Latest / BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback / Episode 462 BOB DOLE 1995 Clinton's Comeback (Part 4) The Oklahoma City Bombing Part A April 19, 1995

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Episode 462 BOB DOLE 1995 Clinton's Comeback (Part 4) The Oklahoma City Bombing Part A April 19, 1995 · BOB DOLE : 1995 Clinton's Comeback

• 0:26
  SPEAKER_17: On April 19th, 1995, Timothy McVeigh, an American Gulf War veteran, shocked America when he committed what was at that time the most devastating terrorist attack on American soil.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_17: This is the story of the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_17: On April 19, 1995, a rental truck filled with homemade explosives detonated outside the Alfred P.
• 0:50
  SPEAKER_17: Murphy Federal Building in Oklahoma City.
• 0:52
  SPEAKER_17: The blast caused catastrophic damage, leaving 168 people dead and hundreds more injured.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_17: The question on nearly everyone's mind was: why?
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_17: What motive could someone have to blow up a building and one that included a daycare center?
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_17: Two men, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols, were ultimately held responsible for the bombing at Oklahoma City.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_17: Both McVeigh and Nichols served in the military and met in basic training at Fort Benning in 1988.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_17: That same year, McVeigh became a candidate for the Special Forces, but dropped out after just two days.
• 1:32
  SPEAKER_17: He later reunited with Nichols.
• 1:34
  SPEAKER_17: They bonded over their mutual anti-government sentiments.
• 1:38
  SPEAKER_17: McVeigh's distrust of the government began in high school.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_17: As a teenager, he read the Turner Diaries by William Pierce, the leader of one of America's most prominent neo-Nazi organizations at the time.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_17: The book outlines a fictional Aryan revolution against the federal government, and its opening scene is eerily similar to the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 2:02
  SPEAKER_17: A truck exploding outside a government building.
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_17: By 1994, McVeigh and Nichols' hatred and distrust of the government had been further fueled by events like the FBI assault on the Branch Dividian compound, home to a religious cult in Waco, Texas.
• 2:18
  SPEAKER_17: In September of 1994, McVeigh and Nichols began plotting to destroy a federal symbol.
• 2:25
  SPEAKER_17: They chose the Alfred P.
• 2:26
  SPEAKER_17: Murray Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City.
• 2:32
  SPEAKER_17: On the morning of April 19, 1995, McVeigh parked a rental truck filled with homemade explosives outside the Alfred P.
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_17: Murray Federal Building.
• 2:41
  SPEAKER_17: At 9.02 a.m., he detonated the bomb.
• 2:50
  SPEAKER_17: The blast destroyed nearly half of the building, collapsing its entire north wall.
• 2:55
  SPEAKER_17: It also left a 16-block radius of destruction.
• 3:00
  SPEAKER_17: Nearly 300 buildings in the immediate area were damaged, including the Journal Record Building five blocks away.
• 3:08
  SPEAKER_17: 25 buildings were completely destroyed.
• 3:11
  SPEAKER_17: 850 people were injured, many in the surrounding area, including 39 people at the Water Resources Board Building, one block north of the explosion.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_17: 168 people were killed, 19 were children.
• 3:28
  SPEAKER_17: More than a third of the population of Oklahoma City knew someone who was a victim of the attack.
• 3:45
  SPEAKER_17: In the aftermath, 12,384 people volunteered in the rescue and recovery efforts.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_17: Sixteen different organizations, ranging from FEMA to the IRS, established volunteer areas at the Recovery Service Center.
• 3:59
  SPEAKER_17: From every corner of America, people responded, said Larry Mackey, the lawyer for the prosecution.
• 4:05
  SPEAKER_17: Rescuers from across this country descended on Oklahoma City.
• 4:09
  SPEAKER_17: Literally hundreds and hundreds of law enforcement officers got in their cars, caught planes, and headed to downtown Oklahoma City.
• 4:17
  SPEAKER_17: America was in shock.
• 4:20
  SPEAKER_17: People needed help.
• 4:23
  SPEAKER_17: McVeigh and Nichols were arrested.
• 4:26
  SPEAKER_17: In the summer of 1997, McVeigh was tried and convicted on 11 different counts and sentenced to death.
• 4:33
  SPEAKER_17: He was executed by lethal injection on June 11, 2001.
• 4:37
  SPEAKER_17: Nichols was found guilty on one count of conspiracy and eight counts of involuntary manslaughter.
• 4:44
  SPEAKER_17: He was sentenced to life in prison.
