0:00

Hey, I'm Jeffrey Toobin the host

0:02

of a new USG audio podcast

0:05

homegrown OKC about

0:07

Timothy McVeigh the Oklahoma City

0:09

bombing and the rise of

0:11

right-wing extremism in America I'm

0:14

excited to share our first episode of the series

0:16

with you here right now To

0:19

listen to the rest of this

0:21

eight-part series search for homegrown OKC

0:23

in your podcast app That's

0:26

homegrown OKC A

0:32

quick warning this episode

0:34

contains descriptions of violence and

0:36

death we advise listener

0:39

discretion Well

0:44

good morning It's

0:47

9 a.m. On a Wednesday morning. We're

0:49

going to open the record and

0:51

in this proceeding with regard to

0:55

Application 95-501 for a groundwater permit

1:00

This is government exhibit 942 from

1:02

the trial of Timothy McVeigh It's

1:05

a recording of an Oklahoma water

1:07

resources board hearing My name

1:09

is Lou Cleaver and I've been

1:12

designated by the nine member Oklahoma water resources

1:14

board to serve it Cynthia Lou

1:16

Cleaver was presiding over a dispute

1:18

between two adjoining landowners about whether

1:21

one would be allowed to start

1:23

a bottled water company basically

1:25

what happens is Will

1:28

present evidence here evidence from the

1:30

applicant ask questions here from

1:32

the protestant With regard to why

1:34

the application shouldn't be granted The

1:37

water resources board was headquartered

1:39

in a three-story cement structure

1:41

Across the street from the

1:43

Alfred P. Murrah federal building

1:45

in downtown, Oklahoma City The

1:47

audio was played for the jury in McVeigh's

1:50

trial from the very beginning of the tape

1:52

which started at the stroke of 9 a.m

1:56

The gray monotone of Lou Cleaver's voice

1:58

reminded everyone of the mundane Wayne way

2:00

that April 19th began.

2:03

But the bureaucratic drone was excruciating

2:05

because everyone in the courtroom

2:07

knew what was coming at two

2:10

minutes after nine. What's regarding

2:12

this proceeding? Basically there are four

2:14

elements that I have to receive

2:19

information regarding. Hello

2:33

everybody. Everybody look around here.

2:37

That's so much more than a line. And

2:46

good morning everyone. I'm Matt Lowery in New York

2:48

and we do have a special report from NBC

2:50

News. There has been a massive explosion at a

2:53

federal building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. It happened just

2:55

a short time ago. A large portion of that

2:57

building. I remember exactly where

2:59

I was when the Oklahoma City bombing happened.

3:02

I think there is an amazing ravenous

3:04

appetite for information about O.J. Simpson. I

3:07

was somewhere in a crowd of reporters

3:09

on the ninth floor of the criminal

3:11

courts building in Los Angeles, covering O.J.

3:15

Inside the court building, another zoo.

3:17

Reporters sit glued to small monitors,

3:19

watching, waiting for any new evidence

3:21

in the case that's captured the

3:23

attention of the world. That's

3:25

Nicole's mother and sister. We

3:29

got word of the bombing during a break

3:31

in Jajito's courtroom. And I remember

3:33

my reaction. What am I doing here?

3:35

Why am I covering a celebrity murder

3:37

in L.A. when something so much more

3:40

important was happening in Oklahoma? And

3:42

it was more important. 168 people killed,

3:44

19 of them children. The

3:49

powerful blast ripped off the front of

3:51

the nine-story office building. Five hundred federal

3:53

workers were already in the office building. The

3:55

Oklahoma City Federal Building, the apparent terrorist attack striking

3:57

America's heartland and also at America's heart's worst. But

4:00

even though everyone knew Oklahoma City

4:03

was more important than OJ, pretty

4:05

soon the world's attention shifted back

4:07

to the Simpson trial. I

4:09

know I covered it all the way through to the verdict.

4:12

That may not say much for the

4:14

news media, or for me, but that's

4:17

what happened. Almost

4:19

two years after the OJ verdict, in

4:21

the Oklahoma City bombing case, I covered

4:23

the trial of Timothy McVeigh in 1997.

4:28

And we, I, covered both

4:30

Simpson and McVeigh in the same

4:32

kind of way, like true crime

4:34

stories. We focused on the

4:36

evidence, the bloody glove in OJ,

4:39

the Ryder truck axle in McVeigh.

4:41

It was all about the how and

4:43

not the why. But

4:46

I've come to feel that I really missed something

4:48

with that approach to Oklahoma City. Sure,

4:51

it was a true crime story, but

4:53

it was so much more. It was

4:55

actually a story that transcended crime, even

4:58

terrorism, and it told us something about

5:00

our politics right up to the present

5:02

day. We

5:04

do know why McVeigh killed all those

5:07

people. He said that the bombing

5:09

happened because he was a patriot. Timothy

5:12

McVeigh could quote the founding fathers from

5:14

memory. One of his favorite

5:16

passages was from Patrick Henry's famous

5:18

1775 speech, the one

5:20

that concluded with, Give me

5:23

liberty or give me death. McVeigh

5:25

recited what else Henry had said.

5:28

Quote, if we wish to be

5:30

free, if we mean

5:32

to preserve in violet those inestinable

5:34

privileges for which we have been

5:37

so long contending, we must

5:39

fight. I repeated, sir,

5:42

we must fight. At

5:44

the Murrah Building, McVeigh fought.

5:48

There have been other violent events in

5:50

the past 25 years that were

5:52

motivated by the same kind of

5:54

warped sense of patriotism as McVeigh's.

