[The Great Satan]

You're right, I'd forgotten about the Jennifer Lopez letter. There isn't really much to indicate that it was the anthrax letter, though. Tabloids must get a lot of strange letters (although the "soapy, powdery substance" and the Star of David are suggestive).

Very suggestive, as is the fact that both individuals who contracted anthrax handled the letter, and the fact that no alternative candidate has been offered since, to my knowledge. The Star of David was always a no-brainer, but the J-Lo thing sounds less mysterious now that we have a sense of what Atta was like -- something of sadistic prankster, from the sound of it.

Have you ever heard of a soapy delivery vehicle for biological weapons?

No. But if you wanted to do a little goof hit without doing to much damage, you might cut the processed anthrax with a gelatinous "base" to limit its spread, I suppose. (I've never been a sadistic, life-hating terrorist on a suicide mission, entrusted with a supply of deadly, weaponized anthrax, so this is pure guesswork on my part).

Spores were recovered from Bob Stevens' keyboard and elsewhere from AMI; surely those samples were analyzed for added chemicals (powders, soap, bentonite, ...).

They haven't told us what they found, so we have no information on that one way or the other. Besides, grossly cutting the anthrax with something sticky like soap to reduce its volatility wouldn't necessarily be evident looking at spores taken from the victim's septum days later.

Again, all of this is speculation about something we have very little solid info about, and which is likely to be peripheral to the fundamentals of the situation. For what it's worth, I think AMI was a goof, a sick, sadistic little joke by Atta and his pals -- something they dreamed up whiling away the hours and days and months before the Big Day. I think they were entrusted with a small supply of weaponized anthrax to be used in the follow-up threat after the attacks. I doubt if there was ever a serious plan for them to disperse anthrax from crop-dusting planes -- I think that was more of a fantasy on their part, or maybe they were generating "reserve notes" for the 2nd tier people. I'm guessing they took a bit of the anthrax intended for the media and governmental threats, and cut it with some everyday substance to make sure the effect was limited. This is probably how Atta got his red hands - washing with bleach -- and the other guy got cutaneous anthrax. It may not have been entirely a joke, though. The other letters were self-identified as anthrax, so nobody died, except for those unintentionally exposed by spores squeezed out of the envelopes during mail processing. Bob Stevens wasn't warned of his exposure, so he couldn't get treatment in the critical time window. Remember how one of the threatening letters sent in St. Peterburg at the time crowed "First death. Now See What happens when the real thing flies." So, I guess I think it was somewhat functional in giving weight to the "formal" threats, but mainly it was, like I say, a discretionary, on-the-fly goof. That's my vibe on the incident, anyway.

[Mitchell]

The idea of the FL anthrax being cut with something could possibly explain the differences in symptoms (which do appear to be real). But I'm still not convinced that a terrorist would want to limit its spread. Most of all, though, I don't see how a soapy base would allow inhalation anthrax to start; the soapiness would prevent the spores from spreading in the air, and it would also make the clumps too big to get deep into the lungs to do damage. (Especially look at the case of mailroom employee Ernesto Blanco, who it seems contracted anthrax by inhaling spores that came through the envelope; soapy spores wouldn't have made their way through the pores in the paper.)

I agree that information about additives probably couldn't be deduced from samples taken from the victims, but the spores found on the keyboard and elsewhere in the building could have been (and probably were) analyzed. As you say, though, we don't know what the results were.

Another argument against the soap-in-Florida idea is that there were two inhalation anthrax victims in Florida, but there were none among the envelope recipients in New York (just in postal workers, subjected to the "spray" from the mail processing machines squeezing the envelopes). You can't attribute this to the "warnings" in the letters. First of all, the letters at NBC News and the NY Post weren't recognized until after anthrax cases had been diagnosed. Secondly, no letters were found at CBS News or ABC News, but anthrax was sent to those places, presumably by letter. Several people at those locations contracted cutaneous anthrax, which was then treated, in some cases before the specific cause was identified. Why were there two inhalation anthrax cases at AMI, but none at the New York media offices? This is inconsistent with the AMI anthrax being soaped but the NY anthrax being a dry powder. [I exclude here the letters to Daschle and Leahy. The Daschle letter was recognized for what it was right away, and treatment was begun. The Leahy letter never reached its intended destination.]

The St. Petersburg letter you mentioned is one of the letters I was thinking of. (There was also the letter sent from St. Petersburg prior to the actual anthrax letter but to the same New York recipient -- I think this was the mailing to Tom Brokaw. And, as I recall, there were some other "hoaxes" from St. Petersburg too.)