OKC bombing revisited: to support the case presented by the History Channel of a government coverup in the Oklahoma City bombing, additional evidence is presented here.

On Sunday, last December 12, the History Channel presented the documentary Conspiracy ? Oklahoma City Bombing, which, as the name suggests, was meant to raise doubts as to whether the investigation of the 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building was fully completed by authorities.

Based upon his nine years of investigation into the incident, THE NEW AMERICAN'S senior editor, William F. Jasper, was interviewed by the program's producers for several hours so that they could gain insights into the likelihood of an investigation gone awry. Mr. Jasper laid out the evidence for them, material which clearly shows that the investigation into the bombing was intentionally sidetracked and left undone. In the interests of limiting the length of their program and in trying to present a balanced argument, the program's producers only used a fraction of the material that he gave them, focusing their scrutiny on just a few controversial details that indicated that Timothy McVeigh, Michael Fortier, and Terry Nichols did not act alone--that they had help from at least one other man labeled John Doe No. 2.

Eyewitness Accounts

One area where the program focused its attention was on the fact that 10 eyewitnesses claimed to see McVeigh with a Middle Eastern man/men in the area of the Murrah Building immediately before and after the bombing. It also gave time to eyewitness accounts from workers at Elliot's Body Shop, a Ryder truck rental facility, who say McVeigh rented the Ryder truck in the company of a Middle Eastern man. After the program presented evidence of a Middle Eastern connection, the government was allowed to dispute the evidence and to give its explanation of the events. The government's position is that the people at Elliot's Body Shop had faulty memories and confused McVeigh with someone else who rented a truck (though the rental place is in a small town and the visits stood out in the workers' minds) and that the presence of Middle Easterners near the Ryder truck by the Murrah Building was coincidence. Danny Defenbaugh, the lead investigator for the FBI, indicated that there were no clear links to co-conspirators, saying, "If there were others unknown, I guarantee you that we would have gotten them."

However, evidence which was left out of the History Channel program clearly indicates that the FBI could not have fully investigated this crime and correctly concluded that additional conspirators were not involved, specifically Middle Eastern conspirators, because in the days leading up to the attack, McVeigh was repeatedly seen in the company of Middle Easterners:

* Thursday, April 13 (six days before the bombing): a woman who is a federal employee of the Murrah Building gets off the elevator on the second floor and comes face-to-face with two men in janitorial uniforms who turn as if to hide their faces. She does not recognize the men, although she knows all of the janitors in the building. She later identifies one of the men as Tim McVeigh. (Also, another federal employee reported that a couple of weeks before the elevator incident, McVeigh and two other men were in the Murrah Building and asked him about job opportunities. The man had a lengthy conversation with McVeigh.)

* Friday, April 14: McVeigh checks into the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, and Shane Boyd, a helicopter mechanic who is staying at the motel, sees a "bushy-haired" man who resembles the government sketch of Joe Doe No. 2 near McVeigh's room.

* Saturday, April 15: in Oklahoma City two witnesses, husband and wife bartenders, serve beer to McVeigh and a companion, a dark-haired stranger who spoke English with a Middle Eastern accent.

* Monday, April 17: Donald Hood notices a man resembling John Doe No. 2 who leaves the office of the Dreamland Motel and gets into the driver's seat of a Ryder truck. At the same time, McVeigh comes out of his room and gets into the passenger side. The men leave together.

* Tuesday, April 18: Nichols, McVeigh, and a third man resembling John Doe No. 2 have breakfast at the Sante Fe Trail Diner two blocks from Nichol's house. The owners, Robert and Barbara Whittenberg, recognize Nichols from previous visits. Around 7 p.m., according to Terry and Judi Leonard, McVeigh and a companion have beer at their establishment.

* Wednesday, April 19 (the day of the bombing): a banker follows a Ryder truck and a car matching McVeigh's Mercury Marquis about four blocks from the Murrah Building. At 8:35 a.m., Dave Snider, a warehouse worker, thinking that an approaching Ryder truck is a delivery that he is waiting for, tries to flag down the truck. When the truck doesn't stop, he and McVeigh exchange obscenities. McVeigh is with a dark-haired man. At 8:40 a.m., McVeigh and a passenger pull into Johnny's Tire Service and ask for directions from Mike Moroz, an employee. McVeigh asks for directions to 5th and Harvey (the northwest corner of the Murrah Building). Though McVeigh had been to the Murrah Building in the past, the one-way streets in the area had him turned around.

