Nichols & the OKC Bombing.(Ahead Of The Curve)

ITEM: In the March 1, 2004 UK-based Independent, in an article entitled "Death-penalty trial for Oklahoma bomb accomplice could backfire on FBI," British columnist Andrew Gumbel wrote: "[A] flurry of new evidence promises to demonstrate quite the opposite of what the prosecutors are hoping to prove: that Nichols, far from being a key player in the conspiracy, was a relatively marginal figure, and that a gang of neo-Nazi bank robbers, hitherto ignored by federal and state prosecutors, had a far more prominent role."

Commenting on the desire of Oklahoma prosecutors to send Nichols to the death chamber, Gumbel remarked that "what is intended to be an exercise in judicial 'closure' for bereaved Oklahomans could end up demolishing the FBI's theory of how the worst peacetime atrocity on American soil before 11 September 2001 happened." That theory, which the government has clung to with such seemingly myopic tenacity, is that "McVeigh was the lone mastermind behind the bombing."

ITEM: On March 10, 2004, Associated Press writer John Solomon reported that "more than a dozen FBI documents ... raise the possibility of additional accomplices in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing." The documents "include two 1990s teletypes from then-FBI Director Louis Freeh's office citing possible connections between Timothy McVeigh and a gang of white supremacist bank robbers." Solomon also noted that "nearly all the documents cited by Nichols' attorneys involved FBI efforts to link McVeigh to the Aryan Republican Army bank robbery gang."

ITEM: On March 11, 2004, the New York Times reported that "the truth of who else may have conspired in the attack appears increasingly clouded." The Times quoted Indiana University criminology professor Mark S. Hamm as saying, "The preponderance of evidence points to the fact that McVeigh had some sort of ongoing relationship with members of the A.R.A. [Aryan Republican Army]." But, Hamm added, "there's no smoking gun here."

AHEAD OF THE CURVE; Several years ago, THE NEW AMERICAN began its groundbreaking coverage of the connection between the Aryan Republican Army, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and the Oklahoma City Bombing. In our March 31, 1997 issue, we presented evidence linking the bombing to a "rustic, rural redoubt [called Elohim City] populated by well-armed white separatists." Elohim City, we noted, "serves as a Butch Cassidy 'Hole in the Wall' hideout for a notorious gang of Aryan bandits wanted by federal authorities for a two-year spree of bank robberies spanning six states--robberies in which explosive devices were frequently used as diversionary instruments. These gangsters club themselves the Aryan Republican Army (ARA)...."

But, as veteran readers of THE NEW AMERICAN well know, there is much more to this ...