United States

Federal investigators begin searching the Kingman, Arizona, home of Michael Fortier, a known friend and associate of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, December 16, 1994 and After, 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 19, 1995 and After, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995). Agents have been questioning Fortier and his wife Lori for days (see April 23 - May 6, 1995). A dozen cars filled with about 20 agents drive onto Fortier’s property; Fortier’s trailer home sports an American flag and a yellow Revolutionary War-era banner showing a coiled snake and a “Don’t Tread on Me” slogan. The agents rope off the area with yellow tape. As the agents approach Fortier’s home, a neighbor and friend, James Rosencrans, emerges from his house and advances on the agents carrying a pistol and a rifle. Rosencrans gets into an argument with sheriff’s deputies, and is arrested for disorderly conduct. [New York Times, 5/1/1995] Rosencrans will not remain in custody. Soon after the altercation, he will tell a reporter that when he heard the news of the bombing, he thought of McVeigh and said at the time, “Our boy’s been busy.” [New York Times, 7/3/1995]

The FBI issues a nationwide alert for two men wanted as material witnesses in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The men, Gary Allen Land and Robert Jacks, are under suspicion by federal investigators of having ties to bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995). Land and Jacks, who live on disability checks and drive aimlessly around the country in a 1981 Ford Thunderbird, rented a room in an Arizona motel near McVeigh’s room in the first week of April. On April 19, Land and Jacks checked into the Deward and Pauline’s Motel in Vinita, Oklahoma, some 180 miles northeast of Oklahoma City. On April 20, the day after the bombing, they checked into the Dan-D Motel in Perry, Oklahoma, where McVeigh was being held by local authorities on unrelated charges (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995), checked out after just a few hours, and returned to their motel room in Vinita, some 140 miles away, where they stayed until April 24. Investigators believe that Land and Jacks may have been able to find out that McVeigh was being held by the local police, perhaps through an intermediary. Investigators tell reporters that the hunt for Land and Jacks may prove the contention that McVeigh was a part of a larger conspiracy (see April 24, 1995 and After). Some federal officials suggest Land may be “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995), based on his superficial resemblance to the sketch. Investigators search the Vinita and Perry motels, interviewing the managers and searching the rooms occupied by the two men. Land’s Thunderbird has an Arizona license plate; the car is registered to the address of the El Trovatore Hotel in Kingman, Arizona, the town where McVeigh spent so much of his time before the bombing. The managers of the El Trovatore say that Land and Jacks rented three different units from them between November 1994 and April 1995. The El Trovatore is a short distance from the Imperial and Hill Top Motels, where McVeigh stayed from April 1 through April 12 (see March 31 - April 12, 1995). The managers say that Land and Jacks told an employee that they were driving to Oklahoma to look for jobs; Jacks told another employee that he was Land’s uncle. Motel employees describe the two as, the New York Times writes, “brooding beer drinkers who sometimes played country music, but for the most part kept to themselves.” Neither man worked, employees say, but both paid their rent in cash and sometimes left their rooms during the morning as if they were going to jobs. Jacks told them that he and Land drove to nearby Needles, California, once a month to pick up their checks. At dawn on May 2, a dozen FBI agents in SWAT gear raid the two men’s motel room in Carthage, Oklahoma (the motel manager’s wife stays up all night making pancakes for the agents while they prepare for the raid). The two spend 18 hours in custody while agents search the room and the Thunderbird, using a remote-controlled robot to open the car’s doors in case it is wired to explode. Land and Jacks have no connection to McVeigh, and know nothing of the bombing. They will make a brief and memorable appearance on ABC’s Nightline a few nights later, where they boast of being long-time drunks and talk about their treatment at the hands of the FBI. [New York Times, 5/1/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 263-264] USA Today will put their pictures on the front page, above the fold, giving the impression that the FBI has solved the bombing case with the “capture” of these two “suspected conspirators.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 193]

The San Francisco Chronicle publishes an article about the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and the lengthy spate of bombings attributed to the “Unabomber” (see May 25-26, 1978 and April 24, 1995). The first person quoted in the Chronicle article is Tom Tyler, a social psychology professor at the University of California at Berkeley. Unbeknownst to Tyler or the Chronicle, the Unabomber is Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski, a former mathematics professor at Berkeley (see April 3, 1996). Tyler, who will later say he was not at Berkeley when Kaczynski taught there, receives a letter from the Unabomber shortly after the article is published. The letter is addressed to Tyler, and identifies him as “head of the social psychology group,” the same incorrect title he was given in the Chronicle. It contains a long manuscript written by the Unabomber (see April 24, 1995) and asks him to read it. “I said in the article that the Oklahoma City bomber and the Unabomber were examples of people who had exaggerated feelings that the government was out to get them,” Tyler later recalls. “The Unabomber objected to that characterization of him.” The letter asks Tyler to read his document, which he had sent to the New York Times, the Washington Post, and three other media outlets (see September 19, 1995). Tyler responds that he welcomes Kaczynski’s suggestion that revolution “need not be violent or sudden,” says that Kaczynski is not alone in feeling discontented with today’s society, and that “it is wrong to simply say that people who are dissatisfied are in some way non-rational.” However, Tyler disagrees with his argument that industrial-technological society cannot be reformed. [Associated Press, 7/5/1995; Washington Post, 4/14/1996]

FBI Special Agent Louis Michalko is given the task of sorting through the last 15 months of sales receipts from the Mid-Kansas Cooperative grain elevator in McPherson, Kansas. FBI investigators have found a September 30, 1994 receipt from this company in the home of suspected Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and May 1, 1995), and believe that the 4,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer used in the bomb (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) were purchased from this company (see September 23, 1994, September 30, 1994, and October 18, 1994). Michalko goes to the company headquarters in Moundridge, Kansas, and sorts through 132,000 receipts. He learns that during that 15-month period, only one person, Mike Havens, paid cash for over 1,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate. Only two other customers bought more than 1,000 pounds of the fertilizer during that time period, a local experimental field and a school district, and Havens is the only one to have paid in cash. The FBI will later learn that “Mike Havens” was an alias used by Nichols to buy the fertilizer. Michalko determines that “Havens” bought some 4,000 pounds of fertilizer. Mid-Kansas employee Jerry Showalter will later testify that he took part in the September 30 sale to “Havens,” but cannot identify Nichols as the person who bought the fertilizer. Showalter will tell authorities that “Havens” told him he wanted to fertilize a field with a drill apparatus. [Chicago Tribune, 5/3/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 221-; Associated Press, 5/30/2004]

The Montana Militia calls newly elected Representative Helen Chenoweth (R-ID) the best friend militia groups have in Congress, according to a report by the New York Times. The Montana Militia’s fall 1994 catalogue sells, among other items, a bomb-making manual, tapes explaining the “one-world government” conspiracy, and a video of a speech made by Chenoweth in late 1993, in which, the catalogue claims, she told listeners over 50 percent of the United States is now under “the control of the New World Order” (see September 11, 1990). She does not use the actual term on the videotape. “We are in a day and age now when we are facing an unlawful government from time to time,” she told listeners. “We are in a battle today that is far more insidious and dangerous as far as conquering our people and our soul than we have ever faced before. Our land has been taken. It’s time we reclaim our land.” The tape is titled “America in Crisis” and is sold along with tapes like “En route to Global Occupation,” which states, “The anti-Christ is not coming—he’s here!” Chenoweth has also made claims of an impending “New World Order” takeover of the United States, and has cited as proof the UN’s designation of Yellowstone National Park as a world heritage site. (The Sierra Club will note: “In real life, the UN label means only that the site has ‘outstanding universal value.’ The regulations under which it was designated were drawn up by Ronald Reagan’s Interior Secretary, James Watt.”) Chenoweth is now under pressure to explain her contacts with militia groups, an issue that did not significantly arise during the 1994 election but was sparked by recent revelations that Representative Steve Stockman (R-TX) received faxes from militia groups in the hours after the Oklahoma City bombings (see 10:50 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 23-24, 1995). Ken Toole of the Montana Human Rights Network says, “Given what we know about the conspiratorial world view and violent tendencies that are at the core of militia beliefs, for elected officials to be supportive or even neutral does nothing but embolden these people.” In March 1995, Chenoweth issued a press release demanding that the federal government immediately stop sending “black helicopters” filled with armed federal agents to interfere with private citizens’ affairs in her state (see February 15, 1995). Chenoweth, Stockman, and other congressional members who have had militia members as campaign volunteers and have presented militia concerns to the House insist that they are doing nothing more than looking out for their constituents. [New York Times, 5/2/1995; Sierra Magazine, 5/1996]

Dan Kane, the managing editor of the Lockport, New York, Union-Sun & Journal, testifies about two letters to the editor his paper printed that were written by Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see February 11, 1992). Kane testifies before a grand jury hearing evidence of McVeigh’s involvement in the bombing. A Union-Sun & Journal employee recently told a reporter: “We have a longstanding policy; we print every letter.… We have a fair amount of that kind of mail, and it’s probably encouraged because we allow it” to be published. [Los Angeles Times, 4/27/1995]

FBI crime laboratory technicians comb through over 15,000 “entries” (items of evidence) from the Oklahoma City bombing scene (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and from material gathered from suspects Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995) and Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and May 1, 1995), eventually producing over 10,000 pages of lab notes. The prime focus at the outset is on McVeigh’s personal effects. No high-explosive materials are found on McVeigh’s jacket or boots, nor are any traces found on the blanket or cloth bag recovered from his car. However, traces of explosive compounds similar to those used in the bombing are found in the inside pockets of his jeans and on his earplugs, which he presumably used to protect his hearing from the roar of the explosion. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 222-223]

FBI agent Frederic Dexter and his colleague Jay Matthews begin the enormous task of sorting through telephone data concerning the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), working primarily out of the FBI’s Fort Riley, Kansas, command center. Over the next 15 months, they search 156 million phone records. They are joined by agents looking through some 600,000 motel registration cards from the area. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 222]

Accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 24, 1995) disavows two Houston lawyers who say they have been hired by his family to represent them. One of the lawyers, Brent Liedtke, suggests McVeigh is being manipulated by his two current defense lawyers, who have said they do not wish to continue representing McVeigh (see April 24, 1995 and April 27, 1995). Liedtke goes on to accuse prison officials of denying him and his partner, Paul Looney, access to McVeigh. In a one-page “advisement to the court,” McVeigh says Looney and Liedtke have portrayed themselves as his lawyers against his wishes. He says he met briefly with them at the Federal Correctional Institution at El Reno, Oklahoma, on April 27 and told them he did not want them on the case. “Any statements made by Messrs. Looney and Liedtke to the contrary are false and unauthorized,” McVeigh’s statement reads in part. “I do not now, nor did I ever, desire their representation in this matter.” McVeigh’s “advisement” is filed by his current lawyers, Susan Otto and John Coyle. Liedtke states that he doubts McVeigh wrote the document, saying: “I don’t think he uses words like ‘Messrs’ and like this. This is not the way he talks.” Liedtke says McVeigh’s sister Jennifer (see April 24, 1995) retained Looney. [New York Times, 5/4/1995]

Mohammed Jamal Khalifa, bin Laden’s brother-in-law, is reportedly released from a US prison on May 3, 1995, and deported to Jordan to stand trial there. He had been sentenced to death while outside Jordan, but according to Jordanian law he is allowed a retrial if he shows up in person for it. Media accounts at the time place Khalifa in Jordan, attending his retrial. For instance, according to one article published on May 15, “In San Francisco last week, American police officials quietly placed a slender, bearded man on a plane to the Middle East, where he was taken into custody by Jordanian security guards.” [US News and World Report, 5/15/1995] Another article from July 19 puts him in a Jordanian courtroom, saying, “Khalifa sobbed in relief as the verdict was pronounced….” [Agence France-Presse, 7/19/1995] However, US prison records released years later will indicate Khalifa was transferred to the custody of another unnamed US government agency on May 3 instead. He then remained in the US or in a remote US facility overseas until leaving the prison system on August 31, 1995, almost four months later. By that time, his trial in Jordan is over and he is allowed to go free there. Whether this contradiction is a clerical error or if there is some other explanation is not known. [Lance, 2006, pp. 165-166]

The search for bodies at the bombed-out Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) is called off due to the instability of the remaining structure. The bodies of Christi Rosas, Virginia Thompson, and Alvin Justes, who were all in the building’s credit union, remain buried in unstable rubble. The bodies will be recovered on May 29. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Fox News, 4/13/2005]

US President Bill Clinton issues Executive Order 12959 prohibiting US businesses from engaging in virtually all trade with Iran except for information and informational materials. Corporate criminal penalties for violations of the Iranian Transactions Regulations range up to $500,000, with individual penalties of up to $250,000 and 10 years in jail. [US Department of the Treasury. Office of Foreign Assets Control, 11/1979; US President, 5/6/1995]

Michael Fortier, a suspected participant in the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, and December 16, 1994 and After) whom the FBI believes has lied to investigators (see April 23 - May 6, 1995), unsuccessfully attempts to foil investigators by removing a cache of guns and drugs from his home. FBI personnel monitor the activities at the Fortier home, and place Fortier under court-authorized electronic surveillance of his telephone and inside his home. Soon after the wiretaps are placed, Fortier makes a number of belligerent statements to a friend, Lonnie Hubbard, in a phone call, saying if he is called to testify in any trial, he will pick his nose on camera and “flick it” at the lens. “Flick it and then kind of wipe it on the judge’s desk,” he says. He will also invite the lawyers to play a game of “pull my finger” during any such testimony, he says, between bouts of laughter. “I’m the key, I’m the key,” he tells Hubbard. “Cause you’re the key,” Hubbard replies. “The key man,” Fortier says. “That can unlock the whole mystery,” Hubbard says. “The head honcho.… I hold the key to it all.” To his brother John Fortier, he brags about the instant celebrity he will achieve, saying that he will concoct “some asinine story and get my friends to go in on it.… I found my career, ‘cause I can tell a fable.… I could tell stories all day.” To his friend Glynn Bringle, he says: “I want to wait till after the trial and do book and movie rights. I can just make up something juicy. Something that’s worth the Enquirer [a tabloid news publication], you know.” He speculates that he can sell photographs of McVeigh for $50,000, and make up to a million dollars by marketing his life story with McVeigh. “Make one cool mil,” he boasts. He tells some of his lies to a CNN reporter, in a segment that is broadcast nationwide (see May 8, 1995). Fortier’s parents, Paul and Irene Fortier, beg him to tell the truth to the federal investigators; Fortier later says the entire situation drove his father into “a nervous breakdown,” and admits lying to his father about his involvement. The FBI microphones record Fortier screaming at his mother, “Shut the f_ck up!” when she brings up the problems the family is suffering. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 240-243]

Stephen Jones. [Source: Associated Press]Attorney Stephen Jones is named by the court as the lead defender of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). He agrees to work for a taxpayer-funded rate of $125 an hour, considerably less than his usual fee. Jones, who primarily represents large oil and insurance firms, is a Republican activist who failed to unseat Senator David Boren (D-OK) in 1990 and has represented a number of unpopular clients. He is joined by another prominent defense attorney, Robert Nigh Jr., a lawyer recommended to the case by Jones before he himself was chosen to represent McVeigh. Jones discussed the request from Judge David L. Russell with, among others, Governor Frank Keating (R-OK); Jones has done legal work for Keating in the past, and wished to ensure that his representation of McVeigh would not damage Keating’s reputation. Jones eventually accepted Russell’s request; when he accepted, Russell quipped, “I hope I haven’t signed your death warrant.” Jones replied, “That makes two of us.” To the media, Jones says: “My role is as old as the Constitution. Whether I perform professionally will be determined by how I conduct myself and whether my client is satisfied.… I did not seek or request the appointment or even encourage it in any way. I have been drafted. However, I will do my duty.… I will seek, for my part, to avoid the circus atmosphere that has prevailed in certain other well-known jurisdictional proceedings, which have included the self-promotion and self-aggrandizement of some individuals. I am a small-town county-seat lawyer.… I want to set a contrast to the O. J. Simpson [a former athlete and Hollywood celebrity recently acquitted of murdering his wife and another man in a sensational court proceeding] trial, which represents much of what is wrong with the legal process,” he says, referring to what he sees as “a lot of self-aggrandizement by all the parties: the witnesses, the jury, the judge, the lawyers.” He concludes with a warning to the press: “There is a well-recognized tension between the need for a free press and a fair trial, so I hope the ladies and gentlemen of the press will understand that I will defend this case in the courts of law.” Jones is working with McVeigh’s current lawyers, John Coyle and Susan Otto, who are preparing to leave the case (see April 24, 1995 and April 27, 1995). (When the media announces Jones’s naming to the case, one of Coyle’s staffers shouts: “You watch. He will make it all about himself.”) Jones is preparing McVeigh for a grand jury, which is being seated to hear evidence against him. McVeigh turned down the offered services of two lawyers (see May 3, 1995), but is willing to accept Jones’s services. [New York Times, 5/8/1995; New York Times, 6/15/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 231; Serrano, 1998, pp. 248-249; Douglas O. Linder, 2006; TruTV, 2/2009] “There’s no doubt in my mind that Stephen Jones views this to be a horrible crime,” Tony Graham, a former federal prosecutor who has often opposed Jones in court, will comment. “That he can go ahead and represent a person accused of that is the mark of a very professional lawyer.” Enid lawyer and former mayor Norman L. Grey will say: “With Stephen, you know you have a battle on your hands. I don’t think there’s a better legal mind in the area of criminal proceedings, state or federal.” [New York Times, 6/15/1995]
Conspiracy Theories, 'Necessity' Defense - Later, Jones will recall watching news footage of the bombing at his law office in Enid, Oklahoma, and remember his old elementary school being firebombed. “I recognized it as a bombing right away,” he will say. “And the minute I heard about the day care, I thought, ‘That’s it.’ Because I remembered the babies at Waco (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). And later that night I heard about old man Snell [executed white supremacist Richard Wayne Snell—see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995] and I thought, ‘Yes, that’s relevant too.’” Author Richard A. Serrano will later write, “Even on that first evening, Jones was thinking conspiracy theories.” [Serrano, 1998, pp. 249] Though Jones is not forthcoming about the defense strategy he and McVeigh intend to deploy, legal observers speculate that they will base their defense on attempts to discredit government witnesses that the prosecution will use to build their case against McVeigh. Court observers say McVeigh is working actively with Jones on their defense. In the following days, Jones will begin interviewing people in Kansas, Oklahoma, and elsewhere, trying to undermine the credibility of the witnesses the prosecution is expected to bring into court. Jones is also expected to try to prove that the prosecutors’ evidence against McVeigh is largely circumstantial and therefore open to reasonable doubt. Observers doubt that Jones will try to use an insanity defense, because McVeigh is clearly competent to stand trial. They also doubt that Jones will try to allege that McVeigh was motivated by political opposition to the government, since innocent people, including children, were killed in the blast. No one feels that the prosecution will offer McVeigh any sort of plea deal. [New York Times, 5/11/1995] Researchers later learn that McVeigh wants Jones to present what some call a “necessity defense”—admitting to the bombing and justifying it by detailing what he considers the “crimes” of the federal government that his bombing was designed to prevent. McVeigh believes that if the jury hears about the government’s actions at Ruby Ridge, Idaho (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992), and at the Branch Davidian compound outside Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), at least some of the jurors will be sympathetic. More importantly, such a politicized trial would give McVeigh the opportunity to make his case against an overreaching federal government in the larger court of public opinion. Jones will resist presenting such a defense, in part because he believes that McVeigh has no chance of establishing, as he would be required to do to raise the defense, that the federal government put him in “imminent danger.” [Douglas O. Linder, 2006]
Third Lawyer to Join Jones, Nigh - Two weeks later, Russell will name Houston lawyer Richard Burr to join Jones and Nigh for the defense. Burr has extensive experience working with death penalty cases, and formerly directed the Capital Punishment Project of the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. “Any capital case, but particularly one of this magnitude, calls for our system of justice to perform as reliably, as fairly, and as humanely as it can,” Burr will say. “I feel honored to become a part of the defense team in Mr. McVeigh’s case.” [New York Times, 5/23/1995]

Michael Fortier, a suspected co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, March 1993, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, December 16, 1994 and After, 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, and April 19, 1995 and After), tells a CNN interviewer that neither he nor accused bomber Timothy McVeigh had any involvement in the bombing. Of McVeigh, Fortier says: “I do not believe Tim blew up any building in Oklahoma. There’s nothing for me to look back and say: ‘Yeah, that might have been. I should have seen it back then.’ There’s nothing like that.” He continues: “People cannot make a judgment on his guilt by what they read in the paper. But by what I see on TV, they have. They want his blood. In America, we believe people are innocent until proven guilty. Everyone must remember that. Whoever says, ‘Forget the judiciary system, let’s just hang him now,’ those people are not Americans. They may think they are, but they are not Americans.” Fortier refuses to speculate on the identity of the so-called “John Doe No. 2” (see April 15, 1995, 9:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, April 18, 1995, April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 29, 1995), instead continuing to defend McVeigh. “I just want to tell him to be strong. You are not alone. Right now, he might feel like there isn’t anyone on this earth who is any way supportive of him. But there is. Everyone should be supportive of him because he’s an innocent man.” Fortier is lying about his lack of knowledge of McVeigh’s involvement, and his own (see April 23 - May 6, 1995). [Washington Post, 8/9/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 243] In August 1995, Fortier will testify as to his involvement with McVeigh in the bombing plot, and will admit that McVeigh told him of his intentions to bomb the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see August 8, 1995).

