The Oklahoma City Bombing And The Politics Of Terror Part 31

As the meetings wore on, a consensus was reached that the truth needed to be told. The question was how. As McVeigh's trial approached, McDonald and her group were gearing up for a trial of their own. McDonald had contacted former Pentagon counter-terrorism a.n.a.lyst Jesse Clear, and Clear had contacted a young fire-brand attorney named Joseph Camerata. Camerata's intent was to gather together survivors and family members, and bring a negligence suit against the Federal Government.

In August of 1996, about a month before Camerata came to Oklahoma to interview his prospective clients, McDonald received a mysterious phone call. Although the caller didn't identify himself by name, McDonald thought she recognized the voice of as that of Representative Ernest Istook (R-OK). The caller was concerned. "What do we have to do to get you to drop this?" he asked McDonald.

Although he didn't realize it, McDonald was taping the conversation. The scenario the caller lays out is, to the uninitiated, both startling and frightening. He describes in almost precise detail how the operation was a sting gone bad; how federal agents allowed a truck with a powerful bomb to be driven through a crowded city and parked next to a building containing hundreds of people. And, revealing the mystery of the elusive John Doe 2, he explains how he was an undercover agent, supposed to diffuse the bomb at the last minute... and failed to do so.[1104]

Caller: "I don't think they expected the truck to blow up. I believe, and I've believed this for a long time... I believe that number two - John Doe #2 - was a federal agent working undercover. And I believe that he helped McVeigh steal the goods and helped buy the equipment, and I believe that he helped McVeigh make the bomb, and I believe that his whole task in this whole thing... his only real task was to render the device safe so that the federal agents could pretend to remove it and move in. They did not want to move in until he was cleared of the scene so that they wouldn't tip their hands. See what I'm saying? And the odds are pretty good that whole reason behind this is because they were after someone bigger than McVeigh, which means they probably think he was linked to somebody in the Militia movement or something like that.

"So I think what you're saying... you know I understand what you're saying... but I don't think you see the big picture. I don't think that , you know, I'd only divulge a look at the big picture if that's the actual scenario. If that's the actual scenario, which I believe it to be, I think there really is no claim that the agent, that was John Doe #2, did not render the bomb safe. Which he very well may have rendered the bomb safe, and then McVeigh may have put in a second fail-safe which he didn't know about. Which is probably what's happened....

"I would bet money on that's, in fact, the way this whole thing came down. Yes, they stood out in front of the building. Yes, they followed him directly to the building. Yes, they watched him get out of the building... get out of the truck. Yes, they watched him drive off. That's not ... that was their plan. I don't believe they ever planned to apprehend him anywhere near the building. I believe that John Doe #2 was a federal witness. His job was to render the device safe. Therefore, the only thing sitting out in front of that building was a bomb... a truck loaded with a bomb that would not go off. And I think that's the situation. In fact I know it is."

McDonald: "Okay... so... so why didn't they just come out and explain that to everybody?"

Caller: "The public doesn't have to know that. When it comes to the national security and things like this, the public does not have to know... the public is not required to know. First of all, by doing that, they would've, uh, put their witness, which is the federal agent John Doe #2, they would have blown his cover, first of all. Which possibly he's involved in something right now that you have no idea about. You know, there very well may have been numerous plots involving numerous buildings. See what I'm saying? You don't have the whole picture... without full knowledge... what you may do may cost them their lives. You should be very aware of that."

McDonald: "Okay. Well, that's what I've been trying to be very careful of. I don't want to see anyone else get hurt. At the same time..."

Caller: "...Well, if that guy's cover's been blown, he'd dead already."

McDonald: "Do you think so?"

Caller: "Sure... I'm sure. Once you have gone up to this point, it has gotten out, which I'm sure it has, because there are moles everywhere... the chances are good that he's been terminated already and this whole thing has blown up in their face. I don't believe that, out of an act of negligence, these highly trained professionals would have allowed that man to leave that truck out in front of that building with its live bomb in it."

