white iln tone, nbiolr theflnaer.t IIIMe :n!i.lf onlr wh•t America ltlhlnu •bout lt. chief clefHse ...........~.,hep­ Jilonolng, but before ivem1rnent mer • .tladc •nd f81Jed warning prior OTHERS UNKNOWN OTHERS UNKNOWN • THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBING CASE AND CONSPIRACY • STEPHEN JONES AND PETER ISRAEL B (i~ ~ = ~!) PUBLICAFI<i\.IHS Neu· lork Copyright© 1998 by Stephen Jones. Published by PublicAffairs™, A Member of the Perseus Books Group. All rights reserved. Printed in the United States of America. No part of this book may be reproduced in any manner whatsoever without written permission except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews. For information, address PublicAffairs, 250 West 57th Street, Suite 1825, New York, NY 10107. Book design by Jenny Dossin. Photo of defense team by Joel Silverman. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data Jones, Stephen, 1940- 0thers unknown : the Oklahoma City bombing case and conspiracy I Stephen Jones and Peter Israel.- 1st ed. p. em. Includes index. ISBN 1-891620-07-X (HC) 1. McVeigh, Timothy-Trials, litigation, etc. 2. Nichols, Terry, 1955- -Trials, litigation, etc. 3. Oklahoma City Federal Building Bombing, Oklahoma City, Okla., 1995. 4. Bombing investigation-Oklahoma-Oklahoma City. 5. Bombings-Oklahoma­ Oklahoma City. I. Israel, Peter, 1933- . II. Title. KF224.039J66 1998 345.766'380264-dc21 98-40572 CIP First Edition 10 9 8 7 6 54 3 2 I This book is dedicated to: The District Court ofthe State of Oklahoma, Fourth Judicial District, the Honorable Ray Dean Linder, Chief]udge, The United States District Court for the Western District of Oklahoma, the Honorable David L. Russell, Chief]udge, and The United States District Court for the District of Colorado, the Honorable Richard Matsch, Chief]udge and Presiding, May it please the Court. For now we see through a glass darkly; but then face to face. Now I know in part. -PAUL'S FIRST LETTER TO THE CoRINTHIANS, IJ:I2. CONTENTS Introduction XI PART I I. "Baby Killer! Baby Killer!" 3 2. "Mr. Jones, Chief]udge Russell Desires You Call Him" IO 3· "Mr. McVeigh, My Name Is Stephen Jones" 28 4· Armageddon at Mount Carmel 5· "Did Knowingly, Intentionally, Willfully, and Maliciously Conspire" 66 PART II 6. The Forces Against Us I03 7. "The Farmer" II9 8. The Good Neighbors from the City of God I45 9· "This Leg Doesn't Belong to a Victim" I66 PART III I o. Prior Knowledge I I. Phone Calls X Contents I 2. Looking Good 222 I 3· "The Dallas Morning News Has Been the Victim of a Hoax" 243 PART IV I4. United States v. Timothy James McVeigh 27I I 5. Going Home 300 In Conclusion 3I2 Acknowledgments Index INTRODUCTION The bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Okla­ homa City was the greatest act of terrorist violence ever committed in the United States. Timothy James McVeigh and Terry Lynn Nichols were accused, tried, and convicted in the bombing conspir­ acy. Whatever one says about that verdict-and, as McVeigh's coun­ sel, I will have a great deal to say in these pages-it strains belief to suppose that this appalling crime was the work of two men-any two men. I believe it came about because of foreign involvement. I also believe our government might have prevented the whole thing-if it had been paying attention. This book is an attempt to explain what happened and why. Many people ask me-an Oklahoman, someone who knew people who were killed in the bombing-how in the world I could have represented a man like Timothy McVeigh. It wasn't an easy deci­ sion, as I'll explain in the chapters to come, but it wasn't as difficult as some might think. Even a man accused of the worst act of terror­ ism ever committed in this country-especially such a man-is enti­ tled to the best possible defense. This concept is a cornerstone of our system of justice. My colleagues and I in United States v. McVeigh sought to provide such a defense. As in any criminal proceeding, of course, it wasn't up to us to prove anything. Our task was simply to convince a jury that there was reasonable doubt as to our client's guilt. Our efforts to present such a case, however, were thwarted and finally defeated. The fact that this happened in an American court of law was the shared responsibility of the judge, the government, the press, and even, I XII Introduction must concede, members of the defense team, for which I take full responsibility. But it wasn't just those of us in the Denver court­ room-lawyers, jurors, judge, and Timothy McVeigh-who suf­ fered because of this. All of us lost-all Americans. Because a government theory full of holes carried the day. Because the "others