WEBVTT - FB 101: McVeigh’s Mentor: How Henry Ford Inspired the Oklahoma City Bombing 0:00:01.560 --> 0:00:04.120 We all need a break from the constant cycle to 0:00:04.240 --> 0:00:08.520 learn something new, to gain new perspectives. The Great Courses 0:00:08.520 --> 0:00:11.399 Plus streaming service is an excellent resource to expand our 0:00:11.440 --> 0:00:14.240 knowledge on a variety of subjects or pick up a 0:00:14.240 --> 0:00:17.239 new hobby. I've been enjoying the Great Courses Plus while 0:00:17.280 --> 0:00:21.360 researching this season of flashback lectures like Playball, the rise 0:00:21.400 --> 0:00:24.720 of Baseball is America's pastime, History of the Supreme Court, 0:00:25.000 --> 0:00:27.920 and Battlefield Europe have helped me connect the dots on 0:00:28.040 --> 0:00:31.680 several stories from history. Right now, they're giving our listeners 0:00:31.680 --> 0:00:35.240 a special limited time offer a free month of unlimited 0:00:35.280 --> 0:00:38.519 access to their entire library. Sign up now through our 0:00:38.560 --> 0:00:41.760 special U r L go to the Great Courses Plus 0:00:41.800 --> 0:00:45.920 dot com slash aussy. That's the Great Courses Plus dot 0:00:45.960 --> 0:00:49.640 Com slash o z y the Great Courses Plus dot 0:00:49.680 --> 0:00:59.720 Com slash AUSSI application Whether to or Unity Application. April 0:00:59.800 --> 0:01:04.280 nine teenth, just past nine in the morning, a meeting 0:01:04.319 --> 0:01:07.160 of the Water Resources Board had just begun inside the 0:01:07.200 --> 0:01:12.000 Alfred Piemura Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City. Basically, there 0:01:12.040 --> 0:01:17.240 are four elements that I have to rast receive information 0:01:17.280 --> 0:01:34.440 regarding a massive car bomb exploded outside of a large 0:01:34.440 --> 0:01:39.200 federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, shattering that building, killing children, 0:01:39.560 --> 0:01:43.520 killing federal employees, military men, and civilians. The bomb weigh 0:01:43.600 --> 0:01:46.920 nearly seven thousand pounds, nearly three quarters of the weight 0:01:46.959 --> 0:01:50.400 of the nuclear device dropped on Hiroshima. Most people were 0:01:50.440 --> 0:01:53.520 already inside at work here when the blast ripped the 0:01:53.600 --> 0:01:57.480 nine story federal office building apart, shattering floors and the 0:01:57.560 --> 0:02:01.680 offices inside. Most devastating of all the day care center 0:02:01.720 --> 0:02:05.000 on the second floor, destroying that was where most of 0:02:05.000 --> 0:02:10.239 the children who were killed had been. The first clue 0:02:10.280 --> 0:02:13.320 as to those responsible for the bombing, the worst domestic 0:02:13.440 --> 0:02:16.880 terror attack ever on American soil was an eight foot 0:02:16.919 --> 0:02:20.360 piece of twisted metal. It landed nearly six hundred feet 0:02:20.360 --> 0:02:23.240 away from the blast site. It was the axle to 0:02:23.280 --> 0:02:26.480 the writer rental truck that had carried the homemade bomb. 0:02:27.240 --> 0:02:33.040 The truck had a vehicle identification number stamped on that axle. 0:02:33.680 --> 0:02:36.440 It was thanks to the vehicle I D that FBI 0:02:36.560 --> 0:02:39.600 agents were able to track down and arrest to suspect. 0:02:40.200 --> 0:02:43.840 The U. S. Attorney General Janet Reno, reported his capture 0:02:43.919 --> 0:02:48.960 to the nation. Timothy McVeigh, aged twenty seven, was arrested 0:02:48.960 --> 0:02:53.040 by local authorities. Twenty five years ago, Timothy mcveigh's heinous 0:02:53.080 --> 0:02:57.240 act killed one hundred and sixty eight people, including nineteen children. 0:02:57.880 --> 0:02:59.799 But here's something they didn't tell you on the new 0:03:00.320 --> 0:03:03.680 or teach you in school about what happened in Oklahoma City. 0:03:05.120 --> 0:03:08.200 A Ford truck may have delivered the fateful payload that 0:03:08.360 --> 0:03:13.160 terrible April morning, but Timothy mcveigh's act was really the 0:03:13.280 --> 0:03:15.880 end of a chain of events that began long before 0:03:15.919 --> 0:03:19.280 that day, the legacy of a toxic package of lies 0:03:19.320 --> 0:03:23.280 and hate that began seventy five years earlier with another Ford, 0:03:23.800 --> 0:03:27.840 one whose name we associate with mass production, not mass murder. 0:03:31.360 --> 0:03:34.560 Welcome to Flashback, a new podcast from AZZI that aims 0:03:34.600 --> 0:03:37.040 to bring the pass back to life like never before. 