Nichols & the OKC Bombing.

ITEM: In the March 1, 2004 UK-based Independent, in an article entitled "Death-penalty trial for Oklahoma bomb accomplice could backfire on FBI," British columnist Andrew Gumbel wrote: "[A] flurry of new evidence promises to demonstrate quite the opposite of what the prosecutors are hoping to prove: that Nichols, far from being a key player in the conspiracy, was a relatively marginal figure, and that a gang of neo-Nazi bank robbers, hitherto ignored by federal and state prosecutors, had a far more prominent role."

Commenting on the desire of Oklahoma prosecutors to send Nichols to the death chamber, Gumbel remarked that "what is intended to be an exercise in judicial 'closure' for bereaved Oklahomans could end up demolishing the FBI's theory of how the worst peacetime atrocity on American soil before 11 September 2001 happened." That theory, which the government has clung to with such seemingly myopic tenacity, is that "McVeigh was the lone mastermind behind the bombing."

ITEM: On March 10, 2004, Associated Press writer John Solomon reported that "more than a dozen FBI documents ... raise the possibility of additional accomplices in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing." The documents "include two 1990s teletypes from then-FBI Director Louis Freeh's office citing possible connections between Timothy McVeigh and a gang of white supremacist bank robbers." Solomon also noted that "nearly all the documents cited by Nichols' attorneys involved FBI efforts to link McVeigh to the Aryan Republican Army bank robbery gang."

ITEM: On March 11, 2004, the New York Times reported that "the truth of who else may have conspired in the attack appears increasingly clouded." The Times quoted Indiana University criminology professor Mark S. Hamm as saying, "The preponderance of evidence points to the fact that McVeigh had some sort of ongoing relationship with members of the A.R.A. [Aryan Republican Army]." But, Hamm added, "there's no smoking gun here."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE; Several years ago, THE NEW AMERICAN began its groundbreaking coverage of the connection between the Aryan Republican Army, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and the Oklahoma City Bombing. In our March 31, 1997 issue, we presented evidence linking the bombing to a "rustic, rural redoubt [called Elohim City] populated by well-armed white separatists." Elohim City, we noted, "serves as a Butch Cassidy 'Hole in the Wall' hideout for a notorious gang of Aryan bandits wanted by federal authorities for a two-year spree of bank robberies spanning six states--robberies in which explosive devices were frequently used as diversionary instruments. These gangsters club themselves the Aryan Republican Army (ARA)...."

But, as veteran readers of THE NEW AMERICAN well know, there is much more to this ARA-Oklahoma City Bombing-McVeigh-Nichols-Elohim City connection than just bank robberies. We added that Timothy McVeigh called the Elohim City "encampment two weeks before the deadly explosion" and asked for German national Andreas Strassmeir. (In an earlier issue, we identified the mysterious Strassmeir as the "son of a very prominent politician in Helmut Kohl's government.") Strassmeir served as the "director of security" for the neo-Nazi compound and "allegedly [had] expertise in explosives." We revealed that Carol Howe, an undercover ATF informant, had told "federal FBI and ATF investigators that she had seen bombing suspect McVeigh and the suspect known only as John Doe No. 2 at the backwoods compound" of Elohim City.

In the September 15, 1997 issue, we brought to light undercover ATF agent Carol Howe's prior warnings to "her federal supervisors that subjects of her investigation were planning to bomb federal buildings, including the one in Oklahoma City." Her direct ATF supervisor, we noted, was Agent Angela Finley-Graham, who said that Howe "was the key in identifying individuals at Elohim City, which is tied to the OKC bomb case." We also reported that Carol Howe warned her supervisors that Strassmeir had "joined with a notorious Aryan/KKK leader from Tulsa to case the Murrah Building in Oklahoma City as a potential target." That notorious KKK leader was Dennis Mahon, who, we said, was one of Andreas Strassmeir's closest friends. Mahon was also a leader of White Aryan Resistance (W.A.R.). We cited from an earlier Finley-Graham report that "W.A.R. has several training sites in Oklahoma. The primary training location is called Elohim City, which is in a rural area near the border of Oklahoma and Arkansas."

As we documented in great detail in the many articles we published on the subject, * W.A.R., the ARA, Strassmeir and McVeigh were all linked through their association with Elohim City. McVeigh, as is widely known, was arrested, tried, and executed. Several of the ARA bank robbers, known to have associated with the compound's other residents, were eventually arrested for their various bank robberies--felonies unrelated to the bombing. All of the rest are still at large. Strassmeir, whom we identified as a primary OKC bombing suspect, fled the country six months after the bombing. It remains to be seen whether or not the Nichols case will result in widespread media coverage of important facts the media have ignored for the last eight years.

One wonders how the New York Times can view the mountain of evidence of "who else may have conspired in the attack" as "increasingly clouded," or how Professor Hamm can see it as anything less than a "smoking gun."

* Many of these articles are available on line at www.thenewamerican.com/focus/okc/.