unknown" who helped plan and execute the bombing are still out there. Because the whole tragedy might have been averted but wasn't. And because until we know what really happened, we can't hope to prevent other similar tragedies perhaps carried out by some of the very people who helped destroy the Murrah Building. Those responsible in the federal government would have us believe that the bombing was an open-and-shut case, quickly solved and aggressively prosecuted. If that is right, then it is staggeringly unique. Think of the bombing of the U.S. embassy in Beirut in April 1983. Sixty-three people were killed, and to this day there is not a single arrest or conviction. In December r 988 Pan Am flight 103 was destroyed by a bomb, killing 270 people. As of today there have been no arrests or convictions. In November 1995 an Ameri­ can-run military training center in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, was bombed, killing seven. Again, no arrests or convictions. In June 1996 another bomb killed nineteen Americans in Dhahran, Saudi Arabia. No arrests or convictions. And of course there was the October 1983 bombing of the U.S. Marines barracks in Beirut. Two hundred forty-one Americans were killed, and fifteen years later there has not been a single arrest or conviction. Again and again, the same pattern, whether it is in Karachi, Pakistan, or over Lockerbie, Scotland: The crimes remain unsolved and unprosecuted. And in the World Trade Center bombing, an attack that took place not in the Middle East but in New York, on our own soil, the perpetrators were a group of Islamic radicals. Given all this, does it seem so far­ fetched that what happened in Oklahoma might not be as simple as the government said? The real story of the bombing, as the McVeigh defense pursued it, is complex, shadowy, and sinister. It stretches, weblike, from . America's heartland to the nation's capital, the Far East, Europe, and the Middle East, and much of it remains a mystery. There may be many reasons why this is so, but perhaps the most important has Introduction XIII been the U.S. government. And in the end, the Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy may not merely be the crime itself but also the systematic, deliberate attempt of our federal government to prevent all of us from finding out what exactly happened on that terrible April morning. The McVeigh Defense Team, October 1996 (Front row, left to right, Karen Warner, Shelly Hager, Ann Seim, Stephen jones, Renae Elmenhorst, Karen Olds, Kathryn Irons, Trish Pierpoint; back row, Randy Coyne, Mike Roberts, Jim Hankins, Andy Murphy, Amber McLaughlin, Scott Anderson, Ann Bradley, Rob Nigh, Mandy Welch, Sam Guiberson,Jerry Merritt, Robert Warren, Dick Burr, Bob Wyatt, Desi Milacek; not pictured, Cheryl Ramsey and Chris Tritico.) PART I 1 "BABY KILLER! BABY KILLER!" A pril 19, 1995, 9:30A.M. eastern daylight time. Department of ~Justice, Washington D.C. The call had been routed from the central switchboard. James Miller, a receptionist in the Executive Secretariat, took it. That was part of his job, answering the "nut line," so called because that was where the central switchboard of the Justice Department sent the crank calls and the prank calls. People, for instance, who felt like threatening the attorney general, or the United States of America, or the world. While Miller was talking on the phone, two fellow employees stopped by his work station. One was Kimberley Tolson, a "corre­ spondence analyst," the other a courier for the criminal division who had a delivery to make. The courier's name was Russell Stuart Green. Since Miller was still on the phone, Tolson signed Green's log sheet for the delivery; Miller, reaching across his desk, time­ stamped it. The time stamp read 9:38A.M. (Actually, the clock inside the stamp was running six minutes fast. The real time was 9:32 A.M. eastern daylight time.) Miller hung up the phone. 4 OTHERS UNKNOWN "This guy's saying some federal building in Oklahoma City just blew up," he told the others. "He's saying he's standing across the street, watching it." "Yeah, right," Kimberley Tolson said over her shoulder, heading back for her desk, while Green, with a straight face, said, "Hey, don't you think you need to tell somebody about that? Like the president?" Eight days later, James Miller was interviewed by the FBI about this call. Miller quoted the anonymous caller as having said, "I'm nobody special. The federal building in Oklahoma City has just been bombed. I'm standing across the street from it. I can see it from where I'm standing." There was only one problem with this, but it was an enormous one.