee to conclude that AHIs are more than medical, environmental, or social factors, as claimed by the IC,” the analysis continues. “AHIs represent a genuine and compelling danger to the IC workforce. This danger has not been fully realized by IC leadership. There is evidence that the IC attempted to shape the 2023 AHI assessment to create a politically palatable conclusion and to impede investigative efforts that would uncover this effort. This has resulted in a degradation in trust between the IC workforce and their senior leadership…”

Further, Crawford and his colleagues claimed:

“The Subcommittee is aware that the IC continues to withhold valuable information from
the Subcommittee. For this reason, a final unclassified report cannot be issued at this time. In addition, the Subcommittee plans to issue a classified report that explains why the Subcommittee finds the conclusions reached in the ICA dubious at best, and misleading at worst. It is not possible, in an unclassified format, to detail the full scale and scope of the Subcommittee’s investigation, as well as the findings that have resulted from this investigation. Nevertheless, it is the hope of the Subcommittee that this interim unclassified report will shed light on the need to better understand AHIs and the toll they have taken on the IC workforce. The Subcommittee will continue this investigation into the 119th Congress.”

Crawford told the co-hosts that a second Subcommittee report is expected in the not-too-distant future.

“There s a lot of blame to go around here,” Crawford told the co-hosts, expressing the opinion that the U.S. government has “grossly mishandled” the issue.