Thank you for drawing one's attention to Foster's article in Vanity Fair. You are right, Vanity Fair doesn't have an archive online, but I did a search and found a posting of it at the UCLA anthrax website - http://www.ph.ucla.edu/epi/bioter/messageanthrax.html.
I recommend this article greatly for the info on the 3 hoax letters sent by the mailers.
Here is an outline. Read the article for more info.
Postmark Date | Addressee | Text | |
Hoax Letter #1 | 20 Sep 2001 | Tom Brokaw; opened by aide Erin O'Connor Same people received a real anthrax letter postmked 18 Sep 2001! |
Started: "THE UNTHINKABEL" SAMPLE OF HOW IT WILL LOOK In the 1st line above, you should see one quotemark below the line, and also the 2 underlined Ns in the word UNTHINKABEL should be Ns reversed left-right as mirror-image. Included bio-terror threats against New York, Chi, LA, and Wash DC. If Newsweek is correct, also contained the text: SEE WHAT HAPPENS NEXT. But this may be a paraphrase of SAMPLE OF HOW IT WILL LOOK rather than a quotacion. |
Hoax Letter #2 | 5 Oct 2001 | Howard Troxler | HOWARD TOXLER...1ST CASE OF DISEASE NOW BLOW AWAY THIS DUST SO YOU CAN SEE HOW THE REAL THING FLYS. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! SKYWAY BRIDGE-18 WHEELS. According to Foster, same hand-writing and same simbolic oddities. Exact details have not been made public. |
Hoax Letter #3 | 5 Oct 2001 | Judith Miller | Bio-terror threats, same hand-writing and simbolic oddities. Text has not been publicised. |
Question: What do the 3 letters have in common?
Answer:
Question: How do we know that the 3 letters are connected to one another?
Answer: Primarily because of Commonality D. Secondarily because of Commonality B. Tertiarily because two were postmarked on the same date, 5 Oct 2001.
Question: How do we know that these letters are connected to the 2001 anthrax mailings?
Answer: There was an 18 Sep 2001 mailing of real anthrax to Tom Brokaw, also opened by his aide Erin O'Connor. Here we have a 20 Sep 2001 hoax mailing to the same person. At the time, no one knew:
And the Brokaw hoax letter is quite explicit: "The unthinkabel" and, even more pointedly, "Sample of how it will look".
The other two letters were postmarkened 5 October 2001. Bob Stevens had just died from anthrax. That was in the news. But... it was not being widely attributed to bio-terrorism, and I believe there was no suggestion of delivery via letter. And... no one knew that AMI was merely the first media target to be noticed, of several real anthrax letters already mailed but still unknown. So again on 5 Oct we have what would be an amazing co-incidence if it were a co-incidence... Two more hoax letters containing powder, threatening bio-attacks, sent to news media outlets. Just like the real letters that were unknown at the time to all but the mailers.