• 4:46
  SPEAKER_17: In 2004, he was tried again on state charges in Oklahoma and convicted of 161 counts of first-degree murder, including fetal homicide.
• 4:56
  SPEAKER_17: He received 161 consecutive life terms in prison.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_17: Today, the Oklahoma National Memorial Museum honors those who lost their lives and the survivors of this horrific attack.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_17: Even decades later, Americans still try to find rationale and reason, an explanation for acts of senseless terror and hope that they will never happen again.
• 5:57
  SPEAKER_10: The devastating blast is still incomprehensible, and today survivors and the families of the victims gather to remember the moment that changed their lives forever.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_10: ABC's Neil Karlinski is there.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_07: Twenty years later, memories may have faded, but the wounds for many here are as fresh as yesterday.
• 6:16
  SPEAKER_01: Kevin Lee Gotchell the Second.
• 6:46
  SPEAKER_07: Until 9-11, it was the deadliest terror attack in U.S.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_07: history, this time committed by Americans.
• 6:52
  SPEAKER_07: Anti-government extremist Timothy McVeigh executed for the crime, and Terry Nichols still serving a life sentence.
• 7:04
  SPEAKER_07: PJ Allen's entire life has been intertwined with this place.
• 7:07
  SPEAKER_07: That's him as a baby in 1995.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_07: He was the youngest survivor of the building's daycare, which lost 19 children that morning.
• 7:16
  SPEAKER_07: Today he's a 21-year-old college student back again to honor those who weren't so lucky with the way he lives his life.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_14: Because of that day that I can't not give him my all because for some reason I was able to make it.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_19: And this is our look at the Oklahoma City bombing.
• 7:53
  SPEAKER_19: If you didn't live through it, it might be hard to describe.
• 7:56
  SPEAKER_19: But uh I was a college uh in college in 1995, and I remember being in my dorm room and turning on the TV and seeing this chaos in Oklahoma City.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_19: Um they were there covering it live, and it had blown the entire side of this building, or more than half of the side of this building off.
• 8:13
  SPEAKER_19: And it they actually cut into it right within minutes, and uh the coverage you know, the camera was just people running and carrying on, and um you know the people who who had been bloodied off.
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_19: And that thing, when it blew up that building, you know, it was a downtown Oklahoma City.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, they could hear it all in the city, uh shattering glass and in other buildings, and uh, you just knew there was gonna be a lot of people that had died.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_19: Uh and I can remember um you know my dorm roommate, a couple roommates, and us just standing around that little TV set that I had with rabbit ears.
• 8:49
  SPEAKER_19: And you know, you just didn't say anything.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_19: You just looked at it, and you and you you know, it was pre-9-11.
• 8:54
  SPEAKER_19: But I think the first thought we had was this was gonna be a uh uh Islamic terrorist thing.
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_19: It turned out to be a homegrown terrorist.
• 9:03
  SPEAKER_19: Um that became clear pretty quickly.
• 9:06
  SPEAKER_19: But um in those first few moments, uh people people didn't really know.
• 9:10
  SPEAKER_19: So we're gonna we're gonna at least take you through uh Bill Clinton's uh a couple of appearances that he made that day.
• 9:16
  SPEAKER_19: Um he does a very quick come out and talk uh about two to two minutes or so.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_19: Uh then he'll come back, they know a little bit more, but at that point, you should see they don't know who did this, and uh and that will come become clear in the next couple days.
• 9:32
  SPEAKER_19: But law enforcement did a remarkable job of figuring this out.
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_04: The bombing in Oklahoma City was an attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens.
• 9:59
  SPEAKER_04: It was an act of cowardice, and it was evil.
• 10:06
  SPEAKER_04: The United States will not tolerate it, and I will not allow the people of this country to be intimidated by evil cowards.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_04: I have met with our team, which we assembled to deal with this bombing, and I have determined to take the following steps to assure the strongest response to this situation.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_04: First, I have deployed a crisis management team under the leadership of the FBI, working with the Department of Justice, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms, military and local authorities.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_04: We are sending the world's finest investigators to solve these murders.
• 10:55
  SPEAKER_04: Second, I have declared an emergency in Oklahoma City.
• 10:59
  SPEAKER_04: And at my direction, James Lee Witt, the director of the Federal Emergency Management Agency, is now on his way there to make sure we do everything we can to help the people of Oklahoma deal with the tragedy.
