Sense of Unease Grips Anthrax Preoccupied Washington
By R. W. Apple Jr.
Washington, Oct. 17 — Anthrax is not contagious, but fear is.
There was ample evidence of that today, the most unsettling day this taut city has seen since Sept. 11. Whoever has made a target of newsrooms and Capitol Hill offices with letters containing white powder or other contaminants has succeeded in sowing confusion and anxiety, verging on terror, among the chattering classes of Washington — the people who set the capital's tone.
"A war of nerves is being fought in Washington," a senior administration official said, "and I fear we're not doing as well as we might be."
[Reminds me of E. A. Poe's "The Masque of the Red Death," which ends: "And now was acknowledged the presence of the Red Death. He had come like a thief in the night. And one by one dropped the revellers in the blood-bedewed halls of their revel, and died each in the despairing posture of his fall. And the life of the ebony clock went out with that of the last of the gay. And the flames of the tripods expired. And Darkness and Decay and the Red Death held illimitable dominion over all." http://eserver.org/books/poe/masque_of_the_red_death.html]
Carl
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