The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 3

Then Hall dropped another bombsh.e.l.l.

"We also know that the ATF had a magazine inside the building, which was illegal. But the floor was blown out of that magazine. And there's some question about what was in there too that created that damage, because that was a foot of concrete that was blown out of that magazine."[94]

While several other unexploded bombs were pulled out of the wreckage, none were widely mentioned.

One such bomb was a 2 X 2 foot box marked "High Explosives" which had a timer on it. This was confirmed by Oklahoma City Fire Marshal d.i.c.k Miller. The timing mechanism apparently had been set to detonate at ten minutes after nine. Apparently it had malfunctioned due to the initial blast.[95]

According to Toni Garrett, a nurse who was on the scene tagging dead bodies. "Four people - rescue workers - told us there was a bomb in the building with a timing mechanism set to go off ten minutes after nine." According to Garrett, witnesses told her it was an active bomb. "We saw the bomb squad take it away."[96]

This fact was confirmed by an Oklahoma City Police officer who inadvertently began to walk into the building when a fireman yelled, "Hey idiot, that's a bomb!" The stunned officer looked over and saw the 2 X 2 box surrounded by police crime tape. He then heard the fireman yell, "There's one over there and another over there! We're waiting for the bomb squads to come back from hauling off the others."

Investigator Phil O'Halloran has Bill Martin of the Oklahoma City Police Department on tape stating that one of the bombs found in the building was two to three five-gallon containers of Mercury Fulminate - a powerful explosive - one not easily obtainable except to military sources.[97]

Citizens monitoring police radios heard the following conversation on the morning of the 19th: First voice: "Boy, you're not gonna' believe this!"

Second voice: "Believe what?"

First voice: "I can't believe it... this is a military bomb!" [98]

Apparently, the containers, with "Milspec" (military specification) markings clearly visible, were found in the bas.e.m.e.nt. Could this explain what McVeigh's car was doing in the underground parking garage? Mercury Fulminate is a highly volatile booster material. Volatile enough to create a very powerful explosion.[99]

Shortly thereafter, a fireman up on the third floor of the building noticed two military ambulances pull up to the building, and saw several men in dark fatigues carrying stretchers from the building to the waiting ambulances. What were on the stretchers were not bodies, but boxes, which appeared to contain doc.u.ments. One of the stretchers had on it what appeared to be a missile launch tube. The missile, apparently part of the Army recruiting office's display, was confirmed the 61st EOD to be inert.[100][101]

What is also interesting is that General Partin stated the building's support structures failed primarily at the third floor level. In speculating who would have access at that juncture, it may be relevant to note that the Department of Defense (DoD) was on the third floor, adjoining column B-3, which Partin believes contained the main detonation charge.[102]

Partin was also informed by an acquaintance in the CIA that several of their personnel who examined the site discovered Mercury Fulminate residue on several rooftops near the building. [103]

Around the same time as the Eglin Air Force Base report was being made public, William Northrop, a former Israeli intelligence agent, told me that a friend in the CIA's Directorate of Operations informed him that there was plastic explosive residue on the building's columns.

Adding more fuel to the theory of an inside job was the dismembered military leg found in the wreckage - a leg not belonging to any of the known victims. (Although authorities would later attempt to attribute the leg to Airman Lakesha Levy.) Nor was the local media attributing the bombing to the work of amateurs. "Right now, they are saying that this is the work of a sophisticated group," stated a KFOR-TV newscaster. "This is the work of a sophisticated device, and it had to have been done by an explosives expert, obviously, with this type of explosion."[104]

Even Governor Frank Keating told local news stations: "The reports I have is that one device was deactivated, and there's another device, and obviously whatever did the damage to the Murrah Building was a tremendous, very sophisticated explosive device."

Newscasters live on the scene could be heard throughout the day announcing, "We have reports of two other bombs pulled out of the building," and "The second two devices were larger than the first," and so on: KFOR Channel 4: The FBI has confirmed there is another bomb in the Federal Building. It's in the East side of the building. They've moved everybody back several blocks, obviously to, uh, unplug it so it wont go off. They're moving everybody back. It's a... it's a weird scene because at first everybody was running when they gave the word to get everybody away from the scene, but now people are just standing around kind of staring. It's a very surreal, very strange scene.

