Tuesday, October 23, 2001

Major problem in that DC Postal workers are enraged that they were not given CIPRO. They feel that there was not enough care in surveying their Brentwood mail facility. See news accounts around this time. I directly and forcefully told Sec. Thompson that Gov. Ridge had either been mislead or was misleading the American people (which I doubt) regarding the quality of the anthrax spores that had been obtained from the Daschle letter (see above). I strongly suggested to him that he meet with the President and with Gov Ridge to emphasize that we cannot serve the public well with regard to the Public Health if we are not given correct information. Someone at that meeting leaked this to the NY Times and Sheryl Stolberg called me and heard that I had “angrily confronted the FBI for withholding information”. I refused to comment; however, off the record I mentioned that the FBI was not in the room at that meeting and that I was trying to get Sec. Thompson to demand the truth.