5:58

But the most stark was jazz. January 6,

6:00

2021. The

6:10

spirit of rebellion was in the air that

6:12

day. Like

6:24

McVeigh, the rioters who stormed the capital

6:26

were seemingly normal citizens whose zealotry led

6:29

them to believe that the ends justify

6:31

the means. McVeigh

6:47

said he committed the Oklahoma City

6:49

bombing because he wanted to start

6:51

another American Revolution, a civil war.

6:54

He said, I believe there is an

6:56

army out there, ready to rise up,

6:59

even though I never found it. The

7:02

army is out there. It's

7:04

out there now. And that

7:06

makes the story of Timothy McVeigh, what

7:08

he did and why he did it,

7:10

not just a glimpse of the past,

7:12

but also a warning about the future.

7:16

I'm Jeffrey Tubman and this is

7:19

Homegrown. Episode

7:42

1, The Blueprint.

7:51

Well John, I'd like to

7:53

just start at the beginning with what your

7:55

job was and where you were. You

7:57

were at work at the forensics lab? Tell

8:00

us where that was and what you were

8:02

doing. Okay, on April 19th,

8:05

I was assigned to set

8:09

up the, or to move the start

8:11

over here. Sure. This interview

8:13

is from the oral history collection at

8:16

the Oklahoma City National Memorial and Museum.

8:18

We'll be using interviews from the memorial

8:20

throughout this story. Do I need

8:22

to start over? No. Just tell us

8:24

where you were. I was in the equine lab

8:26

at the 717 Concord. On

8:31

the morning of April 19th, Oklahoma Police

8:33

Sergeant John Avera was moving some DNA

8:35

equipment to a new police lab. He

8:38

was about five blocks from the Murrah

8:40

Building when he heard the explosion. I

8:43

thought at that point that somebody had blown up the police

8:45

station right across the street. Sealing

8:48

tiles fell on Avera and dust started

8:50

flying everywhere. So I left the

8:53

building immediately. When I got outside, I

8:55

saw the big, I

8:58

call it a mushroom type cloud or big cloud of

9:00

black smoke. And when I saw the smoke,

9:03

I just immediately started running that direction. Throughout

9:07

April 19th, images from Oklahoma City were

9:09

broadcast across the country and the death

9:11

toll kept rising. At the moment, we

9:14

don't have any specific numbers on injuries

9:16

or death. There are unconfirmed reports that

9:18

as many as 80 people have

9:20

perished. And with each passing minute, it's

9:22

feared more will be found dead. More

9:24

bodies will be found dead. And

9:26

then came the news about the children. The death

9:29

toll has now hit 31 people. At

9:31

least 18 of those are children. At last

9:33

check, 300 people are still not accounted for.

9:37

Officer Avera ran to the Murrah

9:39

Building. He sprinted past the Oklahoma

9:41

Water Resources Board Building and arrived

9:43

at the bomb site. And

9:46

somebody ran up to him instead of a

9:48

daycare center inside the Murrah Building. There was

9:51

a daycare inside. Avera started

9:53

forcing his way into the Murrah Building.

9:56

There was debris everywhere. Avera

9:58

crawled over a barrel. of copy

10:01

machines, desks, and office equipment. It

10:03

actually reminded me of some of the old barns. Back

10:06

when I was a kid on the farm, somebody's

10:08

old barns, they just kept throwing all their junk in

10:11

for 40 years. Avera

10:13

and another responder first found two

10:15

injured women. The explosion had

10:17

blown their shoes off, they had

10:19

blown their stockings and ripped them off the

10:21

bottom of their feet, so they couldn't

10:24

walk at all, so they basically had to

10:26

be carried from the building out

10:28

there. John took the women onto the

10:30

street, which was now covered in

10:32

shards of black glass, and

10:35

he immediately went back into the building.

10:37

I could hear some people screaming, and

10:40

so I proceeded on down the hallway into the

10:42

heart of the building, and

10:44

we found some people that were in there that were

10:46

injured and buried in the... by

10:49

the main elevator shafts, and

10:52

we started digging them out. Avera

10:54

found a woman trapped deep under the

10:57

concrete and rubble. He could only see her

10:59

hand and her foot, but she could still

11:01

talk. While I was talking to her, I heard

11:04

a baby. Avera

11:07

and another sergeant headed toward the sound, trying

11:10

to move heavy pieces of concrete out of

11:12

the way. John looked down

11:14

into a hole and saw a

11:16

baby struggling. The other

11:18

sergeant picked the baby up and ran toward the

11:20

street. John looked down again, and

11:22

he saw another baby. I

11:25

picked up the baby, and

11:27

the legs and arms were broken and

11:32

I'd get out of the building, and I knew that I couldn't

11:34

crawl back out the way I came in carrying the baby, so

11:37

I started looking for a new way out. While

11:40

holding the baby, John made his way to

11:42

the Murrow Building's parking garage, and he escaped

11:44

to the street outside. I was

11:47

surprised, because I guess I'd been in there longer than

11:49

I thought, but

11:51

I could see people, injured

11:54

people, laying on the sidewalk or on the

11:56

street curb up there, and I remember seeing

11:58

blood running down. the curb itself and

12:02

then it kind of run me for

12:04

a shock. I was trying to find

12:06

someone to give the baby to. Everybody

12:09

seemed to be extremely busy. I mean, it was not

12:11

a easy thing to do. John

12:16

eventually found a firefighter captain

12:18

named Chris Fields. He

12:20

just held his arms out to take it and

12:23

I placed the baby in his arms and

12:25

immediately turned around and ran back in the building.