Now, we want to get some information out to people, to people who are in the downtown area. You don't want to stand on the sidewalk, and the reason for that is there are gas mains underneath and if there's a second explosion, that those gas mains could blow. But, again, we do have confirmation. There is a second bomb in the Federal Building. We know it's on the east side. We're not sure what floor, what level, but there is definitely danger of a major second explosion. They're warning everybody to get as far back as they can. They're trying to get the bomb defused right now. They are in the process of doing it, but this could take some time. They're telling people that this is something to take very seriously, and not to slip forward to get a look at this, because this thing could definitely go off.

KWTV Channel 9: All right, we just saw, if you were watching, there, there was a white pickup truck backing a trailer into the scene here. They are trying to get people out of the way so that they can get it in. Appears to be the Oklahoma Bomb Squad. It's their Bomb Disposal Unit, is what it is, and it is what they would use if, if, the report that we gave you just a few minutes ago is correct, that a second explosive device of some kind is inside the building. They'll back that trailer in there, and the Bomb Squad folks will go in and they'll use that trailer. You see the bucket on the back? This is how they would transport the Explosive Device away from this populated area. They would try to do something.

Finally, KFOR announced: The second explosive was found and defused. The third explosive was found - and they are working on it right now as we speak. I understand that both the second and the third explosives were larger than the first.[105]

[Paramedic Tiffany Smith, who was working with other rescue personnel in the Murrah Building that morning, claims she was told by a black-suited ATF agent that another bomb had been found attached to a gas line.[106]]

When Channel 4 interviewed terrorism expert Dr. Randall Heather at approximately 1:00 P.M. he stated: "We should find out an awful lot, when these bombs are taken apart.... We got lucky today, if you can consider anything about this tragedy lucky. It's actually a great stroke of luck, that we've got defused bombs. It's through the bomb material that we'll be able to track down who committed this atrocity."[107]

In fact, it is uncertain if the bombs were taken apart and examined. As stated in a report prepared by the National Fire Protection a.s.sociation: "The device was removed in the sheriff's bomb trailer and exploded in a remote location."[108][109]

Incredibly, all these reports were quickly hushed up and denied later on. Suddenly, the additional bombs inside the building became a car-bomb outside the building, then a van containing 2,000 pounds of ANFO, then a truck containing 4,800 pounds.

Governor Keating, who himself had reported a second device, would later reverse his position, leading a statewide cover-up proclaiming that Representative Key and others investigating additional bombs and suspects were "howling at the moon," and "off the reservation."

When J.D. Cash, a journalist writing for the McCurtain County Gazette, tried to interview members of the Bomb Squad, Fire Department and Police, he was generally told by potential interviewees, "I saw a lot that day, I wish I hadn't. I have a wife, a job, a family... I've been threatened, we've been told not to talk about the devices."[110]

When I attempted to interview two members of the Sheriff's Bomb Squad who were first on the scene, they told me there were no additional bombs taken away or detonated. When questioned further they became visibly uptight and referred me to their superior.

One law-enforcement official who had a little more practice at lying was Oklahoma City FBI SAC Bob Ricks, the master propagandist of Waco fame, who coolly stated to the press, "We never did find another device.... we confirmed that no other device existed."[111]

The ATF, who initially denied even having any explosives in the building, eventually recanted their statements and told reporters that the 2 X 2 foot box was a "training bomb." I asked General Partin if there could be such a thing as an ATF "training bomb."

"I would certainly not think so," said Partin. "Look, when you have an EOD team - EOD teams are very well trained people. And any training device would have to be so labeled - so labeled. And the EOD people who were there were claiming it was explosives."[112]

Former ATF man Rick Sherrow had his own thoughts on the issue of training bombs. "All the field offices have that material (training bombs). It's 100 percent on the outside - weighs the same, looks the same, but it has no fill - no inert markings or anything else. I can't say absolutely that's what was found in the building, but it's more than likely. They had stun grenades too, which are live. They can't contribute or anything [to the damage], but they lied about it, and that jams up their credibility."[113]

Cash interviewed GSA workers who helped the ATF unload their a.r.s.enal room two weeks after the blast. Cash described in a series of Gazette articles beginning on May 4, 1995, how the ATF had stored weapons, explosives and ammunition in the Murrah Building in contravention of the very laws they were supposed to enforce: Both the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Bureau (DEA) had explosives and weapons - including an anti-tank missile - illegally stored in the building when it blew up April 19, the McCurtain Gazette has learned. An eyewitness observer told the Gazette recently of a.s.sisting federal agents to remove weapons and explosive devices from a partially-damaged a.r.s.enal inside the Federal Building after the explosion.[114]

Lester Martz, ATF Special Agent in Charge for the region, denied this. "That locker was intact," said Martz in an interview with the Dallas Morning News, and with the author. Martz went on to say that the blasted out area between columns B-2 and B-4 was the result of DEA ordinance. Yet the DEA offices were on the west side of the building on the seventh floor, nowhere near that area. The ATF offices, however, were in close proximity to it, being located in the top rear corner of the building, on the east side.