McDonald: No, no, no. It stood out there for the whole time, from the time it pulled up until it went off."

Caller: "That's what I'm saying. They would not have allowed it. The only reason they allowed the truck to sit there so long, is because in my opinion they were under the impression that that bomb was rendered safe. And I'd say that there was no rush... there was no reason... to evacuate the building. There was no rush to make an arrest. The truck was just going to sit out there until they went and towed it off. So I don't think they thought it was an emergency and I think either that John Doe #2 made a mistake in rendering the bomb safe, or McVeigh was smart enough to plant a second fail-safe. Which most bomb makers do."

McDonald: "Do you think that's why they didn't tell anybody?"

Caller: "No. The bomb was safe as far as they knew."

McDonald: "Okay. Well, that explains why there was so many of them (federal agents) there so fast."

Caller: "Exactly. They followed him to the building, their agent was in the truck with him when they followed him to the building, everything was under control, as far as they thought, all they had was the man who built the bomb that was not going to go off, because their agent had rendered it safe. And their whole thing was not a problem. Let him drive his truck right in front of his target, then they allowed him to drive off.

"Once he drives off, he renders the truck safe, and then we can have the trooper arrest him on the interstate for bogus charges. Which they did, and this was all planned out 100 percent. I... I... I don't believe they allowed that truck..."

McDonald: "You don't think they intentionally let the bomb go off?"

Caller: "No, that's right. I'll never believe that."

McDonald: "Well, I mean, that's the only thing about this that I found so hard to believe."

Caller: "They... they thought the bomb was safe. They thought that their agent, who was in the truck and who helped prepare the bomb, would set it so it would not go off. Now, whether McVeigh went back to the truck... where the agent did not know... and put a second fail-safe... or the agent made a mistake and did not actually render the bomb safe like he was supposed to... that's what's going on here."

McDonald: "Well, see, that's it then. I wanted someone that would be able to tell us for a fact if this was, like, deliberate or not. You know what I'm saying?"

Caller: "I'm not gong to tell you that. Let me tell you something. I'm sure they had... everything was under surveillance there. So I'm sure they do have pictures of the building blowing up, and I'm sure they do have pictures of federal agents, and I'm sure they do have audio tapes of them saying: Let 'em go, let 'em go... Wait, wait, wait..." there was no rush in their mind. In their mind, there was no rush to get that truck away from that building... that bomb... was not supposed to go off.

"Therefore, everything they did, fits, if you think about it. they followed it, they allowed it to drive up there knowing that there was a bomb in the truck. Their idea was to let John Doe #2 - their federal agent - they would be able to use him in further investigations of these bombings of these groups that are in militia groups. And this was a perfect entry in, because he could have went through there.

"After McVeigh was arrested, John Doe #2 would have become a hero to the cause of the militias. And the militias would have taken him in and hid him, which would have made him part of the infrastructure of the militias. Which is what their goal was for this whole thing... was to bust the militias. If you take the big picture, and look at the big picture, there were very few mistakes made on this sting operation. (except blowing up a building and killing 169 people - ed.) With the exception that John Doe #2, the federal agent, did not render the bomb safe. Just think of it this way, Ramona."

McDonald: "I've always been a big fan of the United States and that, but then... I've always been... this was the one thing that bothered me."

Caller: "They didn't let the building fall intentionally. Their opinion was that this bomb was rendered safe and this bomb would not go off. And their whole thing on this thing... if you think about it... it makes sense from a tactical standpoint. You would follow the truck to the building. You allow your lead suspect to get away from the building because it didn't blow up, because it's not supposed to. You take John Doe #2... he gets away, which is your federal agent. John Doe #1 - McVeigh - is arrested on a bogus charge and then later proven that he's the one who planted the bomb that did not go off."

McDonald: "But you honestly don't think that they really intended..."

