The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 2

"A couple of years ago," states Cohen, "disturbing statements on advanced small, very low-yield nuclear warheads, began emanating from Russia.[51] Cohen adds that these articles "revealed a ma.s.sive smuggling ring had emerged where the material was being sold around the world to a number of countries, some of which were terrorist nations."[52]

[Writing in Nexus Magazine, Australian journalist and military authority Joe Vialls points out that the bombing which destroyed a financial center in London in July of 1993, and which almost destroyed the World Trade Center in New York four months later, could not have been caused by conventional explosives. In a bizarre coincidence predating Cohen's a.n.a.lysis, theoretical physicist and former Pentagon nuclear expert Theodore B. Taylor stated in his book, The Curve of Binding Energy, that someday someone was going to blow up the World Trade Center with a nuclear device the size of a stick of gum. Taylor's prediction first appeared in the New Yorker magazine in 1973.[53]

Vialls adds that the British government was quick to blame the London attack on an IRA (Irish Republican Army) truck-bomb, in the same manner that U.S. authorities were quick to blame the Oklahoma bombing on a truck-bomb constructed by a pair of so-called disgruntled anti-government loners. Yet at the same time the British government was issuing these statements, their bomb technicians were exploring the bomb site in full nuclear protective suits.]

Had the Murrah Building been destroyed by a SADM or a backpack nuke, using the truck-bomb as a cover? British bomb experts, with extensive experience dealing with terrorist truck-bombs, told McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, that the ANFO bomb could not have done all of the damage to the Murrah Building.[54]

British bomb expert Linda Jones, testifying for the prosecution in McVeigh's trial, came to the opposite conclusion however. Nevertheless, the site was quickly demolished and covered over with concrete; the remains taken to a secure dump and buried. What was the government trying to hide? Nuclear Physicist Galen Winsor, General Ben Partin, and KPOC manager David Hall went to the building and disposal sites with radiation measuring equipment, but were kept away. They managed to gather some fragments anyway, and when they measured them with Winsor's NaI Scintillator detector, they registered radiation levels 50 percent higher than normal.[55]

[The specter of radioactive terrorism is not exactly brand new. In Paris, the French secret police foiled terrorists planning to set off a conventional bomb designed to spread particles of deadly radioactive plutonium in the air.

Cohen suggests that if it had been a radioactive attack, and it were made public, it would have panicked a public already frightened about terrorist attacks: "If the perpetrators had been able to get their hands on just a traceable amount of radioactivity, and mixed it up with the explosive, so that it would virtually a.s.sure that it would be picked up by some detecting meter, and this had gotten out, that there was a fairly copious amount of radioactivity in the explosive, all h.e.l.l would have broken loose.... It would scare the pants off a very large fraction of the U.S. citizenry, by saying this was used by terrorists, and contaminated an area..."[56]

Given the government's long history of covering up radiation tests on U.S. citizens, from radiating entire towns downwind of nuclear test sites, to slipping radioactive isotopes to crippled children in their oatmeal, it goes without saying that they would also cover this up.]

"A new cla.s.s of nuclear weapons could exist which could have an extremely disturbing terrorist potential," said Cohen. "And to admit to the possibility that the warheads might be sufficiently compact to pose a real terrorist threat was equally unacceptable [to the government]."[57]

So was the Federal Building blown up by demolition charges, a truck filled with C-4, a fuel-air explosive, a miniature nuke, or some combination of the above?

["It really doesn't make any difference," says Cohen. "From the standpoint of practicality... I would lean towards Ben Partin. Because all the stuff Partin's put out, it just holds up - it makes eminent sense - he doesn't have to get into this exotica. Partin says using ordinary Primacord wrapped around these pillars could have done the job." [58]

In fact, it does make quite a bit of difference from an investigative point of view, since the more sophisticated the bomb, the more sophisticated the bombers. And Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols weren't that sophisticated.]

