Pete Williams, Pentagon Correspondent for NBC News, says he has been told that some agencies have not even gotten their objections in yet to NARA.This is ridiculous and inexcusable. The fact that some agencies have yet to send their memos should be taken as a tacit sign that they have no objections. They had a deadline; they didn't meet it. The Archives should not cater to their incompetence and/or mendacity. The fact that they are appearing to do exactly that only makes them complicit.
In an exchange this morning on a listserv for JFK records researchers, Williams wrote [he approved dissemination of his comments]:We've been told by intelligence officials that the memo has not even been sent to the White House yet, specifying which material the agencies want withheld. Our understanding is that the CIA is asking only for some redactions, not for documents to be withheld in their entirety. But other agencies involved in the process have not yet finished their submissions.He later added:
These officials believe that little material, therefore, will come out today. "There's a mad scramble going on in the executive branch to get this done," one official tells us.I just talked to an official at another US agency whose documents are at issue. His understanding is that some material will come out today but the remainder will be postponed to a later date. However, the issue of what to do now is still being discussed, and no decisions have been made.
President Trump on Tuesday expelled 15 Cuban diplomats, escalating his response to a mysterious affliction that has stricken American Embassy personnel in Havana in a move that cast a Cold War chill over relations between the two countries.The U.S. diplomats were hearing strange noises at night. This within certain parts of their embassy as well as in some homes. Lots of mischief was suspected - from huge infrasound weapons to food poisoning. But no technical or medical explanation was found. The State Department described the noise as "specific attacks" on its diplomats. At least 21 were affected and half of the U.S. staff in Havana was ordered home. Cuban diplomats were expelled from the U.S.
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American diplomats and their spouses began reporting symptoms that included hearing loss, dizziness, balance and visual problems, headaches and cognitive issues last December. By late January, the State Department realized that the illnesses were related and might have resulted from some sort of attack, perhaps by a sonic device, toxin or virus.
But US and Cuban investigations have produced no evidence of any weapon, and the neurologists argue that the possibility of "functional disorder" due to a problem in the functioning of nervous system - rather than a disease - should be considered.
"From an objective point of view it's more like mass hysteria than anything else," said Mark Hallett, the head of the human motor control section of the US National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke.
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Alan Carson, a consultant neuropsychiatrist and former president of the British Neuropsychiatry Association told the Guardian: "Typically what one gets in a functional disorder is some trigger. It is often relatively mild and non-specific, it can be a minor physical injury. But then a combination of a degree of anxiety and also belief and expectation distort that feeling."
"If there is a strong enough expectation that something is going to happen, that will distort in an entirely real way the incoming information," Carson said. "In certain circumstances that can be transmitted from person to person... If one person has that experience strongly enough and sets off that train of thought in somebody's else's mind, that can happen too."
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