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The prosecution in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) submits a piece of wood into evidence that it says links Nichols to the bombing. The piece of wood has ammonium nitrate fertilizer crystals embedded in it, the same type of fertilizer used in the bomb that killed 168 people. The same fertilizer was found at Nichols's Herington, Kansas, home (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). The wood was found by a search team on April 21, 1995, in a parking lot across the street from the Murrah Federal Building. Prosecutors say the wood came from the side of the rented Ryder truck (see April 15, 1995) that convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) used to deliver the bomb. FBI agent Alton Wilson testifies that "it appears to have come from the box panel from the Ryder truck." FBI laboratory supervisor Steven G. Burmeister testifies that when he and other FBI agents searched Nichols's home, they found explosives, including ammonium nitrate pellets. Ammonium nitrate is the fertilizer that was the main ingredient of the bomb. "They were on the steps leading up to the porch area," Burmeister testifies. He also says the search turned up Primadet blasting caps, which are used to detonate explosives. Defense lawyers claim the wood was mishandled by FBI crime lab analysts; FBI chemist Ronald Kelly admits in testimony that he did not follow the proper steps in recovering and handling the wood. (New York Times 11/29/1997) In cross-examination testimony, Burmeister says that he photographed the wood in April 1995, documenting the existence of the ammonium nitrate crystals embedded in it. When he examined the wood in November 1996, he realized that the crystals had disappeared from it. Burmeister says he believes the crystals disappeared as a result of testing in other sections of the lab. (Thomas 12/2/1997)
Experts testify in the trial of Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) that the bomb used to destroy the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was probably made with ammonium nitrate. Prosecutors have shown that Nichols bought two tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer and stored it, along with other bomb components, in lockers rented under false names (see November 6, 1997). In aggressive cross-examination, defense lawyer Michael Tigar attempts to cast doubt on the forensic evidence presented by the experts. FBI laboratory supervisor Steven G. Burmeister, who has already defended his findings on ammonium nitrate crystals found in a shard of wood he and other experts believe was from the Ryder truck used to deliver the bomb (see November 28 - December 2, 1997), admits that nitromethane that, according to an FBI report, was found in Nichols's home might have come from a container of model airplane fuel. Burmeister says that the evidence of nitromethane was found near model airplane parts; nitromethane is used in model airplane fuel. "When you reported out your results, did you report that you had found model airplane fuel and a model airplane?" Tigar asks, and Burmeister replies, "No." Tigar then emphasizes: "You just reported you had found nitromethane. Right?" Burmeister responds, "The result was nitromethane and methanol." Tigar continues to press, saying: "But did you take steps to make sure that people were going to understand that this was found right next to some model airplane parts? Did you do that?" Burmeister says he did not. British explosive expert Linda Jones, who testified in the trial of convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997), says she believes the bomb weighed 3,000 to 6,000 pounds and contained ammonium nitrate. Its other elements were apparently consumed in the explosion. The prosecution has called Jones as an independent expert because of widespread criticism of the FBI laboratory and its employees (see January 27, 1997 and April 16, 1997). (Thomas 12/2/1997)
The prosecution concludes its case against accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) with a gripping story by Marine Captain Matthew Cooper, telling of his attempts to rescue colleagues from the rubble of the devastated Murrah Federal Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Legal experts say the prosecution presented a convincing, but not necessarily overwhelming, case against Nichols, who is charged with eight counts of first-degree murder and four counts of conspiracy related to the bombing. Nichols's co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh, has already been sentenced to death for the crime (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Essentially, the prosecution used a mountain of circumstantial evidence to tie Nichols to the crime, even though he was not in Oklahoma City on the day of the bombing (see April 16-17, 1995). Law professor Christopher Mueller says, "There is a huge combination of circumstances that connect Nichols to McVeigh just as there was a huge combination of circumstances connecting McVeigh to the bombing." Legal analyst Andrew Cohen says: "If the jurors followed the prosecution's story, then Nichols is in big trouble. But the defense has already done a good job showing that there are inconsistencies and contradictions and those could be enough to hang a jury." Analysts say the prosecutors were less successful in introducing emotion into the Nichols trial than the prosecutors in the McVeigh trial. And prosecution eyewitnesses such as Cooper and Michael Fortier (see November 12-13, 1997) were less effective in this trial than they were in testifying against McVeigh. Nichols's defense lawyers have successfully challenged the prosecution's attempts to have witnesses like Cooper tell graphic and emotionally wrenching stories; today, Cooper's testimony is brief and matter-of-fact, whereas during his testimony in McVeigh's trial, he was detailed and emotional, breaking into tears during his stint on the stand. Also, analysts say, the prosecution was not entirely successful in portraying Nichols's motive for taking part in the bomb plot. (Romano and Kenworthy 12/3/1997)
Defense lawyers continue their attempt to show that their client, accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997), was not involved in the conspiracy to bomb the Murrah Federal Building (see December 2-3, 1997), but that others besides Nichols worked with convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Two witnesses, James L. Sergent and Georgia Rucker, testify that they saw a large Ryder truck parked at Geary State Fishing Lake, north of Herington, Kansas, where Nichols lives, on April 10, 11, and 12, 1995. Prosecutors say that McVeigh and Nichols brought a Ryder truck to that lake on April 18 to assemble the bomb (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Rucker says she saw the same truck at the lake on April 18. Their testimony is designed to bolster the contention that more than just two people took part in building the bomb (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). Defense lawyers also challenge the credibility of Roger E. Moore, an Arkansas gun dealer whom prosecutors say was robbed by Nichols as part of an attempt to finance the bomb construction (see November 17-18, 1997 and November 19, 1997). Defense witness Larry Hethcox says that Moore later told him the robber took many more items than he originally claimed in police reports. However, the prosecution forces Hethcox to acknowledge that the serial number of one of the guns found in Nichols's house (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995) was of a gun Hethcox sold to Moore. (Thomas 12/5/1997)
The defense in the trial of Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) mounts an attack on Nichols's alleged co-conspirator, convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Nichols's lawyers present evidence showing that McVeigh is an anti-government zealot who passed out extremist literature and even wore a T-shirt showing a wanted poster for Abraham Lincoln to a child's birthday party—the same shirt he wore the day of the bombing. Witnesses testify that McVeigh gave them copies of the same anti-government literature found in the home of Nichols during an FBI search (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). Defense lawyers say that Nichols was just one of many people to whom McVeigh gave such literature, and that McVeigh was a far more committed extremist than Nichols. The defense introduces a letter McVeigh wrote to "S.C.," a person the FBI believes to be Steven Garrett Colbern, a drifter with a degree in biochemistry and an interest in explosives, though investigators quickly cleared Colbern of any involvement in the bombing plot (see May 12, 1995). The letter was taped to an electrical tower in the California desert, near the Arizona state line, and found by electrical worker Donald E. Pipins (see November 30, 1994). The letter says in part: "I'm not looking for talkers. I'm looking for fighters," men who could share "a common, righteous goal." Pipins testifies to his finding the letter. (Romano 11/14/1997; Thomas 12/6/1997)
The defense in the Terry Nichols bombing conspiracy trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) presents an array of witnesses who say they saw convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) in the company of someone besides Nichols in the days before the bombing. The defense intends to portray the still-unidentified "John Doe No. 2" (see April 15, 1995, April 18, 1995, April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, and April 29, 1995) as McVeigh's accomplice, and not Nichols. Government officials have long claimed that "John Doe No. 2" was a misidentification by witnesses of a person who had no involvement in the bomb plot, Private Todd Bunting of Fort Riley, Kansas (see June 14, 1995). Prosecutors say that those witnesses who claim to have seen "John Doe No. 2" might have seen Bunting or other Fort Riley soldiers with other Ryder trucks aside from that used by McVeigh to deliver the bomb (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995), or were influenced by the wanted poster.
Dishwasher Resembled Sketch - Darvin Ray Bates, the former mayor of Waurika, Oklahoma, says in May 1995 he hired a drifter to work as a dishwasher in his Duncan, Oklahoma restaurant. The drifter resembled the sketch federal officials circulated of "John Doe No. 2," Bates testifies. He says, "I could never pronounce his name, and he said, 'Just call me John'." Bates says the man told him he was from Kingman, Arizona, the same town where McVeigh lived. In the days after the bombing, Bates testifies, he told "John" that he looked like the sketch of "John Doe No. 2," and the man never returned to work. Bates informed the FBI of the encounter, but, he says, an agent told him "they had the two arrested that they needed in the case, and if they needed additional information they could call me." No one from the FBI contacted Bates again.
Saw Man Accompanying McVeigh One Hour before Bombing - Morris John Kuper, Jr, a computer specialist, testifies that on April 21, two days after the bombing, he told FBI agents that he saw two men getting into an old car across the street from his parking lot at the Kerr-McGee Corporation in Oklahoma City about an hour before the April 19 bombing. One man looked like McVeigh, he testifies, while the other resembled "John Doe No. 2." Kuper says it took months for FBI agents to contact him about his sighting. Obstetrical nurse Mary Martinez has already testified about seeing McVeigh and "John Doe No. 2" in a Ryder truck in Junction City, Kansas two days before the bombing; prosecutors were able to cast strong doubts upon her story (see December 2-3, 1997).
Sightings of Man At Motel - Hilda Sostre, a maid at the Dreamland Motel, where McVeigh stayed for four days before the bombing, testifies she saw a man resembling "John Doe No. 2" at the motel on April 17, two days before the bombing. She says she saw him walking towards a large Ryder truck. If accurate, Sostre's sighting conflicts with the prosecution's assertion that McVeigh did not bring the truck to the motel until much later that day. Shane M. Boyd, who was staying at the Dreamland, testifies that he saw a man resembling "John Doe No. 2" at the motel on Saturday, April 15. Boyd says he passed the man while walking back to his room (see April 13, 1995).
Store Worker Saw McVeigh, Man Together - Rose Mary Zinn says that on April 17, she was working alone in a store in Lincolnville, Kansas, when two men came in. "One was blond and white, and the other one was a dark-complected guy," she testifies. "The dark-colored guy looked mean. So I know this might sound silly, but I thought, uh-oh, I'm going to be robbed." Instead of robbing her, they bought cigarettes and soda and left. She says she watched them get into a large Ryder truck. She cannot testify to the men's features, and says the blond man was shorter than his companion; McVeigh is described as being significantly taller than "John Doe No. 2."
Father and Son Saw Two Men at Lake - Raymond Siek, who was returning from a funeral on the afternoon of April 17, says he noticed a Ryder truck at Geary State Fishing Lake, the place where prosecutors say the bomb was built on April 18. Siek testifies that he saw two men, and turned to his son, Kevin Siek, and observed, "I wonder what those idiots are doing down there in the rain." Kevin Siek also testifies: his story is that he saw three men that day, with the third being shorter and perhaps an adolescent.
Other Sightings - On April 17, two people working at the body shop that rented McVeigh the Ryder truck, Eldon Elliott and Vicki Beemer, have said they saw McVeigh and another man in the shop, but neither can describe the second man. Estella Weigel, a health care worker, has already testified she saw a man who looked like "John Doe No. 2" driving an old Mercury similar in year and color to one owned by McVeigh sometime between 7 and 8 a.m. on April 17 (see December 2-3, 1997). (Thomas 12/10/1997)
Marife Nichols (see July - December 1990), the wife of accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997), gives what analysts call a powerful defense of her husband during trial testimony. Her testimony is combined with that of three others to cast doubt on the prosecution's assertions that Nichols conspired with convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) to build and detonate the bomb that killed 168 people. The defense, already having attempted to establish that an unidentified person and not Nichols conspired with McVeigh (see December 2-3, 1997, December 4, 1997, and December 9, 1997), now tries to allege that McVeigh was a member of a much larger conspiracy that federal law-enforcement officials never seriously explored. The indictments against both McVeigh and Nichols say that "persons unknown" may have assisted McVeigh and Nichols in the bomb plot. The Washington Post observes that while the others' testimonies may have helped Nichols, Nichols's wife's testimony may have "done more harm than good." The New York Times agrees, saying that her testimony "seemed to confirm some of the strongest evidence against him." (Thomas 12/11/1997; Romano 12/12/1997; Thomas 12/12/1997)
Mechanic Testifies to Seeing Five Men at Bomb Building Site - Charles Farley, a mechanic from Wakefield, Kansas, testifies that on April 18, 1995, around 6:00 p.m., he came across five men and four vehicles, including a large Ryder truck and a farm truck laden with bags of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, at Geary State Fishing Lake, near Herington, Kansas. Prosecutors believe that McVeigh and Nichols alone built the bomb at the state park sometime on the morning of April 18 (see 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995 and 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995). Farley says he later saw one of the men, an older man with gray hair and a beard, on television. A photo of the man is shown to the jury, but the man is not identified. Sources say the man is the leader of a Kansas paramilitary group.
BATF Informant Testifies - Carol Howe, a former informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF—see August 1994 - March 1995), then testifies, linking McVeigh to white supremacist Dennis Mahon and a group of Christian Identity supremacists living at Elohim City, Oklahoma (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995). Howe says in the spring of 1994, Mahon took a call from a man he identified as "Tim Tuttle," a known alias of McVeigh's (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994). Howe says she never told BATF or any other federal agents about the conversation because she did not know "Tuttle" was McVeigh. Howe also says she saw McVeigh at Elohim City in July 1994, in the company of two Elohim City residents, Peter Ward and Andreas Strassmeir. She says at the time she did not know McVeigh. After the bombing, Howe testifies, she told FBI investigators that Ward and his brother might be "John Doe No. 1 and No. 2," the suspects portrayed in composite sketches circulated in the days after the bombing (see April 20, 1995). She testifies that in the days following the bombing, BATF agents showed her a videotape of McVeigh, and she told the agents she had seen McVeigh at a Ku Klux Klan rally.
White Supremacist Settlement Resident Testifies about Phone Call - Joan Millar, the daughter-in-law of Elohim City religious leader Robert Millar, testifies that on April 5, 1995, she believes she spoke to McVeigh on the telephone. Phone records show that McVeigh called a number in Elohim City on that date (see April 5, 1995). "When I answered the phone, it was a male voice," she says. "He gave a name, but it wasn't 'McVeigh.' He said that he had—he would be in the area within the next couple weeks and he wanted to know if he could come and visit Elohim City." She says the caller was reluctant to explain how he knew of the settlement, then says he met some residents at a gun show. A man with "a very broad foreign accent" had given him a card with a telephone number on it, she says he told her. She asked if he had spoken to "Andy," meaning Strassmeir, and the caller said that may be correct. Millar says the caller told her he would call again for directions, but never called back and never came to the settlement. Millar says that while Elohim City residents were angry and worried about the federal assault on the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), they planned no retaliation. Howe, however, testifies that she heard Strassmeir, Mahon, and Robert Millar advocate some sort of direct action against the federal government. Prosecutors have always maintained that Nichols and McVeigh bombed the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City to avenge the people who died at the Branch Davidian compound.
Testimony of Wife - Marife Nichols testifies that she heard her husband talk about the Davidian tragedy with McVeigh and his brother James Nichols, but says she "did not see Terry being so mad about Waco." Marife Nichols walks the jury through the events of April 21, when she accompanied her husband to the Herington, Kansas, police station to give voluntary statements about the bombing (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). She describes her husband as "pale and scared," and says, "He told me his name was in the news and James Nichols was in the news, and they're supposed to be armed and dangerous." Her husband worried that they were being followed by "a black car" on their way to the police station. When he said that, she testifies, "I asked him right then, 'Are you involved in this?' and he said, 'No.'" She testifies that before he returned from a November 1994 trip to the Philippines (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995) he had told her that he was no longer having dealings with McVeigh (see March 1995). "I didn't want Tim McVeigh in our life," she says. (Thomas 12/11/1997)
Cross-Examination Damaging to Defense Portrayal - Lead defense attorney Michael Tigar asserts that Marife Nichols's testimony shows that "Terry Nichols was building a life, not a bomb." However, under cross-examination, prosecutors quickly elicit details about the Nichols's marriage that shows the two as distant and estranged, casting a new light on Marife Nichols's attempt to portray their relationship as close and loving. She admits that for much of their seven-year marriage, they lived apart from one another, with her returning frequently to her home in the Philippines. She also admits that Nichols lied to her about breaking off his relationship with McVeigh, and that she suspected her husband was living a "secret life" that included numerous aliases and secret storage lockers, though she says as far as she knows, McVeigh was never in their home. She responds to questions about her husband's shadowy activities by saying: "I don't know. I didn't ask him." She recalls finding a letter to Nichols from McVeigh the week before the bombing, and though she says she did not understand the letter entirely, she remembers some phrases, including "shake and bake" and "needed an excuse for your second half." US Attorney Patrick M. Ryan shows her a pink receipt found in the Nichols home for a ton of ammonium nitrate that prosecutors say was used to make the bomb, a receipt made out to "Mike Havens," an alias used by Nichols to buy the fertilizer (see September 22, 1994 and September 30, 1994). The receipt was wrapped around gold coins found at the back of her kitchen drawer; federal analysts found McVeigh's fingerprints on the receipt. Ryan places two gold coins on the receipt, fitting them precisely into two dark impressions left on the receipt, presumably by the coins. The coins belong to Nichols, and may have come from a robbery Nichols perpetrated to help finance the bombing (see November 17-18, 1997). On April 16, she says, Nichols told her he was going to Omaha, Nebraska, to pick up McVeigh, when in reality he went to Oklahoma City (see April 16-17, 1995). Prosecutors have said that Nichols helped McVeigh stash the getaway car to be used on April 19 after the bomb was detonated (see April 13, 1995). He admitted lying to her about the April 16 trip just seconds before turning himself in on April 21, she says. She admits that Nichols had used a mail-order bride service to find her, and says he once told her, "Young ones were easier to train." Marife Nichols was 17 when she married Nichols in November 1990; after they married in Cebu City, Philippines, he left her there and returned to the US without her, only bringing her to America months later. She says that she could not remember the exact date of their wedding. She also admits that when she joined Nichols in July 1991, she was pregnant with another man's child. That child was found in 1993 dead with a plastic bag wrapped around his head; his death was ruled an accident. The two have two more children together. She is unable to offer an alibi for Nichols's whereabouts on the morning of April 18, when prosecutors say he helped McVeigh construct the bomb. In saying she knew nothing about the storage lockers rented under aliases, she seems to contradict Tigar's previous assertions that the storage lockers were used for storing innocent items and Nichols chose to use aliases merely to avoid creditors (see November 3, 1997). She also contradicts Nichols's statements to the FBI that he had not seen McVeigh for months before the bombing.
Defense Rests - After Marife Nichols's testimony concludes, the defense rests. The Post observes: "The defense's eight-day case was aimed at generating confusion among jurors by poking holes in the government's scenario, with the specter of additional accomplices and a second Ryder truck. At times, it seemed like the defense was trying to put the mysterious suspect John Doe No. 2—who was never identified and never found—on trial, instead of Nichols." Nichols does not testify in his own defense.
Prosecutors Rebut Testimonies - The prosecution offers a brief rebuttal to the testimonies of witnesses who say they saw the Ryder truck at Geary Park earlier than April 17. State park employee Kerry L. Kitchener testifies that in April 1995, he was conducting a fishing survey at the park, and he saw no Ryder truck on April 10, 11, 13, 16, or 17, dates when defense witnesses said they had seen such a truck there. He testifies that he was not at the park on April 18, when prosecutors say Nichols and McVeigh built the bomb there in a Ryder truck. (Romano 12/12/1997; Thomas 12/12/1997)
The prosecution and defense in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997) give their closing statements.
Prosecution: Nichols an Eager Participant - Prosecutor Beth Wilkinson tells the jury that even though Nichols was at home on the day of the bombing, he was an eager participant in the bomb plot, and shares the violent anti-government views of his alleged co-conspirator, convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Like McVeigh, she says, Nichols wanted to strike back at the federal government for its role in the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). "He intended death, destruction, and chaos in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995," she says. His favorite quote is from Founding Father Thomas Jefferson: "The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and tyrants." However, "Thomas Jefferson never bombed a day care center." Nichols was involved in the plot from its inception in September 1994, when he left his job on a Kansas ranch "to begin gathering bomb components" (see September 13, 1994 and September 23, 1994), Wilkinson says. Nichols used aliases, such as "Mike Havens," to purchase several tons of ammonium nitrate fertilizer, a key component in the bomb (see September 22, 1994 and September 30, 1994). He took part in the robbery of a quarry to secure explosives and explosive components (see October 3, 1994), and took part in the purchase of three barrels of nitromethane racing fuel from a Texas dealer (see October 21 or 22, 1994). Nichols also robbed an Arkansas gun dealer to help finance the bombing (see November 5, 1994), a fact confirmed by testimony given by McVeigh's friend Michael Fortier (see November 12-13, 1997) and by the FBI finding items taken in that robbery in Nichols's possession (see 3:15 p.m. and After, April 21-22, 1995). Nichols and McVeigh had assembled most of what they needed by November 1994, she says, when Nichols went to the Philippines (see November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995); after that point, she says, "all they had to do was wait." When Nichols returned from his trip, they resumed their activities, using sales of guns and ammonium nitrate at gun shows to give themselves alibis. In contrast to a claim made in the opening statement by Nichols's lead lawyer, Michael E. Tigar, she says Nichols was not building a life, "he was building a bomb, and he was building an alibi." Wilkinson says that witnesses who testified they saw McVeigh with an unidentified person, and not Nichols, in the days before the bombing (see December 2-3, 1997, December 4, 1997, and December 9, 1997), were just plain wrong. Referring to the now-infamous "John Doe No. 2," she says: "As a result of the media frenzy, sightings of John Doe 2 were about as common and credible as sightings of Elvis. No one is telling you Tim McVeigh was never with anyone else. The issue here is, who is on trial? John Doe 2 is not on trial. Tim McVeigh is not on trial. This is the trial of Terry Nichols." Concluding the prosecution's close, lead prosecutor Larry Mackey tells the jury, "It's finally time—it's time for justice" in what he calls "America's most horrific crime."
