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WOMAN:

...whether to approve or deny

the application.

They're the decision-makers.

And you will receive a copy

of my proposed recommendation

and can attend

that board meeting

and present your information

directly to them.

With regard

to this proceeding,

basically,

there are four elements

that I have to...

Receive information

regarding...

(explosion roaring)

Everybody,

let's get out of here.

Now!

Watch the electricity line!

REPORTER:

All that I can see,

it looks like part

of the building

has been blown away.

We'll have to bank

around the other side

so I can get a better view

of it.

The explosion, though,

went off around 9 a.m.,

and we could feel the explosion

in the newsroom of Channel 9

at least

five miles from downtown.

ANCHOR:

As the chopper goes around the

side of the Federal Building...

REPORTER:

Jeez, wow!

ANCHOR:

Look at that shot.

It is absolutely incredible.

The side of the Federal Building

has been blown off.

Jesse?

REPORTER:

About a third...

About a third of the

building has been blown away.

This is just devastating.

MAN:

That morning,

I was not in my office.

I was at a fundraiser

about 30 miles away.

We had a 9:00 start,

when all of a sudden,

my phone went off,

and I was told that there'd been

some type of an explosion

at the Murrah Building.

The greatest fear I have

is that we have casualties

in the thousands.

At any one time,

there could be

a couple of thousand people

in that building.

MAN:

I was assigned to the Oklahoma

City police tactical team

at the time.

And we immediately started

working our way

towards the building.

There were several vehicles

on the north side of the

building in a parking lot,

and all of them were burning.

The black smoke

was billowing up.

When I walked up there,

there was a hole in the ground

about the size

of a swimming pool

that looked like about 30 feet

in diameter

and about seven,

eight feet deep.

Just a big hole in the ground.

That's when it started

really sinking in,

this had to be

some kind of bomb.

WOMAN:

When I first got there,

I could see people trapped

on different floors,

and they needed to be rescued.

And so I started my way

into the building.

I thought to myself,

"Why Oklahoma City?

"It's a quiet place.

"Nothing happens here.

It's not supposed

to happen here."

WOMAN:

Yeah, we'd always had threats.

You tell somebody,

"I'm sorry, but," you know,

"your claim's denied,"

or whatever,

and, yeah, and we'd get threats,

but not...

Not anything that we ever

considered, you know, viable.

There has been

a massive explosion

at a federal building

in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma.

It happened

just a short time ago.

A large portion of that building

has collapsed

and fallen away from the rest

of the building.

At the moment, we don't have

any specific numbers

on injuries or deaths,

but we can tell you that the

situation is obviously serious.

WOMAN:

I tried to put the building

back in my mind,

of, where would he be?

If I have to dig for my son,

where should I dig?

And so, that's what I did.

I visualized the first floor,

the second floor,

the childcare was here,

his crib would be here,

and that's where I wanted

to get to.

As I started to climb up

the debris and the rubble,

I remember a man yelling,

"You can't go up there,

it's too dangerous!"

And I remember telling him,

"Our babies are in there!

Our babies are in there!"

I just kept saying,

"Our babies are in there."

WOMAN:

When I saw the building

for the first time,

I just couldn't see

how anybody could have survived

any of that.

So at that point,

I think my mind was thinking,

"My kids are gone."

MAN:

I drove down there

and met Claudia.

We walked up to a perimeter

and I asked a officer, I said,

"We have two, two babies

in the daycare center.

Can I, can I go in?"

OFFICER (in distance):

Move back, move back, move back.

Move back, move back.

JIM DENNY:

I could see people

that are covered

with blankets, towels, whatever,

that are gone.

And I'm praying that one of them

is not a small child.

MAN:

I knew a lot of the people

in the building.

I knew the D.E.A. agents

that were in the building,

I knew the ATF agents

that were in the building,

and those people

were friends of mine.

I could not believe

what had happened to all of them

and how this could be.

How could somebody get

to that state in their life

where they could be

so angry and upset

that they would do something

like this?

MAN:

Who started the war?

And who was the aggressor?

That's how I look

at the Murrah bombing.

To me, it wasn't a start

of a war,

it was a counterattack.

The war had already been

started.

You guys think

you can be ruthless?

Let's see how you like it

when the...

when the fight

is brought to you.

If you continue with shit

like Ruby Ridge and Waco,

this is what's going to happen.

MAN:

Northern Idaho.

It's a remote place, it's

a predominantly white place,

and it's the kind of place

where everybody sort of minds

their own business.

In the 1980s, a lot of extremist

groups found a sanctuary there.

White power!

MAN:

What do we need?

ALL:

White power!

MAN:

One of those groups

was the Aryan Nations.

MAN:

The Aryan Nations had

established itself

in Hayden Lake as a sort

of headquarters of hate,

radical right-wing hate.

MAN:

We the white race lost the war.

A plague known as Jews

won the war,

infiltrated our bloodstream

of our race

in every country

in which we reside.

MAN:

Richard Butler, like many

far-right people at the time,

held that the federal government

was in the hands of the Jews.

And the only way to save America

was to assert

your Christian sovereignty,

your white Christian

sovereignty.

BUTLER:

Every major city in the United

States is now non-white,

following the catastrophic

destruction of our race

in the so-called Civil War,

or the War Between the States.

America shall again become

white and Christian.

There'll be a lot of blood

running one day.

I don't advocate it,

I don't want it.

But it's going to come

as sure as day follows night

and night follows day.

MAN:

In the 1980s, in America,

the white race was becoming

the minority race.

Racist groups used that

as a calling card.

"Come join us,

because the white race

is going to be driven

to extinction."

MAN:

The Aryan Nations

attracted people

from all walks of life

who were, who were white,

all of them looking for someone

to blame for the situation.

And they focused their anger

on the federal government.

People like Robert Mathews.

MORLIN:

Robert Mathews showed up

at the Aryan Nations

in the early 1980s.

And there, he met

other young men like him,

who thought

that it was just talk.

It was no action.

Bob Mathews said,

"The time has come for action."

You Jews get the heck

out of here!

I didn't come all the way

down here to hear you!

Go over there!

...the words of Jesus Christ...

MAN:

Bob Mathews wanted to start

a revolution.

He saw the United States

government

as a complete and utter enemy,

run by Satanic Jews,

that had to be destroyed.

MORLIN:

He had 12 or so other followers,

most of whom he had met

at the Aryan Nations,

and they decided

that they would basically

declare war on the U.S.

MAN:

As Bob Mathews was formulating

a plan for his organization,

he discovered a book

called The Turner Diaries,

written by a racist

named William Pierce.

It was a fictional account

of a group of patriots

that came together

in a very small number,

much like what Bob was planning

to do,

and overthrow

the United States government.

And as Bob read this,

he thought, "This is us.

This is the plan

we need to follow."

MAN:

"Unit 8 will secure a large

quantity of explosives,

"between five and ten tons.

"We will then drive

"into the FBI building's

freight receiving area,

set the fuse,

and leave the truck."

POTOK:

The Turner Diaries culminates

with these anti-government

resisters

blowing up the FBI headquarters

in Washington, D.C.

It had this electrifying,

energizing effect

on all kinds of people

on the radical right.

MAN:

The Order is a small group,

but a very formidable group,

and they start robbing banks,

armored cars,

kill whoever they had to kill.

They didn't care.

MANIS:

Their expertise grew

week by week and month by month.

This was an organization

that had taken real form

and had real leadership

and direction.

And then they formed

an assassination squad

to go to Denver.

RADIO ANNOUNCER:

You're listening to Alan Berg

on KOA.

You never shut up!

I got fed up with you!

You never let me get a word

edgewise-- get out of here!

POTOK:

The Jewish talk show host

Alan Berg

had angered the radical right

by essentially mocking them

on his radio show.

If you're not a Christian,

you're un-American.

Is that your point, sir?

MAN:

That's right!

Good point, sir!

NOBLE:

He spoke out

against the right wing

and the Christian Patriot

movement,

yeah, and members

of The Order got fed up.

LEVITAS:

Alan Berg was shot to death

in the driveway of his home.

It was essentially

domestic terrorism.

