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[suspenseful music playing]

[car radio flipping stations]

[William Pierce over radio]
It's frighteningly clear now

that there is no way
to win the struggle

in which we are engaged

without shedding torrents,
veritable rivers of blood.

[thunder crashing]

[radio flipping stations]

[Rush Limbaugh over radio]
It's an endless parade

of the dregs of our society.

This is your country.

These are the people
that live next door to you.

This is what's become
of your country.

[radio flipping stations]

[G. Gordon Liddy] Neutering
the Second Amendment

with the assault weapons ban,

violating the 10th Amendment
with the Brady Bill,

and slaughtering citizens

using the ATF
and the FBI Schutzstaffel

is shredding the Constitution.

[radio flipping stations]

[thunder crashing]

[static over radio]

[Mark Koernke] The enemy has
many assets at their disposal.

The best one
we have here is you.

[thunder rumbling]

- [man] Yeah, now you're on it.
- I don't think so.

[man] Yeah, the red light's on.

Does it say "recording" there?

[woman] Every April 19th
is bittersweet.

I remember exactly
what I was doing that morning.

- [child giggling]
- [Sanders] Who's in that cave?

[dramatic music plays]

[Sanders] What's on my back?

Uh, a raccoon.

[child laughs]

[Sanders] My grandchildren,
Chase and Colton,

I went in and flipped
the light on in their bedroom,

and I sang, "Good morning
to you. Good morning to you.

We're all in our places
with sunshine-y faces.

What a nice way
to start a new Wednesday."

And Chase begins to giggle.

- [giggles]
- [Sanders] Those are so cute.

- What are you eating, Chase?
- [Colton babbling]

[man] Bye-bye.

[Sanders] I remember when
I left them at the daycare...

- [man] Look at his teefers.
- [Sanders] I love you.

Are we on our way to school?

[Sanders] ...there
in the Federal Building.

The little donut crumbs
that were on their faces.

Then, at 9:02...

[explosion]

[glass and metal rattling]

[reporter 1] It looks like
part of the building

has been blown away.

We'll have to bank around
the other side

so I can get
a better view of it.

[reporter 2] As the chopper goes
around the Federal Building...

- [reporter 3] Wow.
- [reporter 2] Look at that shot.

- [reporter 3] Holy cow.
- [reporter 2] Incredible.

The side
of the Federal Building

has been blown off.

[people clamoring]

[man] Get back!

Get 'em back! Get 'em back!

[yelling indistinctly]

[sirens wailing]

[man over radio] We got
damage and injuries

- all up and down Broadway.
- [man] Get them back!

[man over radio]
We need all fire, ambulances

you can get.

[ominous music playing]

[woman] It felt to me
like my skin was burning off.

It was very hot,

and it was a wind so powerful

that it felt like
it pinned my hair back.

[woman] I heard
a very loud explosion,

and I noticed a plume of smoke

coming up
from downtown Oklahoma City.

So I ran back in the house
and turned on the TV.

That's where my daughter,
Frankie, works.

And as we made our way
closer to the building...

I said, "My daughter is dead."

[man] I had little hope.

Because Julie worked
on the first floor.

And of course the first floor
had more deaths

than any other floor.

[sirens wailing]

April 19th,
my dad had an appointment

to go down to the Social
Security building that morning.

I knew my mom
went down with him.

The news starts to come in,
"There's been a bomb."

When they said
the Social Security building,

I mean...

everything at that moment
just stopped.

[man over radio] Got two down.

They're unconscious
and not moving.

I need ambulances.

[Tom Brokaw]
In the heart of Oklahoma,

in the heart
of the capital city,

a terrible bomb
has been exploded.

The governor has had a report
that six children were killed

in a daycare center.

[man] Got one here!

[man over radio] In the basement
of the Federal Building,

there's a children's center.

We need to get
fire department officials here

as quick as we can.

I said to my daughter,
I said, "Edye, the babies."

And we take off running to
the north side of the building,

and the building's gone.

[somber music playing]

[Edye sobbing]

[Sanders] My son was
an off-duty police officer.

He saw his mom and his sister
on TV,

he knew something was wrong.

[man] I looked up at the TV,

and I saw my mom and my sister
clutching each other,

and my sister was screaming,
"Where's my babies?

Where's my babies?
Where's my babies?"

[sobbing] My babies
were in there!

[man over radio]
Have we got information

on where they have taken
the children from the daycare?

[dispatcher]
I have not been advised.

[siren whoops]

[Coss] Upon arrival at the site,

my partner and I went
into the rubble.

I went to the back side
of the building,

which would be on the side
of the daycare center.

They had about 10
to 12 children laid out

on a piece of concrete slab.

They were laid
one next to the other,

and at the very end
to the right, I found Colton.

I knew that would be
the last time I saw my nephew.

I asked a state law enforcement
officer that was there

if I could reach down,
hug him, and kiss him goodbye.

And he told me,
"This is a crime scene.

Do not touch the evidence."

[somber music playing]

[Katie Couric] Of all the sad
stories in Oklahoma City today,

the most heartbreaking may be
the stories of the children

who were in the daycare center
when the bomb exploded.

What is
your overwhelming emotion

as you face this horrendous
tragedy in your family?

Those babies were just
like mine, and I loved them.

And anybody could understand
the loss of a child,

but to then have to watch
your child grieve

over the loss of those children,

it's devastating.

[Couric] Edye, are you confident

that the people behind this
will be caught?

I don't know. I hope so.

I-- I don't know.

As a young reporter,

I used to cover
Oklahoma City streets.

Usually nothing more exciting
than a car crash.

You know, everyone at NBC News
knew I was an Okie

because I always bragged about
the fact that I was an Okie.

So there was no doubt
who they were gonna send.

When I got to the site
of the Federal Building,

I thought, "This can't be
the place where I lived,

Oklahoma City."

It reminded me of Beirut.

[siren wailing]

It brought back memories
of the Marine barracks,

and the embassy bombing,

and other terrorist attacks
that I covered.

And I said, "This is Oklahoma,
this can't happen here."

[siren wailing in distance]

A U.S. government source
has told CBS News

it has Middle East terrorism
written all over it.

[Boettcher] Everyone
was thinking Arab terrorism

because there'd been an attempt

to bomb
the World Trade Center...

and the bombers,
they were from the Middle East.

But I went to NBC and said,

"Let me put together a team
to investigate this."

The first person I thought of
was Bob Sands.

I have this friend,
and he had done some work

for some far right-wing people
in Duncan, Oklahoma.

So I said,
"Just check the boards

and see what the chatter is."

- [dial-up modem screeching]
- [keyboard clacking]

[Sands] About an hour later
he called and said,

"You're not gonna believe this.
You need to come here."

People were just going ape
over it

in the far right,
the militia movement,

saying, "Who did this?
What's that all about?

That's awesome."

I would just ask that you
and the American people

not rush to any conclusions

unsupported by known evidence

and that we give investigators
the space they need

to do their job.

[Clinton] My initial reaction
was, first of all,

to try to get everybody
to calm down

and not react with their words.

I didn't want to stir whatever
was going on up any more.

And everyone immediately assumed

that it was
a Muslim extremist attack,

and I wasn't so sure.

- [gunshots in distance]
- Shoot from the waist...

[Clinton] My native state
was almost like honey for bees

to attract a lot
of these extremist groups,

and they moved
in and out of there.

When Oklahoma City happened...

my life and experience told me

there was a very good chance
that this was a homegrown plot.

On the drive up there, there's
a lot going through your head.

You've got to command
a major bombing investigation,

and you're thinking of
all the things you have to do.

And I am thinking,
"April 19th, April 19th, okay."

I just file it away.

I get a call from
a nationally known reporter,

and she said,
"Is this Middle Eastern?"

I said, "No, it's Bubbas.
April 19th."

Two years earlier,

April 19th was the siege
in Waco.

And I thought we were seeing
the results of that anger

against actions on the part
of the government.

My thought is
it's going to be Bubbas.

[reporter] Emergency crews try
to assist the injured.

[man] That day,
it was overwhelming

to first go to the crime scene.

Secret Service, IRS, ATF,

multiple federal agencies
were housed in that building.

I was walking approximately
a block and a half

from the bomb scene.

There were two FBI agents
and a sheriff

looking at this rear axle
of a truck.

They believed it had come
from the truck

responsible for the bombing,

and they were removing
the VIN number

from the rear axle.

And I told them to,
"Guard that with your life.

That's probably gonna be

the most important piece
of evidence we have

in this entire investigation."

[suspenseful music playing]

We learned that particular truck
had been rented

three or four days before
in Junction City, Kansas.

The person who rented it went
by the name of Robert Kling,

and he used a birth date
of April 19th.

The mechanic
that was working there

probably had
the best recollection

of what he looked like.

Also he had a recollection
of a person

he thought had been with him,

commonly called
John Doe Number 2.

[Coulson] We sent agents
all over the country,

primarily on I-35,

going north and south
on the interstates.

They went to a place
called the Dreamland Hotel.

They interview the owner,
show her pictures.

"Yeah, he was here.
His name's Tim McVeigh."

He was a very nice young man
basically.

It's very shocking to think

somebody has
such a deprived mind.

[Ricks] We got
the registration information.

His name was Timothy McVeigh.

