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Representative charles key challenges official story { April 19 1995 } Original Source Link: (May no longer be active)
http://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/051001/coverstory.htmlhttp://www.boulderweekly.com/archive/051001/coverstory.html
Sharing the planet with McVeigh
Oklahoma City bombing victims reflect on terrorist's death
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by Sarah Paris and Mark Werlin (Editorial@boulderweekly.com)
The explosion on April 19, 1995 at the Murrah Federal Building killed 168 people and left behind thousands of grieving family members. For two people, the tragedy was not an ending, but the beginning of a journey that led to places they never expected to go. Bud Welch, who lost his daughter, became a national spokesperson for the movement to abolish the death penalty. Kathy Wilburn, who lost her two little grandsons in the Murrah Building daycare center, embarked on a two-year quest to retrace the steps of Timothy McVeigh's troubled life. The following interviews provide a glimpse into two very different lives, joined by one infamous tragedy.
Bud Welch ...
"Julie's death grips me every single day"-Bud Welch
Bud Welch, a service-station owner in Oklahoma City, lost his only daughter Julie in the Oklahoma City bombing. Julie had graduated with honors the year before from Marquette University and had been employed as a Spanish interpreter for the Social Security Administration. She was the light of her father's life. The pain following Julie's death was nearly unbearable and for the first few months, rage and a desire for revenge consumed Bud. But in time, he began to realize that executing Tim McVeigh would not help him emotionally.
Julie had been a devout Catholic and outspoken opponent of the death penalty. To honor her memory, Bud Welch began to speak out against Timothy McVeigh's execution. His story was picked up by publications all over the world, and he traveled the country and abroad to speak out against the death penalty. His Time magazine essay "A Father's Urge to Forgive," was a poignant reminder to the nation that not all victims of crime feel they will find "closure" in an execution. Boulder Weekly: Are you the only person, closely related to an Oklahoma City victim, who is speaking out against the execution of Timothy McVeigh?
Bud Welch: Some have written op-eds opposing the execution, but most are not saying much about it. But there are many who do oppose his execution. It's hard to get people to speak up publicly about that.
Weekly: Do you think living in Oklahoma, which is among the top ten States in terms of executions, makes it harder to speak out against the death penalty?
Welch: True, in Oklahoma and Texas, you have the cowboy image, the tough guy image. Still, there are some here whom, on occasion, have let their opposition be known publicly. But I'm the only one who travels all over the country speaking against it.
Weekly: McVeigh is considered something like the poster child for supporters of the pro-death penalty. Even people who have doubts about capital punishment feel that if anyone deserves it, it would be him. How do you respond to that?
Welch: Well, I say that I don't believe in the death penalty, period-for anyone. But if we're going to have the death penalty, Tim McVeigh certainly qualifies. I don't argue that point. My point is that it just serves no purpose.
Weekly: Most people don't really understand what an execution is. It took me a while to really figure it out. You see, an execution is an event. It's staged. We know what time the killing is going to happen. In most States that use the death penalty, the district attorney, the attorney general of the State, and the governor will issue a press release a week or so before the killing happens. In it, they explain to the voting public why we must take this person out of the cage to kill him or her. I specifically say "voting public." In other words, you have a killing that is simply a staged, political event. It does nothing more or less for our society. It's all about politics, like most social movements in the United States.
Weekly: Some speculate that McVeigh and Nichols weren't the only ones responsible for the bombing. You yourself once said, "I don't think he-Timothy McVeigh-and Terry acted alone." What makes you think so?
Welch: I think there were other people who helped him out, financially or otherwise. I often wonder if James Nichols, Terry Nichols' older brother, was involved. We know that there were explosives that went off on his farm in Michigan. And I think they were testing bombs there. James Nichols said they were blowing up tree stumps. Well, I was raised on a farm in Oklahoma, and I don't know of anybody who ever used explosives to blow up tree stumps. I just feel there were others involved besides the two of them. And I want to find out someday who the others were.
Weekly: Are you still in contact with McVeigh's father?
