Thoughts
and Comments
by Ed Lake
Updates
& Changes: Sunday, May 13, 2012, thru Saturday, May 19,
2012
May 16, 2012 - On Sunday, I wrote
this about the picture of Bruce Ivins in his lab: "I recall reading somewhere how, when Nancy Haigwood
received a copy of the picture, she thought it was crazy for Ivins to
be handling Petri dishes with his bare hands." Here's that
picture again:
I did some research and found a
CNN article with Nancy Haigwood's comments. The article says:
On November 14, 2001,
Ivins e-mailed photos of himself to Nancy Haigwood, as well as former
colleagues and family members, that showed him working with what he
called "the now infamous" strain of anthrax used in the attacks.
The e-mail was striking,
says Haigwood, because "we publish our work. We talk about it at
conferences. [But] we don't e-mail photos with anthrax."
....
One picture stood out: a
photo of Ivins without gloves supposedly handling a sample of anthrax.
Haigwood interpreted this lack of the most rudimentary protection as a
bragging message from Ivins, "a sign [that] 'I'm immune.'"
"It was more an 'Oh, no!'
than an 'Aha!' moment," she says.
That's what triggered her
call to the FBI in February 2002.
I had been thinking that
the photo was taken before
the anthrax attacks. The fact that it was emailed after the attacks probably also
means it was taken after the
attacks. And, Nancy Haigwood's comment that sending around
the photo seems to indicate that Ivins was thinking "I'm immune" fits
very nicely with the time frame. Ivins had been asked to examine
the Daschle and New York Post powders, so he was probably feeling that
he'd gotten away with four murders.
November 14 also happens
to be the day that Ottilie Lundgren first showed symptoms of inhalation
anthrax. In a week,
she'd be dead.
So, if I add the photo to my book, the right place to add it would be
after Ivins does the New York Post powder analysis and before
Lundgren's death. The emails by Ivins haven't shown up on the FBI vault web site
yet. I'd like to read the Nov. 14, 2001 email, too. Maybe
it says something I can use.
The Judge Advocate General says the picture is in the public
domain. Hopefully so. But, I still need a good copy that
doesn't have the Copyrighted by AP logo on it. I'll send an
FOIA request to the FBI today.
May 14, 2012 - I've located the
post by Prof. Martin Hugh-Jones to ProMedMail.org that I mentioned in
yesterday's comment. The post is near the the bottom of the page
that
can be viewed by clicking HERE.
Prof. Hugh-Jones wrote,
[The key sentence is the
last: "The absence of meglumine and diatrizoate on the evidentiary
material ... was supportive to the investigation in indicating that the
evidentiary spore material [in the letters] was not diverted directly
from RMR-1029." So Bruce Ivins
could not have brewed up these spores working after hours as proposed
by the FBI. It had to have been done elsewhere in an institute that did
not employ "RenoCal-76(R) or similar products to purify spores."
It is hard to understand why it has
taken so long for this information to be published, more than 10 years
since the events of October 2001. One can think of various scenarios
but Swider and her colleagues, and their superiors, are to be
congratulated on their institutional courage as there must have been
pressures to not do so. - Mod.MHJ]
Interestingly,
there's a similar post by a Dr. Dennis Grant HERE.
And there's another post by Martin Hugh-Jones at the end of Dr. Grant's
post:
[Dennis raises the question whether the renografin (meglumine or
diatrizoate) could have been washed off during washing the spores.
A fair question and if there any members with sound expert
knowledge on this subject, we would be glad to hear from them.
If the renografin chemicals cannot be removed by washing this
would put the letter spores' origin immediately away from the
RMR-1029 flask, even if cultured from a common source or from
material shared taken from the flask. I would remind members
that the letter contents had a _B. subtilis_ contaminant, which
was not found in the contents of the RMR-1029 flask. While the
FBI dismissed the importance of this contaminant Bacillus it has
the potential of being an institutional fingerprint. - Mod MHJ]
The
arguments, of course, are totally
absurd. It's just mistaken beliefs from "experts" who
haven't
bothered to look at the facts. There was no need to use
renografin to purify the spores. And there was no B subtilis contaminant in the senate letters. Therefore,
all that was needed to produce the contaminant in the media powders was
to have one plate contain the
contaminant. That doesn't constitute an "institutional
fingerprint."
Here are a couple additional
facts that occurred to
me this morning:
FACT #1:
When the New York Post letter was found, it was immediately determined that the
powder inside consisted of about 90% matrix material and agar, with
only about 10% spores. (Matrix material is the afterbirth of
sporulation. It's the carcasses of the mother germs naturally
dissolved into slime.) The contents of flask RMR-1029 consisted
of pure spores in distilled
water with a few drops of an anti-fugus agent. So, if the attack spores had been
taken directly from flask RMR-1029, where did the matrix material and
agar come from? (The NAS might argue that it is scientifically
possible to add matrix material and agar to pure spores, but it
certainly makes absolutely no sense to do so.) And this means the
FBI knew in October 2001 that the spores didn't come directly from flask RMR-1029, even
though they hadn't even heard of flask RMR-1029 at the time.
FACT #2:
Early in the case, in October 2001, the media
created a belief that the Ames strain came from a lab at the Iowa
State University in Ames Iowa. And, the media found "experts" who
believed the Ames strain may have originated back in the 1950's during
the development of bioweapons, and the spores could have been stolen
from weaponized stocks stored at that time. Scientists working
for the FBI, however, quickly determined via tests similar to carbon
dating that the attack spores were no more than two
years old. So, they could not have originated back in the
1950's. And, although flask RMR-1029 wasn't even a subject of
discussion at the time, the tests also proved the spores couldn't have
come directly from flask RMR-1029, since the spores in that flask were
created in 1997, four years
before the mailings.
So, the FBI had proof that
the attack spores did not come directly from flask RMR-1029 long before
that flask was even a subject of discussion. The current argument
seems to be made up by
conspiracy theorists who believe that Ivins didn't have the time to
make the spores found in the letters, so the FBI must believe the spores came
directly from flask RMR-1029. And, of course, the reason
conspiracy theorists have that mistaken belief is their other
nonsensical beliefs about when
Ivins would have started making the spores and how he could only have made and
dried the spores using standard
lab practices.
May 13, 2012 - Last week was a fairly busy week for me,
even though I didn't make as much progress on my new book as I'd
hoped. I've just finished Chapter 32 in the "Notes &
Resources"
section. That means I only managed to compile the references for
7 chapters last week, and I still have 16
chapters left to go.
