I WAS WRONG ABOUT STEVEN HATFILL MAILING THE ANTHRAX SPORES BUT RIGHT ABOUT HIM HAVING BEEN A MEMBER OF THE RHODESIAN GESTAPO AND THE SOUTH AFRICAN NAZI PARTY.

I accused Hatfill of sending out the anthrax-laced letters on the basis of his former South African Nazi Party (AWB) membership combined with numerous other factors. My information that he was a Nazi came from Dr. John Michie[i] who was acquainted with Hatfill when Hatfill was a student conducting research for a Master of Science degree under the supervision of the Head of the Radiobiology Laboratory; Dr. Lothar Böhm. Dr. Michie was a staff member of the Laboratory conducting separate research projects, independently of Böhm/Hatfill. Hatfill told Dr. Michie and other hospital staff members that he was a AWB member and showed him a photograph to prove it in which he posed in full Nazi regalia with the AWB’s fuehrer, Eugene Terre Blanche. In a subsequent autobiography Hatfill admitted to his Nazi connection but of course played it down, “South Africa was in political turmoil when I was there. In 1983, out of curiosity I attended a few rallies sponsored by the fanatical right wing group known as the AWB. I had my photograph taken next to the radical leader of the AWB, Eugene Terre Blanche, a man I thought a dangerous fool. I subsequently had the photograph made into a Halloween card added a funny title to it, and gave this to a few friends as a joke. In light of some nonsense I have read regarding my activities at the time I might specify that I never trained AWB shock troops at the Milnerton Pistol Club or elsewhere. I am not aware that the Cape Town suburb of Milnerton had a pistol club. The AWB could have found a far better instructor than me out of the thousands of ex-servicemen of Afrikaner ancestry. (The A in AWB stands for Afrikaner. The AWB was an organization of rightwing individuals of Dutch colonist ancestry whose ancestors fought the British during the Boer War. As a general rule these folks did not have a great deal of time for anyone who spoke only English as I did.”

The AWB was no “fanatical right wing group” like the John Birchers, it was the South African Nazi Party. Although primarily an Afrikaner movement, with Afrikaans as their sole official language, the AWB also had English-speaking white members. Before this autobiography was released by the Justice Department Hatfill denied that the photo ever existed. When this author pointed this out to Pat Clawson,[ii] former Hatfill pro bono spokesman, he said that even if Hatfill lied to him about the existence of the photograph, it did not mean he mailed out the anthrax. The Weekly Standard got in on the act, “And nothing links Dr. Hatfill to Eugene Terre Blanche (Terre Blanche denies the connection) -- except a risibly [ludicrous, arousing laughter] amateurish South African news-service story, which cites a photograph that no one can find, and an unnamed ‘former colleague’ who says Hatfill once claimed to have run a Resistance Movement training session (whose leader denies that).”

This information on Hatfill was further corroborated when he was denied a CIA security clearance due to his AWB connections and because of his work for racist Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization. Hatfill: “At the end of February 2002, a year after my application for clearance had been aborted by the termination of the contract for which I had sought it, I was surprised to receive a letter from the CIA advising me that my application had been turned down due to my involvement with Rhodesian authorities twenty years earlier. I did not need and was not at the time seeking CIA clearance. I was under the impression that my file had been closed pending possible re-application for clearance work under a contract for which it would be needed. Since I objected to the adverse conclusions drawn from my time in Africa, however, I appealed the negative determination. My appeal is pending at this time.”

There was good reason for this researcher to suspect a fat beer-bellied Nazi pig, a former Rhodesian intelligence agent and an individual who conned his way into the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases, (USAMRIID) at Fort Detrick, Maryland by using a forged instrument. Hatfill was asked about this,

Q. You were not awarded a Ph.D.?

A. Somewhere around 1998 approximate there.

Q. You learn in 1997?

A. I’m not sure, 1998 or 1999, possibly -- anyway, I learned that I did not receive it.

Q. And how did you come to that understanding?

A. In an exchange of e-mails with Rhodes University. I don’t recall the specifics.

Q. In any job applications that you’ve submitted, have you ever attached a copy of a diploma?

A. Yes, on one. National Institutes of Health [the institution that placed Hatfill at Fort Detrick].

Q. And that diploma states that you have a Ph.D.?

A. Yes. Don’t know what was going through my head.

Q. Is that document a forgery?

A. Yes.

Q. Take me through the steps in which you created that forged diploma.

A. I don’t recall, it’s a decade ago. I was talking to one of the guys in the pub and he said he was a computer guy. He said ‘I’ll whip one up for you.’ [This was] while I was at Oxford.

Q. So the diploma was created in 1997?

A. I don’t recall a specific time.

Fort Detrick is to germs what Fort Knox is to gold. In 1941 the US Chemical Warfare Service developed Camp Detrick, Frederick, Maryland as a biological agents development site. In 1969 it became known as USAMRIID after President Nixon disestablished the bioweapons program in 1968. Hatfill should not have been allowed with a thousand feet of Fort Detrick; he most certainly should not have been allowed access to a Biosafety Level 4 Suite. These laboratories are designed to prevent infectious microbes from being released into the environment and provide the highest possible level of safety to scientists carrying out experiments. Biosafety Level 4 uses several measures to ensure infectious agents are properly contained or destroyed. They include micro filtration of air, air-lock buffer zones, space suits with positive-pressure air supply, chemical decontamination, and decontamination at high temperature for long periods of all materials produced in the facility. Since he had Level 4 access Hatfill also had access to the less dangerous Level 3 labs, where experiments with anthrax and other bacteria were conducted. There, Hatfill had access to the exact strain of the bacteria that was included with the anthrax letters.

You can rest assured Hatfill will never have contact with America’s deadliest germs again! Biologists at U.S. Army labs will now have to undergo Top Secret background checks to work with anthrax and other bio-agents. Anthrax is the second-highest biohazard risk, but access to it has not required such security clearance in the past. In order to even be in the same room with anthrax now scientists will have to have a special key and Top Secret clearance.

A Nazi with access to the identical strain of anthrax as found in the letters? Nazism is a criminal conspiracy to commit genocide and is illegal in many countries, including France, England and Canada. What other American microbiologist who worked with the most deadly biological agents known to man had been a member of the Nazi party? The FBI and the media and myself had good reason to suspect him.

None-the-less when it comes to the anthrax mailings now Hatfill is the new Richard Jewell – Jewell was a harmless man who was falsely accused of being the Atlanta Olympic Park bomber. Hatfill will receive almost $3 million in cash and an additional $150,000 annually for the next 20 years to settle a lawsuit he filed in 2003, charging the FBI and U.S. Justice Department with leaking information to the news media in order to link him to the mailing of letters that contained anthrax spores. By doing so the Department of Justice tacitly admitted that Hatfill was innocent. I was demoralized. I had falsely accused Hatfill of a horrendous crime and helped put him through the wringer. My heart went out to this poor Nazi bastard.

HATFILL’S EARLY YEARS: Hatfill’s father Norman Hatfill stated: “I am told when my great grandfather came into Indiana he changed the spelling of his name when he married to distance himself from the feuding Hatfields”[iii] and he also stated, “I am a descendent of the Hatfields and have always been told that the spelling was changed to Hatfill by one of my ancestors when he moved to Illinois from Kentucky or West Virginia.”

Dr. Steven J. Hatfill was born was born on October 24, 1953 in St. Louis, Missouri. According to his cousin Peter Hatfill, a school principal in Jerseyville, Illinois, Hatfill and his sister were adopted shortly after birth. His foster mother Shirley Anne, a housewife, was born September 9, 1928 in St. Louis, Missouri. She married Norman Hatfill on August 6, 1949 in Connersville, Indiana. Shirley Hatfill passed away in Mattoon January 17, 2008. Norman Hatfill survives, as do “Steve Hatfill and his special friend Peck Chegne of Washington, D.C.; Mrs. Hatfill was a member of the First United Methodist Church where she had been a Sunday school teacher. The Hatfill family owned a thoroughbred horse farm in Ocala, Florida, and several Florida waterfront condominiums.” Steven’s foster father Norman was an electrician[iv] and part-time horse breeder who was raised in Illinois. He became president of the Electric Laboratories and Sales Corporation in 1968, an electric meter manufacturer and repair company.

Hatfill grew up in Mattoon. A source that wishes to remain anonymous reported: “I went to elementary school with Steve and he was diabolical then. You better hope they find the information they need to get him off the street. If you question this, he lived on Western Avenue and his grade school was Hawthorne in Mattoon, Illinois.” A source reported: “And, what about letters he wrote to people in Mattoon when he was in Africa? He thanked someone for all the persecution he had in high school that made him a mercenary.” Hatfill graduated from Mattoon High School in May 1971 then went on to study basic biological and chemical undergraduate courses at Southwestern College, Winfield, Kansas, beginning, September 1971.

Newsweek Magazine reported that Military records show Hatfill was a Marine Corps Reservist from October 1971 to June 1972 then discharged. Hatfill said he was part of the United States Marine Corps Officers Candidate Program (PLC). PLC lets a student complete their academic career uninterrupted at the college or university of their choice. If they maintain an overall “C” average or higher, upon graduation, they will be commissioned as a Marine Second Lieutenant. Details of his brief Marine career were blacked out on his official transcript.[v] A source with access to Hatfill’s military records finally cleared things up, “Regarding his military activity in the U.S. Marine Corps, Dr. Hatfill spent six weeks in an undergraduate summer program which he received academic credit. He was never discharged as reported in the Newsweek article.”[vi]

Rather than become a college dropout, Hatfill enrolled in a program where he would study practical medicine overseas. In the middle of his studies, around 1973, he spent eight months at a Methodist mission hospital in Kapanga, Zaire, (Republic de Congo) that had been operated by Glenn J. Eschtruth, M.D.[vii], and his wife, Lena Eschtruth since 1960. Lena Eschtruth: “Nobody sent him, I don't even know how he knew about us. But you don't kick a kid out. You know how it is: When you're young, you can set the world on fire.” Dr. Eschtruth was suspected by the KGB of reporting back to the CIA or to Air Force Intelligence on communist activity in sub-Saharan Africa.