12:28

At that precise moment, a

12:30

25-year-old bank employee, an aspiring

12:32

photographer named Charles Porter came

12:34

upon the scene. He

12:36

pointed his camera and clicked the shutter.

12:39

Later that afternoon, Porter took the film to

12:42

a local Walmart to be developed and when

12:44

he picked the pictures up, the

12:46

clerk began to cry when she looked at

12:48

one image in particular. At

12:50

the suggestion of a friend, Porter took

12:52

that picture to the local office of

12:54

the Associated Press where the photo editor

12:56

put it out on the AP Wire.

13:00

That photo showed the baby, a

13:02

girl named Bailey Alman sprawled in

13:05

Chris Fields arms. The

13:07

baby's head was bloodied and her right

13:09

arm and both legs were limp. The

13:12

son illuminated the firefighters red helmet

13:14

but his face was otherwise in

13:16

shadow. You've probably seen

13:18

the picture. It became a

13:20

symbol of the nightmare of April 19th. America's

13:25

Kids, that was the

13:27

name of the daycare center on the second floor

13:29

of the Murrah building. That morning, 21

13:32

children, all preschoolers were there

13:34

to play and learn. At

13:37

9 a.m. it was song time when the

13:39

bomb struck. 15

13:42

children at the daycare, including

13:44

one-year-old Bailey were

13:46

killed. As the horrific images from Oklahoma City filled the news, the

13:52

immediate question became who could possibly have

14:00

done this. And the

14:02

initial presumptions about the perpetrator

14:04

said a lot about America's

14:06

blind spot on domestic extremism.

14:09

Well, it started like any other day,

14:12

and I remember vividly had a

14:15

piece of pumpkin pie and a cup of

14:17

coffee for breakfast. On the morning of April

14:19

19, 1995,

14:21

Imad Nshasi was working as the general

14:23

manager of a restaurant in the French

14:26

Market Mall, about eight miles from downtown

14:28

Oklahoma City. Every morning, Imad

14:30

took the cash from the previous day's

14:32

sales to the bank. And to

14:34

be safe, he had a waitress follow him to

14:36

his car. I unlocked the door,

14:38

and I was walking right in the hall of

14:40

the mall with the deposit

14:43

on my hand and with the waitress

14:45

right behind me. And all of a

14:47

sudden, 903, we heard this

14:50

explosion. Before

14:52

moving to Oklahoma, Imad had grown up

14:55

in Beirut during the Lebanese Civil War.

14:58

When he heard the distant explosion,

15:00

it sounded familiar, and Imad immediately

15:02

thought a car bomb. Unfortunately,

15:05

growing up in a war-torn zone,

15:07

you could get to distinguish between

15:09

a gas explosion and a

15:12

car explosion. And

15:14

instead of having this normal feeling

15:16

of sadness and grief that

15:18

people are dying, we're scared.

15:22

Imad thought, please God, don't let it be a

15:24

Muslim who did this. Imad

15:29

returned to the restaurant where customers were talking

15:31

about the news. He knew all

15:33

the regulars there, and Imad chatted with one of them.

15:36

I sit down with him all the time. We talk

15:38

politics and so on. And then,

15:40

and I said, have you

15:42

heard what happened downtown? That's terrible. And he looked me

15:45

straight in the eye in front of maybe

15:47

tens of customers. He said, you people have

15:49

better not have done this. You

15:52

people better not have done this. Imad

15:55

was shaken, and he went home. glued

16:00

to the TV to see what's happening and

16:02

the reports come in of

16:04

a brown truck, two Middle Eastern

16:06

guys fleeing the scene. Two

16:09

of the three suspects have been described

16:11

as Middle Eastern men with dark hair

16:13

and beards. The driver of the pickup

16:15

truck that is being sought has not

16:17

yet been identified. And then

16:19

all of a sudden all the reports are talking

16:22

about mosques within the Oklahoma City area, a Muslim

16:25

organization within the Oklahoma City

16:27

area. It turned out that

16:29

one of the Middle Eastern men in the

16:32

pickup truck was Ahmad's friend, a man named

16:34

Ibrahim Ahmad. A neighbor had

16:36

called the FBI and said that Ibrahim

16:38

Ahmad seemed to be in a hurry.

16:41

He was leaving his house, but he wasn't hairy

16:43

because he was going

16:45

overseas and he was late for the airport. Ibrahim

16:48

Ahmad was stopped during a

16:50

layover in Chicago and subjected

16:53

to a humiliating six-hour interrogation.

16:56

He was on his way to Jordan, but he was

16:58

detained again in London. Authorities

17:00

asked Ahmad about his religion. Did

17:03

he attend a mosque? Did he pray?

17:06

Ibrahim Ahmad was then sent back to

17:08

the United States where he was detained.

17:11

And as you mentioned, they suspect it is an

17:13

act of terrorism that was perpetrated by people from

17:15

the Middle East. Here's more on that. In

17:18

the mid-90s, fear of Islamic terrorism was

17:20

in the air. On

17:23

February 26, 1993,

17:25

there was the first attack on the World Trade Center

17:27

in New York. And there were

17:29

similarities to the strike at the Murrah Building.

17:32

Just about two months before the

17:34

Oklahoma City bombing, Ramzi Yousaf, the

17:36

mastermind of the World Trade Center

17:38

attack, was arrested in Pakistan. That

17:42

was a clear act of Islamic

17:44

terrorism. Was Oklahoma City

17:46

another? No. No,

17:50

it wasn't. Just

17:56

two days after the bombing, Ramzi Yousaf was arrested.

