May 7-July 24, 2001: Risk Management Specialist Warns Senator John Kerry of Possible ‘Coordinated Attack’

Brian Sullivan, a retired Federal Aviation Administration risk management specialist, writes a letter to Senator John Kerry (D-Mass.), concerned about an alarming lack of security at Boston’s Logan Airport. Flights 11 and 175 take off from Logan on 9/11. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001; Village Voice, 9/15/2004] The previous night a local TV station aired a report of an undercover investigation, which found that, nine times out of 10, a crew was able to get knives and other weapons through Logan’s security checkpoints, including the ones later used by the 9/11 hijackers. Sullivan writes: “With the concept of jihad, do you think it would be difficult for a determined terrorist to get on a plane and destroy himself and all other passengers? Think what the result would be of a coordinated attack which took down several domestic flights on the same day. With our current screening, this is more than possible. It is almost likely.” Following his letter, Sullivan has a videotape of the TV investigation hand-delivered to Kerry’s office. [Insight on the News, 6/17/2002; 9/11 Commission, 2/11/2004, pp. 4; New York Post, 3/15/2004] After 9/11, Kerry will say that his response was to pass the letter and videotape to the General Accounting Office, and consequently it began an undercover investigation into the matter. [Associated Press, 9/14/2001; Boston Globe, 9/15/2001] Sullivan will confirm Kerry having responded to his letter, and having asked the Department of Transportation’s Office of Inspector General to look into the matter. He comments, “I think Sen. Kerry did get it to the right people and they were about to take action.” [MSNBC, 9/16/2001] However, in the run-up to the 2004 presidential election where Kerry is the Democratic candidate, Sullivan will accuse him of having done “the Pontius Pilate thing and passed the buck.” An article in the right-wing New York Post will claim that Kerry’s only response to Sullivan was a brief letter towards the end of July 2001, and says Sullivan’s letter to him had made clear that the Department of Transportation was ineffective in responding to complaints about security problems. [New York Post, 3/15/2004]