US President Bill Clinton and Russian President Boris Yeltsin issue a joint statement announcing that they endorse a set of principles for negotiating the deployment of “theater missile defense” systems (TMD), designed for protection from intermediate-range ballistic missiles (IRBMs) and smaller “tactical” or “battlefield” nuclear weapons. TMD systems will not be designed and implemented in a manner that poses a serious threat to either side’s nuclear arsenals. They both agree that the 1972 ABM Treaty (see May 26, 1972) “does not apply to theater missile defense systems that may simply have a theoretical capability against some strategic missiles but which would not be militarily significant in the context of operational considerations.” They agree that “theater missile defense systems will not be deployed by the sides for use against each other,” and that “the scale of deployment—in number and geographic scope—of theater missile defense systems by either side will be consistent with theater missile defense programs confronting that side.” The two nations will develop their respective TMD systems “on a cooperative basis.” [Federation of American Scientists, 1/15/2008]

Jennifer McVeigh ( April 24, 1995), the sister of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), retains two lawyers to represent her in the event she is charged in the case. The lawyers are Joel L. Daniels and Andrew C. LoTempio, both of upstate New York, in the same area as the McVeigh family home in Pendleton, New York. Daniels has told the Buffalo News that he worries the FBI may charge Jennifer McVeigh with conspiracy. [New York Times, 5/9/1995]

Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995) is charged as a co-conspirator in connection with the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Prosecutors say that Nichols, though he did not participate directly in the bombing, played a direct and central role in carrying it out with accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). Nichols is charged in a criminal complaint that is filed under seal with the court; a lawyer involved in the case says the prosecution may be trying to keep some undisclosed details of the evidence it is providing out of the public eye for the time being. Nichols’s lawyer, public defender David Phillips, says he expects Nichols to be indicted at any time. Nichols is being held in custody in Wichita, and will likely be moved to Oklahoma City soon. Prosecutors may be pressuring Nichols to turn state’s evidence against McVeigh, and lead them to others who may have been involved in the plot, particularly the elusive “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995). Nichols insists that he had no idea McVeigh planned to bomb the Murrah Federal Building, but prosecutors believe otherwise. One witness who may testify against Nichols is his former wife, Lana Padilla. In an interview Padilla recently gave to a tabloid television show, American Journal, she said Nichols gave her a package in 1994 that contained a key to a storage locker; the locker contained thousands of dollars in gold and silver bouillon (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995). In previous interviews with reporters, Padilla had not mentioned the locker. Investigators also believe that their 12-year-old son, Joshua Nichols, may have been at the rental office in Junction City where the Ryder truck containing the bomb was rented (see April 15, 1995). Some witnesses in Herington, Kansas (see (February 20, 1995)), say they saw Joshua Nichols in town the same day that McVeigh rented the Ryder truck in Junction City; a supermarket manager recalls seeing Nichols and his son on April 17, when they rented three film videos and bought a can of peanuts. “They browsed around about 30 minutes,” the manager says. “He came up to the clerk and said he was a new customer. She asked for his driver’s license and he said he didn’t have one. She asked for his Social Security number, and he just told us a number.” [New York Times, 5/9/1995; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Fox News, 4/13/2005] Joshua Nichols tells reporters for ABC News that he was not with his father as the supermarket manager has stated. Prosecutors say Padilla put her son on a plane for their home in Las Vegas on April 17. [New York Times, 5/10/1995] Nichols is formally charged the following day (see May 10, 1995).

Federal prosecutors charge Terry Nichols, a suspected co-conspirator in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and May 9, 1995), with conspiring to carry out the bombing along with accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995). If convicted, Nichols could face the death penalty under federal anti-terrorism laws. Nichols is escorted under heavy guard into the Wichita, Kansas, federal courthouse; a woman in the crowd screams at him, “Baby killer!” Nichols is charged with being a direct participant in the “malicious damage and destruction” of a federal building, and charged with aiding and abetting the attack. Prosecutors have not yet revealed the evidence they have against him. The charges faced by McVeigh and Nichols are likely to be augmented or replaced entirely by a broader conspiracy indictment, federal officials say. Nichols’s public defender, Steven Gradert, refuses to speculate on whether the prosecutors are attempting to pressure Nichols into cooperating with their prosecution of McVeigh. “I don’t know,” Gradert says, and adds that he believes “the government is not quite sure what the theory of this case is.” Nichols is being transported to Oklahoma, where he will be incarcerated at the El Reno Federal Corrections Center, the same facility that currently houses McVeigh. Nichols’s ex-wife Lana Padilla and their son Joshua Nichols are in Oklahoma City to testify before a grand jury empaneled to hear evidence about the bombing. The FBI is also pressuring another friend of McVeigh’s and Nichols’s, Michael Fortier, to give more information (see April 23 - May 6, 1995, May 1, 1995 and May 8, 1995). Nichols has been held in the Sedgwick County, Oklahoma, jail since April 22 as a material witness to the bombing. He is accompanied by his two public defenders, Gradert and David Phillips. Gradert calls his client “scared… upset, and… nervous.” [New York Times, 5/10/1995]

FBI agents, having held Operation Bojinka plotter Abdul Hakim Murad for about a month, write a memo containing what they have learned from interrogating him. The memo contains many interesting revelations, including that Ramzi Yousef, a mastermind of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing, “wanted to return to the United States in the future to bomb the World Trade Center a second time.” However, this memo does not contain a word about the second wave of Operation Bojinka—to fly about 12 hijacked airplanes into prominent US buildings—even though Murad had recently fully confessed this plot to Philippines investigators, who claim they turned over tapes, transcripts, and reports with Murad’s confessions of the plot to the US when they handed over Murad. It has not been explained why this plot is not mentioned in the FBI’s summary of Murad’s interrogation. [Lance, 2003, pp. 280-82] If the US does not learn of the second wave plot from Murad’s interrogation, it appears the US get the same information from a different source at about the same time (see Spring 1995). After 9/11, a Philippine investigator will refer to this third plot when he says of the 9/11 attacks, “It’s Bojinka. We told the Americans everything about Bojinka. Why didn’t they pay attention?” [Washington Post, 9/23/2001] In an interview after 9/11, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed will claim that the 9/11 attacks were a refinement and resurrection of this plot. [Australian, 9/9/2002]

The Clinton administration succeeds in getting the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT—see July 1, 1968) extended indefinitely. The NPT Review and Extension Conference also calls for the successful conclusion of negotiations on the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (see June 28, 1996) by 1996. [Federation of American Scientists, 12/18/2007]

A federal grand jury in Detroit charges James Nichols (see December 22 or 23, 1988, April 21, 1995 and After, and April 25, 1995) with conspiracy to build explosives. James is the brother of Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and April 24, 1995), accused of conspiring with Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). The charges against James Nichols do not directly accuse him of conspiring with his brother and McVeigh to build the Oklahoma City bomb; the three-count indictment, brought by Assistant US Attorney Robert Cares, applies only to crimes Nichols is alleged to have committed in Michigan. It also refers to “other persons, whose names are known and unknown to jury” who joined in the conspiracy. The indictment says the conspiracy stretched from 1988 until federal agents raided Nichols’s farm on April 21, two days after the Oklahoma City bombing, and says the government has reason to believe Nichols had “prior knowledge” of the bombing. The indictment allows law enforcement authorities to keep Nichols in custody and to cancel an upcoming hearing for Nichols’s possible release. Nichols is being held pending arraignment before a federal magistrate. The indictment is based largely on testimony from Nichols’s neighbors (see April 21, 1995 and After), and is apparently similar to evidence provided in a criminal complaint filed in late April (see April 25, 1995). The indictment adds new details, such as the allegation that in 1994 he and his brother made and stored grenades at the Nichols farm, and in 1992 the brothers and McVeigh experimented with making and detonating bombs made of “readily available materials” like brake fluid. It also cites a letter McVeigh wrote James Nichols that said in part, “Keep me posted on any ‘trouble,’” a statement Cares interprets as pertaining to the bombing. [New York Times, 5/12/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 235]

An FBI affidavit filed today in Oklahoma suggests that planning for the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) began as early as September 1994, when accused bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and April 24, 1995) began buying thousands of pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and rented the first of several storage sheds in small towns in Kansas (see October 17, 1994). Nichols is accused of accumulating two tons of ammonium nitrate and, just before the bombing, purchasing an unspecified quantity of diesel fuel, another essential ingredient for the bomb. The affidavit, unsealed at a hearing for Nichols at the El Reno Federal Corrections Center outside Oklahoma City and intended to show a judge that sufficient grounds exist to charge Nichols with the bombing, provides the first look at the government’s case against Nichols and accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995). The affidavit provides a chronological timeline of events that together portray Nichols and McVeigh as Army buddies turned amateur terrorists, and suggests that Nichols may have actually led the bomb-making effort, though he did not participate in the bombing itself. Nichols’s brother James Nichols has also been indicted on charges of building bombs (see May 11, 1995). However, the indictment shows no direct involvement by James Nichols or anyone else in the bombing conspiracy. The indictment specifically offers no evidence that the as-yet unidentified “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995), suspected of accompanying McVeigh when he rented the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb (see April 15-16, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), is involved in the bombing, though authorities continue to search for him, believing him to be either a co-conspirator or a valuable witness. The affidavit states that “an explosive device of the magnitude” that wrecked the Murrah Federal Building “would have been constructed over a period of time utilizing a large quantity of bomb paraphernalia and materials.” Building such a bomb, the document says, “would necessarily have involved the efforts of more than one person,” although it does not say how many. The affidavit also reveals that five months before the bombing, Nichols left a letter that instructed McVeigh to clean out two of the storage sheds if Nichols were to unexpectedly die, told McVeigh he would be “on his own,” and said he should “go for it!” (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995). It shows that a search of Nichols’s home found numerous materials appearing to be related to the bomb, including explosive and other materials used in the bomb itself. And Nichols has admitted to having the knowledge required to make an ANFO (ammonium nitrate and fuel oil) bomb such as the one used in Oklahoma City. He said he disposed of ammonium nitrate by spreading it on his yard on April 21 after reading press accounts that the substance was one of the ingredients used in the bomb, and told investigators that the materials they found at his home were “household items.” After the 13-minute hearing, US Magistrate Ronald L. Howland orders Nichols held without bail pending a preliminary hearing scheduled for May 18. Patrick M. Ryan, the interim US Attorney for the Western District of Oklahoma, reads the charges against Nichols, and says the government will seek the death penalty. Nichols is currently represented by two federal public defenders, David Phillips and Steven Gradert, but the judge is expected to appoint another lawyer to represent Nichols on the bombing charges. [New York Times, 5/12/1995]

Authorities indict Steven Garrett Colbern on federal weapons charges in Oatman, a small mining town in northwestern Arizona. They describe Colbern as a “drifter” who is wanted on weapons charges in California. Colbern becomes of far more interest to federal authorities when he tells them he knew accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). However, authorities say they have no reason to believe Colbern was part of the bomb plot. Colbern attempted to fight off the law enforcement officials who arrested him, even attempting to pull a pistol during the brief melee, and is charged with resisting arrest as well. Investigators search his Oatman trailer and find firearms, ammunition, stolen medical supplies, and a laboratory for making methamphetamine, but no evidence linking Colbern to the bombing. Colbern tells investigators that he knew McVeigh under his alias, “Tim Tuttle” (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994 and February - July 1994), but says he knows nothing about the April 19 bombing. US Attorney Janet Napolitano says she does not want Colbern released on bail just yet. Oatman residents say Colbern came to town about four months ago, and has supported himself as a dishwasher and cook’s helper at a local restaurant. He has a degree in chemistry from UCLA and was a former research associate in DNA studies at Cedars-Sinai Research Institute in Los Angeles. Acquaintances who knew him during his youth in Oxnard, California, say he always had an interest in science and explosives. Dale Reese, who knew Colbern in a school biology club, says of Colbern: “He did talk about explosives. He was just interested in those sorts of things. He just liked making things go boom. He was very strange, very smart, kind of nerdish, kind of lonerish. I didn’t like the guy.” Authorities found a letter in McVeigh’s possession addressed to someone with the initials “S.C.,” and further investigation connected the letter with Colbern. Oatman is only 20 miles southwest of Kingman, Arizona, where McVeigh has frequently lived (see November 1991 - Summer 1992, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, October 4 - Late October, 1994, February 1995, February 17, 1995 and After, and March 31 - April 12, 1995). Restaurant owner Daryl Warren tells a reporter that he has heard Colbern express anti-government and pro-Nazi sympathies in the past, and has spoken of the Arizona Patriots, a right-wing paramilitary group (see April 22, 1995). Warren says: “I do recall on two or three occasions politics being brought up, and he would always make references to the Third Reich. I was convinced that he was not too happy with our government.” Warren also says that Colbern was out of town for two or three weeks at the time of the bombing; Lou Mauro, who employs Colbern, says Colbern told him he was going to Los Angeles to visit his ailing mother and did not return until the weekend of April 22. One of Colbern’s roommates, Preston Scott Haney, says he and Colbern were together at the time of the bombing. “They [the FBI] think he is part of the Oklahoma bombing, but he was sitting right next to me when the bomb went off,” Haney says. “And he was here the week before and the week after.” Officials in Washington say they do not believe Colbern is “John Doe No. 2,” the missing man suspected of either being part of the bombing plot or a material witness to the conspiracy (see April 20, 1995). Another of Colbern’s roommates, Dennis Malzac, is also arrested on arson charges, and is suspected of being connected to an explosion behind a house in Kingman last February (see February 1995), along with a second man suspected of being in Connecticut. [New York Times, 5/13/1995] Newsweek will describe Colbern as a “gun-toting fugitive.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 193] Days later, federal officials will clear Colbern of any involvement in the bombing. They will say that they hope Colbern can shed some light on McVeigh’s activities in the months before the bombing, and may offer him leniency on the charges he faces if he becomes a witness for the government prosecution of McVeigh. Both Colbern and McVeigh frequented gun shows in the northern Arizona area, but no witnesses have come forward to say they ever saw them together. [New York Times, 5/16/1995] Authorities believe McVeigh may have tried to recruit Colbern for his bomb plot (see November 30, 1994).

Amo Roden. [Source: Amo Roden]Reporter Peter J. Boyer publishes an article in the New Yorker depicting the almost-mesmerizing attraction the scene of the 1993 Branch Davidian massacre (see April 19, 1993) has over radical right-wingers. The site of the Branch Davidian compound, on a hill outside Waco, Texas, has been razed and burned over, but enough debris remained for Amo Bishop Roden to come to the site, fashion a crude shack from fence posts, pallets, and sheet metal, and take up residence there. Roden, the wife of former Davidian leader George Roden (see November 3, 1987 and After), says God told her to come to the site to keep the “end-time church” of Davidian leader David Koresh alive. She makes money by selling Davidian memorabilia, including T-shirts and photos. “People come by every day,” she says. “And usually it’s running around a hundred a day.” Most of the people who come to the site are tourists, she says, “but some are constitutional activists.” Boyer writes that Roden’s “constitutional activists” are “members of that portion of the American extreme fringe which believes the FBI raid on the Davidian compound exemplified a government at war with its citizens.” Boyer writes that those radical fringe members regard the Davidian compound as “a shrine,” and view April 19, the date of the Davidians’ destruction, as “a near-mystical date, warranting sober commemoration.” Last April 19, two things occurred to commemorate the date of the conflagration: the unveiling of a stone monument listing the names of the dead, and the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The man responsible for the Oklahoma City bombing, Timothy McVeigh, has himself made the pilgrimage to Waco (see March 1993). Alan Stone, a professor of psychiatry and law at Harvard, says the mistakes made by the federal government at Waco will continue to fuel right-wing paranoia and conspiracy theories until the government acknowledges its mistakes: “The further I get away from Waco, the more I feel that the government stonewalled. It would be better if the government would just say, ‘Yes, we made mistakes, and we’ve done this, this, and that, so it won’t happen again.’ And, to my knowledge, they’ve never done it.” [New Yorker, 5/15/1995; Amo Roden, 2010] Religious advocate Dean Kelley writes that Roden collects money from tourists and visitors, ostensibly for the Davidians who own the property, but according to Kelley, the Davidians never receive any of the donations. [Dean M. Kelley, 5/1995] Four years after Boyer publishes his article, a similar article, again featuring an interview with Roden, is published in the Dallas Morning News. Paulette Pechacek, who lives near the property, will say of her and her husband, “We expected it [the visits] for months afterwards, but it surprises us that people still come.” [Dallas Morning News, 6/27/1999]

FBI investigators tell a Buffalo News reporter that they have not yet decided whether Jennifer McVeigh, the sister of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), is herself a suspect or merely a witness. Previous interrogations of Jennifer McVeigh have been problematic, with agents learning that she had destroyed evidence, and her evident unwillingness to cooperate in building a case against her brother (see April 21-23, 1995). She has been released from FBI custody (see April 24, 1995), but investigators are still considering her as a possible accomplice. “The FBI believes she knew ahead of time that something big was going to happen” (see April 15, 1995), an unidentified source tells the reporter. “But whether she knew a bomb was going to be exploded in Oklahoma City… that’s an open question. She’s a ‘tweener. Is she a suspect or just a witness? Right now, I don’t think the feds know what to do with her.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 229] She has retained two lawyers from the Buffalo, New York, area to represent her in case charges are brought against her (see May 9, 1995). She will not be charged in the bombing, but she will testify in the grand jury investigation (see August 2, 1995).

The New York Times reports that Timothy McVeigh, accused of executing the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), has claimed responsibility for the bombing. The Times’s sources are two people who have spoken with McVeigh during his continuing incarceration at the Federal Correctional Institution in El Reno, Oklahoma; they spoke to Times reporter Pam Belluck in return for anonymity. McVeigh, the sources claim, told them he chose the Murrah Federal Building as a target because it housed so many government offices, and because it was more architecturally vulnerable than other federal buildings. The sources say McVeigh said he knew nothing of the day care center in the building, and was surprised to learn that children had died in the bombing. McVeigh told the sources that he was not “directly involved” with armed civilian paramilitary groups (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, November 1994, December 1994, January 1995, and April 5, 1995), though he admitted to having “relationships and acquaintances with a few people who have similar views,” primarily people he met at gun shows, the sources say. They say McVeigh acknowledges responsibility for the bombing, but does not believe he committed a crime. They say that McVeigh told them the planning for the bombing began at least nine months ago (see September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, November 5, 1994, November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995, March 1995, March 31 - April 12, 1995, April 13, 1995, April 15, 1995, and 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), and he had considered targets throughout the Midwest, from Denver to Kansas City to Texas and South Dakota. They say that McVeigh told them he had gone to the bomb site at least once (see October 20, 1994 and April 16-17, 1995) but had not gone inside the building. Federal officials say the Murrah Building was extremely vulnerable to explosive damage because of its large glass windows, its nine floors which could collapse upon one another, and because of the absence of any courtyard or plaza separating the building from the street, where a truck carrying a bomb could be parked. McVeigh’s alleged statements to the two sources suggest that those factors greatly influenced his choice of the building. The sources say that McVeigh was motivated to carry out the bombing in part because of the 1992 killing of white supremacist Randy Weaver’s wife and son during a standoff with federal agents in Ruby Ridge, Idaho (see August 31, 1992), and because of his fury over the Branch Davidian debacle outside Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). McVeigh was also driven, they say, by a more general hatred of the government, which may be fueled in part by his failure to land a well-paying job when he left the Army (see November 1991 - Summer 1992). The sources say McVeigh did not single out any one experience that triggered his desire to plan and execute the bombing. McVeigh also noted, they say, that he did not specifically target the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF), some of whose agents in Oklahoma City participated in the Davidian siege. Rather, they say, McVeigh wanted to target as many government agencies as possible in one strike. McVeigh talked about the significance of the date of the bombing, April 19; not only was it the date of the Davidian tragedy, but it was the anniversary of the battles of Lexington and Concord, where in 1775 the first shots of the American Revolution were fired. The sources provide few details of the bombing plot, and it is unclear if McVeigh divulged any such details. The sources say McVeigh did not speak much of his accused co-conspirator, Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995, and May 11, 1995), nor did he speak of others who might have been involved in the plot. They say that McVeigh did mention his acquaintance Steven Colbern (see May 12, 1995), and said that Colbern was not involved in the plotting. The sources say that while McVeigh carefully plotted the bombing itself, the escape he planned was less well thought out (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). He forgot to transfer the license plate from a Pontiac he traded (see January 1 - January 8, 1995) onto his getaway car, a Mercury Marquis (see April 13, 1995); the failure to transfer the plate caused him to be pulled over by a highway patrol officer. McVeigh told the sources he had no money with him and no back-up person to help him if he was detained. “I don’t know how to explain that gap in his planning or his organization,” one of the sources says. “The primary objective was obviously the building itself.” One of the sources adds: “He’s very anxious, obviously, because of the position he’s in. He’s anxious to see what the next step is in the process and when this will be resolved.” [New York Times, 5/16/1995]

An Army friend of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, After May 6, 1995, and May 16, 1995), Michael Fortier, tells federal authorities that he and McVeigh inspected the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City as a potential bombing target in the days before the blast (see December 16, 1994 and After). Fortier knew McVeigh from their time together at Fort Riley, Kansas (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), and says he knew of McVeigh’s plans for the bombing while the two lived in Kingman, Arizona (see May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, September 13, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, and February 17, 1995 and After). Fortier and his wife Lori decided to stop lying about their involvement with McVeigh and the bomb plot (see April 19, 1995 and After, April 23 - May 6, 1995, and May 8, 1995) and tell the truth after receiving subpoenas for their testimony before a grand jury investigating the bombing; instead of testifying under oath, Fortier opens a discussion with prosecutors about a settlement, and gives his statements about McVeigh in an initial offer of the evidence he says he can provide. They also ask the authorities about retaining a lawyer. Michael Fortier admits that a statement he signed in Kingman, Arizona, is mostly false. Fortier and his wife testify for hours about their involvement with McVeigh and their complicity in the bomb plot. Fortier is negotiating with federal prosecutors for a plea deal, and for immunity for his wife, in return for his cooperation in their prosecution of McVeigh and co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995, April 24, 1995, and May 11, 1995). Fortier says he and McVeigh drove from Arizona to the Murrah Federal Building about a week before the bombing in an apparent effort to “case” the building. Fortier denies he had any direct role in the blast, but authorities have been very interested in him since the day of the bombing. Authorities have searched his trailer in Kingman and questioned him thoroughly, though officials say they have no basis to charge him with any direct involvement in the bombing. Fortier may still be charged as an accessory to the bombing, or on other related charges. It is doubtful, people involved in the case say, that the government would give Fortier full immunity from prosecution. Fortier is the first person to directly implicate McVeigh in the bombing; until now, investigators have only a large amount of circumstantial evidence tying McVeigh to the blast. Nichols has denied any direct knowledge of the bombing, and currently is not cooperating with investigators. Some investigators believe that Fortier may be the elusive “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995), who is considered either a co-conspirator or a material witness with knowledge of the plot, though Fortier does not clearly match the description of the suspect. [New York Times, 5/19/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 244-245]

