Thomas HKean

CHAIR
Date:
Lee H Hamilton
VICE CHAIR

Richard Ben-Veniste
TO: TEAM
MaxCfcland
FROM: Dianna Campagna
Fred F.Fielding

Jamie S. Gorelick

Sbde Gorton The attached correspondence from

John Lehman is being forwarded to you for information and consideration. A copy has
Timothy J. Roemer also been sent to Team(s) ^^^ for their information. If you
James R. Thompson
have any questions, please call me on 331-4082. Thank you.

Phflip D. Zelikow
EXECUTIVE DIRECTOR

TEL (202) 331-4060

FAX (202) 296-5545
www.9-1 Icommissiongov
 9/11 P e r s o n a l Privacy

XatfUeen written

July 11,2003
*
iXfhomasH. Kean, Chair
National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW - Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407

Lee H. Hamilton, Vice Chair

National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon the United States
301 7th Street, SW - Room 5125
Washington, DC 20407

Dear Mr. Kean and Mr. Hamilton:

I am forwarding information to you that I believe is relevant to your investigation of the September 11th terrorist attacks
on the World Trade Center, relevant to your charter to prepare a full and complete account of the circumstances
surrounding the September 11th, and relevant to your mandate to provide recommendations designed to guard against
future attacks. As you will see from the following documentation, I lived in Battery Park City and worked at the World
Financial Center. I saw the second plane hit the south face of Tower 2, from one block (approximately 300 feet) to the
west. I witnessed people jumping from the upper floors, including Windows on the World. I returned to my home
because I could not help those who were dying. My condominium in Battery Park City was a few hundred yards to the
southwest of Tower 2. My neighbors and I witnessed massive explosions in each Tower barely seconds before each
collapse. I do not believe the explosions we witnessed were caused by the plane crashes, the burning jet fuel, anything
legitimately in the Towers, or the collapse -of the buildings. I believe additional explosives were brought in, possibly that
morning, as a backup plan in case the planes did not hit their targets or the buildings did not quickly collapse. After
talking with my cousin, then an Inspector on the New York Police Department, now retired, about what I witnessed and
my frustration at the lack of a standard neighborhood canvass of witnesses, I sent a full, written, account, by certified
mail, detailing what I saw to those then responsible for the investigation. I was contacted by investigators from both the
Fire Department of New York (the "FDNY") and the New York Police Department (the "NYPD"). I was directly told by
the NYPD investigator, whom I will not name, that the investigators believed there was credibility in what I reported, but
that I would never see that information in the official reports of what caused the collapse of the Towers.

I appreciate your efforts as Chair and Vice Chair, respectively, of the National Commission on Terrorist Attacks Upon
the United States. I sincerely hope you will consider the eyewitness account I have provided. I believe it is critical to the
nation's efforts to guard against future attacks that we, as a nation, know the true reason(s) the Towers collapsed. What I
believe has not been explained in the official reports is the cause of the massive explosions, seconds before the collapse
of each building, well after the planes hit the Towers. These explosions were witnessed by many people in Battery Park
City. I was told by both the FDNY and the NYPD that these explosions were not captured by television crews. What I
believe has not been explained is how my cousin, and others I spoke with afterward, saw the explosions on TV when the
investigators told me the explosions were not captured by the media. What I believe has also not been explained is why
the FDNY Battalion Chiefj who was communicating with the Command Center in the lobby of Tower 2, sent his men up,
rather than calling for an evacuation, if the building was in imminent danger of collapsing, as it did just after his call to
the lobby. What I believe has not been explained is why the fire in Tower 2, which I was seeing from the same side of
the building hit by the plane, appears much less intense than the fire in Tower 1, which I was viewing from the opposite
side of the building hit by the plane, given the official explanation that the intensity of the fires caused the collapse and
Tower 2 collapsed first because the plane was going much faster, so its fire was more intense. What I believe has not
been explained is why the fire, as documented in photos I took, less than 10 minutes before the collapse, show the fire in
Tower 2 had not burned through the crash floors and appears much smaller than that of Tower 1, given the explanation
that the fire in Tower 2 was more intense.
 /9/11 Personal P r i v a c y

