(Courtesy: San Francisco Chronicle)

OKLAHOMA CITY: President Clinton called on Americans–to overcome “the dark forces” responsible for last week’s bombing at the Alfred P. Murrah federal building and said the country must begin the work of healing from the tragedy.

In his remarks, Clinton focused on the hell left behind by the bombers who killed more than 78, injured more than 400 and left 150 unaccounted for when they detonated a fertilizer-fuel explosive they left in front of the building in a parked rental truck.

“You have lost too much, but you have not lost everything, and you have certainly not lost America, for we will certainly stand with you for as many tomorrows as it takes,” Clinton told the families and friends of victims and missing. “To all my fellow Americans, I say we have a duty to purge ourselves of the dark forces that gave rise to this evil…. Justice will prevail. Let our own children know we will stand against the forces of fear. Wounds take a long time to heal, but we must begin said Mr. Clinton

Clinton did not refer to political developments stemming from the tragedy but later on CBS 60 Minutes.” he outlined proposals to give the government now powers to combat terrorism and he also ordered his administration to replace the bombed building.

Among the proposals was one calling for a special fund to finance infiltration of suspected terrorist organizations? Another proposal would give the FBI greater authority to comb through hotel and motel registers and to search phone logs and credit card records

Police in Perry, Okla… Realized that they already had McVcigh—who the government says is the man featured in their composite of John Doe No. 1-in jail on traffic and weapons charges.

Over the weekend, FBI agents also continued their questioning of Terry Nichols, 40, and his brother James, 41, both close friends of McVeigh. The government said it is holding the brothers as material witnesses in the case. Terry Nichols turned himself in to police in his hometown of Herington, Kan on Friday, and James Nichols has been held and questioned since agents descended on his 800 acre farm outside Decker, Mich., the same day.

While federal agents pressed the exhaustive search for the bombers, the scene at the Oklahoma City federal building was increasingly bleak. No one has been found alive in the building’s ruins since Wednesday night.

“Everybody who is in there working knows as time ticks by really the chances are less and less,” said Oklahoma City Fire Department Major John Long. “But there is still hope. That’s what keeps us going. Long added that crews using heat-sensing devices to locate the living were getting some signals but that the fear is “as bodies decompose, they put off heat too.” While families and friends of the dead and missing struggled with the enormity of their loss, more details began emerging yesterday about the one man, Timothy McVeigh that the government has charged in the bombing and his two friends, the Nichols brothers.

From government documents filed in the case and from numerous interviews conducted with friends and acquaintances of the three men, it was clear that they share a deep, bitter hatred of the government and that they spent time making homemade bombs in the past.

From about 1989 to 1992, McVeigh was in the Army, serving at Fort Riley, Kan., and in the Gulf War, where he was a Bradley vehicle gunner and a sergeant. One of his fellow soldiers described him as “a good soldier,” James Ives, a fellow sergeant, said, “If he was given a mission and a target, it’s gone.”

But somewhere along the way, he grew into an angry man who reviled the government and traveled to the site of the federal government’s raid on the Branch Davidian cult in Waco, Texas which occurred exactly two years to the day before Wednesday’s bombing. According to an associate, McVeigh was very angry about that raid, which left more than 80 cultists dead.  “He always carried a gun. I don’t know what he was afraid of.” said farmer Dan Stomber, a friend of the Nicholses. In recent months McVeigh had been living in Kingman, Ariz.. including a stint at a trailer park where neighbors said he was fond of firing guns off in the desert adjoining his mobile home.

One of McVeigh’s closest friends was Terry Nichols, who he met in the military.

During his stay at the Nichols farm, the three often worked on their bomb making hobby. “It was never like they were planning a war,” Morawski said. “You know how little boys like to play with things that blow up? That was what they were like. And everything they mixed out there in the cornfields seemed to work.”

Article extracted from this publication >> April 28, 1995