ATF officials were adamant in denying that no explosives were stored in the building. But it seems they did have C-4. OCPD Officer Don Browning, who viewed video footage taken by Sheriff Melvin Sumter, says C-4 was "definitely" carried out of the building. Browning, a Vietnam veteran, described the explosives he saw: "It was in wide blocks, about 3/4" thick, around 10" long, and about 2" wide, wrapped in cellophane."[115][116]

Cash interviewed at least one unnamed witness who described helping ATF agents remove ordinance from their storage locker: "One night, up on the ninth floor, where the ATF offices [were], I helped some of their agents load onto an elevator small arms, machine guns, several cases of ammunition and even some boxes marked 'Explosives'" he said.[117]

The Gazette interviewed two more witnesses who a.s.sisted in the post bombing clean-up. One, a civilian contractor hired by the GSA, told the Gazette July 30th: "They had everything! ...home-made zip guns, AK-47s, sawed-off shotguns, AR-15s, M-16s - literally hundreds of guns. You name it, they had it all... any kind of weapon you could ever want." He also said he recalls seeing an ATF agent with a five-gallon bucket of hand-grenades.

"They carried out every conceivable type of firearm known to man," Cash told video producer Chuck Allen, "including hundreds of thousands of rounds of ammunition, boxes marked explosives, hand grenades, everything short of a Russian T-72 tank." Finally, a witness told the Gazette: "What was left of that [ATF magazine] room is in the far south-east end of the ninth floor, but much of it was blown away and [apparently] disappeared into the rubble right on top of the America's Kids Day Care Center."

The area just below the ATF's a.r.s.enal room - the coned-in area on the far left (south-east) side of the building seen in aerial photographs - is where most of the casualties occurred. This area extends one to two stories below the street level. (See Appendix) Apparently, this is not the first time such a "mishap" has occurred. Approximately 10 years ago, some captured Soviet ordinance, including rockets with high-explosive warheads, wound up stored at FBI headquarters in Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C. There was a subsequent fire, and the exploding ordinance caused more than a little consternation among firefighters, especially when one rocket took off and blasted a two-foot diameter hole in a cinder block wall. When the story leaked out, the ATF reacted by removing more than 30 pounds of explosives from their offices down the street.[118]

In Allen's video, Cash makes the a.s.sertion that the ma.s.sive internal damage to the building was the result of secondary explosions caused by these illegally stored explosives. The ordinance, which included percussion caps for C-4 (and C-4 itself), had fallen from their ninth floor storage area after the initial truck blast, Cash suggests, to one of the lower floors, where it detonated, causing ma.s.sive internal damage. According to Cash's experts, although C-4 is relatively safe to handle, it can be set off with 3500 p.s.i. of pressure.

General Partin disagrees with Cash's a.n.a.lysis, explaining: "For anything to have tumbled down from up there and done the increased damage is technically impossible... If something had fallen after that section had collapsed and caused an explosion that brought down [column] B-3, the thing would not have cropped the way it did. If you look up there at the top left hand side, you don't see anything up there that would indicate that you had a big blow-out at the top. If it had, it wouldn't of had anything to do with the column collapsing down below - they're too far away."

I asked Partin if C-4 could explode due to the increased air pressure resulting from the truck blast, from the weight of falling debris, or simply by falling eight or nine stories.

"Look," said Partin, "C-4 is kinda' tough to get to go; ammonium nitrate is even tougher. It takes a real intense shock wave to get that kind of explosive to go." Partin then added, "I thought I explained it to Cash, but I guess he's persisting with his story."

Why Cash would persist with his story while largely side-stepping Partin's a.n.a.lysis is curious. Yet if the ATF were responsible for the secondary explosion, it would seem they would have reason to lie.[119] [Not only were they storing explosives illegally in a public building containing a day-care center, but almost the entire contingent of approximately 13 agents was absent on the day of the bombing (more on this later).]

