Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed—and Why It Still Matters
By Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles
4/5
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About this ebook
In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked away into a series of alleys and streets. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers. McVeigh claimed he'd worked only with Nichols, and at least officially, the government believed him. But McVeigh's was just one version of events. And much of it was wrong.
In Oklahoma City, veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles puncture the myth about what happened on that day—one that has persisted in the minds of the American public for nearly two decades. Working with unprecedented access to government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country's law enforcement agencies, which squandered opportunities to penetrate the radical right and prevent the bombing, and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved.
To this day, the FBI heralds the Oklahoma City investigation as one of its great triumphs. In reality, though, its handling of the bombing foreshadowed many of the problems that made the country vulnerable to attack again on 9/11. Law enforcement agencies could not see past their own rivalries and underestimated the seriousness of the deadly rhetoric coming from the radical far right. In Oklahoma City, Gumbel and Charles give the fullest, most honest account to date of both the plot and the investigation, drawing a vivid portrait of the unfailingly compelling—driven, eccentric, fractious, funny, and wildly paranoid—characters involved.
Andrew Gumbel
Andrew Gumbel is a Los Angeles-based journalist and author. He spent six years in Italy, including stints as a foreign correspondent for Reuters and The Independent. His books include the widely acclaimed Oklahoma City: What The Investigation Missed—And Why It Still Matters.
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Reviews for Oklahoma City
18 ratings3 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A thorough and fascinating account of the ways the government case against Timothy McVeigh was abbreviated (and the reasons why), and the various people who should probably also have been tried for their role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This book is a muddled mess. A rubble pile of names, dates, and cross cut chronology, I could have made better sense of it if it included 1) a list of all the law enforcement, right wing radicals, and witnesses that were profiled and interviewed; and 2) a timeline of events as authors hypothesize them side by side with the timeline presented by McVeigh’s prosecutors. Of course, wrapping things up into a nice little linear narrative arc is what more mainstream nonfiction authors would do (or a prosecutor trying sell a case to a jury) but doing so censors exactly the information Gumbal and Charles are trying to convey. Namely, 1) Oklahoma City bombing involved far more conspirators than McVeigh’s prosecutors presented and that they knew this but let it go to secure a fast and assured conviction for public relations purposes; and, 2) jockish posturing between law enforcement agencies effectively neutered the investigation, creating blind spots not unlike the ones in the lead up to 9/11. But they never come right and say these things, a habit of investigative journalists I find disingenuous. If you have a position, a thesis, you state it openly. I understand the intention of letting reader decide matters for themselves, but if the conclusion you are pointing towards have such profound legal and ethical implications, stopping short puts you dangerously close to mere innuendo. Which, I have to believe, is the opposite of the authors intentions. That being said, the book is very well researched and not a “conspiracy theory” screed. It is just organized poorly. The subject matter and the people therein where so fascinating I couldn’t put it down.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A surprisingly restrained examination of a super-heated topic. Essentially, the authors seek to reconstruct the social environment that Timothy McVeigh functioned in before the 1995 bombing in Oklahoma City, explain why it was so hard for federal authorities to penetrate that world before the strike, and dissect the mistakes made in the investigation of the crime.How you value this book will depend on how much you take the post-conviction testimony of Terry Nichols seriously. The authors figure that up to seven individuals lack plausible stories to separate them from the bombing, including Roger E. Moore, gun dealer and the possible bank roller of this crime, and Andreas Strassmeir, a German national who loved the Oklahoma survivalist community and who seemed to have unusual military skills. However, Nichols really doesn't implicate further anyone who hasn't already been associated with this action.One thing that you do come away with from this book is that while Tim McVeigh might have been a legend in his own mind, or covering for a larger conspiracy, he does seem to have been the person with the determination and will to make sure that the attack actually took place. Too many of the other suspects give off the impression that even getting out of bed in the morning was a major challenge for them, let alone staging a major terrorist strike.