18:00

it became very clear that

18:02

Oklahoma City was something very

18:04

different. On

18:06

Friday, April 21, Timothy McVeigh

18:08

was in an orange jumpsuit

18:10

walking out of the Noble

18:12

County Courthouse in Perry, Oklahoma.

18:15

A throng of news cameras caught the image of

18:18

him. A white man. An

18:20

Army veteran with a brush-top crew cut.

18:23

A right-wing extremist. In

18:30

McVeigh's car, authorities found a

18:32

legal-sized envelope containing a few

18:34

dozen pieces of paper. There

18:37

were quotations from the founding fathers.

18:40

There was a copy of the Declaration

18:42

of Independence with McVeigh's handwriting at the

18:44

bottom. It read, Obey the

18:46

Constitution of the United States and we

18:48

won't shoot you. There

18:50

was a bumper sticker that said, When the

18:52

government fears the people, there is liberty. When

18:55

the people fear the government, there is

18:57

tyranny. Beneath that, McVeigh scrawled,

18:59

maybe now there will be liberty.

19:03

The Oklahoma City bombing was

19:05

a clear act of homegrown

19:07

domestic terrorism. At

19:25

the tone, please say your name. It's

19:28

Tim Edorino. Please

19:32

hold while we attempt to obtain acceptance

19:34

of the charges. A

19:39

few months after his arrest, Timothy

19:42

McVeigh called James Nichols the brother

19:44

of his co-conspirator, Terry Nichols. Please

19:47

go ahead. Yes, what's the

19:50

matter with my speaking? Who's this?

19:52

Tim. Tim. Hey,

19:54

good to talk to you, James. What the hell are you

19:56

doing calling me, man? Listen, man, you're numbers busy.

19:58

I'm trying to get you to the right. I

20:01

just got a phone call and somebody

20:03

was playing music. Stupid is up

20:05

my recorder and I was, what the hell is going on

20:07

here? McVey wanted to warn

20:09

James not to send him any mail because

20:12

he knew that the Feds were watching. Well,

20:14

listen, I just want to advise you very quick

20:17

of one new trick in the

20:19

bag of tricks that we're starting to play

20:21

today, okay? They're

20:23

seeding the mail, at least mine, under

20:26

the guise of continuing investigation

20:28

on the bag. You

20:30

get a good sense of McVey

20:32

from this call. Smug, confident, unapologetic.

20:35

So don't have anybody send anything, you know, like Bob

20:37

or anything. I

20:39

haven't gotten mail for two days and it's quickly

20:41

evident where it's going because, you know, there's never

20:44

been a day when I haven't gotten any mail.

20:47

So they're seizing it completely? Yeah,

20:49

completely. They hadn't, we

20:52

learned that they were doing it. There are

20:54

not a lot of recordings of McVey out

20:56

there and as a result, McVey is kind

20:58

of flat in our national consciousness, just

21:00

some lunatic who's not worth thinking too much

21:02

about. In

21:04

order to fill out who McVey really was,

21:07

I wanted to talk to the man who's

21:09

probably spent more time thinking about him than

21:11

anyone else, his lawyer, Steven

21:13

Jones. So lead the way. Oh,

21:15

sure. Where would you like to talk? Well,

21:19

since this is audio, I assume that probably

21:22

the living room was the best place for

21:24

the interview. Steven Jones lives a

21:26

couple of hours north of Oklahoma City in a

21:28

house so regal that it has a name. It's

21:31

called Elmstead. Elmstead was

21:34

modeled after Mount Vernon, George Washington's

21:36

historic home. For

21:38

about two years, Steven Jones was

21:41

in almost constant contact with Timothy

21:43

McVey. He first met

21:45

his notorious client on Monday, May 8, 1995,

21:47

when Jones drove to the El Reno

21:51

prison outside Oklahoma City. As

21:54

I walked in, he stood up and I walked over

21:56

to him, extended my hand. He

21:58

shook it and I said, Mr. McVey. My name is

22:01

Stephen Jones. I've been appointed by the federal

22:03

court to represent you. And

22:06

he said, well, I heard you were coming. And

22:10

I said, well, why

22:12

don't you sit down a little bit and tell

22:14

me about yourself and the marshals and

22:16

the warden withdrew. And so we were alone for about 20

22:19

minutes. And

22:22

it was a light conversation. I asked him if

22:24

he had made a statement. He said, no. And

22:29

I said, well, everything you say over

22:31

the telephone, except perhaps talking to me,

22:33

is tape recorded. And you may be

22:35

assured that they will listen

22:37

to it. And they're

22:40

going to be watching you. He

22:42

said he understood, very cordial. Certainly,

22:45

he gave the appearance of

22:48

cooperation and earnestness. In

22:51

time, the relationship between Jones and

22:53

McVeigh would disintegrate. But let's be

22:56

clear about one thing from the start. From

22:59

day one, McVeigh told his lawyer

23:01

that he did bomb the Murrow

23:03

building. McVeigh was proud of it.

23:06

He also said that he acted alone, though

23:08

with a little help from Terry Nichols. The

23:12

next day, Jones returned to the prison

23:14

to walk through the whole story. My

23:17

memory is that I

23:19

got there about 10 o'clock and I didn't leave till 10

23:21

PM. And I

23:24

have no memory of doing anything else other

23:26

than listening to him. If I had lunch or

23:28

went to the restroom or got something to drink,

23:31

I don't remember that. I didn't take any notes.