Defense: Nichols Victimized by Government - Tigar tells the jury that Nichols is the victim of a farrago of errors and circumstance; the evidence against him, Tigar says, is comprised of dishonest witnesses, sloppy investigation, and misleading circumstantial evidence. "It's kind of like a stick on the ground, as Sherlock Holmes told Watson," Tigar says. "If you stand here and look, it seems to point there. But if you walk around to the other side, it points in the opposite direction." A fellow defense lawyer, Ronald G. Woods, attacks the government's case, saying, "Anything that differs from the government's theory, they discount, put aside, ridicule." The witnesses who saw other men in McVeigh's company during key moments in the bomb construction timeline were neither wrong nor mistaken, he says. Neither Tigar nor Woods refer at any length to the testimony of Nichols's wife Marife, which is largely viewed as damaging to their client (see December 10-11, 1997). Tigar continues his previous attack on Fortier, saying: "Michael Fortier is the only witness who says he ever heard anyone say they wanted to bomb the Murrah Building. His testimony was bought and paid for, not with money but with a coin that only the government has the ability to print and hand out, and that is immunity from punishment." Tigar says that Fortier was far more of a conspirator in the McVeigh plot than Nichols, and accuses the government of turning Fortier from a co-conspirator into a witness. Woods accuses the FBI of manipulating and fabricating witness testimony. Tigar concludes tearfully: "One hundred sixty-eight people died in Oklahoma City. We have never denied the reality of that." But this is a nation that promises equal justice under law, he says, "rich or poor, neighbor or stranger, tax protester or not, someone who's different from us, or not.… Members of the jury, I don't envy you the job that you have," he says, placing his hand on Nichols's shoulders. "But I tell you, this is my brother. He's in your hands." (Thomas 12/16/1997; Thomas 12/17/1997)
After the closing arguments (see December 15-16, 1997) in the trial of accused Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and November 3, 1997), Judge Richard P. Matsch sends the jury to begin its deliberations. Jurors will not be sequestered and are free to go home at the end of the day. Matsch reminds the jury that "individuals, including Mr. Nichols, have the right under the First Amendment to assemble and discuss even the most unpopular ideas, including unlawful acts, and such a discussion does not constitute an unlawful agreement." He also tells the jurors to weigh the case solely on the evidence. (Thomas 12/17/1997) Matsch gives the Nichols jury more leeway than he gave the jury that convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Though Nichols faces the same charges that McVeigh faced, Matsch tells the jurors that they can consider charges of first-degree murder, second-degree murder, or involuntary manslaughter for Nichols in the deaths of eight federal law enforcement agents in the bombing. (Because McVeigh and Nichols were tried in federal courts, they could only face charges of murdering federal agents. Both men await state charges of murdering the other 160 victims.) If convicted, Nichols could escape with as little as six years in prison without parole for his role in the deaths of the agents, or he could be sentenced to death. McVeigh's former lawyer Stephen Jones (see August 14-27, 1997) says: "I suspect the judge's thinking went something like this: There was no evidence Nichols was in Oklahoma City on Wednesday and that he himself set off the bomb, so the jury might infer that while he wanted to blow up the building, he didn't specifically want to kill these people." To find Nichols guilty of first-degree murder, the jurors must conclude that he is guilty of premeditated murder; if they do not agree on premeditation, then their next choice is second-degree murder, or failing that, involuntary manslaughter, "the unlawful killing of a human being without malice." This would be a "lawful act, done without due caution, which might produce death," he says. Jones is critical of Matsch's guidelines, saying: "I can't imagine how the judge persuaded himself to give an instruction on manslaughter. I don't see how you get involuntary manslaughter out of building a bomb. It's like a virgin prostitute." (Thomas 12/19/1997; New York Times 12/23/1997)
Accused Oklahoma City conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and December 15-16, 1997) is convicted of one count of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter. He is found not guilty of use of a weapon of mass destruction (see April 16-17, 1995), and of using an explosive, as well as the more serious charges of first-degree and second-degree murder. The jury took 41 hours over six days to decide Nichols's fate (see December 16-18, 1997). By rejecting the murder charges in the deaths of eight federal law-enforcement officials, the jury concludes that Nichols did not provably intend to kill the people inside the Murrah building. Observers and researchers such as law professor Douglas O. Linder will later conclude that the jury believed the defense's contention that Nichols had withdrawn from the bombing plot (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), and was probably swayed by Nichols's decision to stay home on the day of the bombing instead of joining convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh in Oklahoma City (see June 2, 1997) at the bomb site. The jury may also have been moved by Nichols's show of emotion during the trial; unlike the stoic McVeigh, Nichols broke down and wept during several moments in the proceedings. Legal analysts say the split verdict is in part because of a much more effective defense (see December 2, 1997) than that presented by Nichols's co-conspirator, McVeigh (see August 14-27, 1997), who was sentenced to death for carrying out the bombing (see June 2, 1997). Kentucky defense lawyer Kevin McNally says of the verdicts: "[They mean] he had a much less culpable state of mind regarding the homicides. To the jury, he engaged in certain actions that were reckless, but it wasn't a premeditated killing." Former federal prosecutor Marvin L. Rudnick says the jury "probably compromised" on the involuntary manslaughter verdicts. Lead prosecutor Larry Mackey says: "The jury has spoken. We accept their verdict in its entirety. We are prepared to go forward now with the penalty phase." Nichols's lead attorney, Michael Tigar, immediately files an appeal and says he will challenge any attempt by the jury to sentence Nichols to death. However, analysts feel that Nichols will escape execution. Denver attorney Andrew Cohen says: "I would be very surprised if the jury sentenced Nichols to death. They distinguished in their own minds what both men did." Both McVeigh and Nichols face 160 counts of murder in an Oklahoma state court. (Thomas 12/23/1997; Romano and Kenworthy 12/24/1997; Bruni 12/24/1997; Douglas O. Linder 2001; Indianapolis Star 2003; Douglas O. Linder 2006) Under federal law, a conviction of conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction can lead to the death penalty. The law is only three years old and has never been used. This death penalty provision was passed by Congress in 1994 after the bombing of the World Trade Center in New York (see February 26, 1993). (Brooke 12/25/1997)
Mixed Reactions - Predictably, reactions regarding the verdict are mixed. Claudia Denny, whose two children were seriously injured in the blast, says, "We're all disappointed, but we can live with it." She says she would have preferred murder convictions, but "one more terrorist is off the street.… The important thing to us now is our children. This doesn't change that. It doesn't matter." Bud Welch, who lost his daughter in the bombing, says that the involuntary manslaughter convictions were inappropriate because that charge is what people get "for running a stoplight" and killing someone with a car. Diane Leonard, whose husband was one of the eight law enforcement agents killed, calls the verdict "a slap in the face." Marsha Knight, whose daughter was one of the 160 civilians killed in the blast, says: "He conspired to build the bomb. What the hell did they think he was going to do with it?" (Bragg 12/24/1997; Romano and Kenworthy 12/24/1997) President Clinton says the convictions of McVeigh and Nichols "should offer a measure of comfort" to the relatives of the victims. But, he adds, "I know that no verdict in a court of law can ease the loss of a loved one." (Thomas 12/23/1997)
Judge Offers Leniency, Nichols Turns Down Offer - Judge Richard Matsch later tells Nichols he will consider some leniency in sentencing him to prison if he cooperates in helping the government learn more about the bombing conspiracy. Nichols rejects the offer. (Indianapolis Star 2003)
Prosecutors in Oklahoma City say they want a joint trial for convicted Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) and Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) on 160 charges of first-degree murder. Oklahoma County District Attorney Robert Macy says he intends to bypass the customary grand jury and file charges against the two on his own for the 160 civilians who died in the blast (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). According to Assistant District Attorney Richard Wintory, Macy wants a joint trial with two separate juries. Trying the two again is not a violation of the constitutional ban on double jeopardy, because they were convicted on federal charges that involved the deaths of eight federal agents (see August 10, 1995). They have not been tried for the deaths of the 160 civilians. Wintory says the use of a double jury would save a great deal of time because "there is such a large overlap of the evidence" against both men. When evidence that has been ruled inadmissible against one defendant is to be introduced against the other, Wintory says, the jury that may not hear that evidence will be asked to leave the room. Double juries have been used successfully in other trials, and would spare the survivors and victims' families of the bombing the stress and trauma of two more trials, a point agreed to by Jeffrey Abramson, a professor of government at Harvard. He says "the idea of two consecutive trials on top of two consecutive trials is too much for the public, the defendants, and the families to bear." The use of two juries is "a way of balancing defendants' rights and victims' rights in a speedy trial." However, "[i]t changes the psychodynamics of what it means to be on a jury. Two juries sitting in the same room will eyeball the defendant they're not being asked to try. Certainly, this is not in Terry Nichols's best interest. If I were his defense lawyer, I would resist." Having McVeigh and Nichols in the same courtroom "carries a certain suggestion they were in cahoots." (Thomas 1/9/1998)
White supremacist Cheyne Kehoe, serving a lengthy sentence for engaging in a shootout with Ohio police (see June 1997), says he believes his brother, fellow white supremacist Chevie Kehoe, was involved in the Oklahoma City bombing (see (April 1) - April 18, 1995 and 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Both brothers are fervent anti-government activists who are members of regional militias. Cheyne Kehoe refuses to give further details, saying he does not want to influence his brother's upcoming trial for his involvement in the same shootout, as well as charges of attempting to overthrow the government. FBI spokesman Ray Lauer says the bureau is investigating claims by a Spokane, Washington, motel manager who says Chevie Kehoe may have had advance knowledge of the bombing. (Mayhem (.net) 4/2009)
Richard Clarke, the chair of the White House's Counterterrorism Security Group, updates the US Continuity of Government (COG) program. National Security Adviser Sandy Berger has become aware that terrorism and domestic preparedness are now major issues. He suggests the idea of a "national coordinator" for counterterrorism, and that this post should be codified by a new Presidential Decision Directive (PDD). Clarke therefore drafts three new directives. The third, tentatively titled "PDD-Z," updates the COG program. (Clarke 2004, pp. 166-167) This program, which dates back to the cold war, was originally designed to ensure the US government would continue to function in the event of a nuclear war with the Soviet Union. (Mann 3/2004) Clarke will later say it "had been allowed to fall apart when the threat of a Soviet nuclear attack had gone away." (Clarke 2004, pp. 167) He will explain: "We thought that individual buildings in Washington, and indeed perhaps all of Washington, could still come under attack, only it might not be from the former Soviet Union.… It might be with a terrorist walking a weapon into our city." (CBS 9/11/2001) Therefore, "If terrorists could attack Washington, particularly with weapons of mass destruction, we needed to have a robust system of command and control, with plans to devolve authority and capabilities to officials outside Washington." (Clarke 2004, pp. 167) President Clinton will sign "PDD-Z" on October 21, 1998, as PDD-67, "Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations" (see October 21, 1998). The two other directives drafted by Clarke will become PDD-62 (see May 22, 1998) and PDD-63. (Clarke 2004, pp. 170; Arkin 6/4/2006) By February 1999, according to the New York Times, Clarke will have written at least four classified presidential directives on terrorism, which "expand the government's counterterrorism cadres into the $11 billion-a-year enterprise he now coordinates." (Weiner 2/1/1999) Clarke is a regular participant in secret COG exercises (see (1984-2004)), and will activate the COG plan for the first time on the day of 9/11 (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001).
Terry Nichols, the white separatist convicted of participating in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and December 23, 1997), sends a 16-page letter to Judge Richard Matsch declaring that he would give up his life if it would bring back the 168 people who died in the blast. "If I in any way contributed to the Oklahoma City bombing, I am truly sorry," he writes. "I've tried and tried, but there are no words that I can express to the victims and survivors for the loss, pain, sorrow, and heartache that they have gone through and will continue to go through for the rest of their lives.… I wish I could change the past, but I can't. No one can. This is not anything that I ever wanted to happen. It's a totally senseless act. This is a burden that I will carry with me all my life." Nichols says that he never wanted to harm or kill anyone or to damage or destroy any buildings, and writes: "I would not do a horrible thing such as a terrorist bombing.… My heart truly goes out to the victims and survivors. And I am sincere when I say that I would give my life if it would bring back all those that died in the bombing." He implies that he never believed his co-conspirator, Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) would actually go through with the bombing. (New York Times 3/25/1998; Haynes 6/5/1998; Indianapolis Star 2003; Douglas O. Linder 2006; The Oklahoman 4/2009)
Terry Nichols, the white separatist convicted of participating in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and December 23, 1997), refuses an offer of leniency in his upcoming sentencing, an offer contingent on his cooperation in the FBI's continuing investigation of the bomb plot. In a brief filed by his lawyers, Nichols says any such cooperation would help the state of Oklahoma convict him on 160 counts of murder relating to the bombing. He does offer to look over the thousands of pages of government evidence in an attempt to help the government pinpoint any other suspected participants. Judge Richard Matsch has said he would sentence Nichols to life in prison unless Nichols cooperates with the FBI. Nichols's lawyer Michael E. Tigar has said that Nichols still faces a state murder investigation in Oklahoma, and "whatever he says falls into hands that do not have his best interests at heart." (Thomas 3/26/1998; Washington Post 4/21/1998)
Stephen Jones, the former lawyer for convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997, June 11-13, 1997, and August 14-27, 1997), says he will fight a subpoena from a grand jury investigating the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Documents unsealed today show that the grand jury asked the Oklahoma County District Attorney's office in February to subpoena Jones. "I will not testify," Jones says, citing both his attorney-client privilege and the Oklahoma shield law protecting journalists from testifying before grand juries. Jones says the shield law applies to him because he is writing a book and three law review articles about issues arising from the case that do not involve privileged information, as well as his appearances as a television commentator. The grand jury was convened after a campaign by Oklahoma State Representative Charles Key (R-Oklahoma City) and accountant Glenn Wilburn (see June 30, 1997). The grand jury does not have any connection with the District Attorney's upcoming charges against both McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998). McVeigh's current lawyer, Robert Nigh Jr., says the subpoena is a surprise to him. McVeigh has not waived his attorney-client privilege as it pertains to Jones, and any testimony by Jones could jeopardize McVeigh's appeals. "He's asked the 10th Circuit to grant a new trial," Nigh says. "Anything revealed to the grand jury in the nature of defense work product could defeat our defense at a new trial and reveal our strategy." Law professor Samuel Issacharoff has mixed feelings about the subpoena: "It should be unusual, exceptional and discouraged to try to turn lawyers into witnesses," he says. "On the other hand, there is a distressing practice of lawyers holding press conferences and holding themselves out as commentators on the events of the day, including their perception of the client. The result is, they seem to invite this. It is a very unfortunate development because it places the lawyer's interests starkly against those of the client." (Thomas 4/25/1998)
An unrepentant Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, the so-called "Unabomber" (see April 3, 1996 and June 9, 1996), is sentenced to four life terms in prison with no possibility of release (see January 22, 1998). (Washington Post 1998) Representatives of some of his victims' families speak out during the sentencing hearing. "Lock him so far down that when he dies he will be closer to hell," says Susan Mosser, whose husband Thomas Mosser was killed by one of Kaczynski's bombs (see December 10, 1994). "May your own eventual death occur as you have lived, in a solitary manner, without compassion or love," says Lois Epstein, whose husband Charles Epstein suffered a crippling injury to his hand due to another Kaczynski bomb (see June 22, 1993). In handing down his sentence, Judge Garland Burrell Jr. says, "The defendant committed unspeakable and monstrous crimes for which he shows utterly no remorse." Kaczynski still poses a grave danger to society and would mail his bombs again if he could, Burrell says. Kaczynski delivers a statement to the court; he expresses no remorse whatsoever for his actions, and instead accuses the government of distorting the meaning of his crimes. "Two days ago, the government filed a sentencing memorandum, the purpose of which was clearly political," containing "false statements, misleading statements," he says. Kaczynski is referring to excerpts from his journals which prosecutors used to portray him, not as a principled citizen out to save society and the environment from the ravages of technology, but, in the words of the Washington Post, as "a petulant, almost childish murderer who killed to extract 'personal revenge' on people who crossed him—from women who did not respond to his overtures to campers who wandered by his Montana cabin to planes filled with 'a lot of businesspeople.'" Kaczynski tells the court: "By discrediting me personally, they hope to discredit my political ideas.… At a later time I expect to respond at length to the sentencing memorandum. Meanwhile, I hope the public will reserve judgment against me and all the facts about the Unabomb case until another time." After Kaczynski speaks, Susan Mosser walks to the prosecutors' table and speaks. "Nails," she says. "Razor blades. Wire. Pipe and batteries. The recipe for what causes pain. Hold it in your hand, as my husband Tom did, and you feel unbearable pain." She tells how Kaczynski's bomb, made with wires and pipes and filled with nails, tore her husband's torso apart, spilling his entrails over the kitchen floor. Other victims tell the court that they would have supported a death sentence. Nicklaus Suino, injured by one of Kaczynski's bombs (see November 15, 1985), says, "I wouldn't have shed a tear if he was executed." David Gelernter, another man crippled by one of Kaczynski's bombs (see June 24, 1993), says he argued for a death sentence but says that Kaczynski will live on as "a symbol of cowardice." Kaczynski's brother David Kaczynski speaks briefly outside the courthouse, telling reporters: "There are no words to express the sorrow of today's proceedings. To all of these people, the Kaczynski family offers its deepest apologies. We're very, very sorry." (Washington Post 5/5/1998) Kaczynski will live out his sentence at the Florence, Colorado, "Supermax" federal prison, in a small cell equipped with a shower, toilet, electric lamp, concrete desk and stool, and a small television. He will have access to books from a well-stocked library, and will eat three meals a day in his cell. The Florence facility is considered the most secure prison in the nation; it is designed to house "the folks who simply cannot function in open institutions," according to research analyst Tom Werlich. Kaczynski will not be alone at the "Supermax" facility: others such as Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and World Trade Center bombing mastermind Ramzi Yousef (see February 7, 1995) are in the same facility. Like the other inmates, Kaczynski will have no contact with other inmates, and for the two hours a day he spends outside his cell, he will be constantly escorted by at least two guards. (Associated Press 7/4/1998)
President Clinton issues Presidential Decision Directive 62 (PDD-62), which gives the National Security Council authority to designate any important upcoming public event as a National Special Security Event (NSSE). (Lawlor 10/27/2000; United States Secret Service 2002) Once an event has been designated as an NSSE, the FBI becomes the lead agency for crisis management, FEMA becomes lead agency for consequence management, and the Secret Service becomes lead agency for designing and implementing security operations. (US Department of Defense 8/3/2001; US Department of Homeland Security 7/9/2003; Scalet 9/2004) Approximately four or five events per year will subsequently be designated as NSSEs, such as the 2000 Republican and Democratic National Conventions, and the 2001 Presidential Inauguration. (US Department of Homeland Security 7/9/2003; US Department of Homeland Security 11/8/2004) On 9/11, one or possibly both the cities targeted—Washington and New York—will be less than three weeks from major events that have been designated as NSSEs (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001)(see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). This is particularly interesting considering that once the Secret Service is put in charge of security for an NSSE, it becomes involved in providing air defense over that event. As then Director of the Secret Service Brian Stafford will point out in March 2000: "PDD-62 mandates the Secret Service to create additional capabilities that 'achieve airspace security' for designated 'National Special Security Events (NSSE).' This air security program utilizes air interdiction teams to detect, identify, and assess any aircraft that violates, or attempts to violate, an established Temporary Flight Restricted Area (TFR) airspace above an NSSE." (US Congress 3/30/2000 ; Gips 2/2002) Whether the Secret Service will have such capabilities already in place in New York and Washington on 9/11 is unknown.