It was born-and-bred Americans

inspired by racism,

anti-Semitism,

and anti-government ideology.

MANIS:

The FBI really didn't know

who these individuals were.

But a great break happened

for us

when Bob Mathews decided

they're going to take down

a Brinks truck that's carrying

multiples of millions

of dollars.

So they do.

A very brazen daylight robbery

right out on a highway.

They take this thing down.

Bob Mathews is in there,

he's clearing out money,

and his pistol falls out

of his waistband.

And we get that pistol.

MORLIN:

They convince some members

of The Order to surrender.

But Mathews wouldn't surrender.

And after a two-

or three-day standoff,

the FBI moves in on the cabin

and a gunfight occurs.

MANIS:

I'm just a little ways

from the house,

and the bullets are hitting

right at the trees

and the brush line where I'm at.

You know, he's got plenty

of weapons,

he's got thousands of rounds

of ammunition.

He was committed.

MAN:

The next evening,

it was starting to get dark,

so we put in

some illumination rounds,

and those rounds,

one of them or so, caught fire,

and the building started

to burn.

MANIS:

And then it was

like firecrackers,

just pop, pop, pop, pop, pop,

going off everywhere,

with the cooking-off

of the rounds.

At daybreak, I walked up

to the remains of the house

and saw a charred body there.

NOBLE:

Mathews' death forced

the movement, everybody,

to look at themselves:

"Am I really ready and willing

to die for the cause?"

MANIS:

The FBI was on high alert.

I mean, domestic terrorism now

was top order.

And there was a massive amount

of investigation and arrests

throughout the United States.

MORLIN:

By the mid-'80s,

the federal agencies had

the lesson of The Order,

so they knew some of the folks

that had come out

of the Aryan Nations

were doing bad things--

they were committing crimes,

they were killing people.

So the Feds were interested in,

who's there,

and what are they doing,

and what are they planning

on doing next?

LEVITAS:

Randy Weaver was a person

with white separatist beliefs

who moved his family from Iowa

to Boundary County, Idaho,

to a place called Ruby Ridge.

MORLIN:

They were 50 miles or so

from the Canadian border.

They had no electricity,

no running water,

no indoor plumbing.

We're talking about a cabin

made by Randy Weaver

and his wife

on a mountaintop.

These are people that want

to be left alone.

WALTER:

The Weavers were deeply

religious

and they wanted to live

in a style

they believed

was Old Testament Christian.

They were really imagining

this fortress,

this place where they could

really separate themselves

from a corrupt

and dangerous world.

MAN:

I don't know

that Randy Weaver knew

at the time that they moved

to Ruby Ridge

that they would be so close

to the Aryan Nations compound,

which was just 60 miles south.

But they started showing up.

At first, it was purely social.

They attended family picnics,

those kinds of things.

But as Randy began

to interact more with them,

he bought into the message,

the anti-government message.

BUTLER:

A movement is growing

all over the world.

Good men are coming forth,

men with iron wills

who are determined that their

race is not going to die

and become extinct.

MORLIN:

By the time Randy Weaver started

showing up at the Aryan Nations,

it was just after

the whole Matthews episode.

And, unfortunately

for Randy Weaver,

the Feds were listening.

LEVITAS:

They had lots of events there

designed to potentially recruit

harder-core folks

into the compound,

and it was at one

of those meetings

that Randy Weaver was spotted by

an undercover federal informant.

MORLIN:

This guy got next

to Randy Weaver

and learned that he was,

you know, clearly a racist,

that he wanted to live

his white separatist lifestyle

in North Idaho,

but that he was having trouble

putting two nickels together,

and that he was interested

in some income.

And one thing led to another,

and pretty soon, Randy Weaver

agrees to saw off some shotguns.

NOBLE:

In my opinion, the ATF pretty

much entrapped him

into making these shotguns

illegal

by cutting off

too much of the barrel,

and then comes out and wants

to arrest him over it.

MORLIN:

They figured,

"If we arrest this guy

"on federal firearms charges,

"maybe he can lead us

to other people

that are doing

more dastardly things."

They did think Randy Weaver

could be flipped.

BOTTING:

So they asked him to be

an informant,

which he immediately refused.

Randy Weaver didn't trust

the government

and was absolutely

not interested

in being an informant.

However, he failed to appear

for his next court appearance.

WALTER:

Once you don't show up

for trial,

the case is assigned

to the U.S. Marshals Service.

And the U.S. Marshals Service

doesn't know

whether or not

Randy Weaver was entrapped

or how those shotguns

came about.

They just know

they have a fugitive.

BOTTING:

The marshals brought in

their special surveillance team

and they kind of

skunked around the property

trying to find a location

to take him into custody

without a problem.

MAN:

Well, this is the approach

from the east.

MORLIN:

One of the things

that they decided to do

was to have motion-activated

cameras

placed near the Weaver cabin.

The tapes showed

that Randy Weaver was there

with his wife and his children

and a man named Kevin Harris,

and that they frequently

were armed.

They have to have been

shaking their heads.

"What are we going to do?

"We go up there,

and he's going to shoot at us,

and we're going to shoot back."

BOTTING:

On the day of the shooting,

the marshals had a six-man team

they divided into two elements,

and one element of three went up

on the mountain

to have a visual on the cabin

itself.

The other element was on the

ground, closer to the cabin,

when the Weavers' dog caught

the scent of the marshals

and went after them.

All we know at that point was,

there was a shootout.

MORLIN:

Who shot who first

is still subject

to, you know, interpretation,

but when it was all said

and done,

14-year-old Sammy Weaver's dead,

the dog's dead,

and so is Federal Marshal

William Degan,

killed on the property

of a white separatist.

The FBI had every reason

to think,

when they're dealing

with Randy Weaver,

they could be dealing

with another Bob Mathews.

WALTER:

Because they believe that they

are deploying into a firefight

with a group

of armed separatists

very much like The Order,

the rationale is given

that a surrender warning

doesn't need to be called out,

that that warning

has already been given,

so agents can open fire as soon

as they see any armed adult.

Well, the Weavers

are always armed.

BOTTING:

I got there and there were

trucks and jeeps

and all kinds of vehicles,

you know,

even armored personnel carriers.

It was just overwhelming

how much was happening

and how many people

were involved.

MORLIN:

Where we were,

at the roadblock,

it was out of view

of where this base operation

was occurring.

But there were, you know,

an assortment

of law enforcement people

going across this little bridge.

Neighbors and friends

of Randy Weaver

and reporters

from all over the country

started gathering there,

trying to get information.

If we can tell you something,

we will,

but most of it will all come out

of Washington, D.C.

MORLIN:

We were down

a good two miles or so

from where the actual cabin was.

So we had no clue

as to what the FBI had in mind.

WALTER:

As morning dawns on Ruby Ridge,

a team of ten FBI agents

surround the cabin.

These are snipers who've been

trained to, you know,

to hit a dime from 200 meters.

Randy Weaver, Kevin Harris,

and Sara Weaver

decide they're going to go out

and check on Sam Weaver's body.

They make their way out

with their weapons to the shed

where Samuel has been taken

by the family,

when a shot rings out.

Randy is hit in the shoulder.

They run back to the house

and another shot rings out.

This shot goes through the door,

hits Vicki Weaver in the face,

splinters,

and wounds Kevin Harris,

and drops Vicki dead

to the floor.

MORLIN:

When word came down that Sammy

and Vicki Weaver were dead,

the crowd at the roadblock,

which numbered 50, to 100,

to 200 on occasion,

went crazy.

(protesters yelling)

MAN:

You call yourself an American?

These are Americans!

These are God-fearing people!

You don't even know

your Constitution.

Go back and read

what your founding fathers said.

POTOK:

The events at Ruby Ridge lit up

the radical right.

Here was a government that would

murder men, women, and children

in order to pursue whatever

their ends were.

Baby killers!

Baby killers!

POTOK:

The roadblock became

a gathering point

for skinheads,

for Aryan Nations members,

for all kinds of people,

you know,

furiously shaking their fists

at the Zionist-occupied

government.

You're a disgrace

to the white race!

MAN:

Disgrace to the race!

This was the first time

the movement had gathered

in such a fashion,

this publicly.

