Oklahoma City bombing

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Oklahoma City bombing (1995)
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building shortly after the bombing.
Location	Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, USA
Coordinates	35°28′22.4″N 97°31′01″W / 35.472889°N 97.51694°W / 35.472889; -97.51694Coordinates: 35°28′22.4″N 97°31′01″W / 35.472889°N 97.51694°W / 35.472889; -97.51694
Date	Wednesday April 19, 1995 9:02 a.m. CST (UTC-5)
Attack type	Truck bomb
Deaths	168
Injured	850+
Perpetrator(s)	Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols

The Oklahoma City bombing was a domestic terrorist attack on April 19, 1995 aimed at the U.S. government in which the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, an office complex in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, was bombed. The attack claimed 168 lives and left over 800 people injured. Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, it was the deadliest act of terrorism on U.S. soil.

Shortly after the explosion, Oklahoma State Trooper Charlie Hanger stopped 26-year-old Timothy McVeigh for driving without a license plate and arrested him for that offense and for unlawfully carrying a weapon.^[1] Within days, McVeigh and Terry Nichols were both arrested for their roles in the bombing. Investigators determined that they were sympathizers of a militia movement and that their motive was to retaliate against the government's handling of the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents (the bombing occurred on the anniversary of the Waco incident). McVeigh was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001 while Nichols was sentenced to life in prison. A third conspirator, Michael Fortier, who testified against McVeigh and Nichols, was sentenced to 12 years in prison for failing to warn the U.S. government. As with other large scale terrorist attacks, conspiracy theories dispute the official claims and point to additional perpetrators involved.

The attacks led to widespread rescue efforts from local, state, federal, and worldwide agencies, as well as considerable donations from across the country. As a result of the destruction of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, the U.S. government passed legislation designed to increase protection around federal buildings and to thwart future terrorist attacks. Under these measures, law enforcement has since foiled over sixty domestic terrorism plots.^[2] On April 19, 2000, the Oklahoma City National Memorial was dedicated on the site of the Murrah Federal Building to commemorate the victims of the bombing and annual remembrance services are held at the time of the explosion.

[edit] Prelude

[edit] Planning

One of the reasons for McVeigh and Nichols for planning the bombing was the federal government's actions in the Waco Siege

The two main conspirators, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, had met in 1988 at Fort Benning during basic training for the U.S. Army.^[3] Michael Fortier, an accomplice to the bombing, was an Army roommate of McVeigh's.^[4] As survivalists, the three shared antigovernment views, including opposition to gun control and anger at the federal government's handling of the Waco Siege and the incident at Ruby Ridge. In March 1993, McVeigh visited the Waco site, and later decided to bomb a federal building as a counter-attack for the raids.^[5][6][7] Initially McVeigh only wanted to destroy a federal building, but later decided that his message would be better illustrated by killing a large amount of people.^[8]

The bombing was a long time in planning; as early as September 30, 1994, Nichols bought 40 50-pound (23 kg) bags of ammonium nitrate from Mid-Kansas Coop in McPherson, Kansas, an amount regarded as unusual even for a farmer. In addition, Nichols also bought another 50-pound (23 kg) bag on October 18.^[5] McVeigh approached Fortier and asked him to become involved in the bombing project, but he refused, saying he would never be part of the plan "... unless there was a U.N. tank in my front yard!"^[9] To this, McVeigh responded, "What if the tank was in your neighbor's yard? Wouldn't you go to your neighbor's aid? What if it was in the yard of David Koresh?" McVeigh was unable to convince Fortier to assist in the bombing.^[10]

McVeigh developed a list of criteria for potential attack sites. It had to have at least two federal law-enforcement agencies under its roof from a list of three, which were the BATF, the FBI, and the DEA. If there were additional law-enforcement offices, such as the Secret Service or the U.S. Marshals Service, that would be considered a bonus. McVeigh considered targets in Arkansas, Missouri, Arizona, and Texas. By destroying people who represented a complete cross-section of federal employees, McVeigh believed that he was showing federal agents how wrong they were to attack the entire Branch Davidian family. The Murrah building was also partly chosen because its front was made of glass, which would shatter under the force of the blast. He also wished to minimize nongovernment casualties and therefore ruled out a forty-story building in Little Rock because a florist's shop was on the ground floor. The Murrah Building was also chosen because the big open parking lot across the street would absorb and dissipate part of the concussion from the blast. McVeigh also realized that the large amount of open space around the building would also create better photo opportunities. McVeigh also sought to maximize the number of federal employees killed or injured.^[11] In December 1994, the pair visited Oklahoma City to inspect their target: the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.^[5] McVeigh chose April 19, 1995 for the bombing to coincide with the Waco Siege as well as the 220th anniversary of the Battle of Lexington and Concord.^[12] The original plan was for Nichols to follow McVeigh's getaway car with his truck in the wake of the bombing, and for them then to flee in the truck back to Kansas.^[9] However, it was later decided that only McVeigh needed to bomb the building.

Nichols and McVeigh stole blasting caps and liquid nitromethane, keeping it in rented storage sheds. They also allegedly robbed gun collector Roger E. Moore of $60,000 worth of guns, gold, silver, and jewels, taking them away in a van, which was also stolen from him;^[9] although this has been called into question because, despite the fact that McVeigh visited Moore's ranch, the robbers were said to be wearing ski masks and thus a positive identification was impossible; and in any event, the physical description did not match Nichols.^[13] Also, Aryan Republican Army robbers were operating in the area of Moore's ranch at the time.^[13] Moreover, McVeigh did not need to raise money for the bomb, which only cost about $5,000. All told, the truck rental cost about $250, the fertilizer less than $500, and the nitromethane $2,780, with a cheap car being used as a getaway vehicle.^[14] McVeigh wrote a letter to Moore opining that government agents had committed the robbery.^[15]