The jury trial of Freemen leader LeRoy Schweitzer (see March 25, 1996) and 11 other Freemen begins in the Billings, Montana, district court, amid tight security. (Three others charged in the indictment have already pled guilty.) The Freemen are charged with conspiracy to commit fraud, bank and wire fraud (see May 1995), filing false IRS claims, interstate transportation of stolen property, threatening federal officials, armed robbery of news crews (see October 2, 1995 and February 8, 1996), and firearms violations (see March 14, 1996). Prosecutors give their opening arguments, and tell the jury that the case against the anti-government group centers on fraud and not politics. Lead prosecutor James Seykora says that the Freemen issued over 4,000 fraudulent checks worth a total of $18 billion; while most were rejected, the Freemen garnered $1.8 million in illicit payments from the checks. The checks—called at various times certified money orders, certified banker checks, comptroller warrants, or lien drafts—were drawn on a Norwest Bank account that never held over $116. "This is a fraud of truly epic proportions, a fraud fueled by hatred and motivated by greed," Seykora says. "They bought some computers, they bought some fancy paper and sat down and made their own checks, their own money." Authorities in Utah, California, Colorado, Wyoming, South Dakota, and elsewhere have uncovered similar schemes and linked the fraud rings to Schweitzer. Overall, authorities say phony money orders worth $20 million were disseminated as part of the fraud, which they liken to a variation of the Bank of Sark scam of the 1970s. Defense lawyers argue that the Freemen sincerely believed their checks had value, an argument challenged by prosecutors' assertions that the Freemen did not themselves honor such checks if anyone tried to pay them for the seminars the Freemen provided (see September 28, 1995 and After), nor did they use them to pay telephone or electric bills. In previous Freemen trials, followers, not leaders, have appeared (see March 31, 1998); Ken Toole of the Montana Human Rights Network says: "Now, you have the real leadership on trial. These are the hard-core ideologues." Judge John C. Coughenour presides over the trial. Two of the defendants, Schweitzer and Rodney Skurdal, have issued "arrest warrants" for Coughenour, charging him with a string of alleged crimes including "perjury, contempt of court, sedition, and treason." Defendant Daniel Petersen has informed Coughenour that he has filed a $956 million claim against him. The defendants have largely shunned their court-appointed lawyers. Skurdal's lawyer, Gregory Jackson, has twice asked to withdraw from the case, noting that Skurdal has sued him for libel and slander, and calls him "a servant of Satan" and "dumb, stupid, and lazy." Today Jackson tells the court that Skurdal is "a gung-ho patriot, a gung-ho Marine." Security at the courtroom and other federal buildings in Billings, the site of the trial, is high, with many of the security precautions adopted during the Oklahoma City bombing trial (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) in place here as well. Nine of the 12 defendants have refused to come to court, and monitor the proceedings over closed-circuit television in a Yellowstone County Jail holding cell two miles away. (Kenworthy and Kovaleski 4/1996; Brooke 5/29/1998; Southern Poverty Law Center 8/1998; Billings Gazette 3/25/2006) Two of the Freemen in the holding cell even refuse to dress, and watch the proceedings in their underwear. (New York Times 5/27/1996) One of the Freemen who pled guilty, Dana Dudley Landers, has agreed to testify against her former colleagues. She pled guilty to interstate transportation of stolen goods, mostly vehicles and office equipment purchased in North Carolina with worthless Freemen checks and brought to Montana. Prosecutors say the vehicles were to have been used by the Freemen in kidnapping public officials for "trials" before a Freemen tribunal. Another Freeman, Emmett Clark, has pled guilty to threatening to kidnap and murder a federal judge, but has not agreed to testify against his former fellows. (New York Times 5/27/1996; Associated Press 5/27/1998)
Federal Judge Richard P. Matsch gives permission for the Justice Department to assist the investigation of an Oklahoma grand jury investigating whether the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) was carried out by more than the two men convicted of the crime (see June 30, 1997). Matsch presided over the trials of convicted bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) and Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998). Matsch says he will allow a federal judge in Oklahoma to decide whether federal grand jury information used to indict McVeigh and Nichols (see August 10, 1995) could be used by the Oklahoma grand jury. (New York Times 6/25/1998)
The Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals upholds the conviction of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997). (Tenth Circuit Court of Appeals 9/8/1998; Douglas O. Linder 2001) McVeigh appealed the conviction due to the allegedly poor performance of his lawyer (see August 14-27, 1997) and because of alleged errors by the presiding trial judge (see January 16, 1998). (CNN 2001)
A federal appeals court orders the release of evidence used in the federal trials of convicted Oklahoma City bombers Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) and Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998). The order paves the way for Oklahoma authorities to try the two on state murder charges related to the deaths of 160 civilians in the blast (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). The appeals judges say they will delay release of the evidence to allow defense lawyers to appeal their ruling. (New York Times 10/5/1998)
Earth Liberation Front (ELF—see 1997) activists set fire to a Vail, Colorado, ski resort, causing $12 million in damage. At the time, the Vail attack is the costliest ecoterrorist attack in US history. The attack consists of seven separate fires, which destroy three buildings, including the "spectacular" Two Elk restaurant, and damage four chairlifts. In a press release, the ELF says: "[P]utting profits ahead of Colorado's wildlife will not be tolerated.… We will be back if this greedy corporation continues to trespass into wild and unroaded [sic] areas." (Anti-Defamation League 2005; Williams 10/19/2008)
Resort Threatens Lynx Habitat - The ELF justifies the bombing by claiming that the resort encroaches on the natural habitat of Canada lynx in the area, an endangered species; an 885-acre planned expansion would, the group claims, virtually destroy the habitat. The resort and other construction have virtually eliminated all lynx from the area. (Funk 9/2007; Williams 10/19/2008; Burnett 11/20/2008)
Activist Says ELF Not a Terrorist Group - In a 2007 jailhouse interview, one of the activists, Chelsea Dawn Gerlach, will discuss her role in the bombing. An activist since her mid-teens, she began by getting involved with "above ground" protests with Earth First! (see 1980 and After), a less overtly militant environmental organization, and became disillusioned when she saw how little effect such protests had on corporate depredations. She will say that she and her colleagues were extremely careful about buying the materials for the firebombs, not wanting to raise suspicions. They built the actual devices in a Utah motel room, with group leader William C. Rodgers, whom Gerlach and the others call "Avalon," doing the bulk of the work. After performing a final reconnaisance of the lodge, some of the ELF members decide the bombing cannot be done, and return to Oregon. Rodgers actually plants the devices and sets them off; Gerlach, who accompanies Rodgers and others to the resort, later emails the statements released under the ELF rubric. Gerlach will say: "We weren't arsonists. Many of our actions didn't involve fires at all, and none of us fit the profile of a pyromaniac. I guess 'eco-saboteur' works. To call us terrorists, as the federal government did, is stretching the bounds of credibility. I got involved at a time when a right-winger had just bombed the Oklahoma City federal building—killing 168 people—(see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and anti-abortionists were murdering doctors (see March 10, 1993 and July 29, 1994). But the government characterized the ELF as a top domestic terrorism threat because we burned down unoccupied buildings in the middle of the night. It shows their priorities." (Funk 9/2007)
Apprehensions, Convictions - The Vail firebombing focuses national attention on the organization, as well as on other "ecoterror" groups that use vandalism, arson, and other destructive methods to further their agendas. In December 2006, Gerlach and Stanislas Gregory Meyerhoff will plead guilty to federal arson charges. Gerlach and Meyerhoff have already pled guilty to other arsons committed between 1996 and 2001 by a Eugene-based ELF cell known as the Family, which disbanded in 2001. (Gerlach will say that the Family took great pains to ensure that while property was destroyed, no one was injured; "In Eugene in the late nineties, more than a couple of timber company offices were saved by the proximity of neighboring homes.") The FBI learned about them from an informant who enticed friends of the two to speak about the crimes in surreptitiously recorded conversations. Both are sentenced to lengthy jail terms and assessed multi-million dollar restitution fines. Two others indicted in the arson, Josephine Sunshine Overaker and Rebecca J. Rubin, who do not directly participate in the Vail firebombing, remain at large. Rodgers will commit suicide in an Arizona jail in December 2005 after being apprehended. Several others will later be arrested and convicted for their roles in the assault. (Associated Press 12/14/2006; Funk 9/2007; Williams 10/19/2008; Burnett 11/20/2008)
Firebombing Detrimental to Local Activism - Gerlach will later say that the Vail firebombing was actually detrimental to local environmental activism. (Funk 9/2007) In 2008, Ryan Bidwell, the executive director of Colorado Wild, will agree. He will say that the fires damaged the trust the community once had in the environmental activist movement, and will add that the federal government used the fires to demonize the entire environmental movement. "I don't think it really changed the Bush administration agenda, but it probably made their job easier by lumping those actions onto the broad umbrella of terrorism over the last decade," Bidwell will say. "I don't think that's been effective at all, but every time that someone lumps groups here in Colorado under the same umbrella as ELF it's really disingenuous. In places like Vail that have a history it's made it more important for the conservation community to communicate what its objectives are." (Williams 10/19/2008)
President Clinton issues Presidential Decision Directive 67 (PDD-67), which updates the US Continuity of Government (COG) program in line with the emerging threat posed by terrorists. (Clarke 2004, pp. 166-167 and 170; Arkin 6/4/2006) PDD-67, "Enduring Constitutional Government and Continuity of Government Operations," requires agencies to plan for governmental continuity if the US is hit by a major terrorist attack. (Landers 11/17/1999; Federation of American Scientists 12/12/2000) The directive is classified and there is no White House fact sheet summarizing its contents. (Federation of American Scientists 12/12/2000; US Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform 4/22/2004) But according to Energy Department documents, the new COG plan "could be triggered by an event worse than what's expected from the Y2K problem and comparable to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing." (Landers 11/17/1999) According to the Washington Post, the result of PDD-67 will be that "every single government department and agency [is] directed to see to it that they could resume critical functions within 12 hours of a warning, and keep their operations running at emergency facilities for up to 30 days." (Arkin 6/4/2006) The directive puts the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA)—which is responsible for planning for and responding to disasters—in charge of the COG program. (US Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform 4/28/2005, pp. 4 ) Within FEMA, the Office of National Security Affairs will specifically be responsible for COG activities. (Larson and Peters 2001, pp. 103) FEMA's responsibilities will include providing guidance for agencies to develop their continuity plans (see July 26, 1999), and the coordination of interagency exercises. (US Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform 4/28/2005, pp. 4 ) Richard Clarke, who has now been appointed counterterrorism "tsar" (see May 22, 1998), drafted PDD-67 earlier in the year (see Early 1998). (Clarke 2004, pp. 166-167) The COG plan will be activated for the first time on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (ABC News 4/25/2004)
Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) asks a federal appeals court in Denver for a new trial, contending that Judge Richard P. Matsch, who presided over his trial, made a number of reversible errors in both the trial and sentencing. Nichols's co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) has also asked for a new trial (see January 16, 1998), a request that was denied (see September 8, 1998). Nichols's legal team, Michael Tigar, Susan L. Foreman, and Adam Thurschwell, argue that Matsch erred in the instructions he gave the jurors, in the testimony he permitted, and in his interpretation of federal sentencing guidelines. According to Nichols's lawyers, Matsch erred when he told the jury that Nichols's responsibility for the deaths of people killed as a result of the bombing conspiracy (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) did not depend on proof that Nichols intended to kill anyone. An intent to kill, Nichols's lawyers contend, is a necessary element in the offense. The jurors who convicted Nichols of conspiracy acquitted him of blowing up the building and of first- or second-degree murder in the deaths of the officers. They also contend that Nichols should have been sentenced under federal guidelines for arson and property damage, not first-degree murder, and that the restitution order of $14.5 million is punitive. (Thomas 11/22/1998)
An Oklahoma County grand jury investigating alternative theories about the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 30, 1997) wraps up without naming any new suspects aside from convicted bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh (see June 11-13, 1997) and Terry Nichols (see June 4, 1998). After hearing 117 witnesses and weathering criticism that its work gave legitimacy to wild conspiracy theories surrounding the blast, the grand jury reports: "We cannot affirmatively state that absolutely no one else was involved in the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. However, we have not been presented with or uncovered information sufficient to indict any additional conspirators." (District Court of Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma 12/30/1998; Thomas 12/31/1998; The Oklahoman 4/2009)
Findings - The jury reviewed documentation of a number of "warning" telephone calls to federal and local law enforcement agencies, and determined that none of them warned of a bombing attack against the Murrah Building, or any other attack. One such call came a week before the blast, a 911 call from an Oklahoma City restaurant that warned the operator of an upcoming bombing. The caller gave no more details. Police quickly looked into the call and determined it came from a mental patient who lived in a nearby care facility. The jury also investigated the numerous claims of sightings of a possible third bomber, "John Doe No. 2," and determined that the information given by the witnesses was so disparate and general that nothing useful could be concluded. The jury reports that the sightings were most likely of Todd Bunting, an Army private who had no connection to McVeigh or the bombing (see January 29, 1997). "The similarity of… Todd Bunting to the composite of John Doe No. 2 [is] remarkable, particularly when you take into account Bunting's tattoo of a Playboy bunny on his upper left arm and the fact that he was wearing a black T-shirt and a Carolina Panthers ball cap when he was at Elliott's Body Shop," the report states. Witness statements of "John Doe No. 2" fleeing the scene of the bombing in a "brown pickup truck" were erroneous, the report finds. A brown pickup truck did leave the area shortly before the bombing, driven by an employee of the Journal Record Building near the Murrah Building. The driver left the building shortly before the bombing after being informed that her child was ill. The jury finds no evidence that the bombing was orchestrated by the federal government, or that any agency knew about the bombing in advance. (District Court of Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma 12/30/1998; Pankratz 1/9/1999)
Journalist Indicted for Jury Tampering - The jury does bring an indictment against investigative journalist David Hoffman, who will plead guilty to jury tampering, admitting that he sent one of the alternate grand jurors a letter copy of a book on conspiracy theories about the bombing. In a sealed indictment, the jury cited Hoffman for "improper and perhaps illegal attempts to exert influence on the outcome of our investigation." Hoffman will be given a suspended sentence and 200 hours of community service. Hoffman will later call the indictment "a sham charge by a corrupt government designed to silence me," and will write a book, The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, which says the government falsely accused McVeigh and Nichols of the crime, concealing the involvement of others, perhaps members of neo-Nazi groups with which McVeigh was involved (see October 12, 1993 - January 1994 and (April 1) - April 18, 1995). (Thomas 12/31/1998; Vidal 9/2001; Lukeford (.net) 11/25/2002)
Report Denounced - Former Oklahoma State Representative Charles R. Key (R-Oklahoma City), who helped convene the grand jury, immediately denounces the findings. (Southern Poverty Law Center 6/2001) Key has insisted that McVeigh and Nichols had unplumbed connections with Islamist terrorists (see Late 1992-Early 1993 and Late 1994, November 5, 1994 - Early January 1995, and 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After), and has insisted that what he calls "revisionist news reports" by the mainstream media have failed to show Islamist connections to the bombing. He has even implied that government officials were complicit in the bombing. (Charles Key 3/12/1997) The grand jury reports, "We can state with assurance that we do not believe that the federal government had prior knowledge that this horrible terrorist attack was going to happen." The jury findings are "a ditto of what the federal government presented in the McVeigh trial," Key states. "It had huge, gaping holes." Glenn Wilburn, who lost two grandchildren in the bombing, died in 1997 before the jury returned its findings. Key has set up a private non-profit group, the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, which also gathered information about possible witnesses and submitted their names to the grand jury and urged Congress not to let the federal investigation drop. Key says that group will issue a final report of its own that "will read quite differently than this report today." (District Court of Oklahoma County, State of Oklahoma 12/30/1998; Thomas 12/31/1998)
The US Supreme Court refuses to hear an appeal of Timothy McVeigh's conviction for bombing a federal building in Oklahoma City and killing eight federal agents (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997). (Douglas O. Linder 2001; Fox News 4/13/2005)
Convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, December 23, 1997, and June 4, 1998) is charged with 160 counts of murder at the state level in Oklahoma. Prosecutors say they will seek the death penalty. Nichols is serving a life sentence as a conspirator in the bombing of the Murrah Federal Building, which killed 168 people. The 160 counts of murder represent the civilians, as opposed to federal agents, killed in the blast. Oklahoma District Attorney Robert Macy says of Nichols's previous convictions: "I'm not satisfied with the outcome of the Nichols trial. I feel like he needs to be tried before an Oklahoma jury." Nichols escaped murder convictions in the previous trial. Along with the 160 counts of murder, Nichols faces one count of first-degree manslaughter for the death of a fetus, one count of conspiracy to commit murder, and one count of aiding and counseling in the placing of a substance or bomb near a public building. Macy says he intends to try Nichols's convicted co-conspirator Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) at a later date. (New York Times 5/30/1999; The Oklahoman 4/2009)
Michael E. Tigar, the lead defense attorney for convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998), says evidence given to the defense near the end of the federal trial provided enough information about another suspect to warrant a new trial (see March 31 - April 12, 1995, (April 1) - April 18, 1995, April 5, 1995, April 8, 1995, April 13, 1995, April 15, 1995, April 15, 1995, April 15, 1995, April 16-19, 1995, 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, April 17-21, 1995, (6:00 p.m.) April 17, 1995, 9:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 7:00 p.m. April 18, 1995, April 18, 1995, and Early Morning, April 19, 1995). "Government counsel argued that Mr. Nichols mixed the bomb and that he was with [fellow conspirator Timothy] McVeigh for long periods on April 17 and 18," Tigar states (see April 13, 1995, April 15, 1995, April 15-16, 1995, April 16-17, 1995, Late Evening, April 17, 1995, 5:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:00 a.m. April 18, 1995, 8:15 a.m. and After, April 18, 1995, and Early Afternoon, April 18, 1995). "The withheld evidence contradicts this key government theory." Tigar called a number of witnesses who said they saw McVeigh with an unknown suspect known as "John Doe No. 2" (see April 15, 1995, 9:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, 3:00 p.m. April 17, 1995, April 18, 1995, April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995) and/or other people during key periods in the days and weeks leading up to the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Tigar will demand those documents for his new trial request. (New York Times 7/8/1999; Mayhem (.net) 4/2009) Judge Richard P. Matsch, who presided over the first trial, will deny Nichols's request. (New York Times 9/14/1999) In December 2000, a federal appeals court will also deny the request. (New York Times 12/19/2000)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997) is transferred to the federal penitentiary in Terre Haute, Indiana. The facility is the only federal prison in the US equipped with an execution chamber (see June 11-13, 1997). (Douglas O. Linder 2001; Eggen 5/25/2007)
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) issues a circular that provides guidance for government agencies to develop plans for continuity of government operations in the event of an emergency, including a terrorist attack. The circular, FPC 65, goes out to the heads of federal departments and agencies, senior policy officials, and emergency planners. It confirms FEMA's coordinating role in the nation's Continuity of Government (COG) program, and contains criteria for agencies to develop their continuity plans. It states that an agency's continuity of operations (COOP) capability "Must be maintained at a high level of readiness"; "Must be capable of implementation both with and without warning"; "Must be operational no later than 12 hours after activation"; "Must maintain sustained operations for up to 30 days"; and "Should take maximum advantage of existing agency field infrastructures." (Federal Emergency Management Agency 7/26/1999; US Congress. House. Committee on Government Reform 4/22/2004) Presidential Decision Directive 67 (PDD-67), issued in October 1998 (see October 21, 1998), required agencies to prepare plans to allow the government to continue functioning in the event of a major terrorist attack on the US, and had placed FEMA in charge of the COG program. (Landers 11/17/1999; Arkin 6/4/2006) The COG plan detailed in that directive will be activated for the first time on the morning of 9/11 (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (ABC News 4/25/2004)
One of the few survivors of the April 1993 conflagration that killed over 70 members of the Branch Davidian sect near Waco, Texas (see April 19, 1993), writes of the events of that day and their aftermath. David Thibodeau was in the Mt. Carmel compound when the FBI tanks and armored vehicles began crashing through the walls. He recalls walls collapsing, CS gas billowing in, and a cacophony of noise assaulting his ears, from exploding rockets (ferret rounds containing CS gas) and tank-tread squeals to the shrieks of terrified children. The idea of trying to leave the building, he writes, "seemed insane; with tanks smashing through your walls and rockets smashing through the windows, our very human reaction was not to walk out but to find a safe corner and pray." He and his fellow Davidians found the FBI's reassurances, delivered over loudspeakers, of "This is not an assault!" confusing, conjoined as they were with tanks smashing down walls and gas being sprayed all over the building.
No Compulsion to Stay - Thibobeau insists that Davidian leader David Koresh had no intentions of ending the siege with a mass suicide; Koresh allowed those who wanted to leave the compound, even during the siege itself. "But many of us stayed, too, not because we had to, but because we wanted to," Thibodeau explains. "The FBI and [B]ATF (see 5:00 A.M. - 9:30 A.M. February 28, 1993) had been confrontational from the start, they had lied to us and they continued lying up through the siege."
FBI, Not Davidians, Set Fires? - He accuses the BATF of "fabricating" the charges that led that agency to raid the compound in February, writing that false allegations of drug use prompted the raid (the raid was actually prompted by charges of illegal firearms possession and child abuse—see November 1992 - January 1993 and May 26, 1993). He notes that a CIA agent has alleged that Delta Force commandos took part in the siege (see August 28, 1999), and says that FBI audiotapes prove federal agents, not the Davidians, caused the fire that destroyed the compound, largely through the use of incendiary devices (see Late September - October 1993, August 4, 1995, and August 25, 1999 and After). Thibodeau says that other videotapes show FBI agents firing into the compound during the final assault, and BATF agents firing into the compound from helicopters during the February raid. He writes: "The FBI has not come close to revealing the full government complicity in the Waco massacre. In the years since the fire, I've tried desperately to find out what really happened. What I've discovered is disturbing." Thibodeau finds the allegations of child abuse particularly disturbing. He says while children were spanked for disciplinary purposes, "the strict rule was they could never be paddled in anger," and "wild allegations" that children were scheduled to be sacrificed on Yom Kippur came from a single disgruntled former resident, Marc Breault, and were not true.
Intentions to Peacefully End Siege - Thibodeau writes that Koresh intended to settle the siege peacefully, by allowing himself to be taken into custody. He intended to stay long enough to finish his treatise on the "Seven Seals" of Biblical prophecy (see April 14-15, 1993). "The FBI thought the Seven Seals issue was just a ploy, and dismissed it," Thibodeau writes. "But it was legitimate, and in the ashes of Mount Carmel they found that Koresh had completed the first two commentaries and was hard at work on the third when the tanks rolled in."
'No Affinity with the Right' - Thibodeau writes of the heavy irony in the fact that many right-wing separatists and supremacists such as Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) have embraced the Davidians as part of their movement. "[W]e had no affinity with the right," he notes, and says, "One irony of the Waco disaster is that right-wing extremists and racists look to Mount Carmel as a beacon; if they realized that so many of us were black, Asian, and Latino, and that we despised their hateful politics and anger, they would probably feel bitterly betrayed." While not all of the Davidians "leaned to the left," he writes, "we also had a 'live and let live' attitude that had allowed the community to co-exist with its Texas neighbors for all those decades. We certainly weren't as isolated as people seem to think." (Thibodeau 9/9/1999)
The FBI releases its report on what it calls "Project Megiddo," an examination of what it calls "the potential for extremist criminal activity in the United States by individuals or domestic groups who attach special significance to the year 2000." The report is released to law enforcement agencies throughout the country, but not to the public. A statement accompanying the report reads in part: "The threat posed by extremists as a result of perceived events associated with the year 2000 (Y2K) is very real. The volatile mix of apocalyptic religious and [New World Order] conspiracy theories (see February 4, 1999) may produce violent acts aimed at precipitating the end of the world as prophesied in the Bible." The report is based on nine months of intelligence and data collection by the domestic terrorism unit of the FBI. Soon after its release, the Center for Studies on New Religions (CESNUR) will obtain a copy and release it on the Internet. The report's executive summary notes that "Megiddo," a hill in northern Israel, is the site of a number of Biblical-era battles, and the Hebrew word "armageddon" derives from a Hebrew phrase meaning "hill of Megiddo." The Bible's depiction of "Armageddon" is, the report states, "the assembly point in the apocalyptic setting of God's final and conclusive battle against evil. The name 'Megiddo' is an apt title for a project that analyzes those who believe the year 2000 will usher in the end of the world and who are willing to perpetrate acts of violence to bring that end about." While much of the media-fueled debate about the upcoming "end of the millennium" focuses on technological issues, such as the anticipated widespread disabling of computer networks and the like, the FBI report focuses more specifically on the religious connotations of the time as viewed by far-right "Christian Identity" (see 1960s and After) and related white supremacist, separatist, and militia organizations. The report, the summary states, "is intended to analyze the potential for extremist criminal activity in the United States by individuals or domestic extremist groups who profess an apocalyptic view of the millennium or attach special significance to the year 2000." It is difficult to say what groups may pose a threat as 1999 comes to a close, the report states, as it is difficult to anticipate which groups will follow through on their rhetoric and which will not. Moreover, the report notes, many domestic extremist groups are not traditionally structured in a hierarchical fashion; the possibility of "lone wolf" strikes by individuals operating outside a militia or extremist group may in some cases outweigh the likelihood of violent assaults carried out by such groups. The report notes that the worst domestic terrorist event in US history, the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), was carried out by two "lone wolves," Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols. The report finds few indications of what it calls "specific threats to domestic security," but focuses more on suspicious activities by a variety of militia groups who are arming themselves, stockpiling food, raising money through illegal means, and other actions which may serve as a warning of future violence. Problems caused by "Y2K glitches" such as power outages and computer failures may be interpreted by some extremist groups as the first actions of a government assault on the citizenry, the FBI warns, and may precipitate violent responses. (Ontario Consultants on Religious Tolerance 10/1999; Federal Bureau of Investigation 10/20/1999; Vise and Adams 10/31/1999) The right-wing news blog WorldNetDaily will accuse the FBI of issuing the report to "set up" militia groups as patsies for the government's own terrorist activities (see December 9, 1999).
Kevin Ray Patterson and Charles Dennis Kiles, both members of California's San Joaquin Militia, are charged for plotting to blow up two 12 million gallon propane tanks in Elk Grove, California, along with a television tower and an electrical substation, in hopes of setting off a large-scale insurrection. The tanks are a few hundred yards from heavily traveled state Highway 99 and a half-mile from a subdivision. The FBI has dubbed the case the "Twin Sisters" trial, after the two's nickname for the propane tanks. A threat assessment report by the Lawrence Livermore Laboratory estimates that, if successful, the explosion would have killed up to 12,000 people, set off widespread fires, and badly injured people within a five-mile radius of the explosion. Patterson has said he intended to use a fertilizer bomb similar to that used to destroy a federal building in Oklahoma City (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). A search of Patterson's and Kiles's homes reveals guns, ammunition, bomb chemicals, and methamphetamine ingredients. The San Joaquin Militia has been under observation by the Sacramento Joint Terrorism Task Force since 1996. The perpetrators called the propane tanks a "target of opportunity" that are susceptible to sabotage and, if destroyed, would cause a major disturbance and cause the government to declare martial law. The "Twin Sisters" plot is part of a larger conspiracy by militia groups to undermine and destabilize the federal government. Militia leader Donald Rudolph, also involved in the plot, will plead guilty to plotting to kill a judge, and will cooperate with the FBI in the investigation. Kiles's son Jason Kiles tells a reporter: "My father ain't no terrorist. I don't care what they say." Patterson and Kiles will receive 21-year prison terms for the threatened use of a weapon of mass destruction. Rudolph receives a five-year term. (Kerr 12/7/1999; Southern Poverty Law Center 6/2001; Federal Bureau of Investigation 2009; FBI Sacramento Division 2011)
Joseph Farah, the publisher of the right-wing news blog WorldNetDaily, blasts the FBI for issuing its "Project Megiddo" report, which warns of possible domestic terror activities centering on the transition into the "new millennium" at year's end (see October 20, 1999). Farah calls the report "more than slanderous, bigoted, and inciteful," and accuses the FBI of "set[ting] up a system of self-fulfilling prophecies that permits the government to scapegoat groups of people who are enticed into committing illegal acts or conspiring about them by agents provocateur." Farah claims that his assertions are proven by his belief that the federal government carried out the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) to discredit the far right. "Remember this the next time you hear about a so-called 'terrorist incident,'" Farah concludes. "And, tell your representatives and senators it's time to rein in the mad bombers and provocateurs in our own government." (Farah 12/9/1999)
A 1998 presidential directive gave the National Security Council authority to designate important upcoming events as National Special Security Events (NSSEs) (see May 22, 1998). The US Secret Service is in charge of planning and implementing security for NSSEs, and the FBI and FEMA also have major security roles. (Scalet 9/2004; Lowy 1/11/2005) Louis Freeh, director of the FBI for much of the 1990s until June 2001, will later tell the 9/11 Commission that in the years 2000 and 2001, the subject of "planes as weapons" was always one of the considerations in the planning of security for "a series of these, as we call them, special events," and "resources were actually designated to deal with that particular threat." He confirms that "the use of airplanes, either packed with explosives or otherwise, in suicide missions" was "part of the planning" for NSSEs. (9/11 Commission 4/13/2004) According to the Secret Service, "there is a tremendous amount of advance planning and coordination" for NSSEs, sometimes taking months or even years. Various training initiatives are conducted, including "simulated attacks and medical emergencies, inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises." (United States Secret Service 2002; US Congress 7/9/2002) Presumably the use of airplanes in suicide missions is incorporated into some of these simulated attacks.