It became a political event

of its own.

These were people who saw

themselves in Randy Weaver.

You look at what happened

and how many times it could have

been averted and avoided.

The idea that the far right had

at that moment

that the government was

a very dangerous entity,

this case would seem to prove it

as completely as possible.

MAN:

Mr. Weaver, do you have anything

to say?

ZESKIND:

Ruby Ridge, more even than

Robert Mathews and The Order,

became a central calling card

and rallying card

for the far right.

For them, the government

was after Weaver's guns

and his religion.

And guns and religion became

the twin pillars

of the white supremacist

movement.

MORLIN:

In late summer, 1992,

after Ruby Ridge,

several members

of the extremist movement

saw that as an opportune moment

to sort of gather everybody

together

and, "Let's raise hell

about this."

One race, one folk, one nation,

one people, one homeland!

We're going to have it!

LEVITAS:

Louis Beam, former grand dragon

of the Ku Klux Klan, said,

now is the time for you

as an individual

to commit overt acts

of anti-government violence.

Essentially,

anybody representative

of government or law enforcement

was a fair and reasonable

target.

NOBLE:

The government is an enemy

of the people.

And in this war,

it's an, it's an all-or-nothing,

you know.

We're either going to win

as the white race

or we're going to lose.

MAN (on radio):

602 to Operations.

The water is shut off

to the federal building.

At this time,

the water is shut off.

(sirens blaring)

MAN:

Probably about 10:00

in the morning,

I got a call at the hospital.

There's a lady who's trapped,

and the only way

that we're going to be able

to extricate her

and save her life

is to amputate her leg.

So I got an amputation set,

I got some nylon rope,

and away I went.

When I got to the building,

it was surreal.

There were a lot

of first responders there

who had pretty well

set things up

so they could take somebody away

the minute that they found them.

And then I was led

into the basement.

FLOWERS:

We could hear people screaming.

We could hear them screaming,

we could hear them crying.

You just couldn't see them

because it was so dark.

When they fired up these lights,

you could see the floors

had fallen on top of each other

and created, like, a dungeon

underneath the Murrah Building.

Everywhere you look

in this floor

that you could see,

there were these round circles

of coagulated blood

that were coming

through the cracks of the floor.

These circles were three

and four feet in diameter,

and they're everywhere,

seemed like everywhere,

and you knew that that was

a person that had been crushed.

SULLIVAN:

They led me to where Daina

was trapped.

There was a first responder

with his hand on the beam

that had her leg trapped.

And if it trembled or moved,

we were told we had to go.

The beam was lying on her leg,

her tibia, just below the knee.

Basically, to do the amputation,

I had to lie with my legs

up by her head.

And so I took the traction rope

and tightened it down

so that I had a tourniquet.

And then, you know, it's kind

of like diving into ice water.

I had to start.

MAN:

Get back!

Go, go!

Get them back!

Get them back!

POTOK:

Just as I got

to where the barricade was,

this incredible scare went

through the crowd.

Get your stuff back now!

Someone was yelling they thought

they had discovered a second

bomb: "Get back, get back!"

MAN:

We've got a hot device--

get them back!

FLOWERS:

They start screaming at us.

"Get out of this building, we

have just found another device!"

And of course,

everybody's heart sinks,

because we've got people

still alive in here.

WOMAN:

I was on the eighth floor.

My eyes were

in pretty bad shape.

Two of my friends

worked their way over to me,

and said, "We've got to get out

of here."

I was praying, I was saying,

"Lord, don't let there be

any more bombs."

RICKS:

It turns out that it was not

a real device.

It had been a mockup

for one of the agencies there.

But we were still telling

people, you know,

that we couldn't guarantee

their safety

as they went in there.

FLOWERS:

I remember seeing that team

down there

working on that girl

to amputate that leg.

Everybody's screaming at them,

"Get out of there!

Get out of there,

the bomb's going to..."

And they would not leave,

they would not leave her.

SULLIVAN:

I don't remember how many times

I thought I had completed

the amputation.

We would try to extract Daina

and she was still caught.

I reached a point where

all of the blades were broken

and there was nothing else

to do,

but I had in my pocket

a pocketknife

that I keep very sharp.

The thing that was

keeping us from extracting her

was the quadriceps tendon,

and once I cut through that,

then I could kind of get a sense

that the leg was free

and we were able to extract her.

MAN (on radio):

We have two critical patients.

I have one patient that needs

immediate transport...

SCHWAB:

When I got out of the building,

I sat on the curb

waiting for an ambulance.

I couldn't see anything,

but I could hear people yelling,

people screaming,

sirens in the background.

And I thought,

"What crazy person did this?

Who has come in here and done

this terrible thing?"

The bombing in Oklahoma City

was an attack

on innocent children

and defenseless citizens.

It was an act of cowardice

and it was evil.

Let there be no room for doubt,

we will find the people

who did this.

RICKS:

The bombing

of the Murrah Building

was the largest domestic

terrorist event

that had ever occurred

in the United States.

We probably had

close to 500 investigators

that were here in Oklahoma City.

We had forensic teams,

bomb squad teams,

evidence response teams,

all kinds of experts,

looking for clues.

MAN:

This becomes one of the biggest

criminal investigations

in American history.

Every police agency

in the country

is in some way trying

to track down leads,

because at the very first,

they had no idea who did it.

(phone rings)

FBI Hotline.

RICKS:

We have had hundreds,

if not thousands of leads.

Each one of those is treated

very seriously.

But at this point,

we cannot speculate

with regard

to who is responsible.

We ended up with leads

in literally every state,

as well as many

foreign countries.

Whenever you have

a mass catastrophe,

such as the Murrah bombing,

the assumption is always,

"You've got to have

this great conspiracy.

There've got to be

multiple people involved."

And we operated

under that assumption, as well.

We were getting calls, even

just after the bombing happened.

We were getting reports

by the thousands,

that, "I saw this, I saw that."

Then we started getting calls

over the radio

about Middle Easterners.

"Start looking

for Middle Easterners."

There has yet been no claim of

responsibility for this bombing,

although if you talk

to intelligence sources

and to law enforcement

officials,

they all say

in their early guess

in this situation

is that this particular bombing

probably has roots

in the Middle East.

A U.S. government source

has told CBS News

that it has Middle East

terrorism written all over it.

WOMAN:

I started making phone calls,

trying to find out

what was going on

and very quickly found out

that the Feds went

and raided an apartment

in Dallas

that was occupied

by some Middle Eastern guys.

But then someone I spoke to

said,

"Do you know what day it is?"

I said, you know, "What?"

I had been off work

for a couple of days,

and so, you know,

wasn't paying attention

to the calendar that closely.

And someone said,

"It's April 19."

Immediately it hit me.

This is about Waco.

You know, this is about Waco.

♪ Give me that

old-time religion ♪

♪ Give me that

old-time religion ♪

♪ Give me that

old-time religion ♪

♪ It's good enough for me! ♪

WRIGHT:

The Branch Davidians

had been in Texas

for over 50 years

by the time that most people

outside of Waco

had ever heard of them.

They were an offshoot

of the Seventh-day

Adventist Church.

They found a place just outside

of Waco, called it Mt. Carmel,

and set up this community.

In the late '80s,

a young Davidian

named Vernon Howell

had a revelation

that God had chosen him

to be their leader.

He changed his name

to David Koresh

and began preaching

his vision of Armageddon

out of the Book of Revelation.

"So how's God going to talk

to me in the latter days?"

AUDIENCE:

It's going to be written.

And who's going to bring

that book?

(audience mumbles answer)

So there'll be no excuses!

HANCOCK:

In about May of 1992,

the sheriff's department in Waco

got a report

from a U.P.S. truck driver

about a shipment going

to Mt. Carmel.

There was a box that fell apart,

and some pineapple grenade hulls

came out of the box.

That's what prompted

the beginning

of the ATF investigation.

MAN:

That investigation was able

to determine

that they were illegally

converting automatic weapons

in there,

that they had purchased

about $43,000 worth of firearms

during the year prior to it,

and members of the community

out there

had heard automatic weapons fire

and explosions

coming from the compound.