McVeigh wanted to use the rocket fuel anhydrous hydrazine, but it was too expensive.^[9] In October 1994, disguised as a bike racer, McVeigh was able to obtain three 54-US-gallon (200 l) drums of nitromethane on the pretense that he and some fellow bikers needed the fuel for racing.^[16] McVeigh rented a storage space, which he used to stockpile seven crates of eighteen-inch-long Tovex sausages, eighty spools of shock tube, and five hundred electric blasting caps they had stolen from a Martin Marietta Aggregates quarry in Marion, Kansas. He declined to take any of the 40,000 pounds (18,000 kg) of ANFO he found at the scene, since he did not believe it to be powerful enough. He wanted to build a bomb containing more than 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of ammonium nitrate fertilizer mixed with about 1,200 pounds (540 kg) of liquid nitromethane, 350 pounds (160 kg) of Tovex, and the miscellaneous weight of sixteen 55-gallon drums, for a combined weight of about 7,000 pounds (3,200 kg).^[17] McVeigh made a prototype bomb using a plastic Gatorade jug with ammonium nitrate prills and liquid nitromethane. A piece of Tovex sausage and a blasting cap were used to ignite it. McVeigh exploded it out in the desert to avoid detection.^[18]

Later, speaking about the military mindset with which he went about the preparations, he said, "You learn how to handle killing in the military. I face the consequences, but you learn to accept it." He viewed his act as more akin to the atomic bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki than the attack on Pearl Harbor, in that it was necessary to prevent more lives from being lost.^[19]

On April 14, 1995 Timothy McVeigh registered a motel room at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas.^[20] The following day he rented a Ryder truck under the alias Robert D. Kling, an alias he adopted because he had known a soldier named Kling with whom he shared physical characteristics, and because it reminded him of the Klingon warriors of Star Trek.^[20][21] On April 16, he drove to Oklahoma City with fellow conspirator Terry Nichols where he parked a getaway vehicle several blocks away from the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.^[22] After removing the license plate from the car, he left a note covering the Vehicle Identification Number (VIN) plate that read, "Not abandoned. Please do not tow. Will move by April 23. (Needs battery & cable)."^[5][23] Both men then returned to Kansas.

[edit] Building the bomb

On April 17 and April 18, McVeigh and Nichols loaded 108 50-pound (23 kg) bags of explosive-grade ammonium nitrate fertilizer, three 55-US-gallon (210 l) drums of liquid nitromethane, several crates of explosive Tovex, seventeen bags of ANFO, and spools of shock tube and cannon fuse into the truck from their storage unit in Herington, Kansas.^[24] The two then drove to Geary County State Lake where they nailed boards into the floor to hold the 13 barrels in place and mixed the chemicals together using plastic buckets and a bathroom scale.^[25] Each filled barrel weighed nearly 500 pounds (230 kg).^[26] McVeigh also included more explosives on the driver's side of the cargo bay, which he could ignite at close range, at the cost of his own life, with his Glock 21 pistol if the primary fuses failed.^[27] During McVeigh's trial, a witness stated that McVeigh claimed to have arranged the barrels in order to form a shaped charge.^[28][29] This was achieved by tamping the aluminum side panel of the Ryder truck with bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer to direct the blast laterally towards the building.^[30] Specifically, McVeigh arranged the barrels in a backwards J; he said later that for pure destructive power, he would have put all the barrels on the side of the cargo bay closest to the Murrah Building; but such an unevenly-distributed 7,000-pound (3,200 kg) load might have broken an axle, flipped the truck over, or at least caused it to lean to one side, which could have drawn attention.^[26] Three additional empty blue steel barrels were in the cargo hold behind the main charge as a decoy for investigators after the explosion.

McVeigh then added a dual-fuse ignition system that he could access through the truck's front cab. Two holes were drilled in the cab of the Ryder truck, under the seat; and two holes were drilled in the van of the Ryder truck. One green cannon fuse was run through each hole into the cab. These time-delayed fuses led from the cab of the truck, through plastic fish-tank tubing conduit (painted yellow to blend in with the truck, and duct-taped in place to the wall to make them harder to disable by yanking from the outside),^[26] to two sets of non-electric Primadet blasting caps; which were set up to initiate, through shock tube, the 350 pounds (160 kg) of Tovex Blastrite Gel "sausages"; which would in turn set off the configuration of barrels. Of the thirteen non-empty barrels, nine were filled with ammonium nitrate and nitromethane, and four were filled with the fertilizer and about 4-US-gallon (15 l) of diesel fuel.^[26] After finishing the construction of the truck-bomb, the two men separated. Nichols returned to Herington; McVeigh to Junction City.

[edit] Bombing

A security photo from a nearby building showing the Ryder truck approaching the Murrah Federal building.

At dawn on April 19, McVeigh changed his plans to explode the bomb at 11:00 a.m. CST, instead deciding to destroy the building at 9:00 a.m. CST.^[31] As he drove toward the Murrah Federal building in the Ryder truck, McVeigh carried with him an envelope whose contents included pages from The Turner Diaries, a fictional account of modern-day revolutionary activists who rise up against the government and create a full scale race war.^[5] He wore a printed T-shirt with the motto of the Commonwealth of Virginia, Sic semper tyrannis ("Thus ever to tyrants", which was shouted by John Wilkes Booth immediately after the assassination of Abraham Lincoln) and "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants" (from Thomas Jefferson).^[12] McVeigh also carried an envelope of antigovernment materials. These included a bumper sticker with Samuel Adams' slogan, "When the government fears the people, there is liberty. When the people fear the government, there is tyranny." Underneath, McVeigh had scrawled, "Maybe now, there will be liberty!" Another item included a quote by John Locke stating that a man has a right to kill someone who takes away his liberty.^[5][32]

McVeigh entered Oklahoma City at 8:50 a.m. CST.^[33] As the truck approached the building, at 8:57 a.m. CST, McVeigh lit the five-minute fuse. Three minutes later, still a block away, he lit the two-minute fuse. He parked the Ryder truck in a drop-off zone situated under the building's day care center, locked the truck, and as he headed to his getaway vehicle, dropped the keys to the truck a few blocks away.^[34]

At 9:02 a.m. CST, the Ryder truck, containing in excess of 6,200 pounds (2,800 kg)^[30] of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, nitromethane, and diesel fuel mixture, detonated in front of the north side of the nine-story Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.^[28] The blast destroyed a third of the building^[35] and created a 30-foot (9.1 m) wide, 8-foot (2.4 m) deep crater on NW 5th Street next to the building.^[36] The blast destroyed or damaged 324 buildings in a sixteen-block radius,^[37] destroyed or burned 86 cars around the site, and shattered glass in 258 nearby buildings^[38] (the broken glass alone accounted for 5% of the death total and 69% of the injuries outside the Murrah Federal building).^[39] The destruction of the buildings left several hundred people homeless and shut down multiple offices in downtown Oklahoma City.^[40] Total damages from the bombing totaled at least $652 million.^[41]