KFOR-Channel 4 reported that the mysterious severed leg clothed in military garb found in the rubble allegedly had PVC embedded [in] it. PVC pipe is sometimes used to pack plastic explosives. It increases the shear power. Had this leg, unmatched to any of the known victims, belonged to the real bomber?[59]

[In fact, it does make quite a bit of difference from an investigative point of view, since the more sophisticated the bomb, the more sophisticated the bombers. And Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols weren't that sophisticated.]

Then on March 20, 1996,Strategic Investment Newsletter reported that a Pentagon study had been leaked which backed up General Partin's a.n.a.lysis: A cla.s.sified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City last April was caused by five separate bombs. The two experts reached the same conclusion for the same technical reasons. Sources close to the Pentagon study say Timothy McVeigh did play a role in the bombing but peripherally, as a "useful idiot." The multiple bombings have a Middle Eastern "signature," pointing to either Iraqi or Syrian involvement.[60]

Finally, in the Spring of 1997, explosives experts at Eglin Air Force Base's Wright Laboratory Armament Directorate released a study on the effects of explosives against a reinforced concrete building similar to the Federal Building. The Air Force's test closely matched the conditions under which the government contends the Murrah Building was destroyed.

The Eglin Blast Effects Study, or EBES, involved a three-story reinforced concrete structure 80 long, 40 feet wide, and 30 feet high. The building constructed for the test, the Eglin Test Structure (ETS), while smaller than the Murrah Building, was similar in design, with three rows of columns, and six-inch-thick concrete panels similar to those in the Murrah Building. Overall, the ETS was considerably weaker than the Murrah, which had five times the amount of steel reinforcing than the ETS, and 10 times the amount of steel in its columns and beams. As New American editor William Jasper noted in regards to the EBES: If air blast could not effect catastrophic failure to the decidedly inferior Eglin structure, it becomes all the more difficult to believe that it was responsible for the destruction of the much stronger Murrah Building.

The experts at Eglin conducted three tests. They first detonated 704 pounds of Tritonal (equivalent to 830 pounds of TNT or approximately 2,200 pounds of ANFO), at a distance of 40 feet from the structure, equivalent to the distance the Ryder truck was parked from the Murrah Building. The second test utilized an Mk-82 warhead (equivalent to 180 pounds of TNT) placed within the first floor corner room approximately four feet from the exterior wall. The third test involved a 250-pound penetrating warhead (equivalent to 35 pounds TNT), placed in the corner of a second floor room approximately two and a half feet from the adjoining walls.

The first detonation demolished the six-inch-thick concrete wall panels on the first floor, but left the reinforcing steel bars intact. The 14-inch columns were unaffected by the blast - a far cry from what occurred at the Murrah Building. The damages to the second and third floors fell off proportionally, unlike that in Oklahoma City. The 56-page report concluded: Due to these conditions, it is impossible to ascribe the damage that occurred on April 19, 1995 to a single truck-bomb containing 4,800 lbs. of ANFO. In fact, the maximum predicted damage to the floor panels of the Murrah Federal Building is equal to approximately 1% of the total floor area of the building. Furthermore, due to the lack of symmetrical damage pattern at the Murrah Building, it would be inconsistent with the results of the ETS test [number] one to state that all of the damage to the Murrah Building is the result of the truck-bomb. The damage to the Murrah Federal Building is consistent with damage resulting from mechanically coupled devices placed locally within the structure ....

It must be concluded that the damage at the Murrah Federal Building is not the result of the truck-bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself .... The procedures used to cause the damage to the Murrah Building are therefore more involved and complex than simply parking a truck and leaving ....[61]

Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was forced to conclude that 4,800 pounds of ANFO could have not caused the so-called crater in Oklahoma City. FEMA's report, published on August 30, 1996, inadvertently concluded that the bombers would have had to use approximately three times the amount reportedly used in Oklahoma City.[62]

Another interesting confirmation came from FBI agent Danny Defenbaugh, who, along with U.S. Attorney Beth Wilkerson, visited General Partin in June of 1995. Part of the team that prosecuted McVeigh and Nichols, Wilkerson interviewed Partin on the presumption that he would be called as a witness. "...and [Agent Defenbaugh] was going through the report that I did," said Partin, "and he put his finger on that picture I had in the report... the designated crater, and he said, 'Suppose I told you that is not the crater?'"