HANCOCK:

Koresh preached increasingly

that they were going to be met

with an opposing force.

So when we start getting

into the subject

of the Seven Seals,

looks like somebody's

going to get

a butt-whuppin'

in the near future,

aren't they?

HANCOCK:

He believed that the government

was going to try to invade

this sacred ground

that was Mt. Carmel.

And so, this actually would be

where Armageddon takes place.

BUFORD:

People in ATF felt

that if this Armageddon that

he predicted didn't come true,

he was going to have to do

something to prompt it.

So we decided that we needed

to act as quickly as possible.

HANCOCK:

Reporters for the Waco

Tribune-Herald

had really good sources

in local law enforcement,

and they had been tipped

about when the raid

was going to go down.

This road's going to be

closed soon.

HANCOCK:

The morning of the raid,

a reporter was sent

to the compound,

and he's driving around

trying to figure out

where he is,

when here comes

a Buick station wagon,

stops, rolls down the window,

says, "Hey, buddy,

are you lost?"

He says, "Yeah, I'm looking

for Mt. Carmel.

There's going to be a big raid."

Turns out that the guy

in the car

is one of the inner circle

of Koresh's followers.

He immediately goes

and tells Koresh

what was happening.

That morning,

David said

that we had information

that there was going

to be a raid today.

The men were arming themselves

and the women were told

to go back to their rooms

and bunker down.

BUFORD:

We were going to be confronting

150 people

on a very large compound.

They had 45 minutes

to prepare for us

and began firing on us

as soon as we got there.

I heard an M60 machine gun

being fired.

Then I heard the A.K.-47s.

And then I heard

the 50-calibers,

just a brutal, brutal weapon.

(gunfire banging and popping)

There's no doubt these people

were trying to kill us.

(gunfire continuing)

The firefight went on

for 2 1/2 hours.

And when they finally agreed

to a ceasefire,

we were able to get our people

and get out.

MAN:

Yeah, this is Lynch.

KORESH:

Hey, Lynch?

LYNCH:

Yeah.

KORESH:

That's kind of

a funny name there.

Now, listen, now...

LYNCH:

Now, who am I speaking with?

KORESH:

This is David Koresh.

LYNCH:

Okay, David.

KORESH:

The notorious.

What'd you guys do that for?

LYNCH:

Well, David, what, this,

what I'm doing is,

I'm trying to establish some

communication links with you.

KORESH:

No, no, no, no, no.

Let me tell you something.

LYNCH:

Yes, sir.

KORESH:

You see, you brought

a bunch of guys out here

and you killed

some of my children.

We told you we wanted to talk.

How come you guys had

to be ATF agents?

How come you try to be so big

all the time?

LYNCH:

Okay, David...

KORESH:

Now there's a bunch

of us dead.

There's a bunch

of you guys dead.

Now, now that's your fault.

LYNCH:

Okay, let's, let's try

to resolve this now.

Tell me this,

now, you have casualties.

How many casualties?

Do you want to try

to work something out?

ATF is pulling back,

we're trying to, uh...

KORESH:

Why didn't you do that first?

HANCOCK:

By the end of this shootout,

four ATF agents were dead,

more than a dozen were wounded.

And inside, five Davidians

were dead

and David Koresh was wounded.

MAN:

Okay, then, move out.

BUFORD:

There really wasn't much

organization as to how we left.

The three team leaders,

all of us,

were wounded very badly.

I was actually put in a blanket

and placed on the hood of a car,

and, uh...

I don't remember anything about

the... the trip out, actually.

HANCOCK:

American law enforcement had

never seen anything like this.

They had never had

this kind of loss.

They had never been met

with this kind of resistance.

There was shock,

there was anger,

and there was uncertainty.

REPORTER:

Tragedy tonight in Waco, Texas.

At least four federal agents

and a member of a cult group

are dead after an hour-long

gun battle at the cult's ranch.

14 other agents were

wounded in the shootout

that started when law officers

tried to enter the compound.

MAN (over loudspeaker):

David Koresh, pick up

the phone.

The negotiators

want to speak with you.

RICKS:

The tactic

from the very beginning

was trying to negotiate

a resolution.

We were willing to spend

as long as possible

to try to get the people out.

And particularly,

we would focus on the children,

trying to get the children

out of there.

MAN:

And starting off the evening

of the 28th of February,

we were successful.

We were starting

to get kids out.

But we couldn't fathom

how in the world

these parents were so latched

onto David

that they would abandon

their children.

We took videotapes of them

playing on the,

on the swing set,

and eating ice cream,

and just communing

with one another,

and we sent them back

into the compound.

We wanted

to do something tangible

so their parents could think,

you know,

"Maybe I need to come out

and reassume my responsibility

as a parent."

(kids greeting their parents)

SCHROEDER:

I didn't decide

to send my kids out.

My kids leaving

was part of the prophecy.

I didn't know when it was going

to happen,

but I knew it would happen.

They weren't David's children.

MAN:

He let children go

up until there were

no children left in there

except his children.

And he told us,

"This is the last one.

The rest are mine."

HANCOCK:

The negotiators needed

a different way

to approach the situation.

And so it was proposed to Koresh

that he make a recording

that could be broadcast

to bring his message

to the world,

if he would agree

to lead his people out.

Koresh agreed to do this.

Okay, here we go.

We're going to the tape

of David Koresh.

KORESH:

It's March 2, 1993.

My name is Dave Koresh.

I'm speaking to you

from Mt. Carmel Center.

In the Book of Revelation,

commentary states

that what John has written

in Scripture

is nothing other than

the revelation of Jesus Christ,

which God gave to Him

to show to His servants

things which must shortly

come to pass...

HANCOCK:

They're bringing in buses.

They're bringing in

all sorts of people

who are going to help process

the folks

coming out of the compound.

They were convinced

that he was going to come out.

RICKS:

We were at such a high level,

thinking that this thing

was going to end.

We were high-fiving each other,

then all of a sudden,

everything just stopped.

We were told that David received

a message from God

telling them to wait.

SAGE:

You went back on your word.

KORESH:

That is a lie!

SAGE:

That is not a lie.

KORESH:

That is a lie!

You will find out

in the Judgment...

SAGE:

You know as well as I do

that your challenge

to open these Seven Seals,

it's garbage, it's a false

hope, and you know this.

KORESH:

No, it's not.

HANCOCK:

Once he didn't come out,

the FBI's tactics pretty quickly

became aggressive.

The power was cut.

They blasted lights

at the compound.

They had brought in tanks,

so they drove

over Koresh's prized cars.

They also set up loudspeakers

and they began blasting

Nancy Sinatra's "These

Boots Are Made for Walking."

♪ One of these days these boots

are gonna walk all over you. ♪

HANCOCK:

Christmas carols,

the sounds of dying rabbits,

phones off the hook,

and even Tibetan monk chants.

It was clear

that the FBI was saying,

"Hey, we're going to show you

who's boss."

REPORTER:

The standoff outside

the Branch Davidian compound

has become a psychological

power struggle.

Now, sources tell CBS News

that federal agents don't plan

to let this go on indefinitely,

their frustration level

is very high,

and if negotiations

are not more fruitful,

they may take action

by this weekend.

Dan?

RICKS:

The story kept growing

and growing.

And the press initially

was very supportive

of what we were doing,

and very understanding,

but as the days went on,

they started becoming

more demanding.

They were saying, "After all,

they've killed four ATF agents.

Why are you just sitting back

and letting them do this?"

We are not going

to be jerked around.

We will take whatever action

is necessary to get it resolved.

And again, our ultimate goal

from day one

is to get it resolved

peacefully.

It was probably the number-one

story in the United States,

and many of the right-wing

Patriot types

started showing up, as well.

They thought this was

only about seizing guns,

about ATF attacking a church

because they believed

in possessing guns.

They didn't manage to get

into the press conferences,

but somebody else did.

HANCOCK:

Louis Beam, the white

supremacist

and former Klan leader,

showed up and presented himself

as a credentialed reporter.

Are we seeing the emergence

of a police state

in The United States?

We figured out who he was

pretty quickly.

He'd previously been on the

FBI's top ten most wanted list.

