However, we learned only years later that this had happened and that information on it had been kept from us. We probably would have volunteered anyway to serve in Moscow, even if we had known about this. Many of us who had served in the embassy felt betrayed as people who had put so much into our efforts and who had volunteered to serve in Moscow. We felt betrayed by the leadership of the Department of State and by the Secretary of State himself…I’m speaking now of the microwave radiation scandal, as I would call it, of the early 1970s, which harked back to the early 1960s. Also a mystery was what was the response. How they had bombarded our embassy remained somewhat of a mystery, as well as why they had done so. Why they had done this remained a mystery. It turned out that the Soviets had been bombarding us with microwaves, beginning in about 1964 or 1965. Nobody can leave with notes on this discussion.” One said to oneself: “What in the hell is going on here?” This was somewhat reassuring until, at the end of the meeting, Larry Eagleburger said, “Now, rip up all of your notes and give them to me. He said that medical studies were under way, and the evidence thus far was that these microwaves had not been deleterious to our health. We were finally ushered into a room where Larry Eagleburger (pictured), Kissinger’s Special Assistant at the time, briefed us and made some sort of presentation, assuring us that steps would be taken, and so forth. We raised our voices in despair, dissent, and so forth. I remember being one of a small group of officers in 1972 or 1973 when news of this development broke. I have to tell you what a shock it was in about 1972 or 1973 to wake up to the great, microwave scandal and to find that Secretary of State Henry Kissinger and his associates had kept from us the fact that for years we had been bombarded by microwave apparatuses, directed straight at the embassy in Moscow. That’s the way we looked at things in the Foreign Service in those days. This was the front line in the heart of the country of our adversaries. For me, with the mentality of that period, this was a great challenge. “Unbeknownst to us, the Department of State was testing our blood”īROWN: When I first went to Moscow in 1966, after serving in Borneo and Southeast Asia, I fought tooth and nail to be assigned to study Russian, so that I could be assigned as the Sino-Soviet specialist in Moscow. Go here for other Moments on Russia/USSR. Read also about James Schumaker’s experience. He was interviewed by Charles Stuart Kennedy beginning in November 1998. William Andreas Brown discusses the widespread concern among Americans working at the embassy at the time and their anger at the State Department for its lack of transparency on the issue. at the time another explanation is that the USSR was apparently trying to jam electronic monitoring devices located at the embassy. The level of microwaves was actually lower than what was considered safe in the U.S. Famed columnist Jack Anderson wrote that a CIA file named “Operation Pandora” described the Soviets’ attempt to “brainwash” Americans. One concern was that the Soviets were trying to inflict physical harm on the Americans working there. confirmed that the USSR had been beaming microwaves at the embassy for the past 15 years. One of the strangest episodes was revealed in the 1970s, when the U.S. relations with Moscow through the decades have been problematic at best while the embassy itself has been the subject of spy scandals, eavesdropping and other Cold War intrigue.
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