Egon Loebner and the Soviets

 Strange and wonderful notes get sent my way from time to time.   Here is one from Chuck Morehouse, a stalwart HP Labs researcher from the 1970-1990 era.   

• Chuck,
• I have a question about long-ago HP that you might know something about.  It is about Egon Loebner.  I have just watched a PBS Compass Points report on a new book on the Havana Syndrome.  I have heard many reports on this but never one that mentions a story about Egon that was circulating anound HP Labs around the time I first joined in the early 1980s.
•  
• The story was that Egon went to Moscow to investigate rumors of a mysterious illness of some members of the US Embassy.  The suspicion was that it might be caused by some sort of radio or microwave radiation bathing the Embassy.  The story was that he was able to confirm with direct measurements that the Russians were bathing the Embassy with microwaves.
•  
• Do you have any knowledge of this story?  Might it be true but the story was covered up officially but could still linger in HP Labs among Egon's colleagues?
•  
• Any thoughts you have on this would be appreciated.
•  
• Cheers,
• Chuck Morehouse

So, a little background.  Loebner was a survivor of Auschwitz thanks to his scientific and engineering capabolity which the Germans exploited.  His parents, imprisoned with him, did not survive.   this colored his outlook for a lifetime, as did his deep scientific questing mind.   After deep work on opto-electronics at RCA, he joined HP, and as fate had it, encountered both Hewlett and Packard who each had experience working to promote deeper Soviet - US scientnfic relations.   I won't expound on them further here, but it should be done in a subsequent post.  The upshot was that Egon was sponsored to become an emissary to Moscow, a task he did with some reservations.

The story that Morehouse asks about occurred later, as the following account reveals:

My answer to Morehouse was:

Chuck, I have heard that story several times, but all of them a long time ago.   I didn’t know him very well; Doyle and Hammond did, but they’re both gone.  Binnbaum may know about this???

 

There are lots of ’stories’ but hard to pin them down unless it was someone who really knew.   And if you knew, it was hard to mention sometimes.    Example—the Santa Rosa site was unclear-hardened per Packard’s explicit instructions, but Doug Chance (who ran it, and oversaw construction even for a period) didn’t know that until I told him thirty years later.  I snuck that tidbit into The HP Phenomenon (page 489) in an innocuous paragraph 

 

You might also try John Minck, who has a penchant for wonderful details from HP.  I am including him here.

 

There is apparently an autobiography of Egon’s.   This outlines the first seven chapters https://shoah.deportal.cz/shoah/document/10 

 

That’d be fascinating to find and read.   I think his son may still be living. Gary Loenere, but I couldn’t find him in LinedIn

 

Egon’s Ancestry.com data is at https://www.ancestry.com/family-tree/person/tree/161347171/person/112125226517/facts    It notes three offspring, but no names, which says they were still living when the form was filled out

 

Sorry that I cannot be more helpful

 

Chuck

Well, the note bore fruit.  HP super-hisstorian John Minck rose to the challenge magnificently:

Hi Chuck (Morehouse, not me),

I got to know Egon fairly well, he was an LED expert with experience at RCA before HP. I wrote him up in my Narrative History of HP 

and will attach a copy. The incident of the Embassy microwaves is true, because Egon told me about it. I've forgotten which administration was in DC but it was when Packard was appointed as Deputy Secretary of Defense. Egon was recruited to be a Technical Attache in the American Embassy, for three years. The staff there was getting serious medical issues, some more than others, but they finally did some measurements and found that the Embassy was being bombarded by high power microwaves. It turns out that speech audio vibrations of the windows would reflect enough power to detect audio. 

The technical folks then built a separate room inside another room, with those acoustic pyramids, and secret meetings were held there. Plus they covered all internal rooms with aluminum foil to shield the place. 

Egon also told me that the Russians had built a brand new building to be used for the American Embassy, and filled it with hidden microphones, in light fixtures, etc. My memory fades now, but some idea persisits that the Embassy might have taken other buildings where they weren't bugged ahead of time. 

Now that I think about it, the foil would have given strong reflections for the audio recovery? 

If you have other specific questions, just ask.

John 

Anyone doubt the value of 'old-timers' still on the scene?

Anyway thanks to Chuck Morehouse for raising the question and for John to answer it.

All the bst

Chuck House