A blog entry[viii] reported, “By contrast, western medicine was dispensed at the mission hospital under the direction of Dr. Glenn Eschtruth, the only surgeon within 100 miles of Kapanga. In 1976 an enigmatic character named Hatfill appeared without warning in Kapanga to volunteer as a health assistant at the mission hospital. The 19-year-old daughter of Lena and Glenn Eschtruth had a brief sad marriage with Hatfill, and after Dr. Eschtruth's murder Hatfill left the US to became a specialist in biological warfare. Hatfill studied and practiced medicine in Rhodesia and the Republic of South Africa, while serving with their special military forces. Returning to the US in the late 1990s, Hatfill was employed by the US Army Medical Research Institute to work on Ebola and other viral diseases. Hatfill's knowledge of biological warfare pathogens and toxins caused him to be interrogated by the FBI in association with the anthrax-by-mail incidents in October 2001.”

Hatfill wrote: “As a college undergraduate during the early 1970’s I had a chance to spend a formative year in Africa working as a volunteer public health assistant at a remote Methodist Mission hospital in Katanga Province of Zaire, now called the Congo. There I participated in a number of rural village health care projects and vaccination programs including the WHO Smallpox eradication program. Working in this area I developed an interest in tropical medicine and public health as it applies to developing countries.” He did not mention that he fell in love with Dr. Eschtruth’s daughter Caroline who was preparing to return to the United States to attend college. Caroline Eschtruth (born June 19, 1957, at Patrick Air Force Base, Florida) worked at her father’s clinic as a practical nurse.

In 1974 Hatfill stated that he “returned to the United States from Africa and completed my undergraduate degree at Southwestern College finishing with a Bachelor of Arts in July 1975. I then enlisted in the U.S. Army.” Hatfill enlisted in the US Army on June 20, 1975, at the age of 21. Hatfill’s 1997 resume stated: “June 1975 to June 1977 United States Army 7th Special Forces Group, JFK Center for Special Warfare [Ft. Bragg]. Practical Experience United States Marine Corps Officer Candidate Program...served with US Army Special Forces after college graduation where my commanding officer was Col. Charles Beckworth, who was later to lead the abortive hostage rescue mission into Iraq.” The Colonel’s name was Beckwith and the rescue mission was in Iran. Beckwith wasn’t at Fort Bragg until the late 1970’s.

Hatfill wrote that in the spring of 1976, he began the Special Forces Qualification Course however he said he was discharged from active duty on July 2, 1976 and joined the Army National Guard. But according to Hatfill’s Curriculum Vitae[ix] from June 1975 to March 1978 he served in the United States Institute for Military Assistance at Fort Bragg, North Carolina.[x] Hatfill’s MOS (Military Occupational Specialty) was 05B2S, Special Forces Communications Specialist - Radio Operator. There was even more confusion about his military career and Newsweek Magazine reported: “He did a three-year stint in the Army, stationed in the United States, but did not rise above the rank of private.” The Baltimore Sun reported: “Army records show Hatfill began Special Forces training at Fort Bragg on January 23, 1976, but was academically dropped only one month later in February 1976 and never completed the training.”

During casual conversations Hatfill claimed to have served in the U.S. Army in Vietnam and was discharged after his plane was shot down and he broke his back. Hatfill’s college alumni publication reported he served in the Special Forces in Vietnam, based on information that he provided. Hatfill made himself into a hero in Vietnam. However, his military record showed that to be false. He joined the military in 1975, when Vietnam was ending. Hatfill served variously in the Army, Army Reserve and National Guard from February 1975 to January 1981 but how long he lasted in each of these services is a whole other question.

Hatfill: “After active duty I returned to my hometown in Illinois where I worked as a factory security guard for a brief period.” Hatfill married 19-year-old Caroline Ruth Eschtruth on October 11, 1976, at the Pinnebog United Methodist Church, Pinnebog, Minnesota.

Meanwhile, on November 11, 1975 Agostinho Neto the head of the MPLA (the Communist Popular Movement for the Liberation of Angola) became President of the People’s Republic of Angola (supported by Cuba and the USSR). At the same time, the FLNA (the non-Marxist Congo-centered National Front for the Liberation of Angola) and UNITA (National Union for the Total Independence of Angola) proclaimed the People’s Democratic Republic of Angola (supported by the United States and South Africa). Seven months into his marriage, on April 1977 Lena and Glenn Eschtruth and a number of foreign missionaries and aid workers in the Kapanga area were placed under house arrest by mercenaries who had invaded Zaire from Angola. The Marxist regime of President Agostinho Neto had accused Zaire of harboring and training pro-Western guerrillas who were defeated in 1976 by Neto's forces with the help of Soviet and Cuban-directed troops. On April 19,1977 when the Zairian troops, with western assistance routed the Communist invaders, Glenn Eschtruth became the only foreign detainee to be executed by the departing mercenaries.

The blog entry continues, “Missionaries of all denominations communicated with one another by short wave radio. For this purpose Dr. Eschtruth had large ham radio antenna in back of their ranch house. One evening Glenn sent word to a ham operator in South Jersey, who contacted my family that I was okay. This vital communication equipment would later cost Dr. Eschtruth his life. In early 1977 mercenaries directed by Soviet and Cuban troops invaded Zaire from Angola, and the missionaries and aid workers in Katanga Province were placed under house arrest. As the Zairian troops repelled the invasion, Dr. Glenn Eschtruth was seized by the rebel gorillas who accused him of working for the American CIA. His body was found in shallow grave not far from Kapanga, making him the only foreign national killed in the invasion. “Even after her husband's brutal murder, the strong commitment of Dr. Eschtruth's wife Lena to assisting in the health care of the peoples in Africa caused her to return to Zaire as a nurse at the mission station run by the Enright family near Lake Kafakumba in Katanga Province. Lena commanded a medical riverboat which was a floating clinic for delivering medicine to villagers along the Lualaba River, the name given to the upper extension of the Zaire River.”

Eschtruth was singled out for death by the invaders because the KGB had supplied them with information about coded transmissions emanating from his ham radio equipment. Doctor Eschtruth was marched away, and his body was found in a shallow grave some distance from Kapanga. He is buried at the mission hospital in Kapanga.[xi] It is now common knowledge that the CIA used missionaries as spies. After an intense campaign by religious and civil liberties groups the rules covering CIA recruitment of missionaries were adopted in 1977. The groups had raised objections to disclosures that the CIA had used clergy in covert operations. The rules forbad the CIA from hiring or establishing any intelligence relationships "with any U.S. clergy or missionary whether or not ordained, who is sent out by a mission or church organization to preach, teach, heal or proselytize." Eschtruth was probably a CIA asset but another possibility exists. There might be a correlation between Hatfill being a Special Forces radio operator and the Rev. Eschtruth being killed because of a ham radio antenna. Perhaps it was Hatfill who transmitted the suspicious radio signals?

The death of Hatfill’s father-in-law instilled a deep hatred in Hatfill for African Communists. “He would talk about running around in the bush and throwing grenades in Zimbabwe and that sort of thing,” Edward Rybicki, who met Hatfill at the University of Cape Town, said. He also boasted about shooting grenades into the Zimbabwe offices of the African National Congress, (ANC) which was fighting to overthrow white rule in South Africa, Rybicki added. Another source added: “Hatfill once told me that he'd killed a terrorist, whose sandals he took as a souvenir.” Hatfill told his friends that his father-in-law’s death "caused me to undertake some actions other people wouldn't understand.”

Hatfill earned Medical Laboratory Technician Certification in August 1977: “Training and Certification as a Medical Laboratory Technician (MLT) from the American Society of Clinical Pathologists.” Sometime in 1977 Caroline and Steven Hatfill separated. On February 22, 1978 Kamin Marie Hatfill, the daughter of Steven Hatfill and Caroline Eschtruth was born. In May 1978, Caroline and Steven divorced. Hatfill told a friend his wife had “died in the Congo.” In 2002, although he never re-married, Hatfill said: “I have a family, and until recently, I had a reputation, a career and a bright professional future.” Caroline Eschtruth married John Brian McIver a few years later. A source reported: “Let’s say there's no love lost between Steven Hatfill and Caroline Hatfill who did not even tell him she was pregnant before he left for Rhodesia. She would not accompany him to Rhodesia despite his rather cruel pressure tactics. Hatfill did not realize Kamin existed until she had her first child [with McIver]. Kamin traced Hatfill down and they were re-united. Hatfill, “In 1978, I decided to attempt a career in tropical medicine. Given my love for the African continent as a result of my undergraduate experience and my interest in tropical medicine, it was an easy decision to study tropical medicine in this region of the world where these diseases were prevalent.” Love for Africa? To put it in politically incorrect terms, Hatfill wanted to kill every nigger he could get his hands on!

RHODESIA AND ANTHRAX: Since Hatfill never received a B.S. Degree from Southwestern, it was impossible for him to be admitted to a medical school in the United States. Hatfill continued, “I thus applied to the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Salisbury Rhodesia, one of the few first rate medical schools in Africa, where my G.I. Bill educational benefits would apply. I was accepted for admission in 1978. I arrived in Rhodesia in March 1978, underwent immigration and university admission and started medical school a week later. I was 27 years old.” The question has been asked, why and how an American citizen joined Rhodesia’s medical school. “The only time we admitted non-Rhodesians is when a student came from a country without a school of medicine,” explained a source. How did Hatfill enter medical school?

Marlene Burger of the South African Mail and Guardian reported Hatfill was admitted because he had come to the attention of an anatomy professor at Godfrey Huggins named Robert Burns Symington through the white racist network. Robert Symington shared Hatfill’s desire to maintain White rule in Rhodesia - the Whites in Rhodesia were never more than five percent of the population yet they ran the show in its entirety. In a system more repressive than apartheid in neighboring South Africa, this minority regime retained power by controlling the police, military, politics, and economy. When England refused to grant independence to Rhodesia because of its racist system, the Rhodesian government led by Ian Smith unilaterally declared independence in 1965. The U.S. joined the U.N. in imposing sanctions against Rhodesia. Nixon punched a hole in these sanctions in 1971. The Carter administration reinstated sanctions in 1977 one year before Hatfill arrived.

