Let’s start with this disclosure: One of my sons now works for American Media (AMI) in Boca Raton, Florida. In September of 2001, he was working in AMI’s headquarters for Lasertech International, (now Vertis Inc.) a subcontractor which handles production of AMI’s many publications. It was then that the building came under an attack of deadly anthrax which killed one of AMI’s photo editors, Bob Stevens, a long-time friend of mine and almost killed Ernie Blanco, the mail room boss and another old friend of mine.
Obviously, I have a personal interest in the matter I’m about to discuss.
O.K., with that out of the way, let’s take a look at the anthrax attack and the FBI’s goofy way of looking at the case.
About a week before September 11, 2001, a letter arrived at AMI. It ended up in the offices of the Sun, one of AMI’s tabloids. People at the Sun who saw It, said it was a “weird love letter to Jennifer Lopez.” Inside the letter was a”soapy, powdery substance” and a cheap Star of David charm. The letter, which had been taken to the Sun by Ernie Blanco, was passed around the office for its amusement value, and ended up on Bob Stevens desk where he appears to have inhaled the powdery substance. Stevens then threw the letter away in the trash.
When Stevens died a few days later, his death was diagnosed as having been caused by inhalation of a deadly strain of anthrax. Within days, the FBI was on the scene, the building was found to be thoroughly contaminated by anthrax spores, it was locked up, a fence was built around it and it sits there empty.
In the beginning it was logical to assume that in light of the events of 9-11, that the anthrax attack on AMI and then on other victims, was the work of terrorists – perhaps the same people who were behind 9-11.
Because the letter that appears to have been the source of the anthrax at AMI no longer existed, a vital piece of evidence was lost. That the letter was the source is indicated by the fact that the trail of anthrax spores in the AMI building matches the exact route it took from the mailroom to the Sun tabloid office.
In the aftermath of the AMI attack, other anthrax laden letters began to pop up.
According to ABC News, all told there were 17 cases of infections: Those felled by inhalation were;
Florida — Robert Stevens, photo editor at American Media Inc. in Boca Raton, died of inhalation anthrax.
Washington — Two postal workers – Joseph Curseen Jr. and Thomas Morris Jr. — died of inhalation anthrax. Both worked at the Brentwood mail processing center.
New York — Kathy Nguyen, hospital supply room worker, died of inhalation anthrax.
Washington — Two other Brentwood workers, also inhalation anthrax.
Washington area — State Department mailroom employee, inhalation anthrax.
Florida — Ernesto Blanco, who worked in same building as Robert Stevens, diagnosed with inhalation anthrax; released from hospital on October 24.
New Jersey — Two Hamilton Township postal workers, inhalation anthrax.
Those afflicted by cutaneous (skin) infection:
New York– NBC Nightly News, female assistant to anchor Tom Brokaw; ABC News, infant son of producer; CBS News, female assistant to anchor Dan Rather; New York Post employee
New Jersey — West Trenton postal worker; Hamilton Township mail processing employee; Hamilton Township bookkeeper
There were 4 suspected cases
2 in New York
• New York Post employee, suspected case of cutaneous anthrax
• ABC employee, suspected case of cutaneous anthrax
2 in New Jersey
• Hamilton Township mail processing employee, suspected case of cutaneous anthrax
• Camden County postal worker, suspected case of cutaneous anthrax
Spores were also found in the workplace mail bin for a New Jersey bookkeeper who had skin anthrax. The bacteria spores also showed up overseas: on letters sent to several locations in Pakistan and on at least one mailbag at the U.S. embassy in Vilnius, Lithuania.
In the FBI investigation that has been ongoing since October 2001, there has been no progress in identifying the source of the Anthrax attacks. Nor has the bureau been able to find the equipment used to weaponize the anthrax spores.
According to investigative journalist, Albert Jay Epstein, the Bureau has not come close to solving the anthrax mystery. It has not scientifically narrowed down the source of the anthrax used in the attacks. It has not located the equipment used to prepare the weaponized anthrax. It has not found the copier that reproduced some of the messages in the letters. It has not found the perpetrators. It has not pinpointed the country of origin of the attack.
But it has concentrated on finding an American source rather than a foreign one. In effect, the Bureau has put all its investigative eggs into one basket: the notion that the attacks were the work of a “lone wolf” mad bomber suspect right here in the good old USA.