On my
interactive blog, I managed to get "Anonymous" to attempt to argue
facts instead of just declaring his mistaken beliefs. He tried
arguing about how computers worked, using his beliefs against my 20+
years of actual experience developing computer systems. Then he
tried to support Bruce Ivins' lawyer Paul Kemp's mistaken beliefs about
Ivins' first submission to the FBIR. His beliefs were quickly
trounced by my solid facts. As a result, I
appear to have backed "Anonymous" into a corner, which means he's gone
quiet and
hasn't posted anything since Wednesday.
Also on Wednesday, I decided that I'd waited long enough for responses
to the two query letters I sent to two large literary agencies on April
11
and 17. I decided to assume that no reply in a month means they
aren't
interested. So, I sent out a dozen
new query emails to smaller
agencies. On Thursday I received a "too busy to take on new
clients" response from one agency, and on Friday I received a
"Thanks but this is not for me" from another agency. No
other responses so far.
On Friday, I received a phone call from the FBI about an FOIA request
I'd sent them a week ago. Among other things, I'd
asked for a large photo of the Leahy anthrax letter. I
didn't recall ever seeing a copy of the Leahy letter except for pictures
of it being
unfolded. I wanted to see it laying flat next to a ruler so I
could try to see if it was trimmed differently than the Daschle
letter. Early in the investigation I noticed that the Brokaw
letter (#1 below), the NY Post letter (#2) and the Daschle letter #3)
were each trimmed differently to make them fit more easily into the
small size post
office envelope, and I wondered if the culprit may have saved the
trimmings to use as proof that he sent the letters. I thought the
culprit may have believed the letters
could make him a hero if it turned out he had warned
America just in time to put everyone on alert immediately before a real anthax attack
from real Muslim terrorists
was launched.
During the phone call from the FBI, I was advised that there's a fairly
large copy of the Leahy letter in pdf format on the Department of
Justice's web site HERE.
After converting it to .jpg format and slightly reducing it in size, it
looks like this:
Looking
through my files, I found that I'd downloaded everything from
the DOJ site on February 19, 2010, at the same time I downloaded and
saved all the FBI case files. So, I already had the Leahy letter in .pdf
format. I'd just forgotten about it because it wasn't like the
.TIF versions of the letters and envelopes I'd recieved in 2002 or so.
The photos of the Leahy and Daschle letters appear to
have been taken from slightly different angles. I drew a
red line along the edge of the Leahy letter and a black line along the
edge of the Daschle letter and then digitally
overlaid
them, attempting to get the text to line up perfectly. I wasn't
able to the a perfect lineup, but I can see enough to be relatively
certain that the two letters were trimmed approximately the same way.
So, it appears that Bruce Ivins wasn't thinking as much about becoming
a
hero and saving America from a catastrophic bioweapons attack when the
sent the senate letters in October as he was when he sent the media
letters in September. That's evidently also why there isn't any "hidden message" in the senate
letter. And that's what I'd been figuring.
The DOJ's full Amerithrax web site is HERE and contains a
couple other pdf images of interest. In my January 20, 2012
(A) comment, I posted a
black and white copy of a photo of an anthrax culture with notes by
Ivins. The DOJ site has a
color version of the same photo. But, I'm not enough of an
expert to analyze the picture to see what Ivins thought he was seeing
in the culture. All the colonies look the same to me.
There's also a photo of page
404 of Gödel, Escher Bach
on the DOJ site.
Unfortunately, it doesn't have any notations or marks by Ivins on the
page proving that he read the page. I'd been thinking of sending
out an FOIA request for any markings on any pages on or after
404. But it no longer seems like a worthwhile effort. The
page is also identical to
page 404 in the copy of GEB
that I have in my library (and there are no
marks on it or on pages after it, even though I read the page).
I also asked the FBI FOIA person about the Ivins emails that are
supposed to show up on vault.fbi.gov
sometime soon. There doesn't appear to be anything on the home
page of that site that says where to find Amerithrax documents.
"Amerithrax" and "anthrax" aren't in the A-Z directory, and neither is
"Ivins, Bruce". But doing a search for "anthrax" will take you to
a page for Amerithrax at vault.fbi.gov/Amerithrax
where they have their own copies of the FBI case files. It's easy
to find, if you know where to look.
So, that may be where the
Ivins emails will
show up - if and when they show up.
While looking at the pdf images on the DOJ site, I noticed something
else. Here's a comparison of the photo I
have of the New York Post letter on my
site versus the
photo of the same letter on the DOJ's site:
They're different photos, but probably taken around the same
time. Note that in the photo from my site on the left, the bottom
left corner of the letter is below the gray rectangle on the ruler, but
on the DOJ photo on the right, that same corner is higher. So,
they are not the same photo
with one distorted and color adjusted. Why do the images appear
to be so different? I don't think it's evidence of any kind of
evil
criminal conspiracy. It may be partly the result of converting it
into a
pdf file to fit some standard slide or page size. Check out the
distorted shape of the Leahy envelope on the DOJ's site HERE.
Whatever the
reason for the distortions, the versions from my site are closest to
reality.
The
DOJ
probably has the pictures in .pdf format so no one can "hot link"
them, i.e., show them on someone else's site by a special kind of link
to the image on the DOJ site. For example, the picture below is
shown via a "hot link":
The photograph is an
illustration from a
February 16, 2011 article on the
web site of the UK newspaper The
Daily Mail. As you can see, it says on the picture in the
lower left corner that it's copyrighted by the Associated Press.
But, is it? How did an AP photographer get into Bruce Ivins'
secure BSL-3 lab to take the picture? If it wasn't taken by an AP
photographer, how did AP get the copyrights?
In David Willman's book "The Mirage Man," there's a black and white
version of the same picture, and Willman says that it was provided by
USAMRIID. But, was it? If it was provided by
USAMRIID, then AP doesn't own the copyrights. I sent a FOIA
request to
USAMRIID, and they don't have a copy of the picture in their
files. They don't seem to know where it came from.
My recollection is that it was taken by Ivins himself (or by an
associate), and Ivins sent it around via emails to people to show them
how he worked in his lab. I recall reading somewhere how, when Nancy Haigwood
received a copy of the picture, she thought it was crazy for Ivins to
be handling Petri dishes with his bare hands.
So, if I want to use the photograph in my book, I need to try to track
down the source to see if it is actually owned by AP or someone else,
or if it is in the public domain.
I'll try to track down the comment Nancy Haigwood made about it.
Or I could just wait for Ivins' emails to appear on vault.fbi.gov to
see if his emails explain how the picture was taken and who took
it. Or I could try asking the FBI. I don't currently use
the photo in my new book, but I'd definitely
like to add it. What I'm rambling on about is how difficult and
time consuming it
can be to track down the source of something.