Welch: He is just trying to move forward with his life. Tim does not want any of his family to come to the execution. I think it's really playing tough on the youngest daughter, on Jennifer. She just turned 27, and I think she is especially having a rough time.
Weekly: You said in an article about a year ago, "I know I should forgive Timothy McVeigh, I hope I do before he dies." Very soon, he will die. Have you forgiven him?
Welch: You know, I don't know. I'm still working on that. A lot of people say that I have. I would rather use the word reconcile than forgive. Don't ask me to explain the difference, because I can't. There were times when I was speaking in public and someone would ask me that question, I used to say, "well yeah, I have." Then the person would respond, "well I don't see how you could forget that." Hell, I didn't forget it. That's not what the person asked, they asked did I forgive him.
What would make it a lot easier for me would be if, before he dies, he would acknowledge what happened and ask for forgiveness. But I don't think that's gonna happen at all.
Weekly: It has been four years since you published your essay "A Father's Urge To Forgive" in Time. What, if anything, has changed for you since that time? Is your perspective different now?
Welch: One thing that has changed is that I don't have the moments of rage as often as I used to. I still get them. But that's normal for people to have-you know, setbacks. This feeling in your heart for maybe no more than a minute or so, where you have this vengeance, and you get angry. And you never know what's going to set it off. But those moments are less frequent now than they used to be.
Julie's death grips me every single day. But I'm living without that vengeance and that rage, and thank God for that. Because that will destroy you.
Weekly: Where do you find the strength to do what you are doing?
Welch: I have this inner feeling that I want the whole world to know who my kid was. And I have a chance to tell thousands. And in doing that, I am able to, if you will, keep her alive.
Kathy Wilburn ...
"When your loved ones are killed, you want to know the truth about what happened."-Kathy Wilburn
For most people, the tragic death of young grandchildren would be an ending. But for Kathy Wilburn, whose grandsons Chase and Colton died in the Oklahoma City bombing, it was the beginning of an odyssey. Kathy was among the first observers on the scene following the explosion. When Kathy and her husband Glenn learned that suspicious circumstances surrounding the bombing were being ignored or covered up by law enforcement agencies and government officials, they launched their own investigation. After Glenn's death, Kathy continued the journey alone. She traveled around the United States retracing the path of Timothy McVeigh. She spoke to his friends and family members, and even to militia members who considered McVeigh a hero.
Kathy and Glenn Wilburn's findings are included in a documentary about the Oklahoma City bombing produced by MGA Films of Fort Collins, Colo. The video is scheduled for release after McVeigh's execution.
Weekly: What prompted you to investigate the Oklahoma City bombing?
Wilburn: Well, first of all, April 19, 1995 just erased my life. My daughter and I were downtown the day of the bombing. We ran to the Murrah Building and learned that both children had died. In trying to find help for ourselves, I arranged to have a meeting here in my home with the families of the children who were killed. At that meeting, one of the young mothers was telling my husband this incredible story how the morning of the bombing, when she dropped her son off, she had seen the bomb squad downtown.
Weekly: Did you think that was possible?
Wilburn: We didn't believe it! My husband asked, "Are you sure it was the bomb truck?" She got very indignant and said, "they had big blue letters across their jacket that said Bomb Squad." The Oklahoma County Sheriff's department denied it. Then we found a whole herd of people that had seen the bomb truck down there. The Sheriff's department had to change their story.
That's when we first suspected there were problems. So we began to investigate. For two years after the bombing we continued our investigation. My husband and I had no political agenda. We were the kind of people who got up in the morning, went to work, came home and played with the children. We had no preconceived ideas.
Weekly: After your husband died, what gave you the strength to continue the investigation alone?
Wilburn: When your loved ones are killed, you want to know the truth about what happened. I've got the blood of Chase and Colton, and I've got a husband who I lost to this bombing, and all three of them deserve to know the truth.