• 11:13
  SPEAKER_04: Third, we are taking every precaution to reassure and to protect people who work in or live near other federal facilities.
• 11:24
  SPEAKER_04: Let there be no room for doubt.
• 11:27
  SPEAKER_04: We will find the people who did this.
• 11:30
  SPEAKER_04: When we do, justice will be swift, certain, and severe.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_04: These people are killers, and they must be treated like killers.
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_04: Finally, let me say that I ask all Americans tonight to pray.
• 11:54
  SPEAKER_04: To pray for the people who have lost their lives, to pray for the families and the friends of the dead and the wounded, to pray for the people of Oklahoma City.
• 12:07
  SPEAKER_04: May God's grace be with them.
• 12:10
  SPEAKER_04: Meanwhile, we will be about our work.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_19: Thank you.
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_19: As you can tell, you can see you can hear the shock in President Clinton in that in that uh first press conference where he's coming out and just kind of reassure the nation as to what's happened.
• 12:27
  SPEAKER_19: And he does that well.
• 12:28
  SPEAKER_19: This is something that he does do well.
• 12:30
  SPEAKER_19: And I think uh historians probably look at this, this entire situation as being as it unfolded, being the the foundation for his comeback was how he dealt with this.
• 12:44
  SPEAKER_19: Um as things become a little clearer later in the day, Bill Clinton comes back out, and we're gonna hear him update everybody uh here, and uh while they don't have a they don't have a uh a uh you know a suspect yet, they are figuring things out uh fairly quickly.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_04: First, let me say how very proud I am of the Swiss and decisive and determined work of law enforcement officials on this case throughout the country.
• 13:13
  SPEAKER_04: I know every American is proud of them too.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_04: Their continued vigilance makes me sure that we will solve this crime in its entirety and that justice will prevail.
• 13:26
  SPEAKER_04: Today I want to say a special word of thanks to the Justice Department under the able leadership of the Attorney General, uh, to Director Free and all the hundreds of people in the FBI who have worked on this case, to the men and women of the Bureau of the Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, to all the Federal authorities, and to all the state and local law enforcement officials, especially those in Oklahoma who have been working on this case.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_04: And of course, I'd like to say a personal thanks, as I know all Americans would, to the Oklahoma lawman whose vigilance led to the initial arrest of the suspect.
• 14:05
  SPEAKER_04: As I said on Wednesday, justice for these killers will be certain, swift, and severe.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_04: We will find them.
• 14:16
  SPEAKER_04: We will convict them and we will seek the death penalty for them.
• 14:22
  SPEAKER_04: Finally, I know I speak for all Americans when once again I extend our deepest thanks to the brave men and women who are still involved in the rescue teams.
• 14:31
  SPEAKER_04: Let us not forget them.
• 14:32
  SPEAKER_04: There is a lot of work for them still to do.
• 14:35
  SPEAKER_04: It is difficult and it is often heartbreaking now.
• 14:40
  SPEAKER_04: Our thoughts and prayers that continue to be with the people in Oklahoma City, and let me say again you will overcome this moment of grief and horror.
• 14:49
  SPEAKER_04: You will rebuild, and we will be there to work with you until the work is done.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: Let me say that I have never and the Justice Department has never said that it was a foreign threat.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_04: But the most important thing that you understand is that even though this is a positive development, this investigation has a lot of work still to be done in it.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_04: And therefore it would be it would be wrong to draw any conclusions.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: There have been lots of twists and turns in this investigation.
• 15:31
  SPEAKER_04: But I would say to the American people, we should not assume as I said yesterday, that we should not assume that any people from beyond our borders are involved in it.
• 15:41
  SPEAKER_04: We should not assume anything we except except what we know.
• 15:57
  SPEAKER_04: I would defer with the same comment that the Attorney General and Director Free had on that, that we simply must not speculate on that at this time.
• 16:17
  SPEAKER_04: Let me say that we need to finish this investigation now.
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_04: We need to focus on this investigation.
• 16:23
  SPEAKER_04: We need to finish this investigation.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_04: We need to finish the rescue.
• 16:27
  SPEAKER_04: We we then need to obviously examine uh uh w anew, as we will over the next uh few days uh the sufficiency of our efforts in the whole area of terrorism.
• 16:40
  SPEAKER_04: Uh but maybe it would be helpful, let me just take a few moments to talk about uh what we have been doing for the last couple of years before the Oklahoma City incident uh because I think it is uh apparent to any observant person that uh all civilized societies have to be on their guard against terrorism.
