WASHINGTON — Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced Friday the appointment of two veteran diplomats to oversee the State Department’s efforts on “Havana syndrome,” and the deployment of “new technology” to help understand the cause of the mysterious health incidents.
Blinken named Jonathan Moore, a career foreign service officer, to coordinate the overall State Department response, and Margaret Uyehara as senior care coordinator to ensure affected diplomats receive top medical treatment.
He also said the department had deployed new technology to posts across the globe that may help the government understand what is causing the incidents, a frustrating riddle for three consecutive administrations and the U.S. intelligence community.
“People have been profoundly, profoundly affected by this,” Blinken said in his first speech on the incidents. “It’s very, very powerful, and it only reinforces in me the absolute conviction that we need to do everything possible for our people — to care for them, to protect them.”
“We will get to the bottom of this,” he added.
Blinken emphasized that the symptoms being reported by U.S. government staff are real and damaging.
Diplomats have “experienced serious physical consequences, including persistent headaches and hearing loss. They’ve also experienced psychological harm, including trauma, anxiety, depression,” Blinken said. “They’ve been affected — their careers have been affected. Their families and colleagues have been affected, too.”
Blinken said a new partnership with Johns Hopkins University began last month that will enhance care options for diplomats experiencing symptoms, and encouraged personnel to report any episodes as quickly as possible, highlighting an email address recently set up that will allow diplomats and their family members to report incidents or ask questions anonymously if they prefer.
President Joe Biden’s administration has not been able to provide an explanation for the incidents that similarly baffled the former Trump and Obama administrations after they first emerged at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba in 2016.
The U.S. government suspects, but has not been able to confidently determine the episodes are attacks on American personnel by a foreign adversary.
But the president’s team believes it is getting closer to identifying who is responsible and understanding what mechanism is being used to cause the mysterious health episodes reported by over 200 diplomats, CIA operatives and national security officials in Washington and overseas.
U.S. personnel stationed around the world have reported symptoms of sudden vertigo, dizziness, nausea and headaches. Some of them have shown physiological signs of brain injuries, and some have come down with symptoms at the same time as others in their immediate vicinity.
The State Department is “developing, obtaining and deploying new technology to the field” that is helping them understand what is causing the incidents, Blinken said, without being more specific.
“New technology is helping us more quickly and thoroughly evaluate a variety of potential causes of these incidents, and we’ve distributed across posts so that we can respond rapidly,” he said.
The department has also taken steps in recent months to standardize training and care for victims, incorporating new guidance into their overseas security seminars and standardizing their medical assessments.
The State Department also began a voluntary program over the summer allowing employees and their families to collect baseline health information, which doctors can then use as a point of reference if they experience symptoms later on in the field.
“We have sent a very clear signal throughout our bureaus and elements within the department that every single report has to be taken extraordinarily seriously,” a senior administration official told McClatchy before the announcement. “Those investigating should follow standard guidance, and to report them up the chain.”
NEW LEADERSHIP
Both Moore and Uyehara have decades of experience overseas, particularly in eastern Europe.
Moore recently was principal deputy assistant secretary of the Bureau of Oceans and International Environmental and Scientific Affairs, and has in the past served at the U.S. Embassy to Belarus and as acting director of the State Department’s Office of Russian Affairs.
Moore said he would “believe and respect those who come forward.”
“I want to underscore that every report will be taken seriously by me, our health and security professionals, and our leadership of the department,” Moore said. “I would humbly ask all of you who have been hurt as a result of these incidents to report your symptoms and concerns if you’ve not done so already, and to please be willing to speak with us.”
Uyehara, also a longtime foreign service officer, has served in various senior diplomatic roles in Montenegro, Kyiv, Frankfurt and Vienna. She began the current job in late September.
“We will continue to work tirelessly to provide the highest possible level of assistance and to ensure that those who are injured are treated with the empathy and compassion they so richly deserve,” Uyehara said.
The new leadership team replaces Pamela Spratlen, who oversaw the department’s response to the anomalous health incidents for six months before leaving in September.
A State Department spokesman said at the time that Spratlen left after reaching the maximum number of hours she was allowed to work under her status as a retiree. But multiple administration officials told McClatchy that her skepticism that the phenomenon is real created friction with those who experienced it and leaders in the department.
Uyehara was chosen to lead the department’s direct engagement with victims in part because she is “known within the department for her compassion,” the official said.
Democratic and Republican members of Congress complained in recent months that diplomats had not received adequate care after reporting cases, and that officials in charge of the State Department response had insufficient power and access to leadership.
Moore and Uyehara “will have ready access to the secretary,” the senior official said. “He has made clear that they should come to him directly and personally for any issue where his intervention is needed.”
In a letter last week to Democratic Sen. Jeanne Shaheen of New Hampshire and obtained by McClatchy, Blinken said the U.S. government does “not yet know the cause of these incidents or whether they may be attributed to a foreign actor. But we are leaving no stone unturned to get the answers.”
CIA Director Bill Burns, however, has referred to them as attacks, and senior national security officials in the administration suspect the health episodes are being caused by some kind of directed energy device.
Some Biden officials privately fear that U.S. delegations traveling overseas are being targeted – and that those responsible are intentionally escalating their attacks against American personnel.
U.S. diplomats in Vietnam reported experiencing symptoms shortly before Vice President Kamala Harris was scheduled to arrive there in August. A member of Burns’ team reported a case during their recent trip to India in September. And cases in Colombia were reported before the head of U.S. Southern Command visited.
