From misc.activism.progressive Tue Mar 28 11:45:52 1995
From: rich@math.missouri.edu
Subject: OKC: Evidence of Prior Knowledge
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See the extensive collection of OKC articles at:
http://www.thenewamerican.com/artman/publish/cat_index_32.shtml

http://www.thenewamerican.com/tna/1996/vo12no10/vo12no10_prior.htm

Vol. 12, No. 10
May 13, 1996
Table of Contents 	

More on Oklahoma City Bombing

Evidence of Prior Knowledge
by William F. Jasper

Did agents of the FBI, ATF, DEA, Marshals Service, or other federal
agencies have foreknowledge of a plot to blow up the Murrah Building?
If so, was it acquired by wiretaps or other technical means? Were
we warned by foreign intelligence sources? Or did these or other
federal agencies have informants or agents actually operating within
the bombing conspiracy? If specific knowledge of the planned terrorist
act was indeed in the hands of federal law enforcement departments
ahead of time, why was appropriate action not taken to avert the
deadly disaster?

A growing mountain of very troubling evidence and an increasing
lineup of witnesses prompt these questions. THE NEW AMERICAN first
examined the issue of prior knowledge in our December 11, 1995 issue
in a detailed report which presented a host of documents, witnesses,
and jarring discrepancies indicating advance warning of the April
19th bombing. Despite repeated official denials of any forewarning,
proof continues to mount that there was widespread knowledge in the
federal law enforcement community that a major event was coming
down.

Where Was the ATF?

THE NEW AMERICAN has reported previously on the evidence fueling
charges that the ATF (Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms) must
have been privy to information of an impending attack on that fateful
April morning. Bombing victim Edye Smith, whose two young sons Chase
and Colton were killed in the Murrah Buildings day-care center,
first drew Americas attention to troubling rumors of an ATF tip-off
during a live CNN broadcast in which she asked: Where was ATF? All
15 or 17 of their employees survived, and they lived  theyre on the
ninth floor. They were the target of this explosion, and where were
they? Did they have a warning sign? And did they think it might be
a bad day to go into the office? They had an option to not go to
work that day, and my kids didnt get that option. Nobody else in
the building got that option. And were just asking questions, were
not making accusations. We just want to know, and theyre telling
us, Keep your mouth shut, dont talk about it.

Lester D. Martz, special agent in charge of the Dallas ATF office,
responded to the grieving young mothers concerns in a May 23rd press
release: I strongly suspect that these malicious rumors are fueled
by the same sources as the negative rhetoric that has been recently
circulating about law enforcement officers. The facts are that ATFs
employees in Oklahoma City were carrying out their assigned duties
as they would any work day, and several of them were injured in the
explosion.

Moreover, claimed Martz, Several ATF employees were actually heroes
on April 19th. His press release then went on to relate an apocryphal
tale of heroism:

ATFs Resident Agent in Charge Alex McCauley was with a DEA agent
in the elevator when the bomb exploded. The elevator dropped in a
free fall from the eighth floor to the third. The two men were
trapped in the smoke-filled elevator.... On their fourth attempt,
they managed to break through the doors and escape from the elevator.
The agents made their way to the stairwell and brought with them
10 or 15 people they found along the way....

Pure Fantasy

Incredibly, this tale was accepted as gospel by the media without
any verification whatsoever. However, one reporter, J.D. Cash of
the McCurtain Daily Gazette in Idabel, Oklahoma, did his homework
and discovered a fatal flaw. Cash interviewed members of the elevator
inspection and repair crew who were at the site scant minutes after
the explosion. Repairman Duane James told the Gazette that McCauleys
story was pure fantasy. James said that he and other members of his
crew checked and double-checked each elevator that terrible morning
to make certain that no one was trapped inside.

According to James, the elevators were equipped with safety switches
to protect against excessive speed and acceleration. None of those
switches were tripped on any of the elevators in that building,
James told the Gazette. I, along with other men with our company,
checked the equipment several times. Absolutely no elevators dropped
that morning. In fact, said James, it is impossible for modern
elevators like those in the Murrah Building to drop unless you cut
the cables, because they are counter-balanced to protect occupants
from just that sort of danger.

