The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 21

The still-secret draft report, obtained by the paper, also concludes that supervisors approved lab reports that they "cannot support" and that FBI lab officials may have erred about the size of the blast, the amount of explosives involved and the type of explosives used in the bombing.

According to the Times, the draft report shows that FBI examiners could not identify the triggering device for the truck bomb or how it was detonated. It also indicates that a poorly maintained lab environment could have led to contamination of critical pieces of evidence, the Times said.[753]

Whitehurst also told the Inspector General that the agents who conducted the tests in Oklahoma City, including Tom Thurman, Chief of the Explosives Unit, and Roger Martz, Chief of the Chemistry and Toxicology Unit, were not even qualified to do so.[754]

During the 1993 World Trade Center bombing investigation, Whitehurst decided to secretly test efficiency and procedures at the lab. He mixed human urine with fertilizer and added it to some of the bomb material being tested. Martz subsequently excitedly identified the urine-fertilizer mixture as an explosive.[755]

Whitehurst also contended that Martz's examining room was contaminated, making it impossible to accurately test for explosives and other substances, including the PETN allegedly found on McVeigh's clothes.[756]

During the prosecution's closing argument, Martz made an interesting Freudian Slip: "The evidence shows that Mr. McVeigh's clothing was contaminated with... excuse me, Mr. McVeigh's clothing was filled with bomb residue."

Whitehurst also claimed that Martz had perjured his testimony in prior cases. Whitehurst himself was even asked to alter his reports. Materials-a.n.a.lysis-unit chief Corby "had me come into his room one day and told me they - I don't know who 'they' were - wanted me to take statements out of my report.... Whitehurst refused.[757]*

During the 1991 trial of Walter Leroy Moody, convicted of killing Federal Judge Robert Vance with a letter-bomb, both Thurman and Martz "circ.u.mvented established procedures and protocols... [and] testified in areas of expertise that [they] had no qualifications in, therefore fabricating evidence in [their] testimony," Whitehurst wrote in a memorandum to the Bureau's Scientific a.n.a.lysis Chief James Kearny.

Both Martz and Thurman were fully aware of the fact that they were in violation of procedures and protocols of the FBI Laboratory and did knowingly and purposely commit perjury and obstruction of justice in this matter.[758]

Interestingly, the chief prosecutor in the case was none other than Louis Freeh, who was an a.s.sistant U.S. Attorney at the time. According to Whitehurst, Freeh did not have a single piece of evidence tying Moody to the crime. Thurman got around this little inconvenience by sending the evidence to his friend Roger Martz, who, like Thurman, was not qualified to perform the examination. Both Thurman and Martz were recently removed from their positions due to allegations of falsification of evidence and perjury.

Thurman's original claim to fame was the Pan Am 103 case. He had concluded that a tiny fragment of microchip, amazingly discovered two years after the bombing, was part of a batch of timers sold to the Libyans by the Swiss firm MEBO. This "new evidence" allowed the U.S. government to point the finger of blame at Libya, conveniently letting Syria - originally implicated in the bombing - off the hook.

After the a.s.sa.s.sination of JFK, nitrate tests conducted on Lee Harvey Oswald concluded that he had not fired a rifle on November 22. Yet this fact, like the false palm print, was kept secret for 10 months, then buried deep inside the Warren Commission Report.[759]

In the Moody case, Freeh possessed copies of reports that disproved the prosecution's allegations, but did not even make them available, or known, to the jury. Freeh also failed to inform the jury that his chief witness, Ted Banks, failed a lie-detector test regarding his a.s.sociation with Moody. In 1995, Banks testified at an appeal hearing that Freeh had threatened and coerced him into testifying against the defendant.[760]

In the World Trade Center case, Whitehurst testified that he was told not to provide any information or evidence, such as alternate explanations to the urea-nitrate theory, that could be used by the defense to challenge the prosecutors' hypothesis of guilt.[761]

In Oklahoma, Whitehurst conducted a test on McVeigh's clothes, but found nothing.

While the FBI claimed it found traces of PETN in McVeigh's pants pocket, on his s.h.i.+rts, and on a set of earplugs, Agent Burmeister acknowledged on cross-examination that no PETN or ammonium nitrate was found at the blast scene.

Nor was ammonium nitrate found in McVeigh's car, his personal effects, hotel rooms he had stayed at, the various storage sheds the suspects allegedly used to store the bomb-making components, or in Nichols' Herington, Kansas home. The Bureau also found no evidence of explosives residue in samples of McVeigh's hair, or sc.r.a.pings from his fingernails.[762]

Burmeister also testified that crystals of ammonium nitrate, which he found on a piece of wood paneling from the Ryder truck, later vanished.

