Hypothetical Terrorists Put Regional Officials to the Test

Suddenly, a warehouse fire took on ominous overtones.\f7

James T. Butts, director of security for Los Angeles International Airport, was the first to say it: The evidence at the warehouse suggested a plot to disperse biological agents.

Others quickly agreed. Los Angeles County Sheriff Lee Baca said Homeland Security needed to be alerted, and J. Stephen Tidwell, the agent in charge of the FBI's Los Angeles office, saw the potential for disaster. "Obviously," he said, "there would be alarms going off."

Thus, within hours, the region's principal law enforcement agencies -- the Los Angeles County Sheriff's Department, the Los Angeles Police Department and the FBI -- already were collaborating and receiving information from fire departments and others.

For law enforcement, the discoveries triggered two responses: a rush to hunt down suspects and unravel the plot, but also an imperative to protect the public. At the same time, the suggestion that chemical agents were involved roped in another local agency, the county's Department of Public Health. There, Dr. Jonathan Fielding identified, merely from the material seized at the warehouse, what authorities likely were up against: "anthrax," he said, "and possibly ricin."

Fielding asked that the area be quarantined and that a hunt be launched immediately for the workers who fled. He recognized the situation as "extremely explosive," and urged that no time be lost.

That presented the participants with their first quandary: If the area were to be quarantined, that could hardly be done quietly. But if the public were notified of the situation, those behind it would undoubtedly go into hiding and the chance to catch them might be lost forever.

Janet Clayton, assistant managing editor of The Times and acting as the panel's media advisor, urged prompt and accurate disclosure of the situation. Clayton made that argument on both principle and practicality: Releasing details would keep the public informed, and withholding them would prove fruitless in any event. "This information cannot be kept from the good reporters in town," she said.

Of the group, only Chief Sandra Hutchens, head of the sheriff's Office of Homeland Security, sounded a note of caution. She had warned that her colleagues needed to "start thinking about this becoming common knowledge" and expressed concern about the "potential for some panic." Confronted with Clayton's rejoinder, however, she went along with the rest of her colleagues and agreed that the time had come to let the public in on the case.