And I asked them if they're

going to have a police state,

and, uh, they don't want

to hear about police state,

ATF black-booted, black-suited,

black-helmeted troopers

carrying guns,

assaulting people.

Mr. Beam?

Let me see this...

ZESKIND:

White supremacists, like Beam,

saw in this standoff

the same issues that they

had decided were important

with Randy Weaver.

The Branch Davidians

were not white supremacists.

But now a broader section

of the far right

sees itself in Waco, and says,

"We're being suppressed

for our beliefs and our guns."

Up to the top of the hill,

them two white...

Little white buildings

up there.

HANCOCK:

There was a hill that was about

three miles from Mt. Carmel.

It was on a rise

that was high enough

that you could just barely see

Mt. Carmel in the distance.

This was as close

as members of the public

could get to the standoff.

WOMAN:

You're next, you're next!

Wake up and understand!

You're next!

HANCOCK:

All sorts of folks felt moved

to come down

to see what was going on

at Waco.

Just, just arrived today.

Just, somebody told me

a lot of people are scared

to put something on,

you know, like this.

HANCOCK:

Timothy McVeigh

had already apparently

been very concerned

about what had happened

at Ruby Ridge.

So he came down to Waco

and sold bumper stickers

with pro-gun, anti-government

slogans.

He saw the raid

as clear evidence

of what the government would do

to try to confiscate guns

and persecute gun owners.

HERBECK:

Tim McVeigh loved guns.

When he was a kid,

his grandfather taught him

all about guns:

the safe handling of guns

and the rights of gun owners.

They would go out

and shoot together,

go to target practice.

He just loved guns,

and the whole belief

about a man owning guns.

MAN:

Pendleton, New York,

was white suburbia.

It's near Buffalo.

It's where generations

of the McVeigh family had lived.

Growing up,

Tim loved superheroes.

He had a huge comic book

collection,

he liked Soldier of Fortune

magazine,

and he hated bullies.

Tim was very skinny and tall,

and in high school, he was known

as "Noodle" McVeigh.

That was the beginning

of a lifelong hatred of bullies.

HERBECK:

After high school,

he went into the Army.

He just couldn't seem to

find the right path to a career.

But the other reason

was he loved guns.

It gave him access

to all kinds of guns

and other weapons and he was

like a kid in a candy store.

MCVEIGH:

I was an admitted gun enthusiast

and so you can't go wrong

both brushing up your skills

and, hell, the Army

is free ammunition.

So I wanted to get out

and experience

the rest of the world.

I wanted to get out of my

isolation of Pendleton.

MICHEL:

The Army provided Tim McVeigh

with a place where he fit in.

He was the top gun at Fort Riley

in his Bradley fighting vehicle.

His supervisors took

notice of him.

He was a leader in the Army.

And then he goes over to Iraq

for the first Gulf War.

HERBECK:

It was in the war that McVeigh

first started

to become disillusioned

with the military

and the United States

government.

When he killed Iraqi soldiers,

he didn't feel the exhilaration

that he thought he would.

POTOK:

He took a very, very long

sniper shot

and killed an Iraqi soldier.

And he describes seeing

this man's head explode.

And he could not see

the reason for it.

He could not really understand

what the United States

was doing there.

MCVEIGH: My overall experience

in the Gulf War

taught me that these people were

just that, they were people.

They were human beings

at the core,

they were no different than me.

Then I had to reconcile that

with the fact

that, well, I killed them.

MICHEL:

He's truly conflicted.

He sees the American government

as a bully.

But they summon him home for

ranger school, special forces.

And he was willing to put aside

his anti-government views

in order to become, you know,

the ultimate soldier.

But he's not in top-notch

physical shape

and, to his embarrassment,

washes out of rangers school.

And the disillusionment

compounds itself.

He stayed around the Army

for a few more months,

but his heart just

wasn't in it anymore.

He went back home and

he thought it would be easy

to get a good job because

of his Army experience,

but he found that it wasn't.

Failure was eating at him.

He told us that "I feel like I

reached a pinnacle in the Army

and then after that everything

was just mediocrity."

BEN FENWICK:

He becomes more and more

disaffected.

He becomes more and

more strident.

He began paying attention to the

really far-off conspiracies,

like that the United Nations

was going to take over

the United States, and he

totally bought into them.

And he also

becomes very influenced

by The Turner Diaries.

He becomes just gripped

by this novel.

HERBECK:

He was really interested

in this character, Earl Turner,

and his antigovernment views

and his feeling that you needed

to take drastic action

to make the government

take notice.

And then Ruby Ridge happened.

And Ruby Ridge absolutely

enraged McVeigh.

He felt it was murder.

He felt it was all about

attacking the rights of people

to own guns.

POTOK:

He was not happy.

He wasn't getting along

with his family.

He didn't have a girlfriend.

He took his old beat-up car and

essentially began an odyssey,

traveling around the western

parts of the country,

kind of absorbing more and

more and more of this ideology.

And probably the single

most important place

where ideas of the radical right

were spread were gun shows.

LEVITAS:

Gun shows were sometimes more

than just gun shows.

The antigovernment message,

which cloaked itself

in the paraphernalia

of patriotism,

was promoted and peddled

at gun shows all over.

ZESKIND:

There were a number of people

who traveled from gun

show to gun show,

selling and trading,

and Timothy McVeigh

became one of these people.

And in the process

he met white supremacists

and talked to them.

He sold The Turner Diaries.

He became embroiled

in the larger movement.

MICHEL:

And then he shows up at Waco.

He can't believe it,

that, you know,

American citizens are being held

there by government agents.

And it rivets his attention.

MCVEIGH:

Who were the aggressors?

Koresh wasn't giving in,

that's true,

but the FBI were the aggressors,

okay?

Everything they do exudes

that they are at war.

They're a military force at war.

The thing is,

who are they at war with?

Well, they're at war

with the American people.

In Waco, Texas,

the 40th day of the siege

at David Koresh's compound

is ending

just like the other 39--

with Koresh and his followers

on the inside,

and federal agents outside

waiting for something to happen.

MAN:

David Koresh, pick up the phone.

The negotiators want to speak

with you.

SAGE:

As the negotiations continued,

the productivity of those

negotiations diminished,

mainly, I think, because David

was done sending out the people

that he intended to send out.

KAT SCHROEDER:

Those of us that left were

leaving because

we were not good for the group.

We were not going to help

the group ascend.

So we were kicked out.

The last person came out of that

compound on the 21st of March.

The last child came out

the 5th of March.

We were in a very difficult

situation.

You know, you guys, you guys,

you do it your way,

I do it my way.

You're going to argue with me,

you catch me on the side

of the road somewhere,

and you come and argue with me.

You come pointing guns

in the direction of my wives

and my kids, dammit, I'll meet

you at the door any time.

Nobody's fooled here.

We're not negotiating, okay?

That's over, if it ever existed.

We weren't accomplishing

anything.

We were just in a situation

that all it could do

was grow worse.

HANCOCK:

More and more people within

the bureau began to come around

to the idea that they needed

to do something

to force Koresh's hand.

So the FBI went to the attorney

general, Janet Reno, with a plan

to use armored vehicles

to knock holes into the building

and spray in tear gas.

Initially she refused it.

She asked for more information.

So the FBI went back

with testimony

from former Davidians

of child sexual abuse

going on in Mt. Carmel.

And she saw the videotape

evidence of these young girls

with these babies,

and it confirmed to her

that this was going on.

At that point,

Janet Reno approved the plan.

STEVE SCHNEIDER:

Everybody grab your mask.

Everybody grab your mask.

SAGE:

A number of times early on,

we had gotten court-authorized

permission

to insert microphones

into that building.

That morning,

we couldn't hear anything live

because there was too much

noise, too much ambient noise.

But once the tapes are scrubbed,

someone clearly says,

"Put on your masks."

Shortly after that,

you distinctly hear

orders to spread the fuel.

SAGE:

All the while our guys

were inserting tear gas,

they were spreading fuel.

All morning long.

JAMAR:

Had we heard that,

"Spread the fuel,"

we would have pulled back.

We would have pulled away.

And then, of course,

what happened,

it was just devastating

to everybody.

