Diary Prequel Package — page 82

Sept. 26, 2003 - White House meeting on Bioshield with the usual suspects - Stewart Simonson, Jorge Tavel, Ken Bernard, Bill Winkenwerder, Larry Kerr, etc. We are getting ready for finalizing the legislation. After the meeting in the EEOB, I went over to the West Wing to see Richard Falkenrath. NIAID will be awarding 2 NBLs (BSL-4 labs) and 9 RBLs (BSL-3 labs) on Sept. 30. I have been getting incredible lobbying pressure from people like Sen. Hillary Clinton and others for their state or district sites. Chicago is in the running for an NBL and the President is going to Chicago on Sept. 30. The WH wants me to delay the announcement until 2:00 PM after the President leaves Chicago since Chicago got an RBL, but not an NBL and the WH wanted to avoid any embarrassment for the President to be there when bad news arrived. Oct. 7, 2003 - Briefing in the Situation Room of the White House for Andy Card on the Craig Venter issue of synthesizing microbes. Also at the meeting were: Tommy Thompson, Spencer Abraham (Secr. Of DoE), Dan Bartlett; General Gordon; Ken Bernard, Harriet Miers (Card's Deputy), Bob Card from DoE, Ray Auerbach (DoE), Bruce Alberts (NAS), Gerry Fink giving summary of Fink Report on "Biotechnology Research in an Age of Terrorism", which is an NAS/NRC report; Stewart Simonson; Carol Kuntz; Larry Kerr; I have essentially been adopted by the WH to be the one who explains the science of Venter's work. This, I was the major briefer. Also, I have been spearheading the NIH effort to create a subcommittee of the RAC to provide the "culture of responsibility" for the scientific community on these issue similar to the 1970s with the RAC following the Asilomar Meeting in 1974. Oct. 13, 2003 - Went to White House ceremony (President's speech) and reception to commemorate Columbus Day. The President specifically greeted me in his remarks saying how proud he was of how I was the General in the Global War on AIDS. After the ceremony, I ran into Josh Bolten in the hallway of the EEOB. He asked about my opinion of the controversy of $2 billion versus $3 billion in FY '04 for the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief. Bono has been giving the WH a hard time saying that the President was reneging on his promise when in fact he promised $15 billion over 5 years staring with $2 billion in '04 (see above). He specifically asked my opinion of how Randy Tobias was doing as the new AIDS head of the program. He indicated that he did not think that there was anything wrong, but that he was getting the vague feeling that things were not moving along as aggressively as he thought that they would be. He asked me to quietly check it out. Oct. 16, 2003 - Had breakfast (at his invitation) with Jay Lefkowitz at the White House Mess to say goodbye. He is leaving as Director of Domestic Policy Council to return to his law firm in its NYC branch. He will likely return after 2 years for the President's 2nd term (if this occurs). We had a great conversation in which he mentioned how honored he was to work with me on the President's Emergency Plan for AIDS Relief, the MTCT plan and to a lesser extent on the stem cell issue. I sincerely told him that he was second to none in people that I have worked with at the WH over the past 19 years. He asked my help in making sure that the AIDS Plan does not get derailed by the mischief of USAID in trying to lobby the legislation such that power is taken away from Randy Tobias and he would not be given an independent account. Oct. 17, 2003 - Went to going away reception in Indian Treaty Room of EEOB at White House in honor of Jay Lefkowitz. Great time just talking to the White House crew and