Aberration in the Heartland of the Real: The Secret Lives of Timothy McVeigh

by Wendy S. Painting

During this time, “Night Stalker” Richard Ramirez murdered his first known victim. Accusations of ritual Satanic abuse of children by teachers at a preschool in a California suburb caused a national scandal and nearby a 41-year-old man randomly killed 21 people at a McDonald’s restaurant. In Los Angles, a smokeable form of cocaine, known as Crack, began receiving increased media attention and its use was being called an epidemic.

He received a 99% on the school’s math aptitude test, the highest in the school’s history, and failed to achieve a perfect score by only fractions. Within a few short months, however, he began to feel unchallenged, grew bored and quit. He later explained, “I knew as much as most of the teachers. I wanted to learn the ‘why’ of things, not just the ‘what.’”

His fascination with firearms emerged within the broader context of an American gun culture and the growing survivalist movement. All presidential candidates during the 1988 elections were members of the National Rifle Association (NRA), and there were firearms in nearly half of all American homes, with a reported 60 million handguns and 10,000 machine guns in circulation. Throughout the country, a growing number of ordinary citizens purchased 9 mm pistols, .22 automatics, .45’s, 12 gauge shot guns, Uzi’s, MP-5’s, 9 mm submachine guns, untold rounds of ammunition, armor piercing shells, and shot at old TVs, computers, and paper targets depicting Commies and the Ayatollah Khomeini. These weekend warriors, the Washington Post noted in 1985, had joined “paramilitary groups, terrorists, survivalists and neo-Nazis.”72 By his late twenties, Tim McVeigh would be associated with and come to represent all of these types of

featured heroic narratives about the exploits of often resentful, disgruntled, renegade Vietnam veterans.

Hollywood joined in, generating millions of dollars in ticket sales and merchandise for films such as The Deer Hunter (1978), Apocalypse Now (1979), Platoon (1986), and Full Metal Jacket (1987).

SOF, criticized for its unabashed “anti-leftist” leanings, backing of Nicaraguan “Contra” rebels and recruitment of American mercenaries to train them, had attracted a growing number of readers, many of whom, while too young to have fought in Vietnam, grew up viewing images of it in popular media. The magazine appealed also to the increasing numbers of survivalists who, like Tim, hoped to learn the “tricks of staying alive after the collapse of civilization.”

The Turner Diaries, written under the pseudonym Andrew McDonald by former physics professor William Pierce, founder of the National Alliance – one of the most notorious and highly organized racist organizations in the country. Set in the not-too-distant future, the book contains the fictitious diary entries of Earl Turner, who believes that increased multi-culturalism and restrictive gun ownership legislation (The Cohen Act) poses a threat to the white race whom the Jews (and their minions, the blacks) hope to enslave and annihilate in order to establish a “Zionist Occupational Government” (ZOG). Turner organizes underground cells to wage war on “The System” by committing acts of terror including assassinations and bombings in order to destroy the repressive government, eradicate the non-white population and establish a utopian white homeland in the northwest United States.

6' 1'' and 150 pounds, with blond hair, blue eyes and 20/20 vision. He was in good health, having no prior medical or dental issues, no allergies, and no prescribed medications.

1 Warren Commission Report (Ch.1, pg. 19; Ch. 3, pg. 117; Ch. 7, pg. 378; Appendix 13, pg. 670-682, Warren Commission Hearings (Testimony of Howard Brennan, Vol. 3, pg. 143; Testimony of John E. Donovan, Vol. 8, pg. 290-298; Testimony of John Edward Pic; Interview with Mrs. John Edward Pic, Vol. 22, pg. 687; Vol. 25, pg. 123; Acron.net “Report of Renatus Hartogs, May 1, 1953” ; Anthony Summers, Not In Your Lifetime, Marlowe & Company, New York, New York, 1998: pg. 235; Alex Cox, The President And The Provocateur: The Parallel Lives of JFK and Lee Harvey Oswald, Feral House, Port Townsend, Washington,

World Vision has been described by some as a ‘CIA Front’ and within more conspiratorial narratives, has been implicated in U.S. mind control experiments, the 1978 mass suicides at Jim Jones’ People’s Temple in Guyana, and as an unseen but important influence in the actions of Mark David Chapman and John Hinckley, Jr. , whose father was President of the organization.

