"Bruce Becker," a safety technician, also caught something. He began running a low-grade fever and became sluggish. His physician found high blood pressure and diagnosed a flulike virus, and suggested that he have his kidneys checked out. For almost a year, Becker didn't feel like himself. Then in August 1974, his condition took a turn for the worse. Any physical exertion, however minimal, caused nodules all over his skin that took weeks, sometimes months, to disappear. Plum Island's nurse, Frances DeCristofaro, arranged an appointment with another medical doctor, who diagnosed infection with an unknown virus. Becker sought a second opinion from a Dr. Georgeson in Riverhead; biopsy samples of the lumps were taken and the results came back negative. Perplexed, Georgeson suggested that Becker try the Leahy Clinic in Boston. When he did, there was still no confirmation. Samples of his kidneys and the lumps were taken at River-head Hospital and again at St. Charles Hospital in Port Jefferson. The Leahy Clinic doctor suggested that Becker have one of his kidneys removed, though he would not tell him why. In March 1976, the Workers' Compensation Board referred him to yet another doctor, "Tom Belford" of Greenport. After examining his patient, Dr. Belford announced, "You're either okay or you're not in the books." Belford sent for tests from the CDC in Atlanta to explore the possibility of animal diseases. Becker was given two shots, and his arm blotched and swelled in both places. When he returned in April for more tests, Dr. Belford brushed his patient away. "I'm getting too much pressure," he said. "If Georgeson wants to give you these shots, I'll give him the serum." The doctor would not elaborate.
While Woodward and Bernstein parsed through stacks of circulating cards in the ornate rotunda of the Library of Congress, Fitzsimmons and a fellow intern barged into the offices of the Suffolk Times and other local weeklies, spoke to the editors about Plum Island, and pored over their vertical files, reading old newspaper clippings. Then one summer day, Ronnie decided to roll the dice and personally investigate the Orient Point warehouse and ferry dock to Plum Island. Switching cars halfway to avoid detection, the intern-turned-sleuth slipped into the parking lot near the ferry launch. "I got out and went into the building," he recalls. "I saw a fridge in the corner and opened it. Inside were bottles with yellow stuff in them, labeled with Latin names. I'm not a scientist — but it looked like bacteria or something. I walked around some more." He encountered no security. Satisfied, Fitzsimmons jumped in the car and sped off.
They were probing deeper than ever before, and seemed to be getting somewhere. But by August 1976, someone pulled the plug on the investigation. One scientist who agreed to meet changed his mind, saying his superiors had advised him not to speak. Another source told Fitzsimmons, "It shouldn't surprise you, then, if I told you that Callis has told people not to talk to you." Lower-echelon lab techs and dockworkers would only mutter, "Speak to Callis," and turn away when approached. "When it became clear we were snooping around, contacts would say, 'I know who you are,' and hang up. A few who had offered information were now recanting, they were so concerned that we might publish the information, and they would be fired." One woman broke down and cried to Fitzsimmons over the phone, wailing, "I'm not allowed to speak. Please, please! Leave me alone!"
After compiling his extensive research, and reviewing his pre-gag-order interviews, he compared notes with the Newsday reporters. Fitzsimmons then typed up letters from Downey addressed to the Army and the USDA, demanding detailed responses to the results of the investigation. The Army's terse response, perhaps with a dose of condescension, was addressed to "Mr. Downey" ("It's interesting," says Tom Downey now. "Why wasn't it 'Dear Congressman'?"). The letter noted that the Army had phased out all agriculture-related activities within the last year. Seven years after President Nixon ordered Fort Detrick out of the offensive biological warfare business, the Army was just now turning over the big Detrick greenhouses used for anticrop germ warfare to the USDA. Acknowledging the agreement that likewise turned over Plum Island to the USDA, "along with defense of our livestock against biological attack," the Army also admitted the ongoing relationship between Fort Detrick and Plum Island. "Army interest…was one of keeping abreast of closely related efforts in microbiological research….Throughout the ensuing years, there has been a cooperative effort between the Department of the Army and the Department of Agriculture in this area… [l]iaison was maintained at the working level… " This relationship dated back to the construction of an Army germ warfare lab there, Laboratory No. 257, in 1952.
Two more letters were sent to the USDA, including a lengthy single-spaced, five-page dispatch to Dr. Callis, demanding all information on Plum Island's shadowy past and current condition.
The letters presented a thorny problem for Callis: not only was Downey a local congressman, but he also served on the Agriculture Committee. Plum Island would have to tread very carefully here. Fitzsimmons, in the name of Congressman Downey, asked Plum Island officials for names, lists, reports, correspondence, files — anything that proved an existing relationship between Plum Island and Fort Detrick. Attempting to follow leads developed by the Newsday reporters, the letter demanded information on a "swine flu" being sent to Fort Detrick, the Panama Canal Zone, and any other installation. In all, fifty-six specific and open-ended requests were made of Plum Island, many of which contained multiple subrequests.
The letters closed, "Due to the nature of the information requested above and the importance of this subject, I ask that you act at greatest dispatch. Your prompt attention to this matter is greatly appreciated." Truth was, there really was no rush. The summer was winding to a close, and intern Ronnie Fitzsimmons had to go back to college.
Awaiting the USDA's reply at the end of August, Ronnie typed up a "summary" for his boss. The three-inch-thick report bowled over the congressman and chief of staff Kass. "Tom was flabbergasted," says Fitzsimmons, "I wasn't getting paid — I did it on my own — and I guess I just ran with it." They each took a piece of the tome and fanned through its legal-sized pages. They scanned the interview transcripts and flipped through the "Items" section, which included a possible link between Plum Island and an outbreak of swine flu in Cuba. It also documented hearsay of a conversation hinting "President Ford knew of some kind of leak of shellfish toxin and swine fever within the past several years."[22] They read the one-page "Possible Stories," that spoke of the island's "shabby operation," "off-limits" laboratory, and unwarranted gag order ("Why can't a congressman's office get straight answers from government employees?").[23] Downey was visibly impressed and clearly surprised.
Then the USDA replied to Downey, answering the five-page inquisition in the most general of terms. For the first time, however, it acknowledged research on behalf of the Army in the early 1950s on vesicular stomatitis, brucellosis, and Newcastle disease, an exotic viral illness that affects the nervous and respiratory systems of birds. Laboratory infections of the latter disease have been known to occur in people, and it causes the death of nearly 100 percent of flocks that contract it. The USDA continued working with the Army, maintaining a liaison at Fort Detrick. In 1962, said the letter, the USDA provided farm plots in Oklahoma and North Dakota for the Army's open-air trial on cereal rust of wheat, one of Detrick's major anticrop germ agents. While the Army told Downey the relationship was at a "working level," the USDA stated it was "executively directed." It was probably both.
22
The year before, CIA Director William Colby told the Senate's Church Committee, then looking into intelligence activities, that the CIA had a secret cache of ultradeadly shellfish toxin stored in a Fort Detrick vault, even though President Nixon had ordered the destruction of such weapons back in 1969.
23
The final part of the otherwise sobering report reflected a vindictiveness on the part of its author, perhaps brought on by the gag order Fitzsimmons faced when trying to interview sources: "For