Oscar Johnson, president of Midwestern Elevator, the company which
employs Duane James, agreed that the falling elevator scenario could
not be true. None of the elevators fell, Johnson told The New
American. All of the elevators cables were intact. Moreover, Johnson
pointed out that, if a free-fall of five stories had occurred, those
inside would have suffered severe injuries.

Johnson said that on the morning of April 19th, two of his technicians
were about to begin an inspection of the Murrah Buildings elevators
when the bomb went off. The men had met with a General Services
Administration inspector at the federal courthouse across the street
from the south side of the Murrah Building at nine oclock. All three
men were walking through the tunnel under 4th Street to the Murrah
Building when the explosion occurred. Within just a couple minutes
of the blast they were at the scene of the devastation, checking
elevators, assisting survivors, searching for trapped victims, and
removing bodies.

Within about eight to ten minutes, we had about ten people at the
scene, Johnson told THE NEW AMERICAN. Getting the elevators operational
again was a top priority for the rescue effort. Johnson, who had
serviced the Murrah Building elevators for many years and was
intimately familiar with the building, insists that the ATF account
of Agent McCauleys elevator fall simply could not have happened.
The New American has examined many of the dozens of photographs
taken by Johnson and others of the elevators, elevator shafts,
cables, pulleys, and safety switches; they bear out his assertion
that the cable systems and switches were all intact.

While the obvious ATF fabrication about the falling elevator does
not prove that the ATF had prior knowledge about the bombing, it
does seriously impeach the credibility of ATF spokesmen and the
veracity of the agencys assertions and denials. This is important
to keep in mind when assessing other serious challenges to the
official ATF storyline.

Early Admission

On September 12th, television station KFOR, Oklahoma Citys NBC
affiliate, broadcast interviews with three witnesses who attested
that ATF agents admitted to them to being tipped in advance of the
bombing. The witnesses, whose identities were shielded in shadow
interviews, arrived at the bomb scene shortly after the blast. The
first witness worked just a few blocks from the Murrah Building and
rushed to the explosion site minutes after the blast to find his
wife who worked inside the bombed-out building. He and his wife
knew many of the ATF personnel, since she worked in close proximity
to them in another federal agency. Spotting an ATF agent whom he
did not recognize, the husband asked him to contact other ATF agents
to see if his wife had been found. The witness told KFORs Brad
Edwards that the ATF agent started getting a little bit nervous.
He tried reaching someone on a two-way radio, [but] couldnt get
anybody. I told him I wanted an answer right then. He said they
were in debriefing, that none of the agents had been in there. Theyd
been tipped by their pagers not to come in to work that day. Plain
as day out of his mouth. Those were the words he said.

The second witness interviewed by KFOR was the first witness boss.
He was standing with the first witness when the ATF agent made the
comments, and he confirmed to KFOR the accuracy of the first witness
testimony. The third KFOR witness was a female rescue worker. When
she asked an ATF agent on the scene if any of his fellow agents
were still in the building, she was told that the agents werent
here at the office that morning.

We have interviewed the first witness and find his story very
convincing. He has nothing to gain and much to lose by coming
forward. His wife, who survived the explosion, sustained serious
injuries and he does not want to subject her to additional stress
from controversy. Moreover, in spite of her blast-related disabilities,
she has been able partially to resume her former job  a job that
provides important income, a job that they are fully aware is
susceptible to political pressure and termination if they become
too vocal.

Denial and Confirmation

Was the Oklahoma City Fire Department given advance warning of a
terrorist attack immediately before the bombing? Apparently so.
Glenn Wilburn, grandfather of bombing victims Chase and Colton
Smith, had heard several reports concerning FBI tipoffs to the fire
department before the blast and decided to check them out for
himself. When he asked Assistant Chief Charles Gaines about the
matter, he was met with denial. Walking out of the chiefs office,
he went down the hall to the office of Chief Dispatcher Harvey
Weathers and asked the same question. Harvey said yes, they had
received a message from the FBI on the Friday before the bombing
that they should be on alert," Wilburn told THE NEW AMERICAN. He
said he then told Weathers, Well, youre going to be surprised to
learn that Chief Gaines memory is failing. He says it never happened.
According to Wilburn, Weathers then responded, Well, you asked me
and I told you. Im not going to lie for anybody. A lot of people
dont want to get involved in this.

