Catching a 48-Hour Bug

By TAMALA M. EDWARDS

The talk of anthrax had been in the air for days as America focused on Saddam Hussein and his germ-making factories: of how quickly the bacteria could kill, how widely the havoc could spread, how easily the deadly spores could be obtained. And the nightmare seemed to materialize on American soil last week after the FBI arrested two men at a medical complex in Henderson, Nev. In their possession were eight to 10 flight bags containing what federal agents believed to be anthrax. More troubling was the fact that one of the men was Larry Wayne Harris, a self-styled microbiologist with white supremacist sympathies who, after an arrest in 1995 in connection with the possession of three vials of bubonic-plague bacteria, had been under a federal probation order forbidding his "conducting any experiments with or obtaining any infectious diseases, bacteria, or germs." The criminal complaint that cited the prohibition also noted that Harris had told an unidentified group last summer that he planned to release bubonic-plague germs at a New York City subway station. Tabloids in Manhattan promptly blared headlines like SUBWAY PLAGUE TERROR and FEDS NAB 2 IN TOXIC TERROR.

The trouble was that the other man arrested was William Leavitt Jr., an unlikely biowarfare blackguard. The father of three owns biomedical labs in Nevada and Germany, but was known mostly for his quiet ways, civic and business responsibility and devout Mormon life-style. Indeed, he appeared confused by the entire incident. Asked at his arraignment if he understood the charges being brought against him, he said, "Not exactly." Leavitt's lawyers said their client and Harris did not possess anthrax but were instead carrying anthrax vaccine and were testing a device that would neutralize bacterial toxins in the human body, exactly the kind of gadget a country on the verge of war with anthrax-oversupplied Iraq would be happy to develop. One of Leavitt's lawyers charged that the FBI's informant, from whom Harris and Leavitt would have bought the bacteria-neutralizing device, was a scam artist with two convictions for extortion. On Saturday the FBI said that the anthrax found was a nonlethal form used in animal vaccine. Possession of bacteria, even anthrax, is not illegal if criminal intent cannot be proved. Leavitt was released on Saturday.

Harris, who is under probation specifically over bacteria, may remain under scrutiny. A New York City tabloid called him a "mad scientist." And, if all this had been a movie, Harris might well have been sent by central casting. The 46-year-old has a full beard and a spastic eye. Then there is his home in Lancaster, Ohio. The first thing you notice when you enter Harris' world is the smell, the stench of numerous cats and dogs in a cramped bungalow. This is laced with the subtler scent of a basement filled with dried foods, stockpiled for the aftermath of the coming race war. Enter Harris' bedroom and you will find lab equipment and a refrigerator, from which Harris pulls a sample of a growth medium for cultivating biological weapons. Talking of biologically induced mass death, he nonchalantly remarked to CNN producer Henry Schuster, "A terrorist would need very little of this."

In the visit by CNN, Harris noted that "you could lose 200,000 plus in [a biological] attack"--something he labeled an inevitability. "That is merely prelude to what is gonna happen." Published reports last week had him traveling America inoculating people against anthrax. But he has a clear taste for celebrity and overblown rhetoric that worries even right-wing militiamen who see doomsday eye to eye with him. John Trochman warned members of his Montana Militia against Harris in a May 1997 newsletter and requested that he be expelled from a survivalist expo for "exhibiting weapons of mass destruction." "The lure for the terrorist is anonymity," says Brian Levin, director of the Center on Hate and Extremism at New Jersey's Stockton College. "It is counterintuitive to be a celebrity of right-wing warfare. I mean, if you were planning a terrorist attack, would you show up on TV?" Just before his arrest, Harris had taped three segments for a local Nevada TV talk show. When ABC recently sought Harris' opinion on anthrax, he told Diane Sawyer, "It's no big deal. Five-gallon container of anthrax spraying over Manhattan; 48 to 72 hours, you're looking at 500,000 people dead."

Harris is the author of a self-published book called Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America, which goes into detail about the culturing of biological agents (as well as blueprints for easy-to-make weapons to take out America's power grid), all the while arguing that this knowledge is important if Americans are to protect themselves from such threats. He first made his way onto the federal radar in the 1980s. When Harris was a student at Ohio State, his association with the Aryan Nations, a violent white separatist group, prompted the Secret Service to check him out to be sure he wasn't a threat to George Bush, who was scheduled to visit the campus. When police searched his home in 1995, they found a certificate stating that Harris had risen to the rank of lieutenant in the Aryan Nations.

In 1995 Harris used the letterhead of the food lab that employed him to order $240 worth of bubonic-plague bacteria from the American Type Culture Collection based in Rockville, Md. Alerted by a suspicious ATCC employee who contacted a colleague at the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, authorities searched Harris' home and found the three vials of freeze-dried plague in the glove compartment of his car and the man himself full of bizarre excuses. Harris claimed he had ordered the plague as research for his book, which he described as a safety manual inspired partly by an Iraqi woman who told him Saddam Hussein was preparing to release supergerm-carrying rats in the U.S. Harris, however, couldn't be charged with anything stronger than mail and wire fraud. In fact, what the feds wound up doing to Harris was make him a star of sorts. Congressmen used his name in offering antiterrorism bills, and journalists came looking for the odd man who got away with ordering the plague. Now, he is the man to see about anthrax.

--With reporting by Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles

With reporting by Elaine Lafferty/Los Angeles