pasadena star editors in the san jose mercury news. in 2001, mr. wellman was provided the pulitzer prize for his work on the discovery of seven drugs that were erroneously approved by the food and drug administration. he has been the recipient of many other awards, including the national press club award as well as the george polk award. that work was his work unpresidential finance and the improper use of funds for presidential campaigns. the work of david will then have

not simply been read and placed on a shelf or in terms of newspapers, read and placed in every sacred band. instead, his work has gone on to change public policy. for example, in 2005, his work changed the policy at the national institute of health regarding the pain merits to government scientists and those payments coming from drug manufacturers. in 2008, he was cited by the scripps howard foundation for his investigative reporting in the anthrax investigation. he was given the award for the top news story in the washington

news area in 2008. and that is the reason we are here. it is regarding his latest publication, his latest book called "the mirage man." that book is about the 2001 anthrax investigation. and i can tell you, having lived through that investigation and former director of the ei laboratory that this work is very authoritative. it is very complete, very thorough. i believe one of my favorite passages in the book occurs towards the middle of the book and talks about the dichotomy between the traditional investigation approach end conduction during this

investigation. she says it contrasts to the spec because it is surrounded by stephen hatfield's apartment and the pond. the scientists were continued methodically and quietly that passage described very well the two approaches to this investigation. and it was the efforts of many scientists, both in the fbi laboratory and around the country that i believe led to the solution of this investigation. i'm not a solution, i believe, if captured expertly in the polk called "the mirage man." and so with that, i would like for you to help me welcome david willman to the forensic science

institute. [applause] >> thank you very much, dr. adams. it's certainly an honor to be here with you at that frantic science institute at the university of central oklahoma. i'm pleased to see two minis didn't care changer for this important work. i want all of the students to realize that a group of very well-prepared rigorous scientists are as dr. alluded to, actually some of the clear-cut heroes of my book. so some of their work was crucial obviously to unraveling the anthrax letter attacks since 2001 which is the most complex scientific challenge ever undertaken by the fbi. so my message to you in brief is: study hard, please because we need you out. i'd like to briefly highlight some of the back story of "the mirage man." i look forward obviously to take in all of your questions at the

conclusion. this book stands on the shoulders, as dr. adams alluded to, my work at the "los angeles times." for those of you who aren't reading "the l.a. times" every day, i had looked in great that into a battle behind the scenes in washington over the preexisting vaccine, the only improved vaccine this country has ever had. the new product, next-generation was genetically engineered and invented to scientists at the united states army's biowarfare research complex in frederick, maryland that ties directly soon enough here. i had also for the times dug into a lawsuit that stephen asil, former bio ware for scientists had settled into treatment that he experienced in the initial years of the fbi investigation. and through reading the thousands of pages of sworn testimony gathered and not

litigation and the exhibits allow the testimony, it really gave me a valuable insight into what did happen with this investigation, at least in the initial stages of it. so i really was uniquely positioned in the spring of 2008 in my reporting less propelling me really towards the most unsolved mystery lingering from our fall of two on trauma. and i would beat the anthrax letter attacks. five people developed inhalational anthrax infections from those attacks and were killed in the letters. each depth of course remains a tragedy. and the outcome of letters had former reaching effects on our society. legislation called the patriot act had been introduced in congress immediately after september the 11th. it was very controversial and questioned seriously by many

civil libertarians because it expanded the authority of law enforcement to spy on our citizens. and in the united states senate, the chairman of the senate judiciary committee was going to do what they do in the senate tunnel which was to slow things down to make sure they actually read the bill to see what was in it. and then the anthrax letter attacks hit and people on both sides of the partisan aisle and both houses of congress told me during a research at that point of his was game over. there's no chance for slowing down the legislation. it lasted to the congressman passed the senate by a vote of 98 to one. another cause that was immediately coupled with the anthrax attacks was the drive to take out saddam hussein and the iraq war. there were many within the bush administration, and quite a few isi because they were gunning for the bush administration, defense secretary don rumsfeld, paul was good, i'm sure these