Some
of my time last week was also spent responding to emails from a
science writer who was comparing my statements about the source of the
attack anthrax to comments made by Martin Hugh-Jones in response to an
article titled "Trace
Detection of Meglumine and Diatrizoate from Bacillus Spore Samples
Using Liquid Chromatograpy/Mass Spectrometry." The same
subject was commented upon on Lew
Weinstein's web site last week. Conspiracy theorists and True
Believers are using the article to once again argue that Bruce Ivins
couldn't have made the attack powders.
The email from the science writer included copies of other emails he'd
been
sent from other scientists as they pondered how Ivins could have made
the powders. And there was an email that Martin Hugh-Jones
supposedly sent to ProMedMail.org
which implied that the fact that the attack spores didn't come directly
from flask RMR-1029 was almost proof
of Ivins' innocence, since Ivins couldn't have made the spores himself
in the time he had. I explained to the science writer (and to
Martin
Hugh-Jones) how easy it was for
Ivins to do it.
It's a very complex
subject. I can understand how scientists just getting into the
subject with
little prior knowledge of the Amerithrax case can be easily
confused.
What the world really needs
is a book that steps through the entire case, almost day by day, point
by point, discovery by discovery until it's made totally clear that
Ivins was the anthrax mailer and the FBI did a terrific job in tracking him
down. Hmm. I think I know where people will be
able to find the book ... as soon as I finish writing it and get it
published. 
|
Updates
& Changes: Sunday, May 6, 2012, thru Saturday, May 12,
2012
May 9, 2010 - One problem with
arguing about the same subject for
over ten years is that it gets increasingly difficult to
remember everything you've already argued about. At 4:05 a.m this morning, on my
interactive blog, "Anonymous" wrote that he had just uploaded Ivins' attorney Paul
Kemp's November 29, 2010 presentation to the conspiracy theorist
seminar that took place on that date. It's been a complaint of
mine that he only uploaded parts of that seminar that served his cause,
while not uploading key parts that would provide a more accurate and
comprehensive view (like his presentation, Dr. Nass's presentation, and
John Ezzell's comment that Ivins could
have made the attack anthrax). Thinking it was therefore
something new, I viewed the two YouTube videos he had uploaded, and I
commented on them. But, then I had the feeling it was all stuff
I'd seen before. So, I checked and found that I'd viewed it all
and debunked it all in my December
2, 2010 comment and in later comments. So, I had to go back
and modify my
response to "Anonymous." And, "Anonymous" has wasted my time
once again.
But, the review of old material also showed me how my new book thoroughly debunks everything
Mr.
Kemp claimed about Ivins' innocence during that seminar.
May 8, 2012 - There's something else
I'll be looking for in Bruce Ivins' emails when they appear on vault.fbi.gov. I'll be looking
for any indication that Ivins watched the movie "The Cell" during the
weeks prior to 9/11. Right now, I only have a question: Did Bruce
Ivins also send "The J-Lo Letter"?
I have few indications (a.k.a. "facts") that he did, but those
indications are very
tenuous. However, if Ivins watched "The Cell" during that time
frame, it would no longer be just a question, it would become a working hypothesis. And I
would have to go back an modify some comments in my book.
On my interactive blog yesterday, "Anonymous" brought to my attention a
question about the other subject I'll be looking for in Ivins'
emails: What did Ivins plan to do with the ammonium nitrate bomb he was
making in January 2000? David Willman's book "The Mirage Man" seems to make it clear on page 50
that Ivins mentioned the bomb plan to his psychiatrist Dr. David Irwin
in February of 2000. But a newspaper article by Willman suggests
that Ivins may also have mentioned the bomb plan
to one of his mental health counselors in July 2000. And, any
mention of that counselor sends "Anonymous" into ranting
hysterics. (He posted 11
messages about it last night and this morning, and he sent me an email.) I
currently have a working hypothesis about the purpose of that
bomb. But, some kind of confirmation would be nice.
Meanwhile, a relative sent me a YouTube video titled "What happens when
you ask a Boeing engineer to fix your lawnmower." It's
totally off subject, unless you tie it into what appears to be "Anonymous's"
latest worry, that Muslim terrorists might use ultra-light drone
aircraft to disperse anthrax spores on American cities.
May 6, 2012 (B) - Uh oh. The
Sept. 17, 2001 email I mentioned in Saturday's comment was continuing
to bug me, and I wondered what I'd written about it in my
book. So, I looked for a mention of it and found it on page
80, where I said it was an email sent to Mara Linscott. And I
quoted part of the email with
a recently added footnote to the source. The source was page 46
of the
FBI/DOJ Summary Report which says:
By the summer of 2001, his depression had
increased. In fact, his prescription for the anti-depressant Celexa was
doubled shortly before the mailings. The increasingly intractable
troubles with the anthrax vaccine projects were compounded by the loss
he felt with the absence of this former colleague[#1], who, as is clear
from the above e-mails, was an integral part of his mental well being.
When she was responsive to his e-mails, he felt better; when she was
distant, he felt worse.30 As he noted to her in an e-mail on
September 17, 2001 – the day the first letters were mailed – “I haven’t
been feeling so good lately because of all that’s going on. I
really can’t talk to [my wife], and I don’t say that much to [Former
Colleague #2] or anyone else. The group I’m in is only moderately
helpful. I’m glad some of us are going to Covance tomorrow with some
vaccine. It will be good to get away. I wish I had someone here that I
could really open up to at times like this.”
So, the Summary report says the email was to
Mara Linscott. And, as a result, so does my own book.
But, that was based upon the source and the small quotes from the
email. When looking at the
entire email, the content appears very
different. Why?
Evidently, I'd pictured the relationship between Ivins and Mara very
differently. I'd been thinking of that relationship as being
similar to Ivins' largely one-sided relationship with Nancy
Haigwood. Yet, in the parts of the email not shown in the Summary
Report, Ivins writes to Mara like he's writing to a daughter or a child. Why would he
write about the "neat things" Mara was "getting into" in her third year of medical school?
Why would Ivins offer to send melatonin to a third year medical student?
I can imagine that Mara may
have been in Europe or somewhere distant while on vacation over the
summer, and she was having a hard time adjusting to the time difference
now that she was back at the University of Buffalo, but I wouldn't have
expected that she would write to Bruce Ivins to tell him about
it. My previous impression was that Ivins was doing nearly all the writing, and Mara was just
responding perfunctorily as Nancy Haigwood did. Now I'm seeing
much more of a two-way relationship,
with Mara
looking upon Ivins as somewhat of a father figure. That probably
explains why Mara seems to have defended Ivins after his suicide.
And, it may explain why Diane Ivins tolerated the relationship for so
long. (The email even implies that Mara visited with both Bruce
and Diane at their home.)