So an agent runs the name
of Timothy McVeigh

and he gets a hit,

and says, "Boss, you're not
gonna believe this bullshit,

but Timothy McVeigh
is-- is in custody."

He had been arrested

an hour and a half
after the bombing

in Perry, Oklahoma.

[man] Here he is
in his junker getaway car

driving away
from the scene of the crime.

And he gets on the thruway
and he--

He thinks
he's gotten away with it.

It turns out that McVeigh
was missing a license plate

from his vehicle.

When the trooper starts
questioning McVeigh,

he ascertains
that McVeigh is carrying

an unregistered handgun.

He arrests McVeigh.

McVeigh was wearing a T-shirt

celebrating the assassination
of Abraham Lincoln.

And it always has astonished me
that...

nobody put these two things
together at the time.

But for two full days,
they had no idea

that he was involved
with the bombing.

And they were getting close
to letting him go.

It's just hard to believe.

You think it's going to be
a nationwide search,

and now you're told
that he's roughly 70 miles away.

[Coulson] I said,
"Call them and tell them,

'Don't let that boy out.'"

You can imagine
my phone ringing off my belt.

I mean, the--
the Attorney General's calling,

the director
of the FBI's calling me,

"Get him out of there."

Well, I was concerned
about a rescue

or attempt to kill him.

And I didn't want to be the man

who took McVeigh into custody
and got him killed.

Uh, not-- not good.

I'd be working at Dairy Queen
if that happened.

[ominous music playing]

[Boettcher] He was captured
about 30 miles

from where I grew up.

And I thought it was foreigners.

I didn't want to believe
an American could do this.

They marched Timothy McVeigh
out of that jail,

and I go, "You know,
it wasn't a foreigner.

This is-- this is an American
doing this to Americans."

[Coss] I was a little surprised
that it was an American.

I drew a conclusion pretty quick
that this was payback for Waco

and the kids
that were killed there.

"You killed our kids,
we're gonna kill your kids."

[Shaw] When I saw him
on television,

I felt like I'd seen him
in the building before.

I remember
being in the elevator...

and two men got on the elevator,

and one of them was McVeigh.

I always wondered
if that was real

or if I imagined that,
with everything else going on.

[Welch] He had
that orange jumpsuit on.

And my thought was, "I hope
that somebody has a rifle

and can just
pick him off there."

I mean, I was really wishing
for that.

[Battle-Leverett] You're looking
for the monster,

and you-- and you finally get
that day to see him,

and you're thinking like,
"Wait a minute, is this him?"

He looked like anyone's kid.

Just your normal average Joe.

[man] He's got this look
in his eyes.

I believed that in his mind

he wanted to look out
at the crowd,

right straight into the cameras,
and go,

"You're goddamn right I did it,

and you're cowards
if you don't do the same thing."

[reporter] There goes McVeigh,
the first confirmed arrest...

in the Oklahoma bombing case.

After we had McVeigh in custody,

I had McVeigh's father flown
to Oklahoma City

to meet with me.

I asked him, "You know your son.

Who would be involved in this?"

And he said, "Terry Nichols
and Michael Fortier." Like that.

[Ricks] We learned
he had been in basic training

at Fort Benning, Georgia
with a couple of guys

named Terry Nichols
and Michael Fortier.

Terry Nichols was older,

but they had struck up
a friendship

based on-- on
their political beliefs.

We then learned Terry Nichols
is now living in Kansas.

At his residence, we find
the remnants of fertilizer

that was used
in the bombing itself.

But one of the biggest

and most important pieces
of information

is a telephone card

sold by a right-wing group
called Spotlight.

We pretty much
were able to trace

where they had been
throughout the United States

through that calling card.

We find that Michael Fortier
is now living in Arizona.

[Fortier] I think
people are looking right now

for somebody to hang.

Now he may feel like
there's nobody on this earth

that is in any way supportive
of him.

But there is. There is.

Everybody should be supportive
of him,

because he is an innocent man.

[Coulson] I interviewed
Michael Fortier.

I said to him,
"I need your help."

And he said,

"You don't understand.
We're at war."

I said,
"I'd have killed you today.

I'd have killed you now
if we were at war.

I'd have killed your buddies.

We're not. You may be at war
with your country.

Your country's not at war
with you."

I do not believe
that Tim blew up

any building in Oklahoma.

And then he said to me,
"It's about the Constitution."

I said, "You're right.
It is about the Constitution.

Let me tell you
what's going to happen.

I'm going to indict you
under the Constitution.

I'm going to convict you
under the Constitution.

We'll handle your appeals
under the Constitution.

And sooner or later, somebody's
going to put you on a gurney

and stick a needle in your arm,
and we're going to kill you.

You better decide if you're
on my side or their side."

[Boettcher] Later on,
after McVeigh had been charged,

his attorneys let reporters
meet with McVeigh one-on-one.

The ground rule is
this is not an interview,

this is kind of
a "get to know you."

I had covered
the first Gulf War,

and I knew he had been
a veteran of that war.

And we started talking
about the Gulf War,

and he kind of lit up
because it was something

that he could talk about,
that he felt proud of,

that he had participated in.

And then I shifted
the conversation

to his feelings
about the U.S. government.

And I could see a light switch
go off in his eyes.

And he went cold.

And you could see
the anger well up.

And I thought at that point,
"This guy for sure did it."

[Sands] When Tim was identified,

I just started
delving into the far right.

I went to Little Rock, Arkansas
and did a lot of research there,

because back in those days,

you had to go
actually look at hard paper.

Turns out way back in 1983,

this virulent racist

by the name
of Richard Wayne Snell

had decided
that he wanted to blow up

the Alfred P. Murrah
Federal Building

in Oklahoma City.

I was stunned to find out

that the far-right movement

wanted to blow up
the Murrah Building.

How come we never heard
about that before?

[ominous music playing]

[explosion]

[gunfire]

[man] Stay low! Get down! Whoo!

[gunfire continues]

[reporter 1] Pro-gun patriotism

is becoming
more and more popular

among economically
hard-pressed farmers.

[reporter 2]
Traditionally strong, proud,

independent farmers are losing
their farms in record numbers.

We think as many
as a million family farms

were foreclosed on

during the late '70s
and early '80s.

- [farmers chanting] No sale!
- [Wright] There was anger

against the federal government's
exploitation of farmers.

Violence starts to occur
in the heartland

because they were desperate.

When Mr. Nixon was president,

he encouraged farmers to plant
fencerow to fencerow.

And they did.

But then when the Soviets
invaded Afghanistan,

President Carter put an embargo

on grain sales
to the Soviet Union.

And the result was
agricultural depression.

[Ronald Reagan] The federal
government mustn't shirk

its responsibility to undo some
of the damage that it created.

We're doing a great deal
to help farmers.

But the federal government
will not bail out

every farmer hopelessly in debt.

So today I have vetoed
this massive new bailout.

Ronald Reagan
basically left the farmers

to-- to, um, just go bankrupt.

[farmers chanting] No sale!

[Wright] Far-right leaders saw
a political opportunity.

The first wave
of the patriot movement

was able to successfully
mobilize farmers

into this far-right movement,

and they were willing
to take up arms,

and some of them did.

[Noble]
Everybody in the movement

saw the land crisis,
farm crisis,

as the government
and major corporations

putting farmers
into a financial bind.

Where the government is making
war with the American people

and selling us out.

I don't want to see
our group or any group

forced against their will
into a con-- confrontation.

I'm a former extremist
from a group known as CSA,

the Covenant, the Sword,
and the Arm of the Lord

in Northern Arkansas
back in the '70s and '80s.

[people singing indistinctly]

[Noble] For me,
it was like heaven on earth.

The group was started originally
by Jim Ellison

to establish a community
based upon the apocalypse.

[all] ♪ Oh, Hallelujah ♪

God began to deal with us
about the economic judgment,

collapse, and upheaval

that was coming
upon all the world.

And especially on this country.

[Noble] He said, "How are you
gonna protect yourself

when it collapses

and bad people want
what you have?"

[Noble] Basically the Bible says

we have the right to use
whatever the enemy uses,

and the enemy, of course,
is gonna have guns.

Fire!

[Noble] We had never talked
about guns before.

We had never talked
about defense.

- [gunfire]
- [mortar whistles]

[Noble] Over the next 18 months,

we started buying guns,
buying military equipment,

and we trained so well

that a magazine in those days

called us the number one
civilian SWAT team

in the United States.

[gunshots]

The church kind of went
to the background.

Guns and warfare went
to the forefront.

The first plan
that we talked about

was the Oklahoma City
Federal Building.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Noble] Sort of a quasi-member
of the group,

Richard Wayne Snell,
he lived in Oklahoma,

was having trouble with the IRS.

Him and Jim went
and cased the Murrah Building.

There was
a lot of federal offices

in that building,
so it seemed like a good target

of various agencies
being in that building.

So we had our munitions guy

start to develop
a rocket launcher,

and all the rockets would be
shot at the same time

toward the Murrah Building.

One of the missiles exploded
in the guy's hands

that was building them,
scarred his hands real bad.

So we took that as a sign that--
from God that we weren't--

weren't supposed
to do that particular plan.

[man] I was surprised
as to the extent

of violence of this group,

believing that they were going
to cause the collapse

of the United States of America

and that they were going
to help create that collapse.

