Former CIA Director James Woolsey was battling Havana Syndrome in the years before his death Tuesday, according to his wife, who said the unexplained condition shadowed his final years.
Woolsey, 84, died of a stroke at his home in Washington, DC. He headed the CIA for two years during former President Bill Clinton’s administration in the early 1990s, a role that would make him one of the most senior US officials publicly linked to the debilitating illness.
“We have traveled the world trying to find a cure and a treatment, which sadly we never found,” Conchita Sarnoff Woolsey, the former spy chief’s wife, told the Washington Post.
Sarnoff Woolsey said her husband’s decline was directly tied to Havana Syndrome, a condition associated with symptoms such as ear pain, memory loss, exhaustion, migraines, dizziness, cognitive difficulties and hearing impairment.
She said Woolsey first began showing signs of the disorder after an incident in Washington in 2017, followed by another episode in Istanbul in 2018.
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More than 1,500 cases of Havana Syndrome have been reported among US intelligence officers and diplomatic personnel across dozens of countries, including inside the United States, since the phenomenon was first identified in Cuba in 2016.
In June, former Director of National Intelligence Tulsi Gabbard withdrew two disputed Biden-era assessments that had found Havana Syndrome — formally described by the government as anomalous health incidents, or AHI — was unlikely to have been caused by attacks from foreign adversaries targeting American personnel.
The move followed pressure from the Republican-led House Intelligence Committee, which in January urged the Office of the Director of National Intelligence to retract the earlier conclusions as evidence grew that a microwave weapon could be behind the mysterious illness.
Multiple sources have previously told The Post that US intelligence agencies internally believe Russia may be behind the attacks.
In 2024, undercover American agents secretly purchased a miniaturized microwave weapon from a Russian criminal network for roughly $15 million as part of a Pentagon-backed effort aimed at determining the cause of Havana Syndrome, CBS News reported in March.
The classified weapon was tested on animals at a US military lab and produced neurological injuries similar to those seen in Havana Syndrome patients, the outlet reported.
The CIA did not immediately respond to The Post’s request for comment.
