By Brit McCandless Farmer March 31, 2024 / 7:43 PM EDT / CBS News U.S. officials in Vietnam were injured in a Havana Syndrome style attack ahead of Vice President Kamala Harris's 2021 trip to Hanoi . Now, new evidence suggests Russia may have been involved and that it may have been the Vietnamese themselves who were given technology that could have caused the injuries. At the time, the U.
Havana syndrome (formally "Anomalous Health Incidents") is a medical condition reported by U.S. and Canadian government officials and military personnel, primarily in overseas locations. Reported symptoms range in severity from pain and ringing in the ears to cognitive dysfunction and were first reported in 2016 by U.S. and Canadian embassy staff in Havana, Cuba. Beginning in 2017, more people, including U.S. intelligence and military personnel and their families, reported having these symptoms in other places, such as China, India, Europe, and Washington, D.C. The most recent studies of over 1,000 reported cases of Havana Syndrome have ruled-out foreign involvement in all but a couple dozen cases.In 2019 and 2020, some U.S. government representatives attributed the incidents to attacks by unidentified foreign actors, and various U.S. officials blamed the reported symptoms on a variety of unidentified and unknown technologies, including ultrasound, microwave weapons, pesticides, and toxins. All suggested causes were speculative as no undisputed evidence was discovered. As the story developed, and the U.S. intelligence services could not determine the cause of the symptoms, U.S. intelligence and government officials expressed suspicions to the press that Russian military intelligence was responsible. Starting in 2022, psychogenic explanations became predominant, for several reasons: no known weapons that could cause only the reported symptoms, no evidence of hostile attacks, the spread to numerous unrelated locations, and absence of damage to brain or body.Beginning in 2022, several major studies were published, and none of them found any evidence of involvement by a hostile power. In January 2022, the Central Intelligence Agency issued an interim assessment concluding that the syndrome is not the result of "a sustained global campaign by a hostile power". Foreign involvement was ruled out in 976 cases of the 1,000 reviewed. In February 2022, a panel of experts assembled by the Biden administration released an executive summary stating that radio waves could be the cause of injuries reported by some CIA officers and diplomats, but the majority of Havana syndrome incidents could be explained by stress or psychosomatic reactions. In February 2022, the State Department released a report by the JASON Advisory Group, which stated that it was unlikely that a directed energy attack had caused the health incidents.In March 2023, seven U.S. intelligence agencies completed a review of the proposed cases of Havana syndrome and released an unclassified report with the consensus that "available intelligence consistently points against the involvement of US adversaries in causing the reported incidents" and that a foreign adversary's involvement was "very unlikely". Despite this report, Pentagon-funded experiments which attempted to recreate Havana syndrome in animals by exposing them to RF waves for extended periods continued. In March 2024, the National Institutes of Health published two medical studies evaluating people reporting Havana syndrome symptoms, and found no evidence of brain injury, irregular blood biomarkers, or vocational impairment.
The National Institutes of Health (NIH) in the United States concluded that government employees reporting symptoms of the Havana Syndrome do not suffer from biological abnormalities or brain injuries. Despite this, the unexplained symptoms such as vertigo, headaches, cognitive dysfunction, and ear-ringing are acknowledged as real. The study compared test results and MRI imaging of over 80 US government employees and their relatives, finding no consistent set of imaging abnormalities to differentiate those with anomalous health incidents. The Biden administration has made addressing Havana Syndrome a priority.
Vietnam's president has resigned in the ruling Communist Party's anti-corruption campaign, with Vice President Vo Thi Anh Xuan named acting president, marking a rare instance of a woman ascending to a top political post in the country. The turnover in leadership, driven by the anti-graft campaign and internal rivalries, may impact Vietnam's political stability and its fast-growing economy heavily dependent on exports and foreign investment. The crackdown has led to the resignation of two presidents in less than two years, raising concerns about the country's future leadership and political uncertainty.