An aerial view of the destruction

The effects of the blast were equivalent to over 5,000 pounds (2,300 kg) of TNT,^[30][42] and could be heard and felt up to 55 miles (89 km) away.^[40] Seismometers at the Omniplex Science Museum in Oklahoma City, 4.3 miles (6.9 km) away, and in Norman, Oklahoma, 16.1 miles (25.9 km) away, recorded the blast as measuring approximately 3.0 on the Richter scale.^[43]

[edit] Arrests

Within 90 minutes of the explosion, McVeigh was arrested.^[44] He was traveling north out of Oklahoma City on Interstate 35 near Perry in Noble County, when an Oklahoma State Trooper stopped him for driving his yellow 1977 Mercury Marquis without a license plate. The arrest was for having a concealed weapon.^[45] Later that day, McVeigh was linked to the bombing via the VIN of an axle and the remnants of a license plate from the destroyed Ryder truck that had been rented under his alias name, Robert Kling.^[46][47] Federal agents created police sketches with the assistance of owner Eldon Elliot of the Ryder rental agency in Junction City.^[5] McVeigh was identified by Lea McGown of the Dreamland Motel, who remembered McVeigh parking a large yellow Ryder truck in the lot; moreover, McVeigh had signed in under his real name at the motel, and the address he signed in under matched the one on his forged license and the charge sheet at the Perry Police Station.^[5][1] Prior to signing in to the hotel, McVeigh had used fake names for his transactions; McGown noted, "People are so used to signing their own name that when they go to sign a phony name, they almost always go to write, and then look up for a moment as if to remember the new name they want to use. That's what [McVeigh] did, and when he looked up I started talking to him, and it threw him."^[5]

After a court hearing on the gun charges, but before McVeigh was released, federal agents took him into custody as they continued their investigation into the bombing.^[5] Rather than talk to investigators about the bombing, McVeigh demanded an attorney. Having been tipped off by the arrival of police and helicopters that a bombing suspect was inside, a restless crowd began forming outside the jail. McVeigh's requests for a bulletproof vest or transport by helicopter were denied.^[48]

Federal agents obtained a search warrant for the house of McVeigh's father Bill, and accordingly broke down the door and wired his home and telephone with listening devices.^[49] Federal agents then searched for Nichols, a friend of McVeigh. Two days after the bombing, Nichols learned that FBI investigators were looking for him, and he turned himself in.^[50] They found ammonium nitrate and Primadet at his house, along with the electric drill used to drill out the locks at the quarry, as well as books on bomb-making and a copy of Hunter, in addition to a hand-drawn map of downtown Oklahoma City which included the Murrah Building and the spot where McVeigh's getaway car was hidden.^[51][52] After a nine-hour interrogation, he was formally held in federal custody until his trial for involvement in the bombing.^[53] Terry Nichols' brother James was also arrested but released after 32 days for lack of evidence. McVeigh's sister Jennifer was accused of illegally mailing bullets to McVeigh, but was granted immunity in exchange for testifying against him.

Initially the FBI had three theories on who had committed the bombing. The first was that it was international terrorism, possibly by the same group who had committed the World Trade Center bombing two years earlier. The FBI also thought that a drug cartel was acting out of vengeance against DEA agents, as the building held a DEA office. The last theory was that the bombing was done by Christian fascists acting on conspiracy theories.^[54]

Ibrahim Ahmad, a Jordanian-American traveling from his home in Oklahoma City to visit family in Jordan was also arrested in what was described as an "initial dragnet". Due to his background, the media initially was concerned that Middle Eastern terrorists were behind the attack. Further investigation, however, cleared Ahmad in the bombing.^[55][56]

[edit] Casualties

It is estimated that 646 people were inside the building when the bomb exploded.^[58] At the end of the day of the bombing, twenty people were confirmed dead, including six children, with over a hundred injured.^[59] The toll eventually reached 168 confirmed dead, not including an unmatched leg that might be from a possible, unidentified 169th victim.^[60] The majority of the deaths were the result of the collapse of the building, not the blast from the bomb.^[61] Of the 168 killed, 163 were in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, one person in the Athenian Building, one woman in a parking lot across the street, a man and woman in the Oklahoma Water Resources building, and a rescue worker struck in the head by debris. The victims ranged in age from three months to seventy-three, not including unborn children of three pregnant women. Of the dead, 99 worked for the federal government; the other 69 did not.^[62][63] Nineteen of the victims were children, including fifteen who were in the America's Kids Day Care Center.^[64] The bodies of all 168 victims were identified at a temporary morgue set up at the scene.^[65] Twenty-four people, including sixteen specialists, used full-body X-rays, dental examinations, fingerprinting, blood tests, and DNA testing to identify the bodies.^[62][65][66] The bomb injured 853 people with the majority of the injuries ranging from abrasions to severe burns and bone fractures.^[67]

[edit] Response and relief

[edit] Rescue efforts

U.S. Air Force personnel and firefighters removing rubble in the rescue attempt

At 9:03:25 a.m. CST, the first of over 1,800 9-1-1 calls related to the bombing was received by Emergency Medical Services Authority (EMSA).^[68] By that time, EMSA ambulances and members of the police and firefighters were already headed to the scene, having heard the blast.^[69] Nearby citizens, who had also witnessed or heard the blast, arrived to assist the victims and emergency workers.^[35] Within 23 minutes of the bombing, the State Emergency Operations Center (SEOC) was set up and included representatives of the state departments of public safety, human services, military, health, and education. Assisting the SEOC were agencies such as the National Weather Service, the Air Force, the Civil Air Patrol, and the American Red Cross.^[70] Immediate assistance also came from 465 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, who arrived within the hour to provide security, and from members of the Department of Civil Emergency Management.^[69] Within the first hour, fifty people were rescued from the Murrah Federal building.^[71] Victims were sent to every hospital in the area. By the end of the day, 153 victims had been treated at St. Anthony Hospital, eight blocks from the blast, over 70 at Presbyterian, 41 at University, and 18 at Children's.^[65] Temporary silences were observed so listening devices capable of detecting human heartbeats could be used to locate survivors. In some cases, limbs had to be amputated without anesthetic (avoided due to its potential to cause a deadly coma) in order to free those trapped under rubble.^[72] Evacuations of the scene were sometimes forced by the receipt by police of tips claiming that more bombs had been planted in the building.^[48]