Was the ATF in fact responsible, knowingly or unknowingly, for the explosion that destroyed the Murrah building? Consider the following article which appeared in the June 5, 1995 issue of Newsweek: For the past year, the ATF and the Army Corps of Engineers have been blowing up car bombs at the White Sands Proving Ground in New Mexico. The project, code-named Dipole Might, is designed to create a computer model to unravel terrorist car-and truck-bomb attacks. By coincidence, a ATF agent a.s.signed to Dipole Might, happened to be in Oklahoma City on April 19th, working at the Federal Courthouse, which stands across the street from the Murrah Building. He saw the devastation and called the ATF office in Dallas. The Murrah Building had just been hit by 'ANFO' (ammonium material) bomb of at least several thousand pounds, he reported. Within minutes, explosives agents trained under Dipole Might were dispatched to the scene. They identified the type and size of the bomb almost immediately.

Just how this agent (Harry Eberhardt) was able to immediately ascertain the building had been blown up by an ANFO bomb, when no forensic a.n.a.lysis had yet been conducted, is unclear. When Phil O'Halloran, a freelance journalist, attempted to ask the ATF Public Relations Bureau why a Dipole Might expert just happened to be in the courthouse at that moment, and how he could immediately have known the exact nature of the bomb, O'Halloran, rather than given a rational explanation, was accused of attacking the agency and was promised a fax of agency views on Right-wing conspiracists (which never arrived).[120]

It is also unclear why was the Sheriff's Bomb Squad was in the parking lot between the Murrah Building and the Federal Courthouse at 7:45 that morning. The Bomb Squad denies being there. But Norma Smith and other Federal Courthouse employees recall seeing the Bomb Squad's distinctive white truck. "We did wonder what it was doing in our parking lot," recalled Smith. "Jokingly, I said, 'Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough.'"[121]

Oklahoma City attorney Daniel J. Adomitis told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram he also saw the Bomb Squad there that morning. "As I was pa.s.sing the back side of the County Courthouse, I noticed a truck with a trailer and the truck said 'Bomb Disposal.' I remember thinking as I pa.s.sed that , 'Gee, I wonder if they had a bomb threat at the county courthouse?'"[122]

Was the bomb squad alerted that something was in the works? Not according to the ever-controvertful Lester Martz. "I have not come across any information that any kind of bomb unit was at the building prior to the bombing," announced Martz with a straight face at the same time he lauded the heroism of Luke Franey, the ATF agent who supposedly "karate-kicked" his way through three walls.[123]

What is certain is that the Murrah Building had a bomb threat one week prior to the 19th. Michael Hinton remembers looking out the window of his YMCA room a week before and seeing about 200-300 people gathered outside. The incident didn't jog his memory until the local TV networks announced on the morning of the blast that the Federal Building had received a threat just a week before.[124]

Nurse Toni Garret recalled talking to several people who said there had been bomb threats two weeks prior to the bombing. "The FBI and the ATF knew that these bomb threats were real, and they did nothing about it."

Terrorism expert Dr. Randall Heather confirmed these reports, adding, "I know that there had been a threat phoned in to the FBI last week, but I don't know what the nature of that was."[125]

According to the Oklahoma City Fire Department, the FBI phoned in a warning on April 14, almost a week before the bombing. a.s.sistant Fire Chief Charles Gaines told Glenn Wilburn, who lost two grandsons in the blast, that there was never any warning. The grieving grandfather then walked down the hall to a.s.sistant Chief Dispatcher Harvey Weathers office. Weathers told Wilburn in no uncertain terms that the Fire Department had indeed received a warning on April 14. Relating Gaines' apparent loss of memory to Weathers, he replied, "Well, you asked me and I told you. I'm not going to lie for anybody...."[126]

[Of course, one person perfectly willing to lie for everybody was FBI SAC Bob Ricks.] When asked during a press conference if the FBI had received a warning, Ricks said, "The FBI in Oklahoma City has not received any threats to indicate that a bombing was about to take place."

Interesting play on words. Was Ricks surrept.i.tiously suggesting that one of the other FBI offices had received a warning? Or was there simply no reason for the FBI to receive a warning because they were in charge of the bombing from the beginning?

