A Scientist's Quiet Life Took a Darker Turn

Ivins entered the University of Cincinnati that fall and earned three degrees there: a B.S. with honors in 1968 and master's and doctoral degrees in microbiology in 1971 and 1976, respectively. His dissertation focused on different aspects of toxicity in disease-causing bacteria.

When he applied to Fort Detrick in the late 1980s, he had "an impressive résumé," said John Ezzell, a former top scientist there who was part of a hiring committee that selected Ivins to work on the human anthrax vaccine. "We thought he worked out really well. He was a critical part of our vaccine studies." Ezzell said Ivins participated in numerous animal experiments testing how the vaccine protected against various types of anthrax exposure.

Ezzell considered Ivins a friend and said they sometimes shared hotel rooms when they traveled to professional conferences. "Most of the time, he was very happy and outgoing," he said. "He did good work. He was very conscientious, and he worked long hours to get the work done."

Ezzell said the experiments did not involve anthrax in its dried form, the type found in the letter to then-Senate Majority Leader Thomas A. Daschle (D-S.D.) that was so finely ground it could immediately become airborne. Ivins worked with small teams of scientists; their findings had global significance in the field of anthrax studies and were later used by opponents of a mandatory vaccination program instituted by the Pentagon that has been highly controversial.

Meryl Nass, a physician and leader in the vaccine opposition movement, met Ivins at a conference in the early 1990s, and they talked regularly over the next decade. She said Ivins told her he had a chronic blood disorder and feared that it might be linked to the anthrax vaccine booster shots he had to take to work in the Fort Detrick laboratory.

"He had some issues with work," Nass said in an interview.

Ivins eventually would be awarded the Defense Department's highest honor for civilian performance for helping to resurrect a controversial vaccine that could protect against anthrax. At a March 2003 ceremony, Ivins described the award, which he received along with several colleagues, as unexpected. "Awards are nice. But the real satisfaction is knowing the vaccine is back on-line," he told a military publication.

After the anthrax mailings in October 2001, the Fort Detrick labs went into a frenetic response, testing suspicious mail and packages virtually round-the-clock. Ivins was part of a team that analyzed the handwritten letter sent to Daschle, packed with Bacillus anthracis spores that matched the primary strain used in Fort Detrick research.

In early 2002, without notifying his supervisors, Ivins began sampling areas in the Detrick lab space that he believed might be contaminated with anthrax. He took unauthorized samples from the lab containment areas and later acknowledged to Army officials that he had violated protocol.

Ivins's odd behavior was detailed in an Army investigation of the matter, but he did not surface as a potential suspect in the mailings case. "He was not on my radar," said a Senate source whose office was briefed on the FBI's progress.

In fact, in early June 2003, when the FBI drained a pond in rural Maryland in search of clues to the perpetrator of the anthrax attacks, Ivins was one of the Red Cross volunteers who brought investigators coffee and donuts. Investigators, however, singled him out and asked him to leave "because he was somebody involved in the investigation," said Byrne, Ivins's former colleague and fellow parishioner.

Outside the lab, Ivins's neighbors, friends and pastor say, he played the piano every Sunday at what he jokingly called "the hippie Mass" in the school hall at St. John the Evangelist. He played keyboards in a Celtic band and founded the Frederick Jugglers.