CBS News airs a February 22, 2000 interview with convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997), awaiting execution in an Indiana federal prison (see July 13, 1999). McVeigh was interviewed by CBS reporter Ed Bradley for a 60 Minutes segment. McVeigh set only one condition for the interview: that Bradley not ask him whether he bombed the Murrah Federal Building. CBS does not air the entire interview, but runs selected excerpts interspersed with comments from others, including family members of the bombing victims. McVeigh spoke about his political ideology, his service in the Gulf War (see January - March 1991 and After), and what he considers to be his unfair criminal trial (see August 14-27, 1997). He expressed no remorse over the dead of Oklahoma City, and blamed the US government for teaching, through what he says is its aggressive foreign policy and application of the death penalty, the lesson that "violence is an acceptable option." McVeigh described himself as returning from the Gulf War angry and bitter, saying: "I went over there hyped up, just like everyone else. What I experienced, though, was an entirely different ballgame. And being face-to-face close with these people in personal contact, you realize they're just people like you." Jim Denny, who had two children injured in the bombing, said he did not understand McVeigh's Gulf War comparison: "We went over there to save a country and save innocent lives. When he compared that to what happened in Oklahoma City, I didn't see the comparison. He came across as 'the government uses force, so it's OK for its citizens to use force.' We don't believe in using force." McVeigh told Bradley that he "thought it was terrible that there were children in the building," which provoked an angry reaction from Jannie Coverdale, who lost two grandchildren in the blast. "Timothy McVeigh is full of it," she said. "He said it was terrible about the children. He had been to the Day Care Center. He had talked to the director of the Day Care Center. He knew those children were there." McVeigh explained that the use of violence against the government could be justified by the fact that the government itself uses violence to carry out its aims. "If government is the teacher, violence would be an acceptable option," he said. "What did we do to Sudan? What did we do to Afghanistan? Belgrade? What are we doing with the death penalty? It appears they use violence as an option all the time." He said that the ubiquitous pictures of himself in an orange jumpsuit, leg irons, and handcuffs that made the rounds of the media two days after his arrest (see April 21, 1995) were "the beginning of a propaganda campaign." Jurors, however, denied that pretrial publicity influenced their judgment. Juror John Candelaria told Bradley, "He's the Oklahoma City bomber, and there is no doubt about it in my mind." McVeigh refused to express any regrets or a wish that his life could have gone in a different direction, telling Bradley: "I think anybody in life says, 'I wish I could have gone back and done this differently, done that differently.' There are moments, but not one that stands out." He admitted to forging something of a friendship with one of his former cellblock colleagues in the Colorado supermax prison he formerly occupied, Theodore "Ted" Kaczynski, the Unabomber. McVeigh said that while Kaczynski is "far left" while he is "far right" politically, "I found that, in a way that I didn't realize, that we were much alike in that all we ever wanted or all we wanted out of life was the freedom to live our own lives however we chose to." (Douglas O. Linder 2001; CBS News 5/11/2001; Douglas O. Linder 2006; CBS News 4/20/2009)
On the fifth anniversary of the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), dedication ceremonies are held at the Oklahoma City National Memorial, built on the site of the bombed-out Murrah Federal Building. The memorial is on three acres of land, and contains a reflecting pool and 168 chairs—149 larger chairs representing the adults killed in the blast and 19 for the children who died in the bombing. (Douglas O. Linder 2001; Indianapolis Star 2003)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997) gives up on his appeals and asks to be executed. In an affidavit, McVeigh writes: "I believe I am fully competent to make this decision. If the court thinks that a psychological evaluation is necessary to make certain I am competent, I will submit to such an evaluation. I will not justify or explain my decision to any psychologist, but will answer questions related to my competency." He acknowledges that he makes his request against the advice of his attorneys, and asks that Judge Richard P. Matsch set an execution date within 120 days. McVeigh's lawyer Nathan Chambers says that McVeigh has been considering this decision for some time now. "This is not a snap decision," Chambers says. "The judge is going to want to make a determination that Mr. McVeigh's decision is a decision he made voluntarily and knowingly." McVeigh gives no further explanation, though some believe he intends to become a martyr for the far-right "patriot" movement. Eight days later, Matsch grants McVeigh's request. (Cart 12/13/2000; The Oklahoman 4/2009; Mayhem (.net) 4/2009)
President-elect George W. Bush meets with Donald Rumsfeld in Washington, and offers him the position of secretary of defense. Insiders are amazed that Bush would even consider Rumsfeld, the chief of staff for former President Ford (see September 21, 1974 and After), after Rumsfeld's open contempt and enmity towards the elder Bush, the "Team B" onslaught against the elder Bush's CIA (see Late November 1976 and Late November, 1976), and his attempts to keep Bush off the presidential tickets in 1976 and 1980 (see Before November 4, 1975). "Real bitterness there," a close friend of the Bush family later says. "Makes you wonder what was going through Bush 43's head when he made [Rumsfeld] secretary of defense." The Bush family's great friend and fixer, James Baker, even tries to dissuade Bush from choosing Rumsfeld, telling him, "All I'm going to say is, you know what he did to your daddy." But Bush chooses Rumsfeld anyway. Not only does Rumsfeld have a long and fruitful relationship with Vice President Cheney (see 1969), but Rumsfeld, described as always an ingratiating courtier by author Craig Unger, plays on Bush's insecurity about his lack of experience and his desire to be an effective commander in chief. Rumsfeld is also a key element of Cheney's long-term plan to unify power in the executive branch (see 1981-1992), to the detriment of Congress and the judiciary. (Unger 2007, pp. 186-187)
With Donald Rumsfeld in as Defense Secretary (see December 28, 2000), Vice President Cheney is moving closer to getting a team in place that will allow him to fulfill his dream of the "unitary executive"—the gathering of power into the executive branch at the expense of the legislative and judicial branches. One key piece to Cheney's plan is to place neoconservative academic Paul Wolfowitz as the head of the CIA. However, Wolfowitz's personal life is proving troublesome for Cheney's plans. Wolfowitz's marriage is crumbling. His wife of over 30 years, Clare, is threatening to go public with her husband's infidelities. Wolfowitz is having one affair with a staffer at the School of International Studies, and is openly romancing another woman, Shaha Ali Riza, a secular Muslim neoconservative with close ties to Iraqi oppositions groups, including Ahmed Chalabi's Iraqi National Congress. Smitten with the idea of a secular Muslim and a secular Jew forming a romantc liaison, Wolfowitz frequently escorts Riza, and not his wife, to neoconservative social events. Many insiders joke about Wolfowitz's "neoconcubine." His dalliances, particularly with a Muslim foreign national, raise questions about his ability to obtain the necessary national security clearance he will need to head the CIA. Cheney does not intend to allow questions of security clearances or wronged and vengeful wives to stop him from placing Wolfowitz at the head of the agency, but this time he does not succeed. After Clare Wolfowitz writes a letter to President-elect Bush detailing her husband's sexual infidelities and possible security vulnerabilities, Wolfowitz is quietly dropped from consideration for the post. Current CIA Director George Tenet, after reassuring Bush that he can work with the new regime, is allowed to keep his position. Author Craig Unger later writes, "If Cheney and the neocons were to have control over the national security apparatus, it would not come from the CIA." (Unger 2007, pp. 187-189)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997) again says he wants to drop any further appeals (see March 8-9, 1999 and December 13, 2000) and asks to be executed. Judge Richard P. Matsch sets his execution date for May 16, 2001. (Douglas O. Linder 2001; Fox News 4/13/2005)
There are discussions among future members of the Bush administration, including Bush himself, about making the removal of Saddam Hussein a top priority once they are in office. After the invasion of Iraq in March 2003, counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke will say that the Bush team had been planning regime change in Iraq since before coming to office, with newly named Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld (see December 28, 2000) and his deputy Paul Wolfowitz (see January 11, 2001) taking the lead. "Since the beginning of the administration, indeed well before, they had been pressing for a war with Iraq," he will write in his book Against All Enemies. "My friends in the Pentagon had been telling me that the word was we would be invading Iraq sometime in 2002." (Clarke 2004, pp. 7-9; Unger 2007, pp. 192) During an appearance on Good Morning America on March 22, 2004, he will say, "[T]hey had been planning to do something about Iraq from before the time they came into office." (Clarke 3/22/2004) Evidence of pre-inaugural discussions on regime change in Iraq comes from other sources as well. Imam Sayed Hassan al-Qazwini, who heads the Islamic Center of America in Detroit, will tell the New York Times in early 2004 that he spoke with Bush about removing Saddam Hussein six or seven times, both before and after the 2000 elections. (Stevenson 1/12/2004) In 2007, author Craig Unger will write: "In certain respects, their actions were a replay of the 1976 Team B experiment (see Early 1976 and November 1976), with one very important difference. This time it wasn't just a bunch of feverish ideologues presenting a theoretical challenge to the CIA. This time Team B controlled the entire executive branch of the United States." (Unger 2007, pp. 192)
According to reporter and author Charlie Savage, the White House staff quickly coalesces into two camps: "Bush People[,] mostly personal friends of the new president who shared his inexperience in Washington," which includes President Bush's top legal counsels, Alberto Gonzales and Harriet Miers, both corporate lawyers in Texas before joining Bush in Washington. The second group is "Cheney People—allies from [Vice-President Dick] Cheney's earlier stints in the federal government (see May 25, 1975, November 18, 1980, 1981-1992, 1989, and June 1996) who were deeply versed in Washington-level issues, a familiarity that would allow their views to dominate internal meetings. These included [Defense Secretary Donald] Rumsfeld and other cabinet secretaries, key deputies throughout the administration, and David Addington, Cheney's longtime aide who would become a chief architect of the administration's legal strategy in the war on terrorism" (see July 1, 1992 and (After 10:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Savage will observe, "Given the stark contrast in experience between Cheney and Bush, it was immediately clear to observers of all political stripes that Cheney would possess far more power than had any prior vice president."
'Unprecedented' Influence - Cheney will certainly have "unprecedented" influence, according to neoconservative publisher William Kristol, who himself had served as former Vice President Dan Quayle's chief of staff. "The question to ask about Cheney," Kristol will write, is "will he be happy to be a very trusted executor of Bush's policies—a confidant and counselor who suggests personnel and perhaps works on legislative strategy, but who really doesn't try to change Bush's mind about anything? Or will he actually, substantively try to shape administration policy in a few areas, in a way that it wouldn't otherwise be going?"
Expanding the Power of the Presidency - Cheney will quickly answer that question, Savage will write, by attempting to "expand the power of the presidency." Savage will continue: "He wanted to reduce the authority of Congress and the courts and to expand the ability of the commander in chief and his top advisers to govern with maximum flexibility and minimum oversight. He hoped to enlarge a zone of secrecy around the executive branch, to reduce the power of Congress to restrict presidential action, to undermine limits imposed by international treaties, to nominate judges who favored a stronger presidency, and to impose greater White House control over the permanent workings of government. And Cheney's vision of expanded executive power was not limited to his and Bush's own tenure in office. Rather, Cheney wanted to permanently alter the constitutional balance of American government, establishing powers that future presidents would be able to wield as well." (Savage 2007, pp. 7-9) Larry Wilkerson, the chief of staff for Secretary of State Colin Powell, will say after leaving the administration: "We used to say about both [Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld's office] and the vice president's office that they were going to win nine out of 10 battles, because they were ruthless, because they have a strategy, because they never, never deviate from that strategy. They make a decision, and they make it in secret, and they make it in a different way than the rest of the bureaucracy makes it, and then suddenly, foist it on the government—and the rest of the government is all confused." (Unger 2007, pp. 299)
Signing Statements to Reshape Legislation, Expand Presidential Power - To that end, Cheney ensures that all legislation is routed through his office for review before it reaches Bush's desk. Addington goes through every bill for any new provisions that conceivably might infringe on the president's power as Addington interprets it, and drafts signing statements for Bush to sign. In 2006, White House counsel Bradford Berenson will reflect: "Signing statements unite two of Addington's passions. One is executive power. And the other is the inner alleyways of bureaucratic combat. It's a way to advance executive power through those inner alleyways.… So he's a vigorous advocate of signing statements and including important objections in signing statements. Most lawyers in the White House regard the bill review process as a tedious but necessary bureaucratic aspect of the job. Addington regarded it with relish. He would dive into a 200-page bill like it was a four-course meal." It will not be long before White House and Justice Department lawyers begin vetting legislation themselves, with Addington's views in mind. "You didn't want to miss something," says a then-lawyer in the White House. (Savage 2007, pp. 236)
The final report of the US Commission on National Security/21st Century, co-chaired by former Senators Gary Hart (D-CO) and Warren Rudman (R-NH), is issued. The bipartisan panel was put together in 1998 by then-President Bill Clinton and then-House Speaker Newt Gingrich. Hart and Rudman personally brief National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and Secretary of State Colin Powell on their findings. The report has 50 recommendations on how to combat terrorism in the US, but all of them are ignored by the Bush administration.
Shelved by White House - According to Hart, Congress will begin to take the commission's suggestions seriously in March and April, and legislation is introduced to implement some of the recommendations. Then, "Frankly, the White House shut it down.… The president said, 'Please wait, we're going to turn this over to the vice president'… and so Congress moved on to other things, like tax cuts and the issue of the day." The White House will announce in May that it will have Vice President Dick Cheney study the potential problem of domestic terrorism, despite the fact that this commission had just studied the issue for 2 1/2 years. Interestingly, both this commission and the Bush administration were already assuming a new cabinet level National Homeland Security Agency would be enacted eventually, even as the public remained unaware of the term and the concept. (Tapper 9/12/2001; Talbot 4/2/2004)
Cannot Get Meeting with Bush - At the meeting with Rice, Rudman says he wants to see President Bush, and is planning to deliver a "blunt and very direct" warning to him that he needs to deal early in his presidency with the question of domestic terror threats. Rice initially agrees to pass on Rudman's request for a meeting with Bush, but nothing happens. Rudman will contact Rice's office several times, but still no meeting is arranged. Rudman will later say he is "disappointed" by this, adding, "There's no question in my mind that somebody at the White House dropped the ball on this." (Shenon 2008, pp. 56-57)
Ignored by 9/11 Commission - Hart will be incredulous that neither he nor any of the other members of this commission are ever asked to testify before the 9/11 Commission. (Hart 4/6/2004) The 9/11 Commission will later make many of the same recommendations as this commission. However, it will barely mention the Hart/Rudman Commission in its final report, except to note that Congress appointed it and failed to follow through on implementing its recommendations. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 107, 479)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997) says he has no objection to having his upcoming execution (see June 11-13, 1997) televised. In a letter published by the Daily Oklahoman, McVeigh questions the fairness of limiting the number of witnesses to his execution, set for May 16 (see January 16, 2001); the Federal Bureau of Prisons (FBP) is considering allowing survivors and relatives of his victims to view his execution via closed-circuit broadcast. "Because the closed-circuit telecast of my execution raises these fundamental equal access concerns, and because I am otherwise not opposed to such a telecast, a reasonable solution seems obvious: hold a true public execution—allow a public broadcast," McVeigh writes. "It has… been said that all of Oklahoma was a victim of the bombing. Can all of Oklahoma watch?" McVeigh's attorney Robert Nigh Jr. says McVeigh is serious about his request. "He is in favor of public scrutiny of government action, including his execution," Nigh says. FBP spokesperson Dan Dunne says of the idea of a public broadcast of McVeigh's execution: "It hasn't been considered. It won't happen." Nigh says that the idea of a publicly broadcast execution is not unreasonable, stating, "If it is our collective judgment that capital punishment is a reasonable response to crime, we need to come to grips with what it actually is." (ABC News 2/11/2001; New York Times 2/11/2001)
Former investigative reporter Jayna Davis, who once worked for KFOR-TV in Oklahoma City, tells Fox News's Bill O'Reilly she has amassed evidence that she says proves Osama bin Laden was behind the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Former Army soldier Timothy McVeigh is awaiting execution for carrying out the bombing (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Davis says that she attempted to give her evidence, comprised of court records, 24 witness statements, and reports from law enforcement, intelligence, and terror experts, to the FBI, which she says refused to accept the material. Davis says the FBI is involved in an elaborate conspiracy to conceal the existence of a Middle Eastern terror cell that carried out the bombing; law enforcement authorities have long dismissed the idea (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After) that the bombing was carried out by anyone other than McVeigh and his accomplice Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998). According to Davis's version of events, a Middle Eastern terror cell was operating only blocks away from the Murrah Federal Building, the site of the bombing, and an Iraqi national who formerly served in Saddam Hussein's Republican Guard was in contact with McVeigh on the day of the bombing. It was the Iraqi, not McVeigh, she says, who drove the Ryder truck containing the bomb to the federal building; he fled in a brown Chevrolet pickup truck. Davis says in the minutes after the bombing, an all-points bulletin was issued for the Iraqi, but it was inexplicably withdrawn shortly thereafter. Davis says the conspiracy consists of McVeigh, Nichols, and at least seven Middle Eastern men, with bin Laden masterminding the operation. "The evidence we have gathered definitely implicates McVeigh and Nichols," she says. "I want to make that very clear. They were in it up to their eyeballs." Of the FBI's refusal to consider her evidence, she tells O'Reilly: "I was flabbergasted. I am unable to imagine any reason they would not accept it." (WorldNetDaily 3/21/2001)
Stephen Jones, who represented convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997), says in an op-ed for the Daily Oklahoman he is willing to testify under oath that McVeigh did not act alone in the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). During McVeigh's trial, Jones insisted that there was evidence of a larger conspiracy, perhaps involving domestic far-right militia groups and perhaps Islamist radicals. Jones says he is willing to testify on behalf of Terry Nichols, McVeigh's accomplice (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998), who is facing 160 counts of murder in an Oklahoma state court (see September 5, 2001). Jones refuses to say whether either McVeigh or Nichols were actually involved in the conspiracy, stating: "At this point, it's not appropriate for me to name names or to go into detail in the media. There are pending proceedings." However, he tells a reporter for The Oklahoman, "If McVeigh is saying he acted alone, that is inconsistent with what he told me." Any such claim of sole responsibility, Jones says, would be inconsistent with his understanding of the case "and certainly contrary to many statements Tim McVeigh made to me while I was his attorney." Such a claim, he says, "would be nothing more than an effort to obstruct justice in pending judicial proceedings.… If I remain silent, my silence could be taken… as condoning what he has said and I can't do that." Jones says his possible testimony would not violate attorney-client privilege, as he no longer represents McVeigh; moreover, Jones says, McVeigh gave up attorney-client privilege when he attacked Jones in a lawsuit last year (see August 14-27, 1997). (Reuters 3/26/2001)
FBI agent Danny Defenbaugh, the lead investigator in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing case (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After 9:02 a.m., April 19, 1995), tells a CNN reporter that convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) was planning subsequent attacks to follow the first bombing. He also says that there was no way McVeigh could not have known that his target, the Murrah Federal Building, had children inside. "There were other federal buildings that were mentioned," Defenbaugh says, referring to potential targets in Dallas and Omaha. The FBI, after finding some of the storage units McVeigh and his co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) used to store explosives, conducted an intensive search for other stores of explosives. "We sent out within two weeks of that letters to every storage facility in the United States," he says, but notes that nothing turned up. "It was, and still is, probably the largest, most labor-intensive investigation ever conducted by the FBI." As for the children being in the building, Defenbaugh says, "No matter what and how you go by that building, if you look at the building, you're going to see all the little cut-out hands, all the little apples and flowers showing that there's a kindergarten there—that there are children in that building." Defenbaugh says the most frequent question he hears is whether others were involved in the conspiracy, usually referring to the now-infamous "John Doe No. 2" (see April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995). Defenbaugh says that security camera footage from a McDonald's (see 3:00 - 5:00 p.m. April 17, 1995) indicates that McVeigh carried out the bombing by himself. "There was no one else who came in [to the restaurant] with him, who was involved with him, who sat with him, who talked with him, who left with him, no indication whatsoever that there was anyone else," he says. Defenbaugh notes that McVeigh is a pariah, even to anti-government militia groups, saying: "He's not a martyr. He's a cold-blooded killer." (CNN 3/28/2001)
The people who died in the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), even the children and babies, were merely "collateral damage," according to Timothy McVeigh, who is awaiting execution for his role in the bombing (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). McVeigh admitted to his participation in the bombing to two Buffalo News reporters, Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck, who wrote the book American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing. The book is due to be published within days. "I understand what they felt in Oklahoma City," McVeigh told the authors. "I have no sympathy for them." The authors quote McVeigh as saying: "I recognized beforehand that someone might be bringing their kid to work. However, if I had known there was an entire day care center, it might have given me pause to switch targets. That's a large amount of collateral damage." CNN reported that according to Danny Defenbaugh, the FBI's lead investigator in the case, there was no doubt that McVeigh knew there would be children among his victims (see March 28, 2001). In an ABC News interview, the authors say that McVeigh "never expressed one ounce of remorse" for his victims in their interviews with him, though they witnessed him become emotional over his remembrance of killing a gopher. According to the authors, McVeigh regrets only that the deaths of the children detracted from his message about the Ruby Ridge (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992) and Waco (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992) debacles. McVeigh told the authors, using a reference to the song "Dirty for Dirty" by Bad Company: "What the US government did at Waco and Ruby Ridge was dirty. I gave dirty back to them at Oklahoma City." The authors note that McVeigh said the triggering event for him was the government's ban on some types of assault weapons (see September 13, 1994): when that happened, McVeigh told them, "I snapped." Dr. John Smith, a psychiatrist who evaluated McVeigh, asked McVeigh why he continued with the bombing even though he knew children were in the building. "[H]e said, 'One, the date was too important to put off,'" Smith says, noting that the date of the bombing, April 19, was the two-year anniversary of the Branch Davidian debacle, "and he went into a tirade about all the children killed at Waco." According to Michel and Herbeck, McVeigh told them he alone planned the bombing, and when his accomplice Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) began to show reluctance in continuing (see March 1995 and March 31 - April 12, 1995), he forced him to keep working with him by threatening his family (legal sources dispute that claim, noting that Nichols never raised the idea of coercion in his defense). McVeigh denied that anyone else took part in the bombing, quoting a line from the movie A Few Good Men: "You can't handle the truth." McVeigh continued, "Because the truth is, I blew up the Murrah Building, and isn't it kind of scary that one man could wreak this kind of hell?" He also told the authors that he was disappointed the building did not come down entirely, saying: "Damn, I didn't knock the building down. I didn't take it down." McVeigh told the authors he knew he would get caught and even anticipated execution as a form of "state-assisted suicide." Yet he worried initially about snipers as he was being charged. "He was ready to die but not at that moment—he wanted to make sure that his full message got out first," Herbeck says. (Thomas 3/29/2001; Thompson 3/29/2001; Oklahoma City Journal Record 3/29/2001; Romano 3/30/2001)
Cable movie provider HBO airs a documentary, Soldiers in the Army of God, focusing on the violent anti-abortion movement (see 1982, Early 1980s, August 1982, and July 1988) and three of its leaders. National Public Radio airs a profile of the documentary, featuring an interview with the film's producers, Marc Levin, Daphne Pinkerson, and Daniel Voll. According to Voll, the film focuses on three members of the "Army of God": young recruit Jonathan O'Toole, who says he was looking for the most "radical" and "terroristic" anti-abortion group he could find; Neal Horsley, who runs an anti-abortion Web site; and long-haul trucker Bob Lokey, who recruits new members.
'Violent Fringe' of Anti-Abortion Opposition - Voll describes the three as part of the "violent fringe" of anti-abortion opposition: "These are the guys on the ground who are—whatever the words that politicians and other leaders of these cultural wars can put out there, these are the men who hear them and feel emboldened by them, who feel encouraged by each other, and they are every day praying for God's will in their life." Another unidentified man says: "Anybody who raises a weapon up against these people who are slaughtering these babies, before God and the entire world, right now I say you are doing God's own work. And may the power of God be with you as you aim that rifle. You're squeezing that trigger for Almighty God." In the documentary, an unidentified anti-abortion activist says: "There are people in this world right now who are looking for directions on what do we do. Well, we end abortion on demand by the most direct means available to us. So stop the abortion with a bullet, if that's what it takes. Stop it with a bomb, if that' s what it takes. You stop abortion on demand. Don't let it go any farther." O'Toole says that the "next step is to arm ourselves in a militia, a real militia that has the power to resist the federal government." Pinkerson says that O'Toole, who was 19 when he joined the Army of God, found Horsley on the Internet through Horsley's Web site, "The Nuremberg Files," which lists doctors who perform abortions (see January 1997). O'Toole became Horsley's assistant, and through him met Lokey, who runs a Web site called "Save the Babies." In the film, O'Toole, whom the producers speculate may eventually become an assassin of abortion providers, says that because of America's legalization of abortion, the country has become like "Nazi Germany. It's like you've got concentration camps around you." Levin notes that filmed conversations between Horsley and Lokey show that many in the movement feel threatened by the concept of women's equality, and blame men's failure to exert "dominion" over women as part of the reason why the US legalized abortion. (Montagne 3/30/2001; Clarkson 3/30/2001)
Opposition to Homosexuality - Horsley draws a connection between the organization's opposition to abortion and the American citizenry's supposed opposition to homosexuality, saying: "If the American people woke up, and realized that they had to choose between legalized abortion, legalized homosexuality, and legalized all the rest of the desecration or civil war which would cause the rivers to run red with blood—hey, you know we will see legalized abortion go like that! We'll see legalized homosexuality go like that! Because the American people are not willing to die for homosexuals."
Bringing Bomb-Making Materials to Washington - The film also shows Lokey bragging to convicted clinic bomber Michael Bray (see September 1994) that he has just trucked 45,000 pounds of ammonium nitrate, a substance that can be used to make "fertilizer bombs" similar to the one that destroyed an Oklahoma City federal building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), into Washington, DC.