Caller: "Not at all. Not at all. They would not have to. No.... Basically, what happened is, this was a mistake. Someone screwed up and the only one that screwed up... The agents on the scene? They didn't screw up. They did exactly what their orders were: Wait... allow the suspect to leave the scene. Once the suspect had left the scene, then render the truck safe, which is already safe. All they have to do is get in, give it a hot-wire, and drive it off to a safe location and then open up the back and disarm the bomb. Which was supposedly rendered safe to begin with. Okay?

"And then, from there... they charge in... See, the plan... this plan was put in motion before the bomb ever went off. Their intent was to allow McVeigh to be arrested later on... John Doe#2 to get away... and then, John Doe #2, the Federal Government would have released a sketch or picture. And then, that man would have had to go underground and hide. Where would he hide? He would have hid with the militias. The militias would take him in as a hero. The militias would give him hero status in the Militia movement, which would allow him to be privy to information that the government could use later on...

"...they did not want that building to blow up. I guarantee you this... their whole intent was that that bomb was rendered safe before it was ever parked in front of that building... otherwise, they would have quietly..."

McDonald: "...Got everybody out of the building?"

Caller: "Got everybody out of the building, before the bomb ever even pulled up in front of the building. There was no reason for them to do that, because according to their plan, the bomb was safe now. There was no reason to evacuate the building and the panic... because there was a truck loaded with a bomb that was not going to blow up...."

McDonald: "Okay."

Caller: "See what I'm saying? And John Doe#2.... By going this far with it... Let me explain something to you. Your actions have consequences. There are a lot of witnesses. There are a lot of agents right now in the hills that are infiltrating these militia groups, and... all these people will get killed. Their blood will be on your hands. I understand that you want... If I really thought that the government allowed the building to blow up, I would be with you 100 percent. But I know... and I believe... they were horrified when the bomb went off... really horrified."

McDonald: "Yeah, they all looked like they were in shock."

Caller: "They figured, as soon as McVeigh got free, as soon as he got... drove off in his car... and I'll tell you something they did. Do you what they did?"

McDonald: "What?"

Caller: "They stole his license plate off that car. You know why? So they'd have probable cause to stop him on the interstate.... They stole his plate. Why do you think the plate was never found? His plate was stolen from the vehicle and the Federal Government stole the plate from the vehicle, so that he would be arrested... John Doe #2 would go free, they would put a sketch out that would make him 'America's Most Wanted.' The only place that a man that would be wanted by the government can hide would be to be hid by the militia groups inside their infrastructure.

"But once he infiltrates the infrastructure... and he's in... all of a sudden he's a hero. And right now, you know, these groups probably believe that they have John Doe #2 and that they're hiding him from the government and they're doing the patriotic thing... and they believe that the building should have blown up. So they're holding him. Now, this man's privy to all kinds of information about future bombings, which we don't even know how many bombs they have stopped because the agents... how many lives have been saved because that agent's now in the militia. And if this comes to light... this operation..."

What the caller does is attempt to instill guilt in McDonald over her efforts to reveal the truth. Yet McDonald did not allow 169 innocent people to be killed through her negligence and stupidity. The government did.

This ridiculous and immoral rationale is similar to that used by Winston Churchill during WWII. Churchill knew the German Luftwaffe were going to bomb the city of Coventry, because the British had cracked the German code using a device called the "Enigma" machine. Churchill feared that by evacuating Coventry on the night in question, the Germans would realize their codes had been broken and change them, thus hampering British intelligence efforts. Churchill, having knowledge of the forthcoming raid, let it proceed, at the cost of thousands of lives and millions in property damage, in order not to compromise their source - in this case - the Enigma machine.

In a similar vein, the Feds would cover up the truth of the Oklahoma City bombing so as not to compromise their undercover agent - John Doe 2 - and ultimately, reveal their own negligence.

Nevertheless, McDonald's caller makes the case that she should respect these agents, who he terms "highly trained professionals," conducting an operation that has already resulted in the criminally negligent deaths of 169 people, and allow it to continue unabated, when it was undoubtedly government agents who acted as provocateurs and goaded the suspects into carrying out the bombing in the first place!

