UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
Monday, May 1, 1995
5B
NRA calls agents 'thugs'
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON (AP) — The National Rifle Association's top official defended the inflammatory language his organization has used about federal agents, saying Sunday that references to "jack-booted government thugs" were accurate.
"Those words are not far, in fact they are a pretty close description of what's happening in the real world." NRA Executive Vice President Wayne LaPierre said on NBC's "Meet the Press."
The NRA's attack on federal agents in a fund-raising letter has been cited as an example of the kind of rhetoric that creates a climate for violent acts such as the Oklahoma City terrorist attack. LaPierre insisted that's not the case.
"That's like saying the weather report in Florida on the hurricane caused the damage, rather than the hurricane," he said.
But Senate Majority Leader Bob Dole, R-Kan., appearing on ABC's "This Week With David Brinkley," said the NRA "needs to get a little image repair job." Dole criticized an NRA computer bulletin board that provides bomb-making instructions, saying there are already "enough people out there who know how to make bombs."
Attorney General Janet Reno, also on NBC, demanded that critics of law enforcement officials be specific in their charges. "I think the most damaging thing that we can do the country is to talk in generalies or in pictures terms."
Sen. Joseph Biden of Delaware,
he ranking Democrat on the Senate
Judiciary Committee, said he guessed that two people would resign from the NRA for every one who joins as the result of the antigovernment rhetoric.
But LaPierre denied there was any dissension in the 3.5-million-member group over the stridency of its positions. The Washington Post reported Saturday that there was a division between the old guard interested in conservation and firearms education and hardliners who are concentrating on defeating gun control legislation.
He said there was no dispute in the leadership on the need to investigate alleged abuses by the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms and to protect gun ownership.
The six-page NRA letter signed by LaPierre and sent earlier this month singles out lawmakers who are pressing for gun control legislation and says: "It doesn't matter to them that the semi-auto ban gives jackbooted government thugs more power to take away our constitutional rights, break in our doors, seize our guns, destroy our property, and even injure or kill us."
It goes on: "Not too long ago, it was unthinkable for federal agents wearing Nazi bucket helmets and black storm trooper uniforms to attack law-abiding citizens."
The NRA is demanding congressional hearings into what LaPierre said was "a major trend toward abuses" by federal agents of constitutional guarantees against unreasonable searches and seizures.
groups, and let's see who's right or wrong. If you want to end the climate of fear and suspicion in the country, get it all out in front of the public, and that's what we're asking."
"Let's put it all on the table. It's not only the NRA, it's the American Civil Liberties Union, it's other
Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah, said the Senate Judiciary Committee he heads has no plans to open hearings on the 1993 siege of the Branch Davidian religious cut near Waco, Texas, an event that galvanized antagonism in some groups against federal law enforcement officers.
But Hatch told NBC he will closely monitor hearings scheduled in the House. "I think everybody has some tendency to be upset about what happened there, and it may be that we're going to have to do more about investigating it."
Sen. Bill Bradley, D-NJ, said on CBS' "Face the Nation" that he agreed there should be hearings on Waco, but added hearings should also be held on the increasing acts of violence against federal officials.
LaPierre said the NRA agrees with Dole and House Speaker Newt Griarch, R-Ga., that Republican efforts to overturn the ban on assault weapons should be set aside for the time being in light of the Oklahoma tracedy.
"It was on a fast track. It's on a slower track. It will still come up down the road," he said.
Dole said he had no intention to take up the assault weapon issue soon, and Hatch and Biden agreed that the issue should not be a part of the debate on the bill to strengthen anti-terrorism efforts now before Congress.
McVeigh theories contradict
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — Was Timothy McVeigh alone in Oklahoma City? Was he there with John Doe 2? Or were there more like-minded extremists involved in the bombing of the federal building?
Competing theories on the shape and size of the bombing conspiracy seem to rise and fall daily as investigators try to place sometimes ill-fitting pieces of the puzzle into a coherent picture.
With each new revelation comes more questions and more seeming contradictions.
A senior federal official involved in the investigation told The Associated Press such frustrations are new nothing to such cases.
An example: the 1977 yellow Mercury Marquis that McVeigh bought on April 14in Junction City.
The used car has become a touchstone for various theories about McVeigh's movements, the possibility of a second getaway car or a scenario that has McVeigh setting off the bomb himself, then fleeing in the previously positioned Mercury.
McVeigh was arrested in the car he sped north from Oklahoma
"The problem for you guys (in the media) and the public is you want it all to make sense each day," he said. "Cops learn in their first few years on the job that every case they ever investigate is going to have some things that are totally unexplainable."