The Summary Report has this footnote on the bottom of page 46:
30 Over the course of her first few years
after she left USAMRIID, Former Colleague #1 was inundated with e-mails
from Dr. Ivins, literally hundreds and hundreds of them, many of
extraordinary length and detail. As she stated in numerous interviews, she frequently did not reply to those
e-mails for days, and when she did it was often in a cursory fashion.
That's probably where I got the wrong impression from. There was
nothing "cursory" about the email that resulted in Ivins' September 17
response.
None of this makes any difference to the case. And it doesn't
change a word in my book. But it definitely gives me a different view
of Ivins' "obsession" with Mara. And, I'm going to be looking
for more about that "obsession" when the FBI releases those new
emails. I like to understand things, even if they aren't
critically important. And I want to learn and understand more
about the Bruce Ivins-Mara Linscott relationship.
May 6, 2012 (A) - Hmmm. Last week was another very interesting
week.
Last Sunday I wrote about an email I'd received from an Anthrax Truther
who believed the same person who wrote the anthrax letters in 2001 also
wrote letters associated with the
Chicago Lipstick murders and the Black Dahlia case in the 1940's.
Then on Friday I spotted
a press release about a book written by another Anthrax Truther who
evidently believes the anthrax letters are connected to the New
Hampshire State Lottery.
Both theories were new to me. Over the years, I've heard from dozens of Anthrax Truthers who are absolutely certain
they know who sent the
anthrax letters. As far
as I can tell, every one of the Truthers still firmly believes
his or her theory.
Those two new theories make me wonder how many other unique theories
there are out there
that I don't
know about. There's got to be thousands!
How
many people who are not Internet savvy have unique theories they can't
tell to the entire world?
I recall getting a couple emails years ago from a woman who wanted me
to
talk with
her father because her father had a theory about the case, and he
wouldn't shut up about it. Her father wasn't computer savvy, so
the woman wanted me to telephone him to ask him about his
theory. I told her I was sorry, but I refused. What good
could I do? It doesn't
appear that anyone can talk
Anthrax Truthers out of what they so firmly believe. Every time I
try,
they just tell me I'm close-minded because I refuse to accept the
facts as they view the facts.
There's one Anthrax Truther with whom I've been arguing for over 10 years.
We're still arguing on my
interactive blog where he posts as "Anonymous." He differs
from all the others in that he is a True Believer who is aggressively out to convert the
world to his beliefs. He doesn't merely believe the FBI is wrong
about who sent the letters, he seems to believe we could all be doomed if we don't believe what he believes.
Here's what he says when he posts as "DXer" on Lew
Weinstein's web site:
Amerithrax represents the
greatest failure in intelligence analysis in United States history.
And why is Amerithrax America's
"greatest intelligence failure"? He explains:
Amerithrax, not 911,
represents the greatest intelligence failure in the United States —
because the greatest failure is
the one that is ongoing.
He
has made similar statements over
and over
and over
as if he's chanting some kind of mantra. And he explains what
his main concern is:
And having failed to solve
Amerithrax, I
am expecting DC and NYC to be attacked in a mass anthrax
attack.
He
evidently believes that
any future attack would be proof
that Muslims were behind the anthrax attacks of 2001, even if it's another
ten years after the anthrax attacks and there's still no provable
connection. And he's evidently the only
person on the planet who can see the "truth." All he needs are
the right documents to prove it - even though on my blog he says he has
9,000
pages of documents that I haven't seen, but which evidently prove nothing, since he
still wants more:
I think that if there is an
attack, those responsible for the botched intelligence analysis will be
easy to trace if they continue to withhold documents and continue to
fail to correct their mistakes.
And
here's another statement
about his concerns:
In the case of Amerithrax,
only the proactive steps taken on the FBI’s own initiative will ever
serve to set things back on track. If
the FBI does not know the bad
guys are still out there, then the country is at grave peril.
It's
a very bizarre belief, since he seems to think that, because the FBI
proved that the
anthrax letters were sent by Bruce Ivins, that means that no one in the
government is trying to prevent a new
bioweapons attack from Muslim terrorists. He seems to be saying,
if we couldn't prevent a first bioweapons attack from Muslim
terrorists, then we are incapable of preventing a second attack.
And it doesn't make any difference how many government agents are
actually working every day to prevent such an attack.
On the other hand, "Anonymous" is
doing
some helpful things. He announced a couple days ago that, as
a result of a Freedom Of Information Act request sent to the FBI,
the Bureau is going to be releasing a new bunch of Bruce Ivins'
emails. It's difficult to tell exactly what was specifically
requested or who made the request, but we're apparently going to get
those emails "within a
database of other emails by Bruce Ivins." The emails will
supposedly be
made available on vault.fbi.gov
sometime in the near future. However, since all names of
individuals in the emails will
almost certainly be redacted, that means we won't be able to tell which
emails were to Mara Linscott or anyone else.
But, we might
be able to figure it out.
As I noted in yesterday's comment about the Sept. 17, 2001 email, Ivins
probably doesn't write the same way and say the same things to multiple
people in his personal emails. So, by analyzing tone and
subject matter, we should be able to separate emails sent to Mara
Linscott from emails sent to family members and friends and relatives
in Ohio with some degree of accuracy.
But, more importantly for me, the
emails might help solve some
mysteries.
The biggest mystery the emails might help solve is what Ivins was
planning to do with the ammonium
nitrate bomb
he was thinking about making in January 2000. What was on his
mind at that time when he first started seeing Dr. David Irwin,
evidently because of his concerns about that bomb plan?
His emails from that time might enable me to figure it out with greater
certainty. For my book, I've already determined the most likely reason for making the
bomb, but my reasoning was based upon very few very tenuous
facts.
I would like to have a lot more facts. But, I also think that if
the emails had any information related to Ivins' plans for the bomb -
no
matter how vague - someone in the FBI or the Expert Behavioral Analysis
Panel would have mentioned it.
It never occurred to me to ask the FBI for Ivins' emails from that
period of time. (And I'll have to wait and see if Ivins' emails from that time will
be part of what is going to be released). So, I'm glad someone
asked for those emails. The more information we have the better,
even if it also means there's more information that "Anonymous" will
try to distort or ignore in order to retain his beliefs.
It also makes me think there are some other pieces of information I
should
ask for. Long ago I asked for a photo of the back of one or more
of the anthrax envelopes to see how they were taped shut. But,
that was before the case was closed, and they wouldn't release such
information related to an open case. Since then, I found a photo
of one of the taped envelopes on page 117 of the "Auxiliary Documents"
on the NAS CD. But, it's a very lousy Xerox-type copy, and I'd
like to see a better picture. There's also an FBI photo I've seen
that might make a good addition for my book if I can get a good
copy. And, there are some photos taken at USAMRIID that I'd very much like to see. They'd
make great additions to my book. I haven't had much luck in
getting information out of USAMRIID, but a formal FOIA request might
work. I'll send out one tomorrow.