23:34

I just said, start where you

23:36

are comfortable with. And I

23:38

listened. When they got to the

23:40

bombing, McVeigh was relaxed, almost serene. He

23:43

had no regrets. The destruction

23:45

of all those lives in Oklahoma City

23:47

was more than just permissible. It was

23:49

mandatory, all part of his

23:51

duty as a patriotic American. He

23:54

could recite the Declaration of Independence at

23:56

length. He

23:59

knew kind of a... some basic elements of

24:01

the common law, necessity. I

24:04

do remember as I listened, what

24:06

was going through my mind was like an eight

24:08

millimeter camera, and I was seeing in my mind

24:12

these people falling to their death and

24:16

being crushed because most of the victims died

24:18

as a result of traumatic injury from the

24:20

collapse of the building. As

24:22

a lawyer, Stephen Jones had an

24:24

incredibly difficult job in defending his

24:26

admittedly guilty client. He needed

24:28

to present a sympathetic version of Timothy

24:30

McVeigh to the jury. So

24:33

Jones interviewed him over and over,

24:35

searching for any early clues as

24:37

to why he killed so many

24:39

people. Inside the prison,

24:42

Jones sifted through every detail

24:44

of McVeigh's biography. Tim

24:48

grew up in Lockport, New York. His

24:50

father had a

24:53

union job, same kind of job

24:55

his father had. He worked on the

24:57

assembly line. The McVeighs were a blue

24:59

collar family, living just north of Buffalo.

25:02

Tim's father, Bill, worked the night shift at

25:04

the Harrison Radiator Factory for 30 years. In

25:08

1963, Bill McVeigh met Tim's

25:10

mother, Mildred, nicknamed Mickey, at

25:12

a DeSales Catholic High School

25:15

alumni bowling event. And

25:17

Mr. McVeigh

25:19

Sr., the dad, kinda

25:22

had a routine to life. He bowled every

25:24

Thursday. And

25:27

maybe every year, every other year, he and some of

25:29

his buddies on the line would go

25:31

to Las Vegas. Bill and Mickey

25:33

were mismatched from the start. Bill

25:35

was dutiful and a homebody. Mickey

25:37

was bubbly and outgoing. She

25:40

had wanted to be a flight attendant, but settled

25:42

for a part-time job as a travel agent. They

25:45

both drank. Bill, beer, Mickey

25:47

whiskey sours, and they built

25:49

a conventionally unhappy life together.

25:53

Bill and Mickey would have three kids,

25:56

two daughters and one son, Tim, the

25:58

middle child. parents lived

26:00

in a nice home, Union

26:03

wages provided that, and

26:06

they had a quiet middle class life

26:09

and a nice suburb of working

26:12

class blue collar people. As

26:14

a kid, Tim liked Sesame Street and

26:16

then comic books. He was an adequate

26:18

student, rarely created problems, and won awards

26:21

for perfect attendance. Given the

26:23

ordinariness of Tim's life, the question

26:25

is what did turn him

26:27

into the man that

26:30

helped in blowing up an

26:33

office building and killing 168 people. That

26:37

took a while, Jeff, it's

26:40

like peeling back an onion.

26:43

At the heart of McVeigh's psyche was

26:47

a hatred of

26:49

bullies. And

26:52

that had started early in his life, and

26:56

it was the subject of fantasy. His

26:58

bedroom was next to his parents' room, and

27:01

they were constantly arguing at night,

27:03

particularly his mother. And

27:06

he could hear all of it, the parents

27:09

arguing day after day after day or night

27:11

after night. And so

27:13

to distract himself from

27:15

it, he had a

27:18

sketch pad, and he started drawing

27:20

pictures of dragons and

27:23

people that were standing up to them. The

27:25

dragons were the bullies, and here were these

27:27

helpless people. And so he

27:29

began to see life as us versus

27:32

them, bullies. Bill

27:34

and Mickey got a divorce in 1984 when Tim was 16. Now

27:39

when they were divorced, the

27:41

status of Tim's life

27:43

changed. Tim

27:47

didn't tell anyone until much later that

27:49

he felt abandoned by his mother. A

27:51

year after the bombing, Bill McVeigh was

27:53

interviewed for an ABC News special hosted

27:55

by Peter Jennings. Was he upset

27:57

when his mom left? He

28:00

didn't show it. I mean, I hear

28:02

now he was, but he really didn't show

28:04

it. What do you mean

28:06

you hear now he was? Well, you read all this stuff,

28:09

you know, in the newspapers, and you don't know

28:11

what to believe. Bill and Tim already

28:14

had a tense relationship, but now

28:16

the McVeigh men were left to fend for

28:18

themselves. I've got the strong impression that

28:20

was very tough on you. It was. Mickey

28:23

took custody of Tim's sisters and they

28:26

moved to Florida. Later, Tim told

28:28

a coworker that his mother was a slut,

28:30

poor and drunk, and that he hated her.

28:34

After the divorce, Bill and Tim

28:36

downsized to a smaller home. Living

28:38

alone with his dad in his final

28:40

years of high school, Tim found the

28:42

consuming interest in his life. Guns.

28:46

It was a passion that he inherited. What

28:49

he did have was a grandfather.

