McCurtain Gazette

 

Southern Poverty Law Center tracked bomb plot around the globe

By J.D. Cash and Lt. Colonel Roger Charles (U.S.M.C. retired)


Newly released documents received by a Salt Lake City attorney in his suit against the Oklahoma City FBI office provide the strongest evidence yet that the U.S. Department of Justice (DOJ) has been conducting a well-orchestrated cover-up of evidence linking Timothy McVeigh to subjects that frequented, and in some cases resided, at an eastern Oklahoma paramilitary compound called Elohim City.

At the center of this cabal were numerous informants. At least two of those providing critical information about the Elohim City conspiracy reported to a tax-exempt civil rights group, the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), headed by Morris Dees.

Perhaps even more surprising is evidence in these 87 pages released by DOJ on behalf of the FBI and the Oklahoma City FBI office, is documentation showing that top FBI agents assigned the bombing case lacked authority to conduct interviews at Elohim City or to go after a leading suspect in the case, Andreas Carl Strassmeir, also known as "Andy the German."

While the state's media ignored (and some even attacked) evidence this newspaper presented nine years ago linking McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Mike Fortier to Strassmeir and other radicals at Elohim City, these new but heavily redacted documents should provide a starting point for a real investigation into the horrific crime and apparent government sponsored cover-up.

Trentadue suit

After months of legal wrangling in a Salt Lake City courtroom, the DOJ reluctantly turned over 17 FBI-generated documents Friday, to the plaintiff in a Freedom Of Information Act (FOIA) lawsuit n Jesse C. Trentadue.

Trentadue, a well-respected Salt Lake City lawyer whose client list is made up of members of the insurance industry, became embroiled in the Oklahoma City bombing case after his brother was found beaten to death in his jail cell at the Oklahoma City Federal Transfer Center in August 1995.

Initially, the federal government ruled Kenny Trentadue's death a suicide, in spite of many indications that pointed to his having been beaten to death. The Trentadue family and local investigators tried to obtain definitive proof of his murder, but were thwarted by actions of FBI and Bureau of Prison employees who allegedly destroyed evidence in the case.

After information was passed to him from an intermediary serving time at a Terre Haute, Ind., federal prison with McVeigh, Jesse Trentadue sought evidence of his brother's death inside the OKBOMB investigation files.

McVeigh's message offered an explanation as to why such extreme measures had been undertaken by federal officials: Kenny Trentadue was tortured by federal agents who may have mistakenly thought he was a member of the bombing conspiracy.

With this tenuous lead from McVeigh, the dead man's brother filed a FOIA request for documents that could shed light on his brother's brutal murder and the OKBOMB case.

In the course of his investigation, evidence emerged in documents Trentadue received that the FBI was using the SPLC to gather information on Elohim City n both before and after the bombing.

After months of legal maneuvering by the DOJ and the FBI, U.S. District Court Judge Dale Kimball ruled on May 5, 2005, that the Oklahoma City FBI office had to search for documents linking the SPLC to Elohim City and/or specific individuals connected to the April 19, 1995, bombing.

With national attention on the case provided by several news agencies, the FBI released a small portion of what may prove to be a large reservoir of hidden documents that could reveal more sensational details about a widespread cover-up.

The DOJ cover letter accompanying the newly released documents claimed the release to Trentadue was done as "a matter of discretion, in the interest of resolving the litigation in good faith." The earliest date on these documents is a teletype transmitted on April 24, 1995 n only three days after McVeigh was first publicly identified as a prime suspect in the bombing of the A.P. Murrah federal building.

While each of the 17 reports is heavily redacted, central to these-never-before-reported-on documents is evidence that the Southern Poverty Law Center headquartered in Montgomery, Ala., was monitoring neo-Nazi radicals closely associated with McVeigh, if not McVeigh himself, shortly before McVeigh's deadly attack.

Leaked teletype first disclosed SPLC connection

What started this latest litigation was an article first reported by this newspaper on Dec. 14, 2003. The copyrighted article provided details of a teletype sent by the director of the FBI to a select few FBI offices, disclosing that Morris Dees' SPLC had at least one informant at Elohim City on April 17, 1995, when McVeigh called the camp.

The name of the individual to whom McVeigh placed this call is redacted in the FBI teletype, but a phone card shows at another time McVeigh called Elohim City to speak to Strassmeir.

Strassmeir was providing paramilitary training to the neo-Nazis who frequently cycled through Elohim City. This January 4, 1996, FBI teletype also documents an April 5, 1995, telephone call from McVeigh to Elohim City, characterizing this call as an attempt by McVeigh "to recruit a second conspirator to assist in the OKBOMB attack.

One of the newly released FBI documents, dated January 26, 1996, provides support for the accuracy of the SPLC informant's characterization of McVeigh's April 5 telephone call as a "recruiting" call.

In this newly disclosed report, the FBI notes that Fortier, identified as "the OKBOMB cooperating subject" (but with his name redacted), as having said that, "April 5, 1995, was around the time that he backed out of the plans to bomb the federal building. McVeigh may have been trying to recruit other individuals to assist him."

This new evidence from the top echelons of the FBI directly contradicts many statements made in federal court by top DOJ officials, who told federal judges they were not aware of any government information about any informants operating inside Elohim City before the bombing.

In closed chambers, DOJ lawyers told U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch that they had no evidence linking anyone at Elohim City to McVeigh, or the bombing, other than a calling card record showing McVeigh had called the camp a single time on April 5, 1995.

Furthermore, these same DOJ attorneys said absolutely nothing about an April 17, 1995 call by McVeigh, while at least one operative from the SPLC was present at Elohim City, monitoring the compound, when McVeigh called.

Stephen Jones, McVeigh's attorney at that trial, indicated that the new documents show prosecutors violated ethical standards.

"These hand-picked DOJ lawyers were obligated by law and by their professional code of ethics to provide this information to Judge Matsch in order for him to determine if the material should be turned over to the McVeigh and Nichols defense teams. They did not do so," he said.

Conspiracy closely monitored

Taken in their entirety, Utah attorney Jesse Trentadue's latest documents clearly place the role of the SPLC and its own undercover operatives at the center of unresolved issues about federal law enforcement's prior knowledge of the conspiracy to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995.

In addition, the documents also show that members of the DOJ prosecution team misrepresented to U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch the true extent of government files about McVeigh's ties to Elohim City, potentially opening them up to criminal prosecution and disbarment for these misrepresentations.

One of those documents indicates that on April 24, 1995, a top DOJ lawyer in the civil rights division, Barry Kowalski, reported that he was seeking an interview with a key undercover SPLC source about relations the source had developed regarding, "relationships, activities, and/or associates of subject number one, Timothy J. McVeigh."

Indeed, the FBI was using a spy network operated by the SPLC to do what many in the FBI were afraid to do because of guidelines in place during the Clinton administration.

According to a highly placed confidential source in the DOJ at the time of the bombing, Attorney General Janet Reno would not allow the FBI much latitude in developing intelligence inside the far-right due to concerns that such activities might violate existing departmental guidelines on "domestic spying."

To skirt Reno's policies, the FBI developed a relationship with cutouts such as the SPLC that could use their own spies to do what the FBI could not. These non-government agents then passed their intelligence products back to the bureau.

Dees confirms relationship

In December 2003 this newspaper presented SPLC co-founder Morris Dees with information that linked his organization to the FBI and to McVeigh's conspiracy in the months before the Ryder truck exploded.

Dees confirmed to the Gazette a role in the surveillance operation at Elohim City (and other places) when reporters interviewed him at a press conference in Durant.

Dees was initially taken aback when he learned that the newspaper had obtained an officially released FBI teletype from director Louis Freeh, including information attributed to an SPLC informant who was present Elohim City on April 17, 1995, when McVeigh called him to seek help in the bombing.

Dees admitted that he had an informant at Elohim City as the teletype said. However, the coy attorney refused to elaborate on the situation, except to say he had warned then-attorney general Reno, six months before the attack, that, "(A)n attack on the government is planned by members of the far right."

Dees went on to say that after the attack he immediately called Reno to say the media had it wrong.

"I told her the attack was domestic, not foreign," Dees said.

The co-founder of the SPLC also said that he did not know McVeigh by name before the blast. However, Dees did become visibly shaken when asked what he thought of German-national Andreas Strassmeir.

"I won't ever discuss that man," Dees said as he spun away from the interview and left the press conference with his armed bodyguards in tow.

Book discloses informant

In the newly released April 24, 1995, teletype, the FBI and DOJ redacted the name of the SPLC agent, but described him as "acting in various undercover capacities for the purposes of gathering intelligence for that organization [the SPLC]."

Dees, on the other hand, had no such concerns about identifying this operative in his 1996 book, "Gathering Storm: America's Militia Threat." There he described Mike Reynolds as "one of our [SPLC] Militia Task Force investigators." Dees' description of Reynolds' itinerary for the period in question perfectly fits the description in the April 24 teletype.

The EC connection

An appraisal of the new documents shows that almost immediately after the bombing, elements within the FBI sought information about Strassmeir, the paramilitary leader at Elohim City. And the information was sourced through Dees' information network at Elohim City, according to these same FBI documents.

The first report provided by the Oklahoma City FBI office concerning the SPLC's intelligence operation was prepared on April 24, 1995, and discusses McVeigh's links to the Michigan Militia and to the Arizona Patriots militia group n a group that the SPLC informant stated had evolved into the Constitution Ranger's militia group.

The informant cited this latter group's involvement in white supremacist activities in the Kingman, Ariz., area and claimed to be knowledgeable "of the identities of various members who had association with Timothy Jack (sic) McVeigh."

The FBI document said this SPLC informant had just attended an neo-Nazi movement rally and as of April 24 was staying at the Hilton Inn in Little Rock when the FBI attempted to make contact, but had departed for the Montgomery, Ala., area "within the past one hour."

But the initial report from the Oklahoma City FBI office does not mention the fact that at least one, and very likely two informants for the SPLC were at Elohim City on April 17, 1995, when McVeigh made the call never disclosed by the DOJ to Judge Matsch.

Those details would not come out for many months, and then only after the FBI learned that one of the reporters for this story (J.D. Cash) and an investigator for McVeigh's defense team were making regular visits to Elohim City.

In January 1996, this newspaper began preparing a series of articles about Elohim City. Those articles were based upon multiple trips to the compound in late 1995.

According to people at the compound, McVeigh had visited the camp several times. The leaders of the camp, though, would make that information only on a non-attribution basis n out of fear, they said, that they would be linked to the bombing and arrested for conspiracy.