In a press conference the FBI announced that its “linguistic and behavioral assessment” of “the person” purportedly responsible. It was, they said “highly probable, bordering on certainty,” that a single “adult male” had prepared and mailed all the contaminated letters at issue. This man “probably has a scientific background,” “may work in a laboratory,” and is familiar with the area around Trenton, New Jersey–where the some of the envelopes were postmarked. The man, they said, suffers a pronounced psycho-social deformity: “He lacks the personal skills necessary to confront others” and “if he is involved in a personal relationship, it will likely be of a self-serving nature.” Moreover, crucially, the suspect appears to be an American. “We’re certainly looking in that direction right now, as far as someone being domestic,” said James R. Fitzgerald, head of the FBI’s Behavioral Analysis Unit.
This is the same FBI that decided that poor Richard Jewel was behind the Atlanta Olympic Park bombing. They just knew it was him. Of course it wasn’t.
The process of creating, or weaponizing deadly inhalation Anthrax spores is highly sophisticated. Some say that the spores involved in the attacks had all the earmarks of having been produced in some government’s facility since the job would have been beyond the capability of a lone wolf working alone in some dark basement lab.
According to The Weekly Standard’s opinion editor David Tell, “In order to produce inhalation anthrax, bacterial spore-particles must be small enough–no more than a couple or three microns wide–to reach a victim’s lower respiratory mucosa. And for decades, until very recently, scientists believed that the mechanical milling required to produce such fine dust artificially would also produce a charge of static electricity sufficient to bind anthrax spores together into oversized, harmless clumps.
“To prevent this from happening–to keep the spores separate, “floaty,” and therefore deadly–bioweapons specialists in the United States and elsewhere went to considerable lengths to identify a chemical additive that would, like throwing a sheet of Bounce into your clothes dryer, remove the static. It has been widely reported, but never confirmed, that American scientists eventually settled on silica. It has been just as widely reported, and more or less confirmed, that the Soviet and Iraqi biowarfare programs each at some point used a substance called bentonite, instead. ”
Thus Iraq is ruled out. Right?
Wrong.
Writes Tell: “Before they were kicked out of Iraq for good, U.N. weapons inspectors concluded that Saddam’s military biologists were no longer relying on mechanical milling machines to render dried-out paste-colonies of anthracis bacteria into fine dust, but had instead refined a spray drying technique that produced the dust in a single step. And the suspected key ingredient in this Iraqi innovation, interestingly enough: pharmaceutical-grade silica, a common industrial drying agent.”
Moreover, Tell explains that Silica, or silicon dioxide, is simple quartz or sand, the most abundant solid material on earth. “Bentonite” is the generic term for a class of natural or processed clays derived from volcanic ash, all of which are themselves mineral compounds of silica–and not all of which necessarily contain aluminum. In other words: Trace amounts of silica in an anthrax powder are consistent with the presence of bentonite. And the absence of aluminum from that powder is not enough to exculpate any foreign germ-warfare factory thought to have used bentonite in the past.
There’s much more, and it’s far too complex for my non-technical, all-thumbs mind to grasp. Take a look at David Tell’s piece in the April 29 issue of the Weekly Standard for the whole story in precise detail. It’s a masterful piece of analysis.
Now back to AMI.
When AMI bought the National Enquirer, the Globe, the Star and a myriad of other publications it paid a reported $6 million for the three story building. AMI then spent about $14 million renovating it. There are millions of dollars worth of now useless high tech equipment, voluminous research files that took years to compile, furniture etc. inside – stuff that can never again be used.
The building is not habitable, and will never be unless it is decontaminated, if it can be. The cost of decontamination would be massive. Note what it took to decontaminate the Hart Senate Office building – twice.
If the anthrax attack was the work of terrorists, and despite the FBI’s very dubious lone-wolf theory, and there is every reason to believe it was, AMI was their first domestic U.S. target. Yet AMI, which is now out millions of dollars, has been left without any help whatsoever from the Federal government which is supposed to protect its citizens and enterprises when they are subjected to attacks from foreign sources.
To me that’s unfair. I don’t care what you think of the Enquirer or the Globe or any of the AMI tabloids. They are American enterprises staffed by our fellow Americans, and were most probably attacked precisely because they are Americans.
They deserve better than they’ve gotten from their government, which is nothing but antibiotics (Cipro) which made most of them, including my son sick.