are familiar names to you. they had written a letter to president clinton saying the only viable policy and not part of the world was to take out saddam forcibly. the anthrax letter attacks were a gift in the lap of these ideologues. and they immediately began intimating that the anthrax attacks are somehow sponsored by saddam hussein or al qaeda or perhaps both ventures. the third negative policy consequences that flowed with something called project bio shield, which provides the lands of dollars for research into the development of new medical product axioms, other countermeasures that may at some point make us safer in the event, god forbid, of a biological attack. project bio field was accompanied by a dramatic expansion of laboratories around the country at great expense, great ongoing expense to the country. this means that 11,000 more scientists and technicians have hardly been brought into this

work in the handling these highly portable, lethal pathogens without the commensurate control that would give us assurance whether these people were trustworthy to be handling these things. so these are very big things. helping us in washington were closed here the operations of the united states supreme court were affected. government can a residential business mail was greatly disrupted. so a benign portal of daily life, a mailbox had become an instrument of death. i ask you to stand back with me for the perimeter of the investigation and look at this. i think these are crimes of enormous magnitude. and there must be essential life saving lessons that can be learned and applied for these crimes. but it was my take away and doing my reporting initially that none of this could happen. the lessons could be learned. they can be aligned for the

fundamental attacks continue to be modeled, confused and i daresay at some juncture is vandalized. so the country obviously deserve to know what happened here. and this is why i set out to research and write this book to try and separate verifiable fact from fiction. i decided to book had to be on the record. and i should say that we've all of course heard of junk science. and i am sad to say the coverage of the anthrax attacks to often than nominee to juncture in the at a time actually when the country most needed journalist to be scrupulous and skeptical of the reporting, too many accounts took at face value or amplified claims that were just dead wrong. the anthrax attacks of course unfolded 10 years ago. as we know, it was on the state 10 years ago that the photo

editor at the international inquiry and robert stevens was diagnosed with inhalational anthrax and extraordinarily rare infection for a human being to have. behind the scene, good scientific work was quickly underway. at the imac of all others help arrange for a sample of the strudel spinal fluid to be flown overnight to one of the top geneticist in this country. that is paul kind at northern arizona university in flagstaff. by the next morning, that would be october 5th in the kinds team determine this is no ordinary anthrax. in fact, it is the ames strain. material being used extensively in the u.s. bio defense research program and most extensively by those army poor teacher. bob stevens died that same day. it garnered some attention, some coverage, but the full spectacle of the anthrax mailings did not burst into public view for

another 10 days on october 15. it was on that date a letter addressed to tom daschle was opened on the fifth floor of the hart building, the senate office building in washington. the powder came out of the envelope has been opened. if on a couple interns and so on the floor. it was quickly up into the ventilation system and we have an immediate full-blown crisis. i mean, it would be difficult outstanding here in oklahoma to overstate the fear, the sheer panic that reigned in washington at the moment. hundreds of people who had worked, heartland were thought to be at serious risk of a potentially fatal anthrax infection. so who would doneness? on october 26, 2001, brian ross the chief investigative correspondent for abc news came on the air to offer apparently an answer. and he asserted in his exclusive report on world news tonight that this material -- all had

been chemically treated have been what the nice with the material tonight, which removes the signature in saddam hussein's biowarfare program. you can imagine the impasse that story. similar reports persisted throughout the run-up to the iraq war. and i want to make clear it's not just mainstream news accounts that were purveying this information if you can call it that. there were also articles in the scientific literature, most notably on may 1, 2002, the journal of the american medical association published an article called the consensus statement on an tracks, which reported that the material mailed to senator daschle had been quote, chemically treated to reduce clumping unquote. in other words, whether nice to enhance its dispersal. no foot note was cited for this

claim. i can tell you my research for this book, there was a basis for any assertions, all which regrettably fueled the rush to war. this book also provides the first biographical portrait of another biowarfare scientist of a fellow named bruce ivins. to learn about bruce ivins, traveled to a small town 30 miles north called lebanon, ohio. andy was the air lebanon was and remains a pound of agile america distorted evokes a norman rockwell sketch. bruce ivins was born there in 1946, the youngest of three sons. his father, randall ivins was a second-generation proprietor of ivins drugs, established in 1893. there were prominent family of well-known people in randall was himself a graduate of prince university. he was well-liked, very generous

to a fault. not much of a businessman, the very gregarious person. bruce ivins however grew up in a home that was not norman rockwell. his mother, mary ivins was a fierce presence. she exerted tyrannical dominance over the home. she was mentally and physically cruel. she attacked versus father, randall, with whatever was at hand. it could be approved, could be a fork. one night it was the skillet to the head. and she micromanaged bruce more than her prodigy. pursue schoolmates interviewed dozens of people who would come up with grusin in those formative years. schoolmates, teachers, other townspeople of lebanon. and she told me that every items had left a mark on bruce, a lasting and hunting mark. so from an early age, bruce