As you can see on

your screen,

there is a great deal of smoke

coming out from the building.

Let's go to Mike Capps...

we can also see some flames

there now.

Mike, what can you tell us?

What can you see?

MIKE CAPPS:

Well, Bonnie,

for the last 15 minutes,

we've watched this M60 vehicle,

this combat engineering vehicle,

make large holes in the side

of this building

and pump tear gas in there.

Now we have a very large-scale

fire breaking out

on what must be the south side,

right near the front side

of this building.

POTOK:

I went out to the roadblock,

and was looking through

a friend's television camera,

and noticed little tiny

licks of flame,

first out of one side

of the building,

then out of the other.

And in a matter of

it seemed like seconds,

the building was engulfed.

You know, we all stood there

waiting to see

the people come out.

You know, there were 80 or 90

people in there.

SAGE:

As that fire continued to build,

a few adults came out.

One of them had jumped out of

the second floor window,

and then she ran back

into the fire.

An agent started to run after

her, went into the building,

grabbed her,

and pulled her out,

and she was ready to ignite.

I mean, there was smoke

trailing off of her clothes.

Nine adults came out.

Not one of them

brought a child out.

JAMAR:

The part that we played

cannot be ignored.

We provoked the circumstances,

but David Koresh decided

who was going to die.

What happened was to serve

his purpose,

and that's the most

devastating thing to me,

is I served his purpose

to a terrible degree.

BUFORD:

When I saw the fire,

all I could think about

were the children in there.

You know, the parents had made

their own decisions,

but those kids didn't make

any decisions.

I literally bawled

when I saw it.

It was Armageddon,

just like he said it would be.

WRIGHT:

At Ruby Ridge, Americans saw

the deaths of two people.

But at Waco,

they saw massive deaths.

There were people who had

a legitimate argument

that there were all kinds

of mistakes made

and this could have ended

very differently.

But other people were saying

this was a government massacre

on a scale

nobody had seen before.

It was certainly framed

in this manner by the far right,

and the reaction

was almost immediate.

We have several witnesses

that say that they saw

25 to 30 people exiting out

these double doors

to escape the fire, and that

these people were gunned down

in cold blood

as they tried to escape.

There were several films made

by people on the radical right,

which claimed that this had been

a deliberate murder.

HANCOCK:

One of the

earliest was a documentary

called Waco: The Big Lie.

The crucial footage

that they used

was footage on the day

of the fire,

where they alleged that

if you looked at the footage

the right way,

that you could see

the tanks actually setting fire

to the building.

ARCHIVAL NARRATOR:

At the same time as fire

was already breaking out

in the back of the house,

as you just saw,

as this tank backs out,

flame can be seen

shooting from the front of it.

When someone could

package the footage

that had disturbed

everybody in America

with a potent message about,

you know, government atrocities,

it touched a chord.

You know, those who had a

tendency to doubt the government

were enraged.

HERBECK:

When the fire started at Waco,

Tim McVeigh was at a friend's

farmhouse up in Michigan.

He was working on a vehicle

out in the yard

and somebody yelled out,

"Tim, come in here.

You've got to see this on

television."

MCVEIGH:

I'm watching flames

lick out windows,

and I'm watching

tanks ram walls,

and my eyes just welled up

in tears,

and tears started

coming down my cheeks

as I'm watching

this scene unfold.

I'm not going to shy away from

the word rage.

For me, I felt absolute rage.

HERBECK:

For Tim McVeigh,

it was all happening

because of the U.S. government,

the biggest bully in the world.

(applause)

And just a few months later,

the Brady Bill passes.

It has a ban on several assault

weapons, long overdue.

HERBECK:

Like many people, Tim McVeigh

was convinced

that the Brady Bill meant

that the government

was going to take guns away

from law-abiding citizens.

A ban on handgun ownership

and restrictions on possession

of handguns by minors,

the beginning of reform

of our federal firearms

licensing systems.

(applause)

LEVITAS:

The combination of the perceived

government assassination

of the Weaver family,

the perceived military

government murdering

its own citizens in Waco,

and then the Brady Bill,

the government coming after

your guns,

just exploded the recruitment

of anti-government extremists.

We have a government

that is on the verge

of being completely out

of control.

They allow tyrants to come in

with hooded masks on,

unidentified,

bust down your door.

It's happened all over America.

PHIL DONAHUE:

This is the new thing

in America.

It's called the militia.

No, they say

they're not racist.

It's not just about guns

and possession of guns,

but the 2nd Amendment's

involved here, definitely.

They're proud of

their 2nd amendment.

And by God no constable is going

to come from some faraway place

and break their

door down.

They'll shoot 'em first.

ZESKIND:

There had been a spurt of growth

in militia organizations

after Ruby Ridge.

But Waco, and the Brady Bill,

accelerates the movement.

By the end of '93,

there was a huge underground of

armed white supremacist militias

all over the country,

all of them dedicated

to resistance

to the federal government.

HERBECK:

Tim McVeigh didn't actually

belong to a militia group

but he certainly

had the same opinions

about the government that many

of the militia groups had.

For Tim McVeigh,

it was all part of a massive

government conspiracy.

All these events,

they were all connected

and it was all leading down

a path that was going to end

with federal agents

coming to his home

and the homes of gun owners

all over America

and storming into those homes

and taking their guns away.

I think from that moment on,

he was trying to determine what

terrorist act to commit

against the U.S. government.

WILLIAM PIERCE:

"My day's work started a little

before 5:00 yesterday

"when I began helping Ed Sanders

mix heating oil

with the ammonium nitrate

fertilizer in unit 8's garage."

HERBECK:

Tim McVeigh had read

in The Turner Diaries

of how, generally, you

could build a truck bomb.

He found other articles

that told him exactly

how to build a truck bomb.

He wanted to do what

Earl Turner did:

take down a government building.

McVeigh truly believed that

he had two comrades in arms

in Terry Nichols

and Michael Fortier.

They go back to the Army.

They all like

The Turner Diaries.

They all shared the same

antigovernment thoughts.

They all wanted to show

that somebody could attack

the U.S. government,

that it was that vulnerable.

To get started, they knew that

they needed the main ingredient,

which was fertilizer.

POTOK:

They start to buy bag after bag

after bag of ammonium nitrate.

Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols

break into a storage shed

at a quarry and they steal

these explosive Tovex sausages,

which will make the bomb

more powerful.

HERBECK:

It wasn't easy to get

some of this stuff.

Some of the explosives

were not available

to the average citizen.

They spent months and months

getting the parts

of this bomb together.

Fortier's role was

very, very limited.

Nichols had a bigger role,

but, really, just following

orders from McVeigh.

POTOK:

And then, Tim McVeigh

manages to get

some 55-gallon drums of

nitromethane racing fuel.

The bomb that was depicted

in The Turner Diaries

was ammonium nitrate

and fuel oil.

McVeigh was going to amp up his

bomb really dramatically

by using this much, much

more volatile fuel.

HERBECK:

During this time

that he was driving around

getting his materials

for the bomb,

McVeigh was basically on this

anti-government odyssey.

He visited a militia compound,

he visited Area 51 in Roswell,

and he visited Waco.

FENWICK:

It was very important to him

to go bear witness

to what had happened,

to make himself feel that-that

place and that moment.

It was also around this time

that he and Fortier and Nichols

began selecting

what was going to be the target

of their bomb.

WRIGHT:

They went to Little Rock,

Arkansas.

They went to Tulsa.

They went to Dallas.

They picked the Murrah Building

in Oklahoma City, in part,

because the ATF,

who had conducted the raid

on the Branch Davidians,

had an office in the building.

They thought it was

appropriately symbolic

that they would go after

somebody

who was directly connected

to Waco.

FENWICK:

The Murrah Building

had numerous federal offices.

It had HUD, it had the ATF.

It had general accounting

offices.

It had military recruiters,

the Social Security

Administration,

the DEA was in there.

And there is some question

as to whether or not

McVeigh knew there was

a day care in there,

but he also kind of indicated

that it wouldn't have made

the difference anyway.

Michael Fortier began feeling

uneasy about doing this.

He suddenly visualized

what was going to happen.

He points out that there were

probably going to be

innocent people inside

that are going to die.

