U.S. Had Data Hinting of Okla. Bombing

WASHINGTON - Two federal law enforcement agencies had information before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing suggesting that white supremacists living nearby were considering an attack on government buildings, but the intelligence was never passed on to federal officials in the state, documents and interviews show.

FBI (news - web sites) headquarters officials in Washington were so concerned that white separatists at the Elohim City compound in Muldrow, Okla., might lash out on April 19, 1995 — the day Timothy McVeigh (news - web sites) did choose — that a month earlier they questioned a reformed white supremacist familiar with an earlier plot to bomb the same Alfred P. Murrah federal building (news - web sites) McVeigh selected.

"I think their only real concern back then was Elohim City," said Kerry Noble, the witness questioned by the FBI on March 28, 1995 — just a few weeks before McVeigh detonated a truck bomb outside the building and killed more than 160 people.

Noble told The Associated Press that his FBI questioners appeared particularly concerned about what Elohim City members might do on April 19 because one of their heroes, Wayne Snell, was being executed that day and another, James Ellison, was returning to Oklahoma after ending parole in Florida.

FBI officials confirmed Noble's account, including concerns the group at Elohim City might strike on April 19.

Snell, Ellison and Noble had plotted to attack the Murrah building in 1983 with plastic explosives and rocket launchers, according to Noble and FBI officials. The plan never reached fruition before the group was arrested after a siege with law enforcement in 1985.

The FBI wasn't alone in its concerns, according to thousands of pages of federal investigative memos and handwritten notes obtained by AP, which portray government miscommunications that mirror the intelligence failures before the Sept. 11 attacks.

In the days before he was executed for a 1980s murder of a pawn broker, Snell began making threats from his Arkansas prison that there would be a bombing or explosion on April 19 to avenge his death, according to prison and FBI officials. He also had contact in his last days with members of Elohim City, who later took his remains back to their compound.

"Some of the corrections officers heard (Snell) in a visitors room talking with people, saying there would be a large explosion or event of some type. He said the immediate reaction would be to blame it on Middle Eastern types. This was prior," said Alan Ables, a former Arkansas corrections official.

Separately, the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms had an informant inside Elohim City who had disclosed before the bombing that white supremacists were "preparing for a war against U.S. government." Other reports quoted members of the compound discussing plans for "assassinations, bombings and mass shootings."

The government also had information suggesting that compound members had detonated a 500-pound fertilizer bomb like the one McVeigh would use and had visited Oklahoma City several times. The FBI could never verify the detonation.

The ATF informant would tell the FBI shortly after McVeigh's bombing that Elohim City members had specifically discussed targeting federal buildings in Oklahoma for "destruction through bombings."

But when ATF considered raiding Elohim City two months before McVeigh struck, the then-FBI agent in charge in Oklahoma, Bob Ricks, stopped the plan.

"I do remember I told them I didn't want another Waco on our hands," Ricks said, comparing the danger of a raid on Elohim City to the ill-fated ATF action on David Koresh's compound in Waco, Texas, in 1993. "At the time, they hadn't told me everything they apparently knew."

Neither law enforcement agency passed on any information or concerns to the agency that managed the federal buildings in Oklahoma City.

"We never received any warning of a specific threat against the Murrah building or any other building in Oklahoma," said Viki Reath, a spokeswoman for the General Services Administration that manages federal buildings.

Federal investigators said that while they had concerns, they had no information before April 19 about a specific target and had not even heard of McVeigh until his arrest, making it impossible to issue a useful warning.

They said they had concerns about the credibility of the informant and afterward investigated whether McVeigh received help from Elohim City and concluded there were no additional accomplices.

"We believe we conducted an exhaustive investigation that pursued every possible lead and ran it to ground," FBI spokesman Mike Kortan said. "We are confident that those who committed the crime have been brought to justice."

Elohim City — which means "City of God" in Hebrew — is located about three hours east of Oklahoma City, and the compound is dotted with rudimentary buildings that were frequented by leaders of the white supremacist movement in the 1990s.

The ATF agent who supervised the key informant inside Elohim City, disclosed in sealed court testimony in 1997 that she in fact had received information before McVeigh struck that federal buildings might be at risk.