At one point in the questioning of Rev. Robert Millar, the aging patriarch of the Christian Identity community of about 80 persons, he admitted to McVeigh defense investigator Richard Reyna in the presence of a reporter for this newspaper that McVeigh's initial visit to Elohim City had been with former KKK leader Dennis Mahon of Tulsa.

Before long, several others provided the same details. McVeigh had traveled to Elohim City for meetings inside and outside the compound well over a dozen times, beginning in the fall of 1993.

One of the sources, an Oklahoma state trooper, had informants inside the neo-Nazi compound. A second source is none other than Morris Dees himself.

Reported by veteran reporter Howard Pankratz in the Denver Post, on May 16, 1996, Dees was quoted as saying that McVeigh has visited Elohim City,"…. on a number of occasions."

Sometime after that article appeared, Dees attempted to recant his declaration, claiming he had been misquoted, but the reporter who wrote the article was adamant that Dees had spoken as quoted in the article.

Contacted this week, Pankratz said he recalls attending the press luncheon and may even have Dees' comments on a tape.

"I kept all my Oklahoma City interview material," Pankratz noted. "Dees certainly never asked us to print a retraction of our story."

Suspects flee Elohim City

By the late summer of 1995, because of increasing media interest and law enforcement attention on Elohim City, several young men, including German National Andreas "Andy the German" Strassmeir, fled Elohim City n a neo-Nazi paramilitary camp in eastern Oklahoma.

Three of these men n Scott Stedford, Kevin McCarthy and Michael Brescia n were subsequently arrested for participating in a series of bank robberies in the Midwest and attempting to overthrow the government. The gang called itself the Aryan Republic Army (ARA). All three of these men shared living quarters at Elohim City with Strassmeir.

While the FBI for years told the media that the agency had no interest in Strassmeir and any alleged connections to Tim McVeigh and the OKC bombing, these new documents establish that some key officials inside the FBI were monitoring Strassmeir's escape from the U.S. n but were doing nothing to stop him from leaving.

Contained in an unclassified teletype marked "Priority" from the London FBI office to the director of the FBI on Jan. 4, 1996, the OKBOMB case number is referenced and the following information is provided:

"Poverty Law Center, Montgomery, Alabama who had received the following information from various confidential sources: [redacted name] white male, date of birth [information redacted] he was helped with [information redacted] also defends [information redacted]. Additionally in November of 1993, [name redacted] met subject Tim McVeigh (and) [name redacted] and thereafter, became associates with McVeigh because of their common background [information redacted] in the military. [name and information redacted] for the past few years at Elohim City, Oklahoma (a religious white supremacist community in a remote area) McVeigh attempted to call [name redacted] in April of 1995 prior to the bombing, according to this source. [name redacted] went on to provide additional information from his sources regarding [names and information redacted. Name redacted] concluded by advising that he has provided this information to the FBI because he has heard that LEGAT [legal attaché], London (FBI London) is doing background investigation on [name redacted]. "

LEGAT is the short name for the office of the FBI's Legal Attache at the specified U.S. embassy. The LEGAT is an FBI agent assigned to the staff of the U.S. ambassador for liaison duties with law enforcement officials in that foreign country.

The DOJ acknowledged that McVeigh called Elohim City on April 5, 1995, asking for Strassmeir. Both Strassmeir and McVeigh had common military experiences. Other sources confirm that LEGAT London was tasked to do a background investigation on Strassmeir. Given these facts, and the limited pool of "players," it is clear that the teletype mentioned above can only refer to Strassmeir, who was expected to flee the U.S. shortly, and did.

The document goes on to say: "Will advise Oklahoma City command post whether LEGAT is aware of any investigation [name and information redacted] by LEGAT, London, Scotland Yard, Interpol, or any similar agency in your jurisdiction."

Referring to the November 1993 trip McVeigh made to Elohim City, this newspaper broke a story on July 1 about an interview Terry Nichols gave Congressman Dana Rohrabacher, R-Calif.

That jailhouse interview included Nichols' admissions for the first time that in the fall of 1993 he and McVeigh traveled to Elohim City. During the course of the Rohrabacher interview, Nichols also told the congressman that it was clear to him that McVeigh had been to the compound before and knew Strassmeir and others there "very well."

DOJ officials hamper probe

Many of those new unclassified documents also establish that the OKBOMB task force was unable to interview subjects connected with Elohim City, because of conditions set forth by FBI director Louis Freeh and possibly other high ranking DOJ officials.

As an example: In a very unusual teletype, Jan. 29, 1996, marked "Priority" from the OKBOMB command post, which was headed at the time by Supervisory Special Agent Danny Defenbaugh, the commander of the massive investigation asked Freeh to locate Strassmeir in Germany and have someone question him about the numerous details set forth in newspaper articles detailing Strassmeir's connections to the bombing conspirators.

Not only were many of the names redacted from this priority teletype to Freeh; even the name of the newspaper breaking the Strassmeir/McVeigh/EC connections was withheld by the Oklahoma City FBI office.

However, based on the teletype's description of one of the informants providing information to the bureau, it is likely that Dennis Mahon is one of the sources referred to. The memo notes that Mahon (whose name was redacted) had a long history of contacts with members of radical rightwing and the skinheads. It also notes that the informant was recently barred from a particular foreign country he visited and stirred up trouble.

Indeed, Mahon had been barred from Germany for participating in Ku Klux Klan activities there during the timeframe mentioned in the teletype.

The FBI's Oklahoma City Command Post also said its informant provided information that Strassmeir had left Elohim City in the past few months and moved to Black Mountain, N.C.

The information was further verified by a "CW" n a Cooperating Witness n informant from the FBI's Cincinnati division n a man closely allied with the Aryan Republican Army (ARA) and a longtime source of information to the FBI.

That man's name is also known to this newspaper. He is Shawn Kenny, the former head of an Aryan Nations chapter in Ohio and a close associate of ARA bank bandits Peter Langan and Richard Guthrie (deceased). In fact, Kenny's work for the authorities in the OKBOMB investigation is mentioned several times in the new documents.

Referring to a number of newspaper articles linking Strassmeir to others, (whose names and locations at the time were redacted by the FBI) the Oklahoma City Command Post also lists a number of reasons why Strassmeir should be located by the FBI and questioned about the bombing and his alleged long association with McVeigh. Central to this plea by the OKBOMB case FBI commander is the evidence presented by this newspaper about Strassmeir and his associates, at Elohim City and elsewhere.

It is clear in January 1996 that members of the OKBOMB task force were very agitated about Strassmeir's flight from justice after they learned the news from an SPLC source.

Dated Jan. 26, 1996, the command post told Freeh and a select group of other FBI agents the following:

"As Charlotte [FBI office in North Carolina] is aware [name redacted] is of particular interest to this investigation because of his association to Elohim City (EC), a paramilitary survivalist compound located in eastern Oklahoma. McVeigh called the compound on April 5, 1995. As indicated in referenced teletype, information has been received from sources of [name redacted] indicating that [name redacted] met McVeigh [information redacted] and that McVeigh called the compound prior to the bombing asking for [name redacted].

"On January 26, 1996, Special Agent SA [name redacted] Mobile division, Montgomery resident agent advised she had received additional information from [name redacted] Southern Poverty Law Center, who advised the following: "He had just obtained information from a highly reliable source that [name redacted] had fled [location redacted] about seven days ago. The same source also said that [information and names redacted].

"Quoting another confidential informant [Kenny] based in Cincinnati, Ohio said he/she saw [name redacted] at [information redacted] in [location redacted]. At that time [name redacted (Strassmeir) said he left Oklahoma because, "things were too hot out there." Confidential informant clearly understood that [name withheld (Strassmeir) was referring to the bombing.

Defenbaugh's teletype next set forth a series of questions that Strassmeir should have to answer, if anyone could find him.

Regardless of the situation and Defenbaugh's pleas for assistance in the investigation, the Oklahoma City FBI documents do not provide any evidence that any FBI agent ever went to Berlin to do a face-to-face interview with the subject of so much pre- and post-bombing attention by federal agents and informants.

Instead, on April 30 and May 1, 1996, DOJ lawyers Aitman Goelman and Beth Wilkinson made two conference telephone calls from Denver to Berlin to interview Strassmeir. An FBI 302 obtained by this newspaper quite some time ago reveals only the most cursory interview of the subject, a conversation that Strassmeir later told a media source "lasted all of about five minutes."

According to the FBI 302, a single FBI agent was allowed to monitor the call and take notes. What few questions were asked of Strassmeir were very general in nature and asked only by Wilkinson and Goelman.

Wilkinson would later make light of Strassmeir's purported importance to the OKBOMB case by telling Judge Matsch that Strassmeir was "a mere wisp of wind." She promised the court that the German was never any interest to OKBOMB investigators.

"We never investigated Strassmeir," she told Matsch during a pre-trial evidentiary hearing Denver, "so we have nothing to turn over to Mr. McVeigh's lawyers about him."

Trentadue says he now intends to go back to court for additional information concerning files the FBI has not yet turned over.

"If the Southern Poverty Law Center was providing information about Elohim City after the bombing to the FBI, they must have been providing it before April 19th, Trentadue noted. Asking further: "So where are those reports?"

Trentadue also says there is considerable information redacted in these latest reports that clearly should not have been withheld.

"The names of certain newspapers were even withheld," Trentadue quipped. "Hell, where does the FBI get the right to withhold the names of the papers it reads?"
 

 

 

 

The thorny road to the truth of the OKC Bombing

May 26, 2005

It has been over 10 years since the April 19, 1995 Oklahoma City bombing that killed 168 and injured hundreds more. The case, we are told, has been investigated over and over again. No stone has been left unturned, we are told.

Of course, those of us who have really paid attention have likely been uneasy about the case all along. Why, for instance, would the observation video tape depicting the final moments of the bomb-carrying truck sitting next to the doomed building - a tape shot in a public space, where you or I could have stood and witnessed the same events - why is that tape still classified?

Since all those in the know are mum on the issue of the tape, let us leave it alone for now and just move on to another related matter. As reported by The Salt Lake Tribune ("FBI acknowledges it has found records that may apply to death" by Pamela Manson, May 25, 2005),
 

After insisting for a year that it was unable to find records connected to the death of an Oklahoma prison inmate, the FBI is acknowledging it has found hundreds of pages of documents that could apply to the case.

However, the agency is asking a federal judge in Utah to pare back his order requiring it to produce records and grant an extension of a June 15 deadline. Officials say they need more time to review more than six million pages of information that potentially could fall under a Freedom of Information Act (FOIA) request filed in 2004 by the inmate's brother, Salt Lake City attorney Jesse Trentadue.