Partin believes Wilkerson and Defenbaugh (who Partin described as belligerent) interviewed him as part of a ruse to find out what he knew about the blast(s), so the government could carefully avoid those issues at trial. While they pretended to be interested in Partin's a.n.a.lysis, they never kept their word to follow up the interview.

"I think what they did," said Partin, "was they looked at my credentials and technical justification of all this stuff, and they felt found that what I had was based on some pretty sound footing.... I think that's why they framed the case the way they did."[63]

Whatever blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building, one thing's for sure, there was enough ANFO present at the site to leave visible traces. Randy Ledger, a maintenance man who was in the building at the time of the blast, claims fellow workers who rushed into the building immediately after the explosion "complained of burning eyes, heavy dust and choking lungs. That is right out of the textbook of a diesel-fertilizer bomb, because it creates nitric acid," said Ledger. "The guys I work with, they're not going to make it up that their eyes are burning."[64]

Dr. Paul Heath, a VA psychologist who was on the fifth floor of the building at the time of the blast, said, "I picked fertilizer out of my skin... I could see the fertilizer actually exploding in the air; you could see it popping all around you."

Ramona McDonald, who also survived the blast, concurs with Heath. "There was a bright flash, and then boom! And you could see the fertilizer popping in the air."

Given this scenario, it's reasonable to conclude that the Ryder truck was filled with something more powerful, with just enough ANFO to leave a visible trace.

Cohen agrees. "The damage that resulted could not have occurred from a van parked outside... I don't care how fancy an explosive was used. What did in that building... was an inside job."

It would appear that experts' a.n.a.lysis' are not the only evidence of an inside job. In an interview with a local TV station, a man who escaped the building said, "I was sitting at my desk, and I felt a rumbling, a shaking in the building... so I decided to get under my desk.... the gla.s.s windows blew in and knocked down the ceiling and some of the stuff above the ceiling and it all landed on top of my desk."

Another man said, "I thought it was an earthquake because I resided in California for many years, and it was almost like it was in slow motion. I felt a shake, and then it began shaking more, and I dove under my desk, and then the gla.s.s all came flying in."

A friend of Dr. Ray Brown's, who's secretary was in the building said, "She was standing by a window. The window cracked, then she got away from it and then she was blown across the room and landed in another woman's lap. Another woman I know, Judy Morse, got under her desk after feeling the building shake, and before the gla.s.s flew."

"Dr. Brian Espe, who was the sole survivor in the Department of Agriculture's fifth floor office, told the author he first "heard a rumbling noise."

According to these individuals' accounts, if the truck-bomb - the alleged sole bomb - had detonated first, how would they have felt a rumbing, had time to think about the situation, then dive under their desks? The resulting blast wave from the truck-bomb would have been immediate and total. Such an account could only be indicative of demolition charges placed inside the building.[65]*

"The inside charges - demolition charges," said Cohen, "may have gone off first, and so the columns now started to collapse. Boy, that would produce one h.e.l.l of a rumble, to put it mildly...."[66]

A caller to the Oklahoma Radio Network related the experiences of his friend, a Federal Government worker, who had witnessed the blast first-hand. "He was approximately five blocks from the building whenever the building went up. He claims that the top of the building went up like a missile going through it. The debris was coming back down when the side of the building blew out. He said third and last, the truck blew up on the street."[67]

Notice this witness said the building "blew out." This is contrary to the effect of an explosive blast from the street blowing the building in from the street. Candy Avey, who was on her way to the Social Security office when the explosions occurred, was blown away from the building, struck a parking meter, and then hit her car.[68] Said Suzanne Steely, reporting live for KFOR, "We could see all the way through the building. That was just the force of the explosion - it just blew out all the walls and everything inside."[69] Ramona McDonald saw a flash and smoke rising up from inside the building, "like a rocket had shot out the top of the building."[70]

It should be obvious to the reader that it's implausible an ANFO bomb parked out in the street would have the force to blow all the way through a huge superstructure like the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

No matter how hard the government tried to lie, obsfucate, and distort the truth, the evidence would come back to haunt them.