Of course, these "highly trained, dedicated professionals" he talks so admiringly about are the same "highly trained, dedicated professionals" who murdered 86 innocent men, women and children at Waco; who practically murdered an entire innocent family at Ruby Ridge; who dropped a bomb on the MOVE housing activists in Philadelphia, killing 11 people, including five children; and who bungled the World Trade Center sting operation, resulting in the deaths of six people and the injury of over 1,000.

What nitwit is supposed to buy the story that "highly trained, dedicated professionals" would drive a truck laden with explosives around a busy city - a bomb that could explode at any minute? More likely, the caller is using the "federal agent in danger" line with McDonald as a ruse to cover up the fact that these "highly trained, dedicated professionals" are nothing more than a bunch of highly dangerous, out-of-control, self-serving lunatics.

"The government must, and I say must, take responsibility for their sting operation going sour," said HUD worker Jane Graham.... "We are not expendable for their cause...."[1105]

As of this writing, the tape is being a.n.a.lyzed by an audio forensics expert. Those Oklahomans who have listened to the tape, however, strongly believe that it is Representative Ernest Istook. Istook sits on the Subcommittee on National Security, which would tend to explain his rationale that "the public doesn't have to know.... When it comes to the national security and things like this, the public does not have to know...."

Istook also voted for the 1995 Crime and Anti-Terrorism bills, and is reportedly very friendly with Senator Orin Hatch, one of the original drafters of the latter. Istook is also on close terms with the FBI, which would go a long way towards explaining his apologetic tone. He lives in the same Congressional district and neighborhood (Warr Acres) as McDonald.[1106]

This scenario is also reinforced by a second individual - a police officer named Bob Cancemi. He told McDonald he knows "for a fact" that authorities knew in advance specifically when and how the Ryder truck-bomb was to arrive at the Federal Building. But, he says, something went "very wrong;" the bomb was supposed to have been disarmed. "I feel pretty confident that they knew exactly what was going on," he said, "and just... things didn't go according to plan."[1107]

Cancemi's information, and that of McDonald's caller, is backed up by Daina Bradley. Peering out the window of the Social Security office minutes before the blast, Bradley caught a glimpse of a stocky, dark-skinned man exiting the pa.s.senger side of the Ryder truck. She said the man walked to the back of the truck to open the door, then spun around, looking "very nervous, almost confused." He then ran down 5th Street in the opposite direction and jumped into a brown pick-up which sped away. Could the man's confused expression have been the result of an unexpected occurrence? Perhaps when he lifted the rear gate he saw a second timing device attached to the bomb that he didn't know how to disarm? And not knowing what to do, he fled.

Yet while the caller admits the government's involvement in the bombing, he fails to take into account the additional bombs placed inside the building. He fails to explain why the government quickly demolished the bomb site, destroying all forensic evidence. And his story does not account for the Middle Eastern and numerous other suspects.

The caller's explanation also goes a long way towards explaining a statement made by Terry Nichols after his arrest. When Lana Padilla asked her ex-husband during a prison visit about John Doe 2, he said, "If they want to find John Doe 2, they should look in their own backyard."[1108]

What is clear is that the government could take no chances in allowing any of their undercover operatives and informants - Stra.s.smeir, Brescia, Howe, Gagan, Hussaini, and others - to testify at trial. To cover their b.u.t.ts, federal law enforcement agencies ignored, discredited, and even killed those who attempted to reveal the truth. As Officer Terrance Yeakey wrote before he was murdered: I took an oath to uphold the Law and to enforce the Law to the best of my ability. This is something I cannot honestly do and hold my head up proud any longer if I keep my silence as I am ordered to do.

My guess is the more time an officer has to think about the screw up the more he is going to question what happened... Can you imagine what would be coming down now if that had been our officers' who had let this happen? Because it was the feds that did this and not the locals, is the reason it's okay.

The sad truth of the matter is that they have so many police officers convinced that by covering up the truth about the operation gone wrong, that they are actually doing our citizens a favor. What I want to know is how many other operations have they had that blew up in their faces? Makes you stop and take another look at Waco.