...

Kenneth Trentadue, 44, who had served time for bank robbery, was being held on an alleged parole violation in a federal prison in Oklahoma City when guards found him dead on Aug. 21, 1995, hanging from a noose made of torn bedsheets. Authorities say he committed suicide and several investigations also ruled that the prisoner died by his own hand, but his family insists he was killed.

Trentadue contends the FBI mistakenly suspected his brother was part of a gang that robbed banks to fund attacks on the government, and that authorities killed him when things got out of hand during an interrogation.

In his FOIA requests, the lawyer has sought records on a white supremacist compound in Oklahoma where Timothy McVeigh, who was executed in 2001 for the Murrah bombing, allegedly tried to recruit accomplices. Trentadue says an informant for the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), a civil rights organization, had infiltrated the compound and relayed information about McVeigh's plan to the FBI about two weeks before the bombing.

A similar report titled "FBI has secret docs it's reluctant to give up" was published on WorldNetDaily.com on the same day, May 25, 2005. This report states point-blank:
 

For years, the FBI has repeatedly denied the agency had any prior knowledge of the bomb plot.

The FBI now says it has found 340 documents that could also link the SPLC to McVeigh, Elohim City and members of the Aryan Republican Army.

Well, let me just say that this truth is certainly welcome news, albeit it might be about 10 years late in coming. I would also advise you to think back to this situation every time you hear a government spokesperson speak.

And I am certainly looking forward to more exciting OKC discoveries. We have spent 10 years waiting. It's about time.

 

Careers at stake

According to the report in the McCurtain County, Okla., paper, the documents

address the monitoring of the bombing by FBI informants, Alabama attorney

Morris Dees and Dees' organization, the Southern Poverty Law Center.

Writes reporter J.D. Cash in the Gazette: "If proven true, the ramifications

of such disclosures would be far-reaching. Not only could the discovery of

these documents lead to additional arrests and prosecutions in the OKC

bombing case, but evidence of a cover-up of a sting operation involving the

FBI and a private charity (the SPLC) could ruin a number of careers of

highly placed individuals."
 

http://www.mccurtain.com/okc_bombing/

"The Oklahoma City Bombing and The Politics of Terror"

Publisher agrees to destroy copies of this book

David Hoffman mailto:David Hoffman
RE: OKC BOMBING: Thank you for putting my book on-line
Thu Nov  8 23:32:27 2001
 

Thank you for putting my book on-line. However you should note in the preamble
(the wire article) that Oliver "Buck" Revell just LOST his libel suit against us.
We won strictly on briefs; the case never even went to trial [in federal court].

Also, my book was just acclaimed by Gore Vidal in September's Vanity Fair
as the best and most complete book on the Oklahoma City Bombing!
--
David Hoffman --  David Hoffman
Photography  Journalism
1746 N. Cherokee Ave, #4-I
Hollywood, CA 90028
323-462-2407

WIRE:12/10/1999 21:57:00 ET

OKLAHOMA CITY (AP) _ The California publisher of a controversial book about the Oklahoma City bombing will destroy copies of the book as part of a settlement of a lawsuit filed by a former FBI official over false and inaccurate statements in the book. Stan Twardy, attorney for former FBI official Oliver "Buck" Revell, said Friday that the number of books being destroyed was not available but he described it as "substantial." The publisher said all books in its distributor's warehouse would be destroyed. Revell said David Hoffman's book, "The Oklahoma City Bombing and The Politics of Terror" contained false and inaccurate statements about him and "by innuendo" portrayed him as a co-conspirator in the bombing. Feral House Inc. promised to destroy copies of the book to avoid "further dissemination of inaccurate statements." "Whatever `The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror' states, alleges or implies, it is now my understanding that Mr. Revell had nothing to do with any alleged CIA drug smuggling, so-called `death squads' or malfeasance involving the Oklahoma City bombing, before or after," Feral House President Adam Parfrey wrote in an open letter. The settlement was reached Wednesday. Twardy said it included a payment to Revell, but he couldn't disclose the amount. The April 19, 1995, bombing killed 168 people and injured more than 500 others. The lawsuit is still pending against Hoffman and two of the book's sources. Hoffman pleaded guilty in June to misdemeanor jury tampering. He had sent the book to an alternate on the grand jury investigating a series of conspiracy theories about the bombing. Timothy McVeigh was convicted and sentenced to death in the bombing. Terry Nichols is serving life in prison on federal convictions of conspiracy and involuntary manslaughter.

Contents

- Aldus Huxley

Acknowledgements

And ultimately, all my friends who have kept me [partially] sane throughout the years, eventhough conspiracies have a way of making one come unglued: Ron Ulfohn, Joe Williams, John Flores, David Wills, Lorenzo, Jon and Lisa, and all those helpful souls I've undoubtedly missed, including my parents (although I'm not sure they've helped me keep sane).

Introduction

say should be believed." - I.F. Stone

Forward

Police detective Jay Einhorn remembers one scene: "There was a guy--a black guy--on the second floor, just sitting there. I knew he was dead. He's looking at me, and I'm looking at him… if you don't think that's fucking scary. We just said, man we gotta go up there and cover that guy up."⁽¹⁾

Those who were lucky enough to escape the carnage were wandering about, dazed and confused. One man, his face bloodied, wandered down the street, saying he was headed home, except that he couldn't remember his name or where his home was. Another man who was entering the building had his arm blown off, but was in such a state of shock that he didn't notice it as he went about trying to help others.(2)

People who lived or worked nearby had been blown out of their chairs. Trent Smith, 240 pounds, was tossed seven feet into the air and through the window of his hotel room. Several blocks away, a bus filled with people was nearly blown on its side. The force of the blast extended for nearly 30 blocks, blowing out windows and heavily damaging a dozen buildings, and causing damage to almost 400 more.(3)

Sixty miles away, near Perry Oklahoma, Highway Patrolman Charles Hanger was making his usual rounds. Around 10:30 a.m. Officer Hanger noticed a battered 1977 yellow Mercury, without a license plate, speeding along at 81 miles an hour. Pulling the vehicle over, Hanger cited the driver, 26-year-old Timothy James McVeigh, for driving without a license plate. As he was about to let McVeigh go, Hanger noticed a distinct bulge under McVeigh's windbreaker. When he asked McVeigh what he had under his jacket, McVeigh casually informed the cop that he had a gun--a 9mm Glock semi-automatic pistol. Hanger subsequently arrested McVeigh for carrying a concealed weapon, driving without a tags, and driving without insurance.(4)

1

The Mannlicher-Carcanno Bomb

Although the full text of Partin's report is too complex to elaborate on here, what he is saying is that a truck filled with ammonium-nitrate could not have caused the degree of damage done to the Alfred P. Murrah building. Not when it was parked at least 20 feet away from that building. Without direct contact, the fall-off from the blast would be too great to do any serious structural damage.(5)

It would have been absolutely impossible and against the laws of nature for a truck full of fertilizer and fuel oil… no matter how much was used… to bring the building down.(6)

"The detonation velocity of the shock wave from an ANFO (ammonium-nitrate/fuel-oil) explosion is on the order of 3,500 meters per second. In comparison, military explosives generally have detonation velocities that hit 7,000 to 8,000-plus meters per second. The most energetic single-component explosive of this type, C-4--which is also known as Cyclonite or RDX--is about 8,000 meters per second and above. You don't start doing big-time damage to heavy structures until you get into those ranges, which is why the military uses those explosives."(7)

"The Partin letter states in very precise technical terms what everyone in this business knows: No truck-bomb of ANFO out in the open is going to cause the kind of damage we had there in Oklahoma City. In 30 years of blasting, using everything from 100 percent nitrogel to ANFO, I've not seen anything to support that story."(8)

…agricultural fertilizer prills when made into ANFO had very poor explosive characteristics. They would not detonate efficiently because of their high density, lack of porosity and heavy inert coatings of anti-setting agents.… The ability of an oiled prill to be detonated depends greatly upon the density of the prill. Dense prills, such as agricultural grade, often are not detonable at all; or if initiated, perform at a very low rate of detonation and may die out in the bore hole performing no useful work.(9)

"ANFO is easy to make if you know how to do it," adds Jeffrey Dean, Executive Director of the International Society of Explosives Engineers, "but it takes years of experience to work with safely." According to Dean, "It is almost impossible for amateurs to properly mix the ammonium-nitrate with the fuel oil. Clumps of ANFO would inevitably fail to detonate."(10)

"That would have drawn so much attention," said Rick Sherrow, a former ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) agent with 25 years experience in explosives. "It would have required an area twice the size of a truck just to walk around… that would have not have gone okay."(11)

Naturally, the expert who testified for the government disagrees. Linda Jones, an explosives specialist who has studied IRA bombings in Great Britain, "concluded that there was one device… in the rear cargo compartment of a Ryder truck…." Jones added that it wouldn't be difficult to build such a large bomb "provided they had a basic knowledge of explosives and access to the materials--it would be fairly simple. One person could do it on their own, but more people could do it quicker."(12)

On April 17th, David King, who was staying at the Dreamland Motel in Junction City, Kansas, where McVeigh and John Doe 2 stayed, remembered seeing the Ryder truck with a trailer attached to it. Inside the trailer was a large object wrapped in white canvas. "It was a squarish shape, and it came to a point on top," said King. "It was about three or four feet high." King said that later in the day, the trailer was gone, but the truck was still in the lot.(13)

Then around 2:00 a.m. on April 19, a Ryder truck pulled into the Save-A-Trip convenience store in Kingman, Kansas, followed by a light colored car and a brown pick-up. Assistant manager Richard Sinnett clearly recalls three men, including McVeigh and a man resembling John Doe 2 enter the store. Yet Sinnett was particularly struck by the odd contraption they were towing--a large plastic, semi-transparent tank full of clear liquid.(14) Was this diesel fuel that the bombers intended to add to their ammonium-nitrate mixture at the last minute?