• 17:03
  SPEAKER_04: We have uh increased the counterterrorism budgets and resources of the FBI and the CIA.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_04: We arrested a major terrorist ring in New York before they could consummate their plans to blow up the UN and tunnels in New York City.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_04: We retrieved terrorists who fled abroad, as I said on yesterday, from Pakistan, the Philippines, from Egypt, and elsewhere.
• 17:27
  SPEAKER_04: We broke up a major terrorist ring before they could consummate their plans to blow up airplanes flying over the Pacific.
• 17:36
  SPEAKER_04: We brought together all the various agencies of the Federal Government that would be involved in rescue and in response to a terrorist action and did a comprehensive uh practice uh earlier.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: And uh some of that uh work I think was seen in the in the very efficient way that they carried out their work at Oklahoma City.
• 17:56
  SPEAKER_04: Finally, let me say there has been a lot of activity that the public does not see, most of which I should not comment on, but let me give you one example.
• 18:03
  SPEAKER_04: There was one recent incident uh of which I was uh with which I was intimately familiar, which involved a quick and secret deployment of a major United States uh effort of FBI and FEMA and public health service and Army personnel because we had a tip of a possible terrorist incident, which thank goodness did not materialize.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_04: But we uh we went to the place and we were ready.
• 18:28
  SPEAKER_04: We were ready to try to prevent it, and if it occurred, uh we were ready to respond.
• 18:32
  SPEAKER_04: So we have been on top of this from the beginning.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_04: And finally, let me say I issued the executive order, which gives us the ability to try to control funding uh more strictly.
• 18:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I have sent uh counterterrorism legislation to the Hill, which I hope will be acted upon quickly when I retire from the United States.
• 19:03
  SPEAKER_04: I think Americans can be secure that our country has able law enforcement officials, that we work together well, that we have prevented terrorist activities from occurring, uh, that obviously every civilized society is at risk of this sort of thing.
• 19:23
  SPEAKER_04: I I cannot, I must not uh comment on any of the specific people involved in this investigation at this time.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_20: Mr.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_20: President, is there anything that has come across your desk so far to suggest that this bombing in Oklahoma City could have been prevented as other terrorist incidents that you're referring to were prevented?
• 19:42
  SPEAKER_20: Was there a failure somewhere down the chain of command, someplace that a tip uh a clue a source could have provided information leading to this explosion?
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_04: I have no evidence to that effect at this time.
• 19:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's not allowed to drop me to this country which uh government is the enemy, the government is bad.
• 20:02
  SPEAKER_04: Given the way this case seems to be pointing, I think that's more like proof what happened to our I think it's important that we not speculate about the motives, the atmosphere, or anything else until this investigation is completed.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_04: Could only uh uh anything I say uh could only undermine the successful conclusion of this.
• 20:21
  SPEAKER_06: We've been cautious about warning us and all Americans not to draw.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_06: Can you rule out a foreign tie to a domestic group and can you in any way blame the uh incident on any kind of climate uh I cannot rule in or rule out anything, it would be inappropriate.
• 20:41
  SPEAKER_04: The investigation has not been completed.
• 20:43
  SPEAKER_04: And uh again, that's a variation of the question that was just asked.
• 20:47
  SPEAKER_04: I cannot and I should not characterize uh this uh in terms of the climate or anything else at this time.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: Let us do this investigation.
• 20:56
  SPEAKER_04: Let the people get the work done.
• 20:58
  SPEAKER_04: Let us follow every lead, pursue every alley.
• 21:01
  SPEAKER_04: Let's wrap this up so we can see it hold, and then there will be time for this kind of analysis.
• 21:06
  SPEAKER_04: I understand why you want to do it.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_04: It's a perfectly understandable and appropriate, but it it's not ripe yet.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_04: We have to we have to solve the heinous crime first.
• 21:15
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you.
• 21:17
  SPEAKER_19: The uh investigators were able to track down the U-Haul that uh the Timothy McVeigh had used, and that that was how they were able to track down him and his other two accomplishers, uh accomplishers, uh Terry Nichols and uh another gentleman, um Michael Foutier.
• 21:34
  SPEAKER_19: And um Timothy McVeigh was executed for his role in this uh as the perpetrator of this crime.
• 21:41
  SPEAKER_19: And it all started because of outrage that he he was uh one of these nationalist kind of guys about Waco.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_19: And you know, if we go back in our back catalog, we have a show about Janet Reno and how Waco was handled in the very early days of the Clinton administration, and uh and so they decided to take it out of this building.