however was a scientifically gifted student. however, he was socially isolated. he never could fit in for whatever reason. yet he creatine actually as he got older and older, demanded both attention and approval. and those are two teams for the life of veritably anonymously in ways that enable him to elude accountability for his misdeeds. he went to the university of cincinnati and was in undergraduate microbiology. it was there as an undergrad at a very important event ways to cast some of his destiny. he asked a woman out for a date and she declined his invitation. and she quickly forgot about this, but bruce ivins never did.

he attributed the rejection to her membership in a sorority called kappa kappa gamma. from that point on, for the next decade he was on event data to harass, to torment, not only the institution of kappa kappa gamma, but members of pkg. but this was in full evidence after he received his phd in microbiology from the university of cincinnati and moved over to chapel hill, north carolina where he was employed as a postdoctoral researcher. and there he met a woman who he really took a shine to come a doctoral student named nancy haywood. nancy haywood was an attractive blonde, terrific student and someone who clearly had was two with goods going to take to have a dynamic career. nancy hage would quickly determined that bruce ivins was peculiar, abnormally strange and rebuffed his overtures for a closer friendship.

this enraged him. and so he started a campaign against nancy haywood that preceded on for decades. most notably in the early stages anyhow in 1979, after bruce ivins had moved more than 300 miles away to the state of maryland, he drove back to chapel hill and obviously secretively broke into a room on were nancy hanks goodlatte boquist have peered at buffy appreciate it, there were no fresh guys, no backup, slaughter data from our experiments, everything a phd honan was in the left notebook and now is gone. so she was highly can learn from it about it. lo and behold here's an anonymous note that says if you go to this mailbox at chapel hill on this afternoon, you'll find your lab notebook they are. so she enlists the authorities to the police. they go and find the notebook is they are.

soon thereafter, bruce ivins was meeting with a psychologist in washington d.c. not far from where he was working as suburban, maryland and from tidy to the psychiatrist that coveted and hated nancy haywood. he saw her qualities that wanted but couldn't hug and a wife, debbie wanted and received from his mother. for deep feelings about nancy haygood and confess to a psychiatrist who developed only recently abandoned a poet to poison and kill her. very soon thereafter, bruce was hired in december 1980 by the u.s. army at fort dietrich at the biowarfare research institute they are, hired to work with anthrax, to grow it, purifier, prepare prepare for tested animals. it is important to note that the army hired bruce for that job because there was great concern in u.s. intelligence community at that time that the soviet

union was illicitly pursuing a weapons program with anthrax, even though they were a sign or treaty that an offensive use of these biological materials. the fear was they were engaging in this illicit program. and i will tell you that they were. so a four t-shirt, bruce ivins was actually quite construed as the most he was very deferential to the uniform personnel for. truth be told, he was a much better scientist than most if not all of the informed personnel. so that ingratiated him to his bosses are they liked him and he was a guy who was always sorted eager to do more. but his secretive sessions sessions and vendettas continued. he drove all the way out through western maryland come out to morgantown west virginia where he broke into kappa chapter gamma and stole it. artifacts from the kappa house

there. including for him what was a trophy. the book of ritual that included all the secret codes and passwords of that sorority. this he would later acknowledge to the fbi and give him a great sense of power over the sorority and people affiliated. how did he exert its power? he took out classified ads in "rolling stone" and offered to anyone who wanted the book of ritual for kappa kappa gamma to write to him and he would send them a copy. the twist on this is a hallmark, the twist was he would place the ad to be in the name -- a woman stand as a derivative of the husband of nancy haywood. in fact, he rented a mailbox in the name of the same in coming nancy haywood's husband. i should also say this wasn't his first burglary. he had burglarized the kappa house in chapel hill a couple

years earlier and gotten other artifacts that helped his mission. meanwhile back at fort dietrich, ivins' top objective by the mid-80s was developing a next-generation and genetically engineered vaccine. and this project again important traction in the aftermath of the persian gulf war of 1991 when as many of you may be aware there's tremendous controversy because service personnel who were inoculated with this vaccine complained of a wide array of adverse effects. so there was a desire among men in the government, with a better, safer and more effective vaccine. a vaccine that would last longer on the shelf. in service of this work in 1997, bruce ivins put together, created a huge batch of purified sport, highly purified force of mainstream anthrax. this is the anthrax that he made