To maintain some semblance of credibility in light of increasingly publicized reports of General Partin and others, the government also conceded--right before the start of McVeigh's trial--that the suspects probably hadn't built their bomb at Geary State Park after all.(15)

Even so, if Timothy McVeigh or anyone else with military training wanted to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Building, it is highly unlikely they would use ANFO. As Army demolition manuals clearly state, ANFO is not good for destroying concrete or steel. McVeigh, the consummate soldier who studied every conceivable Army manual in his spare time--including Army Manual TM 31-210: Improvised Munitions Handbook--certainly would have known this.(16)

Vince Cannistraro, ABC News corespondent and former CIA intelligence advisor to the National Security Council stated, "This is something professional and it really implies that the person who constructed the explosive device has experience, was trained in the use of explosives, and knew what they were doing."(17)

Before he began attacking critics of the government's case, Oklahoma Governor and former FBI agent Frank Keating stated, "…obviously whatever did the damage to the Murrah Building was a tremendous, very sophisticated explosive device."(18)

The very next day, the government was insisting that it was a homemade ANFO bomb, made with agricultural-grade ammonium-nitrate, that did the job. FBI Special Agent John Hersley contends that traces of a military-type detonation cord known as PDTN (pentadirythri-tetranitrate), commonly known as Primadet, were found on McVeigh's clothing at the time of his arrest (In another report it was PETN, or pentaerythritol tetranitrate). PDTN was allegedly used to wire the barrels of ANFO.(19)

One person who may shed some light on the case is senior FBI chemist Frederick Whitehurst. Whitehurst conducted a test on McVeigh's clothing but, according to the chemist, the test produced no results. No residue was found in McVeigh's car either.(20)

Moreover, recent startling allegations by Whitehurst indicate that the FBI has been slanting results of its forensic tests for years. Whitehurst's allegations, set forth in a 30-page memorandum, criticized certain FBI laboratory personnel for lacking qualifications and being incompetent. As one Justice Department (DoJ) memorandum states: "Dr. Whitehurst contends that the Explosives Unit and the Chemistry and Toxicology Unit inappropriately structure their conclusions to favor the prosecution."(21)

According to the Wall Street Journal, "His (Whitehurst's) accusations of bias and even manufacturing evidence have called into question several high-profile government cases, including the Oklahoma City and World Trade Center bombings."(22)

Williams claimed "that the initiator for the booster(s) was either a detonator from a Primadet Delay system or sensitized detonating cord." Yet as the OIG report states, "No evidence of a Primadet system or sensitized detonating cord was found at the crime scene."(23)

Even so, scientist and bomb expert Michael Riconoscuito told Ted Gundersen that the theory of drums of ANFO being detonated by PDTN-soaked loops of rope or "det" cord is highly improbable, if not impossible. "The only way to obtain blast control is with volumetric initiation," explained Riconoscuito. "This takes electronic circuits of similar sophistication as would be required in nuclear weapons. This sophistication is not available to the average person," he added, stating that the resultant blast would have been "confused and uncontrolled," and the energy would have ultimately "canceled itself out."(24)

Finally, the OIG report states: "Whitehurst questions Williams' conclusion that none of the structural damage evident within the Murrah building was caused by secondary explosive devices or explosions."(25)

So why is the government going to such great lengths, in spite of overwhelming evidence to the contrary, to make us believe that the Alfred P. Murrah Building was destroyed by an ANFO bomb? Because the government's case is built upon the premise that Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols built their alleged bomb with ammonium-nitrate. The calls allegedly made by McVeigh were to stores that sell racing fuel and ammonium-nitrate. McVeigh's fingerprint is allegedly on a receipt for ammonium-nitrate. And a small trace of ammonium-nitrate was allegedly found at the scene. The government's case must proceed along those lines. Any evidence that proves the bomb was made of anything other than ANFO would not only destroy the government's case, it would open up inquiries about who really bombed the Murrah Building… and why.(26)

But the government doesn't want any serious inquiries as to who really blew up the Murrah Building. The government expects us to believe that two lone amateurs with a crude fertilizer bomb, out in the open, twenty to thirty feet away from a hardened target, destroyed eight reinforced columns and killed 169 people. As General Partin said, such a scenario is "beyond credulity."(27)*

Interestingly enough, Rick Sherrow, who wrote an article for Soldier of Fortune magazine entitled "Bombast, Bomb Blasts & Baloney," contends that the General's assessment of the bombing is somehow inaccurate. Sherrow claims that the pressure wave that would have struck the building from the [rapidly deteriorating] blast of the ANFO bomb (375 p.s.i. according to Partin's figures) would be more than enough to destroy reinforced concrete columns, which Sherrow claimed in his article disintegrate at 30 p.s.i. (pounds per square inch).(28)

I took the liberty of checking with the leading concrete supplier in my area in order to confirm the compressive yield figure that you used, that being 3,500 p.s.i. What I was told about concrete was very interesting. A 3,500 p.s.i. figure is extremely low for structural concrete. A properly mixed and cured structure of the type dealt with in your report would probably have a yield strength of 5,600 p.s.i.(29)

On June 25, 1996, a tanker-trailer packed with RD-X plastic explosives blew up outside the Khobar Towers apartment complex at King Abdul Aziz Air Base in Saudi Arabia, killing 19 American servicemen and injuring hundreds more. While the blast produced a crater 35 feet deep and 85 feet across (the crater in Oklahoma was approximately 6 feet deep and 16 feet across, although the government claimed it was 30 feet), it didn't do the same amount of damage done to the Murrah Building--a building constructed to much more rigorous codes and specifications. Yet authorities claim that the bomb was at least the size as that which blew up the Federal Building.(30) (See photo)

Loftis also said that the north side of the lower level (the area impacted by the truck-bomb) was steel-rebar reinforced concrete without windows. He also concurred with Raubach and Partin that the pressure necessary to destroy reinforced concrete is in the 2,500 to 4,000 p.s.i. range--a far cry from the 30 p.s.i. cited by Sherrow.(31)

Two experts who seem to agree with Sherrow are Dorom Bergerbest-Eilom and Yakov Yerushalmi. The Israeli bomb experts were brought to Oklahoma at the request of ATF agent Guy Hamal. According to their report, the bomb was an ANFO bomb boosted with something more powerful… and it had a Middle Eastern signature.(32)

According to a source quoted in the Rocky Mountain News, an ammonium-nitrate bomb made with a racing fuel component known as hydrazine "would create one of the largest non-nuclear blasts possible." McVeigh had allegedly attempted to procure the substance from a dealer in Topeka, Kansas, who refused. In fact, hydrazine is extremely hazardous and difficult to obtain.(33)

"If you had 4,000 lbs of C-4 in there," Gronning said, "now you're talking a real high-order explosive at some serious speed. And when that goes off, you're liable to take out the thing. But I still have a problem believing even at that distance away from the building, it would create that kind of damage. All you have to do to see what I'm talking about is to see what kind of bomb damage you get from a bomb in the [WWII] attacks on London."(34)

It is unclear why the former ATF man was trying to discredit Partin, and by association, others who disagreed with the government's theory. What is clear however is that Soldier of Fortune, the magazine in which Sherrow's article appeared, is owned by Paladin Press--a CIA proprietary. Robert K. Brown, the magazine's publisher, is an associate of General John Singlaub, a key Iran-Contra player who ran the genocidal Phoenix Program in Vietnam, and helped train death squads in Central America. Both men reportedly played an ancillary role in the 1984 La Penca bombing, which resulted in the deaths of eight journalists. (See Chapter 14) Sherrow himself admitted to working for the CIA in Africa. What he did there wasn't exactly clear.(35)

Yet some critics of the government's story have gone beyond the relatively ordinary explanations of Partin, Gronning and others to suggest that the Federal Building was destroyed by a device called an "A-Neutronic Bomb." These advocates cite as evidence the nature of the spalling (the disintegration of the concrete into tiny pieces) on the top of the building, and the extent of the damage to surrounding buildings that even men like General Partin claim would be impossible for an ANFO bomb.(36)

Consider the comments of a local structural engineer, Bob Cornforth, "The range of this blast has really impressed me--the extent of the damage and the distance out." A mile away, window frames had been pushed back two feet. On the other hand, he inspected two buildings just a little over 200 ft. from the so-called crater, the YMCA center and the Journal Record building, which lost part of its pitched concrete roof. To his surprise, "The structural frames performed extremely well. We design for 80-mph winds," which he says seems adequate. The lack of damage to the frames, despite the massive light-structural damage showed that the shock waves were of short duration. This was consistent with a many-point explosion, but not with a single-point explosion large enough to knock out the four heavy columns that had collapsed in the Murrah Building.(37)

Ted Gundersen, who has independently investigated the bombing, included numerous letters and memos in his report which pointed to the existence of such a device. He reported that the government contract number for the bomb was DAAA-21-90-C-0045, and was manufactured by Dyno-Nobel, Inc., in Salt Lake City. Dyno-Nobel was previously connected with Hercules Manufacturing, where Riconosciuto worked. Not surprisingly, the Department of the Army denies that contract DAAA-21-90-C-0045 exists. Dyno-Nobel refused to respond to inquiries from Gundersen or the author.(38)

Sherrow raised the issue of the Electro-Hydrodynamic Gaseous Fuel Device in his Soldier of Fortune article. According to Imanyuel, "Gundersen's bomb model was clearly unworkable as presented in Soldier of Fortune, but contained the essential information that the bomb generated an electrostatically charged cloud."(39)

Daina Bradley, who lost her mother and two children in the bombing, said she felt electricity running through her body right before the bomb went off.(40)

McDonald also described both gold and blue flashes of light. Interestingly, Riconiscuto has called his device "Blue Death."(41)

Another survivor of the blast was quoted on CNN as saying, "It was just like an atomic bomb went off. "The ceiling went in and all the windows came in and there was a deafening roar…"(42)

Proponents of the A-Neutronic Bomb conclude that these are all signatures of such a device.(43)

"Regarding Riconosciuto," adds Cohen, "the guy's a madman… but technically, there's no doubt in my mind that he's brilliant."(44)

Gene Wheaton, a former Pentagon CID investigator, claims that the fuel-air bomb was deployed in the Gulf War, along with other experimental weapons responsible for much of the massive devastation inflicted on Iraq.(45) The fuel-air explosive, or FAE, can cover an area 1,000 feet wide with blast pressures of 200 p.s.i. According to a CIA report on FAEs:

[T]he pressure effects of FAEs approach those produced by low-yield nuclear weapons at short ranges. The effect of an FAE explosion within confined spaces is immense. Those near the ignition point are obliterated. Those at the fringes are likely to suffer many internal… injuries, including burst eardrums and crushed inner-ear organs, severe concussions, ruptured lungs and internal organs, and possible blindness.(46)

Moreover, it seems that Messerschmitt-Bolkow-Blohm supplied Iraq with plans for a fuel-air explosive. The blueprints were allegedly passed on to the Iraqis by the Egyptians, and Iraq commenced commercial production of the weapon--the force of which is the equivalent of a small atomic explosion.(47)

Exactly what components are utilized in these weapons is difficult to get as the still serving British officers are reluctant to talk about them in detail. One can assume that a mixture of Plutonium 239 (highly refined hence relatively low radioactivity emission on detonation), Lithium 6 Deuteride Tritide, Tritium, and possibly Beryllium and Uranium 238 (NOT 235) would be involved as a series of lenses in a Bi-Conical shape. I am endeavoring to get more data but this a very touchy area…(48)

According to an article in the The Nashville Tennessean, Iraq's Saddam Hussein has been developing 220 pounds of lithium 6 per year. Lithium 6 can be converted to Tritium, an essential ingredient in thermonuclear reactions.(49)

Other sources say that 6,000 to 7,000 SADM's were produced, some of which made their way to Israel and other countries.(50) Sam Cohen confirms this information. Writing in the Fall issue of Journal of Civil Defense, Cohen, echoing Harrison, charged that the U.S. has purposefully underestimated the number of nuclear warheads that Iran, Iraq and North Korea could produce, and deliberately discounted their capacity to produce substantially smaller warheads.