• 22:01
  SPEAKER_19: This building had a nursery in it with all these little kids.
• 22:03
  SPEAKER_19: And uh it's just it's just hard to imagine.
• 22:08
  SPEAKER_19: Uh and what's even scarier about it is he sat down and did an interview uh before he was executed with Ed Bradley, who passed away sadly in 2006 with leukemia.
• 22:18
  SPEAKER_19: But Ed Bradley was a very well known journalist at the time on 60 Minutes, and uh you'll recognize.
• 22:25
  SPEAKER_19: His voice, I think, and for our younger crowd, because he's been gone a long time himself.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_19: He was, it would be hard to describe.
• 22:31
  SPEAKER_19: He was a well-known journalist.
• 22:33
  SPEAKER_19: So this was quite the get for him.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_19: And he's going to talk about interviewing um Timothy McVeigh.
• 22:40
  SPEAKER_19: And what will stand out as you hear this interview, it stood out to me, is how normal he felt Timothy McVeigh was.
• 22:47
  SPEAKER_19: He said you wouldn't, you he was somebody you saw on the streets, you wouldn't think twice about him.
• 22:50
  SPEAKER_19: And yet he's a cold-blooded killer.
• 22:52
  SPEAKER_19: And he was a cold-blooded killer.
• 22:54
  SPEAKER_19: And he killed, you know, a lot of innocent people that were just going to work that day.
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_19: And then all the these people that, you know, their kids run this nursery.
• 23:02
  SPEAKER_19: I mean, I you know, think about that.
• 23:04
  SPEAKER_19: Um I don't think people think through the ramifications of what they do, but um you know, it it just goes to show you uh about the rhetoric that we've got in in um in our society, and it goes back that far.
• 23:19
  SPEAKER_19: But um do wish politicians watch what they said a little better and stopped with some of the uh just outrageous comments um because you don't know what you might trigger.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_19: And uh and this was certainly our first big dose of that in America.
• 23:37
  SPEAKER_19: But Ed Bradley here, we'll let you hear him.
• 23:39
  SPEAKER_19: He talked to the um the television museum, uh he's and they're they're part of their TV enemy award-winning legends series, uh, and they interviewed Ed Bradley about a lot of things.
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_19: This is actually a really good interview, the whole thing.
• 23:52
  SPEAKER_19: But this is it about Timothy McVeigh, and that's what you'll come away with.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_19: It's scary to think that these people, they walk amongst us, you don't think anything about it, and here they are right in the middle, they're right there.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_19: They could be your neighbor next door, and they're capable of a crime of this nature.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_19: It's just scary when you think about it.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_02: Michael Rodutsky was the producer of that piece and was the person most instrumental in securing the interview.
• 24:18
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, he spent a lot of time with McVeigh's lawyer at the time.
• 24:23
  SPEAKER_02: I had met with uh McVay's first lawyer before that.
• 24:27
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh with Michael uh met with the second lawyer.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and uh I mean obviously everyone wanted to talk to McVeigh.
• 24:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you had to have a comfort level with his attorney who would make a rec recommendation to him.
• 24:45
  SPEAKER_02: And McVay has a comfort level with whoever he's watching on screen.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and uh he was certainly familiar with the work of I'm sure most of the people who wanted to interview him, and and uh he decided to go with us.
• 25:01
  SPEAKER_02: Um did he choose you specifically or well I he was I was the only choice he had at 60 Minutes.
• 25:08
  SPEAKER_02: Uh although uh I mean because we had been working on the story and and we try to be in a position where we're not competing against ourselves so that no one else was pushing out.
• 25:19
  SPEAKER_02: But I'm I'm sure if if if he had said I want to do sixty minutes, but uh I don't want to talk to Bradley, uh uh but I'll talk to Mike Wallace.
• 25:35
  SPEAKER_02: Um I think while we wouldn't like it, uh we would have said okay.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_02: Um given the nature of that interview.
• 25:44
  SPEAKER_02: Most of the time we wouldn't, but given that one, I I'm sure we probably would have.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_02: Fortunately it didn't come to that.
• 25:52
  SPEAKER_05: Uh, what was like walking in that room and sitting down with him?
• 25:57
  SPEAKER_05: What was the temperature like?
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_02: I I was in the room when they brought him in, and he was in handcuffs, and they said you could have no contact, so that eliminated the what do you do?
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_02: Shake hands with this guy?
• 26:12
  SPEAKER_02: Uh that eliminated that problem for me.