The difference between what "Anonymous" and I look for is that I
look for things that will help clarify
what is already known, and
"Anonymous" seems to look for things that he can use to distort the
facts and obfuscate with irrelevancy.
Meanwhile, I'm currently working on Chapter 25 in the "Notes &
Resources"
section of my new
book. Only 23 chapters left to go. Since the "Notes"
section is currently 15 pages long, that indicates it will probably
consist of between 25 and 30 pages when I'm done in about 2
weeks.
But assembling the information on those pages is a LOT
of very tedious work. I
thought I'd done a good job of keeping track of my
sources while writing the book, but it apparently wasn't as good as it
could have been.
The new pictures I mentioned above would just add more illustrations to
my book. They won't change the text. If the emails from Ivins
contain something important, however, that's a different story.
But, it really just means I'll be making some last minute additions as
I get into the final version where I do the actual "typesetting."
And, of course, I need to avoid getting distracted too much by the
endless arguments with "Anonymous."
|
Updates
& Changes: Tuesday, May 1, 2012, thru Saturday, May 5,
2012
May 5, 2012 - I don't know if anyone
else is going to be interested in this, but in an
argument with "Anonymous" on my interactive blog the email Bruce
Ivins sent out at 10:20 a.m. on the morning of September 17, 2001, came
up. An image of the email is HERE.
"Anonymous" has been making an issue of it because the email was not
released by the government as fast as he wanted.
Here's the email in a more easily readable form:
|
Message 0438
Subject:
RE:
From: "Ivins, Bruce E. Dr. USAMRIID" <Bruce Ivins @ [REDACTED]
Date: Mon, 17 Sep 2001 10:20:02 - 0400
To: [REDACTED]
Message Body
Dear [REDACTED]
Thanks for your letter. It sounds as if you are getting into a
lot of
really neat things, but I'm sorry that you are getting so little
sleep. [REDACTED TWO FULL LINES] mood is definitely much better,
although she was quite worried that I was going to have to go to
war.
I assured her that I would be here, and she felt better. I
haven't
been feeling so good lately because of all that's going on. I
really
can't talk to [REDACTED] and I don't say much to [REDACTED] or anyone
else. The group I'm in is only moderately helpful. I'm glad
some of
us are going to Covance tomorrow with some vaccine. It will be
good to
get away. I wish I had someone here that I could really open up
to at
times like this.
I am so pleased [REDACTED THREE FULL LINES] I remember from
high-school one kid in cross country who wasn't very tall, but he was
as muscular as a weight lifter, with no fat. I was just skinny,
[REDACTED OVER THREE LINES]
I hope you get some sleep. Maybe I should send you some melatonin
to
help reset your biological clock! Take care of yourself, and
don't
worry about not writing. Your days and nights are packed, I'm
sure. I
sometimes wonder how [REDACTED] are doing. I always enjoyed
hearing
you talk about them when you were here.
Bruce
|
It's been assumed that the email was to Ivins' former assistant, Mara
Linscott, who at that time was in her second year the University of
Buffalo's medical school.
But would Ivins talk about "getting into a lot of really neat things" to an adult in
medical school? And would he offer to send a medical student some
melatonin? Plus, there's the talk about a high-school student,
and about someone - probably Diane Ivins - being afraid that Ivins
would have to "go to war" because of 9/11.
The email seems to be to someone in the family, most likely
Amanda, who would have been 17 or 18 at the time. "Anonymous"
says he has the email sent to Ivins and that it was from Mara
Linscott. But, wouldn't the sender's name be redacted on the
incoming email just as it was on the reply?
What difference does it make? None. The entire email is
irrelevant to the Amerithrax case, since it was proves nothing of
value. It was sent at 10:20 in the morning from USAMRIID, and it
was known from his in-out logs that Ivins was at work at that
time. "Anonymous" just made a big deal of it, because the
government didn't release it years ago. But now it seems
likely they didn't release it because it was a private family email.
However, if it isn't a
private family email, and if it really is an email to Mara Linscott, it
would seem that Ivins is talking to Mara as if she were a young
daughter and not an adult medical student with whom he was
infatuated.
And why does Ivins think the person's "biological clock" needs to be
reset? That suggests that the person had just traveled to some
place in another time zone.
Groan. Just what I don't
need: another mystery.
May 4, 2012 - Uh oh. An
Anthrax Truther has beaten me to the market with his book about the
anthrax attacks of 2001, which he calls "The Mystery of September 11
& the State Lotteries." The Press Release from RedLead Press says:
The author, Harry Mason,
provides compelling new evidence from state lotteries that reveals an
obvious and suspicious pattern. Quite astonishingly, those results show
a relationship to September 11, 2001. ....
After notifying the FBI of
a possible linked to domestic terrorism and the "Anthrax Letters,"
Harry Mason becomes the victim of stalking and exploitation. ....
It is Harry Mason’s
patriotism and strong moral beliefs that impel him to seek justice; not
for him alone, but for all the innocent people who were victims of
these attacks. It is his intention to bring this story to the forefront
and to initiate a formal investigation.
The paperback book is 86
pages in length,
and it's print-on-demand,
which means if you order it, the publisher will print a copy and
send it to you.
It's stunning news. Nevertheless, I plan to continue with my
plans for my own book.
May 2, 2012 - The "McCormick code"
doesn't have anything to do with the anthrax attacks of 2001, but I
mentioned it in a comment in April 2011. So, people doing Google
searches continue to find my web page on
the subject. An
email I received this morning included a link to a
web site where the author claims to have decoded the message.
It's too far out of my areas of expertise to even give an
opinion. But, it's interesting to see how such things can
intrigue others and cause them to spend endless hours on it. And,
unlike any other time in history, they now have a way to share their
findings with the world -- whether their findings are right, wrong or
incomprehensible.
May 1, 2012 (B) - This is off-topic
in that it isn't about the investigating the anthrax attacks of 2001,
but it is about investigating
other "matters" (pun intended). Click HERE to go to
NASA's web site where you can watch a terrific
animated cartoon in which the search for the Higgs boson is very nicely
explained.
May 1, 2012 (A) - I've chalked off the latest Russian Mystery regarding
my web site logs as just another one of those mysteries that I don't
have the time to solve. Maybe it's Russian spy masters
communicating with their spies in other countries using a "book cipher"
involving pages from my web site instead of an actual book. Or
maybe not. I just don't have the time or interest to figure it
out.