Hatfill tried to make it seem as white racist rule had ended shortly after he moved to Rhodesia: “Shortly after I started my studies, the white government led by Ian Smith came to an end and a transitional government for the country came into power. Within a year the country was renamed Zimbabwe / Rhodesia and Bishop Abel Muzorewa became the country’s first black prime minister [he held office for only a few months in 1979]. While I proceeded through my first two years of medical training, Zimbabwe remained engulfed in a civil war pitting the government of Bishop Abel Muzorewa against the insurgent movements led by Joshua Nkomo and Robert Mugabe.”

Marlene Burger, “It was Robert Burns Symington who arranged for Hatfill to study medicine at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Rhodesia and served as his mentor. Although serving at the time as a signaler with US Special Forces, Hatfill went to Rhodesia in 1978 after spending eight months as a health assistant at a Methodist mission hospital in Kapanga, Zaire.” Symington, a professor of anatomy, was the father of Rhodesia’s biological warfare program. Symington experimented with the odorless and colorless organo-phosphate, parathion. Organo-phosphates are extremely difficult for anyone other than an expert to detect in an autopsy. The poison must enter the body’s largest hair follicles, underarm or around the crotch. Smearing on underwear is the most efficient method.[xii]

According to Peter Stiff, a senior officer in the Rhodesian British South African Police Force Symington was the scientist behind countless poisonings. In a book published in 1985 Stiff records a conversation in which Symington (who he calls Sam Roberts) offers an operator Thallium with which to kill a man. “It was said there were some months when Sam Roberts killed more terrorists than the Rhodesian Light Infantry. In April 1978 a group of 17 ZANLA terrorist guerillas who had been on operation staggered across the Mozambique border to the safety of their protected rear bases. They were vomiting, defecating and writhing with pain. Transported to Beria where they were hospitalized, they died mysteriously, one by one over a period of three days.” The operator asked how this had happened and Symington replied, “Special Branch knew where they were based. We doctored some sacks of corn meal with Thallium and deposited them in a farm store they were going to raid for food. They did, naturally burning it down afterwards, as was their practice.”

A senior staff member at the University of Zimbabwe School of Medicine stated, “I did suspect that Symington was connected to the military, but I did not know his connection with Hatfill. I only thought Hatfill had come (into medical school) via the military since he had connections with the Rhodesian army.” The source was one of Symington’s colleagues in the school’s department of anatomy and also a lecturer of Hatfill.

Black students at the then-University of Rhodesia had always suspected Symington of engaging in sinister bio-chemical experiments in conjunction with the Rhodesian military. He was one of the major focus points of the 1972 student demonstration. Unable to reconcile himself to black majority rule at independence and fearful of reprisals, Symington moved to South Africa circa 1981, where he died of a heart attack in a swimming pool a year after joining the University of Cape Town.

The Nuclear Threat Initiative (NTI), an NGO, reported, “Although one former member of the Special Branch of the Rhodesian police - a force that was still designated, quaintly, as the British South African Police - claimed that he and his colleagues were aware of the use of poisons as early as 1973, the first clear evidence of this dates from 1975 or 1976, when the Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization apparently asked doctors and chemists from the University of Rhodesia to identify and test a range of chemical and biological agents that could be used as a fear factor in the war against nationalist guerrillas. Professor Robert Symington, head of the clinical program in the university's Anatomy Department, then recruited several colleagues and students to carry out this research.”

This program continued into the late 1970’s and Hatfill, one of Symington’s more motivated students, began to work on the culturing of anthrax for him. Symington recommended Hatfill for an elite unit - the Selous Scouts - as Symington was in charge of the Selous Scouts biowarfare program. Hatfill stated, “The racial composition of the Rhodesian Army was approximately 90% black and 10% white soldiers reflecting a basic demographic of the country at that time. Several of my medical school classmates performed military duties during their medical school vacations. One of my classmates was killed on active duty and one was severely injured. Although it was not required of any foreign national to serve in the military, I volunteered to serve in a reserve unit during my vacations from medical school. I participated in active call-ups from 1978 until the end of the war in 1980. My rank was rifleman (equivalent to a private in the U.S. Armed Forces). During my active duty call ups, I served first in the Rhodesian Regiment, in a long range reconnaissance unit of that regiment, in a newly formed Special Forces unit [Selous Scouts] and finally as a medic assigned to a Special Branch (police) / Selous Scout base.”

While Hatfill was in the Selous Scouts, the Selous Scouts used the anthrax Hatfill had cultured as a weapon against the guerilla forces that was attempting to topple the minority government of Rhodesia. Did young Hatfill help design mobile bioweapons labs to produce the anthrax in the bush? The Special Branch of the Selous Scouts was a combination of Army Special Forces soldiers and Special Branch police officers. The Selous Scouts were comprised mainly of black African collaborators and a few white soldiers. But the Special Branch was entirely white, because no black African could be trusted to carry out a genocidal mission. It was an elite Gestapo-like police/army unit that tortured terrorist suspects until they gave up their comrades. Hatfill needed a cover for his work and was referred on to as “a volunteer junior Scout medic.” He was dispatched to a field hospital at a base called Fort Bindura. There, he bandaged wounded captured guerilla fighters and acted as an assistant of sorts for the true Scouts medics. The FBI found a graduation certificate from a Scouts’ tracking course and a good conduct certificate when it searched Hatfill’s apartment. He joined the Scouts in 1978 when the anthrax outbreak started and left the Scouts in 1980 when the anthrax outbreak ended.

THE ANTHRAX OUTBREAK: Symington and Hatfill were key players in this biological warfare project, which resulted in the world’s worst recorded outbreak of anthrax in the latter phase of Zimbabwe’s liberation war, between 1978 and 1980. Hatfill and Symington helped cause over 10,000 cases, most of them coetaneous, unleashed against black guerrillas through his participation in the white army's much-feared Selous Scouts. Selous Scouts / Special Branch covertly distributed the deadly anthrax spore among the hungry cattle of the Rhodesian tribal trust lands. The logic was kill the black man’s cattle, and food for the Rhodesian guerrillas dies with them; kill the cattle and blame the guerrillas and win a psychological victory at the same time. In 1978-1980, vollum would be the strain of choice for an anthrax attack.

From 1989 to 1992, Dr. Meryl Nass, MD,[xiii] researched the epidemiology of the largest outbreak of anthrax in history in Rhodesia in the late 1970s and realized that an inexplicable spike in the casualty figures had occurred during the years 1979 through 1980. Before this Rhodesia reported only an average of thirteen human cases a year before 1978. However, in the two years 1979/1980, a staggering 10,738 human cases were recorded and 182 humans died of the illness. Thousands of cattle were infected and slaughtered. No commercial, white-owned farms were affected. Even more puzzling was the way in which the anthrax spores were transported over very large distances - across areas where no bovine cases were known to have occurred. Jeremy Brickhill, a white Zimbabwean activist who joined the guerrilla forces during the war of liberation, was himself a victim of a South African military hit squad in 1987, when he was severely injured in a car bomb attack, alleged that by 1975 clinical trials were performed on human guinea pigs - little-known political detainees - at a remote Selous Scout camp provided by Rhodesia’s Central Intelligence Organization. By 1976, the Central Intelligence Organization and the Selous Scouts Special Branch carried out the actual deployment of the successfully tested biological weapons in target areas. South African military and security personnel who not only acted as advisers and monitors, but also played some part in the development of the chemical and biological agents, assisted these men. When the war was over, the biological warriors slipped back south across the border, returned to South Africa, and studied the lessons of Rhodesia.

In December 1998 Health Minister Timothy Stamps of Zimbabwe began an investigation into the use of anthrax. The government’s probe was announced as suspicions strengthened that some possible side effects of those germs could be responsible for fatal diseases prevalent in Zimbabwe, including anthrax. Former Rhodesian premier Ian Smith quickly dismissed this as a “lot of rubbish.” Health Minister Stamps said anthrax, which breaks out often in some parts of Zimbabwe killing mainly livestock, was laboratory-devised. “I am sure the anthrax was a laboratory-devised virulent type…and one suspects that it was specifically developed as a weapon against an overwhelming number of people who were regarded as enemies to those who occupied power at the time,” he said.[xiv]

Hatfill had this to say about this anthrax outbreak in his autobiography, “In this part of the world, anthrax outbreaks occasionally occurred. During the time I was in Zimbabwe / Rhodesia there was a major outbreak of anthrax in certain rural areas. This outbreak was extensively scientifically and medically researched on site and found to have arisen from an unusual long period of drought compounded by a breakdown in rural veterinary services. The result of this research was published in several peer-reviewed scientific papers: Davies, JCA. “A Major Epidemic of Anthrax in Zimbabwe - African Journal of Medicine 1983 [two more citations involved studies by Davies and were dated 1982 and 1985]; Kaufmann AF. “Observations on the Occurrence of Anthrax as Related to Soil Type and Rainfall Salisbury Medical Bulletin, 1990.” I had nothing to do with the research or writing of any of these studies of the incidence of anthrax in Zimbabwe.”

Three of the studies were by the same scientist and another was written ten years after the anthrax outbreak. Hatfill’s attorneys contended that after the column was published, Professor Milton Leitenberg told Kristof that Hatfill had no connection to that outbreak, which was not bioterrorism but had natural causes.[xv] Peter Stiff who not in some classroom but in Rhodesia disagreed with Leitenberg - as did Col (Dr.) Jim A. Davis who was “uncertain” that this program did not exist. Davis is Deputy Director of the US Air Force’s Counter-proliferation Center and also Deputy Director of the Department of Future Conflicts. Milton Leitenberg is a lowly college professor and a Cold War retread that specializes in debunking biowarfare reports. He is associated with the biowarfare establishment.[xvi]

Hatfill didn’t consider his participation in bio-genocide relevant and stated: “I especially object to having my character assassinated by reference to events from my past which bear absolutely no relationship to the question of who the anthrax killer is. As a substitute, the press and now the public have been offered events from my past going back 20 or more years, as if this were critical to the matter at hand. In fact, it is not. No more than any of you, I do not claim to have lived a perfect life. Like your selves, there are things I would probably do or say differently than I did 10 or 20 or more years ago. Modern information-retrieval technology, coupled with sufficient motivation, can lead to anyone's life and work being picked apart for every error, wrinkle, failed memory or inconsistency. Mine can; so can yours.”