Va0e2 XatfUeen Sritton

I believe it is critical to the safety of first responders, such as the FDNY and the NYPD, to determine whether the initial
conclusion, that the fires, caused by the plane crashes, caused the collapses due lo structural failure, in feet tells the
complete story of what brought down the Towers J; I believe the families of those who were killed, especially those who
died in the Towers, and the residents of Battery Park City, who witnessed the explosions add know the full story has not
been told, deserve to know the true cause of the collapses which damaged our lives forever. I believe anyone who works
in a multiple story office building or Ijves in a high rise residential building, along with those who provide security for
tall buildings and/first responders w)io may have! to enter a building under terrorist attack, deserves to know what
happened as well / i

I can be reached as follows, should you have any further questions: by phone atj [ by cell phone at| |
I Ibvfaxatd i, or by e-mail at | |

Thank you in advance for your consideration of the information I am providing to you.
Sincerely,

Kathleen Britton
 9/11 Personal Privacy

JCatfiCeen Sritton

May 14,2002

Fire Commissioner Nicholas Scoppetta

Fire Department New York
9 Metro Tech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly

New York Police Department
1 Police Plaza, Room 1400
New York, NY 10271

Robert S. Mueller, m
Office of the Director
Federal Bureau of Investigation
J. Edgar Hoover Building
935 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20535-0001

Cc: Fire Chief Daniel Nigro

Fire Department New York
9 Metro Tech Center
Brooklyn, NY 11201

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg

City Hall
New York, NY 10007

Leslie E. Robertson
Leslie E. Robertson Associates
30 Broad Street, 47-48th Floor
New York, NY 10004-2304

Dear Sirs:

I am writing to you as an eyewitness to the tragic events of the morning of September 11, 2001. I am concerned because,
to my knowledge, none of the residents of Battery Park City were interviewed as part of what I understand to be a
standard neighborhood canvass during a police investigation. In addition, news reports indicate the official conclusion as
to the cause of the collapse of the World Trade Center Towers is likely to be that the explosion of the jet fuel in the
planes brought down the Towers. I believe the failure to obtain eyewitness testimony from Battery Park City residents
may have caused the investigation to overlook a critical possible cause of the destruction of the Towers.

I have lived on Rector Place in Battery Park City for nearly twelve years, since September of 1990. I worked for Merrill
Lynch, at 4 World Financial Center, as an Assistant Vice President in Investment Banking Administration, until
December 13, 2001. I am currently a Director of BPCUnited, a post 9/11 World Trade Center neighborhood resident's
organization.

I was at home in my condominium at 377 Rector Place on the morning of September 11, 2001, just leaving for work,
when the first plane hit Tower 1. I ran to the windows in my bedroom, which face both east and south, to look at the
 9/11 P e r s o n a l P r i v a c y

XatfUeen 'Britton

Towers. I immediately thought "On, no. Not again,", flashing back to 1993. It was apparently too soon for the smoke to
rise over Tower 1, so everything in lower Manhattan, the western part of New York harbor, including the Statue of
Liberty and Staten Island, and the area of New Jersey near Newark airport appeared normal. I therefore thought I was
mistaken about what I just heard, so I left for work. Just as I reached ground level, at the comer of Albany and South
End Avenue, my mother beeped me to "Please call home concerning the explosion at the WTC". I looked directly up,
and, by then, the fire on the impact floors had reached the west face of Tower 1. A bystander told me, in response to my
question as to whether we knew what had happened yet, that a jet had accidentally crashed into the Towers. I
instinctively replied, because my brother flies passenger jets (737s and 757s) for a carrier based out of Midway, that no
commercial jet pilot could possibly fly into one of the Towers by mistake on a clear morning like that. I also knew, from
living here for so many years, no flight patterns were close enough that this was likely to be an accident caused by
mechanical difficulties. I nevertheless continued to work, stopping to mail a bill and then to find my splint, which I
apparently dropped in shock when I first saw the fires, on the way.