According to Wilburn, two other dispatchers corroborated Weathers
story about the Friday warning from the FBI. After reflecting on
the discrepancy between the response of Chief Gaines and the replies
of the dispatchers, Wilburn told THE NEW AMERICAN, Actually, both
accounts are probably correct. When I asked Chief Gaines, I was
under the impression that the [FBI] warning had come in on Monday.
So when he said No, he was obviously being sly, knowing that it had
come in on Friday and that I was off by a few days. So he could
deny it without actually lying.

The matter might be resolved by the fire departments radio log tapes
except that the department claims the tapes for the period in
question were accidentally recorded over. The department is also
fighting a subpoena of the dispatchers by the Wilburns in their
civil suit filed against Timothy McVeigh.

Judicial Forewarning

On December 1, 1995, U.S. District Judge Wayne Alley was removed
as the presiding judge in the bombing case shortly after it was
revealed that he had received warning of stepped-up security and
increased concern over bomb threats before the April 19th explosion.
Alley, who had been appointed to the case on August 10th, had been
challenged by defense lawyers who contended he could not be impartial
since his judges chambers, along with the entire federal courthouse
across the street from the Murrah Building, had been so heavily
damaged. That line of argument did not seem to be making any progress,
however, until the matter of prior knowledge was introduced.

On April 20th, the day after the explosion, the Oregonian, Oregons
largest daily newspaper, interviewed Judge Alley, who was born and
raised in Portland, Oregon. Reporter Dave Hogan wrote in the
Oregonian:

As a federal judge whose office faces the Alfred P. Murrah Building
across the street in Oklahoma City, Wayne Alley felt lucky that he
didnt go to his office Wednesday....

The judge said the bombing came just a few weeks after security
officials had warned him to take extra precautions.

Let me just say that within the past two or three weeks, information
has been disseminated ... that indicated concerns on the part of
people who ought to know that we ought to be a little bit more
careful, he said.

Alley ... said he was cautioned to be on the lookout for people
casing homes or wandering about in the courthouse who arent supposed
to be there, [and] letter bombs. There has been an increased
vigilance.

Had Judge Alley failed to show up at the office on April 19th because
he had been tipped  like the ATF agents  that it might be dangerous
to do so? He hasnt said, but this much is clear: As soon as the
issue of his possible prior knowledge was raised, Alley was jerked
from the case with amazing speed. The defense team, which had been
trying unsuccessfully for months to disqualify Judge Alley, was
apprised of the Oregonian interview and submitted it as evidence
of his unsuitability on November 30th. Presto! In less than 48 hours
a federal appeals court ruled that a reasonable person could not
help but harbor doubts about Alleys impartiality. What is particularly
interesting in all of this, however, is that the appeals court
ruling  as well as most media coverage of it  conspicuously failed
to mention the Oregonian story and the whole issue of prior knowledge.

Fatwa Death Threat?

Another puzzling hint of federal prior knowledge comes from the
U.S. Marshals Service. On March 22nd, a little more than three weeks
before the Oklahoma City bombing, the Newark, New Jersey Star-Ledger
reported that U.S. law enforcement authorities have obtained
information that Islamic terrorists may be planning suicide attacks
against federal courthouses and government installations in the
United States. The attacks, it is feared, would be designed to
attract worldwide press attention through the murder of innocent
victims.

The story, by Star-Ledger correspondent Robert Rudolph, continued:

The Star-Ledger has learned that U.S. law enforcement officials
have received a warning that a fatwa, a religious ruling similar
to the death sentence targeting author Salmon Rushdie, has been
issued against federal authorities as a result of an incident during
the trial last year of four persons in the bombing of the World
Trade Center in New York.

The disclosure was made in the confidential memorandum issued by
the U.S. Marshals Service in Washington calling for stepped-up
security at federal facilities throughout the nation....

According to the memo, the information about the threat was obtained
from an unidentified informed source who said the death sentence
was specifically directed against U.S. Marshals Service personnel....

The Marshals Service memo said the agency believes that there is
sufficient threat potential to request that a heightened level of
security awareness and caution be implemented at all Marshals
Service-protected facilities nationwide.

The memo, issued by U.S. Marshals Service Director Eduardo Gonzalez,
warned that attacks may be designed to target as many victims as
possible and draw as much media coverage as possible.