James Nichols (see April 21, 1995 and After and April 25, 1995), the brother of accused Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), is released on his own recognizance from a Michigan federal prison. Nichols has been held on charges of conspiring with his brother and accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and May 16, 1995) to make bombs in Michigan, where he owns a farm in Decker. “If released, this defendant poses a risk of flight and a danger to the community,” Assistant United States Attorney Robert Cares tells Judge Paul Borman, citing his belief that Nichols had “prior knowledge” of the bombing. Defense lawyer Robert R. Elsey says Nichols is nothing more than an ordinary farmer, and brings a number of neighbors to the proceeding to vouch for Nichols’s character. Borman rules that there is not enough evidence to hold Nichols on the charges; says that he is not a threat to the public nor a flight risk, ruling, “There is not an iota of evidence of dangerous acts towards others”; and orders Nichols released into the custody of neighbors. Nichols will wear an electronic device to monitor his movements—he is under a curfew and restricted to moving in a small group of Michigan counties—and is ordered to stay away from explosives and firearms. Nichols has been held without bail since his Decker farmhouse was raided on April 21 (see April 21, 1995 and After). He was indicted in early May (see May 9, 1995) by a grand jury on charges of conspiring with McVeigh and his brother to make, store, and detonate bombs on his farm. Nichols was never charged in direct connection with the Oklahoma City bombing; in today’s hearing, Borman focused on the Michigan charges, and refused to allow the prosecution to tie Nichols to the Oklahoma City bombing without more evidence. Government prosecutors argued that Nichols should remain in jail because of his ties to the two subjects. Cares suggested that the “bottle bombs” that Nichols has admitted setting off with his brother and McVeigh were an “experiment” that served as a prelude to the 5,000-pound truck bomb in Oklahoma. Cares told the court: “James Nichols himself engaged in rhetoric of violence. If it was just rhetoric, we wouldn’t be here today. But he and Terry Nichols and Timothy McVeigh turned those words into action.” FBI agent Patrick Wease testified that a confidential source told him that Nichols said a group called the Patriots would take over the government by force. Wease testified that Nichols told the witness the Patriots “would be involved in the killing of cops, judges, and lawyers.” Elsey will argue at an upcoming hearing that all charges against Nichols be dropped. For his part, Nichols says he harbors no resentment towards the government, and says he wants to go home and plant his soybeans. He declines reporters’ requests to discuss his brother. Of the bombing itself, Nichols says: “It’s a bad tragedy, and everyone should cooperate—and I’m cooperating fully—to get to the bottom of it.” Elsey says Nichols’s anti-government views have been exaggerated. “He just believes the government in many instances is behaving beyond the norms of the constitution, and the limitations of the constitution,” Elsey says. “His alleged animosity to the government was ill-stated by himself.” Elsey adds that Nichols made some anti-government comments during a contentious divorce. [New York Times, 5/22/1995; New York Times, 5/23/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 235-236] In August, federal prosecutors will drop charges against Nichols concerning his manufacture of explosives on his farm. [New York Times, 8/11/1995] Nichols will be given a hero’s welcome when he returns to Decker, where many consider him an unwarranted victim of government persecution and a scapegoat for a bombing conspiracy that they believe was carried out by the government itself. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 193-194]

Joseph H. Hartzler. [Source: Associated Press]The US Justice Department names Joseph H. Hartzler, an Assistant US Attorney in Springfield, Illinois, to lead its prosecution of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and May 16, 1995). Attorney General Janet Reno has moved Merrick Garland, who oversaw the initial phase of the bombing investigation, back to Washington to head the Justice Department’s criminal division. She creates what becomes known as the OKBOMB task force, a trial team focusing on continued investigation and the prosecution of McVeigh and his alleged accomplice, Terry Nichols. Reno selects Hartzler from dozens of resumes submitted by government lawyers from around the country. In the 1980s, Hartzler, who suffers from multiple sclerosis and is wheelchair-bound, helped convict four Puerto Rican nationalists accused in a bombing plot, and helped prosecute a federal judge in Chicago, in what became known as the “Greylord investigation.” He has worked as the chief of both the criminal and civil divisions in Chicago, one of the country’s largest US Attorney’s offices. Arlene Joplin, an Oklahoma City prosecutor, will remain on Hartzler’s prosecution team. Justice officials say that Hartzler was chosen because of several factors, including his background in complex criminal cases, terrorist prosecutions, and his ability to work with other government lawyers already on the case. Hartzler is asked by a criminal defense attorney not involved in the case what he thinks about it. Hartzler responds: “Whoever did this should spend some time in hell. I just want to accelerate the process.” Hartzler vows to have no press conferences, and will in fact have very few, though his team does have a few media “favorites,” most notably Jeffrey Toobin, a writer for the New Yorker and a legal analyst for ABC News who once worked with two of the OKBOMB staffers and is considered a supporter of the prosecution. [New York Times, 5/22/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 249-250] Missouri criminal defense lawyer Michael B. Metnick will later say of Hartzler: “His integrity is beyond reproach. He’s a prosecutor I can turn my back on.” Hartzler will tell a reporter that he asked for the McVeigh prosecution because “I thought I could make a difference.” [New York Times, 6/2/1997]

The Murrah Federal Building is demolished. [Source: The Oklahoman]The wrecked hulk of the Murrah Federal Building, destroyed in the Oklahoma City bombing a month ago (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), is brought down in a planned demolition. The demolition consists of 150 pounds of dynamite placed in 300 carefully selected locations, and costs the federal and state governments around $404,000. The entire demolition takes about eight seconds. Retired highway department employee Lawrence Glover says: “You can’t stand to look at something like that forever. It’s like when a family member dies and your heart is broken, but you’ve got to bury them and try to get back to the land of the living. Even when you don’t think you ever can.” Linda West of nearby Yukon says: “I had stayed away before now because I felt guilty. I felt like I was intruding somehow. Now that it’s all over, I need some sort of—it’s not closure, because there is no closure on this thing, but it’s like going to the cemetery after the funeral. I was listening to a radio talk show about how most people didn’t know why they came here, they just felt like they had to. I’m like that. I don’t know why, but I had to.” Hundreds of spectators watch the demolition in almost complete silence. Afterwards, many cry, hug one another, and slowly leave the scene. Many at the scene believe a memorial to the dead, and to the responders and rescue workers who saved so many from the rubble, should be erected on the site; others say a children’s playground or library would be fitting. Onlooker Bruce Ligon says, “It doesn’t really matter what they choose, because nobody in this town, or in this country either, is ever going to forget what happened.” [Washington Post, 5/24/1995; Fox News, 4/13/2005] Authorities had considered using cranes and wrecking balls instead of explosives to bring the building down, in concern that a second explosion, no matter how controlled, might further traumatize city residents. “The psychological ramifications were a real consideration of everyone involved in the decision,” Douglas Loizeaux, vice president of Controlled Demolition Inc, whose firm handles the demolition process, said last week. “There was a serious discussion about whether we would be traumatizing people even more by having another explosion. But by using implosion, we can bring the building down weeks sooner than by using a crane, and so the mending process can begin that much quicker.” Dusty Bowenkamp, a psychological nurse from Los Angeles who is coordinating the emergency mental health services of the American Red Cross in Oklahoma City, agreed with Loizeaux’s assessment. The building, she said last week, is “a magnet for people with grief.” She said she and her colleagues had discussed the ramifications of a second explosion, and talked with dozens of people who helped bring the dead and injured out of the rubble and others who carried blast victims into hospitals or the morgue. A few, she said, thought imploding the building was a bad idea: “it’s too much like what happened before—too much like the bomb.” The city residents were informed well in advance of the planned demolition so it would not “retrigger more fear.” The lawyer for accused bomber Timothy McVeigh, Stephen Jones (see May 8, 1995), had filed a motion to delay the demolition so he could examine the building for evidence, but that motion was denied. [New York Times, 5/16/1995; New York Times, 5/16/1995] Two days ago, a team of people hired by Jones did examine the building for clues; that team included an explosives expert, an architect, and a camera crew. Jones explained that he wanted to understand “the dynamics of the bomb” and “the physics of the explosion.… There needs to be a separate record from that of the government. There is a criminal litigation and civil litigation. All sides will need a record, and the government’s record wouldn’t necessarily be available.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 222-223] A brick wall from another damaged building stands nearby. Written on it in dark red paint is:
4-19-95.
We Search for the Truth.
We Seek Justice.
The Courts Require it.
The Victims Cry for it.
And GOD Demands it! [Serrano, 1998, pp. 174]

Robert Millar, the 69-year-old leader of the militantly religious, white supremacist community Elohim City in eastern Oklahoma (see 1973 and After), tells New York Times reporters that he and his community had nothing to do with accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995). The press has learned that some members of the Elohim City community may have devised the original Oklahoma City bomb plot (see 1983 and August 1994 - March 1995); McVeigh is suspected of having some ties with Elohim City community members (see January 23, 1993 - Early 1994, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, November 1994, December 1994, February 1995, April 5, 1995, and April 8, 1995); and some sources claim federal agents were warned about the bombing from an informant in the community (see August 1994 - March 1995). Millar insists that no one in Elohim City knew who McVeigh was until they read about him in the papers. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen him,” Millar says. “I don’t think he’s ever been in any of my audiences to the best of my knowledge. He may have gotten our telephone number from someone if he used our telephone number. And if he phoned here, nobody here has any knowledge of ever talking to him.” Newsweek has reported that McVeigh called someone in Elohim City two weeks before the bombing (see April 5, 1995). Asked by a reporter if he had heard of McVeigh, if McVeigh called or visited the community, and whether he condoned the bombing, Millar says, “No, no, no, and no.” To another reporter asking about McVeigh’s alleged visit, he replies, “I imagine that your unnamed government sources are manipulating you.” Millar served as a “spiritual advisor” to Richard Snell, who was executed the day of the bombing for murdering a state trooper and a shopkeeper in Arkansas (see 9:00 p.m. April 19, 1995). Asked if he continues to espouse the racist and anti-Semitic ideals that have marked his community for years, Millar produces a careful answer: “I think the least-gifted black person has divinely endowed intellectual and physical capabilities that the most sophisticated robot we can produce is not able to equal. So what I’m saying is, I think all of God’s creation is special and gifted and I’m not interested in denigrating or belittling or misusing any part of God’s creation. That should be a sufficient answer.” He portrays Elohim City as a small village of “less than 100 people” whose inhabitants desire to be left alone, have little money, and little need for money. The community supports itself, he says, on the labor of some of the men, who “do logging; they also haul hay for the neighbors.” District Attorney Dianne Barker Harrold tells reporters that she does not believe the community is a threat: “I have no reason to foresee any problems. They’ve been here 22 years, and there haven’t been any problems.” Millar also announces that his granddaughter Angela Millar is marrying James Ellison, the former leader of the now-defunct Covenant, Sword, and Arm of the Lord. Ellison served a prison term for racketeering, and has claimed to have been involved in the 1983 Elohim City bomb plot (see 1983). [New York Times, 5/24/1995]

The lawyer for accused Oklahoma City co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995) asks Federal Judge David L. Russell to release his client without bail. Defense lawyer Michael Tigar calls the government’s evidence against Nichols “lamentably thin,” and says Nichols’s actions, particularly in connection with accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995), were innocent and typical of a “peaceable, law-abiding person.” Tigar, along with co-counsel Ronald G. Woods, is apparently following a strategy of attempting to distance Nichols from McVeigh, claiming that Nichols and McVeigh had a “falling out” in February 1995 over plans to work gun shows and swap meets together. According to court papers filed by Tigar, Nichols had printed up his own business cards and other material for a new business trading in military equipment that had no place for McVeigh. Tigar also assails the government’s investigation, accusing FBI investigators of withholding evidence from the defense, of holding Nichols’s wife Marife (see July - December 1990) “virtually incommunicado and without counsel” for “33 days of continuous interrogation,” and of refusing to interview witnesses with information favorable to Nichols. According to Tigar’s timeline of events, Nichols, knowing little to nothing of a specific bomb plot (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994, April 19, 1993 and After, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, September 13, 1994, September 30, 1994, October 3, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 17, 1994, October 18, 1994, October 20, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, November 5, 1994, November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995, November 7, 1994, March 1995, April 13, 1995, and April 15-16, 1995), met with McVeigh on April 16 in Oklahoma City and drove him to Junction City, Kansas (see April 16-17, 1995). Prosecutors have stated that the day before, McVeigh told Nichols that “something big is going to happen,” impelling Nichols to ask if McVeigh planned on robbing a bank (see April 15, 1995). In Tigar’s timeline, this exchange never happened. Instead, Tigar’s timeline recounts a lengthy story of McVeigh calling Nichols on April 16 complaining of car trouble; McVeigh, Tigar claims, had a television set with him that belonged to Nichols’s ex-wife Lana Padilla that Nichols wanted for his home in Herington, Kansas (see (February 20, 1995)). Nichols drove to Oklahoma City to get the television set. Tigar says that the Nichols family used the television set to watch a videotape of The Lion King and two other movies on April 17. In the days before the bombing, Tigar says Nichols took his family to a restaurant, picked up new business cards and labels, and, on the day of the bombing, visited a local hardware store and a military surplus dealer to discuss selling or trading Army tools, possibly for roofing shingles, and worked around his house. Tigar says Marife Nichols has confirmed this version of events. Tigar also says that prosecution allegations that Nichols used his pickup truck on April 18 to help McVeigh load fertilizer into the rented Ryder truck McVeigh used for the bombing (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995) are false, and instead Nichols had loaned McVeigh his truck, and not accompanied McVeigh to the loading site at Geary Lake in Kansas. Tigar also says that a fuel meter owned by Nichols and believed by the prosecution to have been used to measure the bomb ingredients was broken the entire time Nichols owned it. [New York Times, 5/19/1995; New York Times, 5/25/1995] Later press reports will show that Tigar’s information about the supposed “falling out” between McVeigh and Nichols comes from Padilla. According to Padilla: “He said, ‘Tim and I are going to go our separate ways and I am going to the shows myself.’ That surprised me. They were going to go their own ways and it was because Terry was going to buy his own house and have his wife and baby come out. I don’t think that Tim could stand that. Terry also said that Tim didn’t like kids.” [New York Times, 8/6/1995] The prosecution counters with a request to hold Nichols without bail, citing evidence seized from Nichols’s home that implicates him in the bombing conspiracy (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995), and a series of letters he wrote to the IRS and other federal agencies repudiating his citizenship and asking to be exempted from paying federal taxes (see April 2, 1992 and After). Prosecutors say the letters demonstrate Nichols’s repudiation of “roots to this country and its sovereign states” and that he therefore should be denied bail. “Nichols poses a danger to the community and an unreasonable risk of flight against which no conditions of release could adequately guard,” the prosecutors argue. Russell denies Nichols bail and orders him to remain in custody. Tigar says he will appeal the ruling. Russell also orders that Nichols be allowed to sleep without lights beaming into his cell 24 hours a day, and that prison officials not allow any more mental health professionals to interview Nichols without the court’s approval. Tigar has called a visit by a previous counselor “unwanted” and intrusive. [New York Times, 6/2/1995; New York Times, 6/3/1995]

The CIA begins a program to track Islamist militants in Europe. The program is operated by local stations in Europe and CIA manager Michael Scheuer, who will go on to found the agency’s bin Laden unit in early 1996 (see February 1996). The program is primarily focused on militants who oppose the Egyptian government. It traces the support network that supplies money and recruits to them and that organizes their propaganda. US Ambassador to Egypt Edward Walker will later say that the operation involves intercepting telephone calls and opening mail. Suspects are identified in Egypt and in European cities such as Milan (see 1993 and After), Oslo, and London (see (Late 1995)). [Grey, 2007, pp. 125] The intelligence gathered as a part of this operation will be used for the CIA’s nascent rendition program (see Summer 1995).

Marife Nichols, the wife of suspected Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols, is finally released from FBI custody after being held for over a month (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). She has reassured her father-in-law Robert Nichols that she and her daughter Nicole are being treated well (see April 30, 1995), put up in an Oklahoma City hotel for the duration of her stay. Before she leaves FBI custody, she receives a Mother’s Day card signed by five female agents from the Kansas City field office. The card’s handwritten message reads in part: “We all hope the best for you. Please don’t believe that the government workers are the bad guys no matter what anyone tells you. We are here to help you. We have all fallen in love with Nicole. We all wish the best for you and your new baby. Don’t let all this latest news (see May 9, 1995, May 10, 1995, May 11, 1995, May 22, 1995, and May 25 - June 2, 1995) affect you. We are all here for you. If you ever are lonely, if you ever want to talk, if you ever want to cry, just call us. We’ll be here for you.” They pencil in a phone number and sign it “Love,” followed by their signatures. Marife will eventually return to her home country of the Philippines (see July - December 1990). [Serrano, 1998, pp. 231-232]

After Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39), issued in June 1995 (see June 21, 1995), requires key federal agencies to maintain well-exercised counterterrorist capabilities, the number of counterterrorism exercises being conducted increases significantly. According to a 1999 report by the General Accounting Office, whereas 32 counterterrorist exercises are held between June 1995 and June 1996, from June 1997 to June 1998, 116 such exercises are conducted. Some of the exercises held between June 1995 and June 1998 are “tabletop exercises,” where participants work through a scenario around a table or in a classroom and discuss how their agency might react; others are “field exercises,” where an agency’s leadership and operational units practice their skills in a realistic field setting. Four exercises during this period are “no-notice” exercises, where participants have no advance notice of the exercise. These four exercises are conducted by either the Department of Defense (DoD) or the Department of Energy. DoD leads 97 of the exercises—almost half of the total—held between June 1995 and June 1998. The Secret Service leads 46, the FBI 24, and the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) leads 16. Most of the exercises are conducted in the US and are based around the scenario of a domestic terrorist attack. Although intelligence agencies have determined that conventional explosives and firearms continue to be the weapons of choice for terrorists, the majority of exercises are based around scenarios involving weapons of mass destruction (WMD)—chemical, biological, or nuclear weapons or agents. More than two-thirds of the exercises have WMD scenarios, with the most common WMD being chemical agents, such as sarin. The other exercises have more traditional and more likely scenarios involving conventional weapons and explosives. [United States General Accounting Office, 6/25/1999 ; Washington Post, 10/2/2001]

Some of the most dire threats against Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin (see Early 1995) come from Orthodox Jews in the US. Rabbi Abraham Hecht, a leader in New York City’s rabbinacal community, says that Jewish law permits the assassination off Rabin (see January 1995) for ceding land to the Palestinians (see September 13, 1993). [Unger, 2007, pp. 139]

Nabil al-Marabh returned to Canada from Afghanistan in February 1994 using a fraudulent Saudi Arabian passport. But his request for asylum was eventually denied. He then enters the US in June 1995 and applies for asylum there. That too is denied, and he is ordered deported in 1997. But the order is not enforced and he continues to live in the US and Canada illegally until 9/11. [Canadian Broadcasting Corporation, 10/22/2001; Knight Ridder, 5/23/2003] Al-Marabh moves to Boston and gets a job as a taxi driver. He had known al-Qaeda operatives Bassam Kanj, Mohamad Kamal Elzahabi, and Raed Hijazi in training camps in Afghanistan (see Late 1980s; 1989-1994), and this group of four regathers in Boston. Kanj has been there since 1995, driving taxis at the same company that hires al-Marabh. Elzahabi moves to Boston from New York City in 1997 and also gets a job at this same taxi company. There are conflicting accounts as to who brings Raed Hijazi to Boston and why he goes there, but by the beginning of 1998 he is also working for this taxi company. [Boston Globe, 2/5/2001; New York Times, 9/18/2001; New York Times, 10/14/2001; Washington Post, 9/4/2002] Al-Marabh and Hijazi are roommates for at least two months. While they work together driving taxis, Hijazi is saving his earnings to spend on bomb plots and is working on an al-Qaeda plot to attack a US warship. That plot will develop into the attack on the USS Cole in 2000. [ABC News 7 (Chicago), 1/31/2002; Washington Post, 9/4/2002] Around the end of 1998, Kanj and Hijazi leave Boston to work on al-Qaeda plots overseas while Elzahabi leaves in 1999 to fight as a sniper in Chechnya. Al-Marabh will also leave, moving to Florida in early 1999 (see February 1999-February 2000), but he periodically returns to his Boston residence for some time, as his wife and son continue to live there. These four men will continue to help each other in various al-Qaeda plots. [Boston Globe, 2/5/2001; Boston Globe, 6/26/2004] Apparently, al-Qaeda recruiter Kamal Derwish also works at the same Boston taxi company, though the timing is not clear. He trained in Afghanistan in 1992, a time when al-Marabh was also there. He will be killed by a US missile strike in November 2002 (see November 3, 2002). [Christian Science Monitor, 5/23/2003] Even though the Boston FBI is aware long before 9/11 that at least four of the men are connected to al-Qaeda (see January 2001), the FBI will officially deny the possibility of any al-Qaeda cell in Boston until 2004 (see June 27, 2004).