"A couple of years ago," states Cohen, "disturbing statements on advanced small, very low-yield nuclear warheads, began emanating from Russia.(51) Cohen adds that these articles "revealed a massive smuggling ring had emerged where the material was being sold around the world to a number of countries, some of which were terrorist nations."(52)

Writing in Nexus Magazine, Australian journalist and military authority Joe Vialls points out that the bombing which destroyed a financial center in London in July of 1993, and which almost destroyed the World Trade Center in New York four months later, could not have been caused by conventional explosives. In a bizarre coincidence predating Cohen's analysis, theoretical physicist and former Pentagon nuclear expert Theodore B. Taylor stated in his book, The Curve of Binding Energy, that someday someone was going to blow up the World Trade Center with a nuclear device the size of a stick of gum. Taylor's prediction first appeared in the New Yorker magazine in 1973.(53)

Had the Murrah Building been destroyed by a SADM or a backpack nuke, using the truck-bomb as a cover? What is interesting is that British bomb experts, who've had extensive experience dealing with terrorist truck-bombs, told McVeigh's attorney, Stephen Jones, that the ANFO bomb could not have done all of the damage to the Murrah Building.(54)

Nevertheless, the site was quickly demolished and covered over with concrete; the remains taken to a secure dump and buried. What was the government trying to hide? Nuclear Physicist Galen Winsor, General Ben Partin, and KPOC manager David Hall went to the building and disposal sites with radiation measuring equipment, but were kept away. They managed to gather some fragments anyway, and when they measured them with Winsor's NaI Scintillator detector, they registered radiation levels 50 percent higher than normal.(55)

Cohen suggests that if it had been a radioactive attack, and it were made public, it would have panicked a public already frightened about terrorist attacks: "If the perpetrators had been able to get their hands on just a traceable amount of radioactivity, and mixed it up with the explosive, so that it would virtually assure that it would be picked up by some detecting meter, and this had gotten out, that there was a fairly copious amount of radioactivity in the explosive, all hell would have broken loose…. It would scare the pants off a very large fraction of the U.S. citizenry, by saying this was used by terrorists, and contaminated an area…"(56)

"A new class of nuclear weapons could exist which could have an extremely disturbing terrorist potential," said Cohen. "And to admit to the possibility that the warheads might be sufficiently compact to pose a real terrorist threat was equally unacceptable [to the government]."(57)

"It really doesn't make any difference," says Cohen. "From the standpoint of practicality… I would lean towards Ben Partin. Because all the stuff Partin's put out, it just holds up--it makes eminent sense--he doesn't have to get into this exotica. Partin says using ordinary Primacord wrapped around these pillars could have done the job." (58)

KFOR-Channel 4 reported that the mysterious severed leg clothed in military garb found in the rubble allegedly had PVC embedded it. PVC pipe is sometimes used to pack plastic explosives. It increases the shear power. Had this leg, unmatched to any of the known victims, belonged to the real bomber?(59)

KFOR-Channel 4 reported that the mysterious severed leg clothed in military garb found in the rubble allegedly had PVC embedded it. PVC pipe is sometimes used to pack plastic explosives. It increases the shear power. Had this leg, unmatched to any of the known victims, belonged to the real bomber?(60)*

A classified report prepared by two independent Pentagon experts has concluded that the destruction of the federal building in Oklahoma City last April was caused by five separate bombs. The two experts reached the same conclusion for the same technical reasons. Sources close to the Pentagon study say Timothy McVeigh did play a role in the bombing but peripherally, as a "useful idiot." The multiple bombings have a Middle Eastern "signature," pointing to either Iraqi or Syrian involvement.(61)

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.... The procedures used to cause the damage to the Murrah Building are therefore more involved and complex than simply parking a truck and leaving....(62)

Even the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) was forced to conclude that 4,800 pounds of ANFO could have not caused the so-called crater in Oklahoma City. FEMA's report, published on August 30, 1996, inadvertently concluded that the bombers would have had to use approximately three times the amount reportedly used in Oklahoma City.(63)

"I think what they did," said Partin, "was they looked at my credentials and technical justification of all this stuff, and they felt found that what I had was based on some pretty sound footing.… I think that's why they framed the case the way they did."(64)

Whatever blew up the Alfred P. Murrah Building, one thing's for sure, there was enough ANFO present at the site to leave visible traces. Randy Ledger, a maintenance man who was in the building at the time of the blast, claims fellow workers who rushed into the building immediately after the explosion "complained of burning eyes, heavy dust and choking lungs. That is right out of the textbook of a diesel-fertilizer bomb, because it creates nitric acid," said Ledger. "The guys I work with, they're not going to make it up that their eyes are burning."(65)

According to these individuals' accounts, if the truck-bomb--the alleged sole bomb--had detonated first, how would they have felt a rumbing, had time to think about the situation, then dive under their desks? The resulting blast wave from the truck-bomb would have been immediate and total. Such an account could only be indicative of demolition charges placed inside the building.(66)*

"The inside charges--demolition charges," said Cohen, "may have gone off first, and so the columns now started to collapse. Boy, that would produce one hell of a rumble, to put it mildly…."(67)

A caller to the Oklahoma Radio Network related the experiences of his friend, a Federal Government worker, who had witnessed the blast first-hand. "He was approximately five blocks from the building whenever the building went up. He claims that the top of the building went up like a missile going through it. The debris was coming back down when the side of the building blew out. He said third and last, the truck blew up on the street."(68)

Candy Avey, who was on her way to the Social Security office when the explosions occurred, was blown away from the building, struck a parking meter, and then hit her car.(69)

Said Suzanne Steely, reporting live for KFOR, "We could see all the way through the building. That was just the force of the explosion--it just blew out all the walls and everything inside."(70)

These descriptions also correlate to that of Ramona McDonald, who saw a flash and smoke rising up from inside the building, "like a rocket had shot out the top of the building."(71)

On April 19, a tape recording made during a conference at the Water Resources Board directly across from the Murrah Building appears to indicate a succession of blast events, spaced very close together.(72)

"Seismic recordings from the building's implosion indicate that there was only one bomb explosion on April 19," said Dr. Thomas Holzer, a USGS geologist in Menlo Park, Calif. Holzer is one of several USGS and OGS scientists who analyzed the shock waves created by the April 19 explosion and the May 23 implosion.(73)

Holzer added that the two distinct waves from the April 19 explosion(s) were the result of the same wave traveling at two different speeds through two separate layers of the earth's crust. The "illusion" of a double explosion was simply the result of the building's collapse, he claimed. "So the bottom line then," said Holzer, "is I think these observations are totally consistent with a single explosion. It doesn't require multiple explosions to do it."(74)

Yet the USGS press release said that Dr. Charles Mankin of the OGS, Brown's boss, was "pleased with the work performed by Dr. Holzer and his USGS colleagues in the analysis of the seismic records." Yet Mankin had actually urged Holzer to delay the press release. "Everybody that has looked at the signal has said a refraction (an echo) would really be strange because there's absolutely no loss of energy in the recorded seismic signal. The second event has the same amplitude as the first… The arrival time is wrong for a refracted wave… We've ruled out reflections, refractions, and the air blast… We determined that these two records of these two events corroborate our interpretation that there were two explosions."(75)

"Even the smallest of those detonations (from the May 23rd demolition) had a larger effect on the recording than the collapse of the building," he added, "which demonstrates that the explosives are much more efficient at exciting the ground motion than is the collapse of three-fourths of the building. So it is very unlikely that one-fourth of the building falling on April 19th could have created an energy wave similar to that caused by the large [truck-bomb] explosion."(76)

One man who works as a parking garage attendant one block north of the Murrah Building told The New American that he was test driving a new pickup truck near the building when the bomb went off. "It seemed like one, big, long explosion," he said, "but I can't say for sure. My ears were ringing and glass and rocks and concrete were falling all over and around me."(77)

"I felt a boom and was picked up off my feet and thrown under a water fountain." He heard a second explosion and covered his ears. Diane Dooley, who was at a third floor stairwell, also believes she heard a second explosion.(78)

P. G. Wilson, who worked in the Murrah Building, told researcher Michele Moore, "A second explosion came after the first one and shards of glass began flying in the office."(79)

Hassan Muhammad, who was driving for a delivery service that day, had his ears ruptured by the explosions. Muhammad told the author he clearly recalled hearing two distinct blasts. "…when I was crossing the street [at 10th and Robinson]… the first explosion went off, and it was a loud explosion. And my friend who was coming out of the warehouse asked me what was it, because we thought it was a drive-by shooting… and we got on the ground, and by the time we got on the ground, another one went off, and that's when all the windows came out." Muhammad recalls that it was about three to four seconds between blasts.(80)

"About 6 or 7 seconds later, a bomb exploded. It was an entirely different sound and thrust. It was like it came up right from the center up. You could feel the building move a little.… But there were two distinct events that occurred. The second blast not only was very, very loud, it was also very powerful. And as I said, I just felt like it was coming straight on up from the center of the building--straight up."(81)

Michael Hinton, who was on a bus near NW 5th and Robinson--one block away--also heard two explosions. "I had just sat down when I heard this violent type rumble under the bus," said Hinton. "It was a pushing type motion--it actually raised that bus up on its side. About six or seven seconds later another one which was more violent than the first picked the bus up again, and I thought that second time the bus was going to turn over." (82)

Watts, a Vietnam veteran, has experienced the effects of bombings, including being within 100 feet of B-52 air strikes. Watts told Media Bypass he never experienced anything like this before.(83)

Another veteran who heard the blast is George Wallace, a retired Air Force fighter pilot with 26 years in the service. Wallace, who lives nine miles northwest of the Federal Building described the blast as a "sustained, loud, long rumble, like several explosions." Wallace likened the noise to that of a succession of bombs being dropped by B-52s.(84)

"It is easy to determine whether a column was failed by contact demolition charges or by blast loading (such as a truck-bomb)," Partin wrote in his letter to Congress. "It is also easy to cover up crucial evidence as was apparently done in Waco. I understand that the building is to be demolished by May 23rd or 24th. Why the rush to destroy the evidence?"(85)

Yet the feds in fact did demolish the Murrah Building on May 23, destroying the evidence while citing the same reason as they did for quickly demolishing the Waco compound: "health hazards." In the Waco case, what was destroyed was evidence that the feds had fired from helicopters into the roof of the building during the early part of the raid, killing several people, including a nursing mother. In the Oklahoma case, what was destroyed was evidence that the columns had been destroyed by demolition charges.(86)*

"It's a classic cover-up," said General Partin, "a classic cover-up."