We actually learned
that Richard Wayne Snell,

a member of the CSA,

shot and killed
a pawn shop owner in Texarkana,

believing he was Jewish,

had killed Louis Bryant,
a state police trooper.

Murdered I believe
that was in '84.

Got out of my van,

and I shot Officer Bryant
twice from the hip.

[reporter] The death
of Trooper Louis Bryant

was especially heartbreaking
for Bill Clinton.

While the governor
was visibly shaken

over the slaying,

he was also angry.

They don't have a right
to go around carrying weapons

and taking the law
in their hands

and acting as if
they're somehow playing God.

[Noble] Snell got
the death penalty.

Snell's execution was to be

on the night
of April 19th, 1995,

which happened to be the day

the Oklahoma City
Federal Building got bombed.

In the movement,
April 19th, of course,

is what's called Patriot's Day.

First shot fired during
the American Revolution.

Very special
for the whole movement.

Jim told me one time, he said,
"I will go down in history

in the second
American Revolution."

In '84, I told Jim, I said,

"So you really want all this
to start?"

He said, "Yes."

I said, "So build a bomb,

and we'll start the war."

So they decided to go
to find a good place

to do the bombing.

We found the gay church.

We sorta had this stereotype
image in our heads

that there was just going to be
this sexual orgy going on,

which of course there wasn't.

[people singing indistinctly]

[Noble] I started seeing
people lift their hands up

and lift their eyes up, look up
and start worshipping God.

And I identified with them.

So instantly they ceased being
homosexuals in my eyes

and became Christians,
and I couldn't kill Christians.

Later, I'm trying
to talk to God.

And I said, "Lord,
I want to-- I want to leave."

You know,
"I can't handle this no more."

And the Lord spoke to me
and said, "You can't leave."

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter] It looks like
a battle zone.

Police and federal agents
blockading the roads,

surrounding the heavily armed compound

of a white supremacist sect
calling itself

the Covenant, the Sword,
and the Arm of the Lord.

They want to arrest the leader,
James Ellison,

on an illegal weapons charge.

[Clinton] The Covenant, the
Sword, and the Arm of the Lord,

they lived in log cabins.

Every log cabin had a trapdoor.

When you dropped
through the trapdoor,

you were in a foxhole

with your weapon
and ammunition ready.

Federal officials,

they really wanted
to storm this compound

just like what later happened
at Waco.

[Coulson] We knew that
a frontal assault attack

on that entity,
a lot of people would die.

And we didn't want that.
I do not want that.

My job is not to kill people.

I know how to do it,
but I don't want to.

And I didn't want to get
into a shootout in the Ozarks.

They had murder on their mind,
and they were doing it for God.

I found somebody
I could talk to.

Actually, he came to me.
Kerry Noble.

He said,
"I want to make this plain.

We are not going to shoot first.

We don't want to kill
anybody here.

But if y'all shoot first,
I've got a Huey helicopter.

It's gonna come up.

It's got
a .50-caliber machine gun,

and it's gonna start shooting
holes in all of your buildings.

And in 30 seconds,
every man, woman, and child

in your compound
is gonna be dead."

So for four days,
I went back and forth

talking to Jim,
talking to Danny.

Finally on the fourth day,
Jim got that revelation

that he could justify
in his mind

a higher purpose
in surrendering.

We get down there,
and then Danny looks at Jim

and says,
"I'm placing you under arrest,

but I'm not gonna handcuff you
right now

because I would not wanna be
handcuffed in front of my men."

I'm just bawling.

[reporter] The four-day siege
ended as quietly as it began.

The FBI got more
than it bargained for.

Other weapons found at the camp
read like an arsenal checklist:

hand-grenade casings,
blasting caps,

dynamite, and various handguns.

[Coulson] We found cyanide
in huge barrels.

They were going to poison
the water supplies.

[reporter] In addition
to the arrest

of CSA leader James Ellison

by federal and state
authorities...

[Noble] Jim ended up
taking a plea bargain

on the weapons charges.

I got arrested,
ended up plea-bargaining,

five-year sentence.

My dream for moving there

had turned into a nightmare.

But the movement
continued to grow.

[ominous music playing]

[woman] The white power movement
had come together every summer

at the Aryan Nations
World Congress

in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

In 1983, the movement adopted
a number of key strategies,

and it decided to declare war
on the federal government.

There is nothing more
that the white Aryan can do

but obey the commandment
of Yahweh, his God,

and separate himself.

Blood, blood.

The Founding Fathers
shed their blood

to give you this country.

And if you want
to hold on to it,

you're gonna have to shed
some of yours!

[Belew] They thought
mainstream politics

could never, ever deliver

the kinds of social changes
they wanted.

In the '80s,
there is a major campaign

of violence and crime

carried out by this movement
across the United States.

[man] Right turn!

[Belew] Robbing of armored cars,

bombings of gay theaters, assassinations.

[reporter] Last night,
Alan Berg was killed in ambush,

arriving at his Denver home.

Ten .45-caliber
shell casings...

[Belew] It's a spree.

By 1987, the government believes
it has a case

that all of this activity

represents
an organized criminal conspiracy

to overthrow
the United States government.

[reporter 1] Charges of sedition
are filed

against Reverend Butler
and others.

[reporter 2] The government said
it intends to prove

that ten of the defendants
plotted

to overthrow the government
by force.

[Belew] Seditious conspiracy is
a hard charge to prove.

Prosecutors have to show

that they intended to overthrow
the U.S. government

and had the capacity to do so.

[reporter] What the FBI now sees
across the country

is a national network
of neo-Nazis

and white supremacist groups

whose goal
is to purge this country

of Blacks, Jews,
and other minorities.

One, I want to praise Yahweh's
holy and precious name.

Two, I want to say to hell
with the federal government.

[Belew] Louis Beam is really
the intellectual architect

of leaderless resistance.

And I think this has been

the biggest legacy
of the white power movement

and the reason
it's been with us since 1983.

Activists can work violently
in common cause

without direct communication
with leaders.

There are still leaders
in leaderless resistance,

but they're not culpable
because you can't trace them

to the individual
violent actions.

I understood that
that was their intent.

But I also knew
that an Arkansas jury

would have a hard time
convicting these folks

of-- of attempted overthrow
of the United States government

when they had no capacity,
really, to do that.

That's why it's called
a conspiracy.

The thought was trying
to overthrow the government.

Actually, they couldn't do it.

But they surely tried.

The government had really
bet the farm on this trial.

They had used
all of these other busts

to kind of amass
state's witnesses.

And it fails spectacularly.

[reporter] It was
the first serious setback

in the federal government's war

against suspected
white supremacist groups.

Thirteen defendants were found
not guilty of all charges,

which included murder, robbery,

and conspiracy
to overthrow the government.

It was a tremendous defeat
for the government.

And it totally enabled
the far-right movement.

"We're free to go do
whatever we want to do.

They tried. They missed.

We have got them
by the short hairs."

[reporter]
Sheila Beam passed out

and had to be carried off
by her husband,

who now walks free.

[Sands] Leaderless resistance
was Louis Beam's idea,

and he passed it along

to everybody else
in the movement.

The best way
to go after the government

was not to have
this organized CSA compound

but to have individuals...

which led, of course,
to the term "lone wolves."

[ominous music playing]

[men yelling indistinctly]

[reporter] Iraqi troops
have crossed the border

into Kuwait.

[George H.W. Bush]
As was the case in the 1930s,

we see in Saddam Hussein
an aggressive dictator

threatening his neighbors.

[Belew] In our history

of extremist movements
in the United States,

the most consistent correlation
with spikes in membership

is the aftermath of combat.

Louis Beam understood
this veteran connection

very, very well.

He did this very specifically,

going to military bases,
recruiting active-duty troops,

recruiting veterans.

These groups move

from, you know,
the white robe and hood

to camouflage fatigues,

able to take in a new generation
of veterans coming home.

Most notably, Timothy McVeigh.

[country music playing]

[man] Tim McVeigh came
from a family

that was literally
the salt of the earth.

They had come over
in the 19th century

to help with the canal

and earned enough money
to buy some farmland.

You had the dawn
of the automobile

and Harrison Radiator,

this sprawling plant

where as many as 8,000 people
worked at one time.

And that was the world

that Bill McVeigh
was offering to his son.

[Bill McVeigh]
All four houses we lived in,

we always had
a pretty good-sized garden.

We had a pool here.

Sometimes in the summer,
I'd come home from work,

there'd be 15 kids in the pool.

Family right next door,
the McDermotts,

they had a daughter
the same age as Jennifer,

Mollie.

They were good
everyday neighbors.

He would play with us,
he would babysit us,

he took us trick-or-treating.

And so I've known
his family forever.

I'm sure that the divorce
of his parents was hard.

When the split occurred,
he chose to stay with his dad.

[Herbeck] There was nobody that
McVeigh loved or admired more

than his grandfather,
Ed McVeigh.

He taught Tim McVeigh

all about proper handling
of guns, how to use guns.

I think he equated guns
with his beloved grandfather.

[man] Tim McVeigh's father

worked at a G.M. plant
for 30 years.

Tim McVeigh's grandfather

worked in the same plant
for 30 years.