28:53

And Mr. McVeigh, the

28:55

father's father, who was still alive. And

28:58

he was a survivalist. He

29:03

was a hunter. He

29:05

and Tim spent a lot of time together. And

29:08

I think that's the member of the family that

29:10

Tim bonded the closest with. When

29:13

Tim was nine years old, his grandfather

29:15

gave him a BB gun. When Tim

29:18

was 15, he applied for a hunting

29:20

license, but he was never much interested

29:22

in actually hunting. He just loved owning

29:24

and shooting guns. Tim took a

29:27

part-time job at Burger King and he plowed

29:29

most of his money into weapons. To get

29:31

away from the tension in his house, McVeigh

29:33

would take long walks in the woods with

29:35

whatever guns happened to be around. As

29:38

a teenager in the mid-80s, McVeigh

29:40

joined the National Rifle Association. This

29:42

happened to be a transformative moment

29:45

in the politics of guns. The

30:01

NRA was originally founded as an

30:03

apolitical organization devoted to shooting skills

30:06

and gun safety, but by the

30:08

time McVeigh joined, it was turning

30:10

ferociously partisan. Preserve

30:13

your heritage of freedom. Join

30:15

the National Rifle Association. For

30:18

200 years, the Second Amendment was

30:20

understood to apply only to guns

30:22

for state militias. But

30:24

starting in the 80s, the NRA

30:26

pushed the idea that the Constitution

30:28

endowed individuals with the right to

30:30

bear arms. McVeigh

30:33

had joined an ascendant political

30:35

crusade, which grew more extreme

30:37

over the course of his

30:39

lifetime and beyond. He quickly

30:41

began devouring the NRA's publication.

30:43

For just $20, you'll receive the

30:45

privileges and benefits of NRA membership,

30:47

including 12 exciting issues of

30:49

the American Rifleman or American Hunter magazine.

30:53

The teenage McVeigh faithfully read

30:55

American Hunter, the NRA's official

30:57

magazine. Leaping through pages

30:59

and pages about guns, a

31:01

disgruntled kid from Buffalo found

31:03

something that would trigger his

31:06

descent into far-right extremism. In

31:08

the magazine's back pages, Tim saw

31:10

an ad for a novel. After

31:13

the book arrived, he read it and it

31:16

changed his life. The novel

31:18

was called The Turner Diaries, and

31:20

it became the direct inspiration for

31:22

the Oklahoma City bombing. In

31:49

2017, at the Unite the Right

31:52

rally in Charlottesville, Virginia, there was a

31:54

march of young white men in khaki

31:56

pants and polo shirts. They

31:59

were protesting the right to the right. removal of a

32:01

statue of Confederate General Robert

32:03

E. Lee. Choose will not

32:06

replace us. While

32:10

holding torches, they chanted, Jews will

32:12

not replace us. That

32:14

chant embodied a deep white

32:17

supremacist paranoid belief that powerful

32:19

Jews were pulling on the

32:21

levers of society to dilute

32:23

the white race. In

32:25

more recent years, during the Trump

32:28

era, the slightly sanitized version of

32:30

this idea is called the Great

32:32

Replacement Theory. The Great Replacement? Yeah.

32:35

It's not a conspiracy theory. It's

32:38

their electoral strategy. Tucker

32:40

Carlson, when he was at Fox News,

32:43

helped promote this idea. The Democratic Party

32:45

is trying to replace the current electorate

32:48

with new people, more obedient voters from the

32:50

Third World. Let's just say it. That's true.

32:52

Everyone wants to make a racial issue

32:54

out of it. Ooh, the white replacement theory.

32:56

No, no, no. It turns

32:58

out that in America, at least, one

33:01

origin for the Great Replacement Theory can

33:03

be found in Timothy McVeigh's favorite book.

33:06

It's the central plot of the

33:08

dystopian novel The Turner Diaries. It's

33:12

difficult to overstate the influence of

33:14

the Turner Diaries in thinking about

33:16

the white power movement. Kathleen Belew

33:18

is a professor of history at Northwestern

33:20

University and a leading authority on the

33:23

white power movement. The book

33:25

answers a really important imaginative question

33:27

for this movement, which is, how

33:30

can a very small group of

33:32

people hope to

33:34

oppose the most militarized

33:36

super state in world history? How can

33:38

a tiny cell of

33:40

guerrillas take on the United States Army?