Meanwhile, on my
interactive blog, "Anonymous" has been posting endlessly. For
example, yesterday
evening he posted a
link to a handwriting sample from Nawaf Al Hazmi,
one of the 9/11 hijackers who crashed American Airlines Flight 77 into
the Pentagon. Here's the sample:
And
then "Anonymous" wrote:
I'll scan and send out
exemplars with examples of "R" which you suggest is especially
noteworthy and get it to you when it is uploaded. More importantly,
I'll send them to qualified handwriting experts.
Evidently, since the
original is upside down, "Anonymous" failed to notice that there is and
example of an R in the above image. It's in the word
"ArABiA." Clearly that "r" doesn't match the R's in the anthrax
letters. Nor does the very distinctive way Al Hazmi wrote the
number 9. Nor does the way he drew the number 1. It
doesn't take an expert to see that Al Hazmi's handwriting doesn't match
the anthrax writing, but I doubt that "Anonymous" will accept my
analysis or any analysis that doesn't confirm his beliefs.
"Anonymous" seems determined to turn my interactive blog into a version
of Lew Weinstein's blog where as "DXer" he endlessly posts materials
irrelevant to the anthrax case. And, when I stop letting his
meaningless posts go through, he'll probably complain that I am
preventing "the truth" from being seen. But, c'est la vie.
|
Updates
& Changes: Sunday, April 29, 2012, thru Monday, April 30,
2012
April 29, 2012 - Wow! Last week was very interesting, the most
interesting week I've had in a long time.
I've been working on the "Notes & Resources" section of my new
book, but I keep getting interrupted. For some reason "Anonymous"
(a.k.a. "DXer" from Lew Weinstein's site)
has been posting messages to my
interactive blog all week challenging my credentials for writing a
book about the case. He also sent me emails saying the same
thing. It appears that he views my book as
some kind of threat to his
fantasy world. Or maybe he's tired of posting questions to Lew's
site and getting no responses. Or maybe he just doesn't have
anything better to do.
The main argument from "Anonymous" seems to be that I don't do research. I found
that to be absolutely hilarious,
since I'm currently so busy adding tiny footnote numbers to the text of
my book and then adding an entry in the "Notes" section describing
where that information came from. And, I have to re-check the
research sources to make sure everything is correct. Sometimes it
seems that all I've been doing for the past ten years is research and
analyzing the results of that research.
But, the claim that I don't do research is not Anonymous's real argument.
That's just the smokescreen he uses to hide his main argument. If you look at
what he writes, the essence
of his argument is that I don't read
what he reads, and therefore his
knowledge of the case is superior to mine. And that means he's
right and I'm wrong.
Yet, he cannot explain
anything. As I point out in the arguments on the blog, he
endlessly posts irrelevant
information to
Lew Weinstein's web site and he SUGGESTS
or CLAIMS that the irrelevant
information somehow means something in support of his beliefs.
But, he cannot explain HOW the irrelevant information
means anything. It appears that he wants others to try to prove
the negative, to prove that the information is NOT relevant. If
they cannot prove that it is NOT relevant, then it IS relevant, and that means he is right about everything.
That's
standard True Believer reasoning.
For MONTHS he's been arguing that the fact that Ivins was doing some
experiments with rabbits during normal work hours in 2001 means Ivins
had reason to be working long evening hours in his
lab at night and on weekends before the anthrax letters were
mailed. But, he cannot explain
how it means anything. The work with rabbits was part of
Ivins' normal work. So,
how does Ivins' normal work
account for
his abnormal hours in his lab
during those evenings and weekends?
"Anonymous" doesn't even attempt to explain. And if Ivins couldn't explain those unusual
hours, how
can they have been normal work? Again, "Anonymous"
evidently
wants others to attempt to prove the negative, to prove that Ivins was
NOT doing normal work during those abnormal hours. And, if they
cannot prove the negative, then "Anonymous" is right about everything.
While all this was going on, someone in Spain who has never contacted
me before posted
a message to my interactive blog presenting his theory about "The Mysterious Rick McCormick Code" that
I
mentioned on this web site in April 2011. Unfortunately,
that subject was so far
from my current focus of attention that I had to tell him I just didn't
have the time to try to figure out what he was talking about.
And, via an email, someone else who has never contacted me before sent
me his theory about the handwriting on the anthrax letters and
envelopes:
the same person wrote not
only the Anthrax letters but the 1946 Chicago
Lipstick killer writings, the 1947 Black Dahlia documents, the
1960's-90's California based Zodiac killer documents, I45 killings,
Texarkana and the 1996 JonBenet Ramsey ransom note (3 pages). I'm not
the only person that will tell you this.
His theory seems to be based entirely
upon some kind of "clue" he sees when matching individual characters in
the alphabet from documents in those cases to the anthrax letters and
envelopes. I advised him that that's not how handwriting analysis
is done, but I doubt he'll ever accept that answer, since he's
persisting with follow-up emails.
In an email this morning, he wrote:
You are making
a leap in logic by saying Ivans wasn't around in 1947. Had
there been enough true evidence against Ivans he
would have been charged very early in the investigation of him and that's a fact. Your own
site states that there was a overall lack of security at the facilities
mentioned. Another fact is
that anthrax is found in nature which means that anyone that would know
what to look for can find it. I remember and old episode of the 60's TV
show called Rawhide where it seems to me they could recognized the
presence of anthrax on plants on the ground that the cattle could eat,
that show came out a long time ago too. Yes and I am aware that there
are different strains of anthrax, it's also likely that the actual
source was from one of
those facilities.
I'd told him that "The person who wrote the
anthrax letters wasn't even alive
in 1947." He just assumed I was talking about Bruce Ivins, who
was born on April 22, 1946. Ivins would have been 1 year old in
1947. Two of the three Chicago Lipstick
murders took place in 1945 and the third murder occurred in January
1946.
Fortunately,
he also told me there was no need for me to respond further:
Maybe one of these
days you'll get off your high horse and
get head out of your tail and realize that what I've been saying it
true.
I've handed
out written summary reports with images on this matter and everyone
that has taken the time to look has been amazed, and I don't just offer
it to the average idiot.
Don't bother to reply
because yer just pissing me off anyway.
And someone else sent me an email about how Ex-CIA
Chief Jose Rodriguez will be on "60 Minutes" today defending the
use of waterboarding and other tortures to get information from
terrorists. And, of course, Rodriguez has written a book saying
the same thing. I don't want to get into any debates over whether
or not there can ever be a
circumstance where waterboarding would produce life-saving information
not obtainable in any other way, but I certainly agree that
waterboarding and torture should be strictly forbidden. Any
suggestion that it can be
okay would authorize people who use it whenever they want. And,
as we've seen in the Secret
Service scandal and in so many other things happening every day,
even in the most respected and professional group of people there are
still a few idiots who don't have the brains they were born with.