• 26:14
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and he sat down and you know, we said hello and exchanged some pleasantries and we started talking.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, there wasn't a lot of buildup because we had a limited period of time.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_02: So you really had to to get this done, and and you don't have time to sit down and chit-chat for an hour.
• 26:30
  SPEAKER_02: Uh you come in and you start rolling.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um there were two crews, uh, four people in the room, plus Michael and Trevor Nelson, who was the associate producer, and perhaps a half a dozen uh prison officials.
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_02: And uh it um he was at times easy and at times difficult.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_02: Um at times as I said to the uh family members and survivors last week in Oklahoma City, that there were times when I sat there talking to him and had the realization that he was not unlike millions of other young American men.
• 27:23
  SPEAKER_02: He was someone you wouldn't give a second look if you saw it.
• 27:27
  SPEAKER_02: And then there were other times when you sat there and you realized that this guy was a cold-blooded.
• 27:34
  SPEAKER_02: So there was always that going back and forth.
• 27:37
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and uh there also was a restriction because one of the agreements uh that we made, um, his lawyer would not let us ask him directly were were you the Oklahoma City Obama?
• 27:50
  SPEAKER_02: Are you the Oklahoma City Obama?
• 27:52
  SPEAKER_02: Did you do that?
• 27:53
  SPEAKER_02: Are you responsible for that?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_02: So I couldn't do that because that would have been the end of the interview.
• 27:59
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and we had agreed not to, but you just sort of looked at a way to get in through the side door or the back door uh he had been convicted for.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_02: And I think it was clear uh that he was admitting that he had done it without saying it directly.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_05: Were there concerns that it was an opportunity, an outlet, to uh express his militant views to the country?
• 28:28
  SPEAKER_02: Yeah, but he doesn't have control of the microphone.
• 28:33
  SPEAKER_02: Um and what we want to do is to tell his story.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and part of that is to get some kind of understanding of what how do you get to a point where you can deliberately drive a truck with a 7,000-pound homemade bomb in it and set it off to take the lives of people children, women, and men.
• 29:09
  SPEAKER_02: You don't even know?
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_02: Never did anything to you?
• 29:13
  SPEAKER_02: They are not the government.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_02: And those children didn't work for the government.
• 29:25
  SPEAKER_02: Part of allowing him to explain his views is to get some understanding of how he came to do what he did.
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_02: And as one of the the family members told me last week in Oklahoma City, I just want him to stand up and tell me why he did this.
• 29:44
  SPEAKER_02: And when he talks about how there were transgressions that people made in at Ruby Ridge and and Oklahoma and and uh in Waco.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_02: What transgressions did we in Oklahoma City make against you?
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_02: So, yes, there is the sense that you're going to give him a platform for these views, uh, but there's also a recognition that you have to deal with the understanding of how those views led to that act.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and in painting that bigger picture, that's a risk that you run.
• 30:27
  SPEAKER_05: And on the piece that you're airing this Sunday, what were what were your goals on uh uh updating that story?
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_02: Well, uh the goal was simple.
• 30:37
  SPEAKER_02: I mean, we had the only broadcast interview that he had done.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_02: Um and I mean it's amazing how much attention has been focused on his execution.
• 30:48
  SPEAKER_02: So uh it it's it was a perfect opportunity to say, what do we have here and and and how can we make good journalistic use out of this?
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_02: Uh and and our sense was that we wanted to give the family members and the survivors the last word.
• 31:04
  SPEAKER_02: We wanted them to look at what he had to say and respond to it.
• 31:08
  SPEAKER_02: So that's the way we did this piece.
• 31:09
  SPEAKER_02: We could have just we could have put on two pieces or three pieces to say, here's what Timothy McVeigh had to say.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_02: But we wanted to let Timothy McVeigh give his point of view and then let women and men who had lost members of their family or who had survived that bombing say what they felt about what they went through and about Timothy McVeigh.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_02: Let them have the last word.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_15: Of course, those of you who uh have not been with us throughout the morning uh perhaps did not know that this morning before the President and First Lady left Washington, they planted a flowering dogwood tree uh on the grounds of the White House as a symbol of the people who uh lost their lives in Wednesday's explosion.
• 32:03
  SPEAKER_15: We're watching as the motorcade comes toward the fairgrounds on traveling west on Interstate 40.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_15: Um a lot of cars, obviously, a huge motorcade, and uh president therein is President Bill Clinton.