No Islamic fundamentalists have taken credit for the Oklahoma City
bombing and, as we have reported previously, the federal government
is bending over backwards to draw attention away from all evidence
pointing toward any involvement by Iraqis or other Middle Eastern
elements. Nonetheless, details of the warning and the timing of the
Oklahoma City blast seem to indicate that the memo may have pertained
to the mass murder at the Murrah Building.

An Unheeded Warning

Especially alarming is the revelation that a federal informant had
delivered what appears to be a very specific and accurate warning
about the impending Oklahoma bombing to U.S. Justice Department
officials less than two weeks before the deadly blast  only to have
his warning ignored. U.S. Attorney Henry Solano in Denver confirms
that his office granted immunity last September to a man who claimed
to have information about a plot to bomb a federal building. This
same informant delivered a letter to the Justice Department on April
6th of last year claiming to have specific information that within
two weeks a federal building was to be bombed. The informants
handwritten letter stated:

After leaving Denver for what I thought would be a long time, I
returned here last night because I have specific information that
within two weeks a federal building(s) is to be bombed in this area
or nearby....

I would not ignore this specific request for you personally to
contact me immediately regarding a plot to blow up a federal bldg....
If you and/or your office does not contact me as I so request herein,
I will never again contact any law enforcement agency, federal or
state, regarding those matters [indecipherable word] in the letter
of immunity.

After the April 19th bombing, spokesmen for the Justice Department
stated that they did not  and still do not  deem the informant to
be credible. How then to explain that a few months earlier they had
deemed him credible enough to grant him immunity? That is not a
prize which federal prosecutors dispense frivolously to every
informant who walks through the door. The informants immunity letter
of September 14, 1994 on U.S. Justice Department stationery reads:

This letter is to memorialize the agreement between you and the
United States of America, by the undersigned Assistant United States
Attorney. The terms of this agreement are as follows:

1. You have contacted the U.S. Marshals Service on todays date
indicating that you have information concerning a conspiracy and/or
attempt to destroy United States court facilities in [redacted] and
possibly other cities.

2. The United States agrees that any statement and/or information
that you provide relevant to this conspiracy/conspiracies or attempts
will not be used against you in any criminal proceeding. Further,
the United States agrees that no evidence derived from the information
or statements provided by you will be used in any way against you....

According to the informant, he was acting as a courier transporting
illegal drugs from Kingman, Arizona to Las Vegas and Denver when
he discovered C-4 explosives in a delivery package. He also says
he overheard discussions about a plot to blow up a federal building
or buildings  in the Midwest sometime in mid-April 1995. The man
apparently had no compunctions about participating in the illegal
narcotics trade, but complicity in murder and mass destruction meant
taking a step beyond where he was willing to go. The alleged
conspirators, he said, were Latin American and/or Middle Eastern
with Arabic names.

The Kingman connection is particularly noteworthy. Kingman, of
course, was home to Timothy McVeigh and Michael Fortier, and Terry
Nichols is reported to have visited McVeigh in Kingman a number of
times. According to our information, the informant did not report
seeing any of the accused trio or hearing their names in connection
with the bomb plot. However, as we have reported previously in THE
NEW AMERICAN (September 4th, Searching for John Doe No. 2 and October
16th, Startling OKC Developments), and in our article beginning on
page 37 in this issue, reliable witnesses have identified apparent
Middle Eastern accomplices in the company of McVeigh in the days
prior to April 19th and on that fateful morning with McVeigh in and
near the Ryder truck.

Trade Center Attack

What makes the informants story especially disturbing is that it
so closely parallels the situation in Americas second most spectacular
terrorist event, the World Trade Center bombing. What should have
been thoroughly investigated in that case  but was instead quickly
covered up by federal officials and compliant media allies  were
the charges by a key federal informant and an FBI agent that the
death and mayhem caused by that bombing could also have been avoided
had FBI officials not ignored the repeated warnings and clear
evidence provided by their own operatives.

Ralph Blumenthal opened his story in the New York Times for October
28, 1993 with this sensational bombshell: Law enforcement officials
were told that terrorists were building a bomb that was eventually
used to blow up the World Trade Center, and planned to thwart them
by secretly substituting harmless powder for the explosives, an
informer said after the blast. Blumenthal continued:

The informant was to have helped the plotters build the bomb and
supply the fake powder, but the plan was called off by an FBI
supervisor who had other ideas about how the informer, Emad A.
Salem, should be used, the informer said.