I was one block away, walking north along South End Avenue, at the western end of Liberty Street, when the second
plane hit Tower 2. After recovering from the initial shock of the second attack, I continued on to the World Financial
Center to call my mother, who was still waiting for me to call home to tell her I was safe. WFC Security was already
evacuating my office building, so I turned back south and went next to St. Joseph Chapel, my church. There was only
one person there, praying. Rev. Msgr. Joseph Zammit, an NYPD Police Chaplain who used to say the 8:15 a.m. Mass,
later told me he had already gone to the WTC with his oils to help the victims and the survivors. The office was locked
because the only staff member did not usually arrive for work until 10 ajm., so, after saying a prayer, I went back outside.
I next spoke briefly with some people from the Federal Reserve Bank in Atlanta, who were staying at the Marriott, had
been attending a conference, and who had just evacuated from Tower 2. We saw windows being punched out of the
lower floors of Tower 2 by survivors who apparently could not breathe. We also saw people jumping from Tower 2,
some on fire. After asking those who had just left Tower 2 if there was anything we could do to help, and deciding that
we could not help those still trapped in the Towers, I gave the visitors from Atlanta directions out of Battery Park City
and advised them to leave the area immediately. I then returned home to call my mother and to prepare to leave the area
as well.

While I was in my condominium, nearly an hour after the jets crashed into the buildings and the jet fuel in those planes
exploded upon impact, while staring directly at Tower 2,1 saw a massive explosion, a number of floors below the fire
floors and below the area of impact. That secondary explosion was much larger than the explosion I saw upon the impact
of the second jet. This second explosion caused the many residents who had been watching the Towers from the rooftop
garden on the building next door to mine to run for safety, whereas the impact of the jet had not caused many of the
residents standing around me near Gateway Plaza to flee. I continued to stare as Tower 2 hung, tilted slightly, and then
fell. I received a call from my cousin, who studied architecture for his undergraduate degree, after the explosion but
before the collapse, asking if it there had just been a secondary explosion in Tower 2. I answered yes, then returned to
the phone call from my cousin's daughter. Her father, my cousin, was at that time an Inspector on the NYPD, who has
since retired. My cousin's daughter and wife were helping me to communicate with my family and my finance's family
by relaying messages because of the problems with the phone lines in Manhattan, which were jammed. Some friends,
relatives, and neighbors have since told me that they also saw the secondary explosion in Tower 2 on television or in
person. The same sequence of events occurred several minutes later in Tower 1, after the dust cloud that enveloped my
building following the collapse, had cleared.

It is important to me that you know the secondary explosions, which you could see from the south side of the Towers,
occurred immediately prior to the collapse of each Tower. A number of Battery Park City residents who witnessed both
sets of explosions in each building do not believe the second set of explosions was caused by or was related to the jet
fuel, although we have several different theories as to the cause of the explosions. Please remember, we are among the
few eyewitnesses who were not running for our lives because we were already home and had nowhere else obvious to
run. Those of us who were here and had a view of the Towers from our homes, as I did, were therefore staring in shock,
disbelief, and horror at the unfolding tragedy. The World Trade Center was central to our lives and dominated our
 :')9/ll P e r s o n a l Privacy __ ,
Tage3 ir x Kathleen 'Britten

neighborhood, serving as ouri downtown, providing transportation, shopping, medical facilities, and entertainment.
Watching its destruction, along; with the enormous loss Of life, is something we will never be able to forget. Some of us
therefore have talked about jhe '^explosions, have written in local publications like the Battery Park City Broadsheet about
the explosions, and wonder lampngst ourselves why these explosions have never been mentioned since the day of and the
day following the Attack, lei alofte be addressed in your investigation;

I am writing as a citizen of New York for nearly twenty years. I am concerned that the true cause of the destruction of
the Towers be determined,; to thfc extent possible, because of the impact this detennination will have on the procedures
for fighting fires in skyscrjapers imd OQ future building codes. I personally believe that additional explosives may have
been brought into the buildings ithe morning of September 11, 2001, in order to ensure the destruction of the Twin
Towers should the impact and explosion of the planes and the ensuing fire prove not to have been enough. Regardless of
my suspicion, however, llbelieve! the FDNY, the NYPD, the families of those who were killed, those of us who were
eyewitnesses and survived, as well as the citizens of New York, the United States, and many countries around the world
deserve to know, to the extent possible, what truly brought down the Towers.