On April 19, a tape recording made during a conference at the Water Resources Board directly across from the Murrah Building appears to indicate a succession of blast events, s.p.a.ced very close together.[71]

The tape recorder at the Water Resources Board was not the only instrument recording explosions that morning. The seismograph at the Oklahoma Geological Survey at the University of Oklahoma at Norman, 16 miles from the Murrah Building, recorded two waves, or "two events," on the morning of April 19th. Another seismograph at the Omniplex Museum, four miles away from the Federal Building, also recorded two events. These seismic waves, or "spikes," s.p.a.ced approximately ten seconds apart, seem to indicate two blasts. [See Appendix]

Professor Raymond Brown, senior geophysicist at the University of Oklahoma who studied the seismograms, knew and talked to people inside the building at the time of the blast. "My first impression was, this was a demolition job," said Brown. "Somebody who went in there with equipment tried to take that building down."

Not so, according to the U.S. Geological Survey's a.n.a.lysis. The USGS put out a press release on June 1st, ent.i.tled "Seismic Records Support One-Blast Theory in Oklahoma City Bombing."

The bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City produced a train of conventional seismic waves, according to interpretations by scientists with the U.S. Geological Survey and the Oklahoma Geological Survey (OGS).

Scientists from those agencies said the seismic recordings of the May 23 demolition of the building reproduced the character of the original, April 19th seismic recording by producing two trains of seismic waves that were recorded on seismometers near Norman, Okla.

"Seismic recordings from the building's implosion indicate that there was only one bomb explosion on April 19," said Dr. Thomas Holzer, a USGS geologist in Menlo Park, Calif. Holzer is one of several USGS and OGS scientists who a.n.a.lyzed the shock waves created by the April 19 explosion and the May 23 implosion.[72]

Holzer added that the two distinct waves from the April 19 explosion(s) were the result of the same wave traveling at two different speeds through two separate layers of the earth's crust. The "illusion" of a double explosion was simply the result of the building's collapse, he claimed. "So the bottom line then," said Holzer, "is I think these observations are totally consistent with a single explosion. It doesn't require multiple explosions to do it."[73]

Dr. Brown has an honest difference of opinion with folks at the U.S. Geological Survey. "I will candidly say that we are having trouble finding that velocity difference," said Brown. "We have not identified a pair of layers that could account for the ten-second difference.

"Whatever the USGS saw in that data convinced them that the original blast was one bomb," he added. "I find that hard to believe.... What was uncomfortable and might be construed as pressure is that they were going to come out with a press release that says we have concluded that data indicates one bomb. It puts us in the uncomfortable stance of saying that we, too, have concluded that, and we haven't."

Yet the USGS press release said that Dr. Charles Mankin of the OGS, Brown's boss, was "pleased with the work performed by Dr. Holzer and his USGS colleagues in the a.n.a.lysis of the seismic records." Yet Mankin had actually urged Holzer to delay the press release. "Everybody that has looked at the signal has said a refraction (an echo) would really be strange because there's absolutely no loss of energy in the recorded seismic signal. The second event has the same amplitude as the first... The arrival time is wrong for a refracted wave... We've ruled out reflections, refractions, and the air blast... We determined that these two records of these two events corroborate our interpretation that there were two explosions."[74]

The mainstream media, of course, jumped on the USGS's findings, with headlines like "Single Bomb Destroyed Building" and "Seismic Records Shake Murrah Multiple Bomb Theory." "The news media even reported two bomb blasts initially," said Mankin, "but later changed their story."

"The USGS's conclusions are not supported by either data or a.n.a.lysis," added Brown, who asked that his name be taken off the report. Although Brown cautions that his own conclusions are far from conclusive and require "more thorough investigation," the most logical explanation for the second event says Brown, is "a bomb on the inside of the building."