"That piece has gone through a lot of hands since the time that I've seen it," Burmeister testified, "and I can't speak to how they could have disappeared."[763]

As Canadian County Sheriff Deputy Clint Boehler said, "The FBI disturbed and removed evidence. They don't tell anybody else; they don't work with anybody else.... How did they know it was the truck? They never looked at so many obvious things."[764]

Yet, as in the Kennedy case, Federal Prosecutors went to trial armed with deliberate lies and other distortions that favored their somewhat questionable version of events.

While the FBI's evidence procedures would be called into question, prosecutors would seek to impress the jury with evidence of the suspects' militant Right-wing leanings. Prosecutors began with letters McVeigh sent to his sister Jennifer, expressing his rage over the events at Ruby Ridge and Waco, at the same time millions of Americans were expressing the very same anger.

"The Federal Government was absolutely out of control," said Sarah Bain, the San Antonio school teacher who served as forewoman of the jury that acquitted the [Davidian] sect members of most of the serious crimes they were charged with. "The wrong people were on trial," Bain complained. "It should have been the ones that planned the raid and orchestrated it."[765]

But it was other evidence - more incriminating and disturbing - that would provide the critical elements needed to convince the jury of McVeigh's malicious intent. In November of '94, McVeigh visited his family in Lockport, New York, where he confided to his sister Jennifer that he had been driving around with 1,000 pounds of explosives.

In a letter sent to her in March, a month before the bombing, McVeigh wrote, "Something big is going to happen in the month of the bull."

Finally, to prove McVeigh's malevolent intentions, prosecutors introduced a letter stored on Jennifer's computer. The letter, addressed to the ATF, warned, "ATF, all you tyrannical motherf.u.c.kers will swing in the wind one day, for your treasonous actions against the Const.i.tution and the United States. Remember the Nuremberg War Trials. But... but... but... I was only following orders!...... Die, you spineless, cowardice b.a.s.t.a.r.ds!"[766]

McVeigh also supposedly left a letter to a "girlfriend" (which media psychojournalists claimed he didn't have) in the glove compartment of his car, outlining plans to bomb additional targets.

Had McVeigh actually left such a letter in his vehicle, and dropped Paulsen's business card in the patrol car? While it is possible, such scenes are reminiscent of the doctored photograph of Lee Harvey Oswald holding a rifle and Communist newspaper, or Earth First! activist Judi Bari holding a machine gun, which was loaned to her for the photo by an FBI informant - a photo which he took.

In Oklahoma City, as in all criminal conspiracies, the old adage, "follow the money" would apply. Certainly a pair of lone nuts with a fertilizer/fuel bomb wouldn't need much - a couple of thousand dollars at most - considering they didn't have to pay off a web of co-conspirators.

A November '94 robbery in Arkansas would prove to be just the crime investigators needed to put the final piece of the puzzle in place. When the indictments were returned, the grand jury concluded the bombing was financed by the robbery of gun dealer Roger Moore (AKA: Bob Anderson), who had known McVeigh and let him stay at his home.

Yet what is interesting is that the FBI had already come to the conclusion that the bomb components were already purchased or stolen by the date of the robbery.

The indictment was also incongruously worded: "McVeigh and Nichols "caused" the robbery of $60,000 worth of guns, coins and precious metals. Exactly how had they "caused" the robbery? The prosecution first presented the testimony of McVeigh's friend Kevin Nicholas: Nicholas: He said that he screwed him some way out of some money or something.

Mackey: Who is "he"?

Nicholas: That Bob did for when Tim worked for him.

Mackey: And as a result?

Nicholas: He said he - that he'd be an easy guy to rob because he lived way back in the sticks and, you know, there was woods around his house and stuff.

Yet McVeigh had a solid alibi. He was at a gun show in Kent, Ohio on November 5.

Still, the government attempted to have Michael Fortier implicate his friends at trial by testifying that McVeigh called him and said, "Nichols got Bob!" This largely hearsay testimony would not be backed up by further evidence.

Authorities never proved that McVeigh or Nichols actually robbed Moore, but did prove that on November 7, 1994, Nichols rented a storage locker - number 37 - in Council Grove, under the alias "Ted Parker" to store some of the stolen items.

In his "confession" to authorities, Fortier said that McVeigh met him in Kingman on the 15th, whereupon they drove to Kansas. On the way, Fortier testified, McVeigh pointed out the Murrah Building as the target of the upcoming attack. When they reached the storage locker, they loaded 25 guns into Fortier's rented car.[767]

Back in Kingman, Fortier p.a.w.ned the weapons, or sold them to friends, including his neighbor, James Rosencrans.