• 32:18
  SPEAKER_15: And First Lady Hillary Rodham Clinton.
• 32:21
  SPEAKER_15: And yet, in the middle of a bright sunny day, the lights are on, which lets you know that they are on for only one reason, and that is to honor the memory of those who were lost in the explosion and to give help to those who were missing.
• 32:35
  SPEAKER_06: Ladies and gentlemen, the President of the United States of America.
• 33:36
  SPEAKER_04: To the families of those who have been lost and wounded, to the people of Oklahoma City who have endured so much, and the people of this wonderful state, to all of you who are here as our fellow Americans.
• 33:53
  SPEAKER_04: I am honored to be here today to represent the American people.
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_04: But I have to tell you that Hillary and I also come as parents, as husband and wife, as people who were your neighbors for some of the best years of our lives.
• 34:12
  SPEAKER_04: Today, our nation joins with you in grief.
• 34:16
  SPEAKER_04: We mourn with you.
• 34:18
  SPEAKER_04: We share your hope against hope that some may still survive.
• 34:25
  SPEAKER_04: We thank all those who have worked so heroically to save lives and to solve this crime.
• 34:32
  SPEAKER_04: Those here in Oklahoma and those who are all across this great land and many who left their own lives to come here to work hand in hand with you.
• 34:44
  SPEAKER_04: We pledge to do all we can to help you heal the injured, to rebuild this city, and to bring to justice those who did this evil.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_04: This terrible sin took the lives of our American family, innocent children in that building only because their parents were trying to be good parents as well as good workers, citizens in the building going about their daily business, and many there who served the rest of us, who worked to help the elderly and the disabled, who work to support our farmers and our veterans, who work to enforce our laws and to protect us.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_04: Let us say clearly, they serve us well, and we are grateful.
• 36:06
  SPEAKER_04: You know them in ways that all the rest of America could not.
• 36:13
  SPEAKER_04: And to all the members of the families here present who have suffered loss, though we share your grief, your pain is unimaginable, and we know that.
• 36:26
  SPEAKER_04: We cannot undo it.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: That is God's work.
• 36:34
  SPEAKER_04: Our words seem small beside the loss you have endured, but I found a few I wanted to share today.
• 36:43
  SPEAKER_04: I've received a lot of letters in these last terrible days.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: One stood out because it came from a young widow and a mother of three, whose own husband was murdered with over 200 other Americans when Pan Am 103 was shot down.
• 37:04
  SPEAKER_04: Here is what that woman said I should say to you today.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_04: The anger you feel is valid, but you must not allow yourselves to be consumed by it.
• 37:18
  SPEAKER_04: The hurt you feel must not be allowed to turn into hate, but instead into the search for justice.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_04: The loss you feel must not paralyze your own lives.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_04: Instead, you must try to pay tribute to your loved ones by continuing to do all the things they left undone, thus ensuring they did not die in vain.
• 37:46
  SPEAKER_04: Wise words from one who also knows.
• 37:51
  SPEAKER_04: You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything, and you have certainly not lost America, for we will stand with you for as many tomorrows as it takes.
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_04: If ever we needed evidence of that, I could only recall the words of Governor and Mrs.
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_04: Keating.
• 38:27
  SPEAKER_04: If anybody thinks that Americans are mostly mean and selfish, they ought to come to Oklahoma.
• 39:03
  SPEAKER_04: To all my fellow Americans beyond this hall, I say one thing we owe those who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of the dark forces which gave rise to this evil.
• 39:29
  SPEAKER_04: They are forces that threaten our common peace, our freedom, our way of life.
• 39:35
  SPEAKER_04: Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness.
• 39:42
  SPEAKER_04: Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind.
• 39:47
  SPEAKER_04: Justice will prevail.
• 40:07
  SPEAKER_04: When there is talk of hatred, let us stand up and talk against it.
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_04: When there is talk of violence, let us stand up and talk against it.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_04: In the face of death, let us honor life.
• 40:24
  SPEAKER_04: As Saint Paul admonished us, let us not be overcome by evil, but overcome evil with good.
• 40:50
  SPEAKER_04: Children like those who were lost here.
• 40:54
  SPEAKER_04: And one little girl said something we will never forget.
• 40:58
  SPEAKER_04: She said we should all plant a tree in memory of the children.
• 41:04
  SPEAKER_04: So this morning, before we got on the plane to come here at the White House, we planted that tree in honor of the children of Oklahoma.
• 41:28
  SPEAKER_04: It was a dogwood with its wonderful spring flower and its deep, enduring roots.