sure his pristine. and i was going to sit toward, he thought, the balance is animal testing that would be needed to bring this next generation anthrax vaccine online. the inventory discourse under the codename rmr 1029. okay, so soon enough however, ivins was voicing -- he was very self-aware of his own shortcomings and felt that he wasn't given the respect and was unpopular because of his lack of athletic look for another things. and he was very concerned about what he believed was his own deteriorating mental state. so in july 2000 -- that it is very important. in july 2000 he wrote an e-mail that he was having quote paranoid devotional times. he worried that he was becoming like his mother, who he turned and undiagnosed.

paranoid schizophrenic. he was worried that he can control them, worried that he was going to physically harm others and do quote terrible things, unquote. in july 2000 tummyache knowledge to another behavioral therapist that he had come up with a new plot, and they just abandoned once again, to poison and kill a lab technician that is that asserted in his heart by leaving fort dietrich. he was obsessed with this woman and remain such. so let's stand up for just a second if i could ask you to do that. hindsight obviously is 2020. but i think the more important and fair question for the united states army is what was known about bruce ivins in real-time? here is what i found. as of the year 2000, a number of his army colleagues at fort dietrich knew some very disturbing things about him. they knew that he was receiving psychiatric treatment, both individual and group therapy

could they knew he was taken sick tractor-trailers. they knew he was taking some baltic, valium, trazodone, and again, vanessa appeared in july 2000 his dose of celexa had been doubled. he kept a secret to himself, never put this on a farm and he was getting a booster shot of anthrax vaccine they was also as of july 2000 taking zyprexa, an antipsychotic. if bruce ivins have been working with nuclear materials or chemical warfare materials, he would have been removed immediately at the first time of any instability or problem. the fact is the army allowed him to maintain unrestricted virtually access kept by the united states government. and i'll be a say this is highly portable material. the anthrax in the letters was less than a program that was recovered per letter. so just a tiny amount of this material can create mass panic

and can kill people. one of the biggest surprises indeed of my research came in response in the mail one day to a freedom of information act requests have found with the u.s. army. i guess were all documentation related to any mental health evaluations and the response from the army nature and very declarative english that even i could understand that at no point complaining about the army had the service the service ever sought to evaluate his fitness to handle anthrax. so let's fast forward to the spring and summer of 2001. the next generation vaccine was in fact the back burner. those were the exact words to me of the supervising army major general who was over biological and chemical warfare research. bruce ivins knew it because he was hearing it first and at meetings he was attending at the pentagon. in fact, he was being pushed to transition off of anthrax research and going to something

else. he was angry about this. he was rageful about it, voice directly to colleagues, voicing his e-mails. but what could he do about it? well, bruce ivins is a good student. he was a student at how if you're a and crisis moves the bureaucracy, hog was elected officials, however this policy. he knew the current crisis is why he got hired and he had worked at fort dietrich during the days of the persian gulf war and seen a lot of things happen in amazingly fast time that without a crisis would've been delayed perhaps forever. so not as a 2001, ivins began logging many late-night hours on week nights and on weekends in the biocontainment hotz visa for teacher. he did so alone. his extraordinary hours continued through mid-september 2001 and picked up again in october, which i would get to. so of course then we had september 11th attacks.

and i want to jasinski to bear with me with a couple of what i think are very important dates. september 21st, ivins sent an e-mail. she was shot. she hadn't heard in years. she said it came out of the blue. an e-mail, ivins predicted another big terrorist event would put fort dietrich 10 to 20 for seven action can very similar to what happened during the first persian gulf war. on september 26, we sent an e-mail to his departed lab technician, the same woman he previously planned to poison and with whom he remained fast. here is his exact coordinates e-mail september 26. quote, i just heard tonight that the bin laden terrorist for sure have anthrax. osama bin laden has just agreed death to all and all americans. these days comes september 23rd, to september 26 are important because at that point only the perpetrator knew that the first anthrax laced letters postmarked september 18 were still going through the mail.