The CIA proposes a policy of abducting Islamic Jihad militants and sending them to Egypt which will soon be approved by President Bill Clinton (see June 21, 1995). The Clinton administration began a policy of allowing abductions, known as “renditions,” in 1993 (see 1993). At first, renditions were rarely used because few countries wanted the suspects. Michael Scheuer, head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, is one of the architects of a 1995 agreement with Egypt to send rendered militants there. He will later recall: “It was begun in desperation.… We were turning into voyeurs. We knew where these people were, but we couldn’t capture them because we had nowhere to take them,” due to legal and diplomatic complications. The CIA realized that “we had to come up with a third party.” Egypt was the obvious choice because the Islamic Jihad is the prime political enemy of the Egyptian government, and many Islamic Jihad militants also work for al-Qaeda, an enemy of the US.
Turning a Blind Eye - However, the Egyptian secret police force, the Mukhabarat, is notorious for its torture of prisoners. As part of the program, the US helps track, capture, and transport suspects to Egypt (see Before Summer 1995) and then turns a blind eye while the Egyptians torture them. Scheuer claims the US could give the Egyptian interrogators questions they wanted put to the detainees in the morning and get answers by the evening. Because torture is illegal in the US, US officials are never present when the torture is done. Further, the CIA only abducts suspects who have already been convicted in absentia. Talaat Fouad Qassem is the first known person the CIA renders to Egypt (see September 13, 1995). But the number of renditions greatly increases in 1998, when the CIA gets a list of Islamic Jihad operatives around the world (see Late August 1998). These renditions result in a big trial in Egypt in 1999 that effectively destroys Islamic Jihad as a major force in that country (see 1999). [New Yorker, 2/8/2005]
CIA, NSC, Justice Department Lawyers Consulted - Scheuer will say that lawyers inside and outside the CIA are intensively consulted about the program: “There is a large legal department within the Central Intelligence Agency, and there is a section of the Department of Justice that is involved in legal interpretations for intelligence work, and there is a team of lawyers at the National Security Council, and on all of these things those lawyers are involved in one way or another and have signed off on the procedure. The idea that somehow this is a rogue operation that someone has dreamed up is just absurd.” [Grey, 2007, pp. 140-141]
Leadership of Program - The rendition program does not focus solely on al-Qaeda-linked extremists, and other suspected terrorists are also abducted. Scheuer will later tell Congress, “I authored it and then ran and managed it against al-Qaeda leaders and other Sunni Islamists from August 1995, until June 1999.” [US Congress, 4/17/2007 ] A dedicated Renditions Branch will be established at CIA headquarters in 1997 (see 1997), but the relationship between Scheuer and its manager is not known—it is unclear whether this manager is a subordinate, superior, or equal of Scheuer, or whether Scheuer takes on this responsibility as well. After Scheuer is fired as unit chief in May 1999 (see June 1999), his role in the rendition program will presumably be passed on to his successor, Richard Blee, who will go on to be involved in rendition after 9/11 (see Shortly After December 19, 2001). In a piece apparently about Blee, journalist Ken Silverstein will say that he “oversaw… the [Counterterrorist Center] branch that directed renditions.” [Harper's, 1/28/2007]

A 1998 CNN map of likely flights to be hijacked in one version of Operation Bojinka. [Source: CNN]A search of the Lexis-Nexus database indicates that the first media mention of the Bojinka plot to crash an airplane into CIA headquarters occurs on this day. An article in the Advertiser, an Australian newspaper, will first mention the Bojinka plots to assassinate the Pope and then blow up about a dozen airplanes over the Pacific. Then the article states, “Then the ultimate assault on the so-called ‘infidels’: a plane flown by a suicide bomber was to nose-dive and crash into the American headquarters of the CIA, creating carnage.” [Advertiser, 6/3/1995] While this first mention may be obscure from a United States point of view, the Bojinka planes as weapons plot will be mentioned in other media outlets in the years to come. In fact, in 2002 CNN correspondent David Ensor will comment about CNN coverage, “[E]veryone, all your viewers who wanted to, could have known that at one point Ramzi Yousef and some others were allegedly plotting to fly an airliner into the CIA headquarters in the United States, that, in fact, the idea of using an airliner as a weapon, that idea at least, had already been aired.…. We talked about it. We’ve done stories about it for years, frankly.” [CNN, 6/5/2002]

Stephen Jones, the lawyer for accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), is engaged in attempts to humanize his client in the public’s perception. As such, Jones gives an interview to the press where he talks about the huge volume of mail McVeigh receives every day, including letters of support and even marriage proposals. “The marriage proposals are kind of strange, but people have sent Bibles and other mementoes along with notes of support,” Jones says. “Some of these people have very anti-government views. They will write and say they believe the feds were responsible. One of the more radical said something like, ‘If you did it, right on.’ Others either wish him the worst or don’t indicate their preferences one way or another, except to say they hope he is able to get a fair trial.” Many of the letters McVeigh receives are from people who believe the government carried out the bombing; some ask if McVeigh was encouraged to carry out the bombing by government “provocateurs.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 235-236]

Michael E. Tigar. [Source: Washington Post]The New York Times profiles Michael E. Tigar, the lead defense lawyer for accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Tigar, a law professor at the University of Texas, has represented numerous unpopular defendants in previous proceedings, and like Nichols, many of those clients’ cases presented what the Times calls “unusual or complicated legal and political questions.” At the beginning of his legal career, Tigar represented leftists such as Abbie Hoffman, Angela Davis, and H. Rap Brown; during the 1969 trial of the “Chicago Seven,” Tigar, representing anti-war organizer David Dellinger, was briefly jailed for contempt of court. In later years, Tigar represented clients on the right of the political spectrum, including accused Nazi war criminal John Demjanjuk and Senator Kay Bailey Hutchison (R-TX), who had been accused of misusing her office as state treasurer. In the early 1980s, he helped win a $2.9 million judgment against Chile for the Pinochet government’s assassination in Washington of former Chilean Ambassador Orlando Letelier. Michael J. Kennedy, who has worked closely with Tigar in the past, says: “He understands that the way we measure the value of our justice system is how it treats society’s pariahs. It’s easy to treat the popular people well. But what Mike understands is that the system will be measured by how it treats those people that the government considers to be despicable.” Tigar combines a strong knowledge of legal scholarship with a folksy, disarming courtroom style, according to the Times. [New York Times, 6/9/1995]

Mururoa Atoll, the site of French nuclear testing. [Source: Daily Telegraph]French President Jacques Chirac announces that France will unilaterally resume testing of nuclear weapons, breaking an ad hoc ban on nuclear testing that has been observed by all the world’s nuclear powers for years. Chirac says that France will conduct a series of eight tests in the South Pacific between September 1995 and May 1996, and will then be poised to sign a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) in the fall of 1996. World opinion is strongly critical of France’s decision; the US government issues a statement regretting the French resumption of nuclear testing. Two months later, France will respond to the heavy criticism of its testing by curtailing its original testing program (see January 27, 1996). [Federation of American Scientists, 12/18/2007]

Law enforcement authorities call off the search for the so-called “John Doe No. 2,” believed to be another person involved in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 20, 1995). Officials say the sketch identifying the man is of an innocent person. The sketch has been “enhanced” twice to further aid in identification. [Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Indianapolis Star, 2003] Government prosecutors say that the person believed to be depicted in the sketches is Todd David Bunting, an Army private from Fort Riley, Kansas; they say that Bunting has no connections to McVeigh or the bombing. A witness has told the FBI that he saw Bunting at Elliott’s Body Shop, a truck rental agency in Junction City, Kansas, on April 17, two days before the blast, either in the company of accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995) or standing close to him while McVeigh rented the Ryder truck used in the bombing (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Authorities now believe that Bunting was at the rental shop on April 16, the day before McVeigh’s visit, or perhaps April 18, the day after. The FBI releases a statement that says in part: “That individual… resembles the sketch previously circulated as the second of two men who rented the truck on April 17 and who has been called John Doe No. 2.… [The FBI] has determined that individual who has been interviewed was not connected to the bombing.” Some investigators believe that the witness, the rental agent at the shop, became confused under pressure from investigators to recall the details of the second man he says he saw with McVeigh. [New York Times, 6/14/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; The Oklahoman, 4/2009] Bunting will later say that it is his face depicted in the composite sketches of “John Doe No. 2.” [New York Times, 12/3/1995] He closely resembles the sketch, and has a Carolina Panthers baseball cap with lightning strikes down the sides, much like the cap Doe No. 2 was said to wear. He even has a tattoo on his right arm where one witness said Doe No. 2 has a tattoo. The press learns of the Bunting identification before the FBI can hold an official press conference announcing its findings, and reporters trek to Timmonsville, South Carolina, where Bunting is attending the funeral of his mother-in-law, to interivew him; some reporters even barge into the funeral home. Bunting will later stand before cameras and reporters in a press conference held in Fort Riley, where he says he was at Elliott’s Body Shop in the company of another man, Sergeant Michael Hertig, to rent a truck and pack up his belongings to transfer to Fort Benning. He talks of the FBI’s questioning of him, and of the chill he felt when he learned he was being connected to the bombing, however tenuously. Author Richard A. Serrano will later write that after repeated humiliating press reports of false identifications of Doe No. 2 (see April 20, 1995 and May 1-2, 1995), the FBI wants the problems of Doe No. 2 to “go away… dissolve from the nation’s consciousness.” Serrano will suggest that agents deliberately found an innocent man, Bunting, who bears a strong resemblance to the sketch, and decided to use him to end the speculation. If true, the FBI’s efforts will be fruitless: the speculation will continue for years, with a Web site, “John Doe Times,” posted by an Alabama militiaman, hosting anti-government postings and criticism of the ongoing investigation. The far-right “Spotlight” newsletter will say in 1996 that federal agents had employed “dupes” to bomb the Murrah Building, and that McVeigh and Doe No. 2 were mere patsies. The newsletter will claim that Doe No. 2, a government provocateur, lives in hiding on an Indian reservation in upstate New York. Others will speculate that Doe No. 2 is white supremacist Michael Brescia (see August 1994 - March 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 8, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), who bears a close resemblance to the sketch. Brescia later pleads guilty to crimes unrelated to the bombing and will deny any involvement. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 265-266] Author Nicole Nichols, an expert in right-wing domestic terrorism unrelated to accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols, will later speculate that Doe No. 2 is actually Andreas Strassmeir, a gun aficianado and member of the militaristic Elohim City compound along with Brescia (see 1973 and After). Press reports later state that McVeigh denies any involvement by Strassmeir (see February 28 - March 4, 1997). Prosecutors will later reiterate that Bunting is “John Doe No. 2” and reiterate that he has no connection to the bombing (see January 29, 1997).

In the weeks after the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), militia leaders and other anti-government leaders testify before the Senate Judiciary Committee. The Southern Poverty Law Center will observe, “Many experts see the hearings as something of a militia victory because of the uncritical nature of the questioning.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

The constant presence of FBI agents in the small northern Arizona town of Kingman is unsettling the town’s residents. The investigators, combing through the town looking for evidence and witnesses to prove that former Kingman resident Timothy McVeigh carried out the Oklahoma City bombing (see March 1993, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, February 1995, February 17, 1995 and After, March 31 - April 12, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), contrast poorly with many of the 13,000 residents, who arm themselves well and consider themselves opponents of the federal government. Some residents were outraged when the FBI arrested Kingman’s James Rosencrans during one of its sweeps, after Rosencrans threatened agents with an assault rifle (see May 1, 1995). One resident, James Maxwell Oliphant, tells a reporter he has waited for over a decade for blue-helmeted United Nations occupational forces to kick in his door. Oliphant, a self-described “patriot” who carries a Ku Klux Klan business card, has blown off one of his arms practicing with explosives, taken in skinheads who later turned against him, and served time in prison for conspiring to rob armored cars. He sees the influx of FBI agents in Kingman as the first of a wave of assaults the US government intends to carry out against its citizenry. Many of Oliphant’s fellow residents agree with him. Another resident, who refuses to give his name, says: “This is just the first sound of the alarm. People are going to rise up. There’s going to be a war. You can hear about it on AM radio.” The New York Times writes that “since the 1970s, [Kingman] has become a haven for disillusioned Americans hoping to distance themselves from big government.” David Baker, who once sold McVeigh a car, says he rarely leaves his house now for fear that FBI agents may be lying in wait to question him. The investigators are having as much trouble with the overly garrulous residents as the uncooperative ones; one, Jack Gohn, tells larger and more expansive stories about McVeigh every day. Agents attribute Gohn’s often-fanciful recollections to his suffering with Alzheimer’s disease and his stated desire for the $2 million federal reward being offered for information. But many more residents are not forthcoming. One flea market vendor proudly admits to a reporter that he lied to FBI agents for sport: “I sold McVeigh a .44 Magnum once,” he says, adding that his name is John Smith and pausing to see whether the reporter appears to believe him. “But I didn’t tell them that. It’s none of their business.” [New York Times, 6/18/1995]

In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), President Clinton issues a classified directive on US counterterrorism policy. Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39) states that the United States should “deter, defeat and respond vigorously to all terrorist attacks on our territory and against our citizens,” and characterizes terrorism as both “a potential threat to national security as well as a criminal act.” [US President, 6/21/1995; 9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004; 9/11 Commission, 7/24/2004, pp. 101] The directive makes the State Department the “lead agency for international terrorist incidents that take place outside of US territory,” and the Justice Department, acting through the FBI, the lead agency for threats or acts of terrorism that take place in the United States. It defines “lead agencies” as “those that have the most direct role in and responsibility for implementation of US counterterrorism policy.” [US President, 6/21/1995; WorldNetDaily, 8/30/1999; US Government, 1/2001, pp. 8] Journalist and author Murray Weiss later calls the signing of PDD-39, “a defining moment, because it brought representatives from several other federal agencies, including the Federal Emergency Management Administration, the Department of Environmental Protection, and the Department of Health, into the antiterrorism program.” [Weiss, 2003, pp. 105] An April 2001 report by the Congressional Research Service will call this directive “the foundation for current US policy for combating terrorism.” [Brake, 4/19/2001, pp. 5 ]

Concerns that terrorists may obtain a nuclear, chemical, or biological weapon inspire the Clinton administration to assign new counterterrorism responsibilities within the federal government. After at least a year of interagency planning, President Clinton signs classified Presidential Decision Directive 39, US Policy on Counterterrorism. According to author Steve Coll, the directive is the “first official recognition by any American president” of the threat posed by terrorists using weapons of mass destruction. [Coll, 2004, pp. 318] “The acquisition of weapons of mass destruction by a terrorist group, through theft or manufacture, is unacceptable,” the directive declares. “There is no higher priority than preventing the acquisition of this capability or removing this capability from terrorist groups potentially opposed to the US.” PDD-39 is never fully disclosed to the public, but parts of it will be declassified in February 1997. The directive assigns specific counterterrorism responsibilities to the attorney general, the directors of the CIA and FBI, and the secretaries of state, defense, transportation, treasury, and energy. PDD-39 also assigns “Consequence Management” responsibilities to the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA). When PDD-39 is partially declassified, a paragraph reaffirming a controversial detention policy is inadvertently disclosed. The paragraph, which is marked ”(S)” for secret, claims terrorism suspects may be detained by the US anywhere in world without the consent of the home country. “If we do not receive adequate cooperation from a state that harbors a terrorist whose extradition we are seeking, we shall take appropriate measures to induce cooperation,” the directive states. “Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government, consistent with the procedures outlined in NSD-77, which shall remain in effect.” National Security Directive 77, or NSD-77, was signed by President George H. W. Bush and is entirely classified. [Presidential Decision Directive 39, 6/21/1995; White House, 6/21/1995; Associated Press, 2/5/1997; Federation of American Scientists, 9/26/2002; 9/11 Commission, 3/24/2004]

President Bill Clinton signs Presidential Decision Directive 39 (PDD-39) approving a rendition program recently proposed by the CIA (see Summer 1995). This program is the development of an earlier idea also approved by Clinton (see 1993) and comes two months after the bombing of a government building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The rendition program as approved by Clinton explicitly covers renditions of fugitives to the US to face trial: “When terrorists wanted for violation of US law are at large overseas, their return for prosecution shall be a matter of the highest priority and shall be a continuing central issue in bilateral relations with any state that harbors or assists them.” The directive does not require the foreign government’s consent: “Return of suspects by force may be effected without the cooperation of the host government.”
Third Countries - The 9/11 Commission will later point out that this directive also expressly approves transferring suspects to other countries: “If extradition procedures were unavailable or put aside, the United States could seek the local country’s assistance in a rendition, secretly putting the fugitive in a plane back to America or some third country for trial.”
Implications - In 2007, journalist Stephen Grey will comment on the policy’s implications: “In essence, the US government chose to outsource its handling of terrorists because neither Clinton nor his Republican opponents were prepared to establish a proper legal framework for the US to capture, interrogate, and imprison terrorists itself; nor to take the more direct military or diplomatic action required to eliminate the leadership of al-Qaeda in Afghanistan; nor to confront countries like Saudi Arabia or Pakistan whose policies helped encourage the growth of terrorism; nor to strengthen adequately the CIA’s own key capabilities.” [Grey, 2007, pp. 121, 123]

The CIA reports that in the last three months China has delivered missile parts to Pakistan that can be used in the M-11 missile. China has been shipping missiles to Pakistan for some time (see 1989 and 1991). [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 512]

Accused Oklahoma City bombing co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) tells a legal researcher that he does not know the man identified only as “John Doe No. 2” (see April 20, 1995 and June 14, 1995) who is suspected of being involved in the bombing, says he is not sure that accused bomber Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995) was involved in the bombing, and denies any personal involvement in the bombing or the conspiracy. He also denies being as close to McVeigh as media reports and prosecutors have asserted (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, November 1991 - Summer 1992, April 19, 1993 and After, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, November 22, 1993, (September 30, 1994), September 13, 1994, September 30, 1994, October 3, 1994, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 17, 1994, October 18, 1994, October 20, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, November 5, 1994, November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995, November 7, 1994, (February 20, 1995), March 1995, March 17, 1995, April 13, 1995, April 15-16, 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Nichols speaks to anti-government legal researcher and lecturer Karl Granse, the leader of the anti-government legal group Citizens For a Tax-Free Republic. Granse later tells a reporter that Nichols says if he were not in jail, he would be looking for “John Doe No. 2” himself. He also says he is angered that FBI investigators attempted to question his 12-year-old son (see May 9, 1995), and refused to allow him to speak to his wife, Marife, for a month after the bombing. Nichols initiated the conversation, telephoning Granse from prison, and asked for legal advice. Granse is a self-taught legal researcher and holds no legal degree. It is the first time that Nichols has spoken to an outsider about his relationship with McVeigh. Granse says he knows Nichols’s brother James (see May 22, 1995) from a lecture James Nichols attended in December 1994; investigators have found audiotapes of Granse’s lectures in James Nichols’s belongings. Granse says he has been questioned by FBI investigators regarding his relationship with the Nichols family and denies any but the most casual knowledge of the family. He says he has never met McVeigh and does not know the identity of “John Doe No. 2.” Granse says he has no intention of joining Nichols’s legal team. He has produced a video about the bombing that suggests the US government actually carried it out. [New York Times, 6/24/1995]

Stephen Jones, the lawyer for accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995), releases flattering photographs and videotapes of his client, along with McVeigh’s US Army records, saying that the public has a right to know McVeigh “as he really is.” McVeigh is a patriotic, happy young man, Jones says, and, quoting McVeigh’s military records, an “inspiration to young soldiers.” The photos and videotapes show McVeigh smiling and laughing with his lawyers. Jones has also allowed McVeigh to be interviewed by retired Colonel David Hackworth, a Newsweek columnist (see June 26, 1995, July 3, 1995) and June 26, 1995). “The public is entitled to know more about Mr. McVeigh than the government has released anonymously,” Jones says. Jones has already discussed the large amount of “supportive” mail McVeigh is receiving in prison (see June 9, 1995). Newsweek has released excerpts from Hackworth’s interview with McVeigh. Jones denies trying to influence potential jurors, saying: “If I were trying to influence potential jurors, I could say a lot more. The principal purpose behind it is to present our client to the public, to the families of the victims, to the victims who survived, as we believe he really is, to let them see something other than the 10 to 15 seconds of him walking out of the Noble County Courthouse. What I think you should draw from the record is that this is a young man who served his country honorably for four years.” Jones explains that he and McVeigh granted the interview with Hackworth because “Hack wrote him and said that he wanted to talk with my client, soldier-to-soldier.” [Associated Press, 6/26/1995; Chicago Sun-Times, 6/26/1995] The public-relations blitz is not entirely successful. Janet Walker, who lost her husband David in the blast, says: “They can’t make him innocent by putting a smile on his face, and they can’t make him guilty until they convict him. It’s nothing more than a ploy. I know that. He’ll get his in the end, if he’s guilty.” [Stickney, 1996, pp. 237-238] Jones tells reporters that McVeigh had been mistreated during his initial incarceration: telephone lines had been disconnected when he attempted to call a lawyer, and jailers had refused to give him a bulletproof vest during his “perp walk” transfer from the Noble County Courthouse (see April 21, 1995) because, Jones says, “It was like they were hoping Jack Ruby would come out.” Jones is referring to the man who shot accused Kennedy assassin Lee Harvey Oswald before Oswald could be arraigned. Noble County Undersheriff Raymond Jones strongly denies both of Jones’s claims. Jones also says that a camera set up to monitor McVeigh in his El Reno Federal Corrections Center cell, which is active 24 hours a day, is there to “engage in a kind of psychological warfare” that might “ultimately, perhaps… have an effect on [McVeigh’s] mental stability, which in turn might affect the trial.” The camera is later turned off for four hours a day, complying somewhat with Jones’s wishes. Jones also accuses prosecutors of “wiretapping” McVeigh’s conversations with his lawyers, and says that government wiretaps have been placed on his own phones, charges the prosecution denies. [Stickney, 1996, pp. 233-234, 239] Judge David L. Russell notes that Jones “slipped” Hackworth and photographer Peter Annin into the El Reno facility by pretending they were members of McVeigh’s legal team, and later asks McVeigh if he is comfortable with his lawyer conducting himself in such a manner. “Obviously, you don’t want somebody representing you that is not going to give you their all, would you agree with that?” Russell asks McVeigh. McVeigh says he is confident that Jones is representing him well, and assures Russell that he is “mentally competent” to make that determination. [Serrano, 1998, pp. 247-248]