I would consider it to be an insult to my profession as a police officer and to the citizens of Oklahoma for ANY of the City, State or Federal agents that stood by and let this happen to be recognized as any thing other than their part in partic.i.p.ation in letting this happen....

Finally, while those who said the bombing was an excuse to destroy the Militia movement were dismissed as self-deluded paranoiacs, McDonald's caller admits the entire operation was to ensnare the Militia movement! Of course, McDonald's caller makes no distinction between militias and neo-n.a.z.i groups. militia groups angrily denounced the bombing, as any self-respecting citizen would, and certainly no militia member would consider a person who killed 169 innocent people a hero.

If the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Building was merely a failed sting operation, where did it go wrong? Those who remember the World Trade Center bombing, may recall that it, too, was a fouled sting operation.

In that case, the FBI's original plan to entrap the Al-Gama'a al-Islamiya group was to have their undercover operative, Emad Eli Salem, subst.i.tute a harmless powder for the real explosive, which he would help them build. Instead, due to a "disagreement," the FBI pulled Salem off the case.

Like Cary Gagan, who tried to warn the FBI of the Oklahoma City bombing, and Samra Mahayoun, who tried to warn officials of the Pan Am 103 attack, Salem, they insisted, was just not credible. Several weeks later, a truck-bomb detonated under the World Trade Center, killing six people and injuring 1,000 more.

Unbeknownst to the FBI, Salem, a former Egyptian Army colonel, had secretly recorded his conversations with his FBI handlers.[1109] Portions of the tapes were made public and reprinted in the Wall Street Journal and the New York Times.. In broken English, Salem talks with the unnamed FBI supervisor who pulled him off the case: "We'll be going building the bomb with a phony powder, and grabbing the people who was involved in it. But since you, we didn't do that."

When Salem decided to complain to FBI headquarters, FBI supervisor John Anticev dissuaded him: "He said, I don't think that the New York people would like the things out of the New York Office to go to Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C."

Salem's immediate handler, agent Nancy Floyd, is heard on the tapes agreeing with the Egyptian's account, saying, "Well, of course not, because they don't want to get their b.u.t.ts chewed."

In one conversation, Salem tells Floyd: "Since the bomb went off, I feel terrible. I feel bad. I feel here is people who don't listen."

Ms. Floyd seems to commiserate, saying: "Hey, I mean it wasn't like you didn't try, and I didn't try."

...Salem recounts another point in the conversation he said he had with Anticev, saying: "I said, 'Guys, now you saw this bomb went off, and you both know that we could avoid that.'"

...Salem talks of the plan to subst.i.tute harmless powder for explosives during another conversation with Agent Floyd. In that conversation, he recalls a previous discussion with Anticev. Mr. Salem says he told the other agent: "Do you deny that your supervisor is the main reason of bombing the World Trade Center?"

Mr. Salem said that Anticev did not deny it.[1110]

What is also interesting to note is that not only did the FBI "foul up" the operation, but they had Salem act as a provocateur, recommending potential targets, teaching the terrorists how to build the bomb, then teaching them how to drive the truck used in the bombing!

As the Wall Street Journal reported in regards to Salem's activities inside the Sheik's group immediately following the World Trade Center bombing: Mr. Salem helped organize the "battle plan" that the government alleged included plots to bomb the United Nations and FBI buildings in New York, and the Holland and Lincoln tunnels beneath the Hudson River. Working with a charismatic Sudanese man named Siddig Ali, a follower of Sheik Omar, Mr. Salem recruited seven local Muslims to scout targets, plan tactics and obtain chemicals and electrical parts for bombs, the government alleged. The FBI supplied a safehouse in Queens.[1111]

As Floyd later explained to her superior, "Emad had the information about the bombs and where they wanted to have them placed. If we had done what we were supposed to have done, we would have known about it... we would have used our heads and come up with the solution of trying to neutralize the situation."[1112]

When these "highly-trained, dedicated professionals" pulled Salem off the case, the bombers contacted Ramzi Yousef, an Iraqi agent and expert bomb maker. Mujahadeen veteran and World Trade Center bomber Mamud Abouhalima met Yousef in Afghanistan in 1988, and brought him and co-conspirator Ahmed Ajaj to the U.S. in September of 1992. Far from building a harmless device, Yousef constructed a sophisticated, powerful bomb, capable of causing extensive damage. Had patsy driver Mohammed Salemeh parked the truck next to a key column, they might have toppled the 110 story Twin Towers, killing as many as 20,000 people!

