EFFECT OF RADIATION AT U.S. EMBASSY WILL BE STUDIED

• Document Type: CREST
• Collection: General CIA Records
• Document Number (FOIA) /ESDN (CREST): CIA-RDP88B01125R000300120031-7
• Release Decision: RIFPUB
• Original Classification: K
• Document Page Count: 1
• Document Creation Date: December 22, 2016
• Document Release Date: May 10, 2012
• Sequence Number: 31
• Publication Date: May 8, 1977
• Content Type: OPEN SOURCE

Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP88B01125R000300120031-7
WASHINGTON POST
8 may 1977
Effect ofs adiut onn
At I.S. Embassy
Will Be Studied
By Keyes Beech
Chtca o Daily News
-
The State Department has given
Johns Hopkins University in Balti-
more:a $250.000 contract to determine;
whether there is a lirk between mi-
crowave radiation beamed at the U.S. i
embassy in Moscow and an apparent-
.1y. high rate of cancer among Ameri-
cans serving there.
orchard Moose, deputy under secre-
tary of state for management, said the
cost of the research project might go
as high as $400,000 and that it would
be a year or more before the results
are known-.
"But it will be worth it to lower the
anxiety level among Moscow embassy.
personnel and restore credibility in
the State Department management by
Foreign Service families who feel they
have been victimized," said _Mouse,
who visited Moscow six weeks ago.
A separate, nonscientific study is be-
ing conducted by an emotionally in-
volved Foreign Service officer whose
wife developed breast cancer while
they were serving in Moscow, Moose
said. .. I
The survey has disclosed that 16
American women who served in Mos-
cow developed breast. cancer, Moose
said. Two former American ambassa-
dors to Moscow, Charles (Chip) Boh-
len and Llewellyn Thompson, died of
cancer in the past few years.
Zbigniew Brzezinski, now national
security adviser to President Carter,.,
told reporters in March, 1976, in TO-'
yo that the cancer rate among Ameri-
cans in the Moscow embassy was the
highest in the world.
He blamed Soviet. microwave radia-
tion beamed at the embassy for what
appears to be the abnormally high
cancer rate.'
"But none of this proves anything.
Moose said. "We just don't know, but
we are determined to find out."
CIA and Secret Service sources say
that abnormally high radiation at the'
i'Ioscow embassy was first discovered,
.in 1959,
But not until early 1976 did the;
story leak.out when Ambassador Wal-'
ter Stoessel. called a staff meeting to
discuss the subject. Stoessel, now am-.
bassador to West Germany, was re-
,.vi( tl to be suffer in-- from anemia.
_.- .,w..-.. Declassified and Approved For Release 2012/05/10: CIA-RDP88B01125R000300120031-7