RHODESIAN SPECIAL AIR SERVICE: Hatfill also served in the C. Squadron of the Rhodesian Special Air Service. In his Curriculum Vitae Hatfill said he had “active combat experience with the Rhodesian Special Air Service.” The Nuclear Threat Institute reported, “As for anthrax, this same source said that anthrax spores were ‘used in an experimental role in the Gutu, Chilimanzi, Masvingo, and Mberengwa areas...to kill off the cattle of tribesmen,’ harmful incidents that were then attributed by Rhodesian Army psychological operations officers to infiltrating guerrillas. For his part, former Officer Commanding Counter Terrorist Operations Michael John McGuinness said he was surprised to learn from some of his colleagues that anthrax had been disseminated on at least one occasion. The Selous Scouts had originally been asked to carry out the task, but their commander Lieutenant-Colonel Ron Reid-Daly had refused because he thought it would be too risky for his men. In the end, members of the Rhodesian Special Air Service (SAS) regiment delivered the anthrax by dropping it from an aircraft near Plumtree, on the Botswana border.” At first Michael John McGuinness had denied the Scouts ever engaged in B/W and said they wouldn't have welcomed an American's help anyway. “We didn't trust foreigners with that sort of thing,” he said.[xvii]

Hatfill’s Curriculum Vitae had him serving simultaneously in the United States Institute for Military Assistance and two Rhodesian military units. Was Hatfill was a Defense Intelligence Agency asset? Although American foreign policy was ostensibly that of opposing white supremacist regimes, the DIA and CIA had an intense interest in counter-insurgency campaigns being waged against Communist rebel elements. The earliest corroboration of the Selous Scout anthrax operation was a secret report sent by a U.S. Defense Intelligence Agency officer to the Pentagon. “According to [source deleted], a member of the Rhodesian Selous Scouts admitted in 1978 that ‘they’ had tried biological warfare techniques to kill terrorists. The most logical method of delivery of the anthrax was an anthrax-laced cattle food.”[xviii] Hatfill reportedly returned to the United States frequently during his stay in Rhodesia. This would have provided an opportunity for the DIA to debrief him about the counter-insurgency operations being carried out in Rhodesia. Hatfill claimed to have been a double agent during the time he spent in Africa, which meant he was spying on Rhodesia for the United States, but there is evidence that he was actually a triple agent and his loyalty was to Rhodesia. Years later Hatfill would flunk a CIA polygraph test when questioned about his connection to Rhodesian Central Intelligence Organization.

Hatfill has a big mouth and couldn’t help bragging about how many Africans he killed. Marlene Burger reported, “Several of Hatfill's acquaintances said he had hinted over the years at having been involved in the world's worst recorded anthrax outbreak, which killed at least 180 of more than 10,500 human victims between 1978 and 1980 in the Rhodesian Tribal Trust Lands. The outbreak is believed to have been caused deliberately by Rhodesian security forces with the assistance of the late Professor Bob Symington, head of the anatomy department at the Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in Harare and father of a crude but effective bio-warfare program launched against guerrilla fighters and confirmed in recent years by senior ex-Rhodesian military officers.”[xix]

He bragged to Stan Bedlington who hadn't seen Hatfill for a while, but still had vivid memories of him. They'd first met at a Baltimore bioterrorism conference. Bedlington, a retired CIA agent, had spent six years as a senior analyst with the CIA Counter-terrorism Center. Hatfill was working as a virology researcher at Fort Detrick. Soon they ran into each other again at Charley's Place in McLean, then a favorite hangout for the U.S. intelligence community. Agents and officials from the CIA and Pentagon mingled with private consultants and law enforcement agents. Most were cleared to handle classified information, but after long workdays and a few drinks, the conversation often veered to tales of dark intrigue and, occasionally, into drunken bluster. Hatfill, who first showed up there with men whom Bedlington recognized as bodyguards for Saudi Arabian Prince Bandar bin Sultan bragged about being an ex-Green Beret. He walked with a slight limp and told people it was the result of being shot during combat. In a convincing British accent that he could turn on at will, he described parachute jumps and commando training he did under the direction of the British Special Air Service. He detailed his exploits as a member of the Selous Scouts, an elite counterinsurgency unit of Rhodesia's white supremacist army that became notorious for brutality during that country's civil war. He even recounted a devastating outbreak of anthrax poisoning in the Rhodesian bush in the late 1970s, an event later suspected to be part of an effort by the Selous Scouts to control guerrilla uprisings.[xx]

Pat Clawson did not believe Hatfill was involved in the anthrax attacks in Rhodesia and stated: “Well the issue had come up and Hatfill addressed it in previous statements about what he had been doing in Rhodesia and Hatfill denied right from the beginning that he’d ever had any kind of involvement in any of that kind of stuff.” If Hatfill denies it then it never happened. Clawson took Hatfill at his word, just as he believed Hatfill when he told him that the photo of himself and Eugene Terre Blanc never existed.

WOUTER BASSON AND THE SELOUS SCOUTS: Wouter Basson was William Patrick’s South African counterpart. In 1982 Wouter Basson founded Project Coast, South Africa's biological warfare program. According to a source the biological materials inventory assembled by Project Coast included over 80 strains of anthrax, of which 30 are "virulent," 12 "very active" and 3 "deadly WMD," the latter of which include the Ames strain.[xxi]

Evidence suggested Wouter Basson might have known Hatfill because of Basson and Hatfill’s connection with the Special Branch of the Selous Scouts. Although Basson was based out of South Africa, he had an intense interest in Special Branch activities because if it worked against insurgents in Rhodesia it might also work in South Africa. Wouter Basson: “I've never met Hatfill. I believe he was a South African Defense Force member but he was never involved in 7th Medical Battalion.”[xxii] Basson had dealings with the Selous Scouts and many Selous Scouts who left Rhodesia were quickly integrated into special units of the SADF. A witness at the Basson murder trial, Mr. K., testified that he had been one of the founding members of the Selous Scouts in Rhodesia. He left Rhodesia in 1978 and joined the South African Defense Force as a member of Special Forces in 1979. In the same year he was approached by the Commander of Special Forces, General Loots and the Minister of Defense, General Magnus Malan and instructed to establish a covert unit within Special Forces that would adopt the modis operandi of the Selous Scouts. To this end Mr. K. was instructed to establish a front company under which cover the unit would operate. Initially an estate agency by the name of NKJM was established, however since none of the founder members had any knowledge of the real estate business they soon changed the name to NKTF Security Consultants. The Unit was known as Operation Barnacle. The chief objective of the unit was elimination of identified State enemies and the carrying out of super-sensitive covert operations, which could include eliminations. Other objectives of the unit included the elimination of members of own forces who threatened to expose covert operations. Intelligence gathering. Ambushes. Combat intelligence. Conducting of chemical operations. Mr. K. told the court that he had not personally been involved in operations involving the use of chemicals. Mr. K. testified that during 1979 and 1980 he had recruited former Rhodesia soldiers and members of the South African Defense Force to the unit. Due to the nature of pseudo operations carried out by the unit most of the operators recruited were black. Pseudo operations required that the members of the SADF unit infiltrate SWAPO under the guise of being SWAPO members.

Mr. C, who may not be named in terms of a court order, for fear of reprisals was another witness against Basson. Mr. C. was a Selous Scout from 1970 to 1980, specializing in pseudo operations. After joining the SADF's Special Forces in 1980, he spent another 10 years conducting pseudo operations and also joined the Civil Cooperation Bureau. Mr. C. said he first met Basson “in passing” in then Rhodesia in the late 1970s. This happened in the communal mess at the Selous Scouts Head Quarters outside Harare. Basson was in a group of South African security force members who had gone to Rhodesia to take part in joint operations with the Selous Scouts. Again Basson denied being in Rhodesia in the late 70s and it was in fact impossible for him to have been there, since he was a full-time medical student until 1981. From 1980, Mr. C. was stationed in Nelspruit, conducting pseudo operations and working for the Civil Cooperation Bureau. Basson was acquainted with numerous members of the Selous Scouts with no medical background. When he came across one that had such a background it would have definitely aroused his interest.

Yet another reason that indicated Hatfill was involved with Basson was that Basson testified that he was the author of the psychological profile of the Special Forces operator. He said he had been asked to compile the profile when it was found that although medical doctors qualifying as Special Forces members had a 75% pass rate, other recruits had only a 50% pass rate. Asked why this should be, Basson pointed out that it was easier to turn an intelligent being into a strong and hardened military operator than to turn a physically strong person into an intelligent being.

In May 1979 former French Foreign Legionnaire Charles “Chris” Timothy Pessarra,[xxiii] 50, who served in the Rhodesian army, saw Wouter Basson inject five unconscious guerrillas with a solution on board a “death plane” from which they were then thrown out over Mozambique after a powdered substance was sprinkled on their bodies. The unconscious guerrillas had been disguised in the camouflage uniforms of the Selous Scouts, complete with firearms and false papers. Pessarra assumed the intention was to drop them over Mozambique where their bodies would spread “contamination” among whichever guerrilla force recovered them. Pessarra said the top-secret death flight had been under the control of the Selous Scouts.[xxiv]

During Basson’s trial in South Africa in early 2000, in answering questions relating to the testimony of an earlier witness that Basson had been in Rhodesia, Basson said he was aware of allegations that chemical and biological weapons had been used in Rhodesia because in 1981, he was summonsed by the then chief director counter-intelligence and told that a container of poisons had been uncovered as part of an ANC arms cache. It was a green metal trunk and Basson had to examine the contents. Being still a novice, he landed up in hospital as a result. He was told that the ANC had captured the trunk of toxins from the Selous Scouts. It contained mainly insecticides, which were analyzed at the University of Pretoria by Dr. Willie Basson.