Retired Colonel David Hackworth, a columnist for Newsweek, talks to PBS interviewer Charlie Rose about his recent interview with accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and April 21, 1995). Hackworth’s interview will result in a brief column (see July 3, 1995) and a cover story (see June 26, 1995), both of which engender tremendous controversy; critics have said that Hackworth has played into McVeigh’s lawyers’ efforts to “soften his image” (see June 26, 1995). Hackworth says that while he “expected to find a monster,” he found a normal young man, “disarming… laid back,” and a “very cool” person. “He came across as the boy that lived next door.” Hackworth says he set up the interview after sending McVeigh a copy of his book About Face, which interested McVeigh enough to have him and attorney Stephen Jones agree to the interview, McVeigh’s first after being arrested. McVeigh is “nothing like I had read in the press.” Rose asks how much of McVeigh’s presentation was “spin” to affect the press, and Hackworth says, “One hundred percent.… He knew that Newsweek talks to 20 million people, he knew that if he could project this kind of ‘boy next door’ image, it would hit the, uh, it might present a new twist on where he is coming from.… He handled himself very well.… He’s so smart that he’s capable of masterminding the operation, which a lot of people in the press said” he was too unintelligent to have done on his own. People in the Pentagon have told him, Hackworth says, that McVeigh could have been a brilliantly successful officer had he stayed in the military. Hackworth says that McVeigh refused to answer direct questions about his carrying out the bombing, instead saying, “We’re going to trial… we’re pleading not guilty.” He calls the bombing a “precise… military operation” that “wasn’t something a militia type, frothing at the mouth, could have put together.” The bombing was handled well, he says, up until McVeigh’s “bug out,” or escape: “To jump in that old car… and get stopped (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995) was a minor charge.” Asked what that says about McVeigh, Hackworth replies, “It was almost one of those odd coincidences that we saw in the Lee Harvey Oswald case [the purported assassin of President John F. Kennedy], you know, it was perfect except he’s got the wrong ammunition or something.” Hackworth reiterates his characterization in Newsweek of McVeigh suffering from a “postwar hangover,” a depression that ensued after the war ended and he lost his battlefield comrades (see November 1991 - Summer 1992); his judgment became clouded and his thinking became skewed. Hackworth says that McVeigh denies any miltia ties whatsoever, and denies ever claiming he was being held as a “prisoner of war,” as news reports have alleged. Hackworth says that McVeigh told him he was treated well by his jailers, but says that McVeigh asked why he was not given a bulletproof vest on his short walk from the Noble County Courthouse to his transport to the El Reno federal facility. Hackworth says that the blank, grim look on McVeigh’s face that has characterized him in the news is actually the “thousand-yard stare” that soldiers get when they are expecting to be shot. Hackworth says he expected to “push a button” by asking McVeigh about the Branch Davidian standoff and ultimate tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), but McVeigh was not rattled. He concludes that when he interviewed accused Iran-Contra conspirator Oliver North (see May-June, 1989), he caught North in “a hundred lies,” but he did not catch McVeigh in a single lie. Either McVeigh was telling the truth, Hackworth says, or he is a masterful liar. [PBS, 6/26/1995]

Accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995) gives an interview to Newsweek, saying he intends to plead not guilty to all charges; the interview quickly makes headlines around the country. In a cover story entitled “The Suspect Speaks,” McVeigh tells interviewer Colonel David Hackworth (see June 26, 1995) that the first he knew of the bombing was when a state trooper pulled him over driving north from Oklahoma City some 90 minutes after the blast (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). McVeigh says he was “horrified” by the deaths of 19 children in the explosion, and adds: “And you know, that was the number one focal point of the media at the time, too, obviously—the deaths of the children. It’s a very tragic thing.” He refuses to directly confirm or deny any involvement in the bombing, saying, “The only way we can really answer that is that we are going to plead not guilty.” The interviewer tells him, “But you’ve got a chance right now to say, ‘Hell no!’” McVeigh replies, “We can’t do that.” McVeigh goes into some detail about his “average childhood” (see 1987-1988); his lawyer Stephen Jones (see May 8, 1995), present for the interview, tells the interviewer that McVeigh is “the boy next door, a boy wonder.” Newsweek records McVeigh’s appearance as “a little nervous, maybe, but good humored and self-aware. Normal.” The interview is held in a conference room at the El Reno Federal Corrections Center about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City. Jones has released pictures and an audio-less videotape of McVeigh laughing and smiling while talking to his lawyers, in an apparent attempt to soften his image. Of the video, Jones says, “We want to present our client to the public as we believe he really is.” The country is most familiar with the image of McVeigh being led away from an Oklahoma County Jail in handcuffs (see April 21, 1995). Jones also emphasizes McVeigh’s solid military record (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and January - March 1991 and After). Jones placed heavy restrictions on the interview with McVeigh, and thusly little new material is given. McVeigh will not discuss any evidence that prosecutors say shows his guilt, and Jones refuses to allow McVeigh to answer questions about whether he committed the bombing. Though in May the press reported that sources had said McVeigh confessed to the bombing in prison (see May 16, 1995), Jones says: “I’m not aware of anything he said in the interview that is inconsistent with what has been reported up to this point by the New York Times and every other newspaper in the country. If you’re trying to suggest that there may have been anything inconsistent, may I respectfully suggest that you may have not read the interview carefully.” Jones later disputes one quote attributed to him of McVeigh, where Jones supposedly told the interviewer, “He’s innocent.” Jones says, “I frankly don’t remember saying that he’s innocent and I do not think that is something I would have said.” McVeigh also denies any affiliation with militia groups or attending meetings of such groups (see 1992 - 1995, January 23, 1993 - Early 1994, October 12, 1993 - January 1994, April 1994, September 12, 1994 and After, November 1994, January 1995, and April 5, 1995), and denies reports that he had called himself a “prisoner of war” and refused to state anything but his name, rank, and serial number (see April 21, 1995). He acknowledges setting off small explosions on a farm in Michigan with his accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994), but says they were little more than plastic Pepsi bottles “that burst because of air pressure,” adding, “It was like popping a paper bag.” He refuses to go into details about his political views, saying merely that he was “bothered” by the 1993 Branch Davidian debacle (see March 1993, April 19, 1993, and April 19, 1993 and After), and acknowledges visiting the site after the final raid by FBI agents. He admits to having “been through Oklahoma City,” but when asked if he and his friend Michael Fortier (see May 19, 1995) had “cased” the Murrah Federal building in the days before the attack, replies, “I think I’d rather not answer that.” He says that the government has “[m]ost definitely” made “mistakes,” but does not characterize himself as an anti-government person. [New York Times, 6/26/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 225]

Hussan al-Turabi. [Source: CNN]On June 26, 1995, there is a failed assassination attempt on Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak as he visits Ethiopia (see June 26, 1995). The CIA soon concludes Osama bin Laden authorized the operation, and they plan a retaliation attack. [US Congress, 7/24/2003] Evidence suggests that the government of Sudan and Hassan al-Turabi, Sudan’s leader, know where bin Laden is living in Sudan and helped support the plot. The United Nations Security Council places sanctions on Sudan as a result. The US examines options for attacking bin Laden and/or al-Turabi’s facilities in the Sudanese capital of Khartoum. The options developed by the US military are rejected for being unstealthy and a de facto war on Sudan. In the ensuing months, there are reports of Egyptian covert operations against bin Laden and an Egyptian military build-up on the Sudanese border. These factors influence bin Laden’s decision to move to Afghanistan in 1996 (see May 18, 1996). [Clarke, 2004, pp. 140-41] One suspect in the assassination, Anas al-Liby, moves to Britain. The British government not only refuses to extradite him to Egypt, but secretly hires him to assassinate the leader of Libya (see (Late 1995) and 1996).

The US Supreme Court adds further restrictions to the electoral district mapping procedures adopted in the 1965 Voting Rights Act (VRA—see June 29, 1989). In the case of Miller v. Johnson, the Court rules that Georgia’s majority-black 11th Congressional District is unconstitutional because race was the “predominant factor” in drawing district lines, and that Georgia “subordinated” its traditional redistricting principle to race without a compelling reason (see June 28, 1993). Race, the Court rules, can no longer be a “predominant factor” in crafting electoral districts. [American Civil Liberties Union, 2012]

The US intelligence community releases a National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) entitled “The Foreign Terrorist Threat in the United States.” Partly prompted by the World Trade Center bombing two years earlier (see February 26, 1993), it warns that radical Islamists have an enhanced ability “to operate in the United States” and that the danger of them attacking in the US will only increase over time. [Tenet, 2007, pp. 104; Shenon, 2008, pp. 314] It concludes that the most likely terrorist threat will come from emerging “transient” terrorist groupings that are more fluid and multinational than older organizations and state-sponsored surrogates. This “new terrorist phenomenon” is made up of loose affiliations of Islamist extremists violently angry at the US. Lacking strong organization, they get weapons, money, and support from an assortment of governments, factions, and individual benefactors. [9/11 Commission, 4/14/2004] The estimate warns that terrorists are intent on striking specific targets inside the US, especially landmark buildings in Washington and New York such as the White House, the Capitol, Wall Street, and the WTC. [Shenon, 2008, pp. 314] It says: “Should terrorists launch new attacks, we believe their preferred targets will be US government facilities and national symbols, financial and transportation infrastructure nodes, or public gathering places. Civil aviation remains a particularly attractive target in light of the fear and publicity that the downing of an airline would evoke and the revelations last summer of the US air transport sector’s vulnerabilities.” Osama bin Laden is not mentioned by name, but he will be in the next NIE, released in 1997 (see 1997; see also October 1989). [Associated Press, 4/16/2004; 9/11 Commission, 8/26/2004, pp. 54 ]

Two militia groups and the neo-Nazi Aryan Nations (see Early 1970s) launch simultaneous campaigns to gather information about, and conduct covert surveillance on, “opponents.” [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

Matthew Hale. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Twenty-four-year-old Matthew Hale, desiring to head a “religious” rather than a political group, revives the near-moribund Church of the Creator (COTC—see 1973) in East Peoria, Illinois, where he lives with his father. The COTC was nearly obliterated by a series of crippling judgments against it in regards to a murder committed by one of its former officials (see 1994). Hale has described himself as a white supremacist from the age of 11, after, he claims, discovering that “white people had been responsible for the vast majority of progress in the world, and as such, the idea that the races were ‘equal’ to one another seemed incorrect.” He is fascinated with Nazism and the work of Adolf Hitler, and formed a neo-Nazi group called “The New Reich” at age 14. Three years ago, Hale proclaimed himself the “National Leader” of the National Socialist White Americans’ Party; as a college freshman, he founded the American White Supremacist Party (AWSP) before dissolving it and unsuccessfully attempting to form a chapter of David Duke’s National Association for the Advancement of White People (NAAWP). After abandoning his attempt to start a chapter of the NAAWP, Hale became involved with the COTC. Hale tells old COTC members that he is the “great promoter” that COTC founder Ben Klassen long promised. He enters law school in the fall; in December, he renames the group the World Church of the Creator. Hale will write of Jews: “Among ‘humans‘… there is an inborn parasite. That parasite is the Jew.” Of blacks and Asians, he will write: “Why do the n_ggers think on a lower level than we do? Because they have smaller, less developed brains. Why do Orientals think fiendishly, deviously? Because they have a different brain structure.” Of the US government, he will write, “Until the Jewish parasite is removed from the government, we Creators shall oppose all military endeavors brought in its name, for all policies emanating from [it] advance the interests of the Jews and militate against the interests of our people.” [Anti-Defamation League, 7/6/1999; Southern Poverty Law Center, 9/1999; Anti-Defamation League, 2005]

Federal investigators probing the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) link weapons stolen in a 1994 Arkansas robbery (see November 5, 1994) to one of the bombing suspects, Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995). Nichols is accused of plotting the bombing with Timothy McVeigh (see April 21, 1995 and April 24, 1995); both are suspected in the robbery. Some of the 66 rifles and shotguns, and eight handguns, stolen from Arkansas gun collector and dealer Roger Moore were found in a recent search of Nichols’s home in Herington, Kansas (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and April 24, 1995). Thirty-three weapons were found in Nichols’s home, as well as a safe-deposit key stolen in the Moore robbery. Investigators have also determined that a rare, customized Winchester Model-43 .22-caliber Horner rifle stolen from Moore was discovered in a gun shop in Kingman, Arizona, where McVeigh has lived on and off for years (see March 1993, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, September 13, 1994 and After, October 4 - Late October, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, February 1995, February 17, 1995 and After, and March 31 - April 12, 1995). The gun shop owner, Jim Fuller, says he bought the rifle from a known associate of McVeigh’s, James Rosencrans (see May 1, 1995). [New York Times, 7/3/1995]

Stephen Higgins, the former head of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF, sometimes abbreviated ATF), publishes an op-ed for the Washington Post explaining why his agency mounted a raid on the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). Higgins says he wrote the piece after watching and reading about the public reaction to the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), which many claim was triggered by the Waco debacle (see April 19, 1993). Higgins says a raft of misinformation surrounds the BATF raid on the Davidian compound, and gives his rationale for the raid.
BATF Did Not Instigate Investigation into Davidians - “[D]espite what fundraisers at the National Rifle Association would have us believe, the [B]ATF is not part of some sinister federal plot to confiscate guns from innocent people,” he writes. The agency was alerted to the Davidians’ stockpiling of weapons by reports from a local deputy sheriff, who heard from a United Parcel Services driver that a package he delivered to the Davidians contained grenade parts (see November 1992 - January 1993), and earlier deliveries included black gunpower, firearms parts, and casings. “[C]onspiracy theorists had best include the local sheriff’s office and UPS as part of the collusion,” Higgins writes. In addition, the day before the raid, the Waco Tribune-Herald began the “Sinful Messiah” series of reports on the Davidians and their leader, David Koresh (see February 27 - March 3, 1993), which detailed, Higgins writes, “the potential danger the group represented to the community as well as, somewhat ironically, the failure of local law enforcement agencies in addressing the threat. (The conspiracy now would have to include the local newspaper publisher!)”
Davidians Posed Clear Threat to Community - Higgins says that it would have been dangerous to assume that the Davidians were peaceful people who did not plan to actually use the weapons they were amassing, and repeats the claim that Koresh said in late 1992 that “the riots in Los Angeles would pale in comparison to what was going to happen in Waco” (see December 7, 1992). Higgins goes on to say that during the 51-day siege, Koresh alluded to a previous plan to blow up the dam at Lake Waco, that Koresh wanted to provoke a confrontation with the BATF, and had at one point considered opening fire on a Waco restaurant to provoke just such a conflict.
BATF Feared Mass Suicide - Higgins notes that the BATF, like the FBI, feared the possibility of “mass suicide” (see February 24-27, 1993, Around 4:00 p.m. February 28, 1993, March 5, 1993, March 7-8, 1993, March 12, 1993, (March 19, 1993), and March 23, 1993), and gives several examples of cults who have carried out just such mass suicides.
Disputes Claims that BATF Fired First Shots - Higgins disputes the claims “that the Davidians were only defending themselves when they shot and killed four [B]ATF agents and wounded numerous others” during the February 1993 raid. He notes that investigations have shown that all four BATF agents were killed by Davidian gunfire (see February 2000) and not “friendly fire,” as some have alleged, and asks, “[W]hat possible excuse could there have been for the Davidians even taking up arms—let along using them—upon learning inadvertently from a TV cameraman that ATF agents were on their way to serve warrants?” Had the Davidians allowed the BATF agents to serve their warrants, “there would have been no subsequent loss of life on either side.” He goes on to say that it was the Davidians, not the BATF, who first opened fire, as a Treasury Department report has confirmed (see Late September - October 1993). He writes that for BATF agents to have merely “driven up to the compound and politely asked to conduct a search without displaying any firearms” would have been “dangerous and potentially suicidal.”
Using Waco as an Excuse for Violence - Higgins concludes that people like Timothy McVeigh, the Oklahoma City bomber, do not decide to do violence to innocent people because of tragedies such as the Davidian incident, but “use it as an excuse for their behavior.” He notes that after the Oklahoma City bombing, someone called it a “damned good start.” He says perhaps the upcoming hearings on the Waco tragedy (see Late July 1995) might influence some of these people: “By seeing the faces of the survivors and reading their stories, maybe those who so vehemently rail against government authority in general, and government workers in particular, will come to understand better that those people they’ve been so quick to criticize have real faces and real families. They car-pool to work. They coach Little League sports. They mow their lawns. They’re the family next door that waters your plants and takes in your mail while you’re away. No one deserves to have their life placed in jeopardy simply because they work in, or happen to be passing by, a government office. And no one, not even law enforcement officers who get paid for risking their lives, deserves to be targeted by violent extremists threatening to kill them simply for doing their jobs.” For others, like radio talk show host G. Gordon Liddy, who has advised his listeners to shoot BATF agents in the head because they wear bulletproof vests (see August 26 - September 15, 1994), “I doubt there’s much hope,” Higgins writes. He says that Liddy’s excuse that he was talking strictly about self-defense doesn’t wash; some angry and unstable individuals might well take Liddy’s words literally. Higgins compares Koresh to mass murderers such as Charles Manson and David Berkowitz (“Son of Sam”), and concludes: “We can’t change the outcome of what happened at Waco, but we have a responsibility not to ignore simple fairness and compassion in our search for the truth. If there is to be another hearing on Waco, let’s hope it’s for the purpose of examining the facts and learning from the tragedy, not merely to please one more special interest group with an anti-government agenda.” [Washington Post, 7/2/1995]

Newsweek publishes a column by Colonel David Hackworth, who regularly writes on military matters for the magazine. Hackworth recently visited accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) in prison (see May 11, 1995). McVeigh and his lawyer Stephen Jones were featured in a recent issue of Newsweek as well (see June 26, 1995). Hackworth includes little of the actual words of the interview in this column, and spends most of his time giving his impression of McVeigh. He is ambivalent at best, lauding McVeigh’s military record and his ramrod-straight appearance, but speculative at best about McVeigh’s professed innocence. When he talked to McVeigh at the El Reno Federal Corrections Center, he writes, “I realized my gut feeling was right. He has what a lot of soldiers, good and bad, have: fire in the belly. When we talked about the military, a change came over him: McVeigh suddenly sat straight in his chair. The Army, he says, ‘teaches you to discover yourself. It teaches you who you are.’ I know what he means. To warriors, the military is like a religious order. It’s not a job. It’s a calling. Not too many people understand that calling or have what it takes.” Hackworth believes that after McVeigh returned from serving in Desert Storm (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990 and January - March 1991 and After), he “slipped into what’s known among vets as a postwar hangover[. I’ve] seen countless veterans, including myself, stumble home after the high-noon excitement of the killing fields, missing their battle buddies and the unique dangers and sense of purpose. Many lose themselves forever.” He notes that McVeigh voluntarily washed himself out of Special Forces training (see January - March 1991 and After), “but seemingly accepted his defeat stoically. Did his failure drive him over the edge? Maybe, but McVeigh says no: ‘It wasn’t the straw that broke anything.’ He planned to get in shape and come back. Still, something snapped.” Hackworth writes that McVeigh left the Army because of the postwar letdown and the Army’s “drawdown” of personnel (see November 1991 - Summer 1992), and was particularly troubled by his comrades leaving the service. He quotes McVeigh as saying, “You can literally love your battle buddies more than anyone else in the world.” Hackworth adds: “When they shipped out he was devastated, wondering if he’d made a mistake by staying in the military. Losing your war buddies is like losing an arm or a leg—or a loved one. McVeigh may have been crushed by the amputation.” From there, Hackworth writes, McVeigh “couldn’t adjust to civilian life,” and notes: “I’m no shrink, but I’ve seen this failure to adapt many times before. The rules change on you. You’re used to order—having a dear objective, knowing just how to get the job done. Then you’re on your own in a different world, with no structure and little exact sense of what you’re supposed to do.” None of this excuses or even explains the crimes McVeigh is accused of committing, he writes, and concludes: “The Timothy McVeigh I talked with didn’t seem like a baby killer. He was in high combat form, fully aware that his performance in the interview was almost a matter of life and death. If he’d been in combat, he’d have a medal for his coolness under fire. He might also be the most devious con man to ever come down the pike. At times McVeigh came across as the boy next door. But you might never want to let him into your house.” [Newsweek, 7/3/1995] Hackworth’s column contains much the same information he gave PBS’s Charlie Rose in a recent interview (see June 26, 1995). In a harsh critique of Hackworth’s military writing, Slate writers Charles Krohn and David Plotz will call his column on McVeigh “astonishingly sympathetic,” and will mock Hackworth’s “postwar hangover” explanation of McVeigh’s alleged bombing. [Slate, 11/28/1996] Although the interview is dated July 3, the issue of Newsweek containing it appears on June 26.

On July 4, 1995, six Western tourists are kidnapped in Kashmir, India. A Norwegian is soon found beheaded while an American manages to escape. The remaining hostages, two British, one German, and one American, are never found and are apparently killed in December 1995. The kidnapping is executed by an alias of the Pakistani militant group later known as Harkat ul-Mujahedeen. The kidnappers demand the release of a number of jailed Islamists, including Saeed Sheikh and Maulana Masood Azhar, both imprisoned in India (see November 1994-December 1999). Counterterrorism expert Rohan Gunaratna claims the leaders of the operation were trained by al-Qaeda. [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 284-285] In January 1996, a secret CIA report will say that, according to a foreign intelligence agency, Enaam Arnaout, the US director of the Benevolence International Foundation (BIF), was in Pakistan and matches the description of a man involved in the kidnapping who then left Pakistan in early October for Bosnia via the US. [Central Intelligence Agency, 1/1996] Yet despite this information, the US will take no action against Arnaout or BIF. The US will not even designate Harkat ul-Mujahedeen until over two years after the kidnapping. [Gunaratna, 2003, pp. 284-285] An airplane hijacking in 1999 will free Azhar and Sheikh (see December 24-31, 1999).

