A former counterintelligence officer who was the first person to report symptoms linked to “Havana Syndrome” has died at age 65.
Michael Beck, a retired National Security Agency staffer who blamed his early-onset Parkinson’s diagnosis at age 45 on the still-unexplained medical condition, died while shopping on Saturday in Columbia, Maryland.
His daughter, Regan, told The New York Times that Beck’s cause of death has not yet been determined.
Beck was the first government official working overseas to report symptoms linked to Havana Syndrome, including dizziness, hearing loss, headaches, and debilitating cognitive issues.
More than 200 government employees and diplomats also complained of suffering from similar ailments around the world between 2016 and 2018, most notably after working at the U.S. Embassy in Havana.
While no definitive explanation for the spate of illnesses has been established, a December 2020 report from the National Academy of Sciences concluded that those affected were likely victims of a deliberate attack involving “directed, pulsed radio-frequency energy.” A U.S. intelligence assessment released in 2023, however, concluded that it was “very unlikely” a foreign adversary had been behind the unexplained health incidents.
Beck was forced into retirement from the NSA in 2016 after his Parkinson’s diagnosis left him too ill to work. For years, he believed the early diagnosis was linked to a visit he made to a “hostile” country in 1996. Another NSA employee who worked with him in the unnamed country, Charles Gubete, was also later diagnosed with Parkinson’s disease and died in 2013.
Beck later said he was provided evidence in a classified report suggesting the hostile country may have targeted him with a covert weapon using microwave blasts.
“The National Security Agency confirms that there is intelligence information from 2012 associating the hostile country to which Mr. Beck traveled in the late 1990s with a high-powered microwave system weapon that may have the ability to weaken, intimidate, or kill an enemy over time and without leaving evidence,” an unclassified version of that report said.
A workers’ compensation claim filed by Beck was denied after the NSA declined to support his theory about how he became ill. Scores of other U.S. government employees later reported falling ill with Havana Syndrome, including cases in China.
“I was sick to my stomach and shocked when I read that report,” Beck told The Washington Post in 2017. “I am familiar with other things this hostile country does, and it just felt raw and unfair.”