Anti-Abortion Opposition Part of an 'Apocalyptic' Death Struggle - Author and reporter Frederick Clarkson writes: "At once shocking, compelling, and beautifully made, the film is essentially the national television debut for the aboveground spokesmen and spokeswomen of the Army of God.… Horsley and others are quite clear in their public statements and their writings that the attacks on clinics and the murders of doctors are but warning shots in what they envision as an epochal, even an apocalyptic struggle at hand. Either Americans conform to their view of God's laws, or there will be a blood bath, they say. And there is no evidence that they are anything but dead serious." (Clarkson 3/30/2001)
Anti-government groups believe that convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) was a brainwashed "patsy" who undermined them, and is not a martyr to their cause, according to experts who monitor the groups. McVeigh is awaiting execution at an Indiana prison. Mark Pitcavage, who tracks right-wing hate groups for the Anti-Defamation League, says: "They view Timothy McVeigh as a patsy, as a sort of Lee Harvey Oswald type. Why hasn't he come clean? Because he's been brainwashed, [the groups believe,] and the government wants to execute him before he can wake up." The Oswald comparison refers to the belief that some have that Oswald was an innocent man framed for the killing of President John F. Kennedy. Some anti-government extremists say that McVeigh was programmed by government agents to cause dissension among anti-government groups, and to give the government an excuse to crack down on the groups. Even so, some experts warn, some anti-government and militia groups will choose April 19, the date of the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), as a day to recognize and to possibly carry out further violence. Political scientist Evan McKenzie says, "Every April 19, everyone should hold their breath." (Stern 4/5/2001)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997), waiting for his execution (see January 16, 2001), meets with his father Bill McVeigh for the last time. He again refuses to apologize for the bombing: "Dad, if I did, I wouldn't be telling the truth," he says. (The Oklahoman 4/2009)
Attorney General John Ashcroft announces that survivors and relatives of victims of the Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997) will be allowed to witness Timothy McVeigh's execution via closed-circuit television. (Fox News 4/13/2005)
Convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) says that he bombed the Murrah Federal Building (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) after considering a plan to assassinate Attorney General Janet Reno. McVeigh's statement comes in a written response he gives to questions submitted by Fox News reporter Rita Cosby. McVeigh calls the bombing both a retaliatory strike and a pre-emptive one against an "increasingly militaristic and violent federal government." Last month, McVeigh's admission of his role in the bombing was made public by two reporters, in which he called the deaths of children in the blast "collateral damage" (see March 29, 2001). McVeigh provides the answers to the Fox reporters' questions to make sure his motives for setting the bomb are clear. "I explain this not for publicity," he writes. "I explain so that the record is clear as to my thinking and motivations in bombing a government installation." He notes again that the date of April 19 was chosen to reflect the date of the Branch Davidian debacle (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After), calling the government's assault on the Davidian compound the equivalent of the Chinese government's "deploying tanks against its own citizens." McVeigh says he waited two years for the government to correct its "abuse of power," and became angry when "they actually gave awards and bonus pay to those agents involved, and conversely, jailed the survivors of the Waco inferno after the jury wanted them set free" (see January-February 1994). McVeigh says he observed what he calls "multiple and ever-more aggressive raids across the country" by the government that constituted what he calls an unacceptable pattern of behavior. He says violent action against the government became an option for him only after protest marches, letter-writing campaigns, and media awareness "failed to correct the abuse." His first thought was "a campaign of assassination," including Reno, Judge Walter Smith, who handled the Branch Davidian trial, and Lon Horiuchi, the FBI agent who shot to death the wife of white separatist Randy Weaver during the Ruby Ridge siege (see August 31, 1992 and August 21-31, 1992). Assassinating Reno, McVeigh says, would "mak[e] her accept 'full responsibility' in deed, not just word," for the Davidian disaster. But, he says, federal agents are merely soldiers, and he decided to strike against them at what he calls one of their command centers. The bombing, he says, was "morally and strategically equivalent to the US hitting a government building in Serbia, Iraq, or other nations," and therefore was acceptable for that reason. "I decided to send a message to a government that was becoming increasingly hostile, by bombing a government building and the government employees within that building who represent that government," he writes. "Based on the observations of the policies of my own government, I viewed this action as an acceptable option." Asked about calling the children slain in the blast "collateral damage," McVeigh writes: "Collateral Damage? As an American news junkie; a military man; and a Gulf War Veteran, where do they think I learned that (It sure as hell wasn't Osami [sic] Bin Laden!)" (Fox News 4/26/2001; Gullo 4/27/2001; Saulny 4/27/2001; Fox News 4/27/2001)
David Schippers, the House Judiciary Committee's chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial, was hired to represent FBI agent Robert Wright in September 1999 (see August 3, 1999). After 9/11, Schippers will claim that he began privately informing congresspeople about Wright's investigation into terrorism financing in the US in early 2001, but found little interest (see February-March 2001). Schippers appears to have had different sources than Wright who began telling him about attack warnings. Supposedly, the first warning was based on a secret February 1995 report which stated that bin Laden was planning three attacks on the US: the bombing of a federal building in the heartland of the US, shooting down or blowing up an airplane, and a massive attack in lower Manhattan. Schippers believes the first warning was a prediction of the April 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) and the second was a prediction of the 1996 explosion of TWA Flight 800 (see July 17, 1996-September 1996). In some versions of this warning, the Manhattan attack was meant to be caused by a "dirty bomb" - explosives mixed with radioactive materials - but other accounts described the use of planes as weapons instead. He says one of his sources for this early warning was Yossef Bodansky, director of the Congressional Task Force on Terrorism and Unconventional Warfare. Schippers will claim that his sources continued to uncover further information. The Manhattan warning "had started out just a general threat, but they narrowed it and narrowed it, more and more with time," until the "same people who came out with the first warning" tell him in May 2001 that "an attack on lower Manhattan is imminent." Schippers speaks to several FBI agents directly, and hears that "there are [other agents] all over the country who are frustrated and just waiting to come out." They are frustrated by "a bureaucratic elite in Washington short-stopping information," which gives "terrorism a free reign in the United States." Schippers later claims that some FBI agents later told him that before 9/11, "they had [Mohamed] Atta in their sights." They also had attempted to "check out" the names and activities of "very strange characters training at flight schools." He will claim that "FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota" tell him "there [is] going to be an attack on lower Manhattan." Schippers will later claim that he will attempt to contact Attorney General John Ashcroft and other politicians about this warning in coming months, but that they will show little interest (see July-Late August 2001). (Metcalf 10/21/2001; Patterson 5/18/2002; Ahmed 2004, pp. 258-260)
An investigative report commissioned by Charles Key (R-OK), a former Oklahoma legislator with ties to regional militia organizations, will conclude that the government's investigation into the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) was riddled with omissions and errors. Key informs WorldNetDaily (WND), a conservative news Web site, of the upcoming report's conclusions. Key helped convene a grand jury investigation in 1998 to look into questions surrounding the bombing; when the jury found no evidence of a larger conspiracy, as Key had hoped it would (see December 30, 1998), he denounced the jury's findings and created the Oklahoma Bombing Investigation Committee, an independent body that conducted the investigation and wrote the report. Key says he hopes the report will help Americans finally "get to the truth" behind the bombing conspiracy. "The purpose of our report is to document the truth," Key tells WND. "We, as so many others do, believe that facts regarding other perpetrators, prior knowledge, and the number of explosive devices used to damage the Murrah Building has been concealed." Key says the committee found "substantial evidence" proving that federal law enforcement officials and court officials knew of the attack well beforehand, but either ignored those warnings or deliberately allowed the attack to go forward. One of those warnings came from a government informant, Carole Howe, whose credibility was questioned by her handlers at the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (BATF—see August 1994 - March 1995). Other warnings came from two informants affiliated with organizations in foreign countries, Key says. Four government agencies, including the BATF and the US Marshals, received a notification "to be on the alert for possible attacks against individuals, federal institutions, or the public at large." Key also says that Federal Judge Wayne Alley, who originally handled the case against convicted bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997), told a reporter that the day of the bombing he had been warned to be on the alert for a possible bombing. Key also says he has statements from five witnesses who claim that no BATF agents were in the building at the time of the attack (this is false; a BATF agent documented his experiences in trying to escape from the building; see 9:02 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995). Other witnesses have told Key that they saw bomb squad vehicles in downtown Oklahoma City before the bomb went off. Key says "over 70 witnesses" saw McVeigh "and one or more John Does" in the days before, and on the day of, the bombing. After the bombing, Key says, around 40 witnesses identified the now-infamous "John Doe No. 2" (see April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995) as a man of Middle Eastern descent (see 10:00 a.m. April 19, 1995 and After). Federal authorities ignored those witnesses, Key claims. Key also says that several witnesses in the building told of a "second bomb" going off before (not after) McVeigh's truck bomb exploded. (Claims that a second bomb went off after the truck bomb detonated have been disputed—see After 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 9:22 a.m. April 19, 1995). Some of the witnesses say that the first, smaller detonation drove them to hide under their desks just before the larger bomb detonated, thus giving them the chance to save themselves. Key says the committee obtained seismological evidence from what he calls an expert source that, he says, "supports the fact that there were multiple explosions" that morning. But, as was the case with other witnesses, the expert "was not allowed to testify at the federal trials," the report says. And, Key says, witnesses claim to have actually seen a number of bombs in the building that morning, reports that caused rescue personnel to evacuate the building while people were still trapped inside (see 10:00 a.m. and After, April 19, 1995 and 10:28 a.m. April 19, 1995). The report questions the size of McVeigh's bomb, which was estimated at a number of different sizes but was eventually concluded by government experts to be somewhere around 4,800 pounds; the report says that estimate is incorrect. The damage suffered by the Murrah Building could not have been caused by a bomb of that size, according to "experts" quoted by the report. Key also says that the government deliberately prevented evidence of others' involvement in the bombing to be used in McVeigh's and Nichols's trials, and says that indictments against the two named those persons (this is false—see August 10, 1995). Key says allegations by Jayna Davis that Osama bin Laden masterminded the bomb conspiracy (see March 20, 2001) support the report's contentions. The report contains other allegations, including possible involvement by federal law enforcement and court officials, FBI officials refusing to allow Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) personnel to investigate the building, FBI officials refusing to run fingerprint checks of over 1,000 prints obtained in the investigation, what the report calls "blatant bias" exhibited towards "anyone asking questions or probing into facts," and of breaking "[v]irtually all of the rules governing grand juries." Key's committee concludes that the Clinton administration "had prior knowledge of the bombing," and that "McVeigh and Nichols did not act alone." Key tells WND: "The final report represents years of extensive investigation and countless interviews. It contains information never reported before in any forum." (Dougherty 5/4/2001)
Author Gore Vidal says he will attend the execution of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997). Vidal was offered one of three witness slots McVeigh was given for friends or family members. Vidal says he has "exchanged several letters" with McVeigh since McVeigh wrote him in 1998 about an article Vidal wrote on the Bill of Rights. Vidal says that while he does not approve of the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), he and McVeigh share some views on the federal government. "He's very intelligent," Vidal says of McVeigh. "He's not insane." Vidal says he and McVeigh agree that the federal government went far beyond its limits in the FBI's assault on the Branch Davidian compound outside of Waco, Texas, an assault that resulted in the deaths of 78 people (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After). "This guy's got a case—you don't send the FBI in to kill women and children," Vidal says. "The boy has a sense of justice." Vidal says he intends to write an article for Vanity Fair about the execution. (New York Times 5/7/2001)
In a brief statement, President Bush announces that Vice President Dick Cheney will oversee a "coordinated national effort" aimed at integrating the government's plans for responding to the use of a chemical, biological, radiological, or nuclear weapon within the United States. Bush declares, "Should our efforts to reduce the threat to our country from weapons of mass destruction be less than fully successful, prudence dictates that the United States be fully prepared to deal effectively with the consequences of such a weapon being used here on our soil." Bush says a new agency within the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), known as the Office of National Preparedness, will be "responsible for implementing the results of those parts of the national effort overseen by Vice President Cheney that deal with consequence management." The Office of National Preparedness appears to be a reincarnation of FEMA's old National Preparedness Directorate (NPD), which was disbanded by the Clinton administration in 1993 (see January 1993-October 1994). During the 1980s and early 1990s, the NPD secretly spent billions of dollars preparing for nuclear war and other national emergencies as part of the highly classified Continuity of Government (COG) program (see February 1993, 1982-1991, and April 1, 1979-Present). (Cox News Service 2/22/1993) Under the Bush administration, the Office of National Preparedness (ONP) will apparently take over where the National Preparedness Directorate left off. According to Bush, the ONP "will coordinate all Federal programs dealing with weapons of mass destruction consequence management within the Departments of Defense, Health and Human Services, Justice, and Energy, the Environmental Protection Agency, and other federal agencies." Cheney, who played a central role in the COG program during the Reagan administration (see 1981-1992 and 1980s), informs CNN, "[O]ne of our biggest threats as a nation" could be "domestic terrorism, but it may also be a terrorist organization overseas or even another state using weapons of mass destruction against the US.… [W]e need to look at this whole area, oftentimes referred to as homeland defense." According to FEMA, the ONP will be up and running as early as the summer of 2001. President Bush says he "will periodically chair a meeting of the National Security Council to review these efforts." (CNN 5/8/2001; White House 5/8/2001; Rich 7/8/2002) Cheney is meant to head a group that will draft a national terrorism response plan by October 1. (Chicago Sun-Times 5/5/2001; Waller 6/18/2001) But, according to Barton Gellman of the Washington Post, "Neither Cheney's review nor Bush's took place." (Gellman 1/20/2002) Former Senator Gary Hart (D-CO) later implies that Bush assigned this specific role to Cheney in order to prevent Congress from enacting counterterrorism legislation proposed by a bipartisan commission he had co-chaired in January (see January 31, 2001). (Talbot 4/2/2004; Hart 4/6/2004) In July, two senators will send draft counterterrorism legislation to Cheney's office, but a day before 9/11, they are told it might be another six months before he gets to it (see September 10, 2001). (Hirsh and Isikoff 5/27/2002) Cheney's "National Preparedness Review" is just beginning to hire staff a few days before 9/11 (see September 10, 2001). (Rood 4/15/2004)
The Justice Department reveals that it failed to turn over nearly 4,000 pages of documentary evidence to the defense in the trial of convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and June 2, 1997). Attorney General John Ashcroft postpones McVeigh's execution (see January 16, 2001) for 30 days to allow defense attorneys to review the newly released documents. (Douglas O. Linder 2001; Johnston and Marquis 5/11/2001; Romano and Eggen 5/11/2001; Fox News 4/13/2005) Apparently many of the documents relate to the FBI's investigation into the never-identified "John Doe No. 2" (see April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995), which the agency now terms a "dead-end" investigation. Sources say many of the documents are "302 forms," the forms that document the raw interviews conducted by agents with witnesses. (Romano and Eggen 5/11/2001; Mayhem (.net) 4/2009) The documents were found by bureau archivists in Oklahoma City as they canvassed the agency's 56 field offices in a final search of records related to the bombing in anticipation of McVeigh's execution (see June 11-13, 1997). Lawyers for both McVeigh and his convicted co-conspirator Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) were legally entitled to review the records as they prepared for the two trials. Justice Department spokesperson Mindy Tucker issues the following statement: "On Tuesday, May 8, the Department of Justice notified Timothy McVeigh's attorney of a number of FBI documents that should have been provided to them during the discovery phase of the trial. While the department is confident the documents do not in any way create any reasonable doubt about McVeigh's guilt and do not contradict his repeated confessions of guilt, the department is concerned that McVeigh's attorneys were not able to review them at the appropriate time." The FBI blames its obsolete computer system for the error. Prosecutors say the documents were not material to either case. McVeigh's former lawyer Stephen Jones says, "I said all along they weren't giving us everything." (Johnston and Marquis 5/11/2001; Indianapolis Star 2003) Law professor James S. Liebman, who helped conduct an extensive study of death penalty appeals across the country, says the failure to produce the documents is "something I've just never heard of.… I can tell you, it's extremely rare if it's ever happened before." (Romano and Eggen 5/11/2001)
New York Times reporter David Stout observes that the FBI's admitted failure to turn over documents to convicted Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995, June 2, 1997, and May 10-11, 2001) will fuel conspiracy theories that will last for years. Attorney General John Ashcroft admitted as much when he ordered a delay in McVeigh's scheduled execution to review the incident, saying, "If any questions or doubts remain about this case, it would cast a permanent cloud over justice." Stout writes: "But for some people the cloud has been there all along, and always will be. They will never accept the government's assertion that the withholding of the documents was simple human, bureaucratic error. And so the 1995 bombing of a federal office building in Oklahoma City seems likely to join the assassinations of John F. Kennedy and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. as events whose truth—in the eyes of some Americans—is forever untold." Charles Key, a former Oklahoma state legislator who has recently released a statement packed with assertions of a larger conspiracy and government malfeasance surrounding the bombing (see May 4, 2001), has been particularly vocal in his scorn over the document incident, and his contention that it is just part of a larger conspiracy by the government to cover up the truth behind the bombing. McVeigh's former lawyer Stephen Jones seems to agree with Key; in his recent book (see August 14-27, 1997) Others Unknown: Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma Bombing Conspiracy, Jones asserts: "The real story of the bombing, as the McVeigh defense pursued it, is complex, shadowy, and sinister. McVeigh, like the government, had its own reasons to keep it so. It stretches, web-like, from America's heartland to the nation's capital, the Far East, Europe, and the Middle East, and much of it remains a mystery." Others go even farther in their beliefs. Charles Baldridge of Terre Haute, Indiana, where McVeigh is incarcerated awaiting execution, says, "I won't say that McVeigh didn't do it, but he wasn't the brains, he wasn't the one who orchestrated it." Asked who orchestrated the bombing, Baldridge replies, "The government." Many people believe that if the government did not actually plan and execute the bombing, it allowed it to happen, in order to use it as an excuse for passing anti-terrorism laws and curbing basic freedoms. Many of the same conspiracy theories that sprouted in the aftermath of the Branch Davidian tragedy (see April 19, 1993 and April 19, 1993 and After) are now appearing in the public discourse about the Oklahoma City bombing, Stout notes. (Stout 5/13/2001)
One of the documents turned over to the lawyers for convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirators Timothy McVeigh (see June 2, 1997 and June 11-13, 1997) and Terry Nichols (see December 23, 1997 and June 4, 1998) is a report about a purported eyewitness to the bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) whose statements were attacked during McVeigh's trial. Eyewitness Morris John Kuper Jr. called the FBI two days after the bombing to say that an hour before the bombing, he saw a man resembling McVeigh walking in the company of another man near the Murrah Federal Building. He told agents that he saw both men get into an old, light-colored car similar to the Mercury Marquis McVeigh was arrested in later that morning (see 9:03 a.m. -- 10:17 a.m. April 19, 1995). In court, Kuper described the other man as being similar to a sketch of the suspected, never-identified "John Doe No. 2" (see April 20, 1995, April 21, 1995, April 29, 1995, and June 14, 1995). Kuper also testified that he told agents they should check security cameras at two nearby buildings to see if they caught anything, but, Kuper told the court, "they took my name and phone number and never contacted me again." FBI documents show that he contacted the FBI via email in October 1995, not on April 21 as he claimed; US Attorney Patrick Ryan challenged Kuper's credibility in court over the discrepancy in dates. The newly discovered document details Kuper's conversation with agents on April 21. Ryan says now that he never knew the document existed: "I certainly would never intentionally tell the jury someone had not come forward for six months if I knew they had come forward a couple of days after the bombing." Ryan says that he still believes Kuper and other defense witnesses who claimed to have seen others accompanying McVeigh before the bombing were "fairly unreliable. The problem with any of these witnesses, even if some were right, you didn't know which were the right ones and which were the wrong ones." At the time, fellow prosecutor Beth Wilkinson compared the "John Doe No. 2" accounts to "Elvis sightings." McVeigh has also said that "John Doe No. 2" does not exist. (Thomas 5/27/2001)
Chief Ray Downey of the New York City Fire Department (FDNY) firmly believes that a major terrorist attack in the United States is imminent. According to a book written by his nephew, in the months before 9/11, Downey has on his desk "all the reports he can get his hands on about the threat of terrorism." This is because he "has become convinced that a major terrorist attack is coming and that very few people in New York, or the United States, are prepared for this eventuality." (Downey 2004, pp. 218-219)
Fire Chief Warns, 'We're Gonna Get Hit Bad' - Downey was in charge of rescue operations following the terrorist bombings of the World Trade Center in 1993 (see February 26, 1993), the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City in 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and the Olympic Games in Atlanta, Georgia, in 1996. (Goldstein 11/22/2001; Fire Engineering 3/2002) Having witnessed the aftermath of these attacks, he now feels "certain that a big one [is] coming next." Whenever a conversation turns to the subject of terrorism, he warns, "We're gonna get hit bad." Furthermore, the 1993 WTC bombing demonstrated to him that Islamic terrorists see New York as their prime target. Downey has discussed his concerns with his men and outlined various scenarios to them. He thinks the "big one" is most likely going to be an attack involving a chemical or dirty bomb in an urban environment. (Downey 2004, pp. 224)
Chief Has Planned the Fire Department's Response to Terrorism - Downey is in charge of the FDNY's renowned Special Operations Command (SOC). (Crittle and Venezia 12/16/2001; Fire Engineering 3/2002) The SOC is an elite group of firefighters who respond to unique fire and emergency situations, and its members are trained to deal with catastrophes. (McPhee 10/21/2001; Rifilato 7/13/2007; Smithsonian 8/31/2013) As head of the unit, Downey is responsible for planning the FDNY's response to terrorist attacks. He has "worked out various scenarios for terrorist attacks—who would be the first, second, and third of his companies on scene; what would each unit do," according to the book by his nephew. He has "studied floor plans of major landmarks, looked at aerial views of [New York], thought about traffic routes, bridges, and tunnels." (Downey 2004, pp. 222-223)
Chief Serves on a Government Commission on Terrorism - Downey is also a member of the Gilmore Commission, an advisory panel established in 1999 to assess America's capabilities for responding to domestic terrorist incidents involving weapons of mass destruction. (Goldstein 11/22/2001; Fire Engineering 3/2002) And in his spare time, he has traveled around the country, "preaching the need to prepare for terrorism," according to Hal Bruno, chairman of the National Fallen Firefighters Foundation. (Moore 9/13/2001)
A small number of Branch Davidians, who live a quiet existence outside of Waco, Texas, and worship in a church dedicated in April 2000 (see September 18, 1999 - April 19, 2000) and built very near the site of the April 1993 conflagration that killed almost 80 of their fellow Davidians (see April 19, 1993), say they have no connection to Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh. McVeigh, a racist white separatist who evidence shows used the 1993 tragedy as a spark for his decision to bomb a federal building in Oklahoma City on the second anniversary of the Davidian tragedy (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), is due to be executed for his crime (see June 2, 1997). Davidian leader Clive Doyle says his group does not appreciate McVeigh's actions. "I don't see that blowing up a building that kills a whole bunch of kids really makes a strike against the government or law enforcement, if that's what you're against," he says. "It didn't hurt them all that much and it didn't help us." Doyle escaped the April 1993 fire that destroyed the Mt. Carmel compound, but lost his 18-year-old daughter in the flames. Doyle and others say that in recent weeks more and more radical-right extremists have come to view the site of the conflagration; he has begun building a security fence to keep out unwanted visitors. Robert Darden, an English professor who wrote a book on the Branch Davidians and the Waco siege, says the sect is generally peaceful, and had been so until its leader David Koresh led its members down a path of armed militancy. Doyle says he does not believe Koresh would have approved of either the McVeigh bombing or any armed assault against government authorities. He recalls Koresh welcoming a man who offered to rally thousands of militiamen in an attack on federal agents, but also says Koresh discouraged such an action. Ron Goins, who is not a Davidian but who often visits the new church and its members, says, "I felt the same rage [as McVeigh], but I didn't feel the responsibility upon myself to take lives, especially since there were innocent people who died in Oklahoma City." Moreover, Goins says, McVeigh's bombing shifted public attention away from scrutiny of the government and toward "mad bombers, lone gunmen, and things like that." Doyle says he is unhappy that people now connect the Davidian tragedy with the Oklahoma City bombing. (Embry 6/10/2001)
David Schippers, the House Judiciary Committee's chief investigator in the Clinton impeachment trial and the lawyer for FBI agent Robert Wright since September 1999, will later claim that he was warned about an upcoming al-Qaeda attack on lower Manhattan in May 2001 (see May 2001). After May, Schippers continues to get increasingly precise information about this attack from FBI agents in Chicago and Minnesota, and around July he renews efforts to pass the warning to politicians. He will claim, "I tried to see if I could get a Congressman to go to bat for me and at least bring these people [to Washington] and listen to them. I sent them information and nobody cared. It was always, 'We'll get back to you,' 'We'll get back to you,' 'We'll get back to you.'" At the same time he is attempting to pass on this warning, he will claim he is also attempting to pass on the work of reporter Jayna Davis and her theory that Middle Easterners were involved in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), and also Wright's claim that Hamas operatives were operating freely inside the US (see February-March 2001). The three claims put together seem to lead to a bad response; Schippers later comments, "People thought I was crazy." Around July 15, he attempts to contact Attorney General John Ashcroft. Conservative activist "Phyllis Schlafly finally apparently made some calls. She called me one day and said, 'I've talked to John Ashcroft, and he'll call you tomorrow.'" The next day, one of Ashcroft's underlings in the Justice Department calls him back and says, "We don't start our investigations with the Attorney General. Let me look into this, and I'll have somebody get back to you right away." Schippers will say he never did hear back from anyone in the Justice Department. Perhaps coincidentally, on July 26 it will be reported that Ashcroft has stopped flying commercial aircraft due to an unnamed threat (see July 26, 2001). In late August, his FBI agent sources again confirm that an al-Qaeda attack on lower Manhattan is imminent. (Metcalf 10/21/2001; Patterson 5/18/2002; Ahmed 2004, pp. 258-260) In 2003, Wright will say, "In 2000 and in 2001, [Schippers] contacted several US congressmen well before the September 11th attacks. Unfortunately, these congressmen failed to follow through with Mr. Schippers' request that they investigate my concerns." It is not clear if Wright was one of the Chicago FBI agents that Schippers claims gave warnings about a Manhattan attack, or if Wright is only referring to Wright's investigation into funding for Hamas and other groups that Schippers was also warning politicians about (see February-March 2001). (Federal News Service 6/2/2003)
A hotel owner in Oklahoma City will later say that he sees Zacarias Moussaoui, Mohamed Atta, and Marwan Alshehhi together on or around this day. He will claim they come to his hotel late at night and ask for a room, but end up staying elsewhere. At the time, Moussaoui is living 28 miles away in Norman, Oklahoma (see February 23-June 2001). However, even though the US government will later struggle to find evidence directly connecting Moussaoui to any of the 9/11 hijackers, this account will not be cited by any US government officials or prosecutors. An article will later suggest this may be because of numerous reports and eyewitnesses claiming Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols stayed at the same hotel with a group of Middle Easterners in the weeks before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). By highlighting this encounter, it might draw renewed attention to controversial Oklahoma City bombing theories. Atta and Alshehhi briefly visited an Oklahoma flight school in July 2000 (see July 2-3, 2000), before Moussaoui arrived in the US. On April 1, 2001, 9/11 hijacker Nawaf Alhazmi received a speeding ticket in Oklahoma (see April 1, 2001), but there have been no sightings of him with Moussaoui. (Crogan 8/2/2002)
Link to Oklahoma City Bombing? - Former CIA analyst Larry Johnson will say of this meeting: "One of the things that's evident right now in connection with this investigation, the motel in Oklahoma City where the April bombing against the Murrah building was planned and executed from, that same hotel figures in two of the 9/11 hijackers and Zacarias Moussaoui, who's currently in jail. Those three guys tried to check into that motel. And there is another fellow in Oklahoma City that links them to the April bombing against the Murrah building.… I have spoken to the owner of the motel. After the 9/11 attack, he called the FBI. The FBI came out and interviewed him, as he identified Mohamed Atta, Marwan Alshehhi, and Zacarias Moussaoui. They came in. They said, 'We're looking for a room.' He said: 'I don't have any room. What do you need it for?' They said, 'We're going for flight training.'" (O'Reilly Factor 5/7/2002)
Intriguingly Similar Sightings Nearby - Years later, a 2002 FBI document will be made public that reveals several employees at a flight school in Bethany, Oklahoma, saw Atta, Alshehhi, and hijacker Waleed Alshehri flying small aircraft several times from early 2001 until August 2001. Additionally, Moussaoui was said to use the same airport, although there will be no mentioned sightings of him with the others. Bethany is about five miles from Highway 40, which is where the hotel mentioned above is near. Additionally, the hotel is about 28 miles from Norman, Oklahoma (where Moussaoui is living) and Bethany is about 33 miles from Norman (see Early 2001-August 2001). (Federal Bureau of Investigation 4/19/2002)
9/11 hijacker Mohamed Atta receives $100,000 from accounts in Pakistan. The money is transferred to two of his accounts in Florida. (Fox News 10/2/2001; Margasak 10/2/2001; US Congress 10/3/2001; CNN 10/6/2001; Ressa 10/8/2001) This will later be reported in various media. For example, ABC News will say that federal authorities track "more than $100,000 from banks in Pakistan to two banks in Florida to accounts held by suspected hijack ringleader Mohamed Atta." (ABC News 9/30/2001) Law enforcement sources will tell CNN, "[T]he wire transfers from Pakistan were sent to Atta through two banks in Florida." (CNN 10/1/2001) One of the hijackers' financiers, the Pakistan-based Omar Saeed Sheikh, is said to wire Atta around $100,000 in August (see Early August 2001). The transfers from Pakistan will be disclosed a few weeks after 9/11 but will then fade from view (see September 30-October 7, 2001), until 2003 when John S. Pistole, deputy assistant director of the FBI's Counterterrorism Division, tells the Senate Committee on Governmental Affairs that the FBI has traced the origin of funding for 9/11 back to accounts in Pakistan (see July 31, 2003). However, in 2004 the 9/11 Commission will fail to mention any funding coming directly from Pakistan (see Late-September 2001-August 2004).