The informant, Carol Howe, mentioned "threats to blow up federal buildings, didn't she?" a lawyer asked ATF agent Angela Finley Gram in sealed testimony reviewed by AP.

"Yes," Gram answered. She said she considered the threats "general militia rhetoric" used frequently by members of Elohim City.

ATF documents show the informant provided agents with fragments of practice explosives detonated by Elohim City members and had suspicions about a possible target. "It is understood that ATF is the main enemy of the people of EC," one report states. ATF offices were in the building McVeigh struck.

Gram also disclosed that Howe provided, before McVeigh's attack, a copy of "The Turner Diaries," a book about a plot to blow up a federal building with a truck bomb that was circulating around Elohim City. Prosecutors later would contend the book inspired McVeigh's attack.

A former top law enforcement official said the documents from the ATF informant — whom the government later turned against and tried to prosecute unsuccessfully — provided plenty of detail to warrant action.

"They certainly should have taken some action," said Robert Sanders, who served as the ATF's No. 2 official in the 1980s and later reviewed documents on behalf of the Oklahoma City informant. "You had reliable information from a reliable informant."

Sanders said the whole case suffered from the same miscommunications and missed signs seen before Sept. 11. "It is the lack of coordination — intelligence going one way, and then going into a black hole," he said.

Dan Defenbaugh, the retired FBI agent who supervised the Oklahoma City bombing investigation, agreed. He said he doesn't recall ever being told that his own Washington headquarters had debriefed Noble, the former white supremacist, about the earlier Murrah bombing plot or the suspicions of an attack on April 19.

"The biggest problem is we don't know what we know," Defenbaugh said. "I blame most of it on antiquated computers inside the bureau, which can't find information we need to have for investigations."

McVeigh's own trial attorney suspected McVeigh had received help from Elohim City, but the attorney failed to persuade a judge to allow the theory at trial — even after some of the ATF documents came to light.

The documents show evidence of miscommunications between the FBI and ATF, and within the agencies themselves.

For instance, ATF officials had evidence that the leader of the compound, Robert Millar, was among those inciting violence against the government in the weeks before McVeigh struck.

Millar "gave a sermon soliciting violence against the U.S. government" and "he brought forth his soldiers and instructed them to take whatever action necessary against the U.S. government," one ATF report from January 1995 said.

Millar made a trip to Oklahoma City about that time and on the day of McVeigh's bombing traveled to Arkansas to comfort Snell before his execution.

But ATF did not know that Millar was a "source" for the FBI — someone who provided occasional information about the compound without getting paid. That information came out two years later in court testimony by an FBI agent.

The ATF also didn't know the FBI had concerns about the compound until an Oklahoma state trooper tipped the ATF in late February 1995 that the FBI also had an investigation on Elohim City.

Ricks said his FBI office in Oklahoma didn't have an ongoing investigation and he was unaware of the Washington FBI debriefing of Noble, the reformed white supremacist familiar with the earlier plot to blow up the Murrah building.

Noble said as soon as McVeigh struck he became certain there was a connection with the earlier plot.

"I don't see any other possibility, honestly. It is not a coincidence that he picked April 19, and even if it was, to pick the same building that we had picked? There are only a handful of people who knew about that," Noble said.

FBI officials said they suspected Millar was initially involved, but he cooperated with the investigation and was eventually ruled out as a suspect.

Millar died in 2001. His former attorney, Kirk Lyons, said he doubts his client had anything to do with McVeigh's attack and that Millar's fiery rhetoric was aimed more at uniting members at his compound than inciting violence. "He was trying to keep his followers together," Lyons said.

Though ATF agents had reports of dramatic threats against the government, they focused their investigation on making a gun violation case against a German citizen there, documents show.

Howe's identity as an informant was compromised shortly after McVeigh's bombing. The ATF noted in late May 1995 that Millar suspected she was a government informant and she was pulled for fear of her safety. The government later tried to prosecute her on an unrelated charge, but a jury acquitted her.

Thanks for the update.

I have just phoned and emailed Arlen Specter(R-Pa) and Curt Weldon (R-Pa), my congressman, to ask for updates on the progress of the investigation of Jayna's claim of an Iraqi connection in the OKC bombing.

You may recall, that a local Philly radio talk show host, Michael Smerconish, broadcast his show a while back from Specter's office in DC. Jayna Davis was the guest, along with a counter-terrorism expert, and a former DOD guy. She laid out her facts to Specter and the radio audience.

