US spies and diplomats are suggesting a Trump administration cover-up after officials in Cuba, Russia, and China got mysteriously sick

• In 2016, US embassy staff in Cuba and China reported falling ill with symptoms including balance and vision problems. Subsequent studies said they might have been exposed to a microwave radiation attack.
• On Monday, The New York Times reported that US diplomats and spies in other countries, including Russia, had reported the same symptoms.
• CIA and State Department employees who say they were affected in China and Russia told The Times they are fighting for proper treatment, with one suggesting a “cover-up” by President Trump’s administration.
• According to The Times, some officials suspect Russian involvement in the mysterious illnesses, though the CIA director is not convinced any attacks took place or that Russia could be involved.
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US spies and diplomats are suggesting a cover-up by President Donald Trump’s administration, saying it refused to properly investigate a mysterious illness that had affected officials in Cuba, China, and Russia, according to The New York Times.

In 2016, US and Canadian diplomats in Cuba started hearing strange sounds and later reporting symptoms like nerve damage and experiencing headaches. Doctors said they were caused by mild traumatic brain injuries.

In 2018, several US embassy workers in Guangzhou, China, also said they heard mysterious sounds, had similar symptoms, and were then diagnosed with brain injuries.

The Times reported on Monday that some senior CIA officers who visited foreign stations, including in Moscow, experienced similar symptoms, but the agency is not convinced that an attack took place.

The cause of the illnesses is not fully clear, but subsequent studies have found that microwave radiation was the main suspect. According to The Times, some government scientists think a physiological illness could be the cause instead.

'They have hung us out to dry'

The Times reported that the State Department had treated the cases in Cuba and China differently. In the Chinese cases, the newspaper said, the State Department did not assess the cases consistently, ignored medical diagnoses from outside experts, and withheld "basic" information from Congress.

After reports about US personnel falling sick in Cuba, the Trump administration took action against the country, withdrawing embassy staff members and expelling Cuban diplomats from the US. In 2017, President Donald Trump also said that "Cuba is responsible." 

The administration started an independent review around the "unexplained medical conditions," though Cuba denied involvement with the illnesses.

But the administration took a softer approach with China: Secretary of State Mike Pompeo first said that the cases were "very similar and entirely consistent" with the Cuba cases, and some employees were evacuated, but the State Department later described the events as "health incidents" and no investigation was opened.

Six US officials told The Times that the State Department realized that it could not take the same route with the Chinese cases as it did with Cuba without crippling the US's diplomatic and economic with China.

Citing interviews with more than 30 government officials, lawyers and doctors, The Times also reported that the American personnel affected in China "have spent more than two years fighting to obtain the same benefits given to the victims in Cuba and others attacked by foreign powers."

They said that this fight has resulted in retaliation from the government that may have harmed their careers forever.

Mark Lenzi, a State Department employee who experienced symptoms like memory loss after being in Guangzhou, told The Times that he has sued the State Department for disability discrimination.

"This is a deliberate, high-level cover-up," he added. "They have hung us out to dry."

Some lawmakers are now pushing the State Department to release a study into the cases that it got in August from the National Academies of Sciences, according to The Times.

More reports from Moscow

A former senior CIA officer has this week come out to say that he believes he was the victim of a similar attack in Moscow in December 2017.

Marc Polymeropoulos, who helped run clandestine operations in Russia and Europe, told The Times that he experienced nausea and vertigo in his hotel room, and that it resulted in continuing migraines and ultimately forced him to retire.

Polymeropoulos also told GQ the CIA has not given him and other affected officers the medical care they need.

"It's incumbent on them to provide the medical help we require, which does not include telling us that we're all making it up," he said. "I want the Agency to treat this as a combat injury."

He also said that another CIA colleague who was with him in Moscow also became sick and lost his hearing in one ear.

Polymeropoulous also told GQ that a private doctor had diagnosed him with nerve damage, but the agency said that it wasn't necessary to refer him to a hospital.

He said the CIA needed to investigate the cases, saying the leadership "has not done right by us."

"The Agency is going to have to answer for this," he added.

CIA representatives told GQ in a statement: "The Agency's top priority is the health and well-being of our officers followed very closely by collecting on hard targets, including Russia, and providing that intelligence to policymakers. Suggestions otherwise in your story are simply not true."

Many point to Russia

The Times reported that some of the CIA's senior Russia analysts, some officials at the State Department, and some outside scientists — as well as some of the victims — consider Russia as most likely responsible. Russia has denied being involved.

Two US officials told The Times that CIA Director Gina Haspel knows that Russia has motive to harm US operatives, but is not convinced the attacks had taken place or that Russia could be responsible.

Polymeropoulos also blamed Russia in his interview with GQ.

And Lenzi, the State Department employee who had been working with China, told The Times that senior officials  "know exactly which country" was responsible, and said that it was not Cuba or China but another country "which the secretary of state and president do not want to confront."