Look how fast McCurry got his talking points (designed to "kill it"):
APRIL 20, 1995, THURSDAY
WHITE HOUSE BRIEFING
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, DCWhite House press briefing by Mike McCurry:
The Briefing Room - 5:37 P.M. EDTQ Mike, you have -- it seems clear that you're not going to talk about the investigative stuff, but could you just tell us is the president getting information on the various theories that law enforcement is constructing, or do they just basically say to him okay, now we have this information, that there are two specific people being sought? How deep is he getting into it?
MR. MCCURRY: Well, he is following the matters closely enough to make sure that proper law enforcement efforts are underway and that they are exploring every possible lead. I think it's up to those who are doing the investigation to discuss whatever theories or operational theories they have as to the investigation itself. And clearly again we would stress that a lot of the speculation as to these theories, as you can see today, have turned out to be wrong as the facts developed.Q Has he had any conversations with Louie Freeh, and has Mr. Freeh been over here today?
MR. MCCURRY: Director Freeh has not been because he's been very actively involved back at Washington. In fact, I can tell you that at one point earlier on today there was a discussion with the president about where he would be most usefully deployed, either here in Washington or in Oklahoma City, and we were satisfied -- the president was satisfied when he was told that the emergency response planning that had been done at Justice called for the director to be where he is doing what he's doing. So he is staying there and active. The president gets very good first-hand accounts of some of the law enforcement efforts either directly from the attorney general or from Deputy Attorney General Jamie Gorelick, who has been over here a couple of times and has participated in several of these senior team meetings I've been talking about.
Q What has turned out to be wrong?
MR. MCCURRY: What has turned out -- some of the mistaken speculative judgments by people who are on the air waves talking about things they don't know about.
Q Like what?
MR. MCCURRY: I'm not going to refer to any specific people, but I think there are a lot of theories that have turned out to be incorrect. There have been a lot of assumptions about who might be responsible that are just not correct to make at this point based on what the facts are. They may or may not be wrong. We don't -- as the attorney general has made abundantly clear, we don't have enough facts to speculate about motives, about connections, about sponsorship and so on and so forth.
(snip)Q Can I get you to expand on something, Mike? You just said a lot of the speculation you've seen today turned out to be wrong as the facts developed. Were you referring specifically to the fact that they're looking for two white males in the case?
MR. MCCURRY: There was just -- you know, there's been enormous amounts of speculative commentary by experts, people who I think are well-intentioned and whose news organizations are seeking out for commentary. They're not in a position to have facts that allow them to comment about specifically the Oklahoma City incident. And I think your audiences might, you know, jump to certain conclusions based on expert commentary that they're hearing that are not informed by the facts. And that's one of the reasons among many that many of us have urged people to sort of slow down a little bit and make sure you understand exactly what facts are worth reporting.
As you've just heard the FBI indicate earlier, all day long today there've been reports about arrests in Dallas and people in custody and, you know, the FBI is not aware of any of that, as they've just reported to you.
(snip)Q Mike, you say that this individual who's being brought back from London is a material witness --
MR. MCCURRY: I quoted the Justice Department saying that.
Q Was a material witness to what? Material witness to --
MR. MCCURRY: I quoted the Justice Department suggesting that they believe he might be a possible material witness in the investigation of this incident. If you want to follow, you know, please go to Justice on that.
(snip)
Q Mike, the way the president described the incident today suggested it was an attack on the United States, which would insinuate that it was a foreign-based effort rather than a domestically-based effort. Is that his intention?
MR. MCCURRY: The president made it very, very clear to you that you should not make any false judgments or assumptions about sponsorship or motives. He said that many, many times in that press conference, and that was very authoritative. What he was pointing out very clearly is that acts of terror are designed to disrupt the lives of all Americans, regardless of their sponsorship or motive, whether domestic or international.
They're designed to get us to fear ourselves and each other in ways that don't us to proceed with life the way we want to live it. And that in a sense disrupts what we are as Americans and what our country is. And that's the point the president was addressing himself to at noon.
And just for the record, this is the type of stuff they were working feverishly to "kill:"
CNN
NEWS 12:28 pm ET
April 19, 1995
Live Report
News; International
Washington Reacts to Oklahoma City Explosion
JILL DOUGHERTY; REID COLLINS
Washington officials react to today's Oklahoma City federal building explosion. FBI agents have been dispatched from the capital, while apparent terrorist connections are being explored.
(snip)
BOB CAIN: CNN's White House correspondent, Jill Dougherty, has been working that beat. Let's find out from Jill Dougherty what the White House has to say. Jill.
JILL DOUGHERTY, Correspondent: Reid, here at the White House, the president's chief of staff, Leon Panetta, has been holding a meeting to coordinate the administration response to the explosion in Oklahoma City. At that meeting are Jamie Gorelick [sp], the deputy attorney general, the chief of staff, Leon Panetta, and James Lee Witt, head of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
Press Secretary Mike McCurry says the president is very troubled by news reports of the blast. He was informed just at the top of the meeting with the Turkish prime minister. The president has asked his chief of staff to stay in contact with Attorney General Janet Reno on any assistance that might be needed. Reno has dispatched an FBI team to Oklahoma City.
The White House, at this point, is not speculating on any reason for the blast, but we do expect that we should be getting some more information a little bit later at a briefing by press secretary Mike McCurry. That is scheduled to take place at 1:15, just about a half-an-hour from now. Reid?
REID COLLINS: Jill, has anybody assigned, officially, any cause for this, any source for it?
JILL DOUGHERTY: Here at the White House, Reid, they have not. They are not saying anything. It seems very early for them.
REID COLLINS: All right, Jill Dougherty.
Jack McGeorge is a former U.S. Secret Service specialist in munitions counter-measures and technical security. He now runs his own public safety group. He's with us here in Washington. Jack, as you look at the scale of that building, as if it's been peeled down, what does it look like?
JACK McGEORGE, Terrorism Expert: Well, very clearly, Reid, it was a very large bomb. My guess would be it's 1,000 pounds or more, very possibly in a car or a small truck, probably parked very close to the front of the building as we see it - could have been in a one-layer underground, but very likely in the driveway. The secondary bombs that apparently have been found - my guess would be that they were intended for the rescuers, and to impede that rescue effort. The damage that I see looks most similar, historically, to the tremendous damage done to the U.S. embassy in Beirut in the early 1980s.
(snip)
REID COLLINS: What- what about the other devices that were allegedly found and then taken in custody? Are- are these valued pieces of clues?
JACK McGEORGE: Tremendously valuable. Since they did not explode and apparently have been successfully disarmed, from what we hear, that will give us a chance to look at how they twisted their wires, what kind of components did they use. Perhaps there is a unique component in there that we could trace right to the source. That is a tremendously valuable piece of evidence.(snip)