The impression potential recruits gain of [Plum Island] must be diminished by the shabby state of most of our buildings and grounds resulting from years of neglect — and I know that our loyal E&PM [engineering and plant maintenance] staff who have tried so hard to do so much must also be discouraged.
If we complain about federal salaries, crumbling buildings, and bureaucratic inertia, it should be no surprise that people lost interest in working here. Let's be proud of what we do and speak positively wherever we can.
Those with problems and suggested solutions can help me more than those with problems alone…. Thanks for your input in advance.
The whispers began: Hey, look out for this guy. When Jerry Callis looked out upon his island from his office perched over the Army parade ground, he saw an honorable band of three hundred loyal, dedicated employees. Breeze saw support staff and veteran scientists as a motley gang of serfs, a drain on science funds that did little more than punch the clock and collect an oversized paycheck.
In Breeze's first big move, he fired three scientists and forced a fourth into early retirement. He called the African swine fever virus team from the lab to his office and told them they had two weeks to pack up and leave. They were dumbfounded. "We had experiments with years of work gone into them," says Dr. Richard Endris. "With Roger, there was no kinder, gentler way," said another source. The team complained to the swine industry and the local congressman that taxpayers' work was "going down the tubes." That bought them a six-month reprieve. But once that time was up, Drs. Endris, Jerry Pan, Gertrude Schloer, and their leader, Bill Hess — a forty-year Plum Island veteran — were out on their rears. "He's seen fit to change directions," the seventy-two-year-old Dr. Hess drily told a reporter, "which is his privilege."
In Breeze's opinion, the four scientists were repeating the same science, or as one Breeze official said, "Reinventing the wheel, over and over again," testing viruses on one tick species after another. Said the official of the sacked four, "They were the worst of the worst — one of them hadn't published a research paper in nine years. Another one hadn't written one in five years. Sat there on their dead asses leaning on their elbows. They knew it was coming."
Contrary to what others said, Dr. Endris and Dr. Hess had published scientific papers in recent years. Breeze's reasoning that it was time for a genetically engineered vaccine for African swine fever made little sense to Endris, who says African swine fever antibody proteins (like Dr. Bachrach's VP3) just didn't have the prophylactic properties necessary. "[Breeze] did not understand the biology of it, didn't have the grasp of it— but he didn't let that get in the way of his politics." Ironically, Endris was one of those few on Plum Island who thought Dr. Callis's departure might be a good thing. A new director could rejuvenate the crumbling laboratory and reinvigorate its mission, he thought. Now he knew just how wrong he was. "Personally, after I saw what replaced [Callis]," he admits fifteen years later, "I wish he had stayed."
Breeze then confronted the remaining scientists. Sitting them all down, he berated them with facts and figures — the number of test animals purchased compared to the number of scientific papers produced. The number wasn't nearly high enough and the few papers published were terrible. "This was really sad," Dr. Jim House would growl years later. "The part that's bothersome is that he tried to play down the accomplishments of those who had been there before him — not one time, but numerous times. He tried to make their accomplishments look petty."
There was another reason the scientists were pushed out — to make room in the budget for a new ferry.
MELTING SNOWBALLS IN THE ANTARCTIC
Just when it seemed like things were clicking into place — the budget being tightened, unwanted scientists pushed overboard, and new equipment for new scientists under requisition — the roof caved in. Or rather, the dock caved in. The ubiquitous autumn storms that pounded Plum Island smashed the harbor dock to pieces. The $700,000 cost to replace the bulkhead blew a hole straight through Boyle's crafty budget and jeopardized monies earmarked for the new crystallographers, spectrographs, and electron microscopes. Washington told Breeze that Plum Island had to pay for the repair, putting him in the unenviable position of reneging on promises to his recruits. Says Breeze, "That would be like telling recruits at Columbia University, 'I can't buy your scientific equipment for you, because I have to go fix a piece of West 168th Street.' They would look at you like you were crazy." With the dock standing in the way of scientific glory, he had to do something.
In its long history, the secretary of agriculture's advisory committee, made up of representatives from livestock industries, had never met outside of Washington, D.C. Breeze proposed to Washington that the committee meet this year in Old Saybrook, Connecticut, to see Plum Island. As a friendly gesture to their new exotic disease lab director, the aggies agreed to organize it — but on one condition: he would not, under any circumstances, ask the committee for money. "The Department was going to put $1 million into the island and that was going to be it — and I was not to ask them [for any more]," says Breeze.
They all came out one morning — the National Cattlemen's Association, the Pork Producers' Council, and the dairy and poultry associations— all the groups that had a multibillion-dollar stake in what some might label "corporate welfare." Plum Island had always been painted as essential to the American people — wholesome, apple pie research to protect the food supply, defensive research that private industry just wouldn't do. But when the twenty dark suits crowded onto a boat bound for Plum Island with "Cap'n" Breeze, the scene looked less vital to the taxpaying public than to the billion-dollar agribusiness conglomerates the captain's passengers represented.[34]
In evangelical tones, Dr. Breeze walked and talked the group through the deteriorating laboratory, preaching how he planned to shore up its crumbling foundations, rid the place of the driftwood, clean the bathrooms, shine the floors, and bring science — glorious science. "He was very charming," says one observer. "So charming he could melt snowballs in the Antarctic." But meeting again the next day, the Pied Piper's smile had turned down at its corners. He talked hard and fast at them in his distinct accent.
"This place is never going to fly. You can't keep doing this business with the island falling down. We need $40 million here. We need it. I'm delivering the program, I'm hiring the people — but it won't work without $40 million." Breeze had previously been told by his engineers that it would cost about $25 million in total to repair the island into tip-top shape. He paused and looked at them, head cocked for effect.
"Now if you don't want to do it, that's fine — and we'll all walk away. No problem — I'll go find another job." But heads in front of him were nodding. We're with you, Roger, we are — we are!
They were. Thumbing his nose at his superiors, Breeze had secured, in a matter of days, a construction program that Plum Island had failed to get under way for decades. The livestock groups got behind it, and leaned heavily on reluctant USDA officials and Congress to give way. Though infuriated with their insubordinate new director, there was little Washington could do about it. How did his superiors respond? "Well," says Breeze, smiling, "everybody changes. If there was no money, it was all over, and they might as well have known that. You cannot make bricks without clay." Breeze soon had $22 million of clay in his hands ($3 million shy of his personal goal, but still enough) to build some 58,000 square feet of new space and renovate another 45,000 square feet. It was a truly remarkable feat.
34
A few years later, Tom Cook, president of the National Cattlemen's Association, would tell the