and here is the exact message in those letters appeared quote, we have this anthrax, quote, death to america, death to israel, unquote. so then we have is a fitting moment because the october october 152,001 letter to senator daschle is open. the fbi rushes that letter to fort dietrich as they have the biocontainment suites to work on this kind of dangerous pathogens. there was immediate wild speculation about iraq, complicit in the anthrax attacks, perhaps al qaeda. and bruce ivins was right in the middle. in fact, he was handling the evidence. all it should read my book to read the exact details, but there was a tremendous breach in the protocol for how the chain of custody for the evidence is supposed to be maintained. and he was telling bruce anyone who would listen to him how frightening and how spectacular this powdered material was.

what this all amounts to is really maximum shock and all and a tremendous step to cause fear. that is what the anthrax attacks wrote about. and certainly for bruce ivins by this point, he was getting so much attention that he couldn't have been more content with the intention. so let's go back inside momentarily to the investigation. as you might recall, each of the recovered anthrax letters were postmarked in trenton, new jersey. the fbi and postal service had just one male backs tested positive for spores could the spores were an exact match for the anthrax used in the letter attacks. so, with all of this in mind, an fbi agent who is actually working on their own time, a woman named robin powell asked the question, why was this one mailbox that had the spores 10

nassau street, princeton, new jersey did. why nassau street? she found some keywords in her research. how about kappa kappa gamma and princeton, 10 nassau street is against firm the street. the dress her kappa kappa gamma was at 20 nassau street, almost adjacent to the mailbox itself. that was a very powerful moment in this investigation. i mentioned up front the consequences of the anthrax attacks including project by a field and it turned out the very first contract awarded under project biofuels for $877.5 million for the development of the next generation anthrax vaccine upon which bruce ivins held two panels. this contract never would have been awarded without anthrax attacks. and without the contract -- i'm sorry, with the contract, ivins i'd won not only the attention,

but now he had the approval, the scientific validation that he craved. so before closing, if you'll indulge me and invoke the wisdom of howard baker, the longtime former senator from tennessee. senator baker once said in washington he to who does not toot his own horn may just find untreated. so what that is inoculation, the two shared a passage about my book that was written in posted by carl cannon, washington editor of real clear politics. ..

>> senator leahy was one of the intended targets of a letter that was unopened. he remains to this day quite convinced that bruce ivins was not the only one responsible for this attack your in all of your research, did you find anything to support his contention that bruce ivins could not have acted alone? >> i did not. i was there in the senate hearing room on september 18, 2008 when senator leahy interrupted the fbi director to say that if bruce ivins was the

perpetrator, that he, senator leahy, believes bruce ivins could've done this way, that there must be a car forces that could be charge, accessories before after the fact for murder in contrast to that assertion, i asked senator leahy's office to provide the basis for that assertion, and it never does appear to my knowledge senator leahy is never spelled out in public his thinking on the. i should reiterate the senator leahy was an intended victim of the attacks and was frustrated at the early course of the investigation. but one of the most important things in my research, my conversations with micro biologist named john. johnny was one of three people who are bruce ivins in 1980. johnny sal is respected in his own right. turns out that is one person at fort detrick who has created powdered anthrax, officially

lawfully, and authorized fashion, and that one michael bausch has done it is johnny zell. so he did it with the equipment at fort detrick. he knows what can and can't be done, and his quote to me was it's almost an insult to assert that microbiologist with bruce ivins skill could not have produced major use in the letter attacks with the biocontainment resources that he had right there at fort detrick. >> other questions? >> you mentioned that the news media jumped on the fact that it was a possibility that this anthrax came from saddam hussein or whoever. was that an issue of someone jumping to the wrong conclusion? was there information by some government agency or individual? >> i think a combination of both, but thank you for your

question. one of the spectacles that is deconstructed in this book is how a certain senior scientist at fort detrick who is not a bacteriologist, anthrax of course is a bacterial. this individual work on viruses. he looked at this attack material under a sliding came to a conclusion based on what he was saying that it must be chemically treated or perhaps some of them until. so the next thing you know, he's in a vehicle with a major channel of their from frederick and they come down to several top departments in washington, department of health and human services, they go over with paul wolfowitz, at the pentagon. and then that same night they were called into the white house and briefed several cabinet officials in the white house that is the true and. to have been chemically treated with bentonite which, of course,

was regarded as an indicator, a signal of saddam hussein's biochemical warfare program. that will wrong conclusion and that scientist by the way, peter, ultimately conceded to me i think to his credit that he was wrong. and that he was opining really out of his way, and he defers to the experts. the fbi laboratory engaged one of the national labs in the country, performed the most far-reaching analyses of the attack material that has been done to date, and conclusively established that material was not treated with any chemical. >> other questions?