By the time McVeigh came along,

that plant was shrinking
almost to nonexistence.

The industrial decline
of the Buffalo area

was a formative influence
on McVeigh.

At the same time,
Terry Nichols was growing up

on a small struggling farm
in the thumb of Michigan.

And the farm crisis
was making it harder and harder

for farmers like him to survive.

So McVeigh and Nichols represent

the crisis
in American agriculture

and the crisis
in American industry

to an almost perfect degree.

[McDermott] I don't know
when the idea

to go into the military
really came...

but the first time I even sensed
Tim seeming different

was after his time over
during the Gulf War.

[Brokaw] The bombing
in Iraq began 24 hours ago.

It is still going on.

[rapid gunfire]

[soldier] Watch your lane.

[Herbeck] At Fort Benning,

Terry Nichols became
one of McVeigh's best friends.

He was very influential
on McVeigh's views of politics.

McVeigh became close
to Michael Fortier,

who would smoke dope
when he was out on patrol.

One of the very first
experiences McVeigh had

after joining the Army
was these drill sergeants...

they would scream things like,
"Kill, kill, kill!"

McVeigh became
a very skilled sharpshooter

in the Bradley military vehicle.

[Michel] In one instance,
he spotted two Iraqi soldiers,

brought them into his sights.

He said all he saw
was a red mist.

He was proud of his kill.
He got a Bronze Star for it.

But as this very short war
progressed,

he saw the carnage

from all of the bombs
that had been dropped.

[explosion]

[Michel] It was overkill to him.

[explosions]

This unit is trying to talk
the Iraqis into surrendering.

- [man yelling over speaker]
- There are a group of Iraqis

to the right
carrying white flags.

Over there, a large number
of Iraqi tanks.

[Boettcher] I've been
in a lot of wars.

And wars and combat

affect different people
different ways.

I think what goes on
in a lot of people who leave war

is that they had a purpose.

And the purpose in Desert Storm

was to take back Kuwait

and defeat
Saddam Hussein's army.

And that was a huge purpose,
a huge global purpose.

Then you come back home, and...

you might have trouble
finding a job,

and you start
getting discouraged.

Tim McVeigh and myself,

we both have that title, veteran.

We spend four, five, six,
seven, eight, nine,

ten years of our life
serving our nation.

Then when you get out
of the military,

you come back
to the United States,

and everyone's telling you
that you're wrong,

you shouldn't be killing people,
we shouldn't be at war.

[crowd chanting] No blood
for oil! No blood for oil!

[Welch]
My daughter, Julie, demonstrated

with a lot of other students
against the Gulf War.

And the results of that war
is actually the very thing

that, uh, ended up
causing her-- her death.

- [director] How do you mean?
- Well, because Tim McVeigh

served in the Gulf War,
had PTSD.

Those soldiers saw
Iraqis get shot in the back

and saw tanks

that actually buried
some Iraqi soldiers alive.

They saw all of that angry stuff
and came back angry,

angry young men.

[Herbeck] After the war,

McVeigh went
to this Green Beret tryout.

He failed in his tryout
to become a Green Beret.

That was a demoralizing thing.

I think if he had succeeded

and been selected
as a Green Beret,

he probably would have been
a great killing machine

for the U.S. government.

[Michel] He comes home,

and he has a nervous breakdown.

He went over
to his grandfather's house

in February a few months after
he'd been out of the military

in a pair of sweatpants
and just socks, no shirt.

And Ed McVeigh
opens the front door

and says, "Tim, Timmy,
what's going on here?"

He says,
"I don't know, Grandpa."

McVeigh having PTSD,
I think, helps to explain

maybe the vulnerability,
the fragility of his thinking.

He would live in his car,
he would sleep in his car.

He would listen
to right-wing radio...

[indistinct radio broadcast]

[Wright] ...and go
from gun show to gun show.

He was operating
as sort of a straw buyer.

He was buying guns for people

who didn't want
any kind of record

or even name associated
with buying guns.

And he knew that these people
were part of the insurgency.

They're not just selling
weapons.

They're selling ideology.

[on recording]
I'm William Pierce,

and I'll be reading my book,
The Turner Diaries, to you.

Listen carefully.

"How it shamed us,

all that brave talk
by patriots.

'The government will never
take my guns away.'

And then nothing
but meek submission

when it happened."

[man] Timothy McVeigh used
this book as a Bible.

Both The Turner Diaries
and-- and McVeigh

targeted a federal building

that had federal
law enforcement agents in it.

Both used a truck bomb.

Both used a mixture of fuel oil
and ammonium nitrate fertilizer.

The one that strikes me
the most eerie

is the fact
that the bomb that explodes

and blows up the FBI building
in The Turner Diaries

went off at 9:15 a.m.

The bomb in Oklahoma City
went off at 9:02.

He's got The Turner Diaries
rolling in the back of his head,

his love of guns,

and he's buying these videos
about things like Ruby Ridge.

[indistinct chattering
over radio]

[reporter]
Randy Weaver, a fugitive

on a federal firearms charge,

has been holed up
in a cabin near Naples

for more than a year.

Ruby Ridge came about
because of shady dealings

by the federal government.

Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco,
and Firearms agents

were trying to recruit
Randy Weaver

to be an informant
on the militia movement

by having another informant
sell him a shotgun

that was a quarter of an inch
shy of the legal limit.

That looks a lot
like entrapment.

[reporter] With the sudden
appearance of military hardware,

his one-man stand
against the law

is suddenly taking on
the appearance

- of a full-blown war.
- [gunshot]

[reporter 1] A federal agent
has been shot and killed.

[reporter 2] Randy Weaver's
13-year-old son died

during the initial shootout
Friday.

His blood is on all your hands!
You...

Federal Marshals shot my son,
Samuel, in the back

and killed him.

He was running home to me.

His last words were,
"I'm coming, Dad."

The FBI adopted military rules
of engagement at Ruby Ridge.

The day after Sammy Weaver
was shot...

[gunshot]

[Wright]
...a sniper fired at Randy.

[gunshot]

[Wright]
The bullet went into the cabin

and hit his wife, Vicki Weaver,
in the head and killed her.

Later, an investigation
was done,

and the Department of Justice
settled for $3.1 million

for unlawful death

of Sammy Weaver
and Vicki Weaver.

[reporter] We just got an update
from federal authorities.

Randy's in good health.

Unfortunately, Vicki is dead.

[people gasping]

[ominous music playing]

[Beam] This time the federals
came for Randy Weaver.

Next time,
they may come for you.

[static over radio]

[Herbeck] After Ruby Ridge,

McVeigh was on an odyssey
to nowhere for about two years.

These ideas
would just be turned over

in his head again and again.

[Michel] His car was
an old Chevy.

He nicknamed it
the Road Warrior.

He reconnects
with his Army buddies,

Michael Fortier
and Terry Nichols.

But there's a lot of alone time.

He's manufacturing his arguments

of why he hates the government.

[Clinton] It may not be popular
in West Virginia or Arkansas,

where half the people have

a hunting or a fishing license
or both,

but I think we ought to pass
the Brady Bill

and require a waiting period
before people can get a handgun.

I felt that
if it was ever gonna be done,

I was in the best position,
because I grew up in Arkansas.

I had a .22 when I was 10.

I had a .410 shotgun
when I was 14.

I grew up in the culture.

[gunshots]

[Limbaugh] There's only
one thing you need to know.

The Democrats want to do away
with the Second Amendment.

They want to end up
registering every gun

and its owner in this country.

And their ultimate objective

is to see to it
that nobody has any.

[birds chirping]

[Wright] Some people forget
that Tim McVeigh was at Waco.

He was handing out
anti-government pamphlets.

He was carrying copies
of The Turner Diaries.

He was talking to people
during the standoff.

If you're a true Christian,
and you believe the truth,

and you know the truth,
the truth will set you free.

[Ricks] A group called
the Branch Davidians,

it was an offshoot

of the Seventh-day Adventist
Church.

About 100 people
headed up by a gentleman

by the name of David Koresh.

He predicted the end
of the world was near,

that he was the Second Coming
of Jesus Christ,

the apocalypse
was going to happen,

and it was going to start there

with a battle
on the plains of Texas.

- [reporter] You have guns?
- It makes nobody's business

whether we have a gun or not
at this place.

[Ricks] The ATF had information

that there were
automatic weapons,

they had grenades there.
And as a result,

they were gonna launch an attack
on the Branch Davidian compound.

Get my battery, John.
Get my battery behind the bus.

[agents chattering indistinctly]

The ATF wanted to conduct
a paramilitary raid.

They had multiple opportunities
to arrest David Koresh.

He jogged up and down
Double EE Ranch Road

right in front
of these surveillance houses.

They could've grabbed him then.

They didn't want to arrest him.

They wanted a big show.

And it backfired on them.

[gunfire]

[dogs barking, yelping]

The ATF fired the first shot,

shooting the dogs that were
outside guarding the property.

And then it erupted
into gunfire.

[gunshots]

[Ricks] ATF was immediately
pinned down.

[gunfire continues]

[Ricks] Four of their agents
were killed.

Sixteen were wounded.

Five Davidians were killed
that day.

The Attorney General says
that FBI should take over

and try
to get this thing resolved.

I was dispatched down there
to do the press conferences.