At 10:28 a.m. CST, rescuers found what they believed to be a second bomb. Some rescue workers initially refused to leave until police ordered a mandatory evacuation of a four-block area around the site.^[65][68] However about 45 minutes later the device was determined to be a simulator used in training federal agents and bomb-sniffing dogs, and relief efforts were continued.^[38][65] The last survivor, a fifteen-year-old girl found under the base of the collapsed building, was discovered at about 7:00 p.m. CST.^[73]

Israeli President Yitzhak Rabin offered to send agents with "anti-terrorist expertise" to help in the investigation. President Clinton declined, believing that acceptance of the offer would increase anti-Muslim sentiments and cause harm to Muslim-Americans.^[74]

In the days following the blast, over 12,000 people participated in relief and rescue operations. FEMA activated 11 of its Urban Search and Rescue Task Forces, comprising a team of 665 rescue workers who assisted in rescue and recovery operations.^[70][75] One nurse was killed in the rescue attempt after debris hit her in the head, and 26 other rescuers were hospitalized with various injuries.^[76] In an effort to recover additional bodies, 100 to 350 tons of rubble were removed from the site each day until April 29.^[65] Twenty-four K-9 units and out-of-state dogs were brought in to search for survivors and locate bodies amongst the building refuse.^[38][65][77]

Alfred P. Murrah Building being demolished on May 23, 1995. The bombing had occurred with a Ryder truck similar to the one in the lower left of the image.

Rescue and recovery efforts were concluded at 12:05 a.m. CST on May 5, with the bodies of all but three victims recovered.^[35] For safety reasons, the building was to be demolished shortly afterward. However, McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, called for a motion to delay the demolition until the defense team could examine the site in preparation for the trial.^[78] More than a month after the bombing, at 7:02 a.m. CST on May 23, the Murrah Federal building was demolished.^[35][79] The final three bodies, those of two credit union employees and a customer, were recovered.^[80] For several days after the building's demolition, trucks hauled 800 short tons (730 t) of debris a day away from the site. Some of the debris was used as evidence in the conspirators' trials, incorporated into parts of memorials, donated to local schools, and sold to raise funds for relief efforts.^[81]

[edit] Humanitarian aid

The national humanitarian response was immediate and, in some cases, even overwhelming. Rescue workers received large amounts of donated goods such as wheelbarrows, bottled water, helmet lights, knee pads, rain gear, and even football helmets.^[54][70] The sheer number of donated goods caused logistical and inventory control problems until drop-off centers were set up to accept and sort the goods.^[35] The Oklahoma Restaurant Association, which was holding a trade show in the city, assisted rescue workers by providing 15,000 to 20,000 meals over a ten-day period.^[82] The Salvation Army served over 100,000 meals and provided over 100,000 ponchos, gloves, hard hats, and knee pads to rescue workers.^[83] Requests for blood donations were met by local residents and also from those around the nation.^[84][85] Of the 9,000 units of blood donated to the victims, only 131 units were used, the rest were saved in blood banks.^[86]

[edit] Federal and state government aid

Bill Clinton's notes for address to the Oklahoma City bombing victims on April 23, 1995.

At 9:45 a.m. CST, Governor Frank Keating declared a state of emergency and ordered all non-essential workers located in the Oklahoma City area to be released from their duties for their safety.^[35] President Bill Clinton learned about the bombing around 9:30 a.m. CST while he was meeting with Turkish Prime Minister Tansu Çiller at the White House.^[59][87] Prior to addressing the nation, President Clinton wanted to ground all planes in the Oklahoma City area to prevent the bombers from escaping by air, but decided against it.^[74] At 4:00 p.m. CST, President Clinton declared a federal emergency in Oklahoma City^[69] and spoke to the nation:

He also ordered that flags for all federal buildings be flown at half-mast for 30 days in remembrance of the victims.^[88] Four days later, on April 23, Clinton spoke from Oklahoma City.^[89]

There was no major federal financial assistance provided to the survivors of the Oklahoma City bombing, However, the Murrah Fund was established and collected over $300,000 from federal grants.^[70] Over $40 million was donated to the city after the bombing to aid the disaster relief and to compensate the victims.^[90] Funds were initially distributed to families that desperately needed it to get back on their feet, while holding the rest of the money in trust for longer-term medical and psychological needs.^[90] By 2005, $18 million of the donations remained, where a portion will be used to provide a college education for each of the 219 children who lost one or both parents in the bombing.^[90] A committee chaired by Daniel Kurtenbach of Goodwill Industries provided financial assistance to the survivors.^[91]

[edit] Children terrorized

The image of firefighter Chris Fields holding the dying infant Baylee Almon won the Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography in 1996. Two people, Lester LaRue and Charles Porter, standing just three feet apart took almost the same image yet it was Charles Porter's image that won the Pulitzer.^[92]

In the wake of the bombing, the national media seized upon the fact that 19 of the victims had been babies and children, many in the day-care center. At the time of the bombing, there were 100 day-care centers in the United States in 7,900 federal buildings.^[74] McVeigh later stated that he was unaware of the day-care center when choosing the building as a target, and if he had known "... it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage."^[93] However, the FBI stated that McVeigh scouted the interior of the building in December 1994 and likely knew of the day-care center before the bombing.^[5][93]

Schools across the country were dismissed early and ordered closed. A photograph of firefighter Chris Fields emerging from the rubble with infant Baylee Almon, who later died in a nearby hospital, was reprinted worldwide and became a symbol of the attack. The photo, taken by utility company employee Charles H. Porter IV, earned the 1996 Pulitzer Prize for Spot News Photography.^[94][95] The images and thoughts of children dying terrorized many children who, as demonstrated by later research, showed symptoms of post-traumatic stress disorder.^[96]

President Clinton stated that after seeing images of babies being pulled from the the wreckage, he was "beyond angry" and wanted to "put [his] fist through the television".^[97] President Clinton and his wife, Hillary, showed concern about how children were reacting to the bombing. They requested that aides talk to child care specialists about how to talk to the children regarding the bombing. President Clinton spoke to the nation three days after the bombing, saying: "I don't want our children to believe something terrible about life and the future and grownups in general because of this awful thing...most adults are good people who want to protect our children in their childhood and we are going to get through this".^[98] On the Saturday after the bombing, April 22, the Clintons gathered children of employees of federal agencies that had offices in the Murrah Building, and in a live nationwide television and radio broadcast, addressed their concerns.