33:42

I think the book calls

33:45

this the problem of a gnat trying

33:47

to assassinate an elephant. The

33:49

Turner Diaries was first published in

33:51

the late 1970s, and it

33:53

was written by a man named William Luther

33:55

Pierce. He was the leader

33:57

and founder of... the

34:00

most preeminent hate group in the world

34:02

during its time, the National Alliance. The

34:06

National Alliance was a white

34:08

supremacist neo-Nazi organization. Pierce

34:11

was first introduced to Nazi ideology

34:13

while working as a physics professor

34:15

at Oregon State University, where he

34:17

opposed the civil rights and anti-war

34:19

movements. Pierce wrote the Turner Diaries

34:22

as a call to arms for

34:24

militant racists everywhere. Here he

34:26

is reading from the audiobook. Since

34:28

the publication of the Turner Diaries,

34:31

it has attracted a considerable amount

34:33

of attention. That attention is

34:35

now spreading beyond the English-speaking world

34:37

to white men and women everywhere,

34:40

and it can only grow in the future. William

34:43

Luther Pierce died in 2002. Calvin

34:46

Pierce is his son. Personally,

34:49

he was an extremely

34:52

abusive man. You know,

34:54

he was very abusive to me. He

34:57

started beating me before I was two years old. My

35:00

first beatings were during potty training,

35:04

and it just kind of escalated from there. Calvin

35:07

was raised in the white power movement,

35:09

and he believed what his dad taught

35:11

him, that Jews and non-whites were responsible

35:13

for all of society's ills. Calvin's

35:16

own beliefs started to change when he began mixing

35:18

with different kinds of people at college, where

35:20

he was on the track team. You

35:24

know, I had invited my mom to come and

35:26

come to one of my meets, and she actually

35:29

said, well, your father's actually going to come. And

35:32

so when he came to that track meet,

35:34

I found out that the reason why he

35:36

came was because I was in a college

35:38

in Harrisonburg, Virginia, and that's where his publisher

35:40

was. He did come to

35:42

the track meet, but he

35:44

showed up after the meet was over. So

35:47

I only saw him for like 10

35:49

minutes. And that was my first knowledge

35:52

of the book. sinister

36:00

Jewish cabal known as the

36:02

system. Earl Turner, the hero

36:04

of the book and its

36:06

narrator, leads a secret resistance

36:08

group called the Organization. It

36:11

is a cancer too deeply rooted in our flesh

36:14

and if we don't destroy the system before

36:16

it destroys us, if we don't

36:18

cut this cancer out of our living flesh,

36:21

our whole race will die. Basically

36:24

it just tells the story of the

36:27

violent overthrow of the U.S. government and

36:29

the creation of a whites-only

36:31

homeland in the United States,

36:34

which is what my dad, every

36:37

waking moment, was working

36:39

toward that goal. In

36:42

the book, the system is stacked to

36:44

favor black people and to discriminate against

36:46

whites. Under its rules,

36:48

black people are allowed to attack

36:50

whites with impunity, and whites are

36:53

punished for defending themselves. The

36:55

plot revolves around the evils of

36:57

gun control. That's when the Turner

36:59

Diaries was advertised in an NRA

37:01

magazine where a young, gun-loving Timothy

37:04

McVeigh found it. At

37:06

the beginning of the novel, the

37:08

system passes a law where all

37:10

privately owned firearms are confiscated by

37:13

the government. The law

37:15

is called the Cohen Act. Subtle,

37:18

huh? In response to the

37:20

Cohen Act, Earl Turner commits

37:22

an act of terrorism. Timothy

37:27

McVeigh loved the Turner Diaries.

37:30

He bought many, many, many

37:32

copies. You know, he drove around the

37:35

country visiting gun shows, selling

37:37

copies of the book to others. Sometimes he would

37:39

sell the book at less than what he paid

37:41

for it because he felt it was so important

37:43

that people read it. In

37:45

the book, Earl Turner places a truck

37:47

bomb in front of the FBI building

37:50

in Washington. The book describes

37:52

the making of the bomb in minute

37:54

detail. Turner and his allies assemble

37:56

about 5,000 pounds of

37:58

ammonium nitrate fertilizer. cases

38:01

of blasting gelatin, and sticks of

38:03

dynamite stolen from a construction shed.

38:06

When the day comes, Turner sets

38:08

off the bomb without warning, killing

38:10

about 700 people. There

38:13

is no way we can destroy

38:15

the system without hurting many thousands

38:17

of innocent people. No way. The

38:20

bombing then sets off a race

38:23

war that consumes the entire country,

38:25

with whites emerging victorious. We

38:27

are now settling the score with your

38:30

pals and the political police. Soon

38:32

we'll settle the score with you and

38:34

all other traitors. White America

38:37

shall live. For the

38:39

Oklahoma City bombing, the Turner

38:41

Diaries was McVeigh's blueprint. You

38:44

know, the Oklahoma City bombing, that

38:46

bomb that he used was almost

38:48

identical to a bomb

38:51

that was used in the book. At the

38:53

center of it all, of course, is the

38:55

bombed out shell of the Federal Office building.

38:58

So McVeigh basically just

39:00

copied that formula,

39:02

and that's what he used for his

39:04

bombing. The bomb, which may have contained the

39:06

explosive equivalent of 2,000 pounds

39:09

of dynamite, was apparently driven in

39:11

a Ryder rental van. And

39:13

he had pages from the book in

39:16

his car when he was arrested after

39:18

the bombing. Among the

39:20

stack of so-called patriotic texts in

39:22

McVeigh's car was a photocopied page

39:25

from the Turner Diaries. McVeigh had

39:27

used a yellow highlighter to mark

39:29

this passage. The real value

39:31

of all our attacks today lies

39:33

in the psychological impact, not

39:36

in the immediate casualties. More

39:39

important, though, is what we taught the

39:41

politicians and the bureaucrats. They

39:43

learned this afternoon that not one of

39:46

them is beyond our reach. Professor

39:49

Kathleen Belew again. The movement

39:51

that brought McVeigh to the

39:53

Oklahoma City building is the same movement

39:56

that brings us up to the

39:58

present. you

40:00

know, decades if not generations deep. Timothy

40:03

McVeigh wanted the Oklahoma City bombing to

40:05

start a revolution, just like Earl Turner

40:07

did in the Turner Diaries. And across

40:10

decades of far-right violence in America, that

40:12

book is a straight line that connects

40:14

what McVeigh did in April 1995 to

40:17

what we're seeing today. Oh,

40:23

who's out? Oh, how?