We're dealing with people
who are very committed

to what they're doing.

[Ricks] And we ended up
spending 51 days there.

[Wright] I actually came here

about three weeks
into the standoff.

They wouldn't let anybody closer
than, say,

maybe a mile from here.
They had cordoned it off.

A lot of the people
who showed up

were far-right patriots.

They weren't aligned with, say,

Davidian religious beliefs
or sentiments.

You have attempted to cover up
the FBI and ATF crimes here.

[Wright]
It was already taking place,

that co-optation of Waco

for the far-right
patriot movement.

[Belew] Waco is not
a white power community.

It is a multiracial community.

The white power movement

doesn't care about that
very much.

And the compound itself,

because this goes on
for so long,

becomes a site
where white power activists

can organize
and talk to each other.

McVeigh travels
to the Waco site.

Just, uh...
I just arrived today.

Somebody told me a lot
of people would be scared

to put something on like this.

[rock music playing]

[Wright] Tim said to me,

"The government is at war
with us."

He kept talking about this war.

And I wasn't even privy to--
to this narrative or story.

So I ask him
to explain it to me.

And he tells me
that in the early '80s,

the Reagan administration pushes
for a military role

in drug enforcement.

[Reagan] We waged a good fight.

The military forces

have dramatically reduced
drug use by 67 percent.

[Wright] In order
for civilian law enforcement

to get military support,

they would have to show what's
called a drug nexus at Waco.

The ATF manufactured

a drug nexus
that-- that wasn't there.

They claimed that
Branch Davidians had a meth lab.

All those helicopters were part
of the military support.

[Bryant Gumbel] It's day 33
of that cult standoff

with federal authorities
near Waco...

[reporter 1] Discussions about
a surrender have slowed.

[reporter 2] All day long,
reinforcements were brought in

from as far away as Fort Hood.

[Wright] I think the ATF saw
a political opportunity

in the election of Bill Clinton,
who ran on gun control,

to expand its operation
and expand its reputation.

[Clinton] I was really torn
by Waco.

The FBI kept pushing for action.

And they acted like
this would be,

you know,
not too difficult to do.

And I got it, but I mean,
the truth was

they were frustrated
by being defied.

Sometimes the right strategy
is to wait.

And I told them the story
of what we did

with the Covenant, the Sword,
and the Arm of the Lord

in Arkansas.

But they countered,

and this is what really mattered
to Janet Reno,

with the prospect that Koresh
and his inner circle

were abusing women and children.

Finally, I told them

they should go look
at the record of what we did,

but I would leave the decision
up to them,

and if they decided to do it,
I would support them.

In Waco, Texas,
the FBI has moved

to a new and more active stage.

An armored vehicle
began punching holes.

They have been filling
the compound with tear gas.

[Ricks] A little bit after noon,

they ended up setting fire
to the entire compound.

[reporter] Here's another angle.

You can see the black smoke
behind us. This is horrible.

[Ricks] And I was told
by headquarters

I had to go back
and do a final press conference.

I said,
"What am I supposed to say?

There's nobody left."

I have been asked
to read a statement

from the director of the FBI.

[Ricks] I was trying
to comfort people,

but to see it all collapse
was just overwhelming.

[Michel] McVeigh is standing
in the parlor

of this old farmhouse
that James Nichols owns,

watching this live image
of Waco burning,

and tears are running
down his eyes,

and he's also thinking about
his experience in the U.S. Army.

[Herbeck]
It really bothered McVeigh

that the same
Bradley fighting vehicles

that he had fought in
in the Persian War

were being used
against the people at Waco.

That was the turning point
for McVeigh.

He said
in that very moment he decided

he was going to commit
an act of terrorism.

[somber music playing]

[Wright] After Ruby Ridge
and Waco,

we had this mass mobilization
of militias.

[speaking indistinctly]

[gunshot]

[Wright]
This thing just really explodes.

[rapid gunfire]

The critical issue is guns.

He became obsessed with the idea

the Democratic Party
and Bill Clinton were scheming

to take away
Americans' right to guns.

[Clinton] McVeigh told
a lot of people

that he was just furious at me.

He really hated
the Assault Weapons Ban.

It was the Assault Weapons Ban,

just as much as Waco
and Ruby Ridge,

that motivated McVeigh
to bomb the Murrah Building.

We will finally ban
these assault weapons

from our street

that have no purpose
other than to kill.

[static over radio]

[ominous music playing]

[Michel] McVeigh charged
from one end of the country

to the other.

Finally decided
to build the bomb

after months of buying

50-pound bags
of ammonium nitrate

at weed-and-seed stores
across the Midwest...

buying racing-car fuel
down in Texas.

[static over radio]

[Michel] He ping-ponged
back and forth

from Kingman, Arizona,

to Decker, Michigan,
to Buffalo, New York.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Herbeck] McVeigh told us,

"Nichols and Fortier helped me."

He said,
"I was the driving force

behind all this.

It was my plan.
It was my crime."

He came up with an action plan.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Michel] In Kansas, at the lake,

the day before the bombing,

with some coercion
to get Terry Nichols there,

they build the bomb.

[Herbeck] McVeigh said
Nichols got cold feet

and McVeigh threatened him.

That's why
he went along with it.

[Michel] April 19th,
he gets back on the interstate,

traveling alone.

[static over radio]

[Koernke] The enemy
has many resources

and assets at their disposal.

The best one
we have here is you.

[explosion]

[glass shattering]

[helicopter whirring]

[car alarm blaring]

[sirens wailing]

[Herbeck] McVeigh told us
that it was like

the Death Star in Star Wars.

He said, "There were all kinds
of people in that Death Star

who were just like secretaries
and weren't leaders.

They were killed too.

But people all applauded
when the Death Star blew up."

He said, "Yes,
innocent people had to die,

but that's the way it goes."

He calls them collateral damage.

[somber music playing]

[man] I walked over
and introduced myself.

I said, "Mr. McVeigh,

I've been appointed
to represent you."

And I think I said,
"I'm from Enid, Oklahoma."

He shook my hand and said,
"I heard you were coming."

He explained very candidly

why he did
what he was accused of.

He exhibited some pride

in that he had managed
to carry it off.

He wanted a defense
based on necessity.

Said, "I had to do it

because they were going to kill
other American citizens.

They had to be taught a lesson."

And I said, "Well, Tim...

tell me why it was necessary

to kill children
under the age of six."

He said, "Well,
there were children at Waco."

And I said,
"Well, that may be true,

but that's not
an explanation of the necessity.

What that is is revenge."

After that wouldn't go anywhere,

what I was trying to do was
to raise a reasonable doubt.

We could argue to the jury
the government hasn't proven it.

I'm hopeful

that no one will embarrass
the state of Oklahoma

by doing anything
to any party in this case

which would turn this
into a three-ring circus.

It couldn't be seen
as a show trial.

It had to be seen as lawyers
vigorously representing him.

My opposite number
was Merrick Garland.

He's been detained without bond.

[Toobin] It's important
to recognize

how Merrick Garland structured

the criminal investigation
and trial of McVeigh.

...testified that the cause
of the explosion

at the Murrah Building
was a bomb

that was placed
inside a Ryder Truck.

He had a prosecutor's view
in the sense

that he wanted to keep the trial
narrow and focused and limited,

uh, to what was needed
to make the case

against first McVeigh
and then Nichols.

[reporter] Can you give us
any estimate

of how many people
you still expect

to bring additional charges
against in this case?

No, I'm sorry.
I really have to limit myself

to what happened
in the hearing today.

[man] Merrick always kind of
kept his finger

on the pulse of the case.

You know, I'm not religious,

but I did feel
during that period of time

like, "Oh, this is
why I'm here."

I mean, I really felt like
I was doing something

that mattered
and that was worth doing.

[woman] On April 19th, 1995,
the bomb went off,

I was in the office.

DOJ wanted to show

that the country could give
a fair trial and due process

to these individuals.

This was right after
the O.J. Simpson case,

where there was such fanfare
and media attention.

Merrick wanted this

to be all about the crime
that had occurred

and holding
the individuals accountable.

[dramatic music playing]

[director] In the original
indictment itself, it did say

Tim McVeigh, Terry Nichols,
and "others unknown."

[Goelman] Why am I so confident
we got--?

[director] Why are you
so confident?

Um, the thoroughness
of the investigation.

FBI interviewed so many people
that we could find.

If you wanted to, you know,
find somebody who said that,

you know,
Madonna did the bombing,

you could find
someone like that.

Both Nichols and McVeigh
had big defense teams

at taxpayer expense.

And I think
their strategies differed.

Stephen Jones had this whole
public relations strategy,

where he, you know,
traveled around the world

to try to find
these "others unknown."

[Jones] To say that there were
others unknown was true.

We were accused
of being conspiracy theorists,

but it was the government that
alleged there was a conspiracy.

We were just simply arguing over

how large was the conspiracy
and who was there.

Tim wanted to be seen as,
"This was the perfect mission.

The building was destroyed,
people were killed,

there will be a revolution.

I have set the revolution
in motion.

Me. No one else, me.
Me, myself, and I."

It took probably about...

seven or eight days
for me to start realizing

that he was lying.

Repeatedly.

Probably the first one, I said,
"Tim, you've told me

that no one else is involved.