A recruitment error however, landed him in the experimental Cohesion Operational Readiness Training (COHORT) unit.

idea that COHORT Units would lessen “soldier turbulence” as well “high levels of psychological breakdown in battle,” previous attempts to form such units had led to higher rates of AWOL’s and suicides.

despite assurances to him by his recruiter, the COHORT structure prevented recruits from volunteering for Special Forces, Ranger School, or even Airborne School, for at least three years.

Mark Hamm, criminologist at Indiana State University and former consultant for the Jones Team, wrote that the Army’s COHORT experiment provided the “mechanism” and “most important source of indirect support for the terrorism that would later occur in Oklahoma.” In fact, he said, the conspiracy to bomb the Murrah building could not have gotten off to a better start had it been orchestrated by the “best and brightest at the Pentagon.” In Hamm’s opinion, “there would have been no conspiracy” without the COHORT program, for it was in Basic Training that Timothy McVeigh met Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier, who would become Tim’s closest friends and, later, his co-conspirators.2 All three had enlisted on the same day in different states: McVeigh in New York, Nichols in Michigan, Fortier in Arizona; they were assigned to the COHORT Unit and placed together in a six-man squad.

Among the characteristically recurring themes to appear in his letters home was survival in the face of possible future disasters, his descriptions sometimes reaching apocalyptic homosexual heights. Demonstrative of his lifelong interest in mysterious topics like the lost continent of Atlantis and the Bermuda Triangle was one early letter in which he discussed his belief that the predictions of Nostradamus alluded to Iran. When asked by his attorneys what he meant by this, he told them that, at the time, he believed Iran would surely be “the beast that starts the war.”

Throughout the previous eight years, the U.S. had publicly backed Iraq during the Iran-Iraq War. At the time McVeigh entered boot camp and, in the months prior to his enlistment, the U.S. launched naval strikes against Iranian oil operations. Secretly, however, the U.S. had been dealing weapons to Iran and supporting Saudi Arabia, the professed enemy of both. Indictments issued against Lt. Col. Oliver North and Vice Admiral John Poindexter for their roles in what came to be known as the Iran-Contra scandal did not prevent former CIA Director and Vice President George H.W. Bush from winning the Republican presidential nomination, despite Bush’s own role in the debacle.

ark Hamm later noted that the Pentagon sealed Nichols’ and McVeigh’s military records, therefore making the available portion of military service and medical records a rare addition to the Jones Collection.

who, in two years active duty in the United States military received medical attention on more than seventy-five occasions, as reflected in his available records.

he claimed to be sleeping with more than one of his COHORTs wives.

The Brady Handgun Prevention Act, introduced during the 1987 Congressional session, calling for nationwide, mandatory seven-day waiting periods on all handgun sales, as well as criminal and mental health background checks. The bill quickly became a major legislative priority. Reagan supported the legislation, calling it crucial to the prevention of violent crimes plaguing the nation. The National Rifle Association (NRA) led an equally aggressive campaign to prevent the legislation’s passage, a campaign McVeigh kept a close eye on.

McVeigh had told his attorneys an even stranger story about his trip to Germany. McVeigh had told them that one afternoon when he and three other men in his unit went off post, a German male approached them. His series of odd statements led McVeigh to believe the man was a German intelligence agent attempting to “blackmail” them. This story raised questions for the Jones Team and prompted them to make an official inquiry into the purpose and specific details of his assignment there. However, military records about the trip were among the portions missing from those they were able to obtain.

