Anthrax Attacks

Witness History

BBC

History, Personal Journals, Society & Culture

4.4 • 1.6K Ratings

🗓️ 14 September 2016

⏱️ 9 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

One week after the 9/11 attacks, a series of letters were sent to journalists and politicians in the USA. They contained the deadly biological agent Anthrax. The United States was gripped with fear as postal workers fell ill. The FBI launched one of the biggest and most expensive investigations in its history. In 2013 Rebecca Kesby spoke to Special Agent Scott Stanley about the case.

(Photo: Workers washing out rubbish bins. Credit: AP/Steve Mitchell)

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hello and thank you for downloading Witness from the BBC World Service.
0:04.0	Today we take you back to the USA in September 2001
0:08.0	when in the weeks after the 9-11 attacks,
0:10.0	politicians and journalists began receiving letters containing the deadly biological agent
0:15.4	Anthrax.
0:17.0	Rebecca Kessby reports.
0:18.9	It's the 18th of September 2001 and in Trenton, New Jersey, someone has just posted letters to prominent media
0:26.9	organizations folded inside the potentially lethal biological agent anthrax. eventually lethal
0:33.7	a biological agent anthrax
0:35.3	anthrax a terrorist threat or a figment of our fears
0:40.9	This is NBC nightly news with Tom Brokaw.
0:45.0	Good evening.
0:46.0	Tonight we find ourselves in the unusual and unhappy position of reporting on one of our beloved colleagues who has contracted a cutaneous anthrax infection.
0:56.0	Postal workers at a number of TV stations and newspapers have been taken ill.
1:01.0	It's just weeks after 9-11 and the nation is already in a profound
1:05.4	state of shock. These latest attacks have a new psychological impact. Special
1:10.7	Agent Scott Stanley of the FBI was one of the first on the scene after the attack on the Pentagon.
1:17.0	He's been redeployed to solve the anthrax case.
1:20.0	The fear was palpable.
1:22.0	9-11, you had planes coming down, you had fixed crime scenes.
1:27.0	This was very spurious.
1:28.0	There was anthrax spread throughout the mail system in multiple cities.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from BBC, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of BBC and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.