I can be reached asfollows,should you have any questions: by phone at'| 1 by cell phone at [ |
1 [by fax at! I I or by e-mail at'l I I am tentatively scheduled to move to
Nnrth Carolina on June 1, 2002. After my move, I can be reached by phone at] [or by e-mail at

Sincerely,

Kathleen Britton
 Katfiken 'Britton

July 30,2002

^Campbell XT v ^ ,19/11 P e r s o n a l Privacy

Fire Department New York /;;
16 Hooper Street / / \, NY 11211

Enclosed please find the photos I took of the Towers on September 11, 2001; fiomimy bedroom window. These photos,
as I mentioned in my letter of May 14, 2002, were taken nearly an hour after the jets crashed into the buildings, and
maybe 5 - 1 0 minutes before the large explosion. Clearly, both Towers have large fires, with the fire in Tower One
actually larger than the fire in Tower Two, but neither appears to me to be jfiilly; engulfed in flames even on the fire
floors, nor about to implode from the fire alone. In fact, you can't even see flame in Tower 2; only smoke.

Again, I was staring directly at Tower 2 and saw a massive explosion, a number of floors below the fire floors and below
the area of impact. I believe it was at or just below the mechanical floors pictured just above the roof of World Financial
Center One in the foreground. The secondary explosion my neighbors and I saw was much larger than the explosion I
saw upon the impact of the second jet. This second explosion caused the many residents who had been watching the
Towers from the rooftop garden on die building next door to mine to/run for safety, whereas the impact of the jet had not
caused many of the residents standing around the near Gateway Plaza to flee; I continued to stare as Tower 2 hung, tilted
slightly, and then fell. The same sequence of events occurred several minutes later in Tower 1, after the dust cloud that
enveloped my building following the collapse, had cleared. :

I do not believe the explosions I saw Were a consequence of the collapse of either building due to extreme heat or fire. I
believe the explosions I saw cawed the collapse. I believe the explosion 1 saw was caused by a deliberate detonation of
explosive material. Nothing I have read or seen has changed my mind nor /has adequately explained to me what I saw.

I also believe the investigation should have included a standard neighborhood canvas of eyewitnesses who were not in
the buildings or running from the collapsing buildings and therefore had; the perspective and a relative sense of calm to
observe the sequence of events. Hundreds of Battery Park City residents were taking photos or filming. I realize many
of those residents may have moved at this point, however, had the investigation started with fact gathering rather than
starting with conclusions and gathering facts that fit those conclusions, the opportunity to find the true cause of the
collapse of the Towers would not have been lost. ; j

I appreciate your efforts during this investigation. I sincerely hope, for the sake of the Fire Department of New York,
that I am mistaken about the cause of the collapse. Unfortunately. I do not believe I am. I can be reached as follows,
should you have any further questions: by phone at I Iby cell phone at I I by fax at j \

possible publication in a book I am writing.

Kathleen Britton
 ••II
Nil,
:::::*

~» »
 KatRken "Britten

August 5, 2002

PatCampbell /ft 711 P e r s o n a l Privacy

Fire Department New York i
16 Hooper Street / : \, NY 11211

Dear Mr. Campbell: ; \ understand you were able to speak to Manoh

explosions in and subsequent collapse of the Twin Towers, Please remember, again, that I saw hundreds of Battery Park
City residents filming and taking photos just before the explosion in Tower 2, although it rnay be difficult to find those
witnesses now. / ; \r reading recent reports in the press that Ba

78th floor of Tower 2, organized an evacuation of injured, and formulated1 a plan for fighting the fire, I am even more
convinced that the true cause of the explosion has not been identified. Surely an FDNY Battalion (Chief, one of the most
experienced and qualified in the world to fight high rise fires, would havei recognized a fire so widespread as to be un-
fightable and would have ordered his men out rather than formulating a plan to fight the fires.

It is my understanding, from press reports, that the FDNY climbed much higher into both Towers, at least 28 floors
higher than investigators realized in Tower 2, because they ignored this tape until last month. I do not believe the
explosions I saw were a consequence of the collapse of/either building due to extreme heat or fire. I believe the
explosions I saw caused the collapse. I believe the explosion I saw was caused by a deliberate detonation of explosive
material. Now that I have learned of even more evidence overlooked during the investigation, I am even more convinced
that, had the investigation started with feet gathering rather than starting with conclusions and gathering facts that fit
those conclusions, the opportunity to find the true cause/of the collapse 0f the Towers would not have been lost

I appreciate your efforts during this investigation. I sincerely hope, fpr the sake of thfe Fire Department of NeVy York,
that I am mistaken about the cause of the collapse. Unfortunately, I do not believe I am. I can be reached as foil
should vou have any further questions: by phone at | [ by cell phone at I | by fax at j
I | or by e-mail at) j
Sincerely,

Kathleen Brrtton