Mousa Abu Marzouk. [Source: US Department of Corrections]On July 5, 1995, high-level Hamas leader Mousa Abu Marzouk is detained at a New York City airport as he tries to enter the US. An immigration agent checks Marzouk’s name against a watch list and finds a match. Marzouk’s name had apparently been added to the watch list in recent months, so he had not been stopped on previous trips. Although not a US citizen, he had been living in the US for 14 years. Israel considers him the head of Hamas’ political wing, and he is already under indictment in Israel for at least ten attacks that killed at least 47 people. In 1994 he appeared on Lebanese television to take credit for a Hamas suicide attack in Israel, saying, “Death is a goal to every Muslim.” When he is detained in New York, he is found with an address book that the FBI says contains the names, telephone numbers, and addresses of numerous “active and violent terrorists and terrorist organizations.” More than 20 percent of the addresses are in the US. He is also carrying paperwork connecting him to charities and companies worth more than $10 million, which the FBI suspect are part of a Hamas money laundering operation in the US. On August 16, 1995, the US declares him a “Specially Designated Terrorist.” [New York Times, 7/28/1995; Emerson, 2002, pp. 86-87; Federal News Service, 6/2/2003; Wall Street Journal, 6/21/2004] In August 1995, the US announces it will extradite Marzouk to Israel rather than try him in the US. Extradition hearings proceed slowly until 1997, when Marzouk announces he will no longer fight being deported to Israel. Then Israel makes the surprise announcement that it is no longer seeking Marzouk’s extradition. They cite a fear of a highly publicized trial and the fear of retaliatory terrorist attacks. In May 1997, the US deports Marzouk to Jordan, “ending what had become an embarrassing case for both the United States and Israel.” Jordan in turn deports him to Syria, where he will live and continue to work as a top Hamas leader. At the time of his deportation, it is claimed that one reason Marzouk is being deported is because the evidence against him is weak. [New York Times, 4/4/1997; New York Times, 5/6/1997; Emerson, 2002, pp. 87-89] However, FBI agent Robert Wright will later claim that he uncovered more than enough evidence to convict Marzouk, but that higher-ups in the FBI did not want to disrupt the Hamas support network in the US, apparently in hopes that Hamas would commit enough violent attacks to disrupt peace negotiations between Israel and more moderate Palestinians (see June 2, 2003).

James Rosencrans, a former neighbor of accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995), tells reporters that McVeigh’s friend, Michael Fortier (see May 19, 1995), attempted to make him an unwitting accomplice in a robbery that investigators believe was carried out to help finance the bombing (see November 5, 1994). Rosencrans, who has had at least one incident with law enforcement authorities as a result of the investigation into the bombing (see May 1, 1995), has turned over a rare rifle from the robbery to investigators, who believe accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols gave him the rifle (see Before July 3, 1995). Rosencrans has testified before the federal grand jury hearing evidence against McVeigh and Nichols. Fortier is also cooperating with authorities in return for reduced charges. The rare rifle, a customized Winchester .22-caliber, was given to Rosencrans along with two other firearms by Fortier, who once shared a trailer home with McVeigh next door to Rosencrans in Kingman, Arizona. “I believe he was trying to stick me with the rifle,” Rosencrans says. “I feel like I’m being played. I thought he was my friend.” Rosencrans says he knows “at least six people” in Kingman who had also gotten guns from Fortier. Rosencrans calls them “normal, everyday citizens,” who are “afraid of getting sucked in.” Rosencrans tells reporters that about a month before the bombing, McVeigh called Fortier to ask if Rosencrans could drive McVeigh for “maybe five or 10 hours” to an unspecified place and drop him off. Then, Rosencrans was to go to the nearest airport and “leave the car there.” Rosencrans recalls: “I said: ‘Leave the car there? What the hell for? Why don’t I just keep it?’” Rosencrans says he refused to drive McVeigh. [New York Times, 7/6/1995] Rosencrans tells reporters he fears he is the target of “a witch hunt” by federal agents whom, he says, are eager to implicate him in the bombing conspiracy. Of his grand jury testimony, he says the investigators “grilled me for four hours and then gave me four minutes on the stand. I went down there to help these guys. They treated me like a criminal, and then they ignored me when I got there.” The agents, he says, “are up to something.” He says he has refused to name anyone else who might have obtained guns from McVeigh or Fortier, and would continue to do so. “The Feds seem to think that there are 30 or 40 people involved in this thing, but they could just be somebody who happened to know somebody,” he says. “It’s a sad day in America when everything’s guilt by association.” [New York Times, 7/7/1995]

Federal prosecutors formally notify Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995) that they intend to seek the death penalty against him in his upcoming trial. Prosecutors send a letter to McVeigh’s lead lawyer, Stephen Jones, advising that McVeigh will be indicted before August 11 with “one or more crimes potentially punishable by death.” The letter is signed by Patrick M. Ryan, the US Attorney in Oklahoma City. Government officials, including President Clinton and Attorney General Janet Reno, have said they would press for the death penalty against the person or persons responsible for the bombing (see 4:00 p.m., April 19, 1995 and April 22, 1995). The announcement ends speculation that the prosecution might take the death penalty off the table if McVeigh pleads guilty and cooperates with the investigation. While the prosecutors can seek the death penalty, only the trial jury can impose it, if it so chooses. Jones calls the decision to seek the death penalty a “charade,” saying that the decision was made by Clinton and Reno months ago. In a response to Ryan, Jones writes, “For us to reasonably believe that any type of fair review is to be conducted would require us to accept that you, as a nominee of the president for the position you hold, and the attorney general’s Capital Review Committee, appointed by Ms. Reno, would reach a decision and recommendation which overrides the president and the attorney general’s own public commitment.” Prosecutors have not yet decided whether to invoke the death penalty against McVeigh’s accused co-conspirator, Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995). Nichols’s attorney Michael Tigar says he is preparing his defense as if it will be a death-penalty case. [New York Times, 7/12/1995] Two days later, defense lawyers for Nichols inform reporters that the federal government will also seek the death penalty against Nichols. [New York Times, 7/14/1995]

Stephen Jones, the lead lawyer for accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995), says he will attempt to get McVeigh’s trial moved out of Oklahoma. McVeigh faces the death penalty if convicted of crimes related to the bombing (see July 11-13, 1995). Jones says he has in mind sites well away from Oklahoma City, including New Mexico, Oregon, Washington, West Virginia, and the city of San Francisco. “These are places where there has been way less than the usual media coverage,” Jones says. “I haven’t been contacted by a single person from any of those states, in terms of the media.” US Attorney Patrick Ryan has said McVeigh and his accused co-conspirator, Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995), could get fair trials in Oklahoma, and that to move the trial would “further victimize the victims,” whose family members would likely testify during the sentencing phase of the trials if either or both are convicted. Jones says: “That is not a factor used in measuring where trials are held.… We have three criteria. The contents of what has been carried in the media in those states, the facilities to hold trials, and whether there was a nearby federal prison that could accommodate security concerns.… I definitely think we should not be in Oklahoma.” [New York Times, 7/18/1995]

Attorney General Janet Reno, who signed the 1995 Procedures memo. [Source: US Department of Justice]The Justice Department issues the “wall” memo, a later heavily criticized memo that establishes procedures to regulate the flow of information from FBI intelligence investigations to criminal investigators and prosecutors. Such procedures already exist, but this “wall” is now formalized and extended. The memo is signed by Attorney General Janet Reno, but is based on a similar one recently issued by Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick governing the 1993 WTC bombing cases (see March 4, 1995). The wall exists to prevent defendants from successfully arguing in court that information gathered under a warrant issued under the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act (FISA) should not be used in a criminal prosecution, as the standard for obtaining a FISA warrant is considered to be lower than that for obtaining a criminal search warrant (see Early 1980s). Such arguments are usually unsuccessful, according to the Justice Department’s Office of Legal Counsel, which believes that courts are showing “great deference” to the government when such challenges are made. The procedures, which now apply to all intelligence investigations regardless of whether or not a FISA warrant has been issued, state that the FBI must consult the Justice Department’s Criminal Division, not local United States Attorneys’ offices, about intelligence investigations when it is considering starting a parallel criminal investigation, and that it must do so when there is reasonable indication of a significant federal crime. This means that FBI headquarters has veto power over whether a field office can contact a local prosecutor about an intelligence investigation. However, Criminal Division prosecutors should only be consulted and cannot control an investigation. [Office of the Attorney General, 7/19/1995; US Department of Justice, 11/2004, pp. 25-30 ] These procedures will be implemented in such a way that even greater restrictions are placed on information sharing (see (Late 1995-1997)), although a partial exception will be created for the Southern District of New York, which handles a lot of terrorism work (see August 29, 1997). The procedures will also be much criticized for the way they are implemented in the FBI (see July 1999). The increased barriers to information sharing often mean that the FBI monitors terrorists as before, but the information does not get passed to criminal investigators, so the cells carry on operating in the US and the FBI carries on monitoring them. For example, the FBI monitors a Florida-based cell that funds and recruits for jihad throughout the world for nearly a decade before it is rolled up (see (October 1993-November 2001)). Some money raised by terrorism financiers in the US goes to Bosnia, where the US has a policy of enabling covert support for the Muslim side in the civil war (see April 27, 1994). Prosecutor Andrew McCarthy will later call the wall a “rudimentary blunder,” and say that it “was not only a deliberate and unnecessary impediment to information sharing; it bred a culture of intelligence dysfunction.” [National Review, 4/13/2004] John Ashcroft, Attorney General in the Bush Administration (see April 13, 2004), will say that “Government buttressed this ‘wall’,” and will call it the “single greatest structural cause for September 11.” [9/11 Commission, 4/13/2004]

Bin Laden’s brother-in-law Mohammed Jamal Khalifa is pronounced not guilty of all charges and set free in a retrial in Jordan. Khalifa had been convicted and sentenced to death in a December 1994 Jordanian trial, but then a key witness recanted and the verdict was overturned in April 1995 (see Early April 1995). The US then deported him to Jordan to face retrial anyway (see April 26-May 3, 1995). [Agence France-Presse, 7/19/1995] He quickly returns to Saudi Arabia, where he has citizenship. Michael Scheuer, the first head of the CIA’s bin Laden unit, will later claim that that “day he flew back to Saudi Arabia, he was greeted by a limo and a high-ranking official of the government embraced him.” [Lance, 2006, pp. 164] One later article similarly claims, “Returning to Saudi Arabia, Khalifa was allegedly welcomed like a hero by Prince Sultan, Saudi’s second deputy premier.” [Philippine Daily Inquirer, 8/11/2000] Khalifa will go on to help found a militant group in Yemen that will take credit for the USS Cole bombing in 2000 (see 1996-1997 and After), while his Philippine front companies will continue to fund militant groups with few obstacles long after 9/11 (see 1995 and After).

Oklahoma City bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 24, 1995) refuses to give prosecutors a handwriting sample. He is transported from the El Reno Federal Corrections Center, about 25 miles west of Oklahoma City, to a courtroom in Oklahoma City, where he refuses to provide the sample. Prosecutors say the handwriting sample could be compared to a receipt for the rental of the Ryder truck used to plant the bomb (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). The courtroom, across the street from the targeted Murrah Federal Building, still has rough wooden plywood covers for many of its blown-out windows and is adorned with purple mourning ribbons. One man in the building wears a T-shirt that reads on the front, “In Memory, April 19, 1995.” The back reads, “A society that makes war against its police had better learn to make friends with its criminals.” McVeigh’s lawyer, Stephen Jones, argues that McVeigh should not have to provide a handwriting sample on the grounds that it may violate his rights against self-incrimination. Jones also says that McVeigh has written only in block letters since before joining the military in 1988 (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990), and that a handwriting sample in cursive letters would require more than a mechanical effort by his client. Prosecution assistant Sean Connelly reminds the court that the grand jury investigating the case has requested the sample, and calls it a “very routine” test. “We are not probing his mind or thought processes,” he says. “If he says he can’t spell ‘no,’ we’ll tell him N-O.” Judge David Russell finally rules that McVeigh will give the sample. “I’m going to order the defendant to comply with the subpoena of the grand jury,” he says. “I don’t see any reason to wait. The law is clear.” To McVeigh, he says, “Failure to comply could be used against you, not just in a contempt proceeding but as evidence in a trial.” When McVeigh again refuses to give the sample, Russell orders him charged with contempt of court and gives the defense five days to respond to the contempt charge. [New York Times, 7/19/1995]

Judge Martha A. Bethel, a municipal judge in western Montana, writes of her experiences with the Montana Freemen (see 1993-1994). She characterizes them as one of several “hate groups” that operate in Montana alongside the Montana Militia (see January 1, 1994 and February - March 1995) and others, and says the Freemen are little more than “terrorists.” She writes that in January 1995, a “Freeman” appeared in her court on charges related to outstanding traffic tickets. He refused to cooperate with the court proceedings, she writes, and said he was “not in any way bound by the laws of Montana.” In March, he filed legal documents asserting that Bethel had violated her oath of office. The documents, she writes, “recounted a hearing held before ‘justices’ of a ‘common law’ court, one of a number of tribunals created in Montana recently by the fringe groups that claim they have jurisdiction over our district and local courts. The ‘Ravalli County Court, Common Law Venue, Supreme Court, Country of Montana’ demanded that I dismiss the charges within 10 days or a warrant would be issued for my arrest. On the same day, the documents were filed in several other courts as well.” Subsequently, Bethel writes, she was threatened with kidnapping and trial before the “common law court,” and promised she would be sentenced for “treason.” One telephone caller told her, “Don’t come to Darby tonight for court tonight, or you won’t be leaving.” Other court officials were threatened: “[S]omeone threatened to shoot a justice of the peace in the head. A deputy county attorney was warned that his home would be burned and that he would be shot in the back. Our district judge heard threats, to his face, that he would be hanged in the city park.” An unknown person followed Bethel home after one night court session, and shortly thereafter someone called her to tell her that the Freemen knew where she lived. Bethel has received dozens of threatening phone calls as well as calls “from concerned citizens warning me of what they heard would happen to me or my home.” Callers have threatened to “riddle [her] home with gunfire.” She has received instructions from the police on how to hide from armed assailants, and once was advised to leave the county after police learned of a planned attack on her house. Recently, a federal law enforcement agency informed her that a contract for her murder had been issued, probably by someone involved with the Freemen. Bethel has twice sent her three pre-teenaged children to live with their father for a week to keep them safe. She says she and many of her fellow court officials and citizens “share a sinking feeling of helplessness” that little is being done to address the situation (see April 1995). “I used to enjoy hearing the deer, bears, and other animals move about at night without a second thought, other than expressing thanks for the beautiful place in which I live,” Bethel writes. “Now, when I hear deer giving their warning calls, or when I hear animals moving through the brush in the woods, I worry if an intruder is frightening them.” She concludes: “This has been a living nightmare. As judges, we all expect to deal with disgruntled people who refuse to take responsibility for their actions. But who in their right mind would choose to serve their community when the community becomes defenseless in the face of such terrorism?” [New York Times, 7/20/1995]

David Satcher, director of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, provides Senator Donald Riegel (D-MI) with a complete list of all biological materials that the Center supplied Iraq between October 1, 1984 and October 13, 1993. At the time of these deliveries, Iraq claimed that the samples were being used for legitimate medical research. [Center for Disease Control, 6/21/1995; Business Week, 9/20/2002; Associated Press, 12/21/2002]

Kiri Jewell and her father David Jewell, in an undated photo. [Source: Life]A 14-year-old girl, Kiri Jewell, testifies to Congress about her experiences as a youthful member of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas. Jewell, who left the compound months before the conflagration that destroyed it and burned scores of her former fellow Davidians to death (see April 19, 1993), testifies that since age 10, leader David Koresh forced her to have sex with him. One of the reasons for the Congressional hearings, according to the Waco Herald, is to diminish the aura of martyrdom and celebrity Koresh enjoys among some Americans, particularly those on the radical right (see May 15, 1995). Jewell’s testimony is intended to demonstate that, as the Herald writes, Koresh “used the sect as a cover for rape.” Jewell is accompanied by her father; her mother Sherri died in the flames. She says she was five when her mother took her to Waco to join the Davidians. Koresh was obsessed with two things, she testifies: the Biblical Apocalypse and sex. “David was planning to lead the group to Israel to re-take Jerusalem,” she says. “He taught that there would be a big battle between the forces of the world and his people.” She recounts stories of Koresh using a wooden stick to “discipline” children. “It was called Kelper,” she recalls. She and her mother slept with Koresh in the same bed, she testifies, and says she has a childhood friend who at age 14 “ha[d] a baby for David.” She began being sexually abused by Koresh at age 10, she recounts, and recalls her first encounter. “He kissed me. I just sat there, but he then laid me down” on a bed, she testifies. After their encounter ended, he had her take a shower and then read from the Bible. She recalls, “He sat on the bed and read the Song of Solomon.” He later told her: “King David from the Bible would sleep with young virgins to keep him warm.… I had known this would happen sometime, so I just laid there and stared at the ceiling. I was 10 when this happened.” [Waco Tribune-Herald, 3/3/1993; Waco Leader, 7/21/1995] Jewell’s father David won a custody case in Michigan in 1992, and local authorities forced Koresh to relinquish the girl to her father’s custody (see February 27 - March 3, 1993). In 2003, Kiri Jewell will recall learning how to use a pistol to commit suicide from Koresh. “You didn’t want to stick the gun to your temple because you might live,” she will recall. “You wanted to stick it in your mouth and point up. He never was very specific but at some point, we were gonna have to die for him. I didn’t expect to live past 12.” [Western Mail, 4/18/2003]

Two Congressional subcommittees begin 10 days of joint hearings in an attempt to provide “a full accounting” of what happened at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993). [Fort Worth Star-Telegram, 7/21/2000] The hearings conclude that the Davidians, and not federal officials, caused the fires that swept through the compound and killed almost 80 Davidians (see August 4, 1995).

Diplomats at the US embassy in Egypt are not informed of the CIA’s rendition program. At this time the program is primarily aimed at locating enemies of the Egyptian regime and bringing them back to Egypt, where they are tortured (see Summer 1995 and Before Summer 1995). The only exception to this is US ambassador to Egypt Edward Walker, who is read into the CIA program although he is actually a State Department employee. One of the diplomats’ jobs is to report on Egypt’s extremely poor human rights record, including its torture methods. Walker will later comment, “It wasn’t a question of mincing words… I think the human rights reports were correct.” He will add that there are Chinese walls at the embassy to keep the CIA program secret from the diplomats: “The walls were huge and they only come together at the ambassador level… [The diplomats working on human rights] might have been a little upset if they knew what was going on.” [Grey, 2007, pp. 126]

Timothy McVeigh’s sister Jennifer McVeigh testifies before the federal grand jury investigating the Oklahoma City bombing. Her brother is charged with bombing the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 24, 1995, and July 11-13, 1995). Her testimony clears her of any suspicion that she may have been involved in the conspiracy to bomb the building. “She’s not a target,” says her attorney, Joel Daniels. Jennifer McVeigh’s testimony is not made public. She has previously told the FBI that her brother told her he almost died in 1994 while driving a car loaded with explosives (see December 18, 1994). She has said that her brother asked her to take two $100 bills to a bank and exchange them for smaller amounts so he could get rid of money stolen in a bank robbery (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). Prosecutors were expected to ask her about her brother’s expressed hatred toward the federal government (see Mid-December 1994) and about the contents of 20 letters he sent her, including one where he warned her about possible law enforcement surveillance. Some of the letters expressed McVeigh’s disgust and frustration with the handling of the 1993 Branch Davidian standoff (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). After she completes her testimony and the grand jury declines to indict her, prosecutors give Jennifer McVeigh a grant of immunity for her testimony in her brother’s upcoming trial. [Washington Post, 8/3/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 242; Fox News, 4/13/2005] Witnesses in the court building say that when she leaves the grand jury chambers, she is in tears; court officers prevent reporters from attempting to question her as she runs into a restroom. Federal investigators have described her as polite but not forthcoming in previous interrogations. [New York Times, 8/4/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 242]

The House of Representatives concludes a 10-day series of hearings on the series of events that concluded with the fiery deaths of scores of Branch Davidian members near Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993 and Late July 1995). The hearings do not find evidence of a White House-driven conspiracy to either destroy the Davidians or cover up the truth of the matter, as some Republican House members had predicted. An Orlando Sentinel article says that many of the questions from those House Republicans “seemed fueled more by politics than any true desire to ensure that the government avoid future fiascos a la Waco.” The hearings determined that President Clinton did not micro-manage the events of the siege and ultimate assault, nor did they find evidence that Clinton ordered the assault to prove, as some House members alleged, that his administration is “tough on crime.” Committee co-chair Bill McCollum (R-FL) acknowledged at the end of the hearings that the raid, siege, and final conflagration were caused by a string of blunders by federal law enforcement agencies. Attorney General Janet Reno testified as to why the FBI’s final assault seemed at the time to be the best approach; her overriding concern was to remove Davidian leader David Koresh without harming the children inside the compound. A Davidian who survived the fire testified that the fires that devastated the compound were started under orders from Koresh. [Orlando Sentinel, 8/4/1995] In emotional testimony before the House, former Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF) agent Robert Rodriguez, who served as an informant for the BATF inside the Davidian compound, said he was angered and dismayed by his superiors’ decision to raid the compound even though the Davidians knew they were coming (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993). Rodriguez testified that two of his then-superiors, Philip Chojnacki and Charles Sarabyn, lied to the committee when they said they did not know that the Davidians had been alerted to the February raid. Chojnacki and Sarabyn were fired for their mismanagement of the BATF raid and for covering up evidence of their malfeasance (see Late September - October 1993), but were subsequently rehired (see December 23, 1994). Rodriguez said: “Two years I’ve waited for this.… It let me get everything out.” The events of that raid and the subsequent actions, he said, were “tearing me up inside.” [Chicago Tribune, 7/25/1995] In 1999, the FBI will admit to lobbing two pyrotechnic grenades into the compound during the April assault, though the bureau will deny that the grenades started the fires (see August 25, 1999 and After).