40:26

Who's out? Six weeks before

40:28

January 6th, on an online show

40:31

called War Boys, Joe Biggs

40:33

of the Proud Boys railed against those

40:35

who were attempting to honor the results

40:37

of the 2020 election. Then

40:40

he said this. They are evil scum,

40:42

and they all deserve to die a traitor's

40:45

death. Yep. Day

40:47

of the rope. The Day of

40:49

the Rope is the cataclysmic day of

40:51

violence in the Turner Diaries. Today has

40:53

been the Day of the Rope. A

40:56

grim and bloody day, but

40:58

an unavoidable one. One

41:01

of the things that we saw on

41:03

the Capitol riot on January 6th was

41:05

the prominent placement of a

41:07

noose outside of the Capitol building. That's

41:10

a direct reference to the Day of the

41:12

Rope, which is also the kind of ritualized

41:14

killing of politicians. I'm

41:18

sure that with the forceful lesson of

41:21

this Day of the Rope, we

41:23

would not have so quickly elicited this

41:25

sort of citizen cooperation. The

41:28

hangings have helped everyone get off the fence in

41:30

a hurry. There

41:34

is an attack on the U.S. Capitol that's

41:36

very similar. In Turner

41:38

Diaries, it's a mortar assault. Mortars

41:41

are marvelous little weapons. About

41:43

45 seconds after the second round, the

41:46

third one landed on the roof of

41:48

the south wing of the Capitol and

41:50

exploded inside the building. It's

41:52

I think just six people are killed, and

41:55

the goal is not mass casualty. The goal is to

41:57

show that they can strike at the heart of the

41:59

Capitol. of power and

42:02

awaken, quote unquote, others to

42:04

their cause. That

42:06

to me accords with the way

42:08

that January 6 unfolded where we

42:10

didn't see major casualties, but we

42:13

did see this intense attempt

42:15

to sort of strike at the heart of power and

42:17

use it as a recruitment event. The

42:21

Oklahoma City bombing and January 6

42:23

were born out of the same

42:25

three ideological motives. The

42:27

obsession with gun rights, the

42:29

perceived approval of the founding fathers,

42:32

and the belief in the value

42:35

and legitimacy of violence. The

42:37

same ideas that inspired McVeigh's rage

42:39

are now everywhere in the far

42:41

right. I think when we think

42:43

about an event like the Oklahoma City bombing,

42:46

it's very easy to see it as a

42:49

staggering, horrifying tragedy. And the way

42:51

that we approach something like that

42:53

almost requires us to see it

42:55

as a standalone event. There

42:58

are ways that that's right. That's right for the

43:00

people who lost somebody that day. That's right for

43:02

the city that's never had something quite like that

43:04

before. But that singular

43:07

moment of the bombing has

43:09

such a long and dense

43:11

history within the white power

43:13

movement. It

43:16

took me a while to discover what the

43:19

Oklahoma City bombing could teach us about today.

43:22

The story I covered back in

43:24

the mid 90's focused on how

43:26

McVeigh and his friend Terry Nichols

43:28

methodically planned and carried out their

43:30

monstrous plot, and how the people

43:32

of Oklahoma bravely responded. It's

43:35

an amazing and horrifying true crime

43:37

story and we do tell that story

43:39

in this podcast. But

43:41

I'm also going to go back and do

43:44

what I didn't do when I originally covered

43:46

the trial. I'm going to

43:48

tell you the full story of Timothy McVeigh.

43:50

How a decorated army veteran became

43:53

consumed with rage at the federal

43:55

government. How his anger

43:57

at news events of the day spiraled.

44:00

him into extremism. How

44:02

he somehow went underground and built a

44:05

bomb that did 50 blocks

44:07

of damage in a modern city. And

44:10

how everything that led to the horror of

44:12

April 19, 1995, is still very

44:16

present in America. We

44:19

shouldn't see this as one person, and we shouldn't

44:21

see this as one event. Coming

44:24

up on Homegrown. I

44:26

was like, I knew something was

44:28

wrong with him. I knew it. Man,

44:31

didn't it was a racist? These people

44:33

have come to a point where they're

44:35

actually calling for a civil war. They're

44:37

actually hoping it happens. Waco

44:40

was the trigger for

44:43

his planning the Oklahoma

44:45

City bombing. He says, my

44:48

weapon is loaded. And so I nudged

44:50

him with the barrel of my weapon in the back of his

44:52

head. I said, so was mine. And

44:54

he said to me, you don't understand. We're at war.

44:56

I said, no, we're not. We're

44:58

at war. I have to kill him.

45:00

I'm going to kill Joe because I

45:02

have the capability. From the day I

45:04

met him, he was all about the

45:06

government trying to take our guns. But

45:08

the extreme behavior didn't start till after

45:10

we had come back from Desert Storm.

45:20

Homegrown Oklahoma City is a USG

45:22

audio podcast produced by Western Sound

45:24

in association with S. Mel Corp.

45:27

It's reported, written and hosted by

45:29

me, Jeffrey Toobin. Executive

45:31

producers are Josh Block at USG

45:34

Audio, Sam Esmail and Chad Hamilton

45:36

at S. Mel Corp., and Western

45:38

Sounds' Ben Adair and Colin McNulty,

45:41

who was also the editor. Production

45:43

support from Josh Lalongi at USG

45:45

Audio. The producer and sound designer

45:47

is Tyler Hill. The

45:50

associate producer is Stella Hartman. The

45:53

producer from S. Mel Corp. is Sarah

45:55

Matty. Original theme and

45:57

engineering by Alex McGinnis. Checking

46:00

by Nicole McNulty and Savannah Wright.

46:02

Special thanks to Betsy Shepard and

46:05

Dan Leone. Our gratitude also to

46:07

the Oklahoma City National Memorial and

46:09

Museum and to the Briscoe Center

46:12

at the University of Texas. For

46:14

more information on this podcast and

46:16

other podcasts from USG Audio, go

46:18

to our website, usgaudio.com.

46:22

And to learn even more, read

46:24

my book, Homegrown, Timothy McVeigh and

46:26

the Rise of Right-Wing Extremism.