Oklahoma City District Attorney Wes Lane announces that Oklahoma will continue prosecuting convicted Oklahoma City bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see March 29, 1999) on 160 state charges of murder, in part because the state fears Nichols may win his federal appeals (see June 4, 1998). "I will not roll the dice on this issue. There is simply too much at stake," Lane says. He says that the state will seek the death penalty against Nichols. Lane took over the case after District Attorney Robert Macy retired in June 2001; some have speculated that Oklahoma might drop the case due to the expenditure, the difficulty of finding an impartial jury, and the emotional toll on the victims of another trial. Nichols's lead lawyer for the state case, Brian Hermanson, writes in a letter quoted by local newspapers that Nichols was willing to drop his appeals and accept a federal life sentence to avoid a state trial. The letter states: "Taking such a step ensures that he will spend the rest of his life in prison. It would enable Mr. Lane to drop the state prosecution, thereby sparing Oklahoma the trauma and expense of another trial." Lane responds that "the interests of the people of the State of Oklahoma cannot be vindicated by the blind reliance on the federal government or Terry Lynn Nichols," and says he will seek sanctions against Hermanson for what he calls a "glaring, blatant violation" of a state court order not to discuss the case. Shelly Thompson, who lost her mother in the blast (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), says: "You can't just get away with a little bit of a crime. We're going to go for the whole thing. I want to make sure he will stay in prison for his life. This is something I need to do for her. He was not found guilty in my mother's death and 159 other deaths. They are more than numbers." (Thomas 9/6/2001; The Oklahoman 4/2009; Mayhem (.net) 4/2009)
Emergency managers from around the US, including Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) Director Joseph Allbaugh and representatives from the emergency management agencies of 47 states, are in Big Sky, Montana, attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA), where the main focuses include the issues of domestic terrorism and weapons of mass destruction.
Most State Emergency Managers in Attendance - Conference attendees include around 350 government and industry emergency specialists. (Janofsky 9/12/2001; DeMers 10/2001 ) Among them are almost all of America's state emergency management directors and most of the senior FEMA staff. (Nagy 9/13/2001) They are there, reportedly, "to hear briefings on the latest issues in domestic preparedness, improve state and local capabilities, address energy shortages, and discuss lessons from the February 2001 Nisqually earthquake." (DeMers 10/2001 ) The attendees discuss anti-terrorism planning courses, and the status of federal aid and cooperation efforts. (Nagy 9/10/2002) Allbaugh is the event's keynote speaker and gives his talk on September 10, in which he describes his focus on improving emergency capabilities and preparing for disaster. (Janofsky 9/12/2001; DeMers 10/2001 )
Conference Ends Early Due to Attacks - The NEMA conference is originally scheduled to run until September 12. (Natural Hazards Observer 3/2001; National Emergency Management Association 8/15/2001) But because of the terrorist attacks on September 11, it ends a day early (see After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Borgstrom 10/25/2001) Special arrangements are then made for some of the emergency managers in attendance to be flown home on military aircraft, while others have to drive long distances back to their states (see (After 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001, (After 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001, and (After 4:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). (Nagy 9/13/2001; DeMers 10/2001 )
Timing of Attacks Inconvenient - In May this year, President Bush put FEMA in charge of responding to any terrorist attacks in the United States, charging it with creating an Office of National Preparedness to coordinate the government's response to such attacks (see May 8, 2001). (White House 5/8/2001; Gerstenzang 5/9/2001) Following the attacks on September 11, FEMA spokesman Mark Wolfson will note the inconvenience of these attacks occurring at the same time as the NEMA conference. He will say that FEMA officials do not know whether the attacks were timed to catch emergency officials off guard, but "it is something that law enforcement investigators might be looking at." (Nagy 9/13/2001) NEMA is the professional association of state emergency management directors. (Natural Hazards Observer 3/2001) Its annual conference is being held in Montana this year because its president, Jim Greene, is the administrator of the state's Disaster and Emergency Services Division. (Billings Gazette 10/5/2000; Murray 1/16/2001; Janofsky 9/12/2001)
Senator Dianne Feinstein (D-CA), who, with Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ), has sent a copy of draft legislation on counterterrorism and national defense to Vice President Cheney's office on July 20, is told by Cheney's top aide Lewis "Scooter" Libby on this day "that it might be another six months before he would be able to review the material." (Dianne Feinstein 5/17/2002; Hirsh and Isikoff 5/27/2002)
Preparations are already underway for the annual meetings of the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and the World Bank, which are scheduled to take place in Washington, DC on September 29-30, 2001. Many of the agencies that will be involved in the emergency response to the Pentagon attack, including the Arlington County Fire Department, are engaged in preparations for the IMF/World Bank event (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). (United Press International 9/6/2001; US Department of Health and Human Services 7/2002, pp. A-4 ; 9/11 Commission 5/19/2004; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 314) The meetings have been designated as a National Special Security Event (NSSE). (New York Times 8/18/2001; Best 9/1/2001) The Secret Service is in charge of security for NSSEs. (United States Secret Service 2002) The FBI and FEMA also have key roles. (Scalet 9/2004; Lowy 1/11/2005) There are questions about how preparations for an NSSE might have affected security around Washington. When preparing for such an event, the Secret Service carries out "a tremendous amount of advance planning and coordination in the areas of venue and motorcade route security, communications, credentialing, and training." It conducts a "variety of training initiatives," including "simulated attacks and medical emergencies, inter-agency tabletop exercises, and field exercises." (United States Secret Service 2002) According to former FBI Director Louis Freeh, in 2000 and 2001 the use of airplanes by terrorists in suicide missions is "part of the planning" for NSSEs. (9/11 Commission 4/13/2004) Also, the Secret Service is mandated to create capabilities for achieving "airspace security" over NSSEs. (US Congress 3/30/2000 ) But whether it has such capabilities already in place around Washington is unknown. Though there are only about four or five NSSEs each year, preparations also happen to be underway in New York for another possible NSSE (see 8:30 a.m. September 11, 2001). (US Department of Homeland Security 7/9/2003; US Department of Homeland Security 11/8/2004) The IMF/World Bank event will be cancelled due to the 9/11 attacks. (CBS News 9/17/2001)
Bruce Baughman, director of the planning and readiness division of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), takes charge at FEMA headquarters in Washington, DC, because more senior FEMA officials, including the agency's director, are away from the capital. FEMA Director Joseph Allbaugh and Lacy Suiter, FEMA's assistant director of readiness, response, and recovery, are in Big Sky, Montana, attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management Association (see September 8-11, 2001 and After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Baughman, who led FEMA's response to the Oklahoma City bombing in April 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995), therefore has to take charge of FEMA's response to today's terrorist attacks. In this capacity, he is responsible for activating FEMA's emergency operations center, dispatching disaster medical personnel to the scenes of the attacks, and establishing emergency communications for New York. After the Twin Towers come down (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), he calls up the first FEMA urban search and rescue teams, which specialize in rescuing people from collapsed structures. (Block and Cooper 2006, pp. 73-75) He will subsequently personally brief President Bush on three days while response operations are underway. (9/11 Commission 11/17/2003 )
FEMA Will Help Local Agencies Respond to the Attacks - In May, Bush put FEMA in charge of responding to terrorist attacks in the United States (see May 8, 2001). (White House 5/8/2001; Gerstenzang 5/9/2001) The agency therefore plays a key role in the government's response to today's attacks. The emergency response team at its headquarters is activated today, along with all 10 of its regional operations centers. It also activates its federal response plan, which, it states, "brings together 28 federal agencies and the American Red Cross to assist local and state governments in response to national emergencies and disasters." It deploys eight urban search and rescue teams to New York to search for victims in the debris from the collapsed World Trade Center buildings, and four urban search and rescue teams to the Pentagon to assist the response there. These teams consist mainly of local emergency services personnel, and are trained and equipped to handle structural collapses. (Federal Emergency Management Agency 9/11/2001; Federal Emergency Management Agency 9/11/2001; US National Response Team 2014, pp. 2 ) In the days and weeks following the attacks, it will work with state and city officials to carry out the task of removing the debris from the WTC site. (Block and Cooper 2006, pp. 75)
The jet fuel that spilled from Flight 11 when it hit the North Tower (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001) has mostly burned up by this time. The National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST), which investigates the collapses, will say "The initial jet fuel fires themselves lasted at most a few minutes." (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 183) Engineering professor Forman Williams will say the jet fuel "burned for maybe 10 minutes." (Chertoff et al. 3/2005) Flight 11, a Boeing 767, had a fuel capacity of 23,980 gallons, but was only carrying about 10,000 gallons when it hit the WTC. NIST will estimate that less than 1,500 gallons were consumed in a fireball inside the tower and a comparable amount was consumed in the fireballs outside the building. Therefore, approximately 7,000 gallons splashed onto the office furnishings and started fires on various floors. However, after the jet fuel is used up, office fires burn until the building collapses. NIST will calculate that there were about four pounds per square foot of combustibles in the office space, or about 60 tons per floor. Offices in the WTC actually have fewer combustibles than some other similar spaces due to the small number of interior walls and limited bookshelf space. NIST will later find that only three of sixteen perimeter columns it recovers reached a temperature of 250°C and neither of the two core columns it retrieves reached this temperature. NIST will also find that none of the samples it acquires reaches a temperature above 600°C (see August 27, 2003). Although steel does not melt until its temperature is about 1,600°C, it may begin to lose significant strength at over 500°C. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 20, 29, 24, 77) The jet fuel will also burn up in the South Tower about 10 minutes after it is hit (see 9:13 a.m. September 11, 2001).
An announcement is made over the public address system in the South Tower of the World Trade Center, advising workers that they can begin an orderly evacuation of the building if conditions warrant it. (Dwyer 5/17/2004; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 289) A previous announcement over the public address system instructed people in the South Tower to stay in, or return to, their offices, rather than evacuate (see (8:50 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 287-288; Dwyer and Flynn 2005, pp. 72) The new announcement begins: "May I have your attention, please. Repeating this message: the situation occurred in Building 1 [i.e. the North Tower]." The announcer then says, "If the conditions warrant on your floor, you may wish to start an orderly evacuation." (Dwyer 5/17/2004) The announcement is presumably made by Philip Hayes, the deputy fire safety director on duty at the fire command desk in the lobby of the South Tower. A button at the desk enables fire safety directors to deliver announcements over the public address system. (Dwyer and Flynn 2005, pp. 26)
Identity of Person Who Ordered Evacuation Unclear - The new advice, for tenants to evacuate, does "not correspond to any prewritten emergency instruction," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 289) It is unclear who told Hayes to make the announcement giving this advice. George Tabeek, the Port Authority's security manager for the WTC, contacted the fire command desks in the Twin Towers immediately after Flight 11 hit the North Tower, with instructions about what to do. His orders for Hayes, however, were to "keep people inside the South Tower" (see Shortly After 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Grant 9/6/2011)
Police Commander Called for Evacuation of WTC - Captain Anthony Whitaker, the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) commanding officer at the WTC, called for the evacuation of the WTC at 9:00 a.m. (see 8:59 a.m.-9:02 a.m. September 11, 2001). However, his instruction was given over PAPD radio channel W, "which could not be heard by the deputy fire safety director in the South Tower," according to the 9/11 Commission Report. (Murphy 2002, pp. 184-185; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 293; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 201) Furthermore, according to the Port Authority, deputy fire safety directors do not generally take direct orders from the PAPD under the regular chain of command. Therefore, the 9/11 Commission Report will state, it is "not known if [Hayes] received the order by the PAPD to evacuate the complex." (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 544)
Fire Department Responsible for Ordering Evacuations - According to New York Times reporters Jim Dwyer and Kevin Flynn, "The authority to order an evacuation during a fire normally rests with the fire department." (Dwyer and Flynn 2005, pp. 79) In a phone call with his counterpart in the North Tower, at 8:49 a.m., Hayes in fact said he would wait to hear from "the boss from the fire department or somebody" before ordering an evacuation of the South Tower (see 8:49 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Port Authority of New York and New Jersey 9/11/2001 ; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 287; Dwyer and Flynn 2005, pp. 27) But whether someone from the fire department told Hayes to order an evacuation is unknown. It is also unclear how long announcements, advising an evacuation, continue for. Hayes and his counterpart in the North Tower are "making announcements that the situation was serious and that occupants should evacuate immediately" for "[a]s long as the [fire alarm system] was still operational," according to Fire Engineering magazine. (Murphy 11/1/2002) However, the 9/11 Commission Report will state, "Evidence suggests that the public address system [in the South Tower] did not continue to function after the building was hit." This would mean no announcements go out after 9:03 a.m., when Flight 175 hits the tower (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 295) By the time the South Tower collapses (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001), out of around 8,540 people who were originally in the building, 7,940 (93 percent) have made it out and will survive, according to the National Institute of Standards and Technology. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005)
Flight 175 hits the South Tower of the World Trade Center (Tower Two). Seismic records pinpoint the time at six seconds before 9:03 a.m. (rounded to 9:03 a.m.). Hijackers Marwan Alshehhi, Fayez Ahmed Banihammad, Mohand Alshehri, Hamza Alghamdi, and Ahmed Alghamdi presumably are killed instantly, and many more in the tower will die over the next few hours. (New York Times 9/12/2001; CNN 9/12/2001; CNN 9/17/2001; North American Aerospace Defense Command 9/18/2001; Cauchon 12/20/2001; Federal Emergency Management Agency 5/1/2002, pp. 1-10; Dwyer et al. 5/26/2002; Associated Press 8/21/2002; Moore and Cauchon 9/2/2002) According to the NIST report, the crash time is 9:02:59. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 38) According to the 9/11 Commission Report, the crash time is 9:03:11. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 8) Millions watch the crash live on television. The plane strikes the 77th through 85th floors in the 110-story building. Approximately 100 people are killed or injured in the initial impact; 600 people in the tower eventually die. The death toll is far lower than in the North Tower because about two-thirds of the South Tower's occupants have evacuated the building in the 17 minutes since the first tower was struck. (Cauchon 12/20/2001; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 5-9, 41) The combined death toll from the two towers is estimated at 2,819, not including the hijackers. (Associated Press 8/21/2002) The impact severs some columns on the south side of the South Tower. Each of the Twin Towers is designed as a "tube-in-tube" structure and the steel columns which support its weight are arranged around the perimeter and in the core. The plane, which is traveling at an estimated speed of around 500 mph (see October 2002-October 2005), severs 33 of the building's 236 perimeter columns and damages another one. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 39) The perimeter columns bear about half of the tower's weight, so the damage to them reduces the tower's ability to bear gravity loads by about 7.1 percent. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 6) The actual damage to the 47 core columns is not known, as there are no photographs or videos of it, but there will be much speculation about this after 9/11. It will be suggested that some parts of the aircraft may be able to damage the core even after crashing through the exterior wall (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 107) According to NIST's base case model, five of the core columns are severed and another five suffer some damage. (National Institute of Standards & Technology 9/2005, pp. 235 ) This may reduce the tower's ability to bear loads by a further approximately 8 percent, meaning that the aircraft impact accounted for a loss of about 15 percent of the building's strength. This damage will be cited as an event contributing to the building's collapse after 9/11 (see October 23, 2002 and October 19, 2004). NIST's base case estimate of damage to the North Tower's core will be similar, even though the aircraft impact there was dissimilar (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). Flight 11 hit the North Tower's core head on, whereas Flight 175 only hits the corner of the South Tower's core. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 20-23, 38-41) In addition, some of the fireproofing on the steel columns and trusses may be dislodged (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001). (National Institute of Standards & Technology 9/2005, pp. xxxvi, 83 ) Photographs and videos of the towers will not show the state of fireproofing inside the buildings, but the National Institute of Standards and Technology (NIST) will try to estimate the damage to fireproofing using a series of computer models. Its severe case model (see (October 2002-October 2005)) will predict that 39 of the 47 core columns are stripped of their fireproofing on one or more floors and that fireproofing is stripped from trusses covering 80,000 ft2 of floor area, the equivalent of about two floors. NIST will say that the loss of fireproofing is a major cause of the collapse (see April 5, 2005), but only performs 15 tests on fireproofing samples (see October 26, 2005). (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 41) According to NIST, less fireproofing is stripped from the North Tower (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Immediately after seeing the attacks on the the World Trade Center on television, Mark Loizeaux, the president of leading building demolition firm Controlled Demolition Inc (CDI), tries to contact government officials to warn them that the Twin Towers will probably collapse. (Satchell 6/22/2003; Else 7/24/2004) Loizeaux will later recall his initial reaction to the crashes in New York. After the first tower is hit, he will say, "I told Doug [Loizeaux, his brother] immediately that the tower was coming down, and when the second tower was hit, that it would follow." According to US News and World Report, "Horrified, the Loizeaux brothers watched first responders streaming into the doomed towers and tried frantically, and unsuccessfully, to phone in warnings." (Satchell 6/22/2003) Mark Loizeaux will recall, "I still had some cell phone numbers, so when the second plane hit I said, 'Start calling all the cell phones, tell them that the building is going to come down.'" However: "It was frenetic, nobody could get through even with speed dialling.… Of course, building number 7, where the emergency management headquarters was, was on fire. I'd been in that office two months before." Loizeaux then phones a couple of people on the National Research Council committee involved in assessing the impact of explosives. They ask him, "What do you think this is, that they're going to fail, that they're both going to fail?" Loizeaux will recall: "The expression around was they're going to pancake down, almost vertically. And they did. It was the only way they could fail. It was inevitable." (Else 7/24/2004) Soon after the attacks, Loizeaux, as a recognized expert, will be called upon to comment on the fall of the WTC towers. (Post and Winston 9/13/2001) In addition, his firm will be involved with the clearing of Ground Zero. (It was also tasked with bringing down the remnants of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City after its partial destruction in 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995 and 7:01 a.m. May 23, 1995).) (Post and Rubin 10/1/2001)
Transportation Secretary Norman Mineta arrives at the White House bunker—the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC)—containing Vice President Dick Cheney and others. Mineta will tell NBC News that he arrives there at "probably about 9:27," though he later says to the 9/11 Commission that he arrives at "about 9:20 a.m." He also later recalls that Cheney is already there when he arrives. (Mineta 9/11/2002; 9/11 Commission 5/23/2003; Martin 7/4/2004; Mineta 6/3/2006) This supports accounts of Cheney reaching the bunker not long after the second WTC crash (see (Shortly After 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Questioned about this in 2007 by an activist group, Mineta will confirm that Cheney was "absolutely… already there" in the PEOC when he arrived, and that "This was before American Airlines [Flight 77] went into the Pentagon," which happens at 9:37. Yet, while admitting there is "conflicting evidence about when the vice president arrived" in the PEOC, the 9/11 Commission will conclude that the "vice president arrived in the room shortly before 10:00, perhaps at 9:58." Mineta also later claims that when he arrives in the PEOC, Mrs. Lynne Cheney, the wife of the vice president, is already there. Yet the 9/11 Commission will claim she only arrives at the White House at 9:52 (see (9:55 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 40; Mineta 6/26/2007) Once in the PEOC, Mineta establishes open phone lines with his office at the Department of Transportation and with the FAA Operations Center. (Mineta 6/3/2006)
The Office of Emergency Management's Emergency Operations Center (EOC) in World Trade Center Building 7 is evacuated in response to a report that more commercial planes are unaccounted for. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 305) The EOC, which opened in 1999 (see June 8, 1999), is a state-of-the-art facility on the 23rd floor of WTC 7 that is intended to serve as a meeting place for city leaders in the event of an act of terrorism or other kind of crisis. (CNN 6/7/1999; City of New York 2/18/2001) Office of Emergency Management (OEM) officials activated it shortly after Flight 11 crashed into the North Tower of the WTC (see (Shortly After 8:46 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Bylicki 6/19/2003; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 293)
Staffers Discussed Evacuation after the First Crash - Soon after the crash occurred, officials in the EOC "began discussing with OEM staff whether or not they should evacuate the building," according to a report by Tricia Wachtendorf of the Disaster Research Center at the University of Delaware. (Wachtendorf 2004, pp. 77) Richard Rotanz, deputy director of the OEM, and some other officials in the EOC conducted a "threat analysis" after the second hijacked plane crashed into the WTC, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Rotanz 1/2002)
Staffers Want to Stay in the Operations Center - Personnel are reluctant to leave the EOC because in it they have "a tremendous amount of resources at their fingertips" and they are "best able to handle an emergency of this scale," Wachtendorf will later write. Furthermore, there is no clear procedure to move to or establish an alternative operations center if it is abandoned. "I couldn't think of where we would go if we left the EOC because at that time we didn't have a backup facility," one official will recall. There is, in fact, "no formalized evacuation plan for the EOC," according to Wachtendorf. (Wachtendorf 2004, pp. 77-79)