And, of course, while this was going on I also received the automated
letter and the rejection letter in response to my two latest query
letters to literary agents. And, I've still received no
responses from the large agencies I queried on April 11 and 17.
The interactive blog discussion with "Anonymous" briefly got into the
topic of my book and
included a
response from me where I explained to him that I'm not interested
in converting the world to my beliefs the way he is. The purpose
for writing my new book isn't to convert people, it's to wrap up
ten years of work. The case is over. I want to move
on to other things. But, before doing that I need to put all my
findings in
writing and make it available to anyone who wants to read it.
And, I want to put two copies into the Library of Congress as a
permanent record. (That is done as part of the copyrighting
process when you publish a book.)
I plan to self-publish only about 300 copies of the book (the largest
quantity I
can haul around in my car without renting a truck). I'll give
copies to friends and relatives, and I'll try to sell the
rest via Barnes & Noble's web site, possibly also via
Amazon.com. I'll also sell it as an e-book via Kindle on
Amazon.com. Beyond that, I have no plans.
If the book sells
well, I'll have more printed. If
a regular publisher wants to publish it first, that would certainly be
totally
acceptable and a very nice surprise. But, I have no way to plan for that to happen. It's
not up to me.
I don't currently have any
plans to do any advertising
except via this web site and my interactive blog. That virually guarantees that the sales will be
in the low hundreds, not in the high thousands. But, I'm open to
suggestions and ideas about advertising if the methods don't cost more
than
what sales from the book would bring in. That's why I'm looking
for a literary agent. There are areas where I
won't go by myself.
With all this going on, is it any wonder that after more than a week
I'm only on Chapter 13 in
the "Notes & References" section of my book?
Just 35 more chapters to go before I start "typesetting" the final
version.
|
Updates
& Changes: Sunday, April 22, 2012, thru Saturday, April 28,
2012
April 26, 2012 (B) - When I returned
home from my health club workout this afternoon, I found the literary
agency to which I'd sent my first query email yesterday had responded
negatively. The agent wrote, "my decision is based
on my present work-load, and also based on the kind of material that
I'm presently representing. That
said, this is a crazily subjective business: I absolutely think you
should keep looking for representation because what works for one agent
(or publisher) may not work as well for another."
It somewhat fits with what I wrote on April 15 when I said that
negative responses come back almost immediately. But, the fact
that I haven't gotten a response from two others sent out some time ago
doesn't mean that they will be sending positive responses. It's
still possible that they simply do not respond if they're not
interested.
April 26, 2012 (A) - This morning I
found an automated reply to
the second of two query emails I sent out yesterday. The reply
said that, due the large number of queries they receive, they won't
respond further unless they decide they want more information about the
book. And they said, "we encourage you to query widely."
Since the response was automated and doesn't really say anything about my book, it doesn't change the
average response time. But it seems to say that I should be
sending out a lot more query letters. Maybe. But, I prefer
to wait until I see what the results are from the other three agencies
I queried before I "query widely."
April 25, 2012 - I sent out two more
email query letters to literary agencies today. Those will
probably be the
last for awhile.
Also - totally off topic -
for a long time I wondered why so many people were reportedly hooked on
the PBS series "Downton
Abby," but I didn't want to start watching a "soap opera" that has
been running for two years. Then yesterday, I saw Season 1 was
for rent on RedBox. I had a code for a free rental, so I rented
it. I ended up watching about 4½ hours of the 6+ hours
last night, and the rest before lunch today. Yes, it is definitely addictive. And,
although it might be described as a "soap opera," it's not a soap opera
like "Mad Men." Whatever the difference is, it's a big difference for me.
April 23, 2012 - I've been trying to
avoid mentioning the screwball, irrelevant babble being posted to Lew
Weinstein's web site, since mentioning it only gives them publicity and
sends them more visitors. Mostly they just post irrelevant
questions which no one ever bothers to answer. But, I think I
should mention the latest posting. It's titled:
Heat shocking as a substitute for Renografin in purification?!? Heat shocking
doesn't have anything to do
with purification, and it has nothing
to do with the 2001 mailings. Heat shocking is a laboratory
technique used to get a collection of spores ready to
germinate. A little
research would have shown that.
In February of 2009, I asked a microbiologist what heat shocking was
all about, then I realized I should have researched it first. I
sent this second email to the microbiologist:
I could just have Googled
"heat shocked" to find out what it means, instead of asking you.
I gather it's just a technique to "wake up" the spore and get it ready
for germination.
And the microbiologist responded:
Correct, although it’s
actually not necessary with most strains, but
it’s done anyway. It’s been known for a long time that some Bacillus
spores can be recovered better with heat shocking. But in some recent
work with Bacillus cereus group strains (including anthracis), it was
shown that you actually get lower recoveries with heat shocking.
Another reason spores are heat treated before culture is to kill
vegetative cells. This ensures that whatever growth you see originated
from spores
So, heat shocking is done immediatly
prior to the time when the spores will start to germinate into
living bacteria - either in a test animal or on a Petri dish in an
incubator. The effects of heat shocking would be long gone if
heat-shocked spores were put into letters that are then sent through
the mails.
At USAMRIID, they did heat
shock spores in building 1412 prior to intramuscular and aerosol
challenges. The post to Lew Weinstein's site shows a comment made
by Ivins about heat shocking in an
FBI document from 2004 which says on pages 11 and 12:
IVINS described heat
shocking of spores. He
explained that
it was an activating mechanism used to synhronize spores prior to
germination. IVINS
first became aware of heat shocking back in the
Gulf War. The Division Chief called IVINS in his office to
discuss a
large NHP study. The Division Chief did not want the spores
Renograffin
purified because that was not done in the old days.
Spores used to be heat shocked at XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX
This temperature was chosen because counts do not decrease at this
temperature and refractile spores are not killed. Spores that are used
for intramuscular (IM) or aerosol challenges are heat shocked. All
spores are heat shocked in
building 1412. IVINS
did not know if
anyone has studied virulence
with respect to heat shock. However,
XXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXXX did some studies on heat
shocked material versus non-heat shocked material.
While heat shocking and Renografin are both mentioned in that
paragraph, that doesn't mean Renografin has anything to do with heat
shocking. Nor does it mean that heat shocking has anything to do
with purification. The paragraph appears to say that the Division
Chief wanted
the spores purified in some other way
- probably by repeated centrifuging and washings with distilled
water - instead of with Renografin. It's just a badly
worded report about several different subjects. It's not a report linking heat shocking
to purification.
My point is, I guess, to show that asking irrelevant questions that no
one answers is a waste of time. It's infinitely better to
ask meaningful questions of people who can provide answers.