• 41:36
  SPEAKER_04: It embodies the lesson of the Psalms that the life of a good person is like a tree whose leaf does not wither.
• 41:45
  SPEAKER_04: My fellow Americans, a tree takes a long time to grow.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: And wounds take a long time to heal.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_04: But we must begin.
• 41:58
  SPEAKER_04: Those who are lost now belong to God.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: Someday we will be with them.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: But until that happens, their legacy must be our lives.
• 42:16
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you all, and God bless you.
• 42:57
  SPEAKER_11: April 19th, 1995, at exactly 9.02 a.m., Timothy McVeigh, a former Army soldier with anti-government views, blew up a rented truck packed with explosives, devastating the Murrah Federal building and leaving the nation in shock.
• 43:15
  SPEAKER_11: 168 people were killed, including 19 children.
• 43:21
  SPEAKER_11: Hundreds more were injured.
• 43:23
  SPEAKER_11: People say they heard and felt the blast miles away.
• 43:26
  SPEAKER_11: Downtown was filled with shattered glass, and this was a parking lot across the street from the federal building.
• 43:32
  SPEAKER_11: Suddenly it was filled with torched cars.
• 43:35
  SPEAKER_11: But that tree was still standing.
• 43:43
  SPEAKER_00: This tree is a hundred-year-old American elm tree, so you can see where it burnt.
• 43:47
  SPEAKER_00: You can see the dark on the bark where it burnt.
• 43:50
  SPEAKER_00: It didn't break, but it burned.
• 43:52
  SPEAKER_11: Now, 30 years after the bombing, it's come to symbolize resilience with roots running deep.
• 43:59
  SPEAKER_11: Its seedlings have been planted as far away as Capitol Hill.
• 44:03
  SPEAKER_11: More trees are being planted across Oklahoma this year.
• 44:06
  SPEAKER_08: This one's for Michael James, and that one will be for Carrie.
• 44:10
  SPEAKER_11: Doris Jones already has two in her front yard.
• 44:13
  SPEAKER_11: Her 26-year-old daughter, Carrie Ann Lenz, worked with the DEA in the federal building.
• 44:19
  SPEAKER_09: She was a lot of fun.
• 44:21
  SPEAKER_09: She was blunt.
• 44:22
  SPEAKER_09: She would just tell you if you didn't like it, it was just too bad.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_11: Carrie was six months pregnant and found out she was having a baby boy the day before the attack.
• 44:32
  SPEAKER_09: She said, and we named him.
• 44:34
  SPEAKER_09: His name is Michael James Lenz III.
• 44:36
  SPEAKER_09: We're going to call him Trey.
• 44:38
  SPEAKER_11: Doris says Carrie often ran late in the morning, but not on April 19th.
• 44:43
  SPEAKER_11: Why was she early that day?
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_11: She had her ultrasound pictures and she wanted to share with the girls.
• 44:50
  SPEAKER_11: All these years later, authorities are warning domestic terrorism is still a very real threat.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_09: You know, think about what it's done to me, what it's done to hundreds and hundreds of other people because of one selfish act.
• 45:12
  SPEAKER_11: Why are you willing to reopen these wounds 30 years later?
• 45:16
  SPEAKER_09: They're always fresh.
• 45:17
  SPEAKER_09: It's like a sore.
• 45:19
  SPEAKER_09: It kind of begins to scab over, but it's still there.
• 45:23
  SPEAKER_09: You just scratch it a little bit and you know, and the blood is back.
• 45:28
  SPEAKER_09: It's it's just a it's just a fact of my life.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_11: Doris Jones is among the family members of victims as well as survivors expected to be at the annual remembrance ceremony here in Oklahoma City this weekend.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_11: Former President Bill Clinton, who was in office the day of the attack, is expected to speak at that event.
• 45:48
  SPEAKER_11: Peter Lauren, Emily, back to you.
• 45:50
  SPEAKER_15: Jesse Kirsch, thank you.
• 45:51
  SPEAKER_15: Oh gosh, can't you imagine 30 years?
• 45:53
  SPEAKER_15: 30 years.
• 45:54
  SPEAKER_15: What a moving story to hear from that mother.
• 45:56
  SPEAKER_15: Strength of that mother.
• 45:57
  SPEAKER_07: It's one of the most powerful memorials in all of America as well.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_07: We talk about the 9-11 memorial here.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_07: That one really is powerful to be on site in Oklahoma City as well.