For the 2007 perspective of someone in the field of the history of science, which by its nature is all about the context, we have this learned entry with 359 citations:
Politics and the Life Sciences
Terrorists and biological weapons
Forging the linkage in the Clinton Administration
Susan Wright, Ph.D.
Research Scientist, History of Science and International Relations, Institute for Research on Women and Gender, University of Michigan, Ann Arbor, MI 48109-1290 Visiting Professorial Fellow (2007), School of Social Sciences, Media and Communication, University of Wollongong, NSW 2522, Australia
Susan Wright
By the end of the Clinton administration, the claim that terrorists armed with biological weapons represented a huge threat to the security of the United States had achieved the status of received knowledge. How this linkage was forged, despite informed dissent not only outside the Clinton administration but also within it, and how it was used to justify a radical reframing of biological knowledge, especially in genetic engineering and genomics, in terms of military goals is the subject of this essay. My method is historical. I assume that no category is fixed but, rather, that key terms, such as “weapons of mass destruction,” “biological weapon,” and “terrorism” itself, are contingent, shaped under specific historical and political circumstances, and are therefore more fluid than often thought. This account draws on a wide variety of sources including government documents, policy papers and books, conference records, media materials, memoirs, and detailed interviews with nine subjects selected from among participants in the events examined. It shows that the nature of a linkage between terrorism and biological weaponry was debated at many levels in Washington, and it offers reasons why, ultimately, a counterbioterrorism “bandwagon” was constructed and began rolling at the end of the second Clinton administration.
Excerpt:
This assumption of a linkage between ‘‘rogues’’ or
‘‘loose bioweaponeers’’ on the one hand and ‘‘terrorists’’
on the other hand does not however explain why the
Clinton administration accepted the advice that novel
genetically engineered microbes also constituted a major
threat. After all, such organisms existed mainly in the
realm of science fiction. There was no evidence that
‘‘rogues’’ had developed such organisms, and it also
seemed unlikely that former Russian scientists would
part with whatever information they had without the
long-term guarantees and substantial rewards that a
government might be able to offer. The administration’s
acceptance of a need to defend against bioterrorism
involving genetically engineered organisms was a radi-
cal turn in the history of biological warfare, one which
had been previously rejected. But with imaginations
now in overdrive, the military viewed such a threat as
***
In addition, there was what Bruce Hoffman at the
RAND Corporation has called the ‘‘Prudence Bushnell
factor.’’ Prudence Bushnell was the U.S. ambassador to
Kenya who had requested additional security pro-
tection for the Nairobi embassy six months before it
was blown up by al Qaeda in 1998. After the attack, her
superiors were held responsible for failing to respond to
her request. Faced with warnings of anthrax clouds
over Washington (and similar scenarios) from high-level
science and policy advisors, the President and Congress
were in a similar position. Moreover, warnings that
even though bioterrorist scenarios had a low probabil-
ity, they might — if played out for real — have
devastating impact were influential; this ‘‘low proba-
bility/high impact’’ argument haunted politicians, who
felt increasingly compelled to open the federal coffers
for biodefense. It was difficult for them to resist
warnings from high-powered scientists that ‘‘we should
not have to wait for the biological equivalent of
Hiroshima to rally our defenses.’’351 Funding biode-
fense was as much an insurance policy for political
reputations as it was a protection for the nation. In the
event of a bioterrorist attack, politicians could say
that they had done their utmost to forestall the
consequences.
And we have the perpective of one of the intended victims, from the Vermont Daily Briefing.
Excerpt:
VDB: Okay, I wanted to jump to the anthrax letter, what’s now known as the Leahy Letter. There was the one that was mailed to you, and the one that went out to Tom Daschle —
Leahy: And people died just from touching it.
VDB: Exactly. And in a way, it’s like the hunt for Bin Laden: since there’s no good news, there’s just complete radio silence from the White House. I’m wondering if you’re satisfied with the progress of that investigation —
Leahy: [Face a thundercloud now and voice emphatic and loud enough to turn heads at nearby tables] No! [Then again] No!
VDB: — and do they keep you apprized in any way of the progress of it?
Leahy: [More quietly] I’ve had discussions.
VDB: Yeah.
Leahy: I’m a little sensitive on this one, because two people died touching an envelope I was supposed to open.
VDB: Sure.
Leahy: I feel badly for them, and for their families. And we spent three years, Marcelle and I couldn’t go anywhere without heavily armed people around us. Finally, I said, This guy’s not going to try anything, and our family wants our privacy back. [Meditatively] I wish they had turned this investigation over to some good sheriff or police chief somewhere. I think it’s been very badly handled.
VDB: Yeah, I don’t think there’s any other way to look at it. And when you call it what it is, it was biological warfare conducted against the highest levels of the US government.
Leahy: What I want to know — I have a theory. But what I want to know is why me, why Tom Daschle, why Tom Brokaw?
VDB: Right. That all fits into the profile of a kind of hard-core and obviously insane ideologue on the far Right, somebody who would fixate on especially Tom Daschle, who at that point was the target of daily, vitriolic attacks on Right-wing talk radio.
Leahy: [Slowly, with a little shake of the head] I don’t think it’s somebody insane. I’d accept everything else you said. But I don’t think it’s somebody insane. And I think there are people within our government — certainly from the source of it — who know where it came from. [Taps the table to let that settle in] And these people may not have had anything to do with it, but they certainly know where it came from.