The transparent stories of the ATF and FBI are strikingly familiar to those propounded in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In that case, the FBI had one of its own informants - former Egyptian Army Colonel Emad Eli Salem - inside the group responsible for the bombing. According to Salem, who made secret tapes of his conversations with his FBI handler, Nancy Floyd, her supervisor refused to let Salem subst.i.tute a harmless powder for the real explosive. The agent then pulled Salem off the case. Soon afterwards, the bomb blew up, killing six people and injuring almost a 1,000 more.[127]

It also seems that the "coincidence" of the ATF's Dipole Might tests were uncannily similar to the May 24, 1990 bombing of Earth First! activist Judi Bari. The FBI claimed that Bari and her companion Daryl Cherney, who were on their way to a peaceful protest rally, had inadvertently blown themselves up with their own pipe-bomb. After Bari sued the FBI for false arrest and civil rights violations, she found out though discovery that the FBI ran a "bomb school" at Eureka College of the Redwoods in April of 1990 for both FBI and local police. The cla.s.ses included blowing up cars with pipe bombs, ostensibly to demonstrate the tactics used by terrorists (the same reason cited in the ATF's case). The instructor for this "school of terrorism" was none other than Frank Doyle Jr., the FBI bomb squad expert who showed up at the scene of Bari's car bombing one month later.

According to Freedom of Information Act records, Project Dipole Might was initiated under the authorization of Clinton's National Security Council. One of the stated purposes of the project was to produce computer models of bombings to "be displayed in a courtroom to aid in the prosecution of defendants." The Justice Department used the video tapes shot at White Sands during McVeigh's trial to "prove" that an ANFO bomb blew up the building. As Lawrence Myers, writing in Media Bypa.s.s magazine, asked: Why the National Security Council would fund such an ATF project, despite the absolute rarity of the crime, has not been explained.... Nor has it been explained as to what specific threat a.s.sessment information the government had when it decided to engage in such a project, just a few months before a Ryder Truck laden with ammonium nitrate fertilizer exploded in front of the Murrah Building.[128]

As Myers points out, the last-known case of a truck-bomb exploding in the U.S. was in 1970, when an ANFO bomb exploded in front of the Army Math lab at the University of Wisconsin in Madison. Why then, would the National Security Council suddenly feel the need for detailed information regarding ANFO truck-bomb attacks?

Was the ATF expecting such a bombing? Were they in fact responsible for blast or the secondary damage to the building? Or was the building wired for demolition as part of a larger plot?

["I'm firmly convinced that the ATF is guilty of an awful lot of things," said Bud, our ex-Green Beret. "I mean, if you look at what the ATF and the FBI did to Randy Weaver (and at Waco), it's just awful. They've gone hog wild and have [become] a power unto themselves."

Asked if he thought a rogue group or special unit within the military/intelligence community could or would commit such an act, Bud replied "It wouldn't really stun me."]

2.

"The Face of Terror"

"Before the Government tries to convict someone, they try first to demonize him."

- Trial lawyer Gerry Spence

On May 1st, a stunned America was introduced to "The Face of Terror." The steely-eyed mug of Timothy James McVeigh, superimposed over the limp, b.l.o.o.d.y body of a tiny dead child, stared coldly out at us from the cover of Time magazine.

Suddenly, there was no longer any doubt who had bombed the Murrah Building. As John Doe No. 1 was led from the n.o.ble County Courthouse in handcuffs and leg irons, the scene was something akin to a medieval script. "Baby Killer!" the crowd screamed. "Burn him! Burn him!"

In the pages that followed, Time and others would set out to "reveal the paranoid life and times of accused bomber Timothy McVeigh and his Right-wing a.s.sociates."[129] With the ink barely dry on the indictments, the national news media quickly began pumping out story after story focusing on the trivial ba.n.a.lities of McVeigh's life, attempting to reinforce the official allegations of his guilt. While the New York Times set the overall tone based on "leaks" from federal law enforcement sources, self-styled experts came crawling out of the woodwork.

"In deeply disturbing ways, his is a portrait of his generation," quipped Dale Russak and Serge Kovaleski, two sociologists moonlighting for the Was.h.i.+ngton Post.[130]

"...his tortured path - is a psychological portrait of his deterioration...." John Kifner of the New York Times announced with the authority of a Freudian a.n.a.lyst. "First there was McVeigh's own stunted personality and immediate frustrations. He was never able to overcome a sense of abandonment by his mother...."[131]

"Not making the Special Forces was something that was very hard for him to deal with," said an FBI agent training for his Ph.D. in psychology. "In his mind, much of his life has been one of thinking that he is a kind of Special Forces of his own."[132]

Finally: "He was the quiet one," said McVeigh's former 10th grade English teacher Coleen Conner, throwing a bit of adolescent psychology on the situation. "A lot of the quiet ones are the ones who have ended up doing scary things...."[133]

There it was - trial by media. Timothy McVeigh must be guilty, after all, they put his face on the cover of Time magazine.[134]

[Time. As journalist Jon Rappaport put it, "the home of faintly patronizing stories that go nowhere." Like the carefully manufactured image of Lee Harvey Oswald, the media would construct a menagerie reality of Timothy James McVeigh, suitable for public consumption.]

