By Frank James

Given the hubbub that occurred Wednesday, former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop might want to try e-mail next time he wants to communicate his views on overhauling health-care to Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid.

C. Everett Koop.

Former Surgeon General C. Everett Koop unintentionally shut down part of the Senate with a letter. (Jim Cole / AP Photo)

The Hill reports that Koop sent an innocent letter to Reid. Except the letter didn't look so innocent to a Hill employee.

A excerpt from The Hill:

Koop wrote Reid a typed letter, tucked inside a hand-written business envelope, that appeared in Reid's office without postage and without going through a security screening process. A Senate postal clerk noticed the envelope and alerted a Reid staffer, who in turn notified Capitol Police about 2 p.m.
A small swarm of officers responded, first shutting down the hallway outside Reid's office and then taking the even rarer step of shutting down the wide Ohio Clock corridor that senators use for press conferences outside the Senate's main entrance. Mindful of the ricin and anthrax attacks in 2001, teams of hazardous materials technicians were called and tested the envelope before opening it and discovering Koop's letter.
Koop, 93, the Reagan administration's surgeon general from January 1982 to October 1989 and now a professor at Dartmouth Medical School, told The Hill he gave the envelope to Sen. Orrin Hatch's (R-Utah) to deliver to Reid. A Hatch staffer then apparently dropped the letter off in a mailbox bin inside Reid's second-floor suite, just steps from the Senate chamber. Hatch's office did not have an immediate comment.
"I did write it, but I didn't mean anything nefarious and I'm sitting here smiling because it all seems to be a big buzz about nothing," Koop said by phone from his home in Hanover, N.H.
"There's no law about how to deliver a letter. I can appreciate all of the security that surrounds the leader, but this all could have been settled in a few minutes."

categories: Congress

7:58 - November 4, 2009

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