On November 16, Nichols rented locker Q-106 at AAAABCO Storage in Las Vegas, where ex-wife Lana Padilla discovered gold and silver bars, jade, along with wigs, masks, and pantyhose. A safety deposit box key belonging to Moore was found at Nichols' home.

The 60-year-old Moore claimed he was surprised one morning shortly after 9:00 a.m., when two masked men accosted him outside his kitchen door. The men, wearing woodland-style camouflage fatigues, bound him and ransacked his house, taking guns, coins, jewels, and personal effects.

What is strange is that the thieves left a number of expensive handguns and large-capacity magazines, both highly desirable items. The private gun dealer, who had enough weapons to supply a platoon, did not have an insurance rider for the guns, and most of the serial numbers weren't registered.

Moore told the author he didn't have a rider because he was afraid some insurance company secretary would see his large collection and tell her boyfriend, who would then come and rob him. A curious explanation for failing to insure a highly valuable collection. Moore claims he only got a limited settlement - approximately $10,000.

Interestingly, one well-connected source I spoke to a.s.serted that "the [Moore] robbery was staged.... that's the truth.... He (Moore) used a lot of aliases, he had eight different social security numbers, eight different dates of birth, and that's only the ones that I know about...."

This source also claimed, long before defense attorney Michael Tigar's allegations were made public, that the motive of the "robbery" was insurance fraud, staged with the help of Nichols and McVeigh. "Nichols had simply bought weapons [from Moore].... Moore approached Nichols about the fraud originally.... Moore took payment of some odd items that winds up in Terry Nichols' [storage locker]."

This a.s.sertion was reinforced at Nichols' trial, when Tigar questioned Moore's girlfriend, Karen Anderson, about why she had included on her list - a list she claimed had been drawn up in late 1992 or early 1993 - a gun that hadn't been purchased until late 1994![768]

When I spoke to Moore's friend and neighbor, Nora Waye, she told me Moore had complained to her that the local Sheriff who investigated the robbery, "blew [Moore's] cover."

Could a phony robbery set-up explain the wigs, masks, and pantyhose in Terry Nichol's storage locker? Given the relations.h.i.+p between McVeigh and Moore, it is possible the two men made some sort of deal.

Former grand juror Hoppy Heidelberg is another person who had doubts about Moore: "Something wasn't right about him," said Heidelberg. "It wasn't that his testimony wasn't believable. He was just c.o.c.ky. He had a strange att.i.tude for a man testifying before a grand jury. He was so casual about it, that was strange. He testified like a man who had done it many times before.... It wasn't anything he said, it was his att.i.tude. You'll see the same att.i.tude in an FBI agent whose testifying."[769]

"Moore's being protected," said my source. "No matter how this thing's going to get played out. He'll talk to you all day long and won't tell you a thing. He knows how to talk."

John Doe Who?

"We have no information showing anyone other than Mr. McVeigh and Mr. Nichols are the masterminds" - U.S. Attorney Beth Wilkinson On the day of the deadly attack, Attorney General Janet Reno announced, "The FBI and the law enforcement community will pursue every lead and use every possible resource to bring these people responsible to justice.... It is very important that we pursue each lead... it is going to be very important that we leave no stone unturned..."

In fact, numerous stones were left unturned.

While the Justice Department (DoJ) focused its efforts on McVeigh and Nichols, scant attention was focused on other suspects - John Doe 2, the mysterious ent.i.ty who was seen with McVeigh, and had accompanied him the morning of the bombing. Witnesses also saw him with McVeigh in the Murrah Building, in stores, at restaurants, at a bar, and at the truck rental shop before the bombing. Still others claim to have seen him speeding away from the scene. All in all, there are almost two-dozen witnesses who reported seeing John Doe 2.

The FBI made a big show of tracking down this illusive, menacing-looking suspect. "The FBI has conducted over 9,000 witness interviews and has followed every possible lead in an intensive effort to identify and bring to justice anyone who was involved in this disaster," stated U.S. Attorney Patrick Ryan in a letter to the victims' families.[770]

The search for John Doe 2 quickly became the biggest man-hunt in FBI history. What authorities weren't saying however, was that not only was there a John Doe 2, there were least four John Does! Yet the issue was quickly and quietly narrowed down to just one John Doe 2.