"Everything Short of a T-72 Tank"

Guy Rubsamen, the Federal Protective Services guard on duty the night of the 18th, said that nobody had entered the building. Yet Rubsamen took off at 2:00 a.m., and said that nobody was guarding the building from 2:00 a.m. to 6:00 a.m.(87)

"It was a building you could have planted a bomb in anytime you wanted to," said Heath. "It was a building that was not secure at all. I've gone in and out of this building with a pen knife, just by slipping a knife in the south doors, slide the bolt back, and go in without a key. I've done that ever since the building was new. If you wanted into it, you could have gotten into it any time you wanted to."(88)*

Heath also explained that visitors could drive right into the garage, anytime. "There was no guard. You could drive inside the garage--four stories--anytime you wanted to, and carry anything you wanted to inside the car."(89)

Referring to the well-publized scene of McVeigh being led out of the Noble County Courthouse, Linehan said, "…that's it! That's the same profile." Curiously, one month later Linehan said, "My gut feeling is that it was a female driving."(90)

Were they "putting things right," or were they weakening the support columns just enough to make sure that they'd fail at the appropriate moment?(91)

Although the FBI interviewed Graham, they never showed her any pictures or brought her before a sketch artist. "They only wanted to know if I could identify McVeigh or Nichols," she said. "I said it was neither of these two gentlemen."(92)

A call to the local electric, telephone, and natural gas companies revealed that the men were not authorized repairmen. Nor were they construction workers inspecting the premises for a proposed renovation project by the General Services Administration (GSA). The 20 or so contractors involved in that bid stated emphatically that the men were not their employees.(93)

"We also know that the ATF had a magazine inside the building, which was illegal. But the floor was blown out of that magazine. And there's some question about what was in there too that created that damage, because that was a foot of concrete that was blown out of that magazine."(94)

One such bomb was a 2 X 2 foot box marked "High Explosives" WHICH HAD A TIMER ON IT. This was confirmed by Oklahoma City Fire Marshal Dick Miller. The timing mechanism apparently had been set to detonate at ten minutes after nine. Apparently it had malfunctioned due to the initial blast.(95)

According to Toni Garrett, a nurse who was on the scene tagging dead bodies. "Four people--rescue workers--told us there was a bomb in the building with a timing mechanism set to go off ten minutes after nine." According to Garrett, witnesses told her it was an active bomb. "We saw the bomb squad take it away."(96)

Investigator Phil O'Halloran has Bill Martin of the Oklahoma City Police Department on tape stating that one of the bombs found in the building was two to three five-gallon containers of Mercury Fulminate--a powerful explosive--one not easily obtainable except to military sources.(97)

First voice: "I can't believe it… this is a military bomb!" (98)

Apparently, the containers, with "Milspec" (military specification) markings clearly visible, were found in the basement. Could this explain what McVeigh's car was doing in the underground parking garage? Mercury Fulminate is a highly volatile booster material. Volatile enough to create a very powerful explosion.(99)

Shortly thereafter, a fireman up on the third floor of the building noticed two military ambulances pull up to the building, and saw several men in dark fatigues carrying stretchers from the building to the waiting ambulances. What were on the stretchers were not bodies, but boxes, which appeared to contain documents. One of the stretchers had on it what appeared to be a missile launch tube. The missile, apparently part of the Army recruiting office's display, was confirmed the 61st EOD to be inert.(100)(101)*

What is also interesting is that General Partin stated the building's support structures failed primarily at the third floor level. In speculating who would have access at that juncture, it may be relevant to note that the Department of Defense (DoD) was on the third floor, adjoining column B-3, which Partin believes contained the main detonation charge.(102)†

Partin was also informed by an acquaintance in the CIA that several of their personnel who examined the site discovered Mercury Fulminate residue on several rooftops near the building. (103)

Nor was the local media attributing the bombing to the work of amateurs. "Right now, they are saying that this is the work of a sophisticated group," stated a KFOR-TV newscaster. "This is the work of a sophisticated device, and it had to have been done by an explosives expert, obviously, with this type of explosion."(104)

The second explosive was found and defused. The third explosive was found--and they are working on it right now as we speak. I understand that both the second and the third explosives were larger than the first.(105)

Paramedic Tiffany Smith, who was working with other rescue personnel in the Murrah Building that morning, claims she was told by a black-suited ATF agent that another bomb had been found attached to a gas line.(106)

Then at approximately 1:00 p.m., Channel 4 interviewed terrorism expert Dr. Randall Heather. Dr. Heather stated: "We should find out an awful lot, when these bombs are taken apart.… We got lucky today, if you can consider anything about this tragedy lucky. It's actually a great stroke of luck, that we've got defused bombs. It's through the bomb material that we'll be able to track down who committed this atrocity."(107)

In fact, it is uncertain if the bombs were taken apart and examined. As stated in a report prepared by the National Fire Protection Association: "The device was removed in the sheriff's bomb trailer and exploded in a remote location."(108)(109)

When J.D. Cash, a journalist writing for the McCurtain County Gazette,tried to interview members of the Bomb Squad, Fire Department and Police, he was generally told by potential interviewees, "I saw a lot that day, I wish I hadn't. I have a wife, a job, a family… I've been threatened, we've been told not to talk about the devices."(110)

One law-enforcement official who had a little more practice at lying was Oklahoma City FBI SAC Bob Ricks, the master propagandist of Waco fame, who coolly stated to the press, "We never did find another device.… we confirmed that no other device existed."(111)

"I would certainly not think so," said Partin. "Look, when you have an EOD team--EOD teams are very well trained people. And any training device would have to be so labeled--so labeled. And the EOD people who were there were claiming it was explosives."(112)

Former ATF man Rick Sherrow had his own thoughts on the issue of training bombs. "All the field offices have that material (training bombs). It's 100 percent on the outside--weighs the same, looks the same, but it has no fill--no inert markings or anything else. I can't say absolutely that's what was found in the building, but it's more than likely. They had stun grenades too, which are live. They can't contribute or anything [to the damage], but they lied about it, and that jams up their credibility."(113)

Both the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms Bureau (ATF) and the Drug Enforcement Bureau (DEA) had explosives and weapons--including an anti-tank missile--illegally stored in the building when it blew up April 19, the McCurtain Gazette has learned. An eyewitness observer told the Gazette recently of assisting federal agents to remove weapons and explosive devices from a partially-damaged arsenal inside the Federal Building after the explosion.(114)

ATF officials were adamant in denying that no explosives were stored in the building. But it seems they did have C-4. OCPD Officer Don Browning, who viewed video footage taken by Sheriff Melvin Sumter, says C-4 was "definitely" carried out of the building. Browning, a Vietnam veteran, described the explosives he saw: "It was in wide blocks, about 3/4" thick, around 10" long, and about 2" wide, wrapped in cellophane."(115)(116)

"One night, up on the ninth floor, where the ATF offices [were], I helped some of their agents load onto an elevator small arms, machine guns, several cases of ammunition and even some boxes marked 'Explosives'" he said.(117)

Apparently, this is not the first time such a "mishap" has occurred. Approximately 10 years ago, some captured Soviet ordinance, including rockets with high-explosive warheads, wound up stored at FBI headquarters in Washington, D.C. There was a subsequent fire, and the exploding ordinance caused more than a little consternation among firefighters, especially when one rocket took off and blasted a two-foot diameter hole in a cinder block wall. When the story leaked out, the ATF reacted by removing more than 30 pounds of explosives from their offices down the street.(118)

Just why Cash would persist with his story while largely side-stepping Partin's analysis is curious to say the least. Yet if the ATF were responsible for the secondary explosion, it would seem they would have reason to lie.(119) Not only were they storing explosives illegally in a public building containing a day-care center, but almost the entire contingent of approximately 13 agents was absent on the day of the bombing (more on this later).

Just how this agent (Harry Eberhardt) was able to immediately ascertain the building had been blown up by an ANFO bomb, when no forensic analysis had yet been conducted, is unclear. When Phil O'Halloran, a freelance journalist, attempted to ask the ATF Public Relations Bureau why a Dipole Might expert just happened to be in the courthouse at that moment, and how he could immediately have known the exact nature of the bomb, O'Halloran, rather than given a rational explanation, was accused of attacking the agency and was promised a fax of agency views on Right-wing conspiracists (which never arrived).(120)

It is also unclear why was the Sheriff's Bomb Squad was in the parking lot between the Murrah Building and the Federal Courthouse at 7:45 that morning. The Bomb Squad denies being there. But Norma Smith and other Federal Courthouse employees recall seeing the Bomb Squad's distinctive white truck. "We did wonder what it was doing in our parking lot," recalled Smith. "Jokingly, I said, 'Well, I guess we'll find out soon enough.'"(121)

Oklahoma City attorney Daniel J. Adomitis told the Forth Worth Star-Telegram he also saw the Bomb Squad there that morning. "As I was passing the back side of the County Courthouse, I noticed a truck with a trailer and the truck said 'Bomb Disposal.' I remember thinking as I passed that , 'Gee, I wonder if they had a bomb threat at the county courthouse?'"(122)

Was the bomb squad alerted that something was in the works? Not according to the ever-controvertful Lester Martz. "I have not come across any information that any kind of bomb unit was at the building prior to the bombing," announced Martz with a straight face at the same time he lauded the heroism of Luke Franey, the ATF agent who supposedly "karate-kicked" his way through three walls.(123)

What is certain is that the Murrah Building had a bomb threat one week prior to the 19th. Michael Hinton remembers looking out the window of his YMCA room a week before and seeing about 200-300 people gathered outside. The incident didn't jog his memory until the local TV networks announced on the morning of the blast that the Federal Building had received a threat just a week before.(124)