Adding to existing speculation about the extent of their relationship was an ongoing joint U.S.-German undercover intelligence-gathering operation tasked with disrupting international recruitment efforts and the flow of Neo-Nazi literature in organized hate groups.These

things, in addition to other anomalies surrounding “Andy The German” (as he was called), led to theories that Strassmeir had come to the U.S. as an undercover operative and possessed foreknowledge of or played an active role in the plot to bomb the Murrah building.

she has never seen drugs, but forms an opinion on them based on propaganda generated by the mass media

The Turner Diaries

Ft. Riley itself had a long and troubling history of racism and, at the time McVeigh was stationed there, racial graffiti sullied many public spaces and different races self-segregated from others. Later, at the time of the bombing, a series of investigations were conducted concerning the rampant racism and neo-Nazi activity occuring there.19 Several COHORTS, including Ray Barns, recalled this environment and discussed the conflicts that seemed to continuously arise between solders of different races:

the staying up and keeping others up all night, the playing of dominoes loud all night

William Pierce, author of The Turner Diaries and figurehead of one of the best-known WPM groups, The National Alliance.

are his twenty-six dentist visits from January 1989 until December 1990, one of which occurred on September 6, 1990, when he was in Ft. Benning attending the PLDC. McVeigh, who had never had any known dental issues prior to enlisting in the Army had, by this time, begun to lose the majority of his teeth, the records reflecting that out of thirty-two teeth, twenty-three of them had begun to decay.

In November 1983, President Reagan signed Presidential Directive 114. While the majority of the directive remains classified, it is known that part of it promised that the U.S. would do whatever was necessary to prevent Iraq from losing the war, including the continuation of intelligence and material support. Although Iraq’s use of chemical weapons on a nearly daily basis was known to U.S. officials, a meeting between Hussein and Reagan’s emissary Donald Rumsfeld in December 1983 strengthened the working relationship between the nations.

In 1984, the U.S. initiated “Operation Staunch,” ostensibly to prevent the sale of weapons to Iran. That same year, the U.S. lifted its ban on arms sales to Iraq. Afterwards, and throughout the following eight years, the Reagan and Bush administrations provided the Iraqis with over $5 billion dollars of aid, secured vast amounts of loans for them and sold them an extraordinary arsenal of conventional weapons and weapons systems, including easily weaponized dual use chemicals.

The honeymoon between Iraq and the U.S. began to wane in 1986, during the Iran-Contra Scandal, when it was learned that, throughout the previous two years, in exchange for hostages held by Iran, the U.S. supplied them with weapons to use against Saddam. Burgeoning tensions between Iraq and the U.S. became all the more apparent when, in May 1987, Iraq bombed a U.S. Naval ship in the Persian Gulf that had been mistaken for an Iranian commercial vessel, leaving 37 American crew members dead and dozens injured. While the White House officially chalked it up to an unfortunate accident, Reagan publicly blamed Iraq and warned them that the U.S. would retaliate if the attacks continued.

Saddam began to envision and speak of a grand global conspiracy orchestrated by Israel and their “imperialistic Zionist minions,” the U.S. and Britain.26

In 1988, the Center for Strategic and International Studies began a two-year study to determine the outcome of engaging in a war with Iraq. The following year, Secretary of

Defense Dick Cheney revised the contingency plans of the United States Central Command (CENTCOM) for the “Defense of the Arabian Peninsula,” expanding the plans beyond the scope of countering a Soviet invasion in the region to include the potential of an Iraqi assault on Kuwait and Saudi Arabia. In January 1990, CENTCOM, under the direction of General Norman Schwarzkopf, began running computer-simulated war games to this effect, and soon after increased its military presence in the Gulf region.

baby incubator story.

“a deep lack of confidence in their commanders and comrades”

In his strikingly insensitive 1994 account of the Gulf War entitled Iron Soldiers: How America’s 1st Armored Division Crushed Iraq’s Elite Republican Guard, military historian Tom Carhart provided a highly sanitized “feel good” version of Desert Storm; one that, it is safe to assume, passed Pentagon and military muster.

“crunchies.”

