Your mail program is inserting the > in front of the word From if it begins on
a line by itself.

That word is used by the mailer to Parse messages (determine the beginning of a
mail message) from your mail file.  Some mailers automatically stick in the >
so that the mail reader program won't start parsing the messsage as a new
message when the see the "From" as the first word on a new line.

On a sun workstation, the sendmail configuration file is modded to force a
placement of the > so the mail reader program won't improperly start a new
message.

Randy