So why is the government talking

to Michael and Lori Fortier?

What do they know

that we don't know?"

He didn't want to reveal
who others were.

He didn't want to solve
the mystery.

[suspenseful music playing]

[Sanders] It was actually
my husband, Glenn,

who started asking questions.

It's consumed our life.

Our life took a 180-degree turn
that day.

And it probably will never be
the same again.

[Sanders] After the bombing,
I was so broken.

For the first few weeks,

I probably sat in a chair
and cried.

But when I got out of the chair,

we had a dinner at our home

for the families
that had lost their children.

[children laughing]

[Sanders] The saddest of times.

You get 19 families
that lost their children.

One of the young mothers said

when she dropped her boy off
that morning,

that she had seen
the bomb squad downtown.

We're going, "How do you know
it was the bomb squad?"

Finally, very indignantly,

she said
they had big blue letters.

Then we found
a newspaper article

from The Panola Watchman.

It was an interview

about this whole office
full of people.

They had been watching
the bomb squad in the alleyway.

The next day my husband, Glenn,
goes to the fire station.

The fire chief said,
"Oh, no, sir, we had no idea."

As my husband's leaving,
the dispatcher there, he says,

"I'm not going to lie
for anybody."

He said, "We got a memo
in this office last week

to be on high terrorist alert."

[reporter] The fire department
received a call from the FBI

five days before the bombing,
warning that

"there were some people
coming through town

they should be
on the lookout for."

[Sanders] When the fire chief
is confronted

with this information, he said,

"You know what,
I made a mistake.

It was our bomb squad truck
down there."

[reporter] The ATF director
told reporters

they had taken some precaution

for the second anniversary
of the siege in Waco.

I was very concerned about that.

We did some things
here in headquarters

and in all of our field offices
throughout the country

to try to be more observant.
But it was primarily--

We didn't anticipate
something like this.

We were thinking about,
you know, demonstrations

and things like that.

I think, yeah,
we should have known

that there was some danger
in the building that day

due to the fact that April 19th

is such a special day
to the right wing.

So you're not somebody
that could be characterized

as a conspiracy-theory person,

in the sense that you feel
the federal government was,

in some way,
part of this explosion?

No. Not at all.

[Sanders] Glenn and I had
so many questions.

After the bombing,

they started the biggest manhunt
in American history

for John Doe Number 2.

And then they called it off.

[Jones] The government
originally described two men.

They had the sketches of them.

And there were
numerous credible people

in downtown Oklahoma City
just before the bombing

that claimed that they saw
McVeigh and someone else.

The government then,
about 30 days later,

said there isn't any John Doe 2.
It was a mistake.

We had learned enough by then

that we knew
there was something wrong.

Twenty-two eyewitnesses
told the FBI

they saw McVeigh downtown
the morning of the bombing,

and they all saw him
with someone else.

This is
Michael Moroz's testimony

about McVeigh pulling up
at Johnny's Tire Shop.

[Moroz] There was definitely
a second person.

He had dark hair,
maybe a dark complexion.

He wasn't fair-skinned.
I'm fair-skinned.

I can tell the difference
between fair and dark skin.

[Sanders] They brought him in.

He picks McVeigh
out of the lineup,

and he tells them there was
the man in the ball cap

in the passenger side
of the truck.

I did get a lot of flak
from the families and survivors

when I wanted to find out
about the others involved.

To try and point the blame
at somebody else

besides the people
who parked the truck out front

is irresponsible.

There are unanswered questions
that we want answers to.

I know that Melissa and Sharon
have expressed views

that they think all the truth
will come out in the trial.

What do you think
the truth is in all of this?

Do you support your parents

that there are
many other people involved?

Definitely. I believe
what they're doing

is the right thing,
they're gonna find the truth,

and then when
they find out the truth

and, um, and everybody knows
what's been going on,

then we can put this
all behind us.

[dramatic music playing]

[reporter]
A federal judge has moved

the Oklahoma bombing trial
to Denver,

saying the defendants can't get
a fair trial in Oklahoma.

The judge said that outweighs
the wishes of victims' families

who wanted the trial
in Oklahoma,

making it easier
for them to attend.

What happened April 19th, 1995,

I don't want anybody
to ever forget.

[Kimble] In the beginning,
I started drinking,

and one night walking back
to the bedroom,

I passed out
and cracked my head open.

And I thought at that time

I'd better find
something positive to do

or I'm going to kill myself.

So I started a group called
Families and Survivors United.

The pre-trial hearings started.

Judge Matsch said, "Okay,
you can be in this courtroom,

but if you want to give
an impact statement,

you better leave,
because you can't do both."

I said, "Wait a minute.

I have a right
to be in that courtroom."

On April the 19th, 1995,

the bomb that shattered
the Alfred P. Murrah Building

in Oklahoma City
also shattered my life.

The victims' lobby
in the Oklahoma City bombing

was so powerful

that they actually got
a law passed.

[Kimble] It was a miracle.

It went through
the House and Senate

and was signed by Clinton
in two days.

[Ann Curry] Prosecutors in
the Oklahoma City bombing case

have a valuable new witness,
Michael Fortier.

[Ricks] At first,

Michael Fortier refuses
to cooperate.

But he's got
a wife that's pregnant.

He makes a deal
that he will fully cooperate

as long as Lori
doesn't go to prison.

[reporter] Fortier said,
"McVeigh told me

he wanted to bomb the building
on the anniversary of Waco,

April 19th,

and that the bombing
would trigger

a second American Revolution."

McVeigh confided everything
in him.

And-- and to Lori.

[Toobin] The most memorable
moment in the trial to me

was when Lori Fortier talked
about Timothy McVeigh

getting Campbell's Soup cans
out of the kitchen cabinet

and laying out
how he was going to arrange

the barrels of explosives
in the truck.

It was so real. It was so vivid.

It was the kind of thing

you couldn't make up
if you wanted to.

I sat with Michael Fortier
for hundreds of hours.

I know everybody who was called
on the Spotlight phone card.

When you ask me
why I'm so confident

that we got the right guys

and that there's no one else
kind of out there,

it's because of things
like Fortier and the phone card.

This was the government's
version of the case,

that the Spotlight calling card
is the sum and substance

of McVeigh
and Nichols' contacts,

and it doesn't disclose
any co-conspirators.

[Coulson] I've seen 302s.

302s are a report by the FBI.

Private citizens have said
the morning of the bombing

they saw somebody else
in that truck with McVeigh.

That's very troubling to me.

And I will tell you why I think
that never got followed up.

Had they introduced that

and followed
that line of investigation,

that would have diminished
his culpability.

The defense didn't bring it up

because it's one more witness
that says McVeigh was there.

We didn't call
any of the eyewitnesses

because their testimony would
have been damaging to McVeigh.

To call them, we're establishing

that McVeigh was
in downtown Oklahoma City

when the government's case
was largely circumstantial

that he was there.

[reporter] The sister of
bombing suspect Timothy McVeigh

says she's sorry she has
to cooperate with prosecutors

in the case against
her brother.

[Jennifer] I think
he's been unfairly demonized.

He's just a normal person.
He's...

not this evil thing
they're painting him to be.

[reporter] She says FBI agents
frightened her into cooperating

by threatening her
with prosecution.

[Wilkinson] I was responsible

for trying to prepare
Jennifer McVeigh

as a witness.

Jennifer McVeigh's testimony,

I think, was dramatic
from beginning to end

because of who she was.

She said when she heard
about the bombing,

she immediately had
this eerie feeling

that she knew that her brother
might have been involved.

We did our best.

We put all of our energy
and effort into it,

and we'll wait
and see what the jury says.

[O'Donnell]
Giving the court case number

for The United States
v. Timothy James McVeigh.

Guilty.
Guilty on all 11 counts.

[people cheering]

[Jones] It's as though
Tim wanted us to fail.

He wanted to say, "I did it."

But first,
he wanted the jury trial

just in case he got off.

But then when he didn't get off,
then he wanted the fame,

or infamy, that he did it.

I went to Tim, and I said,

"Tim, I need to tell you

that I'm not... the lawyer
you need for the appeal.

I'm going to seek to withdraw."

I told him
that I had figured out

where he had lied
and the proof that he had lied.

And when I finished, he said,

"How would the truth help me?"

And I mistakenly said,
"I don't know that it would."

[Wilkinson] People forget
that a prosecution is not there

to lay out a historical record
of the entire movement

or in everything that
McVeigh ever did in his life.

That's what history books
are for,

and that's
a different-- different goal.

Here, it was to prove
the elements of the crime

and hold him accountable.

The criminal law
can only do so much.

And we got everybody

who was legally, criminally
responsible for the bombing.

There-- there could have been
other people who were...

If we had the evidence,

could've been
criminally culpable.

But then there's
a whole universe of people

who were not criminally culpable

but who bear some measure
of moral responsibility.

[Sands] Tim McVeigh was
part of the group

that wanted to declare war
on America.

The government thought,

"We tried
to round them all up once

with this sedition trial in '88,

and we blew it.

We can't do that again.

We have to limit this."

And the American people
are none the wiser

about how ugly and how serious
some Americans are

about destroying this nation.

[gunshots]

[Boettcher] We always believed

that there had to be
more people involved.