On April 23, four days after the bombing, The Was.h.i.+ngton Post quoted a senior law enforcement official who said "at least four" men were involved in the terrorist act last week and "there very well could be more."[771]

The FBI then requalified its position on May 15: "Wherever we look, it's Terry and Timmy, Terry and Timmy - and n.o.body else," quipped an unnamed FBI official in Time magazine.

Yet on June 11, another FBI official was quoted in the Post as saying, "I think when this is over we'll have at least six or eight guys indicted and in custody. It's just too big for two guys to pull off."[772]

Then on June 15, the FBI backtracked again. "Periodically you just get something in an investigation that goes nowhere. John Doe 2 goes nowhere. It doesn't show up in a.s.sociations, it doesn't show up in phone calls. It doesn't show up among the Army buddies of McVeigh..."[773]

The previous day, the FBI put out a story that John Doe 2 may have actually been Todd Bunting, a soldier at Fort Riley, Kansas who had rented a truck at the same dealer McVeigh had. The FBI stated that Bunting wore clothing similar to that ascribed to John Doe 2, that he had a tattoo in the same place, and that he wore a hat similar to John Doe 2's.

Yet Elliott's employees dismissed Bunting as the person who was seen with McVeigh, and Bunting held a press conference stating that he had in fact rented a truck at Elliott's - 24 hours after McVeigh allegedly rented his.

The Bunting story was officially dropped.

Then, on January 28, 1996, the prosecution switched tracks again, officially resurrecting the Todd Bunting story. In a long brief, the government disclosed that Elliott's employee Tom Kessinger was the only one who could recall John Doe 2 well enough to describe him.

Now, after a November interview with a prosecutor and two FBI agents, Kessinger was "confident that he had Todd Bunting in mind when he provided the description for the John Doe 2 composite." Kessinger, the brief continued, is "now unsure" whether anyone accompanied McVeigh. But his two co-workers "continue to believe that two men came in to rent the truck."

In that brief, the prosecution speculated that the defense might use "Kessinger's admitted confusion" to challenge his identification of McVeigh.

It seemed it was less "Kessinger's admitted confusion" than a deliberate fabrication by prosecutors and the FBI to cover up the existence of John Doe 2. As Kessinger told bombing victim Glenn Wilburn, who conducted his own investigation, "I don't know how they came up with that one."

Kessinger later changed his story at the urging of federal prosecutors Patrick Ryan and Joseph Hartzler. During a pretrial conference, Jones challenged Kessinger: "How can you be so wrong 60 hours after the event and so right a year and a half later?" Jones asked him. "Could you be changing your mind because the government wants you to?"

"No," Kessinger replied.[774]

Yet on March 25 and April 5, Hartzler had written Jones that "The existence and ident.i.ty of this John Doe 2, whom we are confident is not Mr. Bunting, is the subject of a continuing investigation."

And in a May 1, 1996 letter written by Hartzler, the government prosecutor informed Jones that Kessinger and Beemer had been shown a picture of the cap Bunting wore when he picked up a truck on April 18. "They both stated that the cap was not the same one they saw on John Doe II," Hartzler wrote, "and they reaffirmed that this second individual accompanied 'Kling' when he rented the truck."[775]

Yet at a hearing on April 9, federal prosecutor Beth Wilkinson stated that the government "has no information showing anyone but Mr. Nichols and Mr. McVeigh were the masterminds of this bombing."[776]

"They keep telling us they're looking for John Doe No. 2, but then they turn around and give statements indicating that they don't believe there is a John Doe No. 2," said a woman whose husband was killed in the bombing.[777]

Other victims, like naive children, blindly placed their faith in the government's dubious a.s.surances. Hartzler held one meeting with bombing victims in which he "discussed and disposed of some of the more bizarre theories."

"I just got a better feeling about what's going on," said Bud Welch, whose daughter, Julie, died in the attack. "The prosecution a.s.sured us that there was no evidence that was suppressed. We really didn't know that," added Welch.

"We know what's going on now and that they're there for us," Pamela Weber-Fore said of the prosecutors.[778]

Other victims weren't as easily fooled. "I don't think that there's any question about the fact that they're covering up who was involved in the bombing," said V.Z. Lawton, a HUD worker who was injured in the blast. "I've talked to five witnesses myself who saw McVeigh with John Doe number two in Oklahoma City that morning, within fifteen minutes of the blast... tells me that there is something wrong."[779]

As Nichols' attorney Michael Tigar said, "It's strange that the official version has focused on Nichols and McVeigh, and that the government is now busily engaged in denying all possibility that there could be anybody else."[780]

Grand Jury Bypa.s.s "The FBI has thoroughly investigated all leads and I am confident in the investigation." - lead prosecutor Joseph Hartzler Naturally, while many eyewitnesses stepped forward to tell the FBI they had seen additional suspects, not one was ever called before the grand jury.