0:03:37.640 --> 0:03:41.000 I'm Sean Braswell, and I'll be your visiting professor, taking 0:03:41.040 --> 0:03:43.120 you on a journey through history that will change how 0:03:43.160 --> 0:03:46.280 you look at the world today. Imagine Flashback is that 0:03:46.440 --> 0:03:49.360 history class you always wanted to take but can never 0:03:49.440 --> 0:03:53.120 find one where there are no textbooks, no exams, and 0:03:53.200 --> 0:03:56.560 no note taking, just the most compelling and surprising stories 0:03:56.600 --> 0:03:59.040 from the past, told by those who know them most 0:03:59.080 --> 0:04:03.920 about them. We're all living in the ripple effects of history, 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:06.920 and so in the first seasonal flashback, we're going to 0:04:06.960 --> 0:04:09.680 connect the dots on some of the most incredible, unintended 0:04:09.680 --> 0:04:12.880 consequences from the past. We'll learn how the invention of 0:04:12.920 --> 0:04:17.000 air conditioning changed the landscape of American politics, how Hitler's 0:04:17.080 --> 0:04:20.400 doctor changed the course of World War Two, and much more. 0:04:20.880 --> 0:04:25.200 Today's lesson is a cautionary tale about hate, free speech, 0:04:25.680 --> 0:04:34.599 and giving a big platform to little men. Actually, I 0:04:34.680 --> 0:04:38.480 remember I was in the sixth grade. Now we're going 0:04:38.520 --> 0:04:41.040 to sating games classic school at the time. This is 0:04:41.120 --> 0:04:43.839 Latrese Sutton. She was thirteen at the time of the 0:04:43.839 --> 0:04:47.039 Oklahoma City bombing. I remember being in class and the 0:04:47.040 --> 0:04:49.240 whole class been en up and looking out the window 0:04:49.320 --> 0:04:53.279 and seeing the coming out from far away. We didn't 0:04:53.279 --> 0:04:55.359 know what it was at the time, but it shook 0:04:55.400 --> 0:04:59.240 our school building. That was free massive. That was not 0:04:59.320 --> 0:05:01.960 the only s line that something was amiss. My mom 0:05:02.040 --> 0:05:04.359 was supposed to lux with me that day and she 0:05:04.440 --> 0:05:07.800 didn't show up during a lunch period, and since she 0:05:07.880 --> 0:05:10.720 was a nursing assistant, I thought maybe she got called 0:05:10.760 --> 0:05:12.800 into the hospital to help with all the people that 0:05:12.839 --> 0:05:16.360 were injured. Um so I'm thinking thing of it. Latrese 0:05:16.480 --> 0:05:19.480 ate lunch with her friends and went to recess as usual. Well, 0:05:19.560 --> 0:05:24.960 my aunt came to pick us up from school. Um, 0:05:25.040 --> 0:05:27.520 she was crying, and I think at that point we 0:05:27.600 --> 0:05:31.240 kind of knew something was wrong. Sutton's mom, Teresa, had 0:05:31.240 --> 0:05:34.160 gone alone downtown to the Mura Federal Building to get 0:05:34.160 --> 0:05:37.080 a Social Security card for Sutton's eight month old brother 0:05:37.279 --> 0:05:45.520 when mcveigh's homemade bomb exploded. She was thirty three. Four 0:05:45.600 --> 0:05:49.040 years before Oklahoma City, Timothy McVeigh made his first killing. 0:05:49.520 --> 0:05:53.040 He received the Army Commendation Medal for it. Just two 0:05:53.080 --> 0:05:57.040 hours ago, Allied air forces began an attack on military 0:05:57.120 --> 0:06:01.360 targets in Iraq and Kuwait. In January, the U S 0:06:01.400 --> 0:06:04.160 went to war against Iraq and the first Persian Gulf War. 0:06:04.640 --> 0:06:06.840 One of the first American soldiers to enter the enemy 0:06:06.920 --> 0:06:10.160 nation was a twenty two year old infantryman from Buffalo, 0:06:10.200 --> 0:06:13.680 New York. In the Gulf, you saw combat. This is 0:06:13.720 --> 0:06:17.000 correspondent Ed Bradley in a two thousand interview that Sixty 0:06:17.000 --> 0:06:19.719 Minutes did with McVeigh in his Death Row prison cell, 0:06:20.400 --> 0:06:23.840 and McVeigh was particularly open with his past. I did 0:06:24.480 --> 0:06:30.040 you fired a weapon at yes and killed soldiers. Yes, 0:06:30.640 --> 0:06:33.440 McVeigh was a gunner in a Bradley fighting vehicle, and 0:06:33.480 --> 0:06:35.840 he was a damn good shot. One day, his crew 0:06:35.839 --> 0:06:38.839 spotted an enemy machine gun nest in the distance. It 0:06:38.920 --> 0:06:41.400 was more than a mile away, but poised a major 0:06:41.440 --> 0:06:44.760 threat to American troops. When one of the Iraqi gunners 0:06:44.760 --> 0:06:47.720 briefly came up from his position, McVeigh popped him right 0:06:47.760 --> 0:06:50.800 in the chest. The lethal shot, taken from more than 0:06:50.960 --> 0:06:54.359 nineteen football fields away, would help force the surrender of 0:06:54.360 --> 0:06:57.599 thirty other Iraqis from that position and become the stuff 0:06:57.640 --> 0:07:00.880 of legend in the Army. MC They had been using 0:07:00.920 --> 0:07:04.840 firearms since boyhood. Tim McVeigh was raised in a rural 0:07:05.000 --> 0:07:08.880 town outside of Buffalo, New York. This is lou Michelle. 0:07:08.960 --> 0:07:11.239 He and his colleague at the Buffalo News, Dan Herbeck, 0:07:11.320 --> 0:07:14.840 spent seventy three hours interviewing McVeigh after the bombing. And 0:07:14.920 --> 0:07:18.240 at a very young age, his grandpa Ed taught him 0:07:18.280 --> 0:07:23.760 how to shoot guns rifles along the erie canal. Ed 0:07:23.840 --> 0:07:26.360 taught to him about safety. You just don't shoot a 0:07:26.440 --> 0:07:29.920 gun anywhere because you could hurt somebody. The son of 0:07:29.960 --> 0:07:33.080 a factory worker, young Tim had a typical boyhood. He 0:07:33.160 --> 