[back] Oklahoma City bombing

Jim Keith on the Oklahoma Bombing incident

JIM:

My new book is on the Oklahoma bombing. I investigated it for six months, contacting everyone I could who was associated with it and who was willing to talk. Most people who knew McVeigh and so forth did not want to talk about it, but I was able to locate a few.

I really wanted to go beyond the simplistic mode that we mostly hear presented.

I just was trying to solve the puzzle, and I believe I have some preliminary findings on it.

Why can't the media arrive at the same conclusions that I do? Because the media are fed their stories. I mean the major media got most of their information from the prosecution team and the FBI. These guys have a vested interest in making it all very simple in characterizing Timothy McVeigh as another form of Hannibal Lecter.

One of their main concerns is that when this comes to court that it's just a cakewalk for them...

It's good for the reputations of the lawyers, it's good for the reputations of the FBI guys and so forth.

I think the public perception by and large is that these right-wing militia guys wanted to do a payback on the government, and did so. On the other hand, like I said, you get a significant percentage of the populace saying 'It's obvious, the government did it.'

Alex Constantine:

God, I mean it's just funny, it's so obvious.

JIM:

But at the same time that is kind of the media image , is that this is a right-wing militia activity and that the government has stepped in to quell the evil activities and that the FBI and the BATF need increased power so as to protect us, to protect our interests even more , but in fact that really wasn't the story that presented itself to me.

What I found out is that there were a number of factions who were apparently involved, and they included the right-wing. They included Islamic forces and they also included military intelligence forces. You see these personnel popping up throughout the Oklahoma story.

You see military men being involved and so the story becomes a little less black and white. It's not just these crazed Constitutionalists trying to overthrow the government.

I think the truth of Oklahoma is a little more sophisticated than they want us to know.

STEVE:

Is there an agenda that governs the mainstream media which says that there are certain things that we cannot talk about because of their affiliations with certain economic interests on this planet?

JIM:

What I am told, and I cannot substantiate this beyond a researcher whose work I respect, said to me, is that there is a CIA consultant for every major newspaper in the country and that would seem perfectly logical, for instance, researching the Oklahoma City bombing I noticed how many red tabs and how many important bits of information were suppressed, were not covered...

STEVE:

Is it cohesive?

JIM:

Ya, it is cohesive. For instance, you know it was said that Timothy McVeigh when he was arrested in Perry, Oklahoma, had $225 in his pocket, and you see this repeated hundreds of times -- I mean I have read hundreds of things on Timothy McVeigh. The fact is he had $2000 in his pocket and that was only reported once by The New York Times.

STEVE:

What's the significance of that?

JIM:

Well, he was unemployed, and $2000 in the pocket of an unemployed person is a red tab -- it makes you want to dig deeper. As an example, Terry Nichols, his alleged accomplice, it's never mentioned in the newspapers, not even once so far as I know that Nichols had taken twenty trips to the Phillipines in the preceding four years -- before the bombing, it goes on from there. The group that was apparently primarily responsible for the World Trade Center bombing is headquartered, it's Abu Siam, in the Phillipines. Terry Nichols and his wife carried back large sums of money, large amounts of precious metals and so forth from the Phillipines. Nichols and McVeigh met two middle-eastern characters in a MacDonalds the night before the bombing and they received a sum of money from them. This is not reported in any of the major newspapers.

It was such a puzzle and immediately there were contradictions that came out on the story. There was one explosion, there were two explosions, there were 15 BATF persons in the BATF offices in the federal building, there were five [BATF officers] in the federal building, there were advance warnings. I mean it was almost immediately this sort of web of disinformation and conspiracy showed itself.

There is a great deal to be brought out about that, but just as a thumbnail, McVeigh was the penultimate soldier. He attained the rank of Sergeant ahead of everybody else in his platoon. He had perfect marksmanship records, I mean he was the perfect army man and then he suddenly became disgruntled and wanted out of the military.

What I think happened, what I have always thought happened was that McVeigh did not ever leave the army -- that he was recruited into a somewhat more stealthy compartment.

MICHAEL:

He went secret team..

JIM:

Ya, he went secret team and I have written an entire chapter substantiating that.

I found out that his sister, Jennifer McVeigh read a letter from Timothy stating that he had become a member of a secret illegal special forces group in the United States and so that's one of those warm fuzzies, warm fuzzy moments you get as a researcher.

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