I feel like my husband Glenn was another victim of the Oklahoma City bombing. In the last interview he ever gave, Glenn was so weak that his voice was barely audible. I'd have my ear by his mouth, and he would speak and I would translate what he was saying to the reporter. And I realized at that moment I was becoming Glenn's voice. I've just continued his work. If Glenn would literally give his life for the work we had been doing, I could do no less.
Weekly: What kind of information do you think has been suppressed about the bombing?
Wilburn: We learned that there was an ATF informant by the name of Carol Howe who was working out at Elohim City, which is a little training terrorist compound in northeastern Oklahoma. She had provided information to the ATF of a coming bombing. She had told them at the beginning of December 1994-and what I'm telling you I can document. I've got her case file.
Weekly: You met with militia leaders. What did they think about McVeigh's actions?
Wilburn: I've been to the Aryan Nation out in Hayden Lake, Idaho. There I was told that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Tim McVeigh is a martyr for the cause. He is going to be a martyr to some.
Weekly: Do you think there's room for dialogue between the militias and the government?
Wilburn: Not with some people, but there are a lot of good, hard-working American people who are part of the militia. They want to effect change in this country, but they want to do it legally within the system. And Tim McVeigh has given those people a bad name.
Weekly: Were you surprised by what you've learned about Timothy McVeigh?
Wilburn: When you travel the countryside and visit with the people who knew him, everyone liked him. He was a good guy, he seemed very intelligent, had a keen sense of humor. For him to do this is just mind-boggling. And the fact that he has absolutely no remorse is what makes him so scary.
Weekly: How did you feel when McVeigh referred to the bombing victims as 'collateral damage'?
Wilburn: I think he uses the excuse that in the Gulf War they awarded him medals for killing. And now he doesn't understand what everyone's so upset about. I can't speak for McVeigh, but I believe he can't afford to look at them as anything other than casualties of war.
Weekly: Do you believe the death penalty is the appropriate punishment for Timothy McVeigh?
Wilburn: I have no problem with the death penalty. I think it's a deterrent to crime. My motives aren't hate or vengeance. I just know that if there were a rabid dog loose in my neighborhood, I would want to protect my neighbors from it. Timothy McVeigh is a danger to society. I think he certainly deserves to die for what he did, but I'm not in favor of killing him, because I believe that along with the death of McVeigh goes the death of the truth. For six years, the Oklahoma City bombing has troubled the collective American consciousness with disturbing questions. Why would a decorated Gulf War veteran indiscriminately take the lives of 168 innocent people? Is it credible that a homemade truck bomb could destroy a modern federal building? Have an entire class of Americans become intoxicated with anti-government rage?
The trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were intended to establish the motive and method of the bombing: revenge for the disaster at Waco, effected by a homemade bomb. Two juries found the prosecution case sufficient to convict McVeigh and Nichols. But did the government present the whole story of what happened that morning?
Three people who are searching for the truth of the Oklahoma City bombing don't think so. For them, the death of McVeigh won't begin to bring an end to this tragedy.
Kathy Wilburn lost two grandchildren in the Murrah Building daycare center.
Former Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key, a six-term Republican, risked his political career to seek a local grand jury investigation of the bombing.
David Hoffman, author of The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, challenged the local grand jury to examine evidence of a wider conspiracy. His efforts earned him a criminal charge of jury tampering.
Wilburn arrived on the bombing scene shortly after the explosion to find that her dreams for her grandchildren's future were as shattered as the ruins of the Murrah Building. During a support group meeting with other parents whose children had been killed that day, Kathy and her husband Glenn learned something that launched them on an odyssey of discovery. Prior to the bombing, a local sheriff's department bomb squad truck was seen in the area.
When Glenn died of pancreatic cancer, Kathy continued the journey alone. She met with the families of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, stayed at the Dreamland Motel where McVeigh spent his last nights of freedom, and visited right-wing militia groups to better understand them.
"There are a lot of good, hard-working American people that are part of the militia," Wilburn says. "They want to effect change in this country, but they want to do it legally within the system. Tim McVeigh has given those people a bad name."