Specter appeared to agree that the information she presented warranted an explanation from the DOJ. He had previously contacted the DOJ about this matter, and in his words,"His (staff's) inquiry had been rebuffed."

During the show, Michael said that Curt Weldon was also apprised of the evidence Jayna presented, and had agreed to look into it.

To tell the truth, I don't feel very confident. We can't even get people to believe that Iraq is a threat to us now. Imagine this information coming out now - when we are trying to make a connection to Iraqi terrorism. The peace at any price crowd would howl that the administration is desparate to make a connection to Iraq and manufacturing evidence.

Oh well, we'll keep on pressing for info.

Hard Left's "Right-Wing" Kin

A version of the "phantom cell" design was used by accused bank robbers Richard Lee Guthrie and Peter Kevin Langan, who were arrested in January and charged with a two-year string of 18 bank robberies in seven states. Guthrie and Langan claimed to belong to an underground network called the "Aryan Republican Army." "If you ever have studied the IRA [Irish Republican Army], you will understand more about ... guerrilla organization," Guthrie told reporters from jail. "You will understand what is eventually coming to this country."

Guthrie also claimed that an April 1st bank robbery in Spokane, Washington was the work of a "phantom cell." The robbers, who were photographed wearing fatigues, left behind a note claiming to belong to the "Phineas Priesthood," a title conferred upon Aryan enforcers of "racial purity." As a diversion, the robbers detonated a pipe bomb at offices of the Spokane Spokesman-Review newspaper shortly before raiding the bank. "That was one of the cell groups," Guthrie told reporters. "I recognized it. All the patterns were correct."

To some, it will seem curious that members of a secretive underground movement would discuss their tactics so freely with a hostile press. But the case of Guthrie and Langan is fraught with such oddities. According to the Los Angeles Times, Richard Guthrie has been under Secret Service scrutiny since 1991, when he allegedly threatened then-President George Bush. To keep tabs on Guthrie, federal agents recruited a close friend to act as an informant -- none other than Peter Langan, whom the feds sprung from a Georgia jail cell in 1993. At the time, Langan was awaiting trial for robbery.

Guthrie is a court-martialed former sailor who left the Navy in 1983 after an unsuccessful attempt to join the elite Navy SEALs. Langan, whose father was a CIA officer, has listed his occupation as "revolutionary" on financial affidavits. In the apartment the duo rented in Columbus, Ohio, investigators found pipe bombs, handguns, police uniforms, wigs, and a self-produced videotape entitled The Aryan Republican Army Presents: The Armed Struggle Underground. A masked figure in the video describes the group's objectives: "Eliminate the government, from the federal government to the county seats. Exterminate Hymie [a derogatory reference to Jews]. Repatriate all non-whites to their homes. Return the country to the Bible...."

Scripted Role?

Although the press has had access to Guthrie, Langan is being held in isolation at an undisclosed location. He narrowly missed death in the gun battle that took place during his January 18th arrest, when one of the shots fired at him by federal agents grazed his scalp. According to his attorney, Langan believes that his arrest was actually an assassination attempt and that his earlier dealings with the feds have led to his present problems. Though this contention is entirely self-serving, the accumulated oddities in the matter of Guthrie and Langan might reasonably provoke the suspicion that they were playing a scripted role.

The robberies for which Guthrie and Langan stand accused netted an estimated $500,000, at least half of which is believed to have been funneled to remnants of the "Order," a terrorist offshoot of the Aryan Nations which conducted its own campaign of robbery, counterfeiting, and murder in the mid-1980s. Robert Matthews, who organized and led the Order, perished in a standoff with federal officials on Washington's Whidbey Island in December 1984.

McCurtain Daily Gazette (Idabel, Oklahoma)

1 July 1997

THE REV. ROBERT MILLAR IDENTIFIED AS FBI INFORMANT

By J.D. Cash

Tulsa-- Near pandemonium broke out in a federal courtroom here Monday when a senior agent of the Federal Bureau of Investigation shocked observers by telling the court that the spiritual leader of Elohim City, the Rev. Robert Millar, was a confidential informant for the FBI.