Yet federal prosecutors still had one hurdle to overcome before they could make their case. They had to deal with Hoppy Heidelberg. Heidelberg, who often quoted from the grand juror's handbook, was aware that the grand jury was charged with the task of determining the relevance of the evidence, and asking those questions pertinent to the case. So far, all the evidence centered around Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. Heidelberg wanted to know why prosecutors had not subpoenaed the many witnesses who had seen John Doe 2.

"No one who saw McVeigh with other suspects, was ever allowed to testify before the federal grand jury," said Heidelberg. The obvious inference being that those who saw McVeigh would have also seen John Doe 2.

But Patrick Ryan seemed to be controlling the jury. He did not like Heidelberg's tendency to go against the flow. In a letter to the victims' families, Ryan states: The United States has never maintained or even suggested, that no other person or persons were involved with McVeigh and Nichols in the commission of these crimes. As stated earlier, the question of involvement of others is the subject of intensive investigation by federal investigators and prosecutors who are totally devoted and committed to identifying and prosecuting all persons involved in the planning or commission of these crimes.

Yet, as in the Kennedy a.s.sa.s.sination, federal prosecutors simply paraded before the grand jury those witnesses favorable to their preordained view of the case, ignoring leads and witnesses that conflicted with their highly dubious version of events.

Although Heidelberg attempted to question grand jury witnesses, he was repeatedly stonewalled by prosecutors. In an interview with journalist Jon Rappaport, Heidelberg stated, "They said I'd have to get the prosecuting attorney's okay for each question I wanted to ask. But you know, in dialog one question leads to another right away, so you can't cross-examine that way.

"They kept promising and promising to answer all my questions, but ultimately they stalled me. I was had."[781]

In an interview on CBS This Morning, Stephen Jones said, "...what is troubling here is that the prosecutors, in effect, according to this grand juror's allegation, took away from the grand jury their duty to go after the full story, not just concentrating on the two people that had already been arrested."[782]

Not buying the government's story of a couple of p.i.s.sed-off whackos with a fertilizer bomb, Heidelberg also asked that bomb experts be called in to identify the type of bomb used. "Let's get the answer... Let's get the architects and engineers who built the building in there and question them," Heidelberg told Rappaport.

"Did you request that?" asked Rappaport.

"Of course! I demanded bomb experts all along. And engineers and geologists. They said - do you want to know what they said? They didn't have the money! I said I'd go down to the University of Oklahoma and bring some geologists back myself for free. They wouldn't let me.

"The bomb is the key to the whole case."[783]

In order to satisfy the grand jury that an ANFO bomb blew up the building, prosecutors called in one bomb expert - Robert Hopler. Hopler, it turns out, recently retired from Dyno-n.o.bel, an explosives manufacturer in Salt Lake City. Dyno-n.o.bel used to be Hercules Powder Company - a reputed CIA front.

"I knew he was CIA," said Heidelberg. "It was pretty obvious to me and most of the jury."[784]

Judge David Russell eventually dismissed Heidelberg from the grand jury for having the audacity to question the government's case. In a letter to Heidelberg dated October 24, 1995, Russell states: Effectively immediately, you are dismissed from the grand jury. Your obligation of secrecy continues. Any disclosure of matters that occurred before the grand jury const.i.tutes a contempt of court. Each violation of the obligation of secrecy may be punished c.u.mulatively.

The government's excuse for dismissing Heidelberg was an anonymous interview he supposedly gave to Lawrence Myers of Media Bypa.s.s magazine. As previously noted, Heidelberg never consented to be interviewed by Myers, and in fact, Myers had surrept.i.tiously obtained the content of an interview conducted by the investigator for Heidelberg's attorney, John DeCamp.

But Heidelberg claims the real reason was a letter he wrote to Judge Russell dated October 5th, in which Heidelberg states: The families of the victims deserve to know who was involved in the bombing, and there appears to be an attempt to protect the ident.i.ty of certain suspects, namely John Doe 2....

"I think they (the government) knows who John Doe 2 is, and they are protecting him," said Heidelberg in an interview in Jubilee Magazine. "This is because John Doe 2 is either a government agent or informant and they can't afford for that to get out."[785]

Eventually, the FBI dropped the John Doe 2 lead altogether. John Doe 2 had been a red herring, a false lead, the Justice Department claimed. John Doe 2 had never really existed.[786]

Dozens of credible witnesses think otherwise.