If the majority of militia members are law-abiding citizens, a dangerous minority have been engaged in bank robbery, weapons theft and murder for the past two decades. In 1983, Richard Wayne Snell, affiliated with the Christian Identity group The Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord, plotted to bomb the Murrah Building. That plot was successfully prevented, and Snell was later convicted of murdering a state trooper.
In a strange coincidence, Snell was executed in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. He lived just long enough to see the destruction of the Murrah Building which he had planned 12 years earlier. Snell's body was buried in Elohim City, a white supremacist compound in rural Oklahoma. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms informant Carol Howe had delivered regular reports on activities at Elohim City, where members of far-right groups engaged in paramilitary training and planned anti-government actions. She testified in her own court case that the Murrah Building was considered a possible bombing target.
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Did the feds know?
Were federal law enforcement officials aware of plans to bomb the Murrah Building in 1995, as they were in 1983? Former Oklahoma Representative Charles Key believes they were.
Key was elected to the Oklahoma State House in 1986 and served until 1998. The Republican legislator had previously worked in the insurance field. Never considered a radical or a conspiracy theorist by his colleagues and the voters who reelected him for six consecutive terms, he was troubled by inconsistencies in the federal investigation of the April 19 bombing.
Key led a successful fight to convene a local grand jury investigation into the bombing. Although that panel ultimately concurred with the federal government that McVeigh and Nichols alone were responsible, Key's own investigative committee continued gathering evidence. A report documenting their findings can be ordered from the committee's web site.
In the field reports of the ATF, Andreas Strassmeir, in the Elohim City compound, was reported saying they should begin bombing government buildings and assassinating politicians. Andreas Strassmeir is a former army commando and the son of ex-Chancellor Helmut Kohl's parliamentary secretary.
Telephone records show that immediately after renting the truck used in the Murrah Building bombing, Timothy McVeigh or someone using his phone card placed a call to Andreas Strassmeir at Elohim City. At that time, Strassmeir was security chief of Elohim City. Informant Carol Howe reported that Strassmeir had been training Elohim City visitors in the use of automatic weapons and explosives. Howe claimed that McVeigh had visited the compound. Strassmeir, however, admits only to meeting McVeigh once at a gun show.
After the bombing, Strassmeir quickly returned to Germany. In a series of interviews with British journalist Ambrose Evans-Pritchard published in Pritchard's book The Secret Life of Bill Clinton, Strassmeir implied that he had infiltrated the American right-wing milieu as an informant for the U.S. government.
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I-Christian holy war
Tanis Lovercheck-Saunders of the University of North Dakota, a scholar of the militia movement, cautions that "whenever you address the militia you have to be careful to distinguish between the hard core and those who join for a passing grievance or concern. Most members aren't hard core. They are drawn in by anti-tax talk and the like, but when they find out about the movement's core beliefs or when it becomes legally dangerous to stay in the militias, their enthusiasm wanes."
While Lovercheck-Saunders doesn't believe that the militias supported the attack, "the bombing was the logical culmination of much of what is written and said by Identity Christians. They believe they are in the midst of a holy war."
Kathy Wilburn can attest to that apocalyptic world view. "I've been to the Aryan Nation out in Hayden Lake, Idaho, and there I was told that one man's terrorist is another man's freedom fighter and that Tim McVeigh is a martyr for the cause," Wilburn says.
The picture she formed of McVeigh, after meeting with his friends, was prettier than she had expected.
"Everyone who knew Tim McVeigh liked him. He seemed very intelligent, had a keen sense of humor. For him to do this is just mind-boggling."
It's not that she started liking him, by any means. She seems torn on the issue of whether McVeigh should die, partly because she resents the painless manner in which he'll die.
"Timothy McVeigh is simply gonna walk into the death chamber and lay down and go to sleep in front of us," Wilburn says. "My youngest grandson, the glass shard that went in his stomach literally gutted him alive, and he died in his rescue worker's arms. My [other] grandson was found with a big rock in the back of his head. My husband died a long, torturous death of 11 months of pancreatic cancer. Most of us are going to depart this world in some kind of pain. But Tim McVeigh's gotten the easy way out."