WRIGHT:

McVeigh told him,

"There has to be a body count."

He said, "The government's not

going to sit up and take notice

unless there's a body count."

"They can always build

a new building,

but a body count

will get their attention."

MCVEIGH:

From a military perspective,

to get a message across,

you need to hurt them

where they hurt the most.

The only way they're going

to feel something,

and the only way they're going

to get the message

is with a body count.

MICHEL:

Tim picks April 19

for the bombing

because it will be the

anniversary of the fire at Waco.

On Easter Sunday,

three days before,

Tim McVeigh calls Terry Nichols

and says it's time.

HERBECK:

He and Nichols, separately,

drove from Kansas

to Oklahoma City.

McVeigh took his $300

getaway car

and stashed it in a little

parking lot.

He put a sign in the window,

"Please Do Not Tow,"

and then they

drove back to Kansas.

The next day McVeigh goes alone,

apparently,

to rent a truck

in Junction City,

the big Ryder truck

that he will use as a bomb.

HERSLEY:

They asked him:

"Do you need insurance on it?"

He said, "No, I won't need

any insurance."

And they said,

"Do you need any extra days?"

And he answered, "No,

I won't need any extra days."

We actually have him on video

coming in to the McDonald's

about a mile away from

where he picked up the truck.

HERBECK:

April 18 was bomb making day.

McVeigh drove the truck out

to Geary Lake State Park,

where they would assemble

the bomb.

He was extremely upset

because Nichols was starting

to get cold feet.

He threatened to kill Nichols

and his family

if Nichols refused to help him

with the final preparations.

MCVEIGH:

The bomb was primarily assembled

by myself,

with a little assistance

from another,

who was under duress

to assist me.

I was the one that primed

the charges,

that crimped the caps to

the fuse, primed each barrel,

made sure there was

redundant fusing systems.

And it only took three hours.

FENWICK:

After they get the bomb built,

Terry Nichols made it very clear

he was not going to join McVeigh

the morning of the bombing.

And so they said goodbye, shook

hands, Nichols wishes him luck,

and then he gets in the truck

and he drives south.

HERBECK:

He was nervous as he drove

into Oklahoma City,

but I don't think

he ever second-guessed himself.

I don't think he ever thought

for a minute

that this was the wrong thing

to do.

When he got close

to the building,

he pulled the truck over,

and lit two different fuses

leading back to the bomb.

HERSLEY:

The last video that

we have of him was at 8:57

in front of the

Regency Tower Apartments.

At that point in time,

he was about

a block and a half

west of the Murrah Building.

NORFLEET:

As I was driving past,

I noticed this yellow

Ryder truck

pulled into the loading zone

in front of the building.

A young man got

out of the truck.

He had a military haircut

and the T-shirt, and I thought,

"Well, okay, that's a sergeant

or something

"checking into the command.

"But what in the world

is he doing

going away from the building?"

MCVEIGH:

I walked very slowly

toward the YMCA.

Once I got in the blind alley

of the YMCA,

I did jog because I knew

nobody was looking.

(explosion)

FLOWERS:

Later that morning,

we went into the south side

of the building, not knowing

what we were fixing to walk

into was the daycare center.

The granite floor was

all busted and broken

and just, you know,

going every which way.

And as I'm fixing to go in,

one of the Oklahoma City

officers comes walking out

carrying a little boy.

It's where the elevators

used to be!

I can't.

Let me have him.

I can't.

FLOWERS:

And I just turned

and took a second breath and

went into the daycare center.

We were moving debris,

we were picking up boulders.

Literally everyone was digging

on their hands and knees,

trying to get to these kids.

(siren wailing)

GARRETT:

The children were coming out

one by one.

Brandon was severely injured.

So was Nekia.

Rebecca, um, just seemed to me,

and I...

it just seemed as though

she was just dipped in blood.

The next baby

that they brought out,

they went to lay

this baby on the ground.

They had these perfectly folded

white sheets

and they would bring

another one out,

and they would bring another

one, and another one.

And they lay them in a line,

wrapped in these sheets.

And then a nurse came,

and she moved the blanket

back from their feet,

and she was writing things, and

she tagged their little feet.

And I think that's

when reality, you know, set in,

that my son Tevin's

not coming home.

FLOWERS:

When a baby's body was carried

out of that building,

even though one person

carried that baby,

(voice breaking):

we all carried that baby.

And when we laid him down onto

that makeshift morgue

and lined those children up

out there,

that was really

a hard thing to see,

because that was all

of our kids.

That was everybody's kids.

That wasn't just

one person's child.

They belonged to everybody.

The emotions that we felt and

still feel to this day

from what we saw was

just remarkable.

And the kids that survived

and came through that

was just absolutely incredible.

JIM DENNY:

Our children ended up

at two different hospitals.

And once we found them,

we just made up our minds

that Claudia was gonna be

with Rebecca

and I was gonna be with Brandon.

(unintelligible conversation)

When I got there,

Brandon had just had

a four-and-a-half-hour

brain surgery.

How's Daddy's

big boy, huh?

DENNY:

He had a piece of something

blown into the upper left side

of his head

that went into his brain.

Dr. Reynolds, his neurosurgeon,

could not tell us

whether he'd live or not.

We knew for an absolute fact

that our children

were 50 feet from it.

50 feet from a massive bomb.

There was five children

sitting at a table

in the daycare center,

and one in the bathroom.

And those six survived.

CLAUDIA DENNY:

When I saw Rebecca

for the first time,

the doctor said,

"She's going to be fine."

She has a lot of cuts, bruises,

and she has a broken

collarbone.

But she was alive.

At 9:02 that day,

our world ended.

And then when we found our kids,

our new world began at 4:00

on April 19.

I love you, baby.

How you doing today, sir?

We're currently conducting

an investigation

into the Oklahoma City

bombing.

Do you usually travel

this road very much?

RICKS:

We operate under the premise

that the evidence leads you

to where you want to go.

We have to gather every bit

of evidence that we can

and then start trying to form

hypotheses and theories

as to what has transpired.

Did you notice

a Ryder truck?

The first real break

of the investigation,

which happened within hours

of the bombing,

was we found the rear axle

of what turned out

to be the bomb truck.

HERSLEY:

On the rear axle assembly,

there's what's called

a confidential vehicle

identification number,

which was PVA26077.

I'll never forget that number.

TONGATE:

We were able to trace that

number to a Ryder truck

assigned to Elliott's Body Shop

in Junction City, Kansas.

RICKS:

We immediately deployed

special agents

to that Ryder truck rental shop.

We learned that it had been

rented by a gentleman

with a South Dakota driver's

license

by the name of Robert Kling.

We had three principal witnesses

there inside the truck rental.

They described a military type

person, about six foot tall,

thin, close shaven.

They also believed that there

was a second person with him,

so we called these John Doe

number one

and John Doe number two.

Our agents flooded the area

of Junction City.

One particular agent went

to the Dreamland Motel,

and he asked the manager,

"Has anybody been in here

with a Ryder truck?"

TONGATE:

She said, "Yes.

"I had a customer who stayed

here in room 25

"that had a Ryder truck parked

at the motel,

and I last saw him on Tuesday

morning, April the 18th."

After talking to her

about the Ryder truck,

they show her the sketch,

and she recognizes it.

She pulls out her records,

and for all of McVeigh's

planning,

he apparently had a moment

of weakness

and he signed his own name

to the register.

HERSLEY:

So that really got us.

We wanted to know

who Tim McVeigh was.

So what we did

was go into the National Crime

Information Center

and run an offline search,

and try to find out if anybody

named Tim McVeigh

has been arrested anywhere

in the United States

in the recent past.

RICKS: It turns out

that a highway patrolman

has arrested someone by the name

of Timothy McVeigh.

HERBECK:

He was heading off toward Kansas

in this old Mercury Marquis.

He'd got on the interstate, and

a state trooper pulled him over

because he had no license plate

on the back of his car.

HANCOCK:

The trooper then notices a bulge

under the driver's jacket,

and says, "Is that a gun?"

The driver acknowledges,

"Yes, it is,"

and Tim McVeigh

is put under arrest

and taken to the county jail.

