FORTUNE Senior Writer Unmasks "Phoenix Memo"; Investigative Reporter Richard Behar Read Memo—and Reveals Its Contents

Business Wire, May 22, 2002

Business Editors

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--May 22, 2002

FORTUNE today revealed that senior writer Richard Behar was apparently the first journalist to see the so-called "Phoenix memo," written by FBI Special Agent Kenneth Williams.

The memo, which raised serious concerns about Middle Eastern men attending U.S. flight schools, was written on July 10, 2001, but never made its way up the FBI chain of command. It wasn't seen by FBI Director Robert Mueller until after Sept. 11, and was not shared with the CIA, which only learned of its existence a few weeks ago, as did President Bush. The confidential document still hasn't been released, and yesterday it was the subject of a closed-door Senate Intelligence Committee session. Behar's story about the memo, containing details about its contents, appears at www.fortune.com as of 4:00 p.m. EST.

According to the memo, a probe of Zakaria Soubrai, a student at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Prescott, Arizona, was instituted nearly 17 months before the attacks. Furthermore, Agent Williams warns of a possible "effort by Osama bin Laden to send students to the U.S. to attend civil aviation universities and colleges," as well as a "fatwa" issued by the former head of a London-based radical Islamic group.

"The memo raises questions about what federal law enforcement officials knew and what they did or didn't do to protect the U.S. from terror attacks in the months before Sept. 11," says Behar. "After reviewing the memo, one cannot help but conclude that the FBI dropped the ball--perhaps ignoring the alert altogether." If senior FBI officials, the CIA and the Bush Administration had seen the Phoenix memo, Behar asks, could they have stitched together enough clues to prevent the terror attacks?