"Even the smallest of those detonations (from the May 23rd demolition) had a larger effect on the recording than the collapse of the building," he added, "which demonstrates that the explosives are much more efficient at exciting the ground motion than is the collapse of three-fourths of the building. So it is very unlikely that one-fourth of the building falling on April 19th could have created an energy wave similar to that caused by the large [truck-bomb] explosion."[75]

One of the problems with the two event theory is that the spikes on the seismic readings were ten seconds apart. With that much difference, most everybody in the vicinity should have heard two separate blasts. But given the traumatic nature of being in the immediate vicinity of a bombing, would witnesses necessarily have heard two explosions? Although the sound of a truck-bomb would certainly have made a loud, roaring noise, complete with lots of smoke and flying debris, experts say that the "crack" of a C-4 cutting charge is "downright disappointing" to hear.

One man who works as a parking garage attendant one block north of the Murrah Building told The New American that he was test driving a new pickup truck near the building when the bomb went off. "It seemed like one, big, long explosion," he said, "but I can't say for sure. My ears were ringing and gla.s.s and rocks and concrete were falling all over and around me."[76]

Dr. Paul Heath, who was on the fifth floor, says he heard only one blast. But fellow VA worker Jim Guthrie stated in an interview with the Was.h.i.+ngton Post: "I felt a boom and was picked up off my feet and thrown under a water fountain." He heard a second explosion and covered his ears. Diane Dooley, who was at a third floor stairwell, also believes she heard a second explosion.[77]

P. G. Wilson, who worked in the Murrah Building, told researcher Michele Moore, "A second explosion came after the first one and shards of gla.s.s began flying in the office."[78]

Ha.s.san Muhammad, who was driving for a delivery service that day, had his ears ruptured by the explosions. Muhammad told the author he clearly recalled hearing two distinct blasts. "...when I was crossing the street [at 10th and Robinson]... the first explosion went off, and it was a loud explosion. And my friend who was coming out of the warehouse asked me what was it, because we thought it was a drive-by shooting... and we got on the ground, and by the time we got on the ground, another one went off, and that's when all the windows came out." Muhammad recalls that it was about three to four seconds between blasts.[79]

Jane C. Graham, a HUD worker injured in the bombing, also clearly felt two distinct blasts. As Graham stated in a videotaped deposition: "I want to specify that the first bomb - the first impact - the first effect, was a waving effect, that you got when the building was moving, you might have maybe felt a little waving, perhaps an earthquake movement, and that lasted for several seconds.

"About 6 or 7 seconds later, a bomb exploded. It was an entirely different sound and thrust. It was like it came up right from the center up. You could feel the building move a little.... But there were two distinct events that occurred. The second blast not only was very, very loud, it was also very powerful. And as I said, I just felt like it was coming straight on up from the center of the building - straight up."[80]

Michael Hinton, who was on a bus near NW 5th and Robinson - one block away - also heard two explosions. "I had just sat down when I heard this violent type rumble under the bus," said Hinton. "It was a pus.h.i.+ng type motion - it actually raised that bus up on its side. About six or seven seconds later another one which was more violent than the first picked the bus up again, and I thought that second time the bus was going to turn over." [81]

What Hinton is describing is consistent with a two-bomb scenario. The first, smaller explosion being the more subdued blast of the demolition charges. The second, larger explosion being the blast of the truck-bomb - the blast pressure wave of which almost tipped the bus over.

In an interview with Media Bypa.s.s magazine, attorney Charles Watts, who was in the Federal Courthouse across the street, described hearing, and feeling, two separate blasts: Watts: I was up on the ninth floor, the top floor of the Bankruptcy Court, with nothing in between the two buildings. We were on the south side, out in the foyer, outside the courtroom. It was nine o'clock, or just very, very shortly thereafter. Several lawyers were standing there talking and there was a large explosion. It threw several of the people close to me to the floor. I don't think it threw me to the floor, but it did move me significantly, and I threw myself to the floor, and got down, and about that time, a huge blast, unlike anything I've ever experienced, hit.