>> was there a final piece of evidence that allowed them to catch them? or was just the buildup of a lot of things? >> that case as doctor adams said in his introduction, rest on a combination of provincial law enforcement evidence and really cutting edge science, a lot of genetic work. so those two things merged together and the fbi ultimately determined that the mature that was used in the attacks came from this one flask that bruce ivins had labeled. he created the flask of material. he was its sole custodian. it was later also provided with one of the research facility in the midwest to the fbi did through conventional law-enforcement methods was to check out the potential alibis of any and all people who had access to rmr 1029, and that narrowed down to really a group of maybe like more than 40 people and not a access but the

expertise to do something with it. bruce ivins was the only one who didn't have an alibi that stood up if you still one who's working for these extraordinary hours in the run up to september 18 postmark, and the second wave of anthrax mailing which was postmarked october 9. so the government informed ivins attorney that they're getting close to indictment, and it possibly could a death penalty case but that information was communicated correctly to bruce ivins. and on july 29, 2008, he died of a massive overdose of tylenol pm. so they? regrettably was never brought to a conclusion in the judicial system. either a guilty plea or a trial. >> more questions? >> you had said that he had a

flask with the anthrax in it. was ever determined how he got it out of the armies and essentially? if you just walk out the front door with a flask of anthrax? >> there were no video cameras in the hot sweep or elsewhere to monitor activity, that kind of nature. this is mature that is so small that could be put under a cup and taken out. the simple answer to question is, no, there is no video taped evidence of how anthrax would've been taken out of there. i would say two things though that i think reflect on that question, or bear on the question. one is that bruce ivins, during the course, really begin in november 2001, and for some years thereafter, was telling the fbi that any one of seven of his colleagues he thought may well have perpetrated the anthrax attacks.

so he certainly thought it was possible. the other fascinating thing that happened, that's in my book, is that in december of 2001, perhaps november, bruce ivins ultimately acknowledged that he conducted a sort of stealth cleanup campaign in his personal office which was outside the biocontainment zone. he went around with bleach and clean things up. he had already determined that these it. to be positive anthrax spores. he was asked by investigators, well, did you go around and swap those areas to make sure you got it all? and he was asked this in april of 2002 by army investigators come and his response then was i can't remember whether i did it. think about the possibility or lack thereof that statement. this was an area outside the biocontainment zone where family members coming, janitorial staff, none of them are vaccinated against anthrax, and he can't remember if he did,

verify to get all the sports out of there? i think that statement is highly questionable, and i know that it was a statement that investigators and the fbi viewed as highly important and would've been introduced at a trial. the ultimate audit by army investigators with any loose spores may have been in the spring of 2002 found spores in only one personal office space in all of fort detrick him at that was in bruce ivins office. [inaudible] >> the question is, what physical content with the metro have to be put in? hypothetically, someone of doctor ivan still could have the envelopes with him in the hot sweep and could have loaded the

spores into the letters, sealed them with the tape, all the letters were sealed tightly with tape, put it in a ziploc baggie and walk out. >> forgive me if this is false information, but i did read that following after the united states anthrax letters attack, there were some, or there was a letter found in chili. is that connected to bruce ivins attacks? or is that completely false information? >> there's a lot of letters to

continue to be found around the country that are bogus hoax letters. there was no other letter in any other part of the world that contained this unique batch of anthrax, either actually either aims strength access, live anthrax or at any kind of uncertainty anthrax with spores that were derived from this unique lab, rmr 1029. >> no one, the people that had the letters sent to them laced with anthrax, why would they specifically targeted by bruce? >> that's a great question, and i should point out that there were four letters that were recovered. it appears that there were a total of five letters. the letter that was sent to the offices of the "national enquirer" was never recovered. the "national enquirer" gets tons of junk mail, netmail. they throw it out and it's almost immediately incinerated, regrettably for this