[edit] Media coverage

Hundreds of news trucks and members of the press arrived at the site to cover the story. The press immediately noticed that the bombing took place on the second anniversary of the Waco incident.^[59] Many initial news stories, however, hypothesized the attack had been undertaken by Islamic terrorists, such as those who had masterminded the World Trade Center bombing two years before.^{[99][100][101]} Some responded to these reports by attacking Muslims and people of Arab descent.^[78][102]

As the rescue effort wound down, the media interest shifted to the investigation, arrests, and trials of Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, and on the search for an additional suspect named "John Doe Number Two". Several witnesses had claimed to see the second suspect with McVeigh who did not resemble Nichols.^[103][104]

[edit] Trials and sentencing of the conspirators

The FBI led the official investigation, known as OKBOMB,^[105] with Weldon L. Kennedy acting as Special Agent in charge.^[106] Kennedy oversaw 900 federal, state, and local law enforcement personnel including 300 FBI agents, 200 officers from the Oklahoma City Police Department, 125 members of the Oklahoma National Guard, and 55 officers from the Oklahoma Department of Public Safety.^[107] The crime task force was deemed the largest since the investigation into the assassination of John F. Kennedy.^[107] OKBOMB was the nation's largest criminal case in history, with FBI agents conducting 28,000 interviews, amassing 3.5 short tons (3.2 t) of evidence, and collecting nearly one billion pieces of information.^{[47][108][109]} The investigation led to the separate trials and convictions of McVeigh, Nichols, and Fortier.

Timothy McVeigh's mug shot after being arrested less than two hours after the bombing for driving without a license plate and having a concealed weapon

[edit] Timothy McVeigh

The United States was represented by a team of prosecutors, led by Joseph Hartzler. In his opening statement, Hartzler outlined McVeigh's motivations and the evidence against him. McVeigh's motivation, he said, was hatred of the government, which began during his tenure in the Army as he read The Turner Diaries, and grew through the increase in taxes and the passage of the Brady Bill, and grew further with the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents. The prosecution called 137 witnesses, including Michael Fortier, Michael's wife Lori Fortier, and McVeigh's sister, Jennifer McVeigh, all of whom testified on McVeigh's hatred of the government and demonstrated desire to take militant action against it.^[110] Both Fortiers testified that McVeigh had told them of his plans to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal building. Michael revealed how McVeigh had chosen the date and Lori testified that she created the false identification card that McVeigh used to rent the Ryder truck.^[111][112]

In his trial, whose venue had been moved from Oklahoma City to Denver, Colorado, McVeigh was represented by a defense counsel team of six principal attorneys led by Stephen Jones.^[113] According to law professor Douglas O. Linder, McVeigh wanted Jones to present a "necessity defense"––which would argue that he was in "imminent danger" from the government (that his bombing was intended to prevent future crimes by the government, such as the Waco and Ruby Ridge incidents).^[111] McVeigh argued that "'imminent' does not mean 'immediate.' If a comet is hurtling toward the earth, and it's out past the orbit of Pluto, it's not an immediate threat to Earth, but it is an imminent threat."^[114] Contrary to his client's wishes, however:

Jones opted for a strategy of trying to poke what holes he could in the prosecution's case, thus raising a question of reasonable doubt. In addition, Jones believed that McVeigh was taking far more responsibility for the bombing than was justified and that McVeigh, although clearly guilty, was only a player in a large conspiracy.... In his book about the McVeigh case, Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing Conspiracy, Jones wrote: "It strains belief to suppose that this appalling crime was the work of two men—any two men...Could [this conspiracy] have been designed to protect and shelter everyone involved? Everyone, that is, except my client...[.]" Jones considered presenting McVeigh as "the designated patsy" in a cleverly designed plot, but his own client opposed the strategy and Judge Matsch, after a hearing, ruled the evidence concerning a larger conspiracy to be too insubstantial to be admissible.^[111]

Jones tried to link the bombing to associates of Terry Nichols in the Philippines; to Osama bin Laden and other Arab terrorists; to a German descendant of a Nazi Party leader; to Ramzi Yousef, mastermind of the World Trade Center bombing; and to associates of a white separatist group in the Oklahoma compound Elohim City.^[114] In addition to arguing that the bombing could not have been accomplished by two men alone but must have been perpetrated by a conspiracy of more people whom McVeigh was protecting, Jones also attempted to raise reasonable doubt by arguing that no one had seen McVeigh near the scene of the crime and that the investigation into the bombing had lasted merely two weeks.^[111] During the trial, Linder observed further:

The defense presented 25 witnesses over just a one-week period. The most effective witness for the defense might have been Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, who provided a damning critique of the FBI's sloppy investigation of the bombing site and its handling of other key evidence. Unfortunately for McVeigh, while Whitehurst could show that FBI techniques made contamination of evidence possible, he could not point to any evidence (such as trace evidence of explosives on the shirt McVeigh wore on April 19) that he knew to be contaminated.^[111]

Numerous damaging leaks emerged, which appeared to originate from conversations McVeigh had with his defense attorneys. These included a confession that was said to have been inadvertently included on a computer disk that was given to the press. McVeigh believed that it seriously compromised his chances of getting a fair trial.^[111] A gag order was imposed during the trial that prohibited attorneys on either side from commenting to the press on the evidence, proceedings, and opinions regarding the trial proceedings. The defense was only allowed to enter into evidence six pages of a 517-page Justice Department report criticizing the FBI crime laboratory, and David Williams, one of the agency's explosives experts, for reaching unscientific and biased conclusions about the Oklahoma City bombing. The report claimed that Williams had worked backward in the investigation rather than basing his determinations on forensic evidence.^[115]