Media Bypa.s.s: The blast wave hit?

Watts: A second blast. There were two explosions. The second blast made me think that the whole building was coming in.

Watts, a Vietnam veteran, has experienced the effects of bombings, including being within 100 feet of B-52 air strikes. Watts told Media Bypa.s.s he never experienced anything like this before.[82]

Another veteran who heard the blast is George Wallace, a retired Air Force fighter pilot with 26 years in the service. Wallace, who lives nine miles northwest of the Federal Building described the blast as a "sustained, loud, long rumble, like several explosions." Wallace likened the noise to that of a succession of bombs being dropped by B-52s.[83]

Taken together, the evidence and witness accounts appears to indicate that there were at least two blasts on the morning of April 19.

General Partin, along with Senator Inhoffe, Representative Key and others, asked Congress that the building not be demolished until an independent forensic team could be brought in to investigate the damage.

"It is easy to determine whether a column was failed by contact demolition charges or by blast loading (such as a truck-bomb)," Partin wrote in his letter to Congress. "It is also easy to cover up crucial evidence as was apparently done in Waco. I understand that the building is to be demolished by May 23rd or 24th. Why the rush to destroy the evidence?"[84]

Cohen echoed Partin's sentiments: "I believe that demolition charges in the building placed at certain key concrete columns did the primary damage to the Murrah Federal Building. I concur with the opinion that an investigation by the Oklahoma State Legislature is absolutely necessary to get at the truth of what actually caused the tragedy in Oklahoma City."

Yet the feds in fact did demolish the Murrah Building on May 23, destroying the evidence while citing the same reason as they did for quickly demolis.h.i.+ng the Waco compound: "health hazards." In the Waco case, what was destroyed was evidence that the feds had fired from helicopters into the roof of the building during the early part of the raid, killing several people, including a nursing mother. In the Oklahoma case, what was destroyed was evidence that the columns had been destroyed by demolition charges.[85]

The rubble from the Murrah Building was hauled by Midwest Wrecking to a landfill surrounded by a guarded, barbed-wire fence, sifted for evidence with the help of the National Guard, then subsequently hauled off BFI Waste Management and buried. Along with it was buried the evidence of what really happened on the morning of April 19.

"It's a cla.s.sic cover-up," said General Partin, "a cla.s.sic cover-up."

"Everything Short of a T-72 Tank"

If the bombing of the Murrah Building was the result of an inside job, who is responsible? Was it wired for demolition, and if so, who could have wired it?

Dr. Heath, who has worked in the Murrah Building for 22 years, was present on the day of the bombing. Although Heath personally discounts the second bomb theory, he explained that poor security in the building would have permitted access to almost anyone, anytime.

"The security was so lax in this building, that one individual or group of individuals could have had access to any of those columns," said Heath, "almost in every part of the building, before or after hours, or even during the hours of the workday, and could have planted bombs."

Guy Rubsamen, the Federal Protective Services guard on duty the night of the 18th, said that n.o.body had entered the building. Yet Rubsamen took off at 2:00 a.m., and said that n.o.body was guarding the building from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.[86]

"It was a building you could have planted a bomb in anytime you wanted to," said Heath. "It was a building that was not secure at all. I've gone in and out of this building with a pen knife, just by slipping a knife in the south doors, slide the bolt back, and go in without a key. I've done that ever since the building was new. If you wanted into it, you could have gotten into it any time you wanted to."[87]

Heath also explained that visitors could drive right into the garage, anytime. "There was no guard. You could drive inside the garage - four stories - anytime you wanted to, and carry anything you wanted to inside the car."[88]

It appears that alleged bomber Timothy McVeigh (or someone driving his car) did just that. On the morning of April 19, attorney James Linehan was stopped for a light at the corner of NW 4th and Robinson at approximately 8:38 a.m. when he observed a battered yellow Mercury run the light and drive directly into the underground parking garage. Linehan said the driver had sharp facial features similar to McVeigh's, although he thought the driver may have been a woman.