Captain described the psychological trauma he later suffered because of his role in the slaughter.

When asked if this was the Standard Operating Procedure for the U.S. Army, Col. Moreno said, “This was not doctrine. My concept is to defeat the enemy with your power and equipment. We’re going to bludgeon them with every piece of equipment we’ve got. I’m not going to sacrifice the lives of my soldiers – that’s not cost effective.” Col. Lon Maggart, an officer from Ft. Riley whom McVeigh knew, said, “I know burying people like that sounds pretty nasty, but it would be even nastier if we had to put our troops in trenches and clean them out with bayonets.”80 In fact, Moreno and Maggart, both of whom McVeigh knew, were among the first to talk to reporters about the attack. Both said that they intentionally used the ‘bulldozer tactic’ to minimize American casualties,

although, in reality, those inside the tanks and Bradleys were likely in no danger from the small arms fire coming from the trenches. The entire ordeal, at least for their brigades, lasted about seventeen minutes. The Army later condemned and punished Moreno (who nominated McVeigh for several awards and decorations for his performance during combat in the Gulf) for providing this information to reporters.

‘The Highway of Death.’

A senior allied officer in Riyadh offered what he called a “ball park figure” of 100,000. In September 1991, the Pentagon claimed it was impossible to determine the total number of Iraqi soldiers who had died during the war. In a report to Congress that same month, Dick Cheney said that only 457 Iraqi bodies had been found on the battlefield but made no mention of the Bulldozer Assault.

Although for years, Gen. Schwarzkopf refused to give even an estimated count other than “a very large number,” in 2000, he said the number of Iraqi soldiers killed was “tens of thousands.” Independent estimates range from 10,000 to about 35,000 with about

In 1997, Mark Hamm noted an over-representation of combat veterans among the prison population and, drawing from a number of studies, discussed possible underlying psychological factors that led McVeigh to bomb the Murrah. Among them was the Army’s training, fine-tuned over the years to remove soldiers’ aversion to murdering other humans through highly calculated conditioning, which leads to a reflexive willingness to obey any orders, including killing. Once conditioned, soldiers retain the learned aggression and desire to kill, sometimes enacting this in the civilian world.

Indeed, Lee Harvey Oswald, Texas Bell Tower sniper Charles Whitman, D.C. Beltway sniper John Allen Muhammad, Fort Hood shooter Major Nidal Malik, Naval Yard shooter Alex Alexis, serial killers Jeffery Dahmer and “Son of Sam” David Berkowitz, and of course Timothy McVeigh, all had one thing in common: U.S. military training awakened their lust to kill and refined their ability to do it. A June 9, 2001 article in the Ottawa Citizen warned of the inevitability of other McVeighs “strolling the streets of Canada” with undiagnosed or untreated Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) rendering them “ticking time bomb[s] waiting to explode.”

veterans to seek treatment for PTSD symptoms, which included hyper-awareness, sleep disorders, social isolation, panic attacks, anger management issues, depression and suicidal thoughts.

A British Atomic Energy Authority report leaked to the Independent in November 1991, said that when coalition troops exited the Gulf, they left enough DU behind to cause at least 500,000 cancer-related deaths, the exact tonnage of DU the U.S. left behind. Of course, this in no way reflected the other illnesses and adverse effects that the chemical nightmare would have upon the Iraqi population.

In 1993, the concerns of veterans groups, researchers and government officials prompted a Pentagon study inquiring into the possibility that U.S. soldiers in the Gulf had been exposed to chemical weapons, which was overseen by former Deputy Defense Secretary and current CIA Director John Duetch. The study’s 1994 report concluded that no evidence existed of Iraqi use of chemical or biological weapons or “any exposure of U.S. service members to chemical or biological warfare agents in Kuwait or Saudi Arabia.” The results were suspect, given that the head of the study, Nobel laureate Joshua Lederberg, had also been on the board of directors of American Type Culture Collection, a nonprofit company that made over 70 government-approved shipments of anthrax and