South Africa later attempted a program similar to that of the Selous Scouts Special Branch of toxic warfare, this one involving the poisoning of livestock feed. Asked if he had ever heard about poison being added to cornmeal Basson said that during the mid-1980s he heard that the Council for Scientific Research had been asked to test mealie-meal from Sector 10 of the Operational Area (Ovamboland - now part of Namibia) that had been contaminated with swimming pool chemicals. This made no sense to him, since the particular chemical supposedly used, is the one, which measures pH level in pools, and it changes color when wet, so the mealie-meal would presumable also have changed color when used.

Basson, who is persona non-gratis in the USA, said the FBI contacted him to ask about Hatfill, and he'd never heard of him. He said Hatfill had no contact with South African Special Forces or intelligence.[xxv] The records of Project Coast were destroyed after being transferred to CD-ROM. At an unspecified date after this the American authorities reportedly showed an unwelcome interest in the disks, requesting access to them. President de Klerk refused this request, and the National Intelligence Agency then ordered that security surrounding the disks be stepped up even further, since the disks had become a potential espionage target.

Hatfill continued his narrative: “The war ended in 1980, with the election of Robert Mugabe’s political party and his appointment as Prime Minister. (Mugabe remains in power to date, to the generally recognized misfortune of his country and countrymen). Following the end of the conflict the countries name was changed to Zimbabwe. I continued my medical studies and in my third year took part time employment as a medical assistant and an industrial health clinic. I also had a national (Zimbabwean) scholarship that took care of my medical school fees, and part time evening job as bartender. The medical school training program was lengthier than that of U.S. medical schools, including such extra subjects as community dentistry and mandatory community service in small rural hospitals for several weeks at a time. In 1983 I also performed the first of several large-scale surveys of rural health in the poorer areas of Northern Zimbabwe, eventually published in the scientific literature. I graduated from medical school in 1984.”

On November 11, 1983 Hatfill received notice that had failed his final exams. He threw a fit and when the guards came to subdue him he resisted, and threw the guard into a plate glass window. Hatfill nearly was arrested and chucked out of university but thanks to Professor Symington he was allowed to stay on for an extra six months to re-take his exams, and passed in 1984. Hatfill graduated from Godfrey Huggins School of Medicine in April 1984 and received a Medical Degree. His resume stated: “Licentiate of the Royal College of Surgeons. Includes all basic medical sciences and clinical studentships (Andrew Fleming Teaching Hospital). Rotating Internship at the Paul Kruger Hospital in the Republic South Africa. Attended Educational Council for Foreign Medical Graduates USA (ECFMG) - Certificate No. 376-621-9.”

This indicated that Hatfill spent a good deal of time in South Africa when he was studying in Rhodesia and that he probably had a long standing relationship with the South African Nazi Party, the AWB. By the end of the 1970s, South African Defense Force military intelligence was a principal source of funding for the Rhodesian counter-insurgency program, including the Selous Scouts. The Rhodesian defense budget was very small, and the regime had one rudimentary chemical and biological warfare plant that received outside aid from South Africa. In assisting Rhodesia, South African researchers continued to work on CBW and land mine projects.

Hatfill was registered with the South African Health Practitioner Council from January 1984 to May 2001.[xxvi] He holds Medical License No. RSA-MP28117 South African Medical and Dental Council. This did not make sense. Hatfill graduated in April 1984. He obtained his medical registration in January 1984, before he graduated. Did Hatfill have a forged diploma? Hatfill’s friend John Voster recalled: “I first met him when I was in the Rhodesian Army in the late 1970’s and early 1980’s. After Zimbabwe got independence he moved to Cape Town and worked for several General Practitioners in the city.”

Hatfill then attended Educational Commission for Foreign Medical Graduates (ECFMG). If you are an international medical graduate and wish to enter an Accreditation Council for Graduate Medical Education accredited residency or fellowship program in the U.S., you must be certified by ECFMG. You must also be certified by ECFMG if you wish to take Step 3 of the three-step United States Medical Licensing Examination. Most states in the U.S. also require ECFMG certification, among other requirements, to obtain a license to practice medicine. Hatfill claimed he passed this test but he was never certified to practice medicine within the United States. Despite this lack of American credentials, he was allowed to experiment with America’s deadliest germs.

In October 2002 and in May 2003 FBI agents went to Zimbabwe and South Africa in search of information on Hatfill trying to dig up information on his role in the Rhodesian army's biochemical weapons. The FBI reportedly had success with two teams of agents and also talked with former commanders of the Special Branch of the Selous Scouts. Peter Stiff told the agents “There was quite a lot of ZANLA guerrillas killed with toxins, maybe a couple of thousands or so.” In May 2003 the FBI spoke with Hatfill’s professors at Stellenbosch University.

SOUTH AFRICA: Hatfill wrote, “Three weeks after my graduation from medical school [April 1984], I traveled to South Africa to begin a 12-month medical internship at a teaching hospital in the Transvaal, where I studied with some of the most skilled medical doctors in the country. Near the end of my internship, I applied to serve as a medical doctor at the South African research base in Antarctica, and also applied for a training program in aviation medicine. I was accepted for both programs. I underwent training as a flight medical examiner at the South African Institute for Military Aviation Medicine as a civilian doctor (which was how all civilian flight medical examines gained certification) and also competed a 14-month period of duty as a civilian medical officer in Antarctica.”

Hatfill said he earned a Diploma in Aviation Medicine in August 1985. “Postgraduate training and medical certification course in Aviation Medicine, conducted at the Institute for Aviation Medicine, Republic of South Africa. Includes; Clinical use of a high-speed centrifuge facility, sensorimotor pathology, high altitude physiology, cold weather medicine, flight crew physical standards, ejection seat injury: Certification No. 85-104, Flight Medical Examiner.” However when a South African newspaper attempted to back up this assertion it was unable to do so. Hatfill claimed that between 1991 and 1993 he was “Consultant Flight Surgeon to 30 Squadron Air / Sea rescue unit based at Yesterplatt Air Force Base, Cape Town.” An Air Force spokesperson said 30 Squadron was amalgamated with 22 Squadron in 1991.

In July 1986 P.C. Chigwanda and Hatfill published an article titled: “Prevalence of Untreated Disease in Rural Zimbabwe.”[xxvii] In 1986 Hatfill was a medical officer in Antarctica where he was a team physician for at the South African National Antarctic Expedition. “Science Leader at the SANAE Antarctic Base in Queen Maude Land, Antarctica for a 14 month tour of duty where I performed research on pineal / hypothalamic dysfunction for the NASA, Johnson Manned Space flight Center.” When a researcher contacted the SANAE he received the following response: “Dr. Hatfill was on the 1986 / 1987 SANAE Expedition (December 1986 to March 1987) in the capacity as Team Doctor only. There is no such position as Science Leader on the expedition.” Hatfill only spent four months, not fourteen, in the Antarctica. People who had dealings with Hatfill during this Antarctic visit, described him as “committed, but unfathomable.” One expedition member said he was vague about his background. In 1986 Hatfill presented a paper entitled: “Biomedical Aspects of a Twenty Year Manned Spaceflight Exploration Program” to the National Space Council, Washington, D.C. during their 1986 design of America’s future space policy. This paper was based on his visit to the South Pole.

In March 1987 Hatfill began work on a Master’s Degree (Master of Science) in Microbial Genetics and Recombinant DNA University of Cape Town, Thesis: “The Pathogenesis of ALPV, a New Insect Picornavirus.[xxviii] Includes; Isolation of a new picornavirus, standard techniques in Molecular Biology, bacterial genetics, plasmid amplification, genetic manipulation, DNA sequencing and Transmission Electron Microscopy.” He received this Masters degree in September 1988. On October 14, 1987 Hatfill co-authored a paper entitled “The Antarctic Midwinter Syndrome-Possible Implications for Long-Duration Manned Spaceflight” and presented it to the XXIV International Congress of Aviation Medicine. Note that he lists it as the XXIV (24th) meeting. But, in actual fact, it was the Thirty-Fifth International Congress 1987 Invitations, Programs, List of Attendees – Capetown.[xxix]

Hatfill: “Two weeks after arriving back in Cape Town from Antarctica I began a Master’s Degree program in Recombinant DNA at the University of Cape Town. I also practiced medicine part-time, working evenings and weekends in a low-income black township. I maintained a special account at the local pharmacy near my medical practice in Capetown where I would send my poorer patients to get their medications. There I partially covered the cost of their drugs for them out of my own pocket. Later, I served as a weekend casualty officer treating uninsured patients (black and white) at the Conradie General Hospital in Cape Town. I finished my Master’s Degree in 1988. My Master’s thesis analyzed the pathogenesis of a polio-like virus that affects small insects. I then joined an established private practice medical group in Cape Town and worked with this group for a year. During my period of full-time practice, I developed an interest in leukemia, and in particular a special interest in therapy induced (or secondary) leukemia. This is a leukemia that develops in some patients who have undergone chemotherapy or radiation therapy for another type of cancer. The treatment causes damage to the body’s bone marrow and some patients develop an aggressive leukemia thereafter. In 1988 I enrolled for a second Master’s Degree in the radiobiology department of the University of Stellenbosch Medical School. Initially my research was conducted part-time and on weekends, and I continued full-time medical practice. The result of some of my research was later published in the British scientific journal Leukemia Research. Steven Hatfill, Ralph Kirby, Lothar Bohm, (1990) Hyperprolactinemia in acute myeloid leukemia and ectopic expression of prolactin in blast cells from a patient with M4 subtype.[xxx] Following the publication of my research, I was offered a medical residency in hematology and a small laboratory to continue my research. I left my private medical practice under a special dispensation given by the university that allowed me simultaneously to finish my second Master’s Degree, while undertaking my medical specialty in hematology. I finished my second Master’s Degree in medical biochemistry / radiation biology in 1990. Over the next three years I published a number of scientific papers while I continued to pursue my medical specialty.”

NAZI PARTY MEMBER: Hatfill’s autobiography confirmed the reports of Dr. John Michie who stated that in early 1987 or early 1988, Hatfill claimed he used the Milnerton Shooting Association's shooting range in Table View, South Africa, for training the Afrikaner Resistance Movement's elite Aquila Brigade, Terre Blanche's bodyguards. Leonard Veenendaal a committed member of the AWB was a personal bodyguard to Terre Blanche, who described Veenendaal as “my little fanatic” because of his propensity for violence. Members the AWB waged an illegal and violent campaign aimed at forcing UN peace keeping troops out of Namibia and rendering the general election impossible. In line with this objective Leonard Veenendaal and the German neo-Nazi Horst Klenz carried out a grenade attack on an UNTAG regional office at Outjo in South West Africa on August 10 1989, during which the building was “substantially” damaged and a security guard, was killed.

