| Don
Foster, author of Vanity Fair anthrax article, discusses his investigation
of anthrax attack
NBC - 9/4/2003
MATT LAUER, co-host:
It's been almost two years now
since anthrax was sent through the mail in this country, killing five people
and spreading fears of biological terrorism. Still no one has been arrested
for the crime. In the October issue of Vanity Fair magazine, Don Foster,
an English literature professor at Vassar College, looks at the investigation
and comes up with some interesting conclusions of his own.
Don Foster, good morning. Nice
to have you here.
Mr. DON FOSTER (Author of Vanity
Fair Article on 2001 Anthrax Attacks): Good morning, Matt. Good to be here.
LAUER: Let's get to the basics
right now. How does an English literature professor from Vassar end up
working with the FBI on some fairly high-profile cases like the Unabomber,
JonBenet Ramsey, the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing? How did that happen?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, for generations,
literary scholars have had to decide who wrote what because so many literary
texts were first published without author's names. And over the years,
scholars have developed techniques for looking at spelling and source material
and...
LAUER: Word choices, vocabulary,
return addresses on envelopes, all that sort of thing?
Mr. FOSTER: Exactly, and come
up with authors for a text.
LAUER: So October 2001, your phone
rings, it's the FBI. They start to talk to you about being a part of the
anthrax investigation. When you saw the letters that they presented you,
you immediately discounted foreign terrorism, why?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, one wants to
decide first what can be learned from the information we've got here, and
this writer says, "Death to America. Death to Israel. Allah is great."
That sounds like it might be an Islamic terrorist. The first incident was
down in Palm Beach, Florida, where Bob Stevens died where many of the terrorists
had been located. The next letters turned up being mailed from New Jersey
where other 9/11 terrorists were located. So this looks like maybe it could
be associated with terrorists...
LAUER: Maybe, but...
Mr. FOSTER: ...but there are some
warning signs.
LAUER: Yeah, what were the warning
signs?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, for example,
the--the writer didn't mail these letter on 9/11, but puts
"9/11" at the top. It's someone
who wants the authorities to think that these letters have
something to do with 9/11. The
letters were very carefully sealed as if to prevent the anthrax from getting
out of the envelope along the way.
LAUER: Yeah, I think outside there's
Scotch tape on the back, right?
Mr. FOSTER: And then inside is
a warning--yes, and inside is a warning, you know, "Get medical treatment."
So this looks like someone who didn't really want to kill someone but wanted
to send some kind of a message or a warning.
LAUER: All right, so when you
looked at the letter that was sent to Tom Brokaw here at NBC, and we'll
put a graphic up of--of what we have of that, what stood out immediately
in your mind?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, the--there's--when
you have just such a short letter like this, there's not going to be too
many indicators of who might have written it, so you want to look at what
clues you do have. And there were few in the Brokaw letter. We got a few
more on the Daschle letter.
LAUER: Let's take a look at what
we have on the Daschle letter and what--and what stood out in your mind
from this?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, for example,
the envelope. It was mailed, supposedly, from students at Greendale School.
That tells you a couple of things. One is that it's someone who may know
that school kids in America do, in fact, send letters to their senators.
LAUER: And they're not suspicious
because, oh, it's just another group of school kid letters.
Mr. FOSTER: Yes, exactly. It's
not something that an al-Qaeda terrorist from Afghanistan or whatever is
likely to do. And then there's the--the name itself, Greendale School.
This could be someone who attended a Greendale School or who had read about
one or lived near a Greendale School in the past. There's a question of
where the addresses came from. Where did this offender get the addresses
for Senator Leahy and Daschle?
LAUER: You start to gather all
this information in your own investigation, and it leads you to what I
guess would best be described as your own person of interest in this investigation,
and that person of interest is Steven Hatfill, who's a name we've heard--his
name is one we've heard with the investigation for the last year or so.
Give me his 10-second resume. Who's Steve Hatfill?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, he's--he got
his start in biological issues as a medical student in Africa, in Rhodesia,
in 1970s. During that time, he professed doing combat duty with Selous
Scouts who were later identified as having been responsible for the worst
anthrax outbreak in--in--in human history with 11,000 cases in just two
years.
LAUER: While he doesn't confess
to working with anthrax directly, he's worked with anthrax stimulants?
Mr. FOSTER: Anthrax stimulants
are--are bacteria that are used by military researchers that have the properties
of anthrax. And Hatfill has professed a good deal of experience with those.
LAUER: And--and he's been labeled
a person of interest by those investigating the anthrax attacks. You do
not say he is the suspect in the case, but is it fair of me to say you
connect enough dots along the way that you intentionally lead the reader
in his direction?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, I don't do anthrax
spores, I just follow the paper trail. And in this case, the--the paper
trail made Steven Hatfill a--certainly a person of interest to me.
LAUER: So what's the most compelling
piece of evidence against him, in your opinion?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, the--I think
what's been happening now is that forensic evidence and the linguistic
and documentary evidence are kind of focusing on the same person. The task
force guys and woman are--are very hard-working, dedicated agents, and
they feel they're one spore away from an arrest. If we don't find that
one spore, then we want to look closer at the documentary trial, which
I think also leads to Hatfill as person of remarkable interest.
LAUER: Of remarkable interest.
OK, you've upped the ante there. We asked his lawyers for a comment, they've
declined. Are you concerned? I mean, he's already filed suit against the
government. Are you concerned that you might be targeted with a lawsuit
by Steven Hatfill?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, of course, everyone
should be concerned. What we want to be sure of that we don't make assumptions
that Steven Hatfill or any other American scientist was involved in this
terrible attack, but consider the evidence fairly and objectively and not
jump to conclusions.
LAUER: I want to also mention
in addition to looking at the letters that actually contained anthrax,
you--you looked very carefully at the hoax letters as well.
Mr. FOSTER: Yes. When--when you
get something like this, you want to find out where else have we had someone
threatening to do something like this. And as it turns out, even through
we're in the 21st century, the FBI does not yet have an archive of threat
letters. And...
LAUER: So, in other words, they--they
have all the real anthrax letters in one pile, and
they--and they put the others
in kind of a--an area where they don't pay much attention to them?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, they're--we
get so many of these, and they're scattered about the country. The
FBI is now taking steps to create a national archive of threat letters
so that when you get an incident that's threatening a--a leader, threatening
an anthrax attack, whatever, you can look and find other documents that
would be similar. What I had to do was to actually go to news archives
and find evidence of similar incidents in the past.
LAUER: And did you trace any of
those hoax letters and connect them possibly to Steven Hatfill as well?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, what needs to
be done still is to gather all of these documents. There
are--there are many that are
related to abortion clinic attacks, there are others that are just pranks
by teen-agers, but there are some incidence of a particular interest which
choose particular targets, including NBC, that use similar language to
the anthrax letters.
LAUER: And just in 10 seconds
left, would you be surprised if in the next year or so Steven Hatfill's
arrested by the FBI?
Mr. FOSTER: Well, I--I--I think
the FBI will get its man, whoever that might be. The FBI does a very good
job, and they do want to solve this case.
LAUER: Well put. All right, Don
Foster, thanks very much. I appreciate it.
Mr. FOSTER: You're welcome. |