Oklahoma City
Andrew Gumbel, Roger G. Charles
eBook
(William Morrow, April 24, 2012)
The enhanced e-book edition of Oklahoma City allows you to delve deeper into Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles' investigation of the conspiracy behind the Oklahoma City bombing. This e-book contains exclusive research documents, including Terry Nichols' 15-page, hand-written confession, video interviews and audio clips with Andrew Gumbel, and extended text, not found in any other edition of the book.In the early morning of April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into downtown Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck containing a deadly fertilizer bomb that he and his army buddy Terry Nichols had made the previous day. He parked in a handicapped-parking zone, hopped out of the truck, and walked away into a series of alleys and streets. Shortly after 9:00 A.M., the bomb obliterated one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 people, including 19 infants and toddlers. McVeigh claimed he'd worked only with Nichols, and at least officially, the government believed him. But McVeigh's was just one version of events. And much of it was wrong.In Oklahoma City, veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles puncture the myth about what happened on that day—one that has persisted in the minds of the American public for nearly two decades. Working with unprecedented access to government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country's law enforcement agencies, which squandered opportunities to penetrate the radical right and prevent the bombing, and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved.To this day, the FBI heralds the Oklahoma City investigation as one of its great triumphs. In reality, though, its handling of the bombing foreshadowed many of the problems that made the country vulnerable to attack again on 9/11. Law enforcement agencies could not see past their own rivalries and underestimated the seriousness of the deadly rhetoric coming from the radical far right. In Oklahoma City, Gumbel and Charles give the fullest, most honest account to date of both the plot and the investigation, drawing a vivid portrait of the unfailingly compelling—driven, eccentric, fractious, funny, and wildly paranoid—characters involved.Among the book's exclusive revelations How, according to top law enforcement speaking on the record, the bombing could probably have been prevented with proper investigation of certain leads on the radical right. How, and why, the FBI and ATF did not cooperate and did not pursue some of the country's most dangerous radical criminals despite evidence that they were planning a war against the government. That much of Timothy McVeigh's plot was inspired, and directed, by the broader radical Patriot movement. That the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was probably not the original target, and why McVeigh switched plans at the last minute. How a number of key errors of judgment and media leaks sabotaged efforts to unearth evidence about co-conspirators beyond McVeigh and Nichols. That at least seven people connected to the radical right either had no alibi for April 19, 1995, or lied about their whereabouts, but were never investigated or even questioned about the bombing—even when some of them were fingered as possible suspects by government informants or their fellow criminals.Please note that due to the large file size of these special features this enhanced e-book may take longer to download then a standard e-book.