Fortunately, in the avalanche of articles that would follow, small hints of reality would occasionally seep through the mire.

"That just doesn't ring true to me, as to the person I knew," said Sheffield Anderson, a correctional officer who had gone through basic training with McVeigh and served with him in the Gulf. "In that picture of him coming out of the courthouse, he looks like a real mean guy. But I didn't sense anything out of the ordinary. McVeigh was a rational type guy, a thinking type person. The bombing thing is totally contrary to the person I knew."[135]

"The Timothy McVeigh I talked with didn't seem like a baby killer," said former Army Colonel David Hackworth about his Newsweek interview with McVeigh.[136]

During an interview on Prime Time Live, Lana Padilla, Terry Nichols ex-wife, told Diane Sawyer, "It's not the same person. I mean, you know..."

Sawyer: "The stony face."

Padilla: "No." [137]

"It became obvious during the hour-long discussion that Timothy McVeigh is neither a monster nor a madman," wrote Lawrence Myers, who interviewed McVeigh for Media Bypa.s.s magazine. "He left the impression that he is a man with strong convictions and a sense of honor."[138]

So just who is Timothy James McVeigh? Is he a hardened killer as the press and federal authorities have made him out to be? Or is he an ordinary man who became caught up in a complicated web of intrigue and deception?

"Timmy"

Timothy James McVeigh was born in Pendelton, New York on April 23, 1968, a small working cla.s.s town of 5,000 people just outside of Buffalo. Tim was the second child of Bill McVeigh, an auto worker, and Mildred, a travel agent. The elder McVeigh, 55, coached Little League and ran bingo night at the local catholic church, spending his free time golfing, or putzing in his garden. A heavily wooded rural area, young Tim spent his time hiking or playing sports with the neighborhood boys.

"He lived a few houses down from me, said boyhood friend Keith Maurer. "We played hockey, baseball and just about every other sport in the neighborhood. He wasn't the best athlete in the bunch, but he showed up to play every day and he always played hard."

The bright and inventive youngster also spent his time engaging in novel activities such as setting up a haunted house in his bas.e.m.e.nt, where he charged admission, or holding weekend casino fairs, where he acted as the dealer.

"He was very advanced for our age, "Maurer said. "I remember saying to myself: I wouldn't have thought of that."

Pat Waugh, a neighbor, said "I used to think to myself, that kid is going to go somewhere just because he's such a mover and shaker. I pictured him growing up to be a salesman, sort of a shyster."

When Tim's mom moved out in June of 1984, the outgoing young McVeigh became more reserved, as he and his sisters, Patty and Jennifer, attempted to deal with the trauma of the breakup. Reverend Paul Belzer of the Good shepherd Roman Catholic Church in Pendelton knew the family for 20 years. "People asked me, wasn't Tim crushed? But he didn't seem to be. He lived in the same house, had the same friends. Yeah, he'd have to miss his mother, but so many of the anchors were there."

Yanya Panepento, a cla.s.smate of Tim's recalled, He was a quiet boy. He kept to himself. He didn't seem like he was a trouble maker or anything like that."

Yet, nine months after the bombing, the Times John Kifner would write, "As commonplace as this seems, criminologists say, these traits are often the stuff of serial killers, terrorists and other solitary murderers."

To the armchair psychoa.n.a.lysts of the mainstream/tabloid media, the breakup would be the first of two major events - the second being his initial failure to make the Special Forces - that would profoundly and adversely affect the young McVeigh's personality. The first indications of this came when reporters discovered in his high school yearbook that Tim had been voted "most talkative" by his senior cla.s.s.

"The only thing I can remember is that he was very quite and polite," recalled Cecelia Matyjas, who taught 10th grade geometry. "He didn't cause any problems in cla.s.s. He seemed to be cooperative and attentive. He was on the track team and the cross-country team, so he was able to get along with others."

Brandon Stickney, a journalist contracted to produce an unauthorized biography of McVeigh for Prometheus Books, said "Tim was not the most talkative out of his cla.s.s of 194 students, but he was by no means introverted. He was certainly an outgoing young man who had many friends and acquaintances."

Yet none of these easy to check facts were ever mentioned in the volumous articles which appeared in the Times. Kifner, the Times "resident a.n.a.lyst," proclaimed with surety, "He was never able to overcome a sense of abandonment by his mother, who left the family when he was a boy; nor could he find a home outside the Army."