Terrorism expert Dr. Randall Heather confirmed these reports, adding, "I know that there had been a threat phoned in to the FBI last week, but I don't know what the nature of that was."(125)

According to the Oklahoma City Fire Department, the FBI phoned in a warning on April 14, almost a week before the bombing. Assistant Fire Chief Charles Gaines told Glenn Wilburn, who lost two grandsons in the blast, that there was never any warning. The grieving grandfather then walked down the hall to Assistant Chief Dispatcher Harvey Weathers office. Weathers told Wilburn in no uncertain terms that the Fire Department had indeed received a warning on April 14. Relating Gaines' apparent loss of memory to Weathers, he replied, "Well, you asked me and I told you. I'm not going to lie for anybody.…"(126)

The transparently facile lies of the ATF and FBI are strikingly familiar to those propounded in the wake of the 1993 World Trade Center bombing. In that case, the FBI had one of its own informants--former Egyptian Army Colonel Emad Eli Salem--inside the group responsible for the bombing. According to Salem, who made secret tapes of his conversations with his FBI handler, Nancy Floyd, her supervisor refused to let Salem substitute a harmless powder for the real explosive. The agent then pulled Salem off the case. Soon afterwards, the bomb blew up, killing six people and injuring almost a 1,000 more.(127)

Why the National Security Council would fund such an ATF project, despite the absolute rarity of the crime, has not been explained.… Nor has it been explained as to what specific threat assessment information the government had when it decided to engage in such a project, just a few months before a Ryder Truck laden with ammonium-nitrate fertilizer exploded in front of the Murrah Building.(128)

The On-Going Farm Crisis: Extension Leadership in Rural Communities Roger T. Williams Professor and Chairman Health and Human Issues Department University of Wisconsin-Madison Internet address: dee.mack@mail.admin.wisc.edu While much has been written about the farm crisis of the 1980s, very little attention has been given to the on-going farm financial crisis of the 1990s. This article focuses on the on-going farm crisis, highlights data from a survey of Wisconsin farm families, and outlines interventions that will help Extension agents address the situation. The starting point is the crisis of the 1980s. An understanding of that period provides the context for responding in the 1990s. The Crisis of the 1980s   The farm crisis of the mid 1980s was triggered by a number of macro-economic forces. Plummeting farm values were primary: land and other farm assets declined nearly 50% from their peak in the late-70s to their low point in the mid-80s. Farmers who had invested large sums of money in their farming operations and had high debt loads were hurt the worst because they no longer had the equity to support their loans. Foreclosures and bankruptcies became common-place as agriculture experienced the biggest shake-out since the Great Depression of the 1930s. The social and emotional impacts on farm families were great. Heffernan and Heffernan (1985), in interviews with 42 Missouri families forced out of farming, found that nearly all of the families experienced depression along with a high incidence of withdrawal from family and friends, feelings of worthlessness, mood swings, and increased physical aggressiveness. They also noted a marked decline in the farmer's voluntary activities; nearly half of the families cut back on their volunteer involvements in 4-H, Extension homemakers, hog producers, church, school, and other activities. Farm family impacts were documented in other states and provinces as well. Bultena, Lasley, and Geller (1986), in a survey of 1,040 Iowa farm families, found significant associations between the levels of financial distress, the perceived level of personal and family stress, and a deterioration in the life situations of farm families. Walker and Walker (1988), in a study of 817 men and women in Western Canada, found high levels of frequent illness, headaches, fatigue, forgetfulness, loss of temper, lack of concentration, back pain, sleep disruptions, behavioral problems in children, and marriage problems in farm families. Higher levels of these stress-related symptoms were found in younger farm families. And, Beeson, Johnson, and Ortega (1991), in a longitudinal study of Nebraska farmers from 1981 to 1986, found significantly higher rates of depression, anxiety, cognitive impairment, and psychosocial dysfunction during the heart of the farm crisis in 1986, with rates of reported depression almost doubling over this five year period of time. A Decade of Distress   The farm crisis has, nevertheless, continued. Many Wisconsin farmers have commented that conditions are much worse now than they were during the farm crisis of the 1980s. This can be explained through the concept of cumulative stress. McCubbin and Patterson (1981) emphasize that stressors are additive: stressor pile-up consists of prior and current stressors to which a person or family has not fully adapted. And Albee (1982) argues that when we face chronic and prolonged stress, our ability to adapt to the situation becomes impaired and this can result in physical or emotional problems. The stressors of the mid 1980s were followed by a series of other stressors largely outside the control of Wisconsin farmers and there has been little opportunity to adapt to the situation. These stressors include: the drought of 1988; feed shortages in 1989; depressed milk prices in late 1990, continuing through 1991; drought, frost, and winterkill of alfalfa in 1992; floods and alfalfa winterkill in 1993; and extreme heat in the summer of 1995. Most Wisconsin farmers simply haven't had the recovery time needed to rebound from the decade of distress experienced from the mid-1980s to the mid-1990s. The on-going crisis is evidenced in two ways. The Farmers Assistance Hotline within the Wisconsin Department of Agriculture, Trade and Consumer Protection has received 500 to 700 calls a month, dating back to the fall of 1990. Increasingly, the calls have involved emotional distress: depression is common and withdrawal, alcohol abuse, domestic violence and suicidal tendencies are much more prevalent now than they were in the 1980s. Then, the Harvest of Hope, a voluntary church-sponsored program that offers financial assistance to Wisconsin farmers in difficult financial situations has experienced significantly more applications in 1993, 1994, and 1995. The vast majority of farm applicants have commented on the devastation caused by the drought of 1992, the floods of 1993, the heat of 1995, and other stresses of farming in the 1990s. Methods   In the fall of 1994, the Health and Human Issues Department at the University of Wisconsin-Madison worked with the Harvest of Hope Fund to survey past recipients of Harvest of Hope funding, with two goals in mind: (a) to determine the helpfulness of the fund, and (b) to assess the current situation of these Wisconsin farm families. Surveys were sent to all farm families served by the fund since its inception in 1986. Of the 329 surveys that were sent, 163 were returned for a response rate of 49%. Most were between the ages of 35 and 60 years old, with 26 being under the age of 35 and 23 over the age of 60. Of those who completed the survey, 101 were male and 60 were female (two respondents did not identify their sex). The average farm size was 205 acres with an average of 94 head of cattle. The vast majority (105) indicated that they were dairy farmers, with the following numbers reporting other farming enterprises: 39 cash crops, 12 hog, 10 beef, 7 heifer and 5 other. Survey Results   Farmers were provided with a listing of the most common situations outlined in Harvest of Hope applications and asked whether any of the situations have occurred in their family in the past 10 years. Large percentages of farmers indicated that they had experienced each problem, as reflected in the following list (in declining order of problem severity): drought (74%); assignment of milk check (61%); flood (54%); illness in livestock (53%); lack of health insurance (48%); frost (43%); stray voltage (33%); disabling illness (29%); bankruptcy (24%); hail (23%); foreclosure (22%); barn/house fire (14%); and disabling farm accident (10%). The responses to this question were disturbing. In addition to the fact that large percentages of farmers reported various items, there were large numbers of farmers who indicated they had experienced multiple situations--three, four, five, and even six of the situations over the past ten year period. It was also disturbing that 48% of farmers had been without health insurance, when 29% indicated they had experienced a disabling illness and 10% had experienced a disabling accident over this ten year period. Farmers were then asked what, if any, stress-related conditions have you or your spouse experienced because of the farm financial crisis? From the responses, it is clear that symptomatology for physical and emotional problems was high. When the responses for both spouses were added together, the conditions, in declining level of severity, were as follows: feel tired all the time (172); difficulty sleeping (170); high and low mood swings (167); feelings of worthlessness (142); withdrawal from family and friends (125); unusually silent at times (119); depressed (115); confused/unable to think clearly (109); restless/do anything to keep busy (93); overeating/gaining weight (76); increased fear of people/things (57); nauseous/loss of appetite (55); more physically aggressive (53); thoughts of suicide (40); increased smoking (35); and increased alcohol abuse (21). These responses were also disturbing. Nearly one-fourth of the respondents (40) indicated that they or their spouse had experienced thoughts of suicide. There were 13 other conditions that ranked even higher. The level of exhaustion, depression, withdrawal from family and friends, inability to think clearly, and negative self-worth indicate that large numbers of these farm families were struggling with classic symptoms of burnout. Most had experienced a decade of distress and this chronic, prolonged stress was simply taking its toll on farm families in the state. When asked what are the three major concerns faced by farmers in their community, respondents shared a variety of concerns (Table 1).   Table 1 Concerns Faced by Farmers Concern Number of Responses Low milk or other commodity prices 301 High cost of inputs 82 High taxes 70 Financial/cash flow problems 51 Health insurance/health problems 48 Ability to compete/stay in farming 38 Government indifference/regulations 36 Interest high/no credit 31 Weather conditions 27 Too much work/lack of hired help 18 Lack of good markets 14 Not able to enter/exit farming 9 Lack of time/money for family 9 Society doesn't understand farming/treats poorly 8 Lack of hay/feed 5 Note: Listed in declining order of priority, using a weighted rating to assess priorities. Low milk or other commodity prices was, by far, the most pressing concern of Harvest of Hope recipients. Yet, what should be clear from the responses is the central theme of tight finances: high cost of inputs, high taxes, financial/cash flow problems, interest high/no credit, lack of good markets, and others. The survey also verified two observations made by Harvest of Hope volunteers through the years: (a) many applicants were without health insurance due to the high cost of obtaining coverage, and (b) many farm families felt strapped to the farm due to the amount of work and the difficulty of finding good, reliable hired help. Farmers were then asked about their continuing needs at this time. Respondents offered a range of different needs or issues. In declining order, the needs were: time off (59); financial consultation (53); medical needs (50); feed for cattle (38); legal assistance (34); food stamps (31); someone to talk to (29); couples retreat (25); off-farm work (21); spiritual needs (15); job training (14); farm wife retreat (14); repairs from flooding (11); support group (10); social activities (9); see a counselor (5). These needs were cross-checked by respondent age. While financial consultation and time off surfaced as common needs for younger and middle aged farmers and food stamps emerged as a common need between younger and older farmers, the only need that appears among the top three priorities for all three age groups is medical needs. It is clear from this survey that medical issues (lack of insurance, inadequate insurance, disabling illness, disabling injury, hospital or medical bills) were a major concern for farm families in difficult financial situations. When asked to indicate the degree of help they had received from local agencies and organizations, several organizations were listed, including Harvest of Hope, churches, schools, Extension, social services, mental health agency, health care agency, community action, and food pantries. A weighted rating was used to reflect the overall helpfulness of agencies and the results were: Harvest of Hope (495); churches (227); extension (141); social services (89); food pantries (81); schools (68); community action (57); health care agencies (39); and mental health agencies (13). Because all of the farm families surveyed had received direct financial assistance from the Harvest of Hope, it is not surprising that they would rate Harvest of Hope as being helpful. What is interesting is that churches and Extension were perceived as being more responsive to farm families than the helping agencies--social services, community action, health care agencies, and mental health agencies--in communities. This finding undoubtedly reflects farmers' negative experiences with these agencies as well as their lack of awareness of helping organizations in communities. Finally, farmers were asked what, if anything, prevented them from gaining the needed services? Respondents provided a variety of different answers. The one response that came through overwhelmingly was pride (24 responses). Farmers tend to be too proud and independent to reach out for services from agencies in the community. Several farmers also commented that they were ineligible for services (14 responses) and many responded that they were not aware of what resources were available or how to tap into them (13 responses). It is clear that agencies could be doing much more to help farmers understand what services are available to farm families and what constraints they may have in addressing farm family needs. Interventions   What can Extension agents do to help farmers in crisis? One of the most helpful things an agent can do is network with other agencies in the community. Farmers in distress require a range of different resources: financial consultation, legal advice, social support, spiritual guidance, emergency needs (food, clothing, fuel oil), job counseling and/or job training, emotional counseling, and others. It is helpful if agents can be aware of these community resources and be able to refer farm families for assistance. The referral will be much more effective if the agent knows the job counselor or mental health counselor and can say "I know _________ and I think you would find him/her to be most helpful with your situation." Given farmer's lack of awareness of resources in communities, agents can also help out by making farmers more aware of the agencies in their communities and the services they offer. This can be done in a variety of ways: newsletters, newspaper columns, service provider panels at Extension sponsored meetings, and directories of helping agencies in the county or area. The directories can be available at the Extension office and at all meetings offered by Extension, at the county fair, in churches and schools, and in the offices of all helping agencies in the community. A number of Extension offices in Wisconsin have been involved in developing agency directories--some elaborate, some simple--and it has been viewed as most helpful by farm families in need. What else can Extension agents do? Agents can also take a leadership role in sponsoring workshops on topics of concern to distressed farmers, offering one-on-one counseling to farmers in distress, getting farmers linked with print and video resources that may be helpful to them, initiating farm family support groups, and training formal and informal helpers to be more responsive to farm families in distress. Work in these arenas can counteract the criticism sometimes leveled at Extension agents that "Extension only works with the most successful farmers in the county." Some of the needs for financial and legal assistance that were identified in the Harvest of Hope survey can be addressed through a combination of workshops, one-on-one counseling, and linking farmers with print and video resources. This is an arena where Extension has functioned well in the past. Yet, there is a need to recognize the special needs of farmers in distress and to target some services toward these farm families. Workshops that focus on legal options and more intensive one-on-one financial counseling sessions can be most helpful. Video resources may be more helpful than print resources with farm families that are depressed, exhausted, and not able to think clearly. Videos that highlight alternative economic options (diversifying the farming operation, starting a business in the home, seeking off-farm employment) can be most helpful if they involve farmers talking about options that have worked for them (Williams, 1989). The need for social support is also apparent from the Harvest of Hope survey. A number of farmers identified their needs for: someone to talk to, couples retreat, farm wife retreat, support group, and social activities. Agents wanting to establish farm family support groups have a number of barriers to overcome: (a) farm families have become more and more isolated as the crisis has continued, (b) families often lack the time and energy to become involved, and (c) the pride and independence of farm families can make it difficult for them to share heartfelt concerns. Some of these barriers can be overcome by following basic principles of support group formation: go where the energy is; decide on a purpose; include time for socializing; share responsibility for the group; emphasize nurturing and acceptance; make sure people have a chance to talk; encourage contacts between sessions; and emphasize the importance of confidentiality (Williams, 1990; Williams 1989). While it may be difficult to get a support group established, it can be a powerful resource for farmers in distress. One farmer from southwestern Wisconsin commented that "This group is my lifeline" and he meant it literally: it was his group that gave him the support he needed to go on living. Creating a more supportive climate for farmers in their communities can also be a helpful role for Extension agents. This means going beyond agency networking to train formal and informal helpers in the community to be more responsive to farmers in need. The farm culture is unique--farm families are proud, independent, and self-reliant and these qualities make it hard for farm families to reach out for help when they are in need. Formal helpers (health, mental health, social services, clergy, community action, employment and training staff) and informal helpers (veterinarians, milk testers, creditors, agribusinesses, consolidated farm service workers) can be most helpful if they understand the farmers' dilemma and how to respond. Formal caregivers need to understand the current situation of farm families, the farm culture, the implications of agency policies (sliding fee scales based on gross income), and how they can be more responsive to farmers in need. Informal caregivers need to understand the signs and symptoms of distress, what resources exist in the community, how to listen and demonstrate support, and how to make referrals to helping resources. Providing training for both groups can help to create linkages between the formal and informal helpers in communities (Williams, 1995). Finally, Extension agents can be helpful by addressing the complex web of national, state, and local policies that are making it hard to survive and be profitable as a farmer in today's economy. Agents can address the following seven issues in newsletters and newspaper columns, by sponsoring policy forums which highlight the issues, and by using their own personal influence to change the policies: (a) promoting commodity pricing which allows farmers to survive; (b) cutting property taxes and/or valuing agricultural land on the basis of its current use; (c) allowing capital gains to roll over into a retirement account so older farmers are not taxed heavily as they exit farming; (d) creating environmental policies that protect natural resources and allow farmers to produce food and earn a living; (e) providing health insurance by changing Medicaid eligibility requirements or making sure farmers are covered in health care reform packages at the federal or state level; (f) creating outreach programs to link farmers with resources to meet their financial, legal or human service needs; and (g) providing job training for distressed farmers to help them supplement their farm income or transition out of farming. Summary   Farm families have faced a "decade of distress" as the farm crisis continues. There are several things Extension agents can do to respond to farm families in distress. The interventions outlined in this article can help Extension agents overcome the perception that Extension only works with the most successful farmers in the county. References   Albee, G. (1982). Preventing psychopathology and promoting human potential. American Psychologist, 37(9), 1043-1050. Beeson, P. G., Johnson, D. R., & Ortega, S. T. (1991). The farm crisis and mental health: A longitudinal (1981, 1986, 1989) and comparative study of the economy and mental health status. Unpublished manuscript. Bultena, G., Lasley, P., & Geller, J. (1986). The farm crisis: Patterns and impacts of financial distress among Iowa farm families. Rural Sociology, 51(4). Heffernan, J. B., & Heffernan, W. D. (1985). The effects of the agricultural crisis on the health and lives of farm families. Statement prepared for a hearing of the Committee on Agriculture, U.S. House of Representatives, Washington, DC. (Available from William Heffernan, Rural Sociology Department, University of Missouri-Columbia, 102 Sociology Building, Columbia, MO 65211) McCubbin, H. I., & Patterson, J. (1981). Systematic assessment of family stress, resources and coping. St. Paul: University of Minnesota. Walker, J. L., & Walker, L. J. S. (1988). Self reported stress symptoms in farmers. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 44(1). Williams, R. T. (1990). Developing farm family support groups. Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Williams, R. T. (1989). Economic options for Wisconsin farm families [Videos]. (Available from Roger Williams, Health and Human Issues Department, University of Wisconsin-Madison, 610 Langdon Street, Madison, WI 53703) Williams, R. T. (1989). Organizing community support groups. Unpublished manuscript, University of Wisconsin-Madison. Williams, R. T. (1995, January). The farm and rural crisis: developing services for farm families and rural communities. Paper presented at The First International Conference on Social Work in Health and Mental Health Care, Jerusalem, Israel.   This article is online at http://www.joe.org/joe/1996february/a3.html.   Copyright © by Extension Journal, Inc. ISSN 1077-5315. Articles appearing in the Journal become the property of the Journal. Single copies of articles may be reproduced in electronic or print form for use in educational or training activities. Inclusion of articles in other publications, electronic sources, or systematic large-scale distribution may be done only with prior electronic or written permission of the Journal Editorial Office, joe-ed@joe.org.