Terre Blanche, the worst of a rotten lot, had been selected out of 20,000 Police Officers to guard John Vorster, the State President and Prime Minister who took over for Henrick Verwoerd. Despite the fact that Vorster had been Justice Minister during the Verwored administration, this Prime Minister's views on racism became a disappointment to Terre Blanche. In 1973, with 6 other racists, one schoolteacher, two lawyers, two former policemen (Mr. Terre Blanche was one) and two farmers broke off from the Nationalist Party and founded the AWB in the small town of Heidelberg, just south of Johannesburg. From this committee of seven, the AWB emblem, “Three Sevens”, was created to resemble the swastika. His movement increased from 7 founding members to a number of 70,000 out of a White population of 3.5 million.

In 1983 the AWB announced it had formed the Blitzcommando, an action group.[xxxi] During the State of Emergency (1984 to 1986) there were many reports of AWB violence against unarmed non-whites. From 1984 the AWB began 'Volkshulpskema' schemes for the collection and distribution of food and clothes for poor Afrikaans households. At the same time, large bodies of uniformed AWB supporters began disrupting National Party meetings in small Transvaal towns, on each occasion swamping the gathering with superior numbers and taking over the rostrum. The AWB became an increasingly conspicuous feature of any right wing anti-government occasion despite its professed disapproval of party politics. The AWB was especially in opposition to the then-banned African National Congress. The ruling National Party considered the AWB to be little more than a fringe group, so while not officially endorsed, they were able to operate relatively unhindered. However in 1986, white police officers took the unprecedented step of using tear gas against Terre Blanche and the AWB when they disrupted a National Party rally. Right-wingers, under the swastika-like banner of the Afrikaner Resistance Movement, battled Government supporters in fist-fights and hoisted their leader, Terre Blanche onto the stage before the police threw tear-gas canisters inside the packed hall. More tear gas was thrown outside the hall after hundreds of whites fled the building and right-wingers milled around policemen.

In November 1983, Terre Blanche and two aides received suspended jail terms for the illegal possession of weapons, including Soviet-made AK-47 assault rifles. In 1985 200 or so of Terre Blanche's followers, all bearing weapons, gathered in a barn, reportedly to discuss the possibility of an armed response to black protest. And when tensions built in 1986 between a white suburb of the town of Krugersdorp, just west of Johannesburg, and a black township nearby, armed white vigilantes from the AWB took to patrolling the streets. Hatfill denied having been a bodyguard for Terre Blanche, but he had previously denied having his photo taken with Terre Blanche so why believe him?

Dr. Michie: “I would be quite prepared to testify to what I heard (the boast that he was the combat trainer of Aquila in the Western Cape) and saw (Hatfill in Aquila uniform in the group photograph with Eugene Terre Blanche). I can also provide the names of 5 other past (Zeena Nackerdien, Suzi de Roubaix, Therina Theron) or present (Frieda Verheye, Tony Serafin) staff of the Radiobiology Laboratory who heard and saw the same. Lothar Bohm also saw the photograph, but he has been threatened by Hatfill with litigation over his email to Ralph Kirby, so I don’t think that he will talk. From what I observed of Hatfill, I am sure that he would have had multiple copies of that photograph made, to hand out to his “friends”. I was told by someone (Simon Cooper?) that he sent them out with his Xmas cards! I am sure that the FBI must have come across many “interesting” photographs when they searched his properties. A few months ago, I bumped into a married couple (ex-Pharmacology Department staff) in one of the shopping malls and was told that Hatfill had invited the husband to join him in training with the AWB/Aquila - in setting up a AWB/Aquila / Brandwag roadblock / car search training session at a camping ground in Melkbos, wearing his neo-Nazi regalia. Dave Woodsford (owner of the Lion’s Head bar at the time) told me that Hatfill used to wear his uniform when he was regaling his drinking buddies with his bs. He must have bought the uniform because he was seen wearing it on a number of occasions.

“It suddenly struck me that the article that appeared in the Cape Argus on October 6^th 1987 may have also been covered in the Afrikaans press and maybe I will find the picture of Hatfill with Eugene Terre Blanche. The Argus article was being discussed in the tearoom of the Radiobiology Laboratory when Hatfill walked in, listened for a while, and then made the boast that he was a member of Aquila/AWB and was the armed-combat trainer in the Western Cape. I knew that the part about being a armed-combat trainer was a load of crock since Keith Conroy was a member of Milnerton Shooting Association of which I was/am a member and I knew that he was the trainer. In fact, the Argus article captions on a number of the photographs identify “The Western Cape Brandwag leader, Mr. Keith C.” He ‘backed-up’ his claim a few days later by presenting us with the Black & White photographs one of which was the posed group shot of Hatfill with Terre Blanche and others. This was posted on the board of the seminar/tea room, where it remained for a long time. It was probably removed when the laboratory was due to receive visitors who might not have liked what they saw. I suspect that it went into the bin.”[xxxii]

By changing the date the photo was taken to 1983 in his autobiography Hatfill tacitly admitted that while he was living in Rhodesia but spending a lot time in South Africa, he was a member of the AWB for at least five years during its most active time.

Currently Terre Blanche served a jail sentence of six years in prison for attempted murder. Terre Blanche was found guilty in 1997 of hitting Paul Motshabi over the head and neck with a blunt object. Motshabi was in a coma for a month and suffered permanent brain damage.[xxxiii] That same year Terre Blanche was sentenced to one year in prison for assaulting petrol attendant John Ndzima in 1996.

A source that was involved in a research project with Hatfill recalled that Hatfill had been involved in a serious road accident with a black mini-bus taxi, which resulted (he claimed) in his being helicoptered to a hospital. He remarked to this colleague afterwards that: “at least I took out three of those black f----ers.” Terre Blanche served six months of the sentence and emerged from prison considerably thinner than his former self. He told the press: “Of all the prisons in the country I was taken to one in Bophuthatswana. There I was, one of four Boers (white farmers) with 400 (black) Tswanas. Correctional Services was not the least worried about my safety. I hope they will again put me in a single cell.”

Hatfill was aware of the fact that American Nazis were enamored with anthrax: “In the mid '90s, one Larry Wayne Harris, a self-proclaimed member of the Aryan Nation, made up a phony letterhead on which he requested some bubonic plague bacteria from the American-type culture collection. Ladies and gentlemen, this is the organism that causes the Black Death. As I recall, he received some of it by mail.” Another member of the Aryan Nations once bragged he had a stash of anthrax from digging up a field where cows had died of the disease in the 1950s.[xxxiv]

According to Clawson, Hatfill never made any pro-Nazi, anti-black or anti-Jewish remarks; in fact Hatfill gave money to numerous black panhandlers. Clawson said that Hatfill told him he met AWB members in South Africa but thought they were morons. He also said he met ANC members - an organization that was banned for part of the time he lived in South Africa. If Hatfill had met ANC members he would have either killed them or turned them into the police in a heartbeat.

EXPERIMENTS WITH ANTHRAX & ENVELOPES: Hatfill continued, “I treated black and white patients throughout. During this time I also gained a certification in diving medicine from Simon’s Town Navel Base near Cape Town, which offered a limited number of openings for civilian physicians.” Hatfill claimed he received a Diploma in Diving and Submarine Medicine in September 1989. “Postgraduate training and medical certification course in Underwater Medicine conducted at the Institute for Naval Medicine, Simonstown Republic South Africa. Includes; Respiratory and diving physiology, clinical rotations, the design and use of mixed gas decompression tables, medical and psychological aspects of submarine operations, review of research concerning the high-pressure nervous syndrome and anesthetic reversal: Certification No. 8801 - Diving Medical Officer / Hyperbaric Medicine.” The Maritime Institute at Simon’s Town Naval Base said he had not been a student there. A colleague reported that Hatfill had boasted to him that he had learned underwater photography with Jacques Cousteau!

Hatfill: “At no time during my stay in South Africa was I ever a member of the South African military, police or other defense institution. I was simply a medical doctor working on post-graduate studies routinely providing medical care to disadvantaged (black) patients. I also joined and served a co-treasurer for an organization devoted to improving the living conditions of destitute (black) people living in numerous shanty towns that dotted the area surrounding Cape Town.”

Despite his assertion to the contrary Hatfill was part of the South African military and completed various South African Defense Force military-medical assignments, serving as a medical officer, while obtaining three separate master's degrees.

While Hatfill was in South Africa work was being done that involved anthrax being sent through the mail. During the Truth and Reconciliation Hearings in South Africa the following testimony was recorded regarding the projects that were undertaken at Roodeplaat: The prosecutor Mr. Vally asked what experiments were conducted with Anthrax? Dr. Mike Odendaal responded, “There's one, on June 9, 1989, Spore En Brief. Those were Anthrax spores and they were supposedly put onto the glue part of the envelope. I did not prepare the envelope, but I provided the spores.” Odendaal said he was not aware what they were going to be used for and was asked, “Were you aware whether it could be done or not, whether spores could be put onto the gum of an envelope?” and he answered, “I suppose it could be done, but I don't think it's a very good idea to immobilize or to incapacitate someone, because I doubt whether it will be effective. I've got my doubts [whether it would kill someone], but strictly speaking, it could happen depending on many factors. I don't think it would be detectable, no.[xxxv] Odendaal was the former head of the Department of Microbiology, Roodeplaat Research Laboratories from 1984 to 1992.

Hatfill wrote, “I continued my medical specialty training in hematology and continued my research into therapy induced leukemia throughout the early 90’s. I also earned another Master’s Degree, this one in the field hematology / pathology.” Hatfill gained a Master of Science degree at the University of Stellenbosch's medical school in 1990 while working in the radiobiology laboratory in the department of radiation oncology. His resume reads: “Master’s Degree (Master Science) in Medical Biochemistry / Radiation Biology (December 1990). Research Fellowship University of Stellenbosch Medical School, Radiobiology Laboratory. Includes; cell culture, colony culture assay, immunocytochemistry, experimental animal care and drug pharmacokinetics, metabolite analysis, secondary neutron generation at the Faure National Accelerator center.”

