Anthrax Letter From St. Petersburg Contains Reference to OKC Bombing

St. Petersburg Times ^ | October 13, 2001 | DAVID BALLINGRUD, MIKE BRASSFIELD and WES ALLISON

[OKCSubmariner]

EXCERPTED:

A broadening national bioterrorism investigation turned toward St. Petersburg late Friday after NBC officials disclosed that a New York employee has contracted anthrax.

A woman who opens the mail for news anchor Tom Brokaw was diagnosed with a skin form of anthrax several days after she opened a letter that contained white powder and was postmarked from St. Petersburg.

The New York Times on Friday received a letter with a white powder and the St. Petersburg Times received one earlier in the week. All three letters were postmarked in St. Petersburg.

Federal law enforcement officials said late Friday that all three letters postmarked St. Petersburg tested negatively for anthrax.

[However, the test for the letter sent from St. Petersburg to the Brokaw aide must have been unsuccessful (too small a sample size?) because the aide in fact did contract Anthrax. This point was made by Ted Kopel on ABC Nightline last night. This calls into question the negative test results for the other two letters since they were also sent from St. Petersburg and may not have had inadequate sample size].

• An assistant to NBC anchorman Tom Brokaw contracted the skin-based form of anthrax after opening a "threatening" letter to her boss.

Officials quickly said there was no known link to either the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks or the more serious inhaled form of anthrax that killed a supermarket tabloid editor in Florida last week. The 38-year-old NBC employee was being treated with antibiotics and is expected to recover. The letter was postmarked in St. Petersburg on Sept. 20 and opened Sept. 25, authorities said.

St. Petersburg Times columnist Howard Troxler opened his letter at his desk Tuesday. As he did so, a white powdery substance, resembling sugar or salt, spilled out.

Troxler stopped opening the letter. Authorities were called to the newspaper's offices in downtown St. Petersburg. Police put the envelope in an airtight container and drove it to a state health lab in Tampa for analysis. Firefighters covered Troxler's desk with a plastic sheet and yellow emergency-scene tape reading "caution."

Health officials found no signs of anthrax or bacteria in the powder. The envelope and a letter inside also tested negative.

The letter had no return address and was postmarked St. Petersburg. It bears a code 337, then a space, then 1.

Anything that is mailed in Seminole, Largo, Bay Pines, Gulfport, Pinellas Park or any St. Petersburg neighborhood goes through the main post office on First Avenue N and is stamped with a 337. [Actual envelop shown in article and the zip code is visible as 33701 and the postmark can be made out as early (“0?”) October 2001 for St. Petersburg]

The cryptic letter misspelled Troxler's name and had little punctuation. It said:

"Howard Toxler ... 1st case of disease now blow away this dust so you see how the real thing flys. OKLAHOMA-RYDER TRUCK! Skyway bridge-18 wheels." [Oklahoma-Ryder Truck capitalized for emphasis by FR poster, original version did not use capital letters]

[stlnative]

I understand what your saying. But most writing that is simular to this looks like an older persons writing that I have personally seen and experianced in the midwest. Like I said it is just my opinion. It seems to me that younger people use more rounding of the letters and write sloppy, not so straight and square. There is no doubt that who wrote this lifted the pen off the paper as they wrote it. To me it looks like normal handwriting of an older person.

[chantal7]

I still say that with all the lying we know that the bloody clinton's do, that even if they had something on someone..who is going to really believe it?

Plus, the bloody trolls have done so much, I don't think that many of our congressmen or other leaders have done in the past or could do anything that would shock us now.

The bloody clinton's just wasted their blackmail leverage by breaking all the rules, laws, and moral rules that anyone is our country has, themselves.

So I don't think anyone who has a past that's in those stolen fbi files has too much to worry about.

[ET(end tyranny)]

I thought the writing looked like it was done by someone not familiar with making the letters, and lifting the pen/pencil a lot as if to double check each stroke. jmo

[armourup]

Want to know what the Clintons have that keeps them unindicted for treason? Read "KILL ZONE" and you'll find daddy Bush was up to his eyeballs in the JFK coup, as well as many many other large political figures still alive from that era. Once you've been president you know all the secrets which makes the Clintons untouchable. I'm sure there is much more we don't even suspect but the JFK coup is big.

KILL ZONE is by far the best book on the subject. It asks and answers the right questions; not who the operatives were but who ORDERED the coup.

Boy Bush is still infinately better than an Al Gore but he is who he is.