We started talking
to militia groups,

people who may have
supported them.

These extreme beliefs just
weren't held by a few people.

Actually, there were
a lot of people out there

who felt the way McVeigh did.

So we would go to places
like Elohim City

in far eastern Oklahoma,

where we believed
that McVeigh had passed through.

[children singing nursery rhyme]

[Boettcher] They were following
Christian identity.

Their belief was anything
that wasn't white was subhuman.

If you just want
to boil down to it,

that's what it was.

[Coulson] Elohim City is key
to a lot of things here.

I think McVeigh
definitely was at Elohim City.

ATF had an informant
that put him there, Carol Howe.

[Boettcher on recording]
NBC has learned

that the community
was penetrated by this woman,

Carol Howe,
a paid government informant,

who was gathering information
on possible threats

against the U.S. government.

The government acknowledges
in federal documents

that she was their informant.

[Toobin] Carol Howe was
an Oklahoma aristocrat.

Her father was the CEO of
a Fortune 500 company in Tulsa.

But when she was
just into her 20s,

she got caught up

with some really crazy
right-wing folks.

At the same time,
she became an informant

for the Bureau of
Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms.

We started following
the trail of neo-Nazis,

and she had
a neo-Nazi boyfriend,

a guy named Dennis Mahon.

The faster this country falls,

the faster we'll be able
to rebuild a nation for ourself.

[Boettcher on recording]
Remarkably, Howe and Mahon

appeared together in a 1994
German television interview.

Howe gave the government
information before the bombing

on alleged threats
by others in Elohim City,

including this man,
Andreas Strassmeir.

According to federal documents,

Strassmeir was
the military training officer

for Mahon's organization.

Strassmeir was last seen
in Germany.

[ominous music playing]

This is one of Carol Howe's
reports to her ATF handler.

She's talking
about Andreas Strassmeir

at Elohim City.

"Andy leads the young adults
in guerrilla warfare

and tactical maneuvers.

His 'plans,' quote,

are to forcibly act to destroy
the U.S. government

with direct actions
and operations,

assassinations, bombings,
mass shootings, et cetera.

He believes
we cannot out-breed the enemy

so we must use
mass genocide against them.

And of course
the biggest enemy--

the U.S. government."

She reported that there was

an increasing discussion
of violence

and there was a discussion
about blowing up a building,

even to the point
that they made a visit

to Oklahoma City
and drove around.

There wouldn't have probably
been an Oklahoma City bombing,

in my view,

had Elohim City been
investigated more diligently.

[Sands] Carol Howe knew
what was happening

and she told them
she had seen a guy.

They identified him
as Tim Tuttle.

At the time,
she wouldn't have known anything

about who this guy was.

But after the bombing,

she knew it was Tim McVeigh.
She had seen his pictures.

Tim was walking through camp
with Andreas Strassmeir,

just some guy named Tim Tuttle
walking with Andy the German.

Andy Strassmeir
was an important person

that I thought
needed to be interviewed.

I was able to meet
with Strassmeir.

And I asked
a simple question. I said,

"Why is it that there are 302s,
FBI 302s, interviews,

with all of these different
radical people...

but they don't have you?"

As I expected, you know,
he-- he knew nothing.

He might have met Tim
at a gun show.

Couldn't remember.

[Strassmeir] I forgot
about this person...

One of the things
that really concerned me

was when I got a hold
of McVeigh's phone records.

He called Elohim City

two minutes after calling
the Ryder Truck company,

and he asked to speak
to Andreas Strassmeir.

The FBI interviewed
thousands of people

regarding Timothy McVeigh,

including his second-grade
schoolteacher.

But they didn't think
it was important

to talk to Andreas Strassmeir.

He wound up leaving the country
and went back to Germany.

It was like
more than a year later

that the FBI called and did
a telephone interview with him.

[Coulson] Strassmeir,
there's controversy about him.

Some people think
he's a source of the Israelis,

and some people think

he's a source
of the West German government.

At the time,

the German government
was very unhappy with the FBI.

Because we have guidelines

on how we investigate
domestic terrorism.

They're pretty limiting.

And so they wanted to try
to get their own information.

Somebody should have
looked at it.

I personally was responsible

for searching
the intelligence files

here in the United States,

and there's no evidence
there was foreign involvement.

McVeigh had met him
at a gun show

and called him, you know,
two weeks

before he engaged
in the bombing.

That doesn't show
there's any connection.

He met lots of people
at gun shows.

[Jones] There was
certainly evidence

that Tim McVeigh had probably
been at Elohim City.

He kept denying
that he had been there,

but yet, he was stopped,
I believe,

by an Arkansas highway patrolman

on a road that led
to Elohim City.

There were people that said
he had been there.

[Reyna] I told him, I said,
"Tim, you know and I know...

that you were used."
He didn't say anything.

He didn't say,
"No, that didn't happen."

The way that group
was always together,

there's just no way
he was not there.

Strassmeir was there,
Ellison was there,

Snell was buried there
in Elohim City.

[Sanders] On the day
Snell was executed,

he asked for the TV
to be turned on in his cell,

and the prison watch log
notes that,

"Inmate Snell smiled
and chuckled

as he watched the coverage
of the Oklahoma City bombing."

It's just hard for me to believe
that it was all coincidence.

[Wright] It's not a coincidence.

Remember, the idea of blowing up
the Murrah Building

was hatched ten years earlier
among members

of the Covenant, Sword,
and Arm of the Lord.

This was a plan
that not just McVeigh

but others
who were at Elohim City

decided to resurrect
from the ashes.

[Sands] I came to understand

Elohim City
was the training ground.

The Covenant, the Sword,
and the Arm of the Lord

had moved its operations

to the Cookson Hills
of Oklahoma.

And that's where they were
gonna train these people

to overthrow the government.

These guys were ready for war.

[reporter] In court,
McVeigh watched intently

as the jury filed in.

Judge Richard Matsch
asked for their decision.

"The jury recommends
the following," said the judge.

"That Timothy James McVeigh
be sentenced to death."

[Welch] I went to the bomb site
every day after the bombing,

asking myself,
"What can I do to feel better?"

And I finally came
to the conclusion

that the day we would take
Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols

from their cage to kill them

was simply not going to be
part of my healing process.

[Sanders] My husband was dying
during McVeigh's trial.

The babies are dead,
and then Glenn died.

The trials came and went.

There's a lot
of unanswered questions.

I believe I owed it to them
to continue that journey

to try to get answers
to these questions.

Over the years,
it's been a balancing act,

almost like a tightrope act
for me, to...

to not get lumped in
with the crazies.

I needed to just find my truth,
not invent it.

I learned about these groups
around the country.

[ominous music playing]

[Sanders] They thrive on hate.

And I think it's like a cancer.

I went to
the Aryan Nation compound

in Hayden Lake, Idaho.

I'd heard that Timothy McVeigh
had been through there,

and that's how-- They helped
shape his hateful ideals.

And I said, "I'm here
to see Pastor Richard Butler."

For me,
he's the head of the snake.

But I've got a desperation
to know the truth,

and I'm willing to dance
with the devil to get it.

We're talking about creating

a national state
for the white Aryan.

[Sanders] He begins his sermon,
and he looks at me, and he says,

"One man's terrorist is
another man's freedom fighter,"

and that Timothy McVeigh
was a great man

and a martyr for the cause.

And he actually teared up
when he said,

"I am so sorry about
your little Aryan grandsons."

He said, "I cried
when I saw them on TV."

[Couric] Since the tragedy here
in Oklahoma City,

some of those
who lost loved ones

have found
a new purpose in life.

Bud Welch, Kathy Wilburn,
good morning.

- So nice to see you both.
- [both] Good morning.

I know that both of you
call Bill McVeigh,

Timothy McVeigh's father,
the forgotten victim.

[Sanders]
If I put myself in his shoes,

and I wonder
how it must feel to,

you know, to wait
to have your child executed,

it's got to be terrifying.

We have to recognize
what an execution is.

An execution is an event.
It's staged.

We know what time
the killing's going to happen.

It's nothing more
than a staged political event.

It does nothing more or less
for society than that.

[Welch] Tim McVeigh's father
was on the news.

I could see this man,
a broken man...

with grief in his eyes.

And my thought was,

"I want to go tell that man
that I care how he feels,

and I don't blame him

for what his son had done."

When Bill opened the door,

and he introduced me
to Jennifer...

and there's a picture
kind of behind me of Tim.

I looked at Bill
out of the corner of my eye,

and I could see
at that moment...

a love that this father had
for this son.

And Jennifer just kind of
went to sobbing.

And I held her face in my hands,

and I said, "Honey,

I'll do everything I can

to keep your brother
from being killed."

All of a sudden, it felt like
this tremendous weight

had been removed
from my shoulders,

and I never felt closer to God
than I did at that moment.

Because what I recognized
that...

that Saturday morning was...

the day that we...
that our parents die,

we go to the hilltop
and we bury them.

The day our children die,
we bury them in our heart,

and that never goes away.

[somber music playing]

[reporter] Terry Nichols entered
the courthouse

on the first day of his trial.

He will face a crowd of people.

Twelve of those could
ultimately decide if he dies.

[Boettcher]
If I had the opportunity

to sit down with Terry Nichols,

I would press
on who else was involved.

