Dr. Roger Breeze, his successor, elaborated. "Jerry Callis is a very exceptional person. The United States never had a facility like Plum Island, until the debacle in Mexico hit between 1946 and 1952. People had to go out there, find it, and build it. Meanwhile, Jerry went over to Holland to learn about viruses from the Dutch. Now if you said to someone today, 'Hey this is the federal government and we want you to go to a foreign country to learn this whole new thing, and when you come back, we're going to build a laboratory for you,' people would laugh in your face. 'Yeah — sure — bullshit — can I get that in writing?' But Callis did it."
Lucrative offers from private laboratories had come his way for years, and he turned them all down. Plum Island was his life, and the island's life was in many ways his — it was his first job out of school, the only job he'd ever worked. Like a parent to his child, he could never see fit to abandon it. And there he remained for four decades.
Most of those interviewed for this book have the highest respect for Jerry Callis. "Jerry built Plum Island into a very prestigious place," says Carol House. "I think [his successors] had a hard time following in his shoes — anyone would, because of his memory and his depth of knowledge on everything that was Plum Island. A good — no, a very good manager." Dr. Shope acknowledges that "every leader has some disgruntled employees," but he found Dr. Callis nothing but "a real straight arrow." John Boyle, a former budget director at Plum Island, called him "a brilliant man, at one time a great scientist, and probably still that way today." Over time, a fondness and respect bonded the staff to their beloved director. "It wasn't always perfect," says building engineer Stanley Mickaliger. "There were discrepancies, and sure there were gripes — which were all normal. But we all understood something very important — Jerry Callis took care of us."
When asked about his retirement, Callis says simply and humbly, "I've enjoyed my career tremendously."
Plum Island librarian Frances Demorest — second in seniority to the now retiring director — saluted her director:
Dear Doctor Callis:
Our thoughts return to 1953 and the local turmoil over the decision to locate the Laboratory at Plum Island off Orient Point. The representatives from USDA were not received warmly but, as time went on, the turmoil and anger subsided. It has been a long time and we have crossed a lot of water together!
Through the efforts of two fine Directors, Dr. Shahan and yourself…the Center was recognized both nationally and internationally. Also, the Center made a tremendous economic impact on this end of Long Island.
Harrison and I trust you will experience a busy, fruitful, productive retirement, and enjoy GOOD HEALTH and fond MEMORIES for a "JOB WELL DONE."
Not everyone lamented his retirement. Some expressed glee over the change in the guard and looked forward to replacing the dusty old administration with fresh new leadership. "A lot of people thought of him as an emperor who treated Plum Island as his personal fiefdom," one former scientist says, "and to a degree, I believed he did. Whether your [research] program was funded depended on whether he liked you or not." But those who cheered Callis's departure didn't realize how good they had had it. "I tell you what," says one of them. "Six months later we were making nove-nas to Saint Anthony that he'd come back."
Because what came next would be far worse.
"You know, there's this old saying on Plum Island," says one worker. " 'When Dr. Callis went, the island went with him.' Once they moved him out, everything went downhill.
"In my humble opinion, this is when the whole island started to fall apart."
PART 3
THE DECLINE
10
The Kingdom and the Glory
Clarice:
Best of all, though — one week a year you'd get to leave the hospital and go here… [shoving a map into the prison cell]… Plum Island. Every afternoon of that week you can walk on the beach or swim in the ocean for up to one hour. Under SWAT team surveillance, of course.
Dr. Lecter:
"Plum Island Animal Disease Research Center." Sounds charming.
Clarice:
That's just part of the Island. It has a very nice beach. Terns nest there.
Dr. Lecter:
[later, after Dr. Lecter discovers Clarice's offer was a hoax] No! It's your turn to tell me, Clarice. You don't have any more vacations to sell me on Anthrax Island…!
Roger Breeze wanted to be a vet because the local veterinarian was the most successful person who came by his family's sixty-acre dairy farm in the north of England. The Breezes milked cows and raised chickens in the 1950s. They delivered creamy milk each morning to their customers' doors, along with fresh eggs and chickens, eking out a living by profiting on both production and delivery.
Roger's idea was to follow in that country vet's footsteps. When he was seventeen, he attended vet school at the University of Glasgow in nearby Scotland, one of the oldest universities in the world. Though it wasn't his original plan, upon graduation he was given the coveted opportunity to teach at Glasgow. It was a prestigious appointment he couldn't turn down. To help make ends meet, he opened a local vet practice and worked nights and weekends. "I had some crazy nights," Breeze told Outside magazine:
Once I had just finished pulling a newborn pig that was stuck in its mother's womb when I get another call about a sick dog. I go right over, knock on the door, and a bunch of Hell's Angels answer. They're all looking at me kind of funny, but I'm too worn out to care. I examine the dog and see right away that it's too far gone with distemper. So I take that dog out back and shoot it. The bikers pay me my fee, but they're staring at me wide-eyed, like I'm some kind of lunatic. It's not until I'm back in my car looking at myself in the rearview mirror that I see that my face and hair are all blotched and matted with pig placenta. I looked like the psycho vet from hell.
Two years into his professorship Breeze emigrated to America — a bold and unconventional move. He saw that young go-getters like himself, no matter how bright they were or how hard they worked, would be shunted into Glasgow's faculty caste system. There were eighteen veterinary pathology positions in all of Britain, and a slow thirty-two-lockstep ladder of advancement. Every professor parked on the same step was paid the same meager salary. "It didn't matter whether you taught Sanskrit or law," he remembers. " 'As long as there is still death, there's hope,' we used to say."
Roger Breeze disliked the stuffy peerage. What does your father do? Who do you know? What high school did you attend? No one seemed to care about what was really important — one's talent and ability to perform. "Can you imagine people in America asking, 'Where did he go to high school?' " Breeze asks. "How the hell would anybody know where to look, let alone care?" The religious discrimination also bothered him. Once a man "of great power" at Glasgow asked him to return to his alma mater to teach a discipline he didn't know. When Breeze explained his lack of knowledge in the discipline, the man said it didn't matter, saying, "There are too many English Catholics up here teaching and we need more Scottish Protestants." Ironically, Breeze was neither a Scot nor a Protestant — but with his University of Glasgow pedigree, they assumed he was.