Cuban President Raul Castro seemed rattled.
He sent for the top US envoy in the country to address grave concerns about a spate of US diplomats harmed in Havana.
There was talk of futuristic “sonic attacks” and the subtle threat of repercussions by the US, until recently Cuba’s sworn enemy.
The way Castro responded surprised Washington, several US officials familiar with the exchange told reporters.
In a rare face-to-face conversation, Castro told US diplomat Jeffrey DeLaurentis that he was equally baffled and concerned. Predictably, Castro denied any responsibility.
However, US officials were caught off-guard by the way he addressed the matter, devoid of the indignant, how-dare-you-accuse-us attitude the US had come to expect from Cuba’s leaders.
The Cubans even offered to let the FBI come down to Havana to investigate.
Although US-Cuban cooperation has improved, this level of access was extraordinary.
“Some countries don’t want any more FBI agents in their country than they have to — and that number could be zero,” said Leo Taddeo, a retired FBI supervisor who served abroad, including in Cuba.
The list of confirmed US victims was much shorter on Feb. 17, when the US first complained to Cuba.
Today, the number of “medically confirmed” cases is 21 — plus several Canadians. Some Americans have permanent hearing loss or mild brain injury.
The developments have frightened Havana’s tight-knit diplomatic community.
At least one other nation, France, has tested embassy staff for potential sonic-induced injuries.
However, several US officials say there are real reasons to question whether Cuba perpetrated a clandestine campaign of aggression. The officials were not authorized to discuss the ongoing investigation and requested anonymity.
When the US has accused Cuba of misbehavior, such as harassing diplomats or cracking down on local dissidents, Havana has often accused Washington of making it up. This time, although Castro denied involvement, his government did not dispute that something troubling might have gone down.
Investigators considered whether a rogue faction of Cuba’s security forces had acted, possibly in combination with another country like Russia or North Korea.
Nevertheless, anger is rising in Washington.
On Friday, five Republican senators wrote to US Secretary of State Rex Tillerson urging him to kick all Cuban diplomats out of the US and close its re-established embassy in Havana.
For decades, Cuba and the US harassed each other’s diplomats. The Cubans might break into homes to rearrange furniture or leave feces unflushed in a toilet. The Americans might conduct obvious break-ins and traffic stops, puncture tires or break headlights.
However, those pranks were primarily to pester, not to harm.
What US diplomats started reporting in November last year was altogether different.
Diplomats and their families were getting sick. Some described bizarre, unexplained sounds, including grinding and high-pitched ringing. They even recounted how they could walk in and out of what seemed like powerful beams of sound that hit only certain rooms or even only parts of rooms.
At the time, Washington and Havana were in cooperation mode, working feverishly to lock in progress on everything from Internet access to immigration rules before former US president Barack Obama’s term ended.
US President Donald Trump’s surprise election win meant the US would soon be led by a president who would threaten to reverse the rapprochement.
As the US awaited an unpredictable new administration, Cuba also faced a pivotal moment.
Former Cuban president Fidel Castro died on Nov. 25 last year. The revolutionary had reigned for nearly a half-century before ceding power to his brother Raul in his ailing last years.
“There is a struggle going on for the soul of their revolution,” said Michael Parmly, who headed the US diplomatic post in Havana from 2005 to 2008. “It’s entirely possible there are rogue elements.”
When the first diplomats came forward with their inexplicable episodes and symptoms, the US did not connect the dots. It took weeks before embassy officials pieced together “clusters” of incidents and multiple victims with confirmed health damage.
On Feb. 17, the US complained to Cuba’s embassy in Washington and its foreign ministry in Havana.
Soon came Castro, seeking DeLaurentis directly.
The attacks halted for a time, but several US officials said it was not clear why.
It was not long before the incidents started again, as mysteriously as they had stopped.
Then the Canadians got hit.
Cuba has no obvious grievances with Canada. The two countries have close ties, but perhaps Canadians were targeted to muddle the motive and throw investigators off the trail, another possibility US authorities have not eliminated.
The US Department of State consulted with doctors at Johns Hopkins University and the University of Pennsylvania. The US encouraged those institutions to keep what they knew private.
The FBI traveled to Havana and swept some of the rooms where attacks were reported — a list that included homes and at least one hotel: the Spanish-run Hotel Capri, where visiting US officials occasionally stay.
The Royal Canadian Mounted Police also flew down. Neither agency found any sonic device, several officials said.
By May 23, the US still had no answers, but something had to be done. The Trump administration expelled two Cuban diplomats from Washington to protest the communist government’s failure to protect the safety of US diplomats.
The next month, Trump imposed some barriers to travel between the former Cold War foes, but there was no hint it was to punish Castro’s government for the attacks. Trump left much of Obama’s broader detente intact, including the two nations’ reopened embassies.
The diplomats suffered in private, until Aug. 9.
News reports finally prompted the state department to publicly acknowledge “incidents which have caused a variety of physical symptoms” and were still under investigation, including concentration problems and even trouble recalling commonplace words.
Two weeks later, the US announced at least 16 Americans showed symptoms. At that point, the state department said the incidents were “not ongoing.”
Still, the tally continued to rise to the current 21.
In the meantime, the state department had to withdraw its assurance the attacks had long ceased. There had been another incident on Aug. 21.
“The reality is, we don’t know who or what has caused this,” state department spokeswoman Heather Nauert said. “And that’s why the investigation is under way.”
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