All of the witnesses listed above are in addition to the witnesses covered in the History Channel's program who saw McVeigh exit the Ryder truck along with a dark-haired man and who saw Middle Eastern men fleeing the scene.

Despite the many corroborating eyewitnesses, the FBI maintains that there wasn't a Middle Eastern connection. To support the government's version of the story, the program's producers interviewed Cate McCauley, who was hired by the private Oklahoma City Bombing Committee, which investigated the bombing. McCauley claimed that she investigated the bombings and that there wasn't involvement by third parties. She added that this fact is true, but that some people just don't want to hear the truth.

Logical Inconsistencies

Of course, McCauley never offered any explanation as to who was with McVeigh in all of the aforementioned incidents. Nor did she explain away any of the other logical inconsistencies having to do with claims made by federal investigators:

* The FBI claimed that McVeigh acted alone during the actual attack (Nichols and Fortier had solid alibis), yet on the day of the bombing, McVeigh went into a store and bought Cokes and cigarettes, even though McVeigh didn't smoke (the store owner would testify there was another man in the Ryder truck with McVeigh).

* Federal investigators claim that McVeigh parked his car in an alley three days before the bombing so that he would have a getaway vehicle, yet local police say that a car could not have remained where it was said to be without them knowing, meaning that a co-conspirator had to drop it off on the day of the bombing.

* Agents of the federal government confiscated 22 surveillance tapes from the nearby area. Investigators said that none of the tapes indicated that McVeigh had a passenger in the Ryder truck, but the government has refused to release the tapes so that their claims could be verified.

* The Feds say that all of the damage done to the Murrah Building was caused by the explosion of the Ryder truck and that there were no other bombs in the building. But many of the world's leading experts in explosives, such as retired General Benton K. Partin, who spent 25 of his 31 years of active service researching, designing, developing, and testing weapons, say that to cause the damage done to the Murrah Building, explosives must have been placed at strategic locations inside the Murrah Building. Partin made this conclusion in part because air doesn't readily transmit energy, and so a blast wave loses force very quickly. In the case of the Murrah Building, the blast pressure--of the 4,800 lbs. of ammonium nitrate said to have composed the bomb--would have been 1/2 million lbs. per square inch at the detonation point; but by the time the blast wave reached the nearest point of the building, it would have only had a pressure of 375 lbs. per square inch, not nearly enough force to knock over the columns of the building which could withstand 3,500 lbs. of pressure per square inch. Additionally, if the columns had been knocked over by the blast from the truck, the columns would have fallen away from the blast area. The columns, in actuality, fell straight down. Partin asked authorities for permission to do an independent investigation of the bombing, but he did not receive it. Authorities had the Murrah Building demolished. Backing up the supposition that explosives were inside the building are many eyewitness accounts of authorities removing unexploded bombs from the building. Joe Harp, a retired CIA operative, was close enough to read the lettering on the bombs, which indicated that the bombs contained fulminated mercury, a high-grade explosive. The sophistication of the bombs inside the building indicates help from co-conspirators.

The History Channel program also gives a limited explanation as to why the authorities might have covered up evidence of unidentified co-conspirators. The possibility mentioned in the program is that authorities might have covered up the evidence of outside help so that the case against McVeigh would not be weakened, perhaps allowing him to escape justice. Though there is no hard evidence as to why the bombing was never completely investigated, another possible reason for the government to cover up a Middle Eastern connection can be logically inferred: the government, having just had two disastrous incidents at Waco and Ruby Ridge, wanted to divert attention away from another government failure. (In this case the failure would be to stop the bombing. Evidence which is not presented here indicates that several sources warned the government that the Murrah building was an intended bomb target.)

The History Channel had time constraints that limited the amount of evidence that it could present, and there is limited space here to flesh out the details. To get complete access to the investigative reports that TNA ran on the Oklahoma City bombing, please go to our website, www.thenewamerican.com/focus/okc.