Even True Believers should be able to understand that.
April 22, 2012 - I mentioned in my comment on Friday that,
after 15 days, I received a polite but negative response to my first
email
query to a literary agent. The agent said the subject matter of
my new book
just isn't his cup of tea.
It would have been nice to get a positive response to my first query,
even though that first query was not well written and didn't even
include the chapter summaries. But, the turn-down still felt more
positive than negative to me. It told me that agents still do respond to email queries - even
badly written queries. It set an "average" response time at 15
days, so I shouldn't be too worried about the other two, better-written
queries I sent out after that first one. I sent one on the 11th,
and another on the 17th.
I plan to send out one or two more queries during this coming
week. At the same time, I'm wondering if it's such a good idea to
write about the book-selling process on this web site. On one
hand, there isn't much else happening related to the anthrax
attacks of 2001 that is also worth writing about. On the other
hand, I have no idea what an agent would think if he were to read these
comments about the selling process. I don't have any solid reason
to believe he'd have a negative reaction, and he could have a positive reaction,
since the "typical author" supposedly sends out dozens queries for a
book that is nothing more than a rough idea, and he hopes that someone
else will help him write it, and he expects the publisher to pay a
substantial advance just for the privilege of publishing his planned
book.
What I'm doing is somewhat untypical.
I have a completed third draft of the book, and I plan to self-publish
if I can't find a publisher. But, I'm not sure what's "typical"
these days. (Former Secretary of Labor Robert Reich was on The
Daily Show with Jon Stewart last week to promote an e-book that he'd written. It
was published by Random House Digital, so Reich
wasn't self-publishing. (One of the things regular publishers do
for an author is help publicize the book by getting the author on TV
shows.) Do Reich's books appeal mainly to business
people who read e-books while commuting or while traveling? The e-book
sells for $2.99 on Kindle and is evidently somewhere between 5,000 and
30,000 words. It
appeared to be the first time Jon Stewart had an author on his program
where there was no physical book to hold up and talk about.)
Yes, I know that there is an entire industry built around "vanity"
books, where people self-publish to get their "masterpiece" before the
public, expecting it to become a world-wide sensation. But, those
"authors" are a tiny fraction of the authors who think they have a
"great idea" for a book they want to get published. "Vanity
publishers" get much of their money from helping such "authors" write and edit their books. I
won't be using any kind of "vanity publisher." If I can't get a
regular publisher for my book, I'll be doing the editing and
typesetting myself, and I'll just use a printing company to print the book,
as I did with my previous book.
Last week, before I received the response to my first query letter, I
actually started the process of typesetting. So, there was
another positive effect from the rejection. I stopped thinking
that I wasn't going to get any
responses at all to my queries, and I
went back to working on making the book better.
I'm currently working on the Notes & References section of my
book. The work requires me to re-check all the source information
I used. As a result of doing that, I keep keep finding things
that I didn't mention in the book. Then I have to wonder if I
should add it. For example, on September 11,
2001,
the same day the Twin Towers and the Pentagon were struck by hijacked
aircraft, Bruce Ivins received a "Notification
of Performance Rating."
He was rated B, with a "numerical rating" of 84.
The facts seem to indicate that he knew for several weeks that he was
going to get that B rating. I already mention in my book that Ivins
was aware that Patricia
Worsham was going to become his supervisor, even though she was
younger than Ivins, had worked at USAMRIID less time, and had received
her doctorate degree after Ivins.
The problem is that I don't know what Ivins' previous performance
ratings were. Nor do I know (nor am I likely to be able to
find out) what Worsham's ratings were. So, it's difficult to figure out what to
say about the performance
rating .... other than that it almost certainly played some role
in Ivins' thought processes prior to the first mailing. He was a
man
with a massive ego, and he
was effectively being demoted
to work for a woman who had less time at USAMRIID and less experience
than he had.
I might add some mention of the performance rating to the book, but I'm
not sure what I can say if I can't compare it to previous ratings or to
Worsham's rating.
I also noticed this
sentence from page 143 of the Expert
Behavioral Analysis Report:
There
is also documentation that
he [Ivins] threatened to poison his college roommates if they tried to
eat his food.
That's all it says, and it's not particularly serious or
startling. However, it fits with other comments Ivins made about
his knowledge of poisons and how he knew all kinds of ways to kill
people. Therefore, no one should mess with him.
I noticed that, on page 69 of the EBAP report, it says this about the
KKG burglaries:
These
exploits were so important to him that, even though they were criminal
in nature, he could not keep them entirely to himself. He told [Mara
Linscott], who in September 2002 wrote [Patricia Fellows]: “He broke
into a sorority house, while no one was there, to get the code book.”
So, in September 2002 Ivins
told Mara about one or more of his
burglaries? I feel I probably should mention that. The
problem is that in September 2002 my book is totally focused on Steven
Hatfill's situation. Nothing much was happening with Ivins at
that time. Thus, there's no easy way to interrupt the narrative
about Hatfill to mention this item of information about Ivins.
However, it was also in September
2002 when Ivins drove nearly 600
miles round-trip twice to
where Mara Linscott was living at the time. The first time was
just to scout the location, the second time was to leave a bottle
of Kahlua on her porch. (See page 84 of the EBAP
report.) So, maybe I should mention something about Ivins
telling Mara about his activities as a burglar.
This morning as I sat down at my computer, David Willman's book "The
Mirage Man" was lying open to page 50 next to my keyboard.
On page 50 it mentions that Ivins had bought ammonium nitrate to build
a bomb, a fact I'd used in my book, and yesterday I'd noted the page
number in my Notes & References section. But this morning I
noticed the next page is all
about the letter defending pedophilia that Bruce Ivins sent to the
Frederick News-Post. The letter was published on September 17,
1993. I hadn't mentioned that letter in my book at all, even
though Diane Ivins' day care center was operating at that time.
Then I suddenly realized that, as a result of research I did to try to
figure out who the child was who wrote the anthrax letters, I knew the
names of two children who were very likely in Diane Ivins' day care
center in September 1993. But, do I want to make that kind
of suggestion in my book? I don't think so.
That's why adding the Notes & References section is very slow-going.
It's
probably going to take me at least
a couple more weeks to finish.
Then I might add a couple new pages "About the Author." Then I'll
probably work on the "Final Draft," which would be the draft where I do
the "typesetting" and put everything into book printer-ready format,
complete with justification and hyphenation. And, when I'm done
with the main part of the "Final Draft," I'll have to construct the
Index. By then I'll also be checking on which printing company to
use.
So, there's still plenty of time to send queries and get responses from
agents. And, I haven't even thought
about sending query/proposal packets directly to publishers. I
may do that,
too. It all depends upon what the agents say. First things
first.
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