The Croatian military launches Operation Storm, a massive assault aimed at seizing Krajina, a Serb-populated region located within Croatia’s borders that, a year and a half earlier, had declared itself an independent state. As the Croatian force of 200,000 approaches the city of Knin, Krajina’s 40,000-strong army quickly retreats. Over the next two days, the Croatian army fires some 3,000 shells on Knin. According to two senior Canadian military officers who are present during the attack, the shelling is indiscriminate and targets civilians. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998; New York Times, 3/21/1999; International Review of the Red Cross, 12/31/2000] Col. Andrew Leslie, one of the Canadians, will later say that no more than 250 shells hit military targets, leading him to believe that “the fire was deliberately directed against civilian buildings.” He will also recall seeing corpses of dead Serbians at Knin Hospital “stacked in the corridors… in piles.” [Canada National Post, 4/9/1999] The operation results in a mass exodus of as many as 150,000 Serbian residents, who flee their homes in tractors, cars, and horse-drawn carts. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998; New York Times, 3/21/1999; International Review of the Red Cross, 12/31/2000] This event will be remembered as the largest single instance of ethnic cleansing to have occurred during the Yugoslav war. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998] A 150-page report later issued by an international war crimes tribunal in The Hague, titled “The Indictment. Operation Storm, A Prima Facie Case,” finds that the Croatians were responsible for a number of atrocities. “During the course of the military offensive, the Croatian armed forces and special police committed numerous violations of international humanitarian law, including but not limited to, shelling of Knin and other cities. During, and in the 100 days following the military offensive, at least 150 Serb civilians were summarily executed, and many hundreds disappeared,” the report will say. “In a widespread and systematic manner, Croatian troops committed murder and other inhumane acts upon and against Croatian Serbs.” [New York Times, 3/21/1999] During the preceding year, Military Professionals Resources, Inc. (MPRI), a private military contractor, had been providing Croatian military officers with training—ostensibly in “Democracy Transition.” After the assault on Krajina, observers will suggest that MPRI’s team of instructors, made up of former US military generals, had actually trained the Croatians in a set of military tactics, known as “AirLand Battle 2000,” which were then used against the Serbs in Krajina. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998] A number of media accounts will even report that MPRI personnel helped plan the Croatian occupation and ethnic cleansing of the Serb-populated region. “Even the Foreign Military Training Report published by both the State Department and Department of Defense in May refers to these allegations against MPRI not entirely disparagingly,” UPI reports. [United Press International, 7/18/2002] There is also evidence that the US provided Croatian President Franjo Tudjman with a green light just a few days before the operation. [New York Review of Books, 10/22/1998] In September 1995, USAF General Charles Boyd, who was Deputy Commander in Chief European Command at the time condemns the Clinton Administration for having “watched approvingly as Muslim offensives began this spring, even though these attacks destroyed a cease-fire Washington has supported. This duplicity, so crude and obvious to all in Europe, has weakened America’s moral authority to provide any kind of effective diplomatic leadership. Worse, because of this, the impact of US actions has been to prolong the conflict while bringing it no closer to resolution.” [Foreign Affairs, 9/1995]

The differences on Bosnia policy between Madeleine Albright, Anthony Lake, and Richard Holbrooke on the one hand and the Pentagon on the other, are aired at a cabinet meeting. Albright et. al. argue for a firm commitment to military intervention. “They maintained that the stakes went far beyond the particulars in Bosnia. The issue was not one state or two, three, or none. Rather, the issue was US credibility as a world leader, its credibility in NATO, the United Nations, and at home.” Meanwhile, “the Pentagon was most concerned about avoiding a sustained military involvement, and saw in arm, train, and strike the shades of Vietnam.” Clinton comes down firmly on the side of intervention. After the meeting, Anthony Lake is dispatched to Europe to brief US allies on the new policy on Bosnia. [Daalder, 2000, pp. 106 - 110]

Stephen Jones, the attorney representing accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), says that an unidentified leg found in the rubble of the Murrah Federal Building might belong to “the real bomber.” [Indianapolis Star, 2003; Fox News, 4/13/2005] The leg and foot are clad in a combat boot. A medical examiner’s statement says in part: “This leg was clothed in a black military type boot, two socks, and an olive drab blousing strap. Anthropological analysis of this specimen reveals the individual to be light skinned, dark haired, probably less than 30 years of age, male (75 percent probability), and having an estimated height of 66 plus or minus three inches.” Examiner’s office official Ray Blackeney says that the leg was found on May 30, after the building was demolished (see 7:01 a.m. May 23, 1995). “I knew about it,” he says. “We all knew about it here at the Medical Examiner’s.” [New York Times, 8/7/1995; New York Times, 8/8/1995] Jones tells reporters: “There may be a logical explanation for the leg, but none comes to mind. There are no persons unaccounted for. It could have been a drifter nobody knows anything about. It could have been the individual that drove the vehicle used in the explosion. The third possibility is that this person was with the person driving [the vehicle].” [New York Times, 8/7/1995; Washington Post, 8/8/1995; New York Times, 8/8/1995] In late August, the examiner’s office will reveal that the leg belonged to an African-American female, contradicting portions of its earlier reporting. Frederick B. Jordan, the chief of the examiner’s office, will tell reporters, “DNA analysis by the FBI has shown conclusively that the left leg is not male but female.” Hair analysis has proven that the victim was African-American. Jones will tell reporters that the new information destroys any confidence one could have “in any of the forensic work in this case.” [New York Times, 8/31/1995] In February 1996, experts will determine that the leg belonged to a previously identified victim (see February 21, 1996 and February 24, 1996). [Fox News, 4/13/2005]

Michael Fortier, a friend of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh who participated to an extent in the planning of the bombing (see March 24, 1988 - Late 1990, March 1993, May-September 1993, February - July 1994, August 1994, September 13, 1994, October 21 or 22, 1994, December 16, 1994 and After, 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 19, 1995 and After, After May 6, 1995, and May 19, 1995), testifies to a grand jury about his involvement in the bombing plot. Fortier’s wife Lori also testifies; her attorney, Mack Martin, says: “Her testimony had nothing to do with Mr. Fortier. Her testimony had to do with other people involved in the bombing.” She has been given given a grant of immunity in return for her testimony. Michael Fortier tells the jury of his visit to the Murrah Federal Building with McVeigh to reconnoiter the building, and admits that McVeigh told him he intended to bomb the building (see December 16, 1994 and After). He has pled guilty to illegal firearms trafficking, knowledge of the bombing, and lying to federal agents (see April 19, 1995 and After and April 23 - May 6, 1995). [New York Times, 8/7/1995; Washington Post, 8/9/1995; Washington Post, 8/11/1995; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; Serrano, 1998, pp. 245; Douglas O. Linder, 2001; Fox News, 4/13/2005] McVeigh’s lawyer Stephen Jones says Michael Fortier is anything but a credible witness, and notes that Fortier has previously said in a television interview that he did not think McVeigh had any involvement in the bombing (see May 8, 1995). [Washington Post, 8/9/1995] Instead, Jones says in a court filing that the grand jury should begin looking for evidence of a “broad domestic or foreign conspiracy to bomb the Oklahoma City Federal building” by demanding intelligence reports on Iran and other avenues of investigation (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). [New York Times, 8/9/1995] Fortier’s lawyer, Michael McGuire, will say his client came forward out of guilt and remorse. “There is no expression of grief or words sufficient to describe his anguish over the responsibility he feels for knowing about the plans to bomb the Murrah building,” McGuire will say. “The defining thing that made him want to cooperate was his conscience.” Jones says, “I think any time the government has to give two [potential] co-defendants a pretty good deal, there are weaknesses in the case.” Fortier faces a maximum of 23 years in prison and fines totaling $1 million. [Washington Post, 8/11/1995] Through his lawyers, Fortier cut a deal to testify if he was assured he would not be charged as a co-conspirator in the plot, though prosecutors refused to grant him full immunity. Some observers have speculated that Fortier may have agreed to cooperate if prosecutors granted his wife immunity [New York Times, 6/21/1995; New York Times, 8/7/1995] , a deal later confirmed by reporters. [New York Times, 8/8/1995] Lori Fortier tells grand jurors about witnessing McVeigh conduct a demonstration using soup cans on her kitchen floor that illustrated the effects of a massive bombing (see (February 1994)). McVeigh, she says, arranged soup cans to simulate the pattern he could make with barrels of explosives. McVeigh placed the soup cans in a triangle, she says, to direct the force of an explosion at a desired target, with two of the three points of the triangle flush against the side of the truck to maximize the damage. Michael Fortier did not witness the demonstration, she testifies. She also says that McVeigh once drew a diagram that showed how to blow up a building. [New York Times, 9/4/1995; Serrano, 1998, pp. 91] Both the Fortiers will repeat their testimony in McVeigh’s trial (see May 12-13, 1997).

A federal grand jury indicts Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) on 11 counts of murder and conspiracy. Neither McVeigh nor Nichols are present during the hearing. The grand jury is only empowered to bring federal charges; the eight murder charges are in regards to the eight federal agents slain in the bombing: Secret Service agents Mickey Maroney, Donald Leonard, Alan Whicher, and Cynthia Campbell-Brown; DEA agent Kenneth McCullough; Customs Service agents Paul Ice and Claude Madearis; and Paul Broxterman, an agent in the Office of the Inspector General at the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Both Nichols and McVeigh are expected to face 160 counts of murder brought by the state of Oklahoma; both will plead not guilty to all counts of the indictment (see August 15, 1995). The indictment levels the following charges:
on September 30, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols purchased 40 50-pound bags of ammonium nitrate (2,000 pounds in total, or one ton) in McPherson, Kansas, under the alias “Mike Havens” (see September 30, 1994);
on October 1, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols stole explosives from a storage locker in Marion, Kansas (the actual date of the theft is October 3—see October 3, 1994);
on October 3-4, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols transported the stolen explosives to Kingman, Arizona, and stored them in a rented storage unit (see October 4 - Late October, 1994);
on October 18, 1994, McVeigh and Nichols bought another ton of ammonium nitrate in McPherson, Kansas, again using the “Mike Havens” alias (see October 18, 1994);
in October 1994, McVeigh and Nichols planned the robbery of a firearms dealer in Arkansas as a means to finance the bombing, and on November 5 they “caused” firearms, ammunition, coins, cash, precious metals, and other items to be stolen from gun dealer Roger Moore (see November 5, 1994);
on December 16, 1994, McVeigh drove with Michael Fortier to Oklahoma City and identified the Murrah Federal Building as the target of the upcoming bombing (see December 16, 1994 and After);
in March 1995 McVeigh obtained a driver’s license in the name of “Robert Kling,” bearing a date of birth of April 19, 1972 (see Mid-March, 1995);
on April 14, 1995, McVeigh bought a 1977 Mercury Marquis in Junction City, Kansas, called Nichols in Herington, Kansas, used the “Kling” alias to set up the rental of a Ryder truck capable of transporting 5,000 pounds of cargo, and rented a room in Junction City (see April 13, 1995);
on April 15, 1995, McVeigh put down a deposit on a rental truck under the name of “Robert Kling” (see April 15, 1995);
on April 17, 1995, McVeigh took possession of the rental truck in Junction City (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995);
on April 18, 1995, at Geary Lake State Park in Kansas, McVeigh and Nichols constructed the truck bomb using barrels filled with ammonium nitrate, fuel, and other explosives, and placed the cargo in the compartment of the Ryder truck (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995);
on April 19, 1995, McVeigh parked the truck bomb directly outside the Murrah Building during regular business hours; and
on April 19, 1995, McVeigh “caused the truck bomb to explode” (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995).
The indictment accuses McVeigh and Nichols of plotting the bombing “with others unknown to the Grand Jury.” It does not mention the person identified earlier as “John Doe No. 2” (see June 14, 1995). The grand jury says it is confident others, as yet unidentified, also participated in the plot. Lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler says: “The indictment mentions unknown co-conspirators. We will try to determine if there are others who aided and abetted this crime.” After the indictments are handed down, Attorney General Janet Reno says: “We will pursue every lead based on the evidence.… [M]ost of these leads have been pursued and exhausted.… [W]e have charged everyone involved that we have evidence of at this point.” Prosecutors say that while others may well have been involved, the plot was closely held between McVeigh and Nichols. US Attorney Patrick Ryan has already announced he will seek the death penalty against both McVeigh and Nichols (see July 11-13, 1995), a decision supported by Reno (see 4:00 p.m., April 19, 1995). A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, has pled guilty to lesser crimes regarding his involvement; Fortier has testified against McVeigh and Nichols in return for the lesser charges (see May 19, 1995 and August 8, 1995), and defense lawyers are expected to assail Fortier’s credibility during the trials (see April 19, 1995 and After, April 23 - May 6, 1995, and May 8, 1995). Nichols’s lawyer Michael Tigar says, “Terry Nichols is not guilty of the allegations of which he is charged,” calls the case against his client “flimsy” and “irresponsible,” and accuses prosecutors of attempting to try his client “in the national media.” Periodically, Tigar holds up hand-lettered signs reading, among other messages, “Terry Nichols Wasn’t There” and “A Fair Trial in a Fair Forum.” Prosecutors have dropped all charges against Nichols’s brother James Nichols, who was indicted on three related explosive charges (see December 22 or 23, 1988, April 25, 1995, and May 11, 1995). US Attorney Saul A. Green says that “additional investigation failed to corroborate some of the important evidence on which the government initially relied.” [Washington Post, 8/11/1995; New York Times, 8/11/1995; Stickney, 1996, pp. 189-191; Mickolus and Simmons, 6/1997, pp. 811; Washington Post, 12/24/1997; Serrano, 1998, pp. 245; Douglas O. Linder, 2001] McVeigh’s lawyer, Stephen Jones, tells reporters after the hearing that he has been in contact with a man who, he says, told the government early in the fall of 1994 of plans to blow up federal buildings. This man, Jones says, was given a “letter of immunity” by the authorities in exchange for information involving a trip he had taken to Kingman, Arizona, Fortier’s hometown, and for information about his discussions with potential bombers whom, Jones says, the man had described as either “Latin American or Arab.” Jones refuses to identify the person to whom he is referring. [New York Times, 8/11/1995]

On July 26, 1995, the US Senate votes for the US to defy a UN weapons embargo against Bosnia. On August 1, the House of Representatives also votes to defy the embargo. But on August 11, President Clinton vetoes the legislation. According to the Los Angeles Times, he argues that “the measure would backfire by increasing atrocities, torpedoing diplomacy and ultimately converting the complex ethnic war into ‘an American responsibility.’” [CNN, 8/5/1995; Los Angeles Times, 4/5/1996]

Accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 24, 1995, and July 11-13, 1995) and his accused co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995) plead not guilty to eight federal charges of murder and three conspiracy charges associated with the bombing. Each of the 11 counts could earn the two the death penalty if they are convicted. The two men appear separately in the Oklahoma City Federal District Courthouse. McVeigh, wearing a blue sport coat, a blue open-neck shirt, khaki trousers and polished brown shoes, and standing in a military at-ease position, tells federal magistrate Ronald Howland, “Sir, I plead not guilty.” After McVeigh is taken out, Nichols is brought into Howland’s presence; he tells the magistrate, “Your Honor, I am innocent.” [New York Times, 8/16/1995]

Norma McCorvey. [Source: Famous Why (.com)]Norma McCorvey, who under the pseudonym “Jane Roe” successfully mounted a challenge to the federal government’s ban on abortion that resulted in the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision (see January 22, 1973), has recanted her support for most abortions, according to the anti-abortion organization Operation Rescue (OR—see 1986). McCorvey has quit her job at a women’s medical clinic and joined the group, OR officials say. Her switch is apparently triggered by her recent baptism by OR leader Reverend Flip Benham. According to news reports, the organization “regards as a coup McCorvey’s defection after years as a symbol of a woman’s right to abortion.” Bill Price of Texans United for Life says, “The poster child has jumped off the poster.” McCorvey still supports the right to abortions in the first three months of pregnancy, a position fundamentally at odds with Operation Rescue doctrine. McCorvey also acknowledges that she is a lesbian and that she is uncomfortable with many aspects of conservative Christian life. [Newport News Daily Press, 8/18/1995; Newsweek, 8/21/1995]

Evidence in the case against accused Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995) indicates that McVeigh was inspired largely by two books: a well-known favorite among white supremacists, the William Pierce novel The Turner Diaries (see 1978) and a second non-fiction book, Armed and Dangerous: The Rise of the Survivalist Right, by Chicago Tribune reporter James Coates. Coates wrote the book to warn against the dangers of far-right militia groups. McVeigh also drew inspiration for the bombing from the exploits of The Order, a far-right organization that staged armored car robberies (see April 19-23, 1984), murdered progressive radio host Alan Berg (see June 18, 1984 and After), and finally ceased operations when federal authorities killed its leader, Robert Jay Mathews, in a fiery shootout (see December 8, 1984). The Coates book, checked out from a library in Kingman, Arizona, by McVeigh, was found among other evidence seized from the Kansas home of his co-conspirator, Terry Nichols (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995 and April 24, 1995). A Kingman librarian says the book has been overdue for so long that it was purged from the library’s computer database. A person closely involved in the case tells a reporter that McVeigh had cited Chapter 2 of the Coates book, which describes how The Order grew from a small collection of bumblers into a heavily armed, well-financed terrorist cadre that used the proceeds of crimes to funnel hundreds of thousands of dollars to other far-right groups and buy land, guns, vehicles, and guard dogs. As for The Turner Diaries, a person involved in the case calls it McVeigh’s “Bible.” The Order viewed the Pierce novel as required reading, and used the exploits of the white supremacists in it to inspire and guide their own criminal activities. The Oklahoma City bombing closely mirrors the bombing of FBI headquarters in the Pierce novel; in the book, white revolutionaries use a truck filled with an explosive combination of fertilizer and fuel oil to destroy the building. The book calls the FBI bombing “propaganda of the deed,” an exemplary act meant to inspire others to strike their own blows. The McVeigh and Nichols indictments cite the two books, along with a prepaid telephone card issued by The Spotlight, an anti-Semitic newspaper issued by the white supremacist Liberty Lobby (see August 1994). According to Nichols’s defense team, Nichols had withdrawn from the bomb plot in March 1995 (see March 1995 and May 25 - June 2, 1995), and McVeigh showed close friends the copy of the Coates book, directing them to read the chapter on The Order, in what they say was an attempt to solicit others to help him carry out the bomb plot. [New York Times, 8/21/1995]

Prosecutors in the Oklahoma City bombing investigation (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) consider using an obscure charge, “misprison of felony,” to force others who may have knowledge of the bombing plot to come forward. Investigators are sure that only two men, Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and August 10, 1995) and Terry Nichols (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995), are primarily responsible for the bombing. However, they suspect that a number of friends and associates of the two men may have known something of the bombing plot before it was carried out. If someone did know of the plot, and failed to warn authorities beforehand, the charge may apply. One person close to McVeigh, state witness Michael Fortier (see August 8, 1995), faces the charge. The charge brings a three-year prison sentence and a $500 fine upon conviction. One person of interest is the alleged associate of McVeigh and Nichols who they believe actually carried out a November 1994 robbery in Arkansas (see November 5, 1994); the proceeds from that robbery were used to fund the bombing. Press reports say that while the FBI believes it knows who the robber is, the bureau lacks the evidence to bring charges. The question of the unidentified severed leg found in the rubble of the destroyed Murrah Federal Building (see August 7, 1995) also indicates that others may have been involved in the bombing. And investigators say they want to know more about a small trailer hitched to the Ryder truck McVeigh used to transport the bomb to Oklahoma City (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Former federal prosecutor Robert G. McCampbell says charging friends or acquaintances of suspects with misprision of felony would be highly unusual: “It is exceedingly rare that a charge of misprision of felony would be brought, but not unheard of,” he says. “But in a case of overwhelming importance, maybe you prosecute it.” Legal experts also believe that investigators may use the threat of the charge to compel cooperation. New York defense lawyer Michael Kennedy, who has represented Mafia members, says: “When the government casts this net, they’re saying, ‘We want to get everybody who knew about this.’ Their hope, in this regard, is that people will read about this, say to themselves, ‘I knew about it, and if I don’t come forward, it will be too late for me to improve my position.’ They hope that some others will come forward.… They say, ‘Tell us what you know, or we’re going to nail you.’ They attempt, by dint of their force, to make the guy come forward to tell what he knew.” Former New York Police Commissioner Raymond W. Kelly, who oversaw the 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation (see February 26, 1993), says, “It’s a standard investigative technique.” The threat of such charges “gets a very strong message out” to “prevent further acts like that.” [New York Times, 8/29/1995]

The CIA and Albanian intelligence recruit an informer knowledgeable about al-Qaeda in the Balkans. The informer, whose name is Hassan Mustafa Osama Nasr, but is known as Abu Omar, is recruited by a special unit of the Albanian National Intelligence Service (ShIK) created at the behest of the CIA. An officer in the unit, Astrit Nasufi, will say that the unit is actually run by a CIA agent known as “Mike” who is based on the US embassy in Tirana, Albania, and who teaches them intelligence techniques. The CIA and ShIK are worried about a possible assassination attempt against the Egyptian foreign minister, who is to visit Albania soon, so about twelve radical Egyptians, members of Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya and Islamic Jihad, are detained beforehand. Nasr is not on the list, but is detained because of a link to a suspect charity, the Human Relief and Construction Agency (HRCA). He is held for about 10 days and, although he initially refuses to talk, ShIK has a “full file” on him after a week. He provides information about around ten fellow Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya members working for HRCA and two other charities, the Al-Haramain Islamic Foundation and the Revival of Islamic Heritage Society, both of which will be declared designated supporters of terrorism after 9/11. However, he says there are no plans to kill the Egyptian foreign minister, as this would mean Albania would no longer be a safe haven for fundamentalist Muslims. The intelligence Nasr goes on to provide is regarded as good quality and includes the identities of operatives monitoring the US embassy and entering and leaving Albania. The CIA is most interested in monitoring former mujaheddin joining the Bosnian Muslims, and Nasr also provides intelligence on Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya branches in Britain, Germany, and Italy, in particular the Islamic Cultural Institute in Milan, which is a base for mujaheddin operations in the Balkans and is raided by the Italian government around this time (see Late 1993-December 14, 1995). Even though cooperation appears to be good, after a few weeks Nasr suddenly disappears and the CIA tells ShIK that Nasr has moved to Germany. [Chicago Tribune, 7/2/2005] Nasr will later surface in Italy and will become close to Islamic militants in Milan (see Summer 2000), but will be kidnapped by the CIA after 9/11 (see Noon February 17, 2003).

