8A
Thursday, April 27, 1995
NATION/WORLD UNIVERSITY DAILY KANSAN
UN I V E R S I T Y D A I L Y K A N S A N
New bombing-suspect facts revealed
The Associated Press
OKLAHOMA CITY — New details of Timothy McVeigh's activities in the days before the Oklahoma bombing surfaced yesterday, including the suspect's warning to a friend, "Something big is going to happen."
Investigators also were trying to trace McVeigh's movements after the explosion that gutted the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, a source told The Associated Press. One theory was that McVeigh dropped off a still-missing colleague before McVeigh was arrested for traffic and weapons violations.
Revelations of McVeigh's actions in the days before the bombing came in a Wichita courtroom as prosecutors sought to take his friend, Terry Nichols, to Oklahoma. The judge granted their request but delayed it until May 5 so Nichols could appeal.
According to the same source, three witnesses saw McVeigh in front of the federal building moments before the explosion.
As the investigation advanced yesterday, the city and the nation paused to observe a moment of silence at 9:02 a.m. — the precise moment of the blast one week ago. Bells rang, tears flowed and heads bowed as searchers stood amid the ruins of the collapsed federal building. Yesterday, the death toll stood at 98.
In court, U.S. Attorney Randy Rathbun said McVeigh called Nichols from Oklahoma City on April 16 and asked him to pick him up. Nichols, 40, lives in Hertington, about 270 miles north of Oklahoma City.
Rathbun, quoting what Nichols told the FBI after he was taken into custody, gave this account of what happened next:
Nichols picked McVeigh up, and as the two men drove north, McVeigh told Nichols: "Something big is going to happen." Nichols responded: "Are you going to rob a bank?" and McVeigh repeated, "Something big is going to happen."
KNIGHT RIDDER-TRIGUNE
The men reached Junction City early in the morning of April 17. The FBI said that the Ryder truck used in the bombing was rented in Junction City later that day.
The next day, McVeigh borrowed Nichols' pickup truck and told him, "If I don't come back in a while, go clean up the storage shed." He returned the truck later that day.
Both McVeigh and Nichols had access to a shed outside Herington that was rented under an alias, Rathbun said. Sources have said that tire tracks matching the type of truck used in the bombing were found at the shed.
The bomb exploded the next morning.
Minutes before the blast, and apparently before the arrival of the truck carrying the 4,800-pound bomb, three witnesses saw McVeigh in front of the federal building, a law enforcement official in Washington told the AP on condition of anonymity.
The truck was in front of the building "less than 10 or 15 minutes. There was probably a very short-fused timing device on it," the official said.
The source also said that McVeigh has refused to talk. "He's very stoic and has classified himself as a prisoner of war," the official said.
The official also said McVeigh's 1977 yellow Mercury Marquis contained a hand-written notice suggesting car trouble, perhaps part of a plot to guarantee his car wouldn't be towed and he could make a quick getaway.
MeVeigh is being held in a federal prison in El Reno, Okla., and should appear at a hearing today on a request to move his case out of
Oklahoma City.
Nichols' brother, James, is also being held as a witness in Michigan; McVeigh listed James Nichols as his next of kin when he was arrested.
pounds of ammonium nitrate fertilizer from a Manhattan, Kan., grain elevator last month. Officials believe ammonium nitrate was used to make the bomb.
The Nichols brothers were charged Tuesday in Michigan with conspiring with McVeigh to manufacture explosives. McVeigh was not charged, and the charges did not relate to the Oklahoma bombing.
The FBI confiscated 33 firearms, a 60mm anti-tank rocket and devices that can be used as blasting mechanisms from Nichols' home in Hertingon, Rathbun said.
In Kansas, Rathbun said in court that Nichols admitted buying 100
U. S. District Judge Monti Belot questioned the defense's contention that the weapons and devices were normal things for a military-surplus dealer like Terry Nichols to possess.
Militia groups emerge as result of bombing
The Associated Press
WASHINGTON — The militia movement draws much of its strength from economically struggling white men, many of whom are veterans and prone to believe in conspiracies. Many live in rural areas and fervently defend the right to bear arms.
Some members are former college professors, while others never made it through high school. Some insist they are not bigots, while others see Jews, blacks and foreigners as the perpetrators of a huge, anti-American conspiracy.
While militia watchers underscore that reliable data and a detailed understanding of these groups is lacking, rough sketches have emerged in the days after the Oklahoma City bombing. Officials are checking for any links between the bombing and members of such private groups.
Clark McCauley, a psychologist professor at Bryn Mawr College in Pennsylvania and an expert on terrorism, said that what was remarkable about militia members is that they are so unremarkable.
"We're not talking about crazies here. We're not talking about people who are no longer human. We're talking about people like you and me who feel that they've been pushed too far," McCaulley said.
Political science professor Michael Barkun of Syracuse University agrees. He says, "We make a substantial mistake and eventually underestimate the danger if we simply assume that everyone engaged in such organizations is ignorant or disordered or pathological."
A series of incidents has fueled membership: the federal raid on separatist Randy Weaver's Idaho
compound in 1992; the burning of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993; passage of the Brady gun registration bill in 1993 and of an assault weapons ban last year.
Members often learn about the organizations at gun shows. They are predominantly white and male, aged 18 to 46. Many served in the military and belong to a Christian religion, according to the Center for Democratic Renewal in Atlanta, a group that monitors extremist groups.
Membership is "predominantly middle class, working class, small business owner-type people," adds Noah Chandler, a researcher for the center who has attended militia conventions.
Several of the figures who have emerged in the bombing investigation seem to fit.
For example, Timothy MeVeigh, charged in the bombing, was an Army veteran who became a driver. Authorities say he had ties to two brothers now charged with conspiracy in connection with bomb-making in Michigan — James Nichols, the owner of a small farm, and his younger brother Terry, an Army veteran who became an independent military surplus dealer.
Norman Olson, head of the Michigan Militia, an organization that says it kicked out McVeigh, is the pastor of a Baptist church and owner of a gun shop. Mark Koernke, said to have been an associate of McVeigh, is a janitor at a college.
Militia members view themselves as under assault by federal authorities.
"There is a readiness to see conspiracies," said Jerrold Post, director of the political psychology program at George Washington University.
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