As reported in Time Magazine 22 Mar 1976
TIME has learned that the State Department last week decided to launch a full-scale medical investigation of the thousands of U.S. diplomats and their families who served in Moscow since the early 1960s. In the wake of the microwave disclosures, former embassy employees and their families have recalled suffering strange ailments during their tenure in Moscow, ranging from eye tics and headaches to heavy menstrual flows.
Some point out that former Ambassadors to Moscow Charles Bohlen and Llewellyn Thompson both died of cancer, within the last two years one other Moscow diplomat died of cancer, and five women who lived there have undergone cancer-related mastectomies—although no medical authorities attribute these deaths and illnesses to radiation.
Only in recent weeks has Ambassador Walter Stoessel (who is said to be suffering from anemia and eye hemorrhaging) been briefing embassy staffers on the situation. Rumors that the waves can cause leukemia, sterility in males or birth defects are circulating around the embassy.
U.S. Government studies say there could be harmful effects from microwave exposure due to their “cooking” of human cells. But no link to cancer has been demonstrated.
Back home, the Democrats have not made a campaign issue of the affair—so far. But cold-warring Scoop Jackson will probably speak out sharply if the waves are not completely switched off pretty soon. Meanwhile, some former employees are considering legal action. One tactic may be to sue the department for more details, under the Freedom of Information Act.
Full article here (no longer freely available): http://content.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,911755-1,00.html
Followup in the New York Times:
MOSCOW, May 29 1976 (AP) — The Soviet Union has stopped bombarding the American Embassy with microwaves, an embassy spokesman said today. The move was seen as an attempt by Moscow to improve relations before the meeting in June of President Carter and Leonid I. Brezhnev. the Soviet leader.
For the last three and a half years, strong beams have been aimed at the embassy’s upper floors from transmitters east and south of the 10‐story structure. “Neither the east nor the south signal has operated since the end of April,” the embassy spokesman said. “Hence, we have detected no radiation since that time from those sources.” Other microwave sources in the area have been detected for years but were not considered comparable to the searchlight‐like beams aimed at the embassy building.
Since the mid‐1960’s Washington repeatedly protested to Moscow on radiation bombardment. The exact purpose of the activity never has been clear. American officials theorized that the microwaves could have been intended to jam American electronic‐intelligence equipment or to trigger electronic monitor devices concealed in the embassy.
http://www.nytimes.com/1979/05/30/archives/soviet-halts-microwaves-aimed-at-us-embassy.html
And from the CIA’s website: “Russian micro-waves plan ‘to drive US envoys mad”
https://www.cia.gov/library/readingroom/docs/CIA-RDP80-01601R000300340039-3.pdf