As William Norman Grigg writes in the February 19, 1997 issue of the New American: Shortly after Yousef's arrival, the FBI subpoenaed two dozen of Sheik Omar's followers and questioned them about the sheik, Nosair, and Abouhalima. However, no arrests were made, no grand jury investigation was launched, and the FBI chose to downgrade its scrutiny of Omar's network - just as plans were being finalized for the Trade Center bombing. This curious decision is even more peculiar in light of the fact that the FBI had obtained intelligence on the network's capabilities and intentions from Emad A. Salem, a former Egyptian Army officer and FBI informant who served as Omar's security guard.

The FBI defended themselves by alleging that Salem had refused to cooperate with FBI guidelines and procedures. He didn't want to wear a body-wire they claimed, and refused to testify against his so-called terrorist comrades in court. Salem was summarily dismissed. When these "highly-trained, dedicated professionals" pulled Salem off the case, they lost control of the situation, and the bombers made their move.

The FBI claimed the exact same thing about one of their informants in the Oklahoma City bombing case - Cary Gagan. Although the Justice Department granted Gagan a Letter of Immunity, they and the "highly-trained, dedicated professionals" of the FBI failed to follow up on the informant's apparently credible information. Gagan hadn't just contacted the FBI and the Marshals Service once or twice regarding the plot, but had informed them on numerous occasions of the terrorists' plans. To the Gagan's knowledge, none of this information was followed up.

After the bombing, the Justice Department tried to maintain that Gagan wasn't credible. The U.S. Attorney's Office revoked his Letter of Immunity, ignored his information, and apparently tried to a.s.sa.s.sinate him. In order to prove their bogus allegations, they removed reports from his informant file that showed Gagan had a.s.sisted the DEA in recovering critical information.

The government's conduct in dealing with Gagan paralleled their treatment of Carol Howe. As discussed previously, Tulsa ATF Agent Angela Finley-Graham had placed Howe inside Elohim City, where she reported on the activities of Mahon, Stra.s.smeir, and others allegedly involved in the plot. It was recently learned that Howe had secretly taped conversations with her ATF handler as Salem had. Those tapes have not been made public as of this writing.

Still, the government would try to cover its tracks by claiming that Howe's information was unspecific, and that she was emotionally unstable. Yet two days after the bombing, the ATF renewed its contract with her, and sent her back to Elohim City to collect additional information. In the aftermath of the World Trade Center bombing, the FBI renewed its a.s.sociation with Emad Salem, paying him a reported $1 million to infiltrate Sheik Omar's group once again.

Given the Tulsa ATF's interest in Stra.s.smeir and Elohim City, it is highly likely that they were the initial target of the sting. ATF agent Angela Finley -Graham conferred with her superiors about raiding the compound in February of '95 and arresting Stra.s.smeir, but FBI and DoJ officials advised against it.[1113]

The ATF's actions at Elohim City were a curious parallel to those of the FBI's in New York. As the London Sunday Telegraph's Ambrose Evans-Pritchard stated, "It appears that the local BATF had stumbled on a bigger operation being run by the grown-ups at the Justice Department."[1114]

If the Arabs had plotted with neo-n.a.z.is to blow up the Federal Building. It is a foregone conclusion that they were under surveillance by the ATF and FBI.

Recall that Timothy McVeigh and Sam Khalid were both investigated by the FBI. McVeigh in 1993, and Khalid in 1990. Since Mike Khalid was investigated for espionage by Army CID, it is reasonable to a.s.sume that attention was focused on his brother as well.