In 1990 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby published a paper entitled: “Hybridization studies to localize a new insect picornavirus in aphid tissue sections.”[xxxvi] Professor Ralph Kirby of Rhodes University's Department of Microbiology said he could not believe Hatfill was behind the anthrax attacks. Kirby said he and Hatfill had worked together at Rhodes on several research projects in the early 1990s. “With my personal knowledge of him, he doesn't fit the profile. He fits the profile of what the FBI are looking for, but their are about or 30 other people that fit that profile,” said Kirby. Hatfill's passion was Ebola. “He collected samples from the indigenous areas where the disease comes from in North and Central Africa,” he said.

In October 1990, the South African Armed Forces Journal ran an article by Hatfill entitled “Military health strategy during the global AIDS pandemic” that pointed out that since the U.S. military tested recruits for AIDS so should the South African military.[xxxvii] In 1994 Hatfill claimed he was a member of the Advisory panel on AIDS of the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research. The Weekly Mail and Guardian reported that SADF military officials used the Council for Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) facilities to obtain and develop different strains of germs, some of which were highly toxic to humans.[xxxviii]

Hatfill related: “From 1987 to 1990, I continued advanced degree studies and served as Emergency Medical Officer for the Conradie General Hospital, Cape Town. Surgical experience includes trauma management, burns with skin graft management, common thoracic and abdominal emergencies, and open/closed fracture reductions. I have performed over 40 Cesarean sections, several hundred normal vaginal deliveries, and administered over 400 general anesthetics during training and medical practice. Assigned to the 2nd Medical Battalion (Territorial Army Reserve) South African Defense Force. I hold certifications in Diving and Submarine Medicine and Aviation Medicine.” He claimed to have served a rotating general internship in medicine, pediatrics, surgery, obstetrics / gynecology, accident and emergency.

An official of the Western Cape provincial health authority, after consultation with hospital authorities, reports that Hatfill performed no obstetrical procedures at Conradie Hospital and, in fact, appears to have had no association at all with that hospital. Dr. Steven Dresch reported: “Concerning Steven Hatfill's claims that he held the post of Emergency Medical Officer at Conradie Hospital (1987- 1990) and that his University of Stellenbosch “M. Medicine / Board Certification in Hematopathology (June 1993)” included “clinical rotations through coagulation / homeostasis, hemolytic and platelet disorders, immunohematology and blood transfusion medicine, hematology-oncology and the bone marrow transplantation unit (Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town),” Hatfill applied for a registrar post at Groote Schuur Hospital in 1993, but never took up the post.

Note how vague the part of his autobiography is where he claims to like Black Africans. He did not name the organization devoted to improving the lives of poor blacks did he? We are supposed to take him at his word. It is interesting to note that the AWB had a program to feed and house impoverished Afrikaners at this time.

On July 7, 1991 Hatfill authored a paper entitled “Thalidomide Induced Apoptosis in a Patient with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia” for the XII South African Pathology Congress. In 1991 Hatfill and Professor Lothar Bohm published a paper titled “Morphological differentiation of K562 Leukemia cells induced by Thalidomide.” Lothar Bohm, professor of medicine at Stellenbosch who leads the Department of Radiation Oncology where Hatfill worked said, “He was unpopular because he just did not respect other people's lives and their work and their needs in the lab,” said. “He was the sort of person who would go in the labs late at night at take pieces of equipment without asking.” The FBI accompanied by a South African detective interviewed Dr. Bohm at his house in May 2003. They wanted to know such things as whether he knew where Hatfill went to out of working hours, did he have any connection with Project Coast, etc.

The paper stated, “The lineage and state of differentiation of cells in the mammalian haemopoietic [formation of blood cellular components] compartment is associated with specific patterns of homeobox gene expression [a DNA sequence found within the genes that are involved in the regulation of the development of plants, fungi and animals].[xxxix] Agents which influence homeobox gene expression are thus of great interest in the study of human leukemias. Retinoic acid has direct regulatory actions on homeobox gene transcription[xl] and can induce select human leukemia cell lines to undergo terminal differentiation [loose their nuclei but remain functional] in vitro.[xli] Retinoic acid is also a known teratogen for vertebrate fetal limb-bud development. The drug Thalidomide[xlii] duplicates some of the teratogenic effects. To investigate Thalidomide for other retinoid-like effects, we exposed cultures of human leukemia K562 cells to the metabolites generated in a Thalidomide hepatic-microsomal enzyme drug metabolizing system.[xliii] Here we report evidence that a single 2 h pulse-exposure to Thalidomide metabolites induces K562 cells to undergo morphological differentiation in vitro. We also demonstrate a significant cytotoxic [the quality of being toxic to cells] effect for these metabolites.”

Thalidomide was originally marketed as a sedative in 1954. However, in 1961 it was quickly withdrawn from distribution when its teratogenic properties were discovered - it caused numerous birth defects when it was used as a tranquillizer for pregnant women and children were born without limbs. In 1994, speculation that thalidomide teratogenicity is linked to the repression of angiogenesis [the growth of new blood vessels from pre-existing ones] spawned a new wave of clinical investigations that expanded the use of thalidomide for the treatment of various malignancies, including multiple myeloma, melanoma, renal-cell carcinoma, and prostate cancer.

Hatfill was ahead of his time in 1991 and must be given credit for finding an innovative use for Thalidomide. The only problem was that he did not perform the experiment that would verify his theory. As usual Hatfill was so convinced he was right he only pretended to do the lab work. Other scientists could not reproduce it until they refined Hatfill’s technique. Irreproducible experiments do not go over well in the scientific world. On September 17, 1993, Lothar Bohm realized Hatfill never performed this experiment that was for his Master’s Thesis. Böhm, subsequent to the awarding of the Master’s wrote this email to Hatfill’s Ph.D. supervisor (Ralph Kirby) at Rhodes University to warn him that he suspected that Hatfill had made up data/results which were used in two Scientific/Medical publications and his Master’s.

“Dear Ralph: Don Hendry gave me your address. Two problems here: Our new 560 bp PCR product still does not give continuous melts. In touch with DIAGEN it turns out that the handbook refers to a method called G-clamping to stabilize DNA and generate decent Y-fragments. Regrettably neither Steven Hatfill nor you came up with this solution. Steven has been seeing our poor melts for the last 9 months. We are rather disappointed if not to say PISSED OFF with so much ignorance, carelessness and indifference…nine months of time plus 4000 odd Rand wasted. You are both DEEP in our memory. A Japanese worker has problems in reproducing the Thalidomide work on K562. After some correspondence relating to buffers and drug metabolism using S-9 fraction he still cannot do it. When I discussed the problem with Steven it became clear that he could not have done the experiment as his handling of the S-9 fraction indicated total confusion. Taking these observations and the wonderful TGE melt mitochondrial DNA referred to in the Lancet paper it also transpires that the experiment could not have been done by Steven Hatfill because essential parts of the TGE machine accessories were still unopened. It goes to show that Hatfill takes great liberties with the truth. I think you may wish to be on guard when you assess his Ph.D. thesis not to risk a scandal. I can only pray that the Japanese worker is not going to blow the whistle-but with increasing interest in Thalidomide somebody else might. I find it utterly distasteful and unprofessional to practice science in this way and I am reassessing my position regarding Steven Hatfill and asking you again for advice. Lothar Bohm[xliv]

In September 2003 Bohm said, “He understands Hatfill's research has now been successfully duplicated.” Judging from how many times it is cited in the leukemia – Thalidomide literature it must have been reproduced at some time or another. In an email from Hatfill Bohm was threatened with a lawsuit over recordings journalists had made of his views on Hatfill over the email he sent to Ralph Kirby. The man who exposed Hatfill as a Nazi, Dr. John Michie stated: “Bohm is not comfortable that his association with Hatfill has become public. He is trying to cover his back. Hatfill should have been asked to substantiate his claim. When he was alerted to Hatfill's association with Amerithrax in an email from Zeena Nackerdien, he told Tony Serafin and myself and probably others that he had suspected that Hatfill had cooked the books, since a Japanese researcher couldn't reproduce the thalidomide research. Ironically, that person, Yuichi Hashimoto, has cited the thalidomide work. Therina Theron who was his Masters of Science / Ph.D. student, also couldn't reproduce the thalidomide research. She couldn't get the TGE apparatus to work - the supplier of the equipment was called in and he pointed out that the electrodes were incorrectly wired by Hatfill, not Therina and that essential parts had not even been unpacked.”

Dr. Michie reported, “One glaring anomaly that I picked up was that Hatfill states in his thesis and in the Leukemia Research article that he dissolved both thalidomide and TCPO in aqueous solutions. If you look up the properties of these two substances in the Merck Index, you will find that they are “sparingly” soluble in water…they have to be dissolved in certain organic solvents such as dioxane.” The researcher who attempted to duplicate Hatfill’s experiment, Yuichi Hashimoto is a Professor at the Institute of Molecular and Cellular Biosciences at the University of Tokyo. It is unclear if where he eventually published the paper on the confirmed Hatfill’s experiment but he did come to the conclusion that Thalidomide is valuable in the treatment of leukemia. Thalidomide is now being used to treat certain forms of Leukemia and Hatfill is given credit for his pioneering work: “In vitro data supporting other direct effects of thalidomide include the work of Hatfill et. al. A single 2-hour pulse-exposure of thalidomide metabolites induced morphologic differentiation of human leukemia cell line K562. Thalidomide has been noted to inhibit TNF-alpha production by stimulated lymphocytes.”[xlv]

On April 10, 1991 Hatfill authored a paper entitled “Design Considerations for a NASA Biobehavioral Research Laboratory in Antarctica for the NASA Solar System Exploration Division, NASA Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.” He also submitted to the South African Pathology Conference in July 1991, “Thalidomide Induced Apoptosis in a Patient with Acute Lymphoblastic Leukemia.” In 1991 Steven J. Hatfill published “Immuno-cytochemical identification of nuclear estrogen receptors in human acute myeloid leukemia.”[xlvi] From 1991-1994 Hatfill was supervisor for two Masters Degree Candidates at the University of Stellenbosch.