The jury deliberated for twenty-three hours. On June 2, 1997, McVeigh was found guilty on eleven counts of murder and conspiracy.^[116][117] Although the defense argued for a reduced sentence of life imprisonment, McVeigh was sentenced to death.^[118] After President George W. Bush approved the execution (since McVeigh was a federal inmate, federal law dictates that the President must approve the execution) he was executed by lethal injection at a U.S. penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana, on June 11, 2001.^[119][120] The execution was televised on closed-circuit television so that the relatives of the victims could witness his death.^[121] McVeigh's execution was the first federal execution in 38 years.^[122]

[edit] Terry Nichols

Terry Nichols stood trial twice. He was first tried by the federal government in 1997 and found guilty of conspiring to build a weapon of mass destruction and of eight counts of involuntary manslaughter of federal officers.^[123] After he received the sentence on June 4, 1998 of life-without-parole, the State of Oklahoma in 2000 sought a death-penalty conviction on 161 counts of first-degree murder. On May 26, 2004 the jury found him guilty on all charges, but deadlocked on the issue of sentencing him to death. Presiding Judge Steven W. Taylor then determined the sentence of 161 consecutive life terms without the possibility of parole.^[3] He is currently held in the ADX Florence Federal Prison.^[124]

[edit] Michael Fortier

Though Michael Fortier was considered an accomplice and co-conspirator, he agreed to testify against McVeigh in exchange for a modest sentence and immunity for his wife.^[112][125] He was sentenced on May 27, 1998 to twelve years in prison and fined $200,000 for failing to warn authorities about the attack.^[3] As discussed by Jeralyn Merritt, who served on Timothy McVeigh's criminal defense team, on January 20, 2006, after serving eighty-five percent of his sentence, Fortier was released for good behavior into the Witness Protection Program and given a new identity.^[126]

[edit] Others

No "John Doe #2" was ever identified, nothing conclusive was ever reported regarding the owner of the missing leg, and the government never openly investigated anyone else in conjunction with the bombing. Though the defense teams in both McVeigh's and Nichols trials tried to suggest that others were involved, Judge Steven W. Taylor, who presided over the Nichols trial, found no credible, relevant, or legally admissible evidence of anyone other than McVeigh and Nichols as having directly participated in the bombing.^[111] When McVeigh was asked if there were other conspirators in the bombing, he replied: "Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building, and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?"^[127] On the morning of his execution a letter was released that he had wrote which stated "For those die-hard conspiracy theorists who will refuse to believe this, I turn the tables and say: Show me where I needed anyone else. Financing? Logistics? Specialized tech skills? Brainpower? Strategy? ... Show me where I needed a dark, mysterious 'Mr. X!"^[128]

[edit] Aftermath

The site of the building after it was imploded, three months after the bombing

Until the September 11, 2001 attacks, the Oklahoma City bombing was the deadliest act of terror against the U.S. on American soil. Prior to this, the deadliest act of terror against the United States was the bombing of Pan Am Flight 103, which killed 189 Americans. Within 48 hours after the bombing, and with the assistance of the General Services Administration, the various federal offices were able to resume operations in other parts of the city.^[129] Estimates claim that approximately 387,000 people in the Oklahoma City metroplitatn area knew someone that was directly affected by the bombing.^[90][130]

In response to the bombing, the U.S. Government enacted several pieces of legislation, notably the Antiterrorism and Effective Death Penalty Act of 1996.^[131] In response to the trials of the conspirators being moved out-of-state, the Victim Allocution Clarification Act of 1997 was signed on March 20, 1997 by President Clinton to allow the victims of the bombing (and the victims of any other future acts of violence) the right to observe trials and to offer impact testimony in trials. In response to passing the legislation, Clinton stated that "when someone is a victim, he or she should be at the center of the criminal justice process, not on the outside looking in."^[132]

In the weeks following the bombing, the federal government ordered that all federal buildings in all major cities be surrounded with prefabricated Jersey barriers to ward off similar attacks.^[133] As part of a longer plan for United States federal building security, most of these temporary barriers have since been replaced with permanent security barriers which look more attractive and are driven deep into the ground for sturdiness.^[134][135] Furthermore, all new federal buildings must now be constructed with truck-resistant barriers and with deep setbacks from surrounding streets to minimize their vulnerability to truck bombs.^{[136][137][138]} FBI buildings, for instance, must be set back 100 feet (30 m) from traffic.^[139] The total cost of improving security in federal buildings across the country in response to the bombing reached over $600 million.^[140]

The Murrah building was previously deemed so safe that it only employed one security guard.^[141] In June 1995, the General Services Administration issued Vulnerability Assessment of Federal Facilities, also known as The Marshals Report. These findings resulted in a thorough evaluation of security at all federal buildings and a system for classifying risks at over 1,300 federal facilities owned or leased by the federal government. Federal sites were divided into five security levels ranging from Level 1 (minimum security needs) to Level 5 (maximum).^[142] The Alfred P. Murrah Building was a Level 4 building.^[143] Among the 52 security improvement factors were parking, lighting, physical barriers, closed circuit television monitoring, site planning and access, vehicular circulation, standoff distance (which is the setback of the building envelope from the street to mitigate truck bomb damage), hardening of building exteriors to increase blast resistance, glazing systems to reduce flying glass shards and fatalities, and structural engineering design to prevent progressive collapse.^[144]

According to Mark Potok, director of Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, law enforcement officials have foiled over sixty domestic terror plots since the Oklahoma City bombing.^[2] The attacks were prevented due to measures established by the local and federal government to increase security of high-priority targets and following-up on hate groups within the United States. Potok revealed that in 1996 there was approximately 858 domestic militias and other antigovernment groups but the number had dropped to 152 by 2004.^[145] Shortly after the bombing, the FBI hired an additional 500 agents to investigate potential domestic terrorist attacks.^[146]

The Field of Empty Chairs, east Gate of Time, and Reflecting Pool at the Oklahoma City National Memorial.