President Vo Van Thuong of Vietnam has resigned after being accused of violating party rules and damaging the reputation of the Communist Party and the State. His resignation is believed to be linked to a corruption scandal in his home province. This abrupt departure, following the resignation of the previous president over corruption as well, highlights challenges in addressing widespread graft in Vietnam's fast-growing economy. The political crisis may impact foreign investor confidence, with concerns over the anti-corruption campaign's impact on leadership stability.
Classified Chinese documents leaked from a private security contractor show the country's spy agency's hacking efforts on foreigners and Chinese citizens. The leaked files expose tools used for surveilling dissidents, hacking other nations, and promoting pro-Beijing narratives on social media. The documents detail services like access to a Vietnamese website for $15,000, disinformation campaigns for $100,000, and obtaining personal information from social media accounts for $278,000. Chinese police are investigating the hack of the security contractor linked to the nation's top policing agency. Targets included dissidents in Hong Kong and Xinjiang, with ministries in India also being targeted in 2021 amidst a border dispute.
Vietnam's Communist Party issued a secret directive known as "Directive 24" to safeguard its grip on power and protect national security amid deepening ties with the US and allies. The six-page document aims to manage Vietnamese citizens abroad, restrict labor organizing, control foreign aid, and prevent foreign influence in policymaking to counter attempts at exerting influence through economic, cultural, and social activities.
The Vietnam War (also known by other names) was a conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. It was the second of the Indochina Wars and was a major conflict of the Cold War. While the war was officially fought between North Vietnam and South Vietnam, the north was supported by the Soviet Union, China, and other communist states, while the south was supported by the United States and other anti-communist allies, making the war a proxy war between the United States and the Soviet Union. It lasted almost 20 years, with direct U.S. military involvement ending in 1973. The conflict also spilled over into neighboring states, exacerbating the Laotian Civil War and the Cambodian Civil War, which ended with all three countries officially becoming communist states by 1976.After the fall of French Indochina with the 1954 Geneva Conference on 21 July, the country gained independence from France but was divided into two parts: the Viet Minh took control of North Vietnam, while the U.S. assumed financial and military support for South Vietnam. The Viet Cong (VC), a South Vietnamese common front under the direction of the north, initiated a guerrilla war in the south. The People's Army of Vietnam (PAVN), also known as the North Vietnamese Army (NVA), engaged in more conventional warfare with U.S. and Army of the Republic of Vietnam (ARVN) forces. North Vietnam invaded Laos in 1958, establishing the Ho Chi Minh Trail to supply and reinforce the VC.: 16 By 1963, the north had sent 40,000 soldiers to fight in the south.: 16 U.S. involvement increased under President John F. Kennedy, from just under a thousand military advisors in 1959 to 23,000 by 1964.: 131 Following the Gulf of Tonkin incident in August 1964, the U.S. Congress passed a resolution that gave President Lyndon B. Johnson broad authority to increase U.S. military presence in Vietnam, without a formal declaration of war. Johnson ordered the deployment of combat units for the first time and dramatically increased the number of American troops to 184,000. U.S. and South Vietnamese forces relied on air superiority and overwhelming firepower to conduct search and destroy operations, involving ground forces, artillery, and airstrikes. The U.S. also conducted a large-scale strategic bombing campaign against North Vietnam: 371–374 and continued significantly building up its forces, despite little progress being made. In 1968, North Vietnamese forces launched the Tet Offensive. Though it was a tactical defeat for them, it was a strategic victory, as it caused U.S. domestic support for the war to fade.: 481 By the end of the year, the VC held little territory and were sidelined by the PAVN. In 1969, North Vietnam declared the Provisional Revolutionary Government of the Republic of South Vietnam. Operations crossed national borders, and the U.S. bombed North Vietnamese supply routes in Laos and Cambodia. The 1970 deposing of the Cambodian monarch, Norodom Sihanouk, resulted in a PAVN invasion of the country (at the request of the Khmer Rouge), and then a U.S.