OEM Deputy Director Orders the Evacuation - However, Richard Bylicki, a police sergeant assigned to the OEM, was told during a call with the FAA that at least one other plane, in addition to the two that hit the Twin Towers, is unaccounted for and possibly heading for New York (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001), and he passed this information on to Rotanz. (Bylicki 6/19/2003) Rotanz was given the same warning by a Secret Service agent who works in WTC 7. (Rotanz 1/2002; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 305) Based on this information, he "surmised that [WTC 7] was potentially the next target," Bylicki will recall. He consequently now orders all OEM employees to leave the building. (Bylicki 6/19/2003; 9/11 Commission 4/7/2004) A Secret Service agent, presumably the one who told Rotanz about the additional unaccounted-for planes, also reportedly advises EOC personnel to evacuate. He says, "There's a reported third plane headed toward the East Coast and we're warning everybody to vacate the building," Fire Department Captain Abdo Nahmod will recall. (Journal of Emergency Medical Services 9/2011, pp. 42 )
Some Liaisons Have Come to the Operations Center - Various city agencies were contacted after the EOC was activated and instructed to send their designated representatives to the center. None of these representatives have arrived by the time the EOC is evacuated, according to the 9/11 Commission Report. (9/11 Commission 5/18/2004 ; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 293, 305) However, contradicting this claim, a number of emergency responders will recall arriving at the EOC before it is evacuated, to serve as representatives for their agencies. (Nahmod 10/11/2001; Zarrillo 10/25/2001; Yakimovich 12/4/2001; Journal of Emergency Medical Services 9/2011, pp. 42 )
Staffers Are Initially Slow to Leave - Personnel reportedly do not initially respond to the evacuation order with a sense of urgency. They "calmly collected personal belongings and began removing OEM records," a report by the Mineta Transportation Institute will state. But they are subsequently "urged to abandon everything and leave the building quickly." (Jenkins and Edwards-Winslow 9/2003, pp. 16 ) After evacuating from the EOC, they assemble in the lobby of WTC 7 and await further instructions over radio. (Bylicki 6/19/2003) Most of them think they are only temporarily abandoning their facility and expect to return to it later in the day. They do not anticipate WTC 7 being affected by fires (see 4:10 p.m. September 11, 2001) and then collapsing late this afternoon (see (5:20 p.m.) September 11, 2001). (Wachtendorf 2004, pp. 84)
Fire Commissioner Will Be Surprised That the Center Is Evacuated - Fire Commissioner Thomas Von Essen will be surprised when he finds that the EOC has been evacuated, since the center was designed for dealing with a crisis like the one currently taking place. "I thought that was where we should all be because that's what [it] was built for," he will comment. He will arrive at WTC 7 looking for Mayor Rudolph Giuliani shortly before 9:59 a.m., when the South Tower collapses (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001). When he learns that the EOC has been evacuated, he will think: "How ridiculous. We've got a 13-million-dollar command center and we can't even use it." He will say in frustration: "How can we be evacuating OEM? We really need it now." (Essen 2002, pp. 26; Fink and Mathias 2002, pp. 230)
Time of the Evacuation Is Unclear - It is unclear exactly when the EOC is evacuated. The order to evacuate is issued at "approximately 9:30" a.m., according to the 9/11 Commission Report. (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 305) But, according to a report by the National Institute of Standards of Technology, the evacuation occurs slightly later than this, at "approximately 9:44 a.m." (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 109) Other accounts will suggest it may even have taken place before the second attack on the WTC occurred (see (Soon After 8:46 a.m.-9:35 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (Shortly Before 9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Barrett and Collins 2006, pp. 34; Dylan Avery 2007) Many people in the rest of WTC 7 left the building earlier on, around the time of the second attack (see (9:03 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 5/18/2004 ; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 109)
Government buildings in Washington, DC, are not evacuated prior to the attack on the Pentagon at 9:37 a.m. As CNN will later describe, even after the attacks on the World Trade Center and the FAA's warning to the military of a hijacked aircraft apparently heading toward Washington (see 9:21 a.m. September 11, 2001 and (9:24 a.m.) September 11, 2001), "the federal government failed to make any move to evacuate the White House, Capitol, State Department, or the Pentagon." (Plante 9/16/2001) Although a slow evacuation of the White House begins at around 9:20 a.m. (see (9:20 a.m.) September 11, 2001), it is not until 9:45 a.m. that the Secret Service orders people to run from there (see (9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (CNN 9/11/2001; CNN 9/12/2001; ABC News 9/11/2002) Other government buildings, including the Capitol (see 9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001), the Justice Department, the State Department, and the Supreme Court (see 10:15 a.m. September 11, 2001), will not be evacuated until between 9:45 a.m. and 10:45 a.m. (US News and World Report 9/14/2001; US Department of State 8/15/2002) Robert Bonner, who was recently nominated as Commissioner of Customs, will estimate that he was evacuated from the Treasury Department at "about 9:35 a.m." (9/11 Commission 1/26/2004; Bonner 9/20/2004) But other accounts will say the Treasury Department was not evacuated until after the Pentagon attack. (Crutsinger 9/11/2001; Reuters 9/11/2001; Dam 9/11/2002) Furthermore, journalist and author Robert Draper will describe, even after the State and Treasury Departments have been evacuated, "no agents thought to take charge of the Commerce Department, which housed 5,000 employees." (Draper 2007, pp. 143) According to CNN, prior to the Pentagon attack: "[N]either the FAA, NORAD, nor any other federal government organ made any effort to evacuate the buildings in Washington. Officials at the Pentagon said that no mechanism existed within the US government to notify various departments and agencies under such circumstances [as occur today]." (Plante 9/16/2001)
Firefighter Timothy Brown, a supervisor at New York City's Office of Emergency Management, is told that a suspicious plane that was reportedly flying toward New York has crashed. (Brown 1/31/2003) After the second hijacked plane crashed into the World Trade Center, at 9:03 a.m. (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001), Brown went to the lobby of the South Tower to help open a command post. (Brown 6/30/2002 ; Brown 10/7/2015) While there, he heard over his radio that another suspicious aircraft, in addition to the planes that hit the Twin Towers, was heading toward New York (see (9:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Since then, he has talked to the New York State Emergency Management Office about getting fighter jets to protect New York (see (Shortly After 9:37 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Brown 1/31/2003) He then told people at the command post they should "be prepared to be hit again." (Brown 6/30/2002 ) However, he now hears over his radio that "the third plane was no longer inbound, that it had crashed." This news "gave us a sigh of relief," he will later comment. (Brown 1/31/2003) The identity of this third suspicious plane is unclear. Brown will say it turned out to be "the one that crashed in Pennsylvania," meaning Flight 93. (Brown 6/30/2002 ) However, this is apparently impossible, since Brown will describe hearing it has crashed before 9:59 a.m., when the South Tower collapses (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001), but Flight 93 will reportedly crash later on, at 10:03 a.m. (see (10:03 a.m.-10:10 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (10:06 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Brown 1/31/2003; 9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 30)
At some point after the White House is ordered to evacuate and while Air Force One is preparing to take off in Florida, counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke activates the Continuity of Government (COG) plan. The coordinator for Continuity of Government has joined Clarke in the White House Situation Room. Clarke asks, "How do I activate COG?" Recalling this conversation, he will later comment, "In the exercises we had done, the person playing the president had always given that order." But the coordinator replies, "You tell me to do it." Soon after, Clarke instructs him, "Go." (Clarke 2004, pp. 8)
First Time COG Plan Activated - The Continuity of Government plan, which dates back to the Reagan administration, had originally prepared to set up a new leadership for the US in the event of a nuclear war. This is apparently the first time it has ever been put into effect. Clarke will recall, "Every federal agency was ordered… to activate an alternative command post, an alternative headquarters outside of Washington, DC, and to staff it as soon as possible." Cabinet officers are dispatched around the country, and people in Congress are taken to alternative locations.
Clarke Regularly Particiated in COG Exercises - Since the 1980s, Clarke has in fact been a regular participant in secret COG exercises that rehearsed this plan (see (1984-2004)). (Kurtz 4/7/2004; ABC News 4/25/2004) Vice President Dick Cheney and Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld also participated (see 1981-1992). (Mann 3/2004) Kenneth Duberstein, formerly President Reagan's White House chief of staff, who took part in the exercises as well, will recall: "I said to myself, as we proceeded through the day [of 9/11], 'It's working.' All those days of patriotic duty were coming back and they were working." According to ABC News, "If executive branch leaders and large numbers of congressmen had been killed in an attack on the United States, the plan could have gone further, officials suggest, perhaps even with non-elected leaders of the United States taking control and declaring martial law." (ABC News 4/25/2004) According to a White House timeline of the events of 9/11, it is in fact Cheney that "orders implementation of Continuity of Government and Continuity of Operations procedures," at 9:55 a.m., although, according to the Washington Post, Cheney only "officially implemented the emergency Continuity of Government orders," rather than activating the plan. (White House 2001; Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002)
Authorities fail to evacuate Secretary of Commerce Don Evans from his office at the Commerce Department in Washington, DC, in line with "Continuity of Government" (COG) plans and so Evans eventually decides to go home of his own accord. (Arkin 2013, pp. 173-174) The COG plan was apparently activated by White House counterterrorism chief Richard Clarke shortly after 9:45 a.m. (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Clarke 2004, pp. 8) Whereas, earlier in the day, "executive agents and protective details all across the government had been operating in precautionary mode," military expert and author William Arkin will later describe, "now everything was official, mandatory, and automatic." And yet no one comes to move Evans to an alternate location, even though he is 10th in line for the presidency. The commerce secretary therefore stays in his office all morning, waiting for someone to contact him and tell him what to do. (Arkin 2013, pp. 173-174; Arkin and Windrem 9/11/2016) Furthermore, while other government departments are evacuated, no one takes the initiative to evacuate the Commerce Department, where 5,000 people work (see Before 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Draper 2007, pp. 143) Apparently, "those in charge had completely forgotten about [Evans] and his department," Arkin will comment. Eventually, Evans arranges for an aide to drive him to his home in McLean, Virginia, where he spends the rest of the day watching television. Arkin will criticize authorities for their failure to move Evans to an alternate location, writing, "After almost 50 years of preparations and practice, after constructing an elaborate and foolproof edifice, the executive agents had overlooked a major branch of the executive office, or were too busy—or had their own plans." (Arkin 2013, pp. 174; Arkin and Windrem 9/11/2016)
A man who is on the 105th floor of the South Tower calls emergency 9-1-1 to report that floors below his location, "in the 90-something floor," have collapsed. The 9-1-1 operator types a record of this call into the Special Police Radio Inquiry Network (SPRINT) data link, which will be passed on to the New York fire department's Emergency Medical Service (EMS). It isn't known when the call is made exactly, but the EMS Dispatch computer apparently receives the call record at this time. However, because it is classified as a "supplement message," it is not yet read by anyone. The police dispatcher dealing with the area around the WTC also receives the call record, but misinterprets it as meaning that the floor the person is on has collapsed. EMS dispatchers are dealing with an enormous volume of calls as well as performing many other tasks under extreme pressure during the crisis, so a report later concludes that the EMS operators didn't have the time to review the information before the collapse of the South Tower at 9:59 (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001), and the fire chiefs never received the information. (New York City Fire Department 8/19/2002)
The Capitol building in Washington, DC is evacuated. (Associated Press 8/21/2002) It is the first time in US history this has ever happened. (Zuckman 9/12/2001; Mitchell and Seelye 9/12/2001) Both the Senate and the House are in session at the time. (CNN 8/17/2002) Capitol Police officers go through the building and order people to leave at once. (Lancaster and Dewar 9/12/2001; CNN 9/11/2002)
Reports of Plane Approaching the Capitol - The evacuation appears to be in response to reports of a plane heading toward the Capitol. (Associated Press 9/11/2001; CNN 8/17/2002; Bamford 2004, pp. 80-81) According to CNN congressional correspondent Dana Bash, "the Capitol Police were hearing, in their radio, that there was a plane—another plane in the air, likely headed for the Capitol." (CNN 9/11/2006) When a Capitol Police officer instructs Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to leave the building, he says: "We have word that an airplane is heading this way and could hit the building anytime. You need to evacuate."
'Nothing Orderly' about Evacuation - However, there are problems with the evacuation. According to Daschle, "The fire alarm system, which was working in the nearby Senate office buildings, was never activated in the Capitol, so there were people who weren't aware that an evacuation was taking place." Also, some individuals are reluctant to leave. (Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 109-110) Rep. Bob Stump (R-AZ) will recall: "They tried to throw me out three times, but they didn't succeed. I figured I was safer in the building than out on the street." (Associated Press 9/11/2001) Daschle will recall that there is "nothing orderly" about the evacuation. Outside the building "No one knew what to do or where to go. People congregated on the grass and in the parking lot. Senators and staff were mixed in with tourists, all staring up at the sky, wondering what might be headed our way." (Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 110) CNN will report, "[S]ome of the most high ranking officials in the United States government were just kind of scattered around this area without a gathering point." (CNN 9/11/2006)
Sergeant at Arms Concerned over Poor Security - Al Lenhardt, the Senate's sergeant at arms, will later say how alarmed he was "to see members of Congress and their staffs mixed in with visitors and passersby wandering in the open around the Capitol grounds. One of the tactics that terrorists have been known to employ is to create a diversion to move their intended target to the area where the actual attack will take place. Al imagined a bomb or gunfire erupting right there on the lawn outside the Capitol." (Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 111) Eventually, many of the members of Congress go to the Capitol Police headquarters, which then serves as their command center for the day (see (9:55 a.m. and After) September 11, 2001 and (10:00 a.m.-6:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). (CNN 9/11/2002; Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 112)
Speaker of the House Dennis Hastert (R-IL), who is third in line for the presidency, is evacuated from the US Capitol building and flown to a secret underground bunker in Virginia, where he remains until late in the afternoon. (Yang 9/11/2001; ABC News 9/15/2002) Around 9:48, the Capitol building had begun evacuating (see 9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001). At that time, Hastert was on the House floor. Two members of his security detail now enter the chamber and tell him, "We're going to evacuate the Capitol, and you're going to a secure location." They take him out of the building and drive him hurriedly to Andrews Air Force Base, ten miles southeast of Washington. After he arrives there, Hastert is finally able to communicate with Vice President Dick Cheney, who is at the White House. (Hastert had been trying to contact Cheney earlier on, but without success (see (9:04 a.m.-9:45 a.m.) September 11, 2001.) Cheney tells Hastert: "There's a real danger. I want you to go to a secure location." (Hastert 2004, pp. 8-9) Hastert gets on a helicopter and is flown to the secret underground bunker at Mount Weather in Bluemont, Virginia, 48 miles outside Washington—about 20 minutes journey by air. (Schwartz 11/2001; ABC News 9/15/2002; Bamford 2004, pp. 81) In the following hours, other top members of the House and Senate leaderships will join him there (see (Between Late Morning and Early Afternoon) September 11, 2001). (Yang 9/11/2001; Hastert 2004, pp. 10) Hastert remains at the secure facility for several hours, and will return to Washington late in the afternoon (see (Between 5:00 p.m. and 6:00 p.m.) September 11, 2001). (Hastert 9/11/2002) Hastert's evacuation to Mount Weather is the result of "Continuity of Government" (COG) orders, which provide for evacuating the third and fourth in the line of presidential succession during a national emergency, in order to protect the nation's constitutional leadership. (Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002) Counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke activated the COG plan shortly before 10:00 a.m. this morning (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Clarke 2004, pp. 8)
Inspector Joseph Morris, a commanding officer with the Port Authority Police Department (PAPD), tells numerous PAPD officers to initially stay away from the Twin Towers after they arrive near the World Trade Center, thereby likely preventing many of them from being killed when the South Tower collapses. (Domash 9/1/2002; Law Officer 8/16/2011) Morris was in his office at New York's La Guardia Airport when he heard someone yell out that an aircraft had crashed into the WTC. After turning on the television and seeing the images of the burning North Tower, he gave the order for all his available officers to go to the WTC. "I initiated a mobilization of personnel following long-held department plans and procedures for response to the World Trade Center for aircraft disasters and high-rise fires," he will later describe. Morris and 17 colleagues head out and arrive in the vicinity of the WTC "maybe six to seven minutes" before the South Tower collapses, Morris will estimate, which would be at around 9:52 a.m. to 9:53 a.m. About 40 to 50 PAPD officers are at the location at this time and Morris is the highest-ranking commander among them. (Morris 1/2002; 9/11 Commission 11/10/2003; 9/11 Commission 5/18/2004 )
Officers Are Told to Stay Away from the WTC - The PAPD officers with Morris are keen to rush into the Twin Towers and get involved with the rescue operation. Normally, they would go to the lobby of the North Tower in an emergency like the current one. Morris, though, tells them to stay back while he assesses the situation. The decision is made for the officers to "break up into groups of three or four, with a supervisor," and "get [their] bunker gear on," Morris will say. He instructs them "not to go anywhere until I came up with a plan." (Morris 1/2002; Domash 9/1/2002; Law Officer 8/16/2011)
Commander Thinks There May Be Few People Left to Rescue - Morris will say his caution about allowing PAPD officers into the Twin Towers at the current time is partly because he sees very few civilians coming his way up West Street and this leads him to question how many people are left at the WTC to be rescued. (9/11 Commission 11/10/2003) Some other Port Authority employees, in addition to the PAPD officers, are at the same location as Morris and Morris tells them, too, to stay away from the WTC. "I informed them they should stay at that location until more information was gathered for responses," he will say. (9/11 Commission 5/18/2004 )
Commander's Decision Likely Saves Lives - Morris's decision to keep PAPD officers away from the WTC will be credited with saving the lives of people who may have been killed when the South Tower collapsed, at 9:59 a.m. (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001), if they had headed to the Twin Towers. Alan Reiss, director of the Port Authority's World Trade Department, will say that in retrospect, he believes it "most certainly saved lives of at least some of those officers held back." (9/11 Commission 11/3/2003) Law Officer magazine will describe it as a decision "that proved to be a lifesaver for many." (Law Officer 8/16/2011) Police magazine will call it one of "a couple of key decisions" Morris makes "that saved his department even greater tragedy" today. (Domash 9/1/2002) A few minutes after arriving near the WTC, Morris will decide to head to the incident command post in the North Tower to meet with other professionals who are assembled there. He will be going toward it with Lieutenant Emiliano Sepulveda, a colleague of his, when the South Tower starts to come down. He will run north up West Street and then find protection inside the PAPD's command bus. (9/11 Commission 11/10/2003; 9/11 Commission 5/18/2004 ; Law Officer 8/16/2011)
After the US Capitol building in Washington is evacuated (see 9:48 a.m. September 11, 2001), many members of Congress go to the nearby Capitol Police headquarters for safety, but others head elsewhere and some go home. (Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 111-112) Although the Capitol began evacuating around 9:48, no one has instructions on where to go. "Rank-and-file lawmakers didn't have guidance from their leaders or from Capitol Police." (Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002) Many of them therefore remain in the vicinity of the Capitol building. (Mitchell and Seelye 9/12/2001) Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) is quickly driven away by his security detail after being evacuated from the Capitol. However, according to Daschle, the contingency plan for emergencies "directed us to convene at the Hart Senate Building, right next to the Capitol. But that was considered unsafe in this situation." Therefore, "Some members of Congress who lived in the area decided to simply go home." Others convene at the 116 Club, a restaurant on Capitol Hill. "The remaining senators were finally directed to the Capitol Police headquarters a block and a half away, where it was decided members of Congress would be safest. That became Congress's central command center for the rest of the day" (see (10:00 a.m.-6:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). However, while Daschle and some others are taken there early on (Daschle will recall being at the headquarters when the first World Trade Center tower collapses at 9:59), many others do not go there until later. (Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 111-112) Deputy Chief James Rohan of the Capitol Police keeps hearing complaints from his officers nearby the Capitol building, saying: "I've got all these congressmen wandering around here. What do you want me to do with them?" According to CNN, "the police assumed that those who weren't in the [Congressional] leadership… would go home, but of course they didn't." Therefore, they are eventually brought to the Capitol Police headquarters as well. Several hundred members of Congress go to the headquarters during the day. (CNN 9/11/2002) Around late morning or early afternoon, Congressional leaders leave there and are flown to a secure bunker outside Washington (see (Between Late Morning and Early Afternoon) September 11, 2001). (Balz and Woodward 1/27/2002) Many other members of Congress remain at the headquarters throughout the afternoon. (Lancaster and Dewar 9/12/2001; Daschle and D'Orso 2003, pp. 116-117)
Members of New York Police Department's elite Emergency Service Unit (ESU) are given an order that means they have to get out of the World Trade Center or delay entering it and consequently many of them will avoid being killed when the South Tower collapses, at 9:59 a.m. (Keegan and Davis 2006, pp. 101-102; Appel 2009, pp. 112-113) The ESU is a highly trained organization comprised of first response rescuers. (City of New York 6/29/2002) Its members respond to situations that require the most specialized training, such as hostage taking and water rescue, and use the most advanced equipment. (Keegan and Davis 2006, pp. 101)
Officers Are Ordered to Come Down from the WTC - Inspector Ronald Wasson, commanding officer of the ESU, earlier on divided his officers into four teams of five or six men and then sent two teams into each of the Twin Towers to assist the rescue operation. (McPhee and O'Shaughnessy 11/11/2001) But now, ESU commanders give the order for the unit's members to "go tactical." This means the officers in the towers have to come out of the buildings and go to the unit's SWAT (special weapons and tactics) vans; put on their BDU (battle dress uniform) suits, flak jackets, and Kevlar helmets; and arm themselves with heavy weapons and assault rifles.