The attack led to improvements in engineering for the purpose of constructing buildings that would be better able to withstand tremendous forces. Oklahoma City's new federal building was constructed using those improvements. The National Geographic Channel documentary series Seconds From Disaster suggested that the Murrah Building would probably have survived the blast had it been built according to California earthquake design codes.^[147]

Even many who agreed with some of McVeigh's politics viewed his act as counterproductive. Much of the criticism focused on the deaths of innocent children. Critics expressed chagrin that McVeigh had not assassinated specific government leaders instead. Indeed, McVeigh had considered assassinating Attorney-General Janet Reno and others rather than bombing a building,^[6] and after the bombing said that sometimes he wished he had committed a series of assassinations instead.^[148] Those who expressed sympathy for McVeigh typically described his deed as an act of war, as in the case of Gore Vidal's essay, The Meaning of Timothy McVeigh.^[149][150] Other journalists compared him to John Brown.^[151]

In response to Timothy McVeigh's description of himself as a libertarian, Libertarian Party national director Steve Dasbach said:^[152]

McVeigh thought that the bombing had a positive impact on government policy. As evidence, he cited the peaceful resolution of the Montana Freemen standoff in 1996, the government's $3.1 million settlement with Randy Weaver and his surviving children four months after the bombing, and April 2000 statements by Bill Clinton regretting his decision to storm the Branch Davidian compound. McVeigh noted, "Once you bloody the bully's nose, and he knows he's going to be punched again, he's not coming back around."^[153]

[edit] Oklahoma City National Memorial

For two years after the bombing, the only memorial for the victims were stuffed animals, crucifixes, letters, and other personal items left by thousands of people at a security fence surrounding the site of the building.^[154][155] Although multiple ideas for memorials were sent to Oklahoma City within the first day after the bombing, an official memorial planning committee did not form until early 1996.^[156] The Murrah Federal Building Memorial Task Force, composed of 350 members, was established to formulate plans in choosing a memorial to commemorate the victims of the bombing.^[98] On July 1, 1997, the winning design was chosen unanimously by a 15-member panel from 624 submissions.^[157] The memorial was designed at a cost of $29 million, which was raised by public and private funds.^[158][159] The memorial is part of the National Park Service and was designed by Oklahoma City architects Hans and Torrey Butzer and Sven Berg.^[155] It was dedicated by President Clinton on April 19, 2000, exactly five years after the bombing.^[157][160] Within the first year, it had 700,000 visitors.^[155]

After surviving the bombing, The Survivor Tree elm became an emblem of the memorial.

The museum includes a reflecting pool flanked by two large "gates", one inscribed with the time 9:01, the opposite with 9:03, the pool between representing the moment of the blast. On the south end of the memorial is a field full of symbolic bronze and stone chairs—one for each person lost, arranged based on what floor they were on. The chairs represent the empty chairs at the dinner tables of the victims' families. The seats of the children killed are smaller than those of the adults lost. On the opposite side is the "survivor tree", part of the building's original landscaping that somehow survived the blast and fires that followed it. The memorial left part of the foundation of the building intact, so that visitors can see the scale of the destruction. Around the western edge of the memorial is a portion of the chain link fence which had amassed over 800,000 personal items which were later collected by the Oklahoma City Memorial Foundation.^[161]

On a corner adjacent to the memorial is a sculpture titled "And Jesus Wept", erected by St. Joseph's Catholic Church. St. Joseph's, one of the first brick and mortar churches in the city, was almost completely destroyed by the blast. The statue is not part of the memorial itself but is popular with visitors nonetheless. North of the memorial is the Journal Record Building which now houses the Oklahoma City National Memorial Museum, an affiliate of the National Park Service. Also in the building is the National Memorial Institute for the Prevention of Terrorism, a non-partisan think tank.

[edit] Remembrance

Rescue Team 5 remembers the victims who died in the bombing.

Each year, an observance is held to remember the victims of the bombing. An annual marathon draws thousands, where runners can sponsor one of the victims of the bombing.^[162][163] For the tenth anniversary of the bombing, the city held 24 days of activities, including a week-long series of events known as the "National Week of Hope" from April 17 to April 24, 2005.^[164][165] As in previous years, the tenth anniversary of the bombing observances began with a service at 09:02 a.m. CST, marking the moment the bomb went off, with the traditional 168 seconds of silence—one second for each person who was killed as a result of the blast. The service also included the traditional reading of the names, read by children to symbolize the future of Oklahoma City.^[166]

Vice President Dick Cheney, former president Clinton, Oklahoma Governor Brad Henry, Frank Keating, Governor of Oklahoma at the time of the bombing, and other political dignitaries attended the service and gave speeches in which they emphasized that "goodness overcame evil".^[167] The relatives of the victims and the survivors of the blast also made note of it during the service at First United Methodist Church in Oklahoma City.^[168]

President George W. Bush made note of the anniversary in a written statement, part of which echoes his remarks on the execution of Timothy McVeigh in 2001: "For the survivors of the crime and for the families of the dead the pain goes on."^[169] Bush was invited but did not attend the service because he was en route to Springfield, Illinois to dedicate the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Vice President Cheney presided over the service in his place.^[167]

[edit] Conspiracy theories involving more explosives or perpetrators

Various conspiracy theories have been proposed about the events surrounding the bombing. One theory focuses on a cover-up of the existence of additional explosives planted within the Murrah building.^[170] The theory focuses on the local news channels reporting the existence of a second and third bomb within the first few hours of the explosion.^{[170][171][172]} Conspiracy theorists say that there are several discrepancies, such as an inconsistency between the observed destruction and the bomb used by McVeigh. Theorists point to nearby seismographs that recorded two tremors from the bombing, believing it to indicate two bombs had been used.^[173] Experts disputed this, stating that the first tremor was a result of the bomb, while the second was due to the collapse of the building.^{[173][174][175]} Many critics of the official explanation point to a blast effects study published in 1997, utilizing test results from the Eglin Air Force Base, which concluded that "it is impossible to ascribe the damage that occurred on April, 1995 to a single truck bomb containing 4,800 lbs. of ANFO" so that the damage to the Murrah building was "not the result of the truck bomb itself, but rather due to other factors such as locally placed charges within the building itself".^[176] Some experts ascribe the unusually large blast pattern to a thermobaric weapon, utilizing highly flammable metal particles (such as aluminium) mixed with a liquid high explosive (such as nitromethane). When ignited in a two-stage process, the device creates a super-high heat and pressure blast capable of flattening buildings.^[177]

