Beginning in 2017, a number of American diplomats in Cuba suddenly fell ill with a variety of complaints such as dizziness, headache, insomnia, and imbalance. A strange noise often assailed them. One diplomat saw an unmarked van speeding away when she tried to investigate the source of the sound. Was this some new sonic weapon aimed at the American embassy? Perhaps microwaves or irradiation? What about pesticides? Some American officials, such as Senator Marco Rubio and Secretary of State Rex Tillerson, were adamant that the Cubans, perhaps abetted by the Russians, should be held responsible, despite no tangible evidence of these attacks having been found.
Havana Syndrome, by Robert Baloh and Robert Bartholomew, is a comprehensive and coherent interpretation that offers one explanation of this strange saga. It is a must-read for anyone interested in the interplay of medicine, psychology, and international relations. Baloh, a leading neuro-otologist, and Bartholomew, a world-renowned expert in mass delusions, conclude that the experience of the diplomats, that is, the enormous strain of living and working under the surveillance of a hostile regime, provoked a stress reaction of bodily symptoms of psychiatric origin: In other words, the explanation for Havana Syndrome is mass delusion, not malfeasance. They argue that the tight-knit nature and relative isolation of the diplomats’ social networks allowed this reaction to spread, reinforced by a ready explanation proffered by superiors, however unsubstantiated or improbable, that a hitherto unknown sonic weapon had wounded them.
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