The account, which is given in the transcript of hundreds of hours
of tape recordings Mr. Salem secretly made of his talks with law
enforcement agents, portrays the authorities as in a far better
position than previously known to foil the Feb. 26 bombing of New
York Citys tallest towers.

According to Salem, a former Egyptian army colonel who was able to
gain access to Sheik Abdel-Rahmans inner circle while working for
the FBI, he was originally supposed to substitute phony powder for
the explosive ingredients used in the bomb, but was foiled by an
FBI supervisor who came and messed it up.

The mess up apparently was caused when the FBI supervisor changed
the terms of the Bureaus agreement with Salem and tried to force
him to testify. But that wasnt the deal Salem had made nine months
earlier. He agreed to work only undercover, according to New York
Newsday reporters Jim Dwyer, David Kocieniewski, Deidre Murphy, and
Peg Tyre in their 1994 book on the Trade Center bombing, Two Seconds
Under the World.

FBI counterintelligence officer Nancy Floyd had tried unsuccessfully
to get her superiors to take Salems warnings seriously, Newsdays
investigative quartet report in their book:

A few weeks after the World Trade Center bombing, one of Floyds
supervisors called her into his office and asked her bluntly what,
in her opinion, went wrong back then. I may be nailing my coffin
lid down, she said. But the bottom line comes to this ... this thing
was handled completely wrong from the very beginning.... All they
wanted to do was have him testify ... Emad had the information about
the bombs and where they wanted to have them placed. If we had done
what we were supposed to have done, we would have known about it
... we would have used our heads and come up with the solution of
trying to neutralize the situation. [Emphasis added.]

Amazingly, after a few initial reports in the Establishment press
on the FBI/Salem connection to the Trade Center bombers, the story
fell off the media radar completely. There was no accountability
for this fatal mess up which left six dead and over 1,000 injured.

Are we faced with a similar mess up in Oklahoma City? Is this another
failure that will be conveniently swept under the rug? These are
life-and-death questions that demand genuine, truthful answers.
Anything less than a full-fledged investigation is an invitation
to still more deceit and cover-up  and even more deadly disasters
in the future.

Bomb Squad Witnesses

Multiple witness reports of bomb squad units in the immediate
vicinity of the Murrah Building shortly before the explosion lend
support to the contention that law enforcement and public safety
officials were on a heightened state of alert the morning of April
19th.

 Attorney Daniel J. Adomitis was headed downtown for a meeting at
 about 7:30 a.m. when he saw a white bomb squad vehicle on the west
 side of the county courthouse. Adomitis told the Fort Worth
 Star/Telegram: As I was passing the back side of the county
 courthouse, I noticed a truck with a trailer and the truck said
 Bomb disposal. I remember thinking as I passed that, Gee, I wonder
 if they had a bomb threat at the county courthouse?

 On April 23rd, the Sunday after the bombing, the Panola Watchman
 of Carthage, Texas reported on the story of a woman identified
 only as Norma who worked in the federal courthouse building across
 the street from the Murrah Building. Shortly after the bombing,
 Norma recounted to Panola Watchman reporter Sherry Koonce that she
 had seen a bomb squad at about 7:45 a.m. as she walked to work
 through her buildings parking lot. There was some talk about the
 bomb squad among employees in our office. We did wonder what it
 was doing in our parking lot, she recounted to the newspaper.
 Jokingly, I said, Well I guess well find out soon enough....

 A mother whose infant son was killed in the Murrah day-care center
 says she saw bomb squad personnel standing across the street from
 the Murrah Building an hour before the explosion. This mother said
 she had just dropped her child off at the center at 8:00 a.m. and
 was driving south on Robinson when she saw several men in dark
 jackets with Bomb Squad in big letters across their backs standing
 in front of the federal courthouse.

 Two additional witnesses report seeing bomb squad personnel and
 vehicles just south of the Murrah Building by the IRS building
 about an hour before the explosion.

Federal officials challenge the witness reports of bomb units at
the building prior to the blast. Lester Martz, special agent in
charge of the Dallas ATF office, told the Fort Worth Star/Telegram,
I havent come across any information that any kind of a bomb unit
was at the building prior to the bomb.

 W.F.J.

  Copyright 2004 American Opinion Publishing Incorporated