the last book I ever read (The Mirage Man)

from The Mirage Man: Bruce Ivins, the Anthrax Attacks, and America's Rush to War by David Willman:

In September of 2001 Bruce Ivins was at that stage of career where there were far fewer years ahead than behind. The twin were now seniors in high school and, in just a few years, he could retire from the Army and start anew, if he wished. He was fifty-six years old.

Why, then, would Ivins risk everything by launching the anthrax letter attacks?

Developing the next-generation anthrax vaccine was, for Ivins, a deeply personal matter, bound up with his excessive need for attention and longing for scientific distinction. By the year 2000, he was seething over the project's endangered status. And by mid-2001, the controversy surrounding the military's entire anthrax vaccine program had pushed the next-generation product "beyond the back burner," in the words of Major General Stephen Reeves. As the Army official directly responsible for these biodefense matters, Reeves believed that, absent a crisis, "the White House would have killed this program."

Ivins knew well the marvelously persuasive power of fear: In 1980, fear of what the Soviets were up to in the aftermath of the anthrax deaths at Sverdlovsk got him hired at USAMRIID. In 1990 and 1991, fear that Saddam Hussein might use anthrax in the first Gulf War brought Ivins to center stage as a scientist and gave a boost to his early work on the next-generation anthrax vaccine. For Ivins, a co-inventor and patent holder, bringing this product all the way into use held the promise of untold professional glory (and years of steady patent royalties).