Said David Hall, "I felt like... that probably the agencies involved in this, their intent was to tie together some Patriot groups and to tie in some other terrorist groups. I think the intent here was to say - go to Congress and say - that we have domestic and foreign terrorist groups, Mideast or foreign, working together and trying to blow up buildings here in the United States."

It is likely that the FBI became aware of collusion between the two groups - neo-n.a.z.is and Arabs - as early as 1994, when Cary Gagan reported that Terry Nichols had met with "Iranians" in Henderson, Nevada. With the involvement of the Arabs, and the white supremacists at Elohim City, the sting became a joint ATF/FBI operation.

Interestingly, Hall learned that the FBI and the ATF got into a shouting match while debriefing Janet Reno. According to Hall, when Reno left the room, the FBI and ATF began yelling at each other, angrily accusing each other for the tragedy.

Somewhere along the line in Oklahoma City, the FBI and ATF lost control of the situation, and the bombers were able to make their move. As in the World Trade Center case, someone who had infiltrated the operation in Oklahoma had subst.i.tuted a real bomb for a phony one, or had placed a redundant timer on the bomb, or had simply provided false information to the agents in charge, preventing them from stopping the attack.

Were the FBI and ATF double-crossed by one of their own informants? Or, as in the Pan Am case, did someone in a position of authority look at the situation and say, "Don't stop it, let it go"?

If the FBI and ATF were double-crossed, it may have been by one of their own agents. Recall that Michael Franks, a rogue American agent with connections to the Octopus, had provided the key information that allowed Ahmed Jibril to target Pan Am 103.

Former FBI SAC Ted Gundersen (head of the Los Angeles field office) described to me what he called a "unilateral transfer" of CIA agents into various federal law-enforcement agencies in the early 1980s. The purpose of this Reagan/Bush covert policy was to permit the CIA to head off any inconvenient investigations that such agencies might be undertaking. If so, it would go a long way towards explaining the FBI's curiously timed fit of incompetence.

There are precedents. In 1971, Louis Tackwood, an agent provocateur working out of the LAPD's Criminal Conspiracy Section (CCS), charged that the CCS "had been set up on the same basis as the CIA." Tackwood disclosed that CCS agents - approximately 125 of whom were agent provocateurs - were sponsored by federal intelligence agencies. As researcher Alex Constantine notes in his book, Blood, Carnage, and the Agent Provocateur, the CSS was directly linked to the Was.h.i.+ngton, D.C.-based Inter-Agency Group on Domestic Intelligence and Internal Security, a little-known covert operations unit made up of Right-wing agents from the FBI, CIA, DIA, NSC, Army, Air Force, and local police departments.[1115]

The CCS's spying activities came to a head in 1973 with the publication of Tackwood's The Gla.s.s House Tapes, and the unit was summarily disbanded. In its place evolved the Organized Crime Intelligence Division (OCID), which, interestingly enough, maintains no files on organized crime, but plenty on local citizens and politicians.

The OCID also still maintains its ties with the federal intelligence apparatus. According to Pasadena City Council member Michael Zinzin, who won a $3.8 million dollar lawsuit against the LAPD's Anti-Terrorist Division, that apparatus is the same secret cabal involved in the Iran-Contra imbroglio.

In other words, the Octopus.

Mike Rothmiller, a former OCID detective, stumbled upon the connections and subsequently fell prey to an a.s.sa.s.sin's bullet. At the time, Rothmiller had been investigating one Robert Terry, an arms and drug smuggler with links to the CIA.[1116]

Gundersen's "unilateral transfer" could easily explain how intelligence operatives were able to manipulate the sting operation in Oklahoma City. If there were duplicitous agents inside the ATF and FBI, they would have known when and where the bomb was to be delivered. They would have known how [one of] the FBI's undercover agent(s) - John Doe 2 - was to disable the bomb. They would have had full and detailed knowledge of the plot.

Like Michael Franks, they could have easily informed those who had an interest in changing that plot - those who had an interest in seeing that the building, and possibly some of those inside it - was destroyed.