-ARVN counter-invasion, escalating the Cambodian Civil War. After the election of Richard Nixon in 1969, a policy of "Vietnamization" began, which saw the conflict fought by an expanded ARVN, while U.S. forces withdrew in the face of increasing domestic opposition. U.S. ground forces had largely withdrawn by early 1972, and their operations were limited to air and artillery support, advisors, and materiel shipments. The Paris Peace Accords of January 1973 saw all U.S. forces withdrawn: 457 The accords were broken almost immediately, and fighting continued for two more years. Phnom Penh fell to the Khmer Rouge on 17 April 1975, while the 1975 spring offensive saw the Fall of Saigon to the PAVN on 30 April, marking the end of the war. North and South Vietnam were reunified on 2 July the following year.The war exacted an enormous human cost: estimates of the number of Vietnamese soldiers and civilians killed range from 966,000 to 3 million. Some 275,000–310,000 Cambodians, 20,000–62,000 Laotians, and 58,220 U.S. service members also died in the conflict. The end of the Vietnam War would precipitate the Vietnamese boat people and the larger Indochina refugee crisis, which saw millions of refugees leave Indochina, an estimated 250,000 of whom perished at sea. Once in power, the Khmer Rouge carried out the Cambodian genocide, while conflict between them and the unified Vietnam would eventually escalate into the Cambodian–Vietnamese War, which toppled the Khmer Rouge government in 1979 and ended the genocide. In response, China invaded Vietnam, with subsequent border conflicts lasting until 1991. Within the United States, the war gave rise to what was referred to as Vietnam syndrome, a public aversion to American overseas military involvement, which, together with the Watergate scandal, contributed to the crisis of confidence that affected America throughout the 1970s.The U.S. Air Force destroyed more than 20% of the jungles of South Vietnam and 20–50% of the mangrove forests, by spraying over 20 million U.S. gallons (75 million liters) of toxic herbicides (defoliants), including Agent Orange. The war is one of the most commonly used examples of ecocide.
United States involvement in the Vietnam War began shortly after the end of World War II in Asia, first in an extremely limited capacity and escalating over a period of 20 years. The U.S. military presence peaked in April 1969, with 543,000 American combat troops stationed in Vietnam. By the conclusion of the United States's involvement in 1973, over 3.1 million Americans had been stationed in Vietnam.The U.S. involvement in Vietnam began due to a combination of factors: the U.S. war with Japan in the Pacific, domestic pressure to act against communism after the communist victory in the Chinese Civil War, Joseph Stalin and Mao Zedong's pledge in 1950 to support the Viet Minh guerrilla forces in the First Indochina War against France's colonial rule, and the indecisive conclusion of the Korean War. However, Stalin and Mao's offer of support to the Viet Minh changed the battlefield dynamic and geopolitical character from an independence struggle to part of the Cold War. In September 1950, the U.S. started to supply the French. From 1950 until 1954, the United States poured more than $3 billion into the war, bankrolling "more than 80 percent of its material costs" over the four-year period. From the 1950s the Domino theory of geopolitics was prominent in U.S. foreign policy thinking. Thus it was feared that communism would spread to neighboring countries unless checked, the overall aim being to prevent communist domination in South-East Asia.The conflict resulted in 58,279 U.S. military personnel deaths before the official end of U.S. combat operations in 1973. As of 2019, it was estimated that approximately 610,000 Vietnam veterans are still alive, making them the second largest group of American military veterans behind those of the war on terror. The war's lasting impact has been portrayed in the thousands of movies, books, and video games centered on the conflict.
On June 4, 2023, a privately operated Cessna 560 Citation V carrying three passengers and a pilot crashed at approximately 3:23 p.m. Eastern Daylight Time (EDT) in the George Washington National Forest, Virginia, killing the occupants, after the crew had been found unresponsive.: 2 The plane had previously entered the no-fly zone over Washington, D.C., and was intercepted by F-16 fighter jets before it crashed. A preliminary report was released by the National Transportation Safety Board on June 21, 2023, and the investigation into the crash is ongoing as of August 2023.
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