investigation. but there was a plume of anthrax that was mapped from the mailroom at the parent company of the inquirer, all along the path where the mail deliver was delivering the mail. and a nest of let go by bodily came down with inhalation anthrax infection and survive. but why those targets? bear in mind that i think intent of the anthrax attacks was too great shock and awe and fear. okay? and what better way than to send it to the most prominent tabloid in this country, to send it to to highly placed individuals at the heart of the national government, senate judiciary committee chairman pat leahy and senate majority leader tom daschle, and why don't we throw in the network news anchor, tom brokaw, and also editor of the "new york post" which is among mainstream newspapers is most prominent tabloid paper. and write in new york. if the intent was to create

maximum shock and awe, fear, crisis, mission accomplished. >> in regards to steven hatfield, do you know what any reparations were paid out to him by the fbi? >> i do. i believe is on june 25, 2008, the government agreed to settle his lawsuit for $5.82 million. there's a cash payment up front and one in $50,000 am year annually for 20 years. i interviewed steven hatfield at some length in his book and he remains of the belief that any opportunity he has for normal career in science is over at this point.

>> for my own peace of mind, has policy at the army lab changed at all? or is there still a lack of surveillance and a lack of protocol? >> i think this is really one of the most important questions to be asked in the aftermath of anthrax letter attacks, and it goes to the lessons learned that could be applied but i don't think have been applied to this point. i would say up front, if you read no aspect of "the mirage man," please read the epilogue where all the dynamics of denial, defensive bruce ivins in opposition to a new control on how these matters are handled is laid out. things have gotten a bit tighter at fort detrick. you have video cameras now in the hot sweeps. that's not a silver bullet. there is no one measure that gives you continued complete confidence. i was almost the entire biodefense community has certain mandatory controls, biodefense

community wants the federal money for these without the control. they oppose baseline psychological screening, and they oppose mandatory to person wrote in the hot sweeps. so baseline psychiatric screening may well have kept bruce ivins after anthrax work. bear in mind is already articulated one thought to go before he's even hired by the army. and the two-person rule also would have greatly inhibited and probably prevented bruce ivins from doing what he was doing. this point also goes back to an earlier question about how the fbi sort of narrowed down the list of suspects in this case. there was one research institute as i said earlier in the midwest that has also been working with rmr 1029. it turns out there's been a mandatory three personal for a very long time. the scientists who are working

with rmr 1029 were always doing it in tandem, and they were rarely the same to working at the same time. so it really cuts down on the possibility that there was some road in cities insider out there here but yet the committee, the biodefense committee, to this day, adequately opposes the two-person rule. they say would increase costs. is also a subtext that it would infringe upon academic freedom. a lot of this work is done as as those that associate with universities, and i would say to that, that working with anthrax in working with these of the highly portable and lethal got is neither a universal right, a civil right, nor a matter of academic freedom. it is a privilege. and yet our policymakers have yet to make these changes. >> of course you on the other side.

>> what if there's another bruce ivins out there? what if somebody creates it in their home or in the lab or whatnot? like, what is the fbi or security doing to prevent something like that from happening again? >> well, regrettably i think that our national policy response to the anthrax letter attacks has exponentially grown the threat of another insider who could use his or her unique position and knowledge and access to resources to do something horrible that creates a mass panic in this country and kills people. so, that's a reality out there. i think it's also true that law enforcement and fbi in particular is now better positioned to investigate these crimes. i wouldn't say he are better positioned to necessary prevent them, but the fbi, dr. adams can attest, now has a lot more scientific firepower in house

than existed in the fall of 2001. i think there were two microbiologists employed by the fbi in the fall 2001, and that has changed dramatically. >> do you know if bruce had any close personal relationships with any high profile government officials? >> not to my knowledge. i know that he was a real student of what was the newspapers every day. he was always sort of latching onto the big story of the day. he wrote scores of letters do not our newspapers but to members of congress, and was very animated and agitated about any number of issues. sometimes you have to wonder if you're to believe it. he wrote one letter to the frederick news post that appear to defend the civil rights of the national man boy love

association. this provoked a dozen or more frothing, angry letters. then after this brushfire had been lit, bruce ivins came back in with another letter and said welcome everybody must have misunderstood i wasn't trying to defend them, then he took a whack at them. sorry, that's not quite a direct response to question but to my knowledge he didn't have a personal relationship with any elected official. >> other questions? >> from a forensic psychology point of view, if he'd had a mother more like carol brady, would this have happened? >> who knows? i think all of us in them by the way can point to some