Commander Thinks Terrorists Might Attack the First Responders - The decision to order ESU officers to go tactical is made by Wasson, according to a book by Lieutenant William Keegan of the Port Authority Police Department. (Keegan and Davis 2006, pp. 101-102) Wasson is currently assembled with a number of other ESU officers outside the Twin Towers, at the corner of West and Vesey Streets. (Appel 2009, pp. 68) He decides that ESU officers should go tactical due to his concern that armed terrorists might attack the first responders at the WTC. He is "worried that with all his personnel inside the buildings, he [has] no way to protect the cops, firefighters, or civilians from the kind of low-intensity warfare—snipers, automatic weapons, car bombs, hostage situations—he [is] sure [will] follow the attack," Keegan will write. He believes it is the responsibility of the New York Fire Department to deal with the fires in the Twin Towers, while the Police Department should be preparing for what might happen next. Many ESU members will come out of the towers after receiving the order to go tactical, according to Keegan. (Keegan and Davis 2006, pp. 101-102)
Order Is Given after an Officer Hears of the Pentagon Attack - However, according to author Anthea Appel, the order to go tactical is made by Sergeant Tom Sullivan, another ESU officer. Sullivan is currently at the corner of West and Vesey Streets along with Wasson, getting ready to take two teams into the WTC. At 9:56 a.m., after hearing over his radio about the attack on the Pentagon, which occurred at 9:37 a.m. (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001), he exclaims, "Screw rescue!" He then pulls his men back and announces that all ESU teams will be "going in tactical," according to Appel. "I want heavy vests, helmets, rifles, and machine guns," he says. In response to his announcement, ESU officers start taking off their rescue gear and putting on combat gear. They take off their safety helmets and replace them with ballistic helmets. They take off their air tanks, unbuckle their Roco harnesses, and put on more body armor over their bulletproof vests. They also unlock their gun bins and take out shotguns, submachine guns, and assault rifles. Some officers grumble under their breath, annoyed at being held back. "They didn't like wasting time fiddling around with equipment," Appel will comment, "and this sudden switch interrupted their adrenaline momentum." They will be in the middle of changing into their combat gear when the South Tower collapses (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Appel 2009, pp. 112-113)
Order Is Wrong but Saves Lives - The order to go tactical will turn out to be mistaken as there are no attacks by armed terrorists on the first responders at the WTC. However, as a result of it being issued, numerous ESU members will be outside the Twin Towers instead of inside the buildings when the South Tower comes down and many of them will therefore avoid being killed in the collapse. While 14 ESU members will die in the WTC collapses, a far greater number will survive, Keegan will write, "because Wasson's order pulled them out of the towers and saved their lives." (Keegan and Davis 2006, pp. 102) One ESU member, Detective Frank DeMasi, will conclude that Sullivan "definitely saved his life when he made that last-minute decision to switch from rescue to tactical mode," according to Appel, since the delay while they changed into their combat gear "kept DeMasi and his teammates from walking into the South Tower before it collapsed." (Appel 2009, pp. 265-266)
Police officers order members of the public to get away from the World Trade Center, telling them the Twin Towers are in danger of collapsing. Shanthy Nambiar, a reporter for BridgeNews in New York, is standing on Vesey Street, beneath Building 7 of the WTC. She hears someone shout, "You guys shouldn't be in this area." She will later recall, "Police officers ordered people to start fleeing the area, saying the towers were in danger of collapse." She runs north one block and then sees the South Tower coming down (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Casey 2001, pp. 156) Priest Father James Nieckarz is also standing outside Building 7 around this time. He will recall that a couple of police officers come along, shouting out to everyone on the street: "Everyone run to the north. The tower is shaking and may come down." Nieckarz goes around Building 7 and then, as he is walking north, hears "a loud rumbling roar" behind him as the South Tower collapses. (Milisic 9/12/2001; United States Conference of Catholic Bishops 9/2003, pp. 15) Why the police officers encountered by Nambiar and Nieckarz believe the Twin Towers are in danger of collapsing is unclear. Although a New York City Police Department (NYPD) helicopter has reported "large pieces" falling from the South Tower (see (9:49 a.m.) September 11, 2001), the 9/11 Commission Report will state, "Prior to 9:59, no NYPD helicopter pilot predicted that either tower would collapse." (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 304)
The South Tower of the World Trade Center tilts to the southeast and then collapses. It was hit by Flight 175 at 9:03 a.m., 56 minutes earlier (see 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001). (Washington Post 9/12/2001; New York Times 9/12/2001; MSNBC 9/22/2001; Cauchon 12/20/2001; Associated Press 8/21/2002; ABC News 9/11/2002; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 44) The first sign of the collapse is visible on floor 82. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 87) The angle of the tilt will be disputed after 9/11 (see September-November 2005), as will the time it takes the towers to fall to the ground (see September 12, 2001-September 2005). (Ashley 10/9/2001; Eagar and Musso 12/2001; PBS Nova 5/2002; National Institute of Standards and Technology 8/30/2006)
Twenty minutes after the 9/11 attacks in New York (see 8:46 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 9:03 a.m. September 11, 2001) and Washington (see 9:37 a.m. September 11, 2001), a bomb truck is stationed in downtown Oklahoma City, in preparation for any potential bombing related to the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995). Additionally, an Oklahoma County Sheriff's Department command post is activated where convicted bombing conspirator Terry Nichols (see September 5, 2001) is being held. (The Oklahoman 4/2009)
According to an in-depth examination by the Washington Post, within hours of the 9/11 attacks, Vice President Dick Cheney begins working to secure additional powers for the White House. Cheney had plans in place to begin acquiring these powers for the executive branch before the attacks, but had not begun to execute them.
Gathering the Team - David Addington, Cheney's general counsel and legal adviser, had been walking home after having to leave the now-evacuated Eisenhower Executive Office Building. He receives a message from the White House telling him to turn around, because the vice president needs him. After Addington joins Cheney in the Presidential Emergency Operations Center (PEOC) below the East Wing of the White House, the pair reportedly begin "contemplating the founding question of the legal revolution to come: What extraordinary powers will the president need for his response?" Later in the day, Addington connects by secure video with Timothy Flanigan, the deputy White House counsel, who is in the White House Situation Room. John Yoo, the deputy chief of the Office of Legal Counsel, is also patched in from the Justice Department's command center. White House counsel Alberto Gonzales joins them later. This forms the core legal team that Cheney will oversee after the terrorist attacks. Associate White House counsel Bradford Berenson will later recall: "Addington, Flanigan and Gonzales were really a triumvirate. [Yoo] was a supporting player." Addington dominates the group. Gonzales is there primarily because of his relationship with President Bush. He is not, Yoo will later recall, "a law-of-war expert and [doesn't] have very developed views." Along with these allies, Cheney will provide what the Washington Post calls "the rationale and political muscle to drive far-reaching legal changes through the White House, the Justice Department, and the Pentagon," which will free the president to fight the war on terror, "as he saw fit."
Drafting the AUMF - The team begins drafting the document that will become the Authorization to Use Military Force (AUMF—see October 10, 2002) passed by Congress for the assault on Afghanistan. In the words of the group, the president is authorized "to use all necessary and appropriate force against those nations, organizations, or persons he determines planned, authorized, committed, or aided the terrorist attacks that occurred on September 11, 2001, or harbored such organizations or persons, in order to prevent any future acts of international terrorism against the United States."
Extraordinarily Broad Language - The language is extraordinarily broad; Yoo will later explain that they chose such sweeping language because "this war was so different, you can't predict what might come up." The AUMF draft is the first of numerous attempts to secure broad powers for the presidency, most justified by the 9/11 attacks. The Washington Post will later report, "In fact, the triumvirate knew very well what would come next: the interception—without a warrant—of communications to and from the United States" (see September 25, 2001). (CNN 9/11/2001; CNN 9/12/2001; Unger 2007, pp. 220-221; Gellman and Becker 6/24/2007)
Minutes after the collapse of the south WTC tower, police helicopters fly near the North Tower to check on its condition. The pilot of one helicopter radios, "About 15 floors down from the top, it looks like its glowing red," and adds, "It's inevitable." Seconds later, another helicopter pilot reports, "I don't think this has too much longer to go. I would evacuate all people within the area of that second building." While these warnings are relayed to police officers, fire and rescue personnel do not hear them, as they operate on a different radio system. (Dwyer, Flynn, and Fessenden 7/7/2002; Fisher 8/25/2005; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 224) The North Tower will collapse 21 minutes later (see 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001).
Laura Bush, the president's wife, and her entourage are driven from Capitol Hill to the Secret Service headquarters in Washington, DC, for their own security, but their journey is slowed by the heavy traffic. (Woodward 2002, pp. 17; National Journal 8/31/2002; Kessler 2006, pp. 136; Bush 2010, pp. 200-201) Bush has been at the Russell Senate Office Building in Washington, where she was originally scheduled to testify before a Senate committee. (McCaleb 9/12/2001; Woodward 2002, pp. 16-17) Her Secret Service agents have said they are going to take the first lady and her staff to a secure location. (Kessler 2006, pp. 136) After the Secret Service emergency response team arrived for her, Bush was escorted out of the Russell Senate Office Building and to her limousine (see (Shortly After 10:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). Bush and those accompanying her leave Capitol Hill at 10:10 a.m., according to Noelia Rodriguez, the first lady's press secretary.
Agents with Guns Drawn Protect Motorcade - Secret Service agents protect Bush's motorcade with their guns as it heads to the secure location. Ashleigh Adams, the first lady's deputy press secretary, will later recall, "It felt like we were in a war, because the Secret Service was driving next to the motorcade and they were hanging out of the windows with their machine guns out." She will add that she has "been around the agents" before, but has "never seen them with their guns."
Motorcade Delayed by Traffic - However, the motorcade is slowed by the heavy traffic. Bush will describe, "Outside our convoy windows, the city streets were clogged with people evacuating their workplaces and trying to reach their own homes." Rodriguez will say, "In the car, we seemed to be going in slow motion." (National Journal 8/31/2002; Bush 2010, pp. 200) "The traffic was so bad that everything was stopped," Andi Ball, Bush's chief of staff, will recall. One of the Secret Service agents escorting Bush and her staff will later say a car sideswiped them during the journey.
Secure Location Is Secret Service Headquarters - The "secure location" that Bush and her staff are being taken to turns out to be the Secret Service headquarters. (Kessler 2006, pp. 136) The Secret Service headquarters, according to journalist and author Ronald Kessler, is "an anonymous nine-story tan brick building on H Street at Ninth Street NW in Washington." (Kessler 2009, pp. 23) It is located a few blocks from the White House. After the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995 (see 8:35 a.m. - 9:02 a.m. April 19, 1995) it was reinforced to survive a large-scale blast. Bush and her entourage arrive there through an underground entrance. (Bamford 8/23/2009; Bush 2010, pp. 200-201)
Journey Reportedly Takes 45 Minutes - The exact time they arrive at is unclear. According to Washington Post reporter Bob Woodward, "In the traffic jam from the Capitol, it took 45 minutes to get [Bush] to Secret Service headquarters." This would mean the first lady arrives there at around 10:55 a.m. (Woodward 2002, pp. 17) However, Bush will write that she watches the North Tower of the World Trade Center collapsing "live in front of my eyes," on a screen at the headquarters. (Bush 2010, pp. 201) If this is correct, she must arrive at the headquarters sometime before 10:28 a.m., when the North Tower comes down (see 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 311) White House spokespeople will refuse to disclose where the first lady has been taken to, only saying she is at a "secure location." (Associated Press 9/11/2001; McCaleb 9/12/2001; CNN 9/11/2002)
The North Tower of the World Trade Center tilts to the south and then collapses. Its north side was hit by Flight 11 at 8:46, 102 minutes earlier. (CNN 9/12/2001; New York Times 9/12/2001; MSNBC 9/22/2001; Kim and Baum 2002 ; Associated Press 8/21/2002; National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 33) After the antenna starts to move (see (10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001)), the next sign that the top section of the building is moving downward is on floor 98, at the top of the impact zone. (National Institute of Standards and Technology 9/2005, pp. 22, 87) The angle of the tilt will be disputed after 9/11 (see September-November 2005), as will the time it takes the towers to fall to the ground (see September 12, 2001-September 2005). (Ashley 10/9/2001; Eagar and Musso 12/2001; PBS Nova 5/2002; National Institute of Standards and Technology 8/30/2006) The death toll could have been much worse—an estimated 15,000 people made it out of the WTC to safety after 8:46 a.m. (St. Petersburg Times 9/8/2002)
FBI agents in New York quickly set up a temporary field office in an FBI parking garage, where they will be based for the next few weeks, after the attacks on the World Trade Center rendered their original office unusable. The New York office is the FBI's largest field office, comprising some 1,100 special agents. It is located at 26 Federal Plaza, just a few blocks away from the WTC site. However, the collapses of the Twin Towers (see 9:59 a.m. September 11, 2001 and 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001) disabled its telephone service, thereby rendering it useless. Officials are also concerned that 26 Federal Plaza might be the target of another terrorist attack.
New Facility Is Set Up in 24 Hours - Therefore, "Almost immediately" after the Twin Towers came down, according to the New York Times, the FBI starts relocating to a garage in Manhattan. The block-long, multilevel garage at 26th Street and the West Side Highway is usually used by the FBI to store and repair its fleet of vehicles. But within 24 hours of the attacks on the WTC, a temporary field office is up and running there. The facility is equipped with about 100 laptop computers. Three hundred phone lines are installed, with phones hooked up to a satellite truck positioned outside the garage.
Investigation Is Coordinated from the Temporary Facility - Officials from over two dozen federal, state, and local agencies are then based at the makeshift facility. Barry Mawn, director of the FBI's New York office, and key federal prosecutors, including Mary Jo White, US Attorney for the Southern District of New York, coordinate the work of almost 2,000 investigators from there. The garage will serve as the command center for the first four weeks of the FBI's investigation of the terrorist attacks. (Rashbaum 9/24/2001; Thompson 10/20/2001; Kessler 2002, pp. 5, 424; Garcia 3/2002 ) It will be "New York's nerve center for information about the attacks," according to the Associated Press. (Associated Press 9/27/2001) Agents will move back to their original field office at 26 Federal Plaza early in October. (Thompson 10/20/2001)
A man who was found behaving suspiciously in the World Trade Center and arrested is passed on to the FBI, but the detective who arrested him is subsequently told to stay quiet about what has happened. (Appel 2009, pp. 174-175) Several officers belonging to New York Police Department's Emergency Service Unit (ESU) encountered the suspicious man as they were making their way down the stairs of the North Tower of the WTC. The man, who looked Middle Eastern, behaved aggressively toward the ESU officers and so one of them, Detective Timothy Morley, arrested and handcuffed him (see (Between 10:00 a.m. and 10:25 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Appel 2009, pp. 125-128)
Detective Headed out to Find the FBI - When the ESU officers reached the bottom of the North Tower, Morley told his colleagues, "I'm gonna take this guy and hand him over to the first FBI agent I see." He then headed out with the suspicious man, accompanied by his colleague, Lieutenant Venton Hollifield, and a Port Authority Police Department (PAPD) sergeant who carried the man's belongings. The men soon encountered Police Chief Allen Hale from Manhattan North. Hollifield told Hale about the man they were escorting and his strange behavior in the WTC. Some intelligence officers with Hale talked to Morley about the suspicious man and took notes.
Suspicious Man Tried to Pull Away When the North Tower Collapsed - When the North Tower started to collapse, at 10:28 a.m. (see 10:28 a.m. September 11, 2001), Morley and the PAPD sergeant grabbed their prisoner and tried to run with him for cover. But the man dug his heels into the ground and tried to pull away from them. Morley was eventually able to drag the man along and find protection behind a fire truck. (Appel 2009, pp. 131-133) Sometime after the collapse, Morley encountered Hale again. Surprised to see that Morley was still escorting the suspicious man, Hale fetched a van, and drove Morley and his prisoner to Stuyvesant High School, where the ESU has set up a command post.
FBI Agents Interview the Prisoner - Now, at the school, some FBI agents show up to debrief Morley's prisoner and they take him to an office to do so. They also ask Morley to write down for them everything that has happened. After a time, the FBI agents decide they want to take the man to the Police Academy. Morley, Hale, the FBI agents, and the prisoner therefore go to the Police Academy, where Mayor Rudy Giuliani and Police Commissioner Bernard Kerik are now based (see (After 10:28 a.m.-12:00 pm.) September 11, 2001).
Unidentified Official Tells the Detective to Keep Quiet - After they arrive at the academy, the prisoner is taken away to be debriefed by some intelligence officers. Meanwhile, Hale walks over to Giuliani and talks to him. He apparently tells the mayor about how Morley came to arrest the suspicious man in the WTC, as Giuliani subsequently walks over to Morley, shakes his hand, and says to him, "Good job." A police inspector nearby then approaches Morley and asks him why the mayor had been shaking his hand. Morley starts telling the inspector about his encounter with the suspicious man in the North Tower. However, before he finishes his account of what happened, a man who has been standing across from him and eavesdropping on the conversation steps forward and interrupts. The man is dressed in a dark suit and is presumably some kind of government agent. He says to Morley, "If you know what's good for you, I wouldn't repeat that story." Morley is astonished. He asks the man who he is, but the man only replies, "Never mind who I am." In his anger, Morley decides he will go and tell his story to Kerik. He enters the room where Kerik is seated, but is unable to get the police commissioner's attention and eventually gives up his attempt to talk to him. (Appel 2009, pp. 173-176) The following day, the suspicious man that the ESU officers encountered in the WTC will have his arrest voided and be released from custody. (Appel 2009, pp. 339) Further details of who he is and what he was doing in the North Tower are unknown.
Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld refuses to leave the Pentagon, despite the smoke leaking into the National Military Command Center (NMCC) where he is currently working, the danger of a second attack on the Pentagon, and a White House request to begin implementing Continuity of Government (COG) measures. (Goldberg et al. 2007, pp. 132) After being out of touch with his colleagues at the Pentagon since the time of the attack there (see (9:38 a.m.-10:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and 9:39 a.m. September 11, 2001), Rumsfeld finally entered the NMCC at around 10:30 a.m. (see (10:30 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (9/11 Commission 7/24/2004, pp. 43-44; Cockburn 2007, pp. 2-6) It is now noticed that smoke is seeping into the center. With people beginning to cough, aides suggest Rumsfeld should leave the building, but he is uninterested in their advice. Even when they warn that the smoke might be toxic, he still ignores them. Rumsfeld's deputy, Paul Wolfowitz, tells him he should leave the Pentagon. But Rumsfeld instead orders Wolfowitz to leave the NMCC and fly to Site R, the alternate command center outside Washington (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). According to journalist and author Steve Vogel, this is "contrary to the established Continuity of Government plan, which called for the secretary of defense to relocate to the alternate command center.… The secretary figured the 45 minutes to an hour it would take to evacuate to Site R would leave him out of touch for too long." Rumsfeld will later explain: "That's life. That's what deputies are for." (Vogel 2007, pp. 441)
Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz leaves the Pentagon and relocates to the alternate military command center outside Washington, DC. Wolfowitz evacuated from his office to an area in front of the Pentagon after the building was hit, but then went back inside and joined Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld and others in the National Military Command Center (NMCC). (Wolfowitz 5/9/2003) With smoke seeping into the center, Wolfowitz advises Rumsfeld to leave the NMCC (see (10:40 a.m.-11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). But instead Rumsfeld orders Wolfowitz to leave and fly to Site R, the alternate command center, which is located inside Raven Rock Mountain, about six miles north of Camp David, on the Pennsylvania-Maryland border. (Schwartz 11/2001; Vogel 2007, pp. 441) Wolfowitz will later recall that he "was not happy about" receiving this order. (Wolfowitz 5/9/2003) Minutes later, a helicopter lands outside the Pentagon, and carries Wolfowitz and several others off to the alternate command center. (Goldberg et al. 2007, pp. 132) Site R was designed as a duplicate of the NMCC, and if the NMCC were ever destroyed in an attack or needs to be evacuated, it would serve as the Pentagon's primary command center. (Creed and Newman 2008, pp. 174) It has "more than 700,000 square feet of floor space, sophisticated computer and communications equipment, and room for more than 3,000 people." (Schwartz 11/2001) Others who will relocate to Site R on this day include Army Secretary Thomas White and personnel from the office of the vice chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, though White will return to the Pentagon later on (see (11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Rumsfeld 1/9/2002; Myers 9/11/2002; Goldberg et al. 2007, pp. 135) According to journalist and author James Mann, Rumsfeld's decision to order Wolfowitz to leave Washington has its roots in a top secret program Rumsfeld was involved in during the 1980s, which serves to ensure the "Continuity of Government" (COG) in the event of an attack on the US (see 1981-1992). (Mann 2004, pp. 138-139) Counterterrorism "tsar" Richard Clarke activated the COG plan shortly before 10:00 a.m. this morning (see (Between 9:45 a.m. and 9:56 a.m.) September 11, 2001). (Clarke 2004, pp. 8)
Joseph Allbaugh, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA), is flown back to Washington, DC, after leaving a major conference he has been attending in Montana. (DeMers 10/2001 ; CNN 10/4/2001; Borgstrom 10/25/2001) Allbaugh was one of hundreds of emergency management officials from around the US attending the annual conference of the National Emergency Management Association (NEMA) in Big Sky, Montana, which began on September 8 and was originally scheduled to continue until September 12 (see September 8-11, 2001). He was the keynote speaker at the conference, and in his speech the previous day, September 10, talked about his focus on improving capabilities and preparing for disaster. (National Emergency Management Association 8/15/2001; Janofsky 9/12/2001; DeMers 10/2001 )
Allbaugh Sees Second Attack on TV - Allbaugh will later recall that on this morning, he "turned on CNN" and "actually saw the second plane hit the tower." He will comment, "I thought it was a movie clip," but then "reality started sinking in." When he learned that the plane was the second to have hit the World Trade Center, he knew "immediately it was terrorism." (CNN 10/4/2001) Allbaugh went into the meeting he was due to attend and announced: "You all will have to excuse me. I have more pressing matters." (Fournier 9/8/2002) He was then one of the first to leave the NEMA conference. (Janofsky 9/12/2001)
Conflicting Accounts of Flight - Allbaugh is subsequently flown back to Washington, although there are conflicting accounts of his journey. Allbaugh will later recall that after leaving the conference, he moved on to the city of Bozeman, Montana, and then "waited a couple of hours for a plane." Finally, he will say, a KC-135 military tanker plane flies him back to the capital. (CNN 10/4/2001) According to another account, Major Rick Gibney, a pilot with the 119th Fighter Wing of the North Dakota Air National Guard, was originally tasked with flying Allbaugh home in his F-16 fighter jet, but, instead, an Air Force C-17 cargo plane is diverted to transport the FEMA director back to Washington. (Borgstrom 10/25/2001) But the Gainesville Sun will report that Allbaugh initially headed out from the conference with Craig Fugate, the director of Florida's Division of Emergency Management. Fugate rented a car to drive back to Florida and Allbaugh joined him as a passenger. Allbaugh was then dropped off in Missouri, from where he is flown back to Washington. (Arndorfer 10/22/2005) Other emergency management officials that were at the NEMA conference are also flown home on military aircraft throughout the day (see (After 11:00 a.m.) September 11, 2001 and (After 4:30 p.m.) September 11, 2001). (Nagy 9/13/2001; DeMers 10/2001 ; Murphy 10/11/2001)
Allbaugh Joins President and Others at the White House - Allbaugh will recall that his flight to Washington takes four and a half hours. After arriving back in the capital, he heads directly to the White House, where he spends the evening with the president, vice president, and many others. (CNN 10/4/2001) It is unclear when exactly Allbaugh arrives in Washington, though he will be at the White House by 7:15 p.m., when he gives a press briefing. (White House 9/11/2001)
Allbaugh in Charge of Responding to Domestic Terrorist Attacks - In May this year, President Bush put Allbaugh, as FEMA director, in charge of "consequence management" in response to any terrorist attacks in the United States. Allbaugh was charged with creating an Office of National Preparedness to coordinate the government's response to any such attack (see May 8, 2001). (White House 5/8/2001; Gerstenzang 5/9/2001) FEMA plays an important part in the government's response to the attacks in New York and Washington on this day. It puts its "federal response plan" into effect, which involves coordinating with 28 other federal agencies and the American Red Cross; it dispatches eight urban search and rescue teams to New York to search for victims in the rubble of the WTC; and it has four urban search and rescue teams sifting through the remains of the crash at the Pentagon. (Ballard and Lunney 9/11/2001; White House 9/11/2001)
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