In 1992 Hatfill and three other hematologists authored a paper “Mitochondrial DNA Mutations in Myelodysplastic Syndrome.” Myelodysplastic syndromes are a group of diseases in which the bone marrow does not function normally and not enough normal blood cells are made. They are fatal disorders that lead to death either through bone marrow failure or by transformation to leukemia.[xlvii] Hatfill was a Guest Lecturer at the National Cancer Institute in 1992 and received a travel grant award from the Medical Research Council (UK) in 1992, 1993. From 1992 - 1994 Hatfill said that he taught Undergraduate Hematology at the University of Stellenbosch Medical School.

In 1992 Hatfill published “Apoptotic megakaryocyte dysplasia in the myelodysplastic syndromes.”[xlviii] In August of 1992 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby published “Mitochondrial mutations in the myelodysplastic syndrome.”[xlix] In July 1992 he authored a paper entitled “Possible Risks for Leukemia Induction by Chronic Exposure to Low-Dose VZE Radiation During Long-Duration Space Missions for the Lunar/Mars Exploration Office, Johnson Space Center, Houston, Texas.” In 1993, Hatfill claimed to have served as Chairman of the Experimental Biology Group (Republic of South Africa) and claimed to have been a member of the Blood Transfusion Utilization Committee - Tygerberg Medical Center. The Experimental Biology Group has no record of Hatfill’s chairmanship. Tygerberg’s Blood Transfusion Committee also found no traces of Hatfill. In 1993 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby, published: “A role for mitochondrial DNA in the pathogenesis of radiation induced MDS and secondary leukemia.”[l]

Hatfill was then employed as a medical doctor in the Department of Hematology, where he completed his MS. He received board certification while studying for a doctoral degree, and practicing in a South African clinic. Hatfill studied for Board certification in Hematological Pathology from June 1993 to August 1994. His resume read: “Master of Medical Science / Board Certification in Hemato-pathology (June 1993).” Hatfill: “I was a three-year resident specialist training in blood and bone marrow disorders at the University of Stellenbosch, Republic of South Africa. I performed clinical rotations through coagulation homeostasis, hemolytic and platelet disorders, immuno-hematology and blood transfusion medicine, hematology-oncology and the bone marrow transplantation unit at the Groote Schuur Hospital, Cape Town, South Africa. I performed pathology rotations through forensic, hematology, and chemical pathology toxicology. I established a de-novo departmental molecular hematology laboratory for Ig / TCR (T Cell Receptor) rearrangement studies and directed this laboratory, during my medical residency training from 1991 through 1993 and in 1994. External funding grants came from Ames Diagnostics and Amersham, UK.” Hatfill alleged he headed the molecular hematology laboratory on the Tygerberg campus of the University of Stellenbosch between 1991 and 1993. A spokesperson says he was a clinical assistant.

HATFILL’S BOGUS DOCTORATE DEGREE: Hatfill claimed to have completed a post-doctoral fellowship at Oxford University in South Africa in 1992. He claimed he earned a doctorate in “Molecular Cell Biology/Biochemistry” from Rhodes University in Grahamstown, South Africa. “Ph.D. Degree in Molecular Cell Biology (August 1994). Completed by experimental work, thesis, Rhodes University, Department of Biochemistry and Microbiology.” External Thesis Examiners were listed as the Argonne National Laboratory (USA) and NASA Center for Special Studies, Lawrence Berkley National Laboratory (USA). “Thesis demonstrated mitochondrial DNA topology changes in high LET radiation-induced MDS and leukemia, as a possible basis for biological dissymmetry.” This was a paper Hatfill had already published.

Hatfill was a Senior Clinical Scientist at the John Radcliffe Hospital, Nuffield Department of Pathology Oxford University, England from 1994 to 1995 and claimed he was a member of the Royal Society of Medicine, London. The Royal Society of Medicine had no record of this.[li] Hatfill then faked a reference from the distinguished Oxford Professor James O. D. McGee to apply for his next job back in the United States. One version of his c. v. claimed he had a medical degree from the Royal College of Physicians and Surgeons, Edinburgh, a body that doesn't exist. Another said his medical degree was gained at Edinburgh in 1984. Fiona Sinclair, membership administrator for the Royal College of Surgeons, Edinburgh, stated: “A full search of our records has been conducted, both in Edinburgh and in Glasgow, and there is no record of Dr Steven Jay Hatfill having obtained any college qualification. We have no records of Dr. Hatfill at all.” Hatfill claimed to have been a member of an AIDS advisory panel organized through the Council for Scientific Industrial Research on AIDS in 1994. The Council for Scientific Industrial Research never convened an AIDS advisory panel. Hatfill: “Following the completion of my medical specialty training and the submission of my PhD. thesis in 1994 I returned to the United States. I stayed at my parents’ horse farm in Florida, painted horse barns, and briefly relaxed from the hectic pace I had maintained for almost two decades. Six months later I traveled to England for a post-doctoral position at Oxford University where I spent a year doing cancer research as a senior clinical scientist.” On December 5, 1994 Hatfill and Ralph Kirby presented an abstracted entitled Mitochondrial DNA Length Polymorphism in MDS at the 36th Annual Meeting, American Society of Hematology.

BACK TO THE UNITED STATES: When Hatfill returned to the United States in 1994, he took a research fellowship at the NIH in Bethesda, Maryland and resumed his research in diseases of the blood. Post-doctoral fellowships at the National Institutes of Health are given to those who have expertise in a given area, and an awarded PhD degree is one piece of evidence that the data underlying the researcher's thesis has undergone some type of review and meets a certain standard. Awarding a fellowship to someone who has misrepresented a degree is serious for a position that involves scientific research. It goes to the integrity of the researcher.

Hatfill’s autobiography stated, “Following the completion of my medical specialty training and the submission of my PhD. thesis in 1994, I returned to the United States.” According to Rhodes University Registrar Stephen Fourie, Hatfill was registered as a doctoral candidate from 1992 to 1994 and submitted a thesis, but he was never given the degree. Pat Clawson said that Hatfill thought he got the degree in 1994. In 1995 Hatfill told the NIH he had the degree. An NIH official said the agency has what appears to be a photocopy of a doctoral degree from Rhodes bearing Hatfill's name, certified as authentic by a British law firm. This law firm, Ferguson and Bricknell reported: “The copy Rhodes University D. Phil certificate [reprinted in this book] does appear to be a certified copy, made at our Headington office (situated just around the corner from the John Radcliffe Hospital, Oxford). We note that the [book] states that the document was 'certified as authentic by a British law firm'. The effect of the Solicitor's certificate in this case is to confirm that the photocopy is a true copy of the document from which it is taken. The original document is not certified as authentic by this firm.” He still claimed the degree in 1997 but sometime between 1997 and 1999 (after he had obtained jobs at NIH and the U.S. Army Medical Research Institute for Infectious Diseases - USAMRIID) he corrected his error when he realized that he might loose his job if this falsification was discovered. In a 1999 resume, the reference has changed from “Ph.D. Degree” to “Ph.D. Thesis.”

Hatfill received an National Institute of Child Health and Human Development Intramural Research Training Award Fellow, September 1995 to September 1996, September 1996 to September 1997, approved for September 1997 to September 1998, salary between $40k and $43k. From December 11, 1995 to December 14, 1995 Hatfill presented an abstract entitled HIV Infection in Experimental Histoculture. Annual Meeting, American Society for Cell Biology. In 1995 Hatfill published Clinical Significance of the Malfunction of the CD44 Locus in Malignancy.[lii] Hatfill had this chronology of events; “In 1996 I received a research fellowship at the National Institutes for Health. As a member of the NASA/NIH Center for Advanced Tissue Culture staff I worked on a newly discovered technique for the culture of explanted human tissues. The technique was in the process of being proven as a test tube model for AIDS treatment and held promise for a number of other areas of medical research as well. At the same time I attended classes and studied part time for the NIH core course in clinical research designed to teach investigators the proper research methods for testing new drug and therapy effectiveness. The part time course took a year to complete. The wonderful research team I was a part of at NIH was highly productive and we published numerous papers demonstrating the value of our technique for solid tumor cancer studies of the lung, prostate and salivary gland.”

In 1996 Hatfill published a paper entitled an Epidemiological Study of Serious Haematological Diseases in the Pofadder Area. In the early 1980’s the South African Atomic Energy Corporation had sampled groundwater from a number of boreholes in the Pofadder area in the North Western Cape as part of a geological programme. Hydrochemical analyses indicated that certain aquifers contained relatively high concentrations of uranium, arsenic and fluoride as well as elevated levels of radioactivity. The departments of Internal Medicine and Community Health of the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Stellenbosch noted that a number of cases of people suffering from hematological anomalies have been reported from the area around Pofadder. These hematological values differed from the normal ranges to a significant extent. Hatfill’s paper determined that a correlation existed between the contamination and increased blood diseases.[liii]

From June 25, 1996 to June 27, 1996 Hatfill presented a paper on “Experimental HIV Infection in a NASA Designed RWV Lymphoid Tissue Bioreactor” at the NASA Symposium on Cell Biology and Protein Crystal growth, International Congress for In-Vitro Biology. That same year Hatfill published: “In-vitro Maintenance of Normal and Pathological Human Salivary Gland Tissue in a NASA Designed Rotating Wall Vessel Bioreactor.”[liv]

The fluid-filled rotating wall vessel bioreactor is a recently developed cell culture device that is able to successfully integrate cell-cell and cell-matrix co-localization and three-dimensional interaction with excellent low-shear mass transfer of nutrients and wastes, without sacrificing one parameter for the other. Designed at the Johnson Manned Spaceflight Center, the RWV bioreactor consists of a cylindrical growth chamber that contains an inner co-rotating cylinder with a gas exchange membrane.[lv]

In July 1996 Hatfill took a course in Biology of Disease Vectors: “Postgraduate training conducted at the Arbovirus I