Two blasts

England has a law that its government must investigate the death of its citizens. They did their own investigation of three people killed at Waco. They found our government malignant in its intent and charged the United States with murder!

Because of the international picture (and media coverup) we don't hear what is happening, but with the above information, consider how our government would feel about Former Attorney General Ramsey Clark filing a claim for 84 people murdered at Waco. He would have been entitled to every piece of information relative to Waco, all of it was stored at federal offices in Oklahoma City!

A seismograph at Still Water (50 miles away) measured two tremors. Bomb experts say there is no way to direct a car bomb to utterly destroy a federal building and leave the YMCA across the street unaffected (window washers weren't even knocked off their scaffolding).

Retired Brigadier General Partin had much experience with explosives and visited OKC. He found evidence of some supporting columns under the Murrah Building were pulverized while some closer to the street (and "car bomb") were intact. He pleaded with the senate for them to prevent the building's demolition, with diagrams of his findings. He said it was a much bigger operation than a car bomb.

Retired FBI veteran Ted Gunderson of Santa Monica had explosives experience. He dismissed as a cover-up the U.S. Justice Dept. claim that a simple car bomb could do the damage. He was quoted in The Spotlight, 5/15/95 as saying, "A very high tech and top secret barometric bomb was the cause ... could not have been built ... without the knowledge of research classified at the very highest level of top secret by the U.S. government."

Ben Williams of American Christian Ministry said "No DEA people were in their offices at the time [of the explosion]. The `Cult Awareness' people were not in their offices at the time. A distance away, the FBI offices were also empty." A mother who lost two boys in the day-care center asked on CNN "why?" and was later told by phone to be quiet about it.

Oklahoma Reporter J.D. Cash Dies at 55 Published: May 07, 2007 4:55 PM ET   TULSA, Okla. Newspaper reporter J.D. Cash of the McCurtain Daily Gazette has died at age 55. Cash died at a Tulsa hospital Sunday following after suffering from liver disease and pneumonia. Cash had spent the past 12 years reporting on the Oklahoma City bombing, including a report from a woman who said she was an undercover agent who warned the government of plans to bomb federal buildings in 1995. He's survived by his mother. A private funeral service is planned in Tulsa.