MICHEL:

The T-shirt he is wearing

says sic semper tyrannis--

"thus ever to tyrants."

It was what John Wilkes Booth

shouted when he shot Lincoln.

For two days McVeigh languished

in the jail

and nobody really knew

who he was.

Other than the fact that he was

illegally carrying a weapon,

the police had no suspicions

about him.

RICKS:

We called up the courthouse

there and learned

that Timothy McVeigh was just

getting ready to appear

before the judge and was about

ready to be released.

So we said, you know,

"Put a hold on him.

We're on our way."

MICHEL:

Two federal agents interview him

in the Noble County

sheriff's office.

And the agents start by saying,

"Do you know why we're here?"

And McVeigh says,

"Does it have something to do

with the bombing?"

I am pleased to announce

that one of the individuals

believed to be responsible for

Wednesday's terrible attack

on the Murrah Federal Building

in Oklahoma City

has been arrested.

FENWICK: Once they know

they've got their guy,

the decision's made to take

him to a more secure facility.

The word is leaked out

to the press,

which broadcasts it on TV,

so people drive there

from all over to see this.

(crowd shouting, booing)

POTOK:

I and the rest of the country

saw Timothy McVeigh

for the very first time.

And we understood

in a kind of flash

that there were enemies

within this country.

Not foreign terrorists,

but red-blooded Americans

who were engaged in a war

against America.

FENWICK:

It was just the lightning moment

of recognition.

This was the guy in the sketch.

It was that guy.

I think everybody felt this

sudden sense of betrayal.

I think everyone thought,

"You're one of us."

REPORTER:

Mr. President,

is there a sense now, sir, that

this was not a foreign threat?

Let me say that I have never,

and the Justice Department has

never said,

that it was a foreign threat,

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.

RICKS:

The capture of Timothy McVeigh

really just launched

the investigation.

The circumstances, obviously,

indicated

that he was directly involved,

but, you know, to what extent?

His driver's license had an

address in Decker, Michigan.

We dispatched agents

to that location

and we find out

that the gentleman there

by the name of James Nichols

had a brother, Terry,

presently residing

in Herington, Kansas.

We ended up executing a search

warrant on Terry Nichols' home

in Kansas, and that search

warrant was a gold mine.

In there we found a receipt for

2,000 pounds of fertilizer.

We found a cordless drill

that turned out to be

a key piece of evidence.

But probably the most important

piece of evidence

that we found was a calling card

in the name of Daryl Bridges,

who shared the same

address in Decker, Michigan.

HERSLEY:

There were 685 calls

made on the calling card.

We determined where every one of

those calls was placed from,

the duration of the call,

and who the call was made to.

So we saw many calls to chemical

companies, to barrel companies,

to racetracks,

all kinds of places

Tim McVeigh and Terry Nichols

were contacting

to try to acquire

bomb components.

We also found out about

Michael Fortier

through the calling card.

He knew more than we did

about the bombing.

He knew, for example,

that Tim McVeigh,

when he was staying at their

house in Kingman,

had taken all these soup cans

down from the kitchen

and showed Michael Fortier's

wife exactly how he was going

to construct the bomb inside

the back of that Ryder truck.

Last night, Timothy McVeigh

was charged in the bombing

of the Murrah Federal Building

here in Oklahoma City.

Two brothers, James Douglas

Nichols and Terry Lynn Nichols,

are currently in federal custody

and are being held

as material witnesses.

Another suspect,

whom we have identified

as John Doe number two, remains

unidentified and at large.

RICKS:

A mistake was made.

The artist conception has him

with a Carolina Panthers cap on.

It turns out that a guy had

happened to be

in the Ryder truck rental shop

the day before

Timothy McVeigh was.

His description is almost

to a T.

MCVEIGH:

Is there a John Doe two?

Either way I can answer it

should be scary

because, number one,

if there are other people,

that means they're still

out there.

On the other hand, if it was

just me, that in itself,

isn't that pretty scary

that one man could do that?

That's why "You can't handle the

truth" is the perfect line,

because the truth is

it was just me.

FENWICK:

The prosecution hit

McVeigh's defense team

with everything they had.

Michael Fortier's testimony

was crucial and damning,

but he also told

a very poignant story.

He talked about how he would

have a dream at night

that he was calling people

to warn them,

and then he'd wake up,

and he was in jail,

and he hadn't made the call,

and that people were dead

because of him.

I was the second witness

in the trial,

and as I sat in

that witness stand,

it seemed just like an arm's

reach away was Timothy McVeigh.

He did look me in the eyes,

and he did try to intimidate me,

but I was far

from being intimidated.

GARRETT:

When I had to testify,

and people would ask later,

"How did you sit in

the room with the man

who murdered your son?"

And I told them my story

is more powerful

than me yelling at him.

My story is more powerful

than my fist.

I'm not going to go

to his level.

You know, I deserve better;

Tevin deserved better.

Every victim of the bombing

deserved better than that.

McVeigh all along wanted

a necessity defense,

that he had no choice

but to bomb to building.

He did not want to claim

some widespread conspiracy,

which members of

the defense team wanted.

McVeigh wanted no part of that

because, number one,

it wasn't true

and, number two,

he did want credit

for this thing he had done.

And no evidence has ever

surfaced that anybody but him,

with-with a little bit of help

from his two Army buddies,

pulled this off.

He built this bomb.

He designed it, he built it,

and he was proud of that.

ZESKIND:

There was no massive conspiracy.

That much is clear.

But the idea that Timothy

McVeigh was a lone killer

is wrong-headed because it

absolves the movement

from which it all sprang.

Timothy McVeigh

was not on his own.

He was a creation of the

white supremacist movement.

He carried The Turner Diaries

around

and read it to people.

He lived at the gun shows.

He met Neo-Nazis

and visited with them.

He was part of this movement.

And the idea that

there was no connection

between the white supremacist

movement

and the events in Oklahoma City

is patently false.

There was a strong connection,

and it was a deep connection.

WRIGHT:

When the verdict was read,

McVeigh's demeanor

didn't change at all.

He didn't even blink.

I think he fully expected

to get the verdict

and he fully expected

to get the death penalty,

and he expected to die

because I think he

wanted to be a martyr.

FENWICK:

He thought he was starting

the next American Revolution.

I think he did

exactly the opposite,

because he showed the human face

of what it really

means to attack a government,

a government of the people.

SCHWAB:

We were the government.

We weren't bad guys.

We were mothers and fathers

and daughters and sons

and grandparents

who had a job to do.

Supposedly you don't have

job satisfaction

if you work for the government.

I never heard that type of talk

in our office.

We were very proud

of what we did.

MCVEIGH:

Death penalty is...

would you call it an oxymoron?

Death is not a penalty,

it's an escape.

They treat me like a trophy,

like they've got me, they're

gonna kill me, "We've won."

They didn't win.

In the crudest terms: 168-1.

NORFLEET:

He died without a word.

There was no pain.

There was no regret.

Because I looked into his eyes

before they were closed

that last time,

and saw the same deep anger

and resentment and rage

that I had seen in that trial

several years before.

FLOWERS:

Justice was served.

That don't bring them back.

It just won't bring them back.

But it closes a door

on that chapter,

and that's exactly

what happened

when they lowered the boom

down on Timothy McVeigh.

JIM DENNY:

We didn't go to the execution.

We had no time to worry

about that.

Our total focus, regardless

of whatever it took,

was our children.

Our children and our family.

CLAUDIA DENNY:

We were very blessed.

But it's been hard for us.

I mean to watch Brandon

struggle, as he's struggled,

for the last 20 years.

Faith, family, and friends--

that's how we survived

through all of this.

But also it makes me

wonder why a little bit.

I mean, I don't question

it all the time,

but sometimes I question why.

And I do have a little bit

of the survivor guilt

that my children survived

and some of the others didn't.

(siren wailing)

GARRETT:

I still have hope that no one

ever again becomes so enraged

with hatred and prejudice

and judgment

that they think the only thing

to do is to kill

and harm other people.

I have hope that through

all of this

that love is stronger

than any terrorist attack.

I have hope that that would

never happen again.

♪ ♪

♪ ♪