“Operation Deliberate Force,” a massive NATO bombing campaign against the Bosnian Serbs, begins. [CNN, 8/31/1995]

Sam Francis. [Source: American Renaissance]Sam Francis, a senior columnist and writer for the conservative Washington Times, is fired after suggesting that white Americans must reassert what he believes is their innate dominance over other races. At the 1995 American Renaissance conference, hosted by the white supremacist organization of the same name, Francis tells his audience: “[Whites] must reassert our identity and our solidarity, and we must do so in explicitly racial terms through the articulation of a racial consciousness as whites. The civilization that we as whites created in Europe and America could not have developed apart from the genetic endowments of the creating people, nor is there any reason to believe that civilization can be successfully transmitted to a different people.” [Nation, 6/10/1996; Washington Times, 2/17/2005; National Council of La Raza, 2010 ] Francis’s last column for the Times also contributed to his dismissal. On July 27, 1995, he wrote, in part: “If the sin is hatred or exploitation, they [Southern Baptists repenting their support of slavery in the mid-1800s] may be on solid grounds, but neither ‘slavery’ nor ‘racism’ as an institution is a sin. Indeed, there are at least five clear passages in the letters of Paul that explicitly enjoin ‘servants’ to obey their masters, and the Greek words for ‘servants’ in the original text are identical to those for ‘slaves.’ Neither Jesus nor the apostles nor the early church condemned slavery, despite countless opportunities to do so, and there is no indication that slavery is contrary to Christian ethics or that any serious theologian before modern times ever thought it was. Not until the Enlightenment of the 18th century did a bastardized version of Christian ethics condemn slavery. Today we know that version under the label of ‘liberalism,’ or its more extreme cousin, communism.… What has happened in the centuries since the Enlightenment is the permeation of the pseudo-Christian poison of equality into the tissues of the West, to the point that the mainstream churches now spend more time preaching against apartheid and colonialism than they do against real sins like pinching secretaries and pilfering from the office coffee pool. The Southern Baptists, because they were fortunate enough to flourish in a region where the false sun of the Enlightenment never shone, succeeded in escaping this grim fate, at least until last week.” [Media Matters, 12/13/2004]

William Pierce, the author of the The Turner Diaries (see 1978) and leader of the neo-Nazi National Alliance, a “militia project” (see 1970-1974) encourages his members to develop contacts with militias in a bid to influence them. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001]

Defense counsel for El Sayyid Nosair, one of the militants accused in the “Landmarks” bomb plot (see June 24, 1993) along with the “Blind Sheikh,” Sheikh Omar Abdul Rahman, applies for a missing witness instruction for double agent Ali Mohamed. The counsel, Roger Stavis, believes that it would benefit his client to have Mohamed testify, because Mohamed worked for militants connected to Abdul-Rahman as well as the FBI (see 1990), CIA (see 1984), and US army (see 1986). Therefore, Stavis might be able to use Nosair’s connection with Mohamed to convince the jury that Nosair was acting on the instructions of an agent of the US government. Stavis has been attempting to contact Mohamed with no success for some time, although the prosecution is in contact with him where he lives in California (see December 1994-January 1995). Under federal law, a trial judge can give a missing witness instruction if one party at a trial wants a witness to testify but cannot find him, whereas the other party can find him but does not seem to want him to testify. Based on such an instruction, the jury can then decide that the party that could find him, but did not get him to testify, did so deliberately because it thought the testimony would be damaging to it. Author Peter Lance will later comment that, given the circumstances, “Stavis had every right to expect that jury charge,” but Judge Michael Mukasey merely responds, “I don’t think a missing witness charge on that gentleman is warranted and I am not going to give one.” Lance will comment that by failing to grant the missing witness instruction, Mukasey helps “bury the significance” of Mohamed, and conceal his role in Islamic militancy from the public. [Lance, 2006, pp. 208; Raw Story, 9/25/2007] President Bush will later appoint Mukasey to be the US attorney general (see November 8, 2007).

Lawyers for Terry Nichols, accused of conspiring with Timothy McVeigh to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City (see March 1995, April 16-17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and June 23, 1995), say that the government’s case against Nichols is built on a series of innocent coincidences, and accuse the FBI of unfairly pressuring Nichols’s family for information. Nichols’s lawyer Michael Tigar and others on the defense team meet with US Attorney Patrick Ryan and Justice Department officials to argue that the government should not seek the death penalty against their client (see July 11-13, 1995). After the closed-door meeting, Tigar tells reporters that the FBI improperly recorded over 20 conversations Nichols had, including telephone conversations with his wife and mother, after his arrest (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). “We’ve already seen the results of the government’s search warrants, the many tape-recorded conversations that were surreptitiously recorded without his knowledge,” Tigar says. “In short, we’ve seen it all. And we didn’t see anything in there that says the government has evidence that Terry Nichols did this.” Nichols, Tigar says, is an innocent victim of circumstance.
'Reasonable' Explanations - Tigar says that Nichols has reasonable explanations for using false names to rent two storage units in Kansas in the months before the bombing. According to these explanations, Nichols left his job as a farm worker in Marion, Kansas, on September 30, 1994 (see (September 30, 1994)), and had nowhere to live. He needed somewhere to store his household goods until he could find another place to live. He stored some of his goods in a storage unit rented under the alias “Shawn Rivers”; though authorities say Nichols rented the storage unit under the alias, Nichols says that McVeigh rented the unit (see September 22, 1994; Nichols may have rented a separate unit for his goods). Nichols kept his furniture and other items in that locker until October, when he rented two units in Council Grove, Kansas, under the names “Joe Kyle” (see October 17, 1994) and “Ted Parker” (see November 7, 1994). Nichols, according to Tigar, used the false names because he had an outstanding civil judgment on his credit card debts and wanted to prevent seizure of his possessions. Tigar also has an alternate explanation for a letter Nichols left behind him when he traveled to the Philippines (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995): the letter, which was to be opened only in the case of Nichols’s death, instructed McVeigh to clean everything out of one unit and liquidate the other. But Nichols’s lawyers now say these instructions contained an additional phrase, not previously disclosed by the government: “or you will have to pay extra months rent.” Nichols, according to Tigar, wanted McVeigh to sell his goods and give the proceeds to his family if for some reason he did not return from the Philippines. Instead, Nichols removed the goods from the unit when he bought a house in Herington, Kansas, in early 1995 (see (February 20, 1995)). Tigar says that Nichols had grown disaffected with McVeigh, and the more he learned of McVeigh’s proclivity towards violence, the less he wanted to have dealings with him. Nichols wanted to go into business as a gun dealer for himself, Tigar says: He had business cards and mailing labels printed in his own name, rented a mailbox under his name, registered with the state of Kansas so he could collect sales tax, and bought a license plate and insurance for his truck (see May 25 - June 2, 1995). Everything found in Nichols’s home and garage, Tigar claims, was for use in Nichols’s business. The fuel meter found in Nichols’s home, described by investigators as a device that “could be used to obtain the proper volume of diesel fuel to ammonium nitrate for a bomb,” did not work, Tigar says, and could not have been used to mix bomb ingredients. The anti-tank rocket found in Nichols’s home was, Tigar claims, an empty throw-away tube that such a rocket is packed in. The bags of fertilizer in the house were to be divided for resale in 8- and 24-ounce bottles at gun shows. The diesel fuel he bought in the days before the bombing (see April 15-16, 1995) was to fuel the diesel pickup truck he used to drive to Oklahoma City and pick up McVeigh (see April 16-17, 1995). The plastic barrels found on Nichols’s property are often used for storage and are thusly unremarkable. [New York Times, 9/7/1995; PBS Frontline, 1/22/1996]
Unreasonable Pressure - Tigar says that the pressure brought to bear on Nichols’s family members was improper and unreasonable. “To lie to Terry Nichols’s mother and say he’s not cooperating, and then to take her to the FBI office and record her as she talks to her son, I think is an outrage,” Tigar says. “To hold his wife for 34 days incommunicado and to tell her that the only way out for her husband is if she calls him up and reads to him a script written by FBI agents, I think is an outrage. Then to send his wife a Mother’s Day card signed by FBI agents saying they’re her only friends in the world and saying she should call the Kansas City field office if she ever needs to cry. What in the world are we coming to here?” The FBI also sent a Mother’s Day card to Nichols’s mother, Joyce Wilt of Lapeer, Michigan. Tigar gives reporters a copy of that card, which reads: “Please don’t believe that the government workers are the bad guys no matter what anyone tells you. We are here to help you. We are all here for you. If you are ever lonely, if you ever want to talk. If you ever want to cry, just call us. You are very special to us. You are a young girl caught up in something you don’t deserve to be in. We’re on your side. Think only about yourself and your kids.” [New York Times, 9/7/1995; Associated Press, 7/2/2005]

Anti-government extremist Charles Ray Polk is indicted by a federal grand jury for plotting to blow up the Internal Revenue Service building in Austin, Texas. When Polk was arrested, he was trying to buy plastic explosives to add to an enormous arsenal he had already amassed. Polk will be convicted and sentenced to 21 years in federal prison, though an appeals court will shave five years from his term. [Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; Anti-Defamation League, 2011]

Talaat Fouad Qassem, 38, a known leader of the Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya (the Islamic Group), an Egyptian extremist organization, is arrested and detained in Croatia as he travels to Bosnia from Denmark, where he has been been living after being granted political asylum. He is suspected of clandestine support of terrorist operations, including the 1993 World Trade Center bombing (see February 26, 1993). He also allegedly led mujaheddin efforts in Bosnia since 1990 (see 1990). In a joint operation, he is arrested by Croatian intelligence agents and handed over to the CIA. Qassem is then interrogated by US officials aboard a US ship off the Croatian coast in the Adriatic Sea and sent to Egypt, which has a rendition agreement with the US (see Summer 1995). An Egyptian military tribunal has already sentenced him to death in absentia, and he is executed soon after he arrives. [Associated Press, 10/31/1995; Washington Post, 3/11/2002, pp. A01; Mahle, 2005, pp. 204-205; New Yorker, 2/8/2005] According to the 1999 book Dollars for Terror, two weeks before his abduction, Qassem was in Switzerland negotiating against Muslim Brotherhood leaders. Some Muslim Brotherhood exiles were negotiating with the Egyptian government to be allowed to return to Egypt if they agreed not to use Muslim Brotherhood Swiss bank accounts to fund Egyptian militant groups like Al-Gama’a al-Islamiyya, but Qassem and other radicals oppose this deal. So the removal of Qassem helps the Muslim Brotherhood in their conflict with more militant groups. [Labeviere, 1999, pp. 70-71]

The Washington Post prints the Unabomber’s “manifesto” in an eight-page supplement. It is a 35,000-word document manually typed on 56 single-spaced pages (not including 11 pages of footnotes), largely about the dangers and ills of technology. [BBC, 11/12/1987; Washington Post, 4/13/1996; Washington Post, 1998; Newseum, 2011] It is published in cooperation with the New York Times. According to the Post, the document rails against modern society and technology, and explains something of the bomber’s rationale for his 17-year bombing spree. “In order to get our message before the public with some chance of making a lasting impression, we’ve had to kill people,” the author writes. He also admits to killing advertising executive Thomas Mosser (see December 10, 1994), and blames the firm Mosser worked for, Burson-Marstellar, for working with Exxon to minimize the public criticism the corporation received after the Exxon Valdez spill: “We blew up Thomas Mosser last December because he was a Burston-Marsteller executive,” the letter reads. The author represents himself as one of a group of anarchists he calls “FC,” and also misspells the name of the firm. [Washington Post, 4/13/1996] “FC” will later be found to stand for “Freedom Club.” [Washington Post, 1/23/1998]
Publish Manifesto or Suffer More Bombings, Unabomber Writes - The Post is following the directive made months before to the New York Times that the bomber, or the group he claims to represent, will stop his bombing spree if a national publication prints his article (see April 24, 1995). The manifesto will lead to the identification of the Unabomber as former college professor Theodore “Ted” Kaczynski (see April 3, 1996). Kaczynski’s sister-in-law Linda Patrik reads the manifesto in the International Herald Tribune and tells her husband David Kaczynski that she believes the manifesto could have been written by his brother. David Kaczynski reads the manifesto and agrees; he will, reluctantly, inform the FBI that it should consider his brother a suspect. [KSPR-TV, 2011]
Manifesto: Industry and Technology Must Be Destroyed to Save Humanity - Kaczynski’s manuscript is entitled “Industrial Society and Its Future.” (Throughout the manuscript, Kaczynski maintains the fiction that a group of people—“we”—are responsible for the document.) He calls industry and technology “a disaster for the human race,” claiming that they have “destabilized society… made life unfulfilling… subjected human beings to indignities… led to widespread psychological suffering (in the Third World to physical suffering as well) and… inflicted severe damage on the natural world.” The only way to save humanity, he writes, is for industry and technology to “break down.” He advocates “a revolution against the industrial system,” which “may or may not make use of violence.” He says he does not advocate a political revolution, and does not advocate the overthrow of governments, but instead “the economic and technological basis of the present society.”
'Leftists' 'Hate America,' 'Western Civilization,' and 'White Males' - Kaczynski bemoans the “feelings of inferiority” and “oversocialization” he attributes to the people he calls “leftists,” and says the “minority” of left-leaning “activists” and “feminists… hate anything that has an image of being strong, good, and successful. They hate America, they hate Western civilization, they hate white males, they hate rationality. The reasons that leftists give for hating the West, etc. clearly do not correspond with their real motives. They SAY they hate the West because it is warlike, imperialistic, sexist, ethnocentric, and so forth, but where these same faults appear in socialist countries or in primitive cultures, the leftist finds excuses for them, or at best he GRUDGINGLY admits that they exist; whereas he ENTHUSIASTICALLY points out (and often greatly exaggerates) these faults where they appear in Western civilization. Thus it is clear that these faults are not the leftist’s real motive for hating America and the West. He hates America and the West because they are strong and successful.… The leftist is anti-individualistic, pro-collectivist. He wants society to solve everyone’s problems for them, satisfy everyone’s needs for them, take care of them. He is not the sort of person who has an inner sense of confidence in his ability to solve his own problems and satisfy his own needs. The leftist is antagonistic to the concept of competition because, deep inside, he feels like a loser.” “Leftists” prefer “sordid” art forms that celebrate either “defeat and despair” or debauchery and depravity, Kaczynski writes. Ultimately, they are masochistic and self-hating, he claims. They are ruled by moral relativism, and have no real ethical or moral stance, though they pretend to such. “If our society had no social problems at all,” Kaczynski writes, “the leftists would have to INVENT problems in order to provide themselves with an excuse for making a fuss.”
Conservatives 'Fools' for Embracing Technology as Well as 'Traditional Values' - Kaczynski says that industry and technology do not cause society’s problems, but they exacerbate and intensify those problems. In a technological society, people are forced to live in ways nature and evolution never intended. In this section, he turns from lambasting “leftists” to calling conservatives “fools,” writing: “They whine about the decay of traditional values, yet they enthusiastically support technological progress and economic growth. Apparently it never occurs to them that you can’t make rapid, drastic changes in the technology and the economy of a society without causing rapid changes in all other aspects of the society as well, and that such rapid changes inevitably break down traditional values.”
Revolution 'Easier than Reform' - After a long analysis of a variety of social ills and behaviors, Kaczynski writes that modern industrial/technological society as we know it cannot be reformed, only destroyed and rebuilt. It is specious, he maintains, to believe that “bad” parts of technology can be eliminated while retaining the “good” parts. Moreover, he claims, technology is a more powerful social force than humanity’s aspirations for freedom. “The only way out,” he concludes, “is to dispense with the industrial-technological system altogether. This implies revolution, not necessarily an armed uprising, but certainly a radical and fundamental change in the nature of society.” Leftists, he writes, must not be part of any such revolution, because of their tendencies towards collectivization and totalitarianism, their love of technology, and their lust for power. Only anarchists, who desire to exist on an individual or small-group basis, can effectively carry out this level of social change. [Kaczynski, 1995]

The US Senate votes to lift some sanctions that were imposed on Pakistan due to its nuclear weapons program (see August 1985 and October 1990). The measure does not allow the US to sell Pakistan embargoed F-16 fighters, but, according to authors Adrian Levy and Catherine Scott-Clark, only leads to “a few million dollars being dispatched to a handful of Pakistan-based charities.” The amendment was proposed by Hank Brown (R-CO), chairman of a subcommittee of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee. The measure is opposed by John Glenn and other like-minded senators strongly against nuclear proliferation, but passes by one vote. Levy and Scott-Clark will comment, “It [the measure] was not a remedy and did nothing to bolster the fragile [Pakistani] democracy that had gone 10 rounds in the ring with the military and its ISI.” [Levy and Scott-Clark, 2007, pp. 265, 513]

District Court Judge David Coar reverses earlier court decisions and reinstates a lawsuit filed by the National Organization for Women (NOW) against anti-abortion advocates (see June 1986). NOW president Patricia Ireland says, “We’re thrilled and anti-abortion terrorists ought to be shaking in their boots.” The ruling allows NOW to investigate defendants’ recent actions, including murders and attempted murders by anti-abortion activists (see August 19, 1993 and July 29, 1994). [National Organization for Women, 9/22/1995; National Organization for Women, 9/2002]

A typical ‘LeRoy check,’ issued on a fraudulent lien. [Source: Anti-Defamation League]Montana Freemen leaders LeRoy Schweitzer, Rodney Skurdal (see 1993-1994 and May 1995), and others leave Skurdal’s Roundup, Montana, log cabin at night (see 1983-1995) in an armed convoy, and “occupy” the foreclosed ranch of Freeman Ralph Clark (see 1980s-1994) north of Jordan, Montana. The group renames the ranch “Justus Township.” Skurdal and the Freemen had named Skurdal’s two-story cabin and his 20 acres of land “Redemption Township.” In the ensuing months, people from around the area come to the ranch to take “classes” on their common law theories and check-kiting schemes, learning of the classes through ads in militia newsletters and displayed at gun shows. Federal authorities, fearing violence (see April 19, 1993), decide not to hinder the occupation. The “township” has its own laws, court, and officials; Clark is the “marshal” of Justus, and others serve on its court. [Chicago Tribune, 4/19/1996; Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; New York Times, 5/29/1996; Billings Gazette, 3/25/2006] The “classes” teach what the Southern Poverty Law Center will call a “peculiar combination of common law ideology and break-the-bank schemes.” The Freemen accept pupils in groups of 25, charging varying fees per participant. “We are the new Federal Reserve,” Schweitzer tells one group. “We are competing with the Federal Reserve—and we have every authority to do it.” Many people who try to put the Freemen’s teachings into practice, such as common law ideologue Ron Griesacker, will claim to have attended “a school of learning” with Schweitzer before setting up “common law courts” in Kansas. Griesacker will be charged with fraud and conspiracy, as will others who attempt to set up “common law courts.” The Freemen teachings will continue to propagate for years, and banks across the region will be plagued with “Freemen checks” [Mark Pitcavage, 5/6/1996; Southern Poverty Law Center, 4/1998] , which locals call “LeRoy checks.” (Most area businesses have learned to demand cash-only payments from known Freemen.) One favorite trick is to issue a fake check to pay for merchandise, write the check for much more than the cost of the merchandise, then demand immediate cash refunds of the difference. A template letter included in a seminar packet reads in part, “You will be billed monthly for the principal, plus 18 percent per year for the balance due if you refuse to send refund.” Paul Dinsmore, a local radio station host who will say he attends “about a dozen” seminars, will comment: “They have set up a complete mirror image of the banking system. It’s a scheme for them to live high on the hog.” One Montana government official calls the Freemen scheme “paper terrorism.” [New York Times, 5/29/1996] Skurdal will be incensed when federal authorities auction his cabin and property for his failure to pay back taxes. [Chicago Tribune, 4/19/1996]

In 1995, the FBI is given the CIA’s files on bin Laden, and they discover that the CIA has been conducting a vigorous investigation on Wadih El-Hage, bin Laden’s personal secretary and a US citizen (see October 1995). The FBI had already started investigating El-Hage in 1991 (see March 1991), and in 1993 they found out he had bought weapons for one of the 1993 WTC bombers (see Summer 1993). Thanks to the CIA files, the FBI learns that in early 1992 El-Hage moved to Sudan and worked there as bin Laden’s personal secretary. [PBS Frontline, 4/1999; Miller, Stone, and Mitchell, 2002, pp. 148-149] Then, in 1994, he moved to Nairobi, Kenya, and officially started running a bogus charity there called “Help Africa People.” [PBS Frontline, 4/1999; CNN, 10/16/2001] In fact, El-Hage is running an al-Qaeda cell that will later carry out the 1998 African embassy bombings. He stays in close contact with top al-Qaeda leaders. [PBS Frontline, 4/1999] Apparently El-Hage is under US surveillance in Kenya, or at least people he is calling are under surveillance. For instance, a phone call between El-Hage in Kenya and Ali Mohamed in California is recorded in late 1994 (see Late 1994).and there are many calls recorded between El-Hage and bin Laden in Sudan. FBI agent Dan Coleman will analyze all this information about El-Hage and eventually supervise a raid on his Kenya house in 1997 (see August 21, 1997). [Wright, 2006, pp. 242-244]