U.S.-CUBA: SECRETS OF THE ‘HAVANA SYNDROME’

Declassified State Department review faults “lack of senior leadership,” “systemic disorganization” in response to unsolved health episodes

Tillerson State
Department failed to conduct risk/benefit assessment before reducing
Embassy staff

Report of
Accountability Review Board confirms CIA closure of its Havana Station in
September 2017

ARB
investigation cited similar health incidents involving U.S. personnel in
China and two other countries

Edited by Peter Kornbluh,

See: ORIGINAL
DOCUMENT, DECLASSIFIED FEB 10, 2021

Washington D.C., February 10,
2021 – The Trump administration’s response to the
mysterious health episodes experienced by intelligence and diplomatic personnel
in Havana, Cuba, in late 2016 and 2017 was plagued by mismanagement, poor
leadership, lack of coordination, and a failure to follow established
procedures, according to a formerly secret internal State Department review
posted today by the National Security Archive.  “The Department of State’s
response to these incidents was characterized by a lack of senior leadership,
ineffective communications, and systemic disorganization,” states the executive
summary of the report, compiled by an internal Accountability Review Board
(ARB) after a four-month investigation in 2018. “No senior official was ever
designated as having overall responsibility,” the report noted in a thinly
veiled indictment of then-Secretary of State Rex Tillerson’s role, “which
resulted in many of the other issues this report presents.”

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