And with his peaceful death, says Wilburn, also dies the truth.
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Conspiracy theories
Journalist David Hoffman knows something about the death of the truth. The editor of the Haight Ashbury Free Press attracted national attention when the Oklahoma City local grand jury, which Charles Key had fought to convene, failed to indict a single person in connection with the bombing and instead charged Hoffman with misdemeanor jury-tampering for sending copies of his book to members of the panel. The verdict was overturned last week.
Hoffman's troubles didn't end when he finished a sentence of community service in Oklahoma. Unsold copies of his book were destroyed by the publisher, Feral House, under threat of a libel lawsuit from a former FBI agent. First-edition copies of The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror currently fetch $200 on the Internet.
A central thesis of Hoffman's book is that on the morning of April 19, 1995, FBI and ATF agents intended to stage a spectacular arrest of right-wing extremists. For reasons unknown, the operation was canceled and the bombing allowed to occur.
The sting hypothesis may seem unlikely, but Hoffman and Oklahoma reporter J.D. Cash interviewed witnesses who observed electronic surveillance activities and bomb squad maneuvers taking place early on the morning of the bombing. Hoffman concedes that producing hard documentary evidence in a case like the Murrah Building bombing may be impossible.
"It's the nature of covert operations that you're not going to find a paper trail with a memo saying 'I told him to push the button and blow up the building.' " Hoffman says.
In his book, Hoffman suggests a similarity between the Oklahoma City bombing and outrages that took place in Europe from the 1960s through the 1980s. It took 20 years before the European public learned that the kidnappings and bombings attributed to leftist groups like the Red Brigades and Action Direct were in fact directed by right-wing agent provocateurs supported by state intelligence services.
"The pattern is very similar," Hoffman says.
Perhaps the most disturbing chapter in The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror concerns the theory that multiple explosions took place at the Murrah Building. While this contention was rejected by the federal prosecution and shunned by McVeigh's own defense team, Hoffman interviewed witnesses inside the building who felt an earthquake-like rumble well before the blast occurred. Others in the immediate vicinity of the building reported two distinct explosions. Seismologists at the University of Oklahoma recorded two successive shocks, but the U.S. Geological Survey insisted that blast waves from a single explosion could have registered as separate events. Seismologists remain divided on the interpretation.
In 1997, John Culbertson, a Washington-based consultant, produced a startling case study of bombing tests conducted at the Wright Laboratory Armament Directorate on Eglin Air Force Base in Florida. Although Culberston disagrees with some of David Hoffman's theories, his own conclusions offer support to critics of the one-bomb theory:
"It is impossible to ascribe the damage that occurred on April 19, 1995 to a single truck bomb containing 4,800 lbs. of ANFO..." Culbertson writes. "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."
On May 16, Timothy McVeigh's part in the drama of the Oklahoma City bombing comes to an end. His widely-reported indifference to the suffering of the victims and their families has been labeled as symptomatic of the influence of extremist anti-government beliefs. But to Charles Key, McVeigh's bravado rings as hollow as his claim of sole responsibility.
"The facts show that he didn't do it in the way the federal government claims he did," Key says. "He didn't do it alone with a single truck bomb. Just as the sun comes up in the East and goes down in the West, the irrefutable facts tell anyone who wants to look at them that there were other people involved in this."
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McVeigh: I want credit
Long after Timothy McVeigh croaks in the death chamber, conspiracy theories about the Oklahoma City bombing will thrive. McVeigh won't be here to answer to them.
But two weeks before his scheduled execution, McVeigh sent a long, hand-written letter to Bob Glass, owner of Paladin Arms gun store in Longmont. Glass had written McVeigh with questions about various conspiracy theories. Per McVeigh's request, Glass will not copy the letters, but plans to print excerpts in his national magazine The Partisan.
In his letter, McVeigh flatly denies that he and Nichols were part of a larger conspiracy and expresses resentment toward those who wish to disperse the blame.
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