Where did the money come from?

[man 1] Yes! Much to plunder.

[man 2] I see
you boys had a good mission.

- Nest egg!
- [Boettcher] Did the funding

for the Oklahoma City bombing
come from those bank robberies

that were done
by radical groups?

[Boettcher on recording]
The Midwestern Bank Bandits

are white supremacists

who allegedly robbed
22 banks in seven states.

The take: $250,000.

Law enforcement officials
believe

the money was distributed to
other white supremacist groups.

Members of the gang
were frequent visitors

to Elohim City.

[Sands] Tim had
no visible means of support.

You gotta feed yourself,
you gotta keep the car going,

you gotta have money for...

just to be able
to spend the night someplace.

He was always renting a room.

Where'd the money come from?

And then I read his sister said
that he told her in this letter

that he got some money
out of robbing banks.

And there were other robberies.

He also robbed a gun dealer
named Roger Moore.

[Boettcher on recording]
About six months

before the Oklahoma City
bombing,

a masked gunman allegedly
robbed gun dealer Roger Moore

of gold bullion, coins,
and weapons.

[Michel] McVeigh met
this fellow, Roger Moore,

at one of the gun shows,

and they become
something of business partners.

He and Roger Moore
ultimately had a falling out,

and McVeigh is the mastermind
behind a robbery

at Roger Moore's house.

And Terry Nichols
committed the robbery.

[Wilkinson] Roger Moore
was called as a witness

because Terry Nichols
and Timothy McVeigh

stole weapons from him,

and they were used in part
to fund the bombing.

[Sanders]
At Terry Nichols' trial,

he was not like
Timothy McVeigh at all.

He didn't make eye contact
with anyone.

He was always looking down.

When the judge had a recess,

I saw this little lady
standing out in the hall.

I realized it was
Terry Nichols' mother.

I walked up to her.
I said, "I'm Kathy Wilburn."

She begins to cry and said,
"I know who you are.

I've seen you on TV."

And I put my arms around her,
and I said,

"Well, I want you to know
how sorry I am for your family."

And then we went
back in the courtroom

and I just sat down with her.

It was like Terry Nichols,
the bomber,

became my friend Joyce's son.

The jury thought he was guilty,

but they didn't know how guilty.

They had questions
just like I did.

[reporter] The jury found
Nichols guilty

of only conspiracy
and involuntary manslaughter.

Nichols won't get
the death penalty

for his federal conspiracy
conviction.

There are other people
out there,

and decisions
were probably made very early on

that Tim McVeigh
and Terry Nichols

were who they were looking for,

and the same sort of resources
were not used

to try to find out
who else might be involved.

[Sanders] A few days
after the trial, I had a letter.

Return address was
Terry Nichols.

And I thought, "Mm, you know,
I'm not looking for a pen pal.

And if I was, it wouldn't be
the Oklahoma City bomber."

And then it kind of like
dawned on me,

"Well, who's going to know
more about the bombing

than the bomber himself?"

We started writing
back and forth.

[Coss]
The Terry Nichols relationship,

I still don't really
understand it.

I frequently tell my mom,

and when we do presentations
around the United States,

that if I ever saw Terry Nichols

and we were in a room together
for five minutes,

I'd be the only one
that comes out.

[birds chirping]

[Sanders] I have forgiven, yes.

Do I think people
should be punished? Yes.

Forgiveness and punishment
are two different things.

I want everybody involved
in this to be accountable.

You know, forgiveness
is a choice you make.

You can forgive...

or you can stay bitter.

And forgiving Terry Nichols

was one of the best choices
I ever made.

It changed my life.

Terry Nichols was remorseful,
unlike McVeigh.

And he told me, "Whenever
I'm not under the threat

of the death penalty anymore,
I'm gonna tell you everything."

And he has tried.

I'd like to read you
part of this letter

that Terry Nichols sent me.

"So to put everything
in a nutshell, Kathy,

Timothy McVeigh was
the manipulated foot soldier,

Roger Moore the middleman

who supplied Tim
with encouragement,

instructions,
and some explosives.

And the top dog, the director
who orchestrated it all,

is a rogue FBI agent
with the help of others

who I will not name
at this time."

[somber music playing]

[Sanders] I don't know

if what he wrote
was true or not,

but after that letter,
he was notified by the warden

that I was to be taken off
of his calling list.

We've been stopped.

[reporter] Here's how it works.

Timothy McVeigh lives
in a special confinement unit.

That is the building there
with the green roof.

He will be transported by van
to the execution house.

[Herbeck] He told us that,

"When the federal government
puts me to death,

I'm still gonna be the winner,

because it's 168 for Tim McVeigh

and one for the government."

[Michel] You have
these three tubes

that are coming out of a wall

with the three chemicals,
poison, to kill him.

The executioner
was given the order,

and all of a sudden
these tubes started swaying

in, like, this ghostly way.

And meanwhile, McVeigh is
looking straight up at a camera

that is giving a live feed
to an auditorium

where other victims,
and family members,

survivors are watching.

[Sanders] He glares
this "go to hell" look at us.

They push the button...

and he went... [gasps softly]
He was gone.

[Michel] He died
with his eyes open.

[Clinton] I wondered
what would've happened if...

I'd known Timothy McVeigh
when he was a boy.

I wonder if I would have gone
out of my way to befriend him.

I wonder if--
You know, you can--

I wonder about all that.

McVeigh was a tragic example
of a guy who thought

our differences
were more important

than what we have in common.

Were there objective reasons
that he felt the way he did,

both personal and psychological?

Absolutely.

And political and economic? Yes.

But we can't blow the house up.

It doesn't matter
whether he was right

about anything or not.

What matters is he decided

he should kill people
he didn't know,

including little kids.

But the words he used,
the arguments he made...

literally sound like
the mainstream today.

Like he won.

[bagpipes playing]

Tim McVeigh set out
to destroy the government.

He destroyed my family.

My brothers passed away
in the Oklahoma City bombing,

and we go there to remember.

[man] The risk of terrorism,

it's always kind of
in the back of your head.

[Kimble] I think there will be
civil war in our country.

It's frightening.

But there are lessons
to be learned

from what happened here
in Oklahoma City.

The reason
we come back here every year

is that this wasn't
a one-off thing.

It can really happen again.

Where we're standing now was
the Alfred P. Murrah Building.

The empty chairs
represent the 168 victims.

The gate behind me says "9:01,"

the moment of innocence
before the bombing.

The gate over your shoulder
says "9:03,"

the aftermath.

Today.

This year we're living in
is not much different from 1995.

People yelling at each other,

not making arguments
based on fact, but emotion.

Many folks feel left behind.

Like their American dream
has been stolen.

[all chanting] No sale! No sale!
No sale! No sale! No sale!

No sale! No sale!

[Boettcher] That rage
doesn't disappear.

It can explode on the fringes,

as we've seen too many times
since April 19th, 1995.

[indistinct yelling]

[Boettcher]
The Oklahoma City bombing

was a crossroads.

It was a huge signpost
in history.

"America, wake up."

But I think
that sign got blown down.

[reporter 1]
... a mass shooting.

[reporter 2]
...180-page manifesto.

[reporter 3] He didn't come
to worship. He came to kill.

[reporter 4] Tree of Life
has never been the same.

[Noble] Every time I hear
a news report on mass shootings,

and domestic terrorism,
right-wing extremism,

it always reminds me
of when I was in the movement,

how dangerously close
we as a group got,

how dangerously close I got

to committing
domestic terrorism.

So much has changed
from our days back in the '80s.

How mainstream extremism
has become,

that was something we hoped for.

I'm seeing that now,
and honestly, it scares me.

The closest thing
that has happened

since Oklahoma City, of course,

is the January 6th riot
on the Capitol Building.

[indistinct yelling]

[Coss] On January 6th,

I was the emergency planning
specialist

with the incident commander

and everybody else
who showed up.

So I was at that scene
for about 18 hours.

[all yelling]

[Sanders] When I saw
the storming of the Capitol

on January 6th, I'm thinking,
"What's the chances

that my boy's gonna be
down at the bombing

and gonna be involved
in this as well?"

And I was concerned
for his safety.

[all yelling]

[Coss] There's no call for
what they did on January 6th.

What they did was wrong,

and they should be prosecuted
for it.

Every single day,
we have protests.

The majority of the people
up there are peaceful.

But as long as our country
continues to divide itself,

I believe there's more to come.

You poke a dog long enough,
the dog's going to bite.

If you're going to push people
to the extremes,

violence is inevitable.

[Sanders] I drove up to
this building a hundred times.

We used to go on our break
up there over that wall.

- Mm-hmm.
- We would stay...

We'd take treats and stuff

and go up there and watch
the kids play in the playground.

[Coss chuckles]

That's where I found Colton.
You know that, right?

- Yeah.
- Right there.

[somber music playing]

[Sanders] When I delved
into the bombing

and started having questions,

I told a reporter, I said,

"You know, it's not going to be
too many years

that when I tell someone
I lost my grandchildren

in the bombing,
they'll say, 'Which one?'"

- Exactly.
- And that's where we are today.

It's still hard to believe
it's been 28 years.

Yeah.

Love you guys.
We'll see you next year.

You ready?

Yeah. Bye, guys.

[somber music playing]