[EaglesUpForever]

OK, if we go out on a tin foil limb...

What would be the purpose of a news story about a case that wasn't Anthrax, where the "powder" tested negative, being mixed in with a statement about "OKC". Could that be simply an effort at disinformation?

A pre-emptive propaganda strike by those who suppressed the truth about OKC to rule such thinking out? Kind of like the recent media efforts to prop up Clinton's reputation, like all the recent tales of his supposed efforts against Osama?

I have no conclusions about what went on at OKC but I have no doubt that the public stories of many such disasters in the Clinton era were not accurate and this is time for all involved to come clean.

[Don Myers]

bttt

[chantal7]

The strain was first manufactured or found in Ames, Iowa. The strain was named Ames strain because of that. The Ames strain can be made anywhere and probably samples were shared with other labs. I believe it was named Ames strain in the 1950's and all vaccines, toxins and other anthrax strains are all compared to the Ames strain since it is very virulent.

This does not mean that the Ames strain anthrax went from the lab straight to a domestic or foreign terrorist who then put the powder onto an envelope and sent it off.

[virgil]

I think it is possible that this anthrax stuff is a diversion. Something bigger may be in store. The Iowa strain has been sent to labs all over the world. I hear that Iraq also received some. We may never find out who did it. Just because they made a reference to OKC bombing means nothing. Everybody in the world knows about that bombing. All the bridges mentioned are not secrets either. The country is united right now. It could be these terrorists want us to turn on ourselves. Blaming angry white males would work.

[chantal7]

GRRRRR! Sorry, I think I got my messages mixed up. I was replying to something someone else wrote. Sorry.

[the-gooroo]

There is a thread titled "Anthrax At NBC Is Traced To Mail From New Jersey" -- all of the info can be found there.

[Ernest_at_the_Beach]

To find all articles tagged or indexed using

Anthrax_Scare_List

Go here:

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and then click the Anthrax_Scare_List topic to initiate the search! !

[EaglesUpForever]

Well, obviously very few of us are going to go out and buy a book on this subject, can you cut to the chase and say "who Bush is"?

[Rightwing Conspiratr1]

The American Media Anthrax was from a lab in Iowa. That's pretty domestic to me.

No the particular anthrax strain is eponymous with a laboratory in Ames, Iowa.

[chantal7]

The American Media Anthrax was from a lab in Iowa. That's pretty domestic to me.

36 posted on 10/13/01 11:26 PM Central by Hillary's Lovely Legs ^

Nope, I was right the first time. I just got off track on msg because I am still trying to get used to the new format always making me go to the last page and then I have to go back to first page and try to remember where I was. LOL!

[stlnative]

OK, I have a question...

Is it not possible to get both lung and skin Anthrax poisoning at the same time?
Lets say you open up a letter and find powder. You decide to sniff it to see if it has an odor and you sniff some up in your nose. Then you touch it to feel the texture of it and get it under your nails and then scratch yourself. Lets say your stupid enough to taste it also.

My understanding is that you get one of the 3 types of anthrax poisoning depending on how it entered your system or how it got on you. What if it enters your system through the nose and your mouth and then on your skin? Would you get all 3 types of Anthrax poisoning?

I addressed this to myself as I cannot get it to accept the name ALL as a receiver. Why is that?

[Clinton's a rapist]

I think it is possible that this anthrax stuff is a diversion.

This phase of the terror campaign is having exactly the effect OBL planned for it to do. As a bonus that perhaps he could not entirely have anticipated, the authorities' credibility is now shot. That will have a significant multiplier effect on the psychological impact of the next major attack.

Pray that they catch these people because, if they don't, we're going to look back on these edgy, nervous weeks as a brief honeymoon phase, a respite between horrors.

[Reactionary]

I think that the news media simply reports what people are generally interested in watching. There is, generally speaking, no media conspiracy, only the tendency to report what can easily be understood, easily digested. And most reporters, having been "educated" at our universities, simply lack the ability to look at something dispassionately and with reason; their opinions usually get in the way and they're unable to let the facts speak for themselves - especially concerning the particular grievances of conservatives as against those who are their allies in government.

So far as Clinton is concerned, I think there has been, and will continue to be, a concerted effort on the part of many in the media to make him into a successful president. He was hardly that, and I think we're going to be reminded of it for many years to come.

You're right about the disasters of the Clinton presidency not "being reported accurately," and about the need for the government to come clean. It's also time for Americans to grow up a little and for the news media to start using their brains (if such a thing is even remotely possible).