Science culture
To quarantine the fall-out, Bruce, personally, unfortunately, had sacrificial lamb written all over him (look away Pete Daszak).
By 2008, 7-years on, Bruce was fucked. He'd gone from top, respected scientist - Pentagon Award for bio-warfare defense - to sole suspect in the Anthrax terrorist attack.
Long before that, since the initial weeks of the mailings, there were bloggers pressing for an investigation into a Fort Detrick lab-exit event. Mueller, who knew all along it was domestic terrorism committed by a small subset of suspects with access to Fort Detrick's Ames anthrax, had to act. With the full might of the FBI, he began tightening the noose.noose But get this,- on the wrong neck.
Not Bruce, but another top-scientist, the FBI's patsy, Steven Hatfill.
The FBI even outed him as their sole person of interest, thus ensuring a full-blown media circus - tipped-off to throng at his house for the search, agents marching in & out with boxes of evidence, live chopper vision of the pond-draining - the whole shit-show. Hatfill watched his house being raided on TV at a friend's place. He was known as a cowboy Bio-defense weapons zealot - which he was - a leading bio-terror advocate - but innocent of the Anthrax attack. Paid-out 5.8 million from the public's purse for wrongful persecution.
Finally, our guy Bruce Ivins, their expert advisor, did become the FBI's chief suspect. Quietly, this time, outside the public's eye. Ivins would keep denying it but by the end Bruce was in deep depression, under pressure from the Feds, his professional career having seeped down the gutter. He took his own life in July 2008 - an overdose of Tylenol - his wife found him dead at home - lying inhis clothes on his bed - a note read Let me sleep.
The FBI said it was set to execute an arrest but he'd beaten em to it. Conveniently so - disappearing a messy public show trial - Ivins had maintained his innocence - so there'd have been a contest. Mueller ruled he was as a loner acting alone. Case closed.
Ivin's colleague remarked: They seemed to harp on he was a loner. He was not a loner. …. He had a lot of friends ..
Indeed, 20 to 30 colleagues showed up at his 1st & 2nd death anniversaries - he was something of a hero.
lvins was a weirdo though - make no mistake - had a not-so-secret fetish - known around the office - for secret initiations of Ivy-League sororities - that included stalking - breaking & entering - all very seedy. But when ya enmeshed in the fenced-off-society of the well-off science community - you'll get away with that shit - you can hide it in plain sight - it's called: eccentricity.
Ivins also had access to the exact same anthrax strain and a money motive. Would it've stood up in court? - id've thought line-ball call - there was a major bungle in the collection of key evidence - the danger though for the higher-ups in the scio-security is:game being: Where's this going?
So it's left open-ended. The FBI betting that if it was buried for long enough we'd all forget who or what the fuck caused an avalanche of money for bio-tech globo-surveillance:
Pretending Bruce Ivins was a loner who dropped out of the sky - to where he's thus returned ... a smoothed out ripple in history
- it wasn't like that -
A smoothed out ripple in history - well, he is, good job - but the problem isn't.
Ivins was the inevitable result of a culture that's very much alive n wriggling today. In this instance it's the science community - a close-knit, closed-society - unaccountable - monied-up elite - playing secret power shenanigans with security organizations.
I don’t know much about nothin - but i know that’s a recipe for corruption. That shit never ever fixes itself - it does the opposite
... a smoothed out ripple in history