City about 75 minutes after the blast. The senior federal official said a note found in the car read: "Not abandoned. Battery cable problem. Will be back to pick it up."
The note also included a date, which was not revealed.
Officials are trying to fit this with another puzzle piece. Why did McVieh have his friend Terry Nichols pick him up in Oklahoma City and drive him back to Junction City two days before the bombing?
Nichols told the FBI McVeigh called him on April 16, the two returned to Junction City early on April 17, the day McVeigh is believed to have rented the Ryder truck with a man investigators identify as John Doe 2.
The owner of the Dreamland Motel, the Junction City motel where McVeigh was registered from April 14-17, reported seeing the Mercury when McVeigh checked in. Within a few days the Mercury was gone, she said, replaced by the truck.
Does this all add up to the possibility McVeigh parked the car with its note in Oklahoma City, returned to Junction City with Nichols, then drove down to Oklahoma City alone in the rental truck, detonated the bomb and escaped in the Mercury?
The federal official said the scenario is one of several being explored.
"It's absolutely possible, physically, for one man to have detonated it," he said.
But there are problems with this theory.
Investigators say McVeigh would have taken a big risk by leaving the car on the street for three nights. The surveillance camera in an automatic teller machine across from the federal building captured images of the Ryder truck, several individuals and a possible second getaway car with Arizona license plates.
At least one witness says he saw two men driving the truck shortly before the explosion.
The federal official said such contradictory bits of information can muddy a clear picture of what happened.
He noted reports from another Junction City motel operator that he registered John Doe 2 on April 17. The witness matched his guest to a picture distributed by the FBI. But he said the man had a mustache and spoke with an accent, two elements the federal official said would rule him out.
"People out there read things and see things and they honestly believe that they witnessed something," he said.
'Hatred still flourishes,' Clinton says at Holocaust event
The Associated Press
NEW YORK — In an address Sunday to survivors of Nazi death camps, President Clinton said the Oklahoma City bombing proves that hatred still lurks and urged Americans "to stand against new forms of organized evil."
Wearing a black yarmulke, Clinton told
"Ultimately, I wanted to be here today, after all our country has been through in these last days, because you have taught me that the vigilance of memory is our greatest defense," Clinton said.
6,000 Jewish survivors in a dimly lit Paramount Theater that the world must never forget or repeat the Holocaust.
As the generation of surviving Holocaust witnesses passes away, Clinton said new generations of Americans must continue "to fight all forms of racism, to combat those who distort the past and peddle hate in the present, to stand against new forms of organized evil."
He did not specifically condemn paramilitary groups or domestic terrorists, but clearly alluded to Oklahoma City when he said. "As we have seen, hatred
still flourishes where it has a chance."
Later Sunday, Clinton was to address a dinner sponsored by the World Jewish Congress.
At the Holocaust event, Israeli Foreign Minister Shimon Peres said his country sympathized with America's loss at Oklahoma City.
Aides said he planned to unveil new measures to combat terrorism, targeting the action at Iran.
"We have experienced the terrorism of
bombs launched without remorse," he said.
After listening to mournful songs of remembrance, mostly in Yiddish, Clinton said the Holocaust redefined "the capacity of evil."
New York Mayor Rudolph Giuliani said the Holocaust "proves a tragic lesson as to what happens when too many people do too little when confronted by evil."
New York Gov. George Pataki said people who attempted to debunk the Holocaust "must be confronted at every turn."
SAVINGS UP TO 80% OFF
Monday & Tuesday
10 a.m. to 4 p.m.
May 1st and 2nd
East of the Kansas Union
& the Burge Union
Huge selection of KU Clothing!!
Sale may be postponed or cancelled in the event of rain.
We're Hewitt Associates LLC, a global benefits consulting firm based in suburban Chicago. You'll find us listed in The 100 Best Companies To Work For In America. And due to our unparalleled growth, we're out to find the best candidates for career entry analyst opportunities in our innovative client-server environment. Formal training will be provided. If you have an outstanding GPA, an analytical mind, and the desire to get into exciting project work right away, lets find out more about each other. Send your resume including GPA (transcript preferred) to: Dave Quinn, Hewitt Associates LLC, P.O. Box 221, 60860, Fort Wayne, Indiana 46805
SCHOOL'S OUT. WE'RE IN.
Join the real world with the right career.
Equal Opportunity Employer.
Hewitt Associates Helping Clients Around The World Improve Business Results Through People.