Another theory alleged that President Bill Clinton had either known about the bombing in advance or had approved the bombing.^[178][179] It is also believed that the bombing was done by the government to frame the militia movement or enact antiterrorism legislation while using McVeigh as a scapegoat.^{[174][178][179][180]} Other theories include other conspirators that were involved in the bombing, including linking McVeigh with Islamic terrorists, the Japanese government, German neo-Nazis, as well as the CIA.^[174][181] There has also been speculation that the found unmatched leg may have belonged to another one of the bombers. It was claimed that the bomber was either in the building when the bombing occurred, or had previously been murdered, and McVeigh had left his body in the back of the Ryder truck to hide the body in the explosion.^[182][183]

Several witnesses reported a second person seen around the time of the bombing; investigators would later call him "John Doe 2". There are several theories that the second person was also affiliated with the bombing and was even a possible foreign connection to McVeigh and Nichols.^[104][184] This was due to the fact that Terry Nichols traveled through the Phillipines while terrorist mastermind Ramzi Yousef of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing was planning his Project Bojinka plot in Manila^[104][185] Ramzi Yousef also placed the bomb used in the 1993 World Trade Center bombing inside a rented Ryder van, the same rental company used by McVeigh, indicating a possible foreign link to Al-Qaeda.^[186] Although, in 1997, FBI did arrest Michael Brescia, a member of Aryan Republican Army who resembled an artist's rendering of John Doe 2 based on eyewitness accounts, they later released him after their investigation reported he was not involved with the bombing.^[187] One reporter for The Washington Post reflected on the fact that a John Doe 2 has never been found: "Maybe he'll [John Doe 2] be captured and convicted someday. If not, he'll remain eternally at large, the one who got away, the mystery man at the center of countless conspiracy theories. It's possible that he never lived. It's likely that he'll never die."^[187]

In 2006, congressman Dana Rohrabacher said that the Subcommittee on Oversight and Investigations of the U.S. House Committee on International Relations, which he chaired, would investigate whether the Oklahoma City bombers had assistance from foreign sources.^[186] On December 28, 2006, when asked about fueling conspiracy theories with his questions and criticism, Rohrabacher told CNN: "There's nothing wrong with adding to a conspiracy theory when there might be a conspiracy, in fact."^[188] In March 2007, Danny Coulson, who served as deputy assistant director of FBI at the time of attacks, voiced his concerns and called for reopening of investigation.^[189]

[edit] See also

• List of terrorist incidents
• Domestic terrorism in the United States
• Lone wolf (terrorism)
• National Geographic Seconds From Disaster episodes
• 1993 Bishopsgate bombing

[edit] References

• City of Oklahoma City Document Management. Final Report: Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building Bombing April 19, 1995. Stillwater: Department of Central Services Central Printing Division, 1996. ISBN 0-8793-9130-8.
• Crothers, Lane. Rage on the Right: The American Milita Movement from Ruby Ridge to Homeland Security. Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield, 2003. ISBN 0-74-252546-5.
• Figley, Charles R. Treating Compassion Fatigue. New York : Brunner-Routledge, 2002. ISBN 1-583-91053-0.
• Giordano, Geraldine. The Oklahoma City Bombing. New York: The Rosen Publishing Group, Inc., 2003. ISBN 0-8239-3655-4.
• Hamm, Mark S. Apocalypse in Oklahoma: Waco and Ruby Ridge Revenged. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 1997. ISBN 1-555-53300-0.
• Hamm, Mark S. In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground. Boston: Northeastern University Press, 2002. ISBN 1-555-53492-9.
• Hewitt, Christopher. Understanding Terrorism in America : From the Klan to Al Qaeda. London; New York: Routledge, 2003. ISBN 0-415-27765-5.
• Irving, Clive, ed. In Their Name. New York: Random House, 1995. ISBN 0-679-44825-X.
• Kellner, Douglas. Guys and Guns Amok: Domestic Terrorism and School Shootings from the Oklahoma City Bombing to the Virginia Tech Massacre. Boulder, CO: Paradigm Publishers, 2007. ISBN 1-594-51492-5.
• Knight, Peter. Conspiracy Theories in American History: An Encyclopedia. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2003. ISBN 1-576-07812-4.
• Linenthal, Edward. The Unfinished Bombing: Oklahoma City in American Memory. New York: Oxford UP, 2001. ISBN 0-19-513672-1.
• Michel, Lou, and Dan Herbeck. American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing. New York: ReganBooks, 2001. ISBN 0-06-039407-2.
• Serano, Richard A. One of Ours: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. New York: W. W. Norton & Company, 1998. ISBN 0-393-02743-0.
• Stickney, Brandon M. All-American Monster: The Unauthorized Biography of Timothy McVeigh. Amherst, NY: Prometheus Books, 1996. ISBN 1-573-92088-6.
• Sturken, Marita. Tourists of History: Memory, Kitsch, and Consumerism from Oklahoma City to Ground Zero. Durham: Duke University Press, 2007. ISBN 0-822-34103-4.
• Wright, Stuart A. Patriots, Politics, and the Oklahoma City Bombing. Cambridge and New York: Cambridge UP, 2007. ISBN 978-0521872645.

[edit] Further reading

• Hinman, Eve E. David J. Hammond. Lessons from the Oklahoma City Bombing: Defensive Design Techniques. New York: ASCE Press, 1997. ISBN 0-784-40217-5.
• Jones, Stephen. Peter Israel. Others Unknown: The Oklahoma City Bombing Case and Conspiracy. New York: Public Affairs, 1998. ISBN 1-891-62007-X.
• Oklahoma Today. 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995: The Official Record of the Oklahoma City Bombing. Oklahoma City: Oklahoma Today, 2005. ISBN 0-806-19957-1.
• Sanders, Kathy. After Oklahoma City: A Grieving Grandmother Uncovers Shocking Truths about the bombing...and Herself. Arlington, TX: Master Strategies, 2005. ISBN 0-9766485-0-4.
• Sherrow, Victoria. The Oklahoma City Bombing: Terror in the Heartland. Springfield, N.J.: Enslow Publishers, 1998. ISBN 0-766-01061-9.

[edit] External links

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Oklahoma City bombing

• Oklahoma City Bombing Trial News archives and special reports at the The Denver Post (with updated links)
• Oklahoma City National Memorial Official website
• CNN Interactive
• List of victims of the Oklahoma City Bombing
• The Opinions of General Partin and Other Bomb Experts

Coordinates: 35°28′22.4″N 97°31′01″W / 35.472889°N 97.51694°W / 35.472889; -97.51694