The McCurtain Daily Gazette has long been reporting that Elohim City is a religious and paramilitary compound in east-central Oklahoma that is frequented by some of the most dangerous members of the neo-Nazi iunderground in the United States and Canada.

Although residents of the cult have continued to deny it publicly, the Gazette has reported that its sources believe one of those shadowy figures was Timothy McVeigh.

Stories published in this newspaper have also exposed Elohim City as the center of a wide-ranging conspiracy to overthrow the federal government by members of a group called the Aryan Republican Army.

Several of those members have since been arrested on charges related to a string of bank robberies across the midwestern United States.

The incredible revelation that the leader of Elohim City himself was part of a government intelligence operation came during a pre-trial hearing associated with the upcoming trial of another confidential informant and frequenter of the compound, Carol E. Howe.

Howe, a former Tulsa beauty queen, debutante and one-time paid undercover informant for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, is scheduled to stand trial later this month for conspiracy charges associated with making bomb threats and possession of bomb-making components.

Howe was indicted shortly after the Gazette reported that she intended to be a key witness in the trial of Timothy McVeigh.

U.S. District Judge Richard Matsch, who presided over the McVeigh trial, refused to let Howe testify in Denver-- ruling that her information that Elohim City was the center of the bombing conspiracy "might confuse the jury."

Under questioning Monday by Howe attorney Clark Brewster of Tulsa, Special Agent Peter Rickel stunned everyone when he reluctantly admitted that the man Elohim City cult members call "Grandpa" is really a cooperating source for the FBI.

Millar's status as a confidential informant began in the fall of 1994. The FBI admitted in court that Millar was a paid confidential informant, although the amount of his paycheck was not revealed.

When Rickel disclosed this startling information, a senior FBI agent and several U.S. attorneys bolted from the courtroom in an agitated state.

Millar's encampment was heretofore considered by experts in domestic terrorism to be the "Switzerland" of the neo-Nazi movement in the United States.

Elohim City, a 1,000-acre area of rolling timberland, is the residence of some 80 followers. But more importantly, it has played host to some of this nation's most notable subversives.

Thus Millar's position as a mole for the FBI could explain why the compound has never been raided.

Despite its use as a hideout for gunrunners, drug dealers, bank robbers and suspected members of the conspiracy that bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Elohim City has enjoyed a reputation as a place fugitives can live without fear of arrest.

In the weeks before the Oklahoma City bombing, BATF agent Angela Findley had planned to raid the compound and arrest its security advisor, Andreas carl Strassmeir.

Strassmeir, an illegal alien who migrated to Elohim City from Germany, was supected by Findley of converting semi-automatic weapons to machine guns as well as plotting with other Elohim City residents and visitors to bomb federal installations.

Carol Howe reported to Findley during the time she worked for the BATF.

Howe told Findley that Strassmeir was the ringleader in the plot to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building and that Millar was preaching twice a day to his flock that the group had to act by April 19, 1995, or they would end up like the Branch Davidians in Waco.

The arrest of Strassmeir was scrubbed after senior members of the BATF, the FBI and the U.S. Attorney's office met in February, 1995 and discussed Findley's plan.

Sources have told the Gazette that Strassmeir was also an important source of intelligence for the U.S. government.

In January, 1996, shortly after it was discovered that it was Strassmeir that Timothy McVeigh had called for in the days before the bombing, the German national fled to his native Berlin with the aid of German intelligence officers.

With Millar now exposed, the loss of Elohim City as a virtual nest of spies for the U.S. intelligence community is almost assured.

But such a loss could have consequences far beyond the obvious.

If Millar was reporting a wider conspiracy to bomb the Oklahoma City federal building, and those reports were not subsequently turned over to Timothy McVeigh's defense team, then the withholding of such critical information by the FBI could get McVeigh a new trial.

Those reports, as well as Howe's, will likely be sought by the defense teams for both McVeigh and Terry Nichols and may also be subpoenaed by the grand jury convened in Oklahoma City to investigate the bombing.

Also those reports could prove important in several civil suits that are pending against the government for its alleged failure to notify the occupants of the Murrah building that there was a heightened risk of danger on April 19, 1995. And Congress is also looking into the government's intelligence role in the bombing.

Calls to the compound to get Millar's comments about the situation were not returned.

END OF STORY

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