familiarity directly or through acquaintances with people of overcome dramatic childhood. and so that's what in the book i'm very careful to say that people in lebanon who grew up with him believe that his mother left this in double and harmful mark on him. to really answer that authoritatively, gets to a whole nurture question which i don't think i can. >> the unique opportunity to purchase "the mirage man" inner atrium, to have david willman sign that bug for you, and that will be available immediately upon closing here. would you join me in thanking mr. willman for coming today? [applause] >> visit booktv.org to watch any of the programs you see your

online. that the author or book title in the search bar on the upper left side of the page and click search. you can also shoot anything you see on booktv.org easily by clicking share on the upper left side of the page and selecting the format. opd streamed live online for 48 hours every weekend with top nonfiction books and authors. booktv.org. >> now on the screen on booktv is kenny thomas, and he has written this book, "get it on." kenny thomas, tell us about your experience with your connection with "black hawk down" debt we are part of the guys who went in on that mission, initially, 93, it was initially a raid and everything changed when the first helicopter got shot down and just like that, our lives

changed. so what i get from that, anybody that's going to make out of something, spend the rest of your life thinking the people on your left and right that day, because i know by the grace of god that's the only reason i still do. you use every opportunity again to tell their stories. whether i do through music or in the book, i'm going to tell their story. >> kenny thomas, walk us through that they. >> there is documentaries on that thing, we'll be here for hours. but i can tell you -- >> your experienced. >> my experience, we came in on the mission ended i thought it was going to be a normal thing. daylight raid, although that risky. we didn't know what is we would lose 18 guys, 70 where you -- 70 were wounded. i'm telling, those numbers could been significantly higher had it not been for the levels of planning and training. but mostly the leadership at every level. and i mean come david floyd who was one private who saved everybody for all the way up to

general garrison, leadership at every level that say this but we know that. by the time the morning rolls around, you know the story, we were there to help the pilot, waited for the pilots we could get his body out of the wreckage. we didn't have the equipment. in the morning, pakistan's game, malaysians came, cooks put on body armor that not a single one of those guys, not my job, they'll came in, they volunteered. in the morning we put the wounded guys on the trucks and the rest of us ran out. there again, you make it out, you spend your life thanking these folks. this is an extraordinary story. as good as you heard the story, nobody can tell it about david floyd and others in somalia, sergeant watson, not the way that i can. those were my guys back when did you leave the ranger? >> i got out at the end of the '90s. pickup a guitar and started doing the musical and that's one that. this whole book thing is a new world for me.

>> why are you writing this now in 2011? >> a good question. i get a chance to tell that story to a ton of people. the more people that you can reach, i feel like the more chance you have to make a difference. i started doing some and events. why haven't you written this story down? so i actually, it was oliver north, you need to write this. we wrote it and then it was as simple as somebody saying yes. they were like we would love to put out. really? it was that simple. all of a sudden that this book, we're on tv, where in wal-mart. when you're in wal-mart you know something is happening. it's been a heckuva ride. >> what is this about music and a guitar? >> i work in national. i do country music we have a whole audience on that side of the world. you have all these fans are coming in for music and i have these new people that do meeting at events like this are coming

in for the book, and they're all coming to kenny thomas and they're all starting to figure out what the messages, which is set an example. lead the way. your extraordinary. you can do amazing things, if you're willing to shoulder the burden. >> who do you play with in country music? anybody -- >> name it. the only people i have not opened up for his faith hill and tim mcgraw. so they're watching, you guys need to give me a slut. we been out on the road for everybody. as an opening act, you get to see everybody in sedona for a while now. >> kenny thomas, is a well-known your end army ranger in your new careers because it is. folks know what i did. you have to entertain folks, especially one stage. when you buy the store, that's why people, that's how you captivate can pick you tell them a story. but at the end of it all, whether it's the guitar or a microphone or a book, you better have something to say.

obviously, what i have to say is lead the way. >> kenny thomas is the author of this book, "get it on!." >> up next on booktv, cameron mcwhirter recounts the violence against african-americans during what became known as the red summer in 1919. a precursor to the civil rights movement of the 1950s and '60s. the author describes how followed world war i, african-american soldiers return to the u.s. with expectations of full citizenship, only to be met by resistance, leading to deadly riots across the country. this is about an hour. ..