Referring to the well-publized scene of McVeigh being led out of the n.o.ble County Courthouse, Linehan said, "...that's it! That's the same profile." Curiously, one month later Linehan said, "My gut feeling is that it was a female driving."[89]

Why did "McVeigh" drive into the garage? Could he have done so to plant additional bombs? Or perhaps someone in McVeigh's car made it appear that he was doing so? A fall-guy for the real bombers?

"If McVeigh was totally outside the law, he certainly wouldn't have snuggled up against them like driving into that bas.e.m.e.nt that morning," said David Hall, general manager of KPOC-TV in Ponca City, Oklahoma, who has investigated the ATF's role in the bombing."

Yet Hall doesn't believe "the ATF or the FBI or anybody went around and wired columns or anything like that. What he (Partin) said was that there may have been some explosives stored by some columns that went off. I don't feel that those people set out to kill 168 people in Oklahoma City intentionally. But I think that because of incompetence on their part that very well may have happened in two or three different ways..."

Shortly after the bombing, an unidentified witness called Representative Key and told him that she saw two men in the garage who appeared to be "sawing" on the pillars. The men were working in almost total darkness. When she asked them what they were doing, they said, "We're just putting things right again."

Were they "putting things right," or were they weakening the support columns just enough to make sure that they'd fail at the appropriate moment?[90]

Then, on the Friday before the bombing, HUD worker Jane Graham noticed three men in the garage whom she thought were telephone repairmen. As Graham stated in her deposition, the men were holding what appeared to be C-4 plastic explosives: "It was a block, probably 2 by 3 inches of 3 by 4, in that area, but it was a putty color - solid piece of block - I don't know what it was. But they had that and they had this wiring. When they saw me watching them, they were down there and they had plans of the building. They were discussing - they were arguing in fact - apparently there was a disagreement, because one of the men was pointing to various areas of the garage. They were talking about, I a.s.sume, plans of the building. I thought maybe they were telephone men at first.

"When they saw me watching them, they took the wiring - it looked like cord, telephone cord - it was putty colored - they took whatever else was in their hand, they put all of that back into a paper sack, they put it in the driver's side, behind the pa.s.senger seat [of a] pale green, slightly faded station wagon."

Graham later told me that one of the men was holding a one by two by three inch device that looked like "some sort of clicker, like a small TV remote-control," she said.

The men stopped working abruptly when they saw Graham. "They looked uncomfortable," she said. "They were as intent looking at me as I was at them."

She also stated that the men were not wearing uniforms and were not driving a telephone or electric company truck. They were, however, very well built. They "obviously lifted weights" said Graham.

(Graham's account is backed up by IRS worker Kathy Wilburn, who also saw the trio of men in the garage, as did a HUD employee named Joan.)[[91]]

Although the FBI interviewed Graham, they never showed her any pictures or brought her before a sketch artist. "They only wanted to know if I could identify McVeigh or Nichols," she said. "I said it was neither of these two gentlemen."[92]

A call to the local electric, telephone, and natural gas companies revealed that the men were not authorized repairmen. Nor were they construction workers inspecting the premises for a proposed renovation project by the General Services Administration (GSA). The 20 or so contractors involved in that bid stated emphatically that the men were not their employees.[93]

David Hall (who stopped working on the case in late 1995 due to an IRS audit) wasn't aware of the Graham deposition, he did drop a bombsh.e.l.l.

"We do know that explosives were delivered there without a doubt. We know there were six boxes of 25 to 35 pounds marked 'high explosives' delivered to the building two weeks prior to the explosion. We had contact with the truck driver who was involved in that delivery. The name of the trucking company is Tri-State, located in Joplin, Missouri."

Tri-state... is an explosives carrier.

"We've talked to the driver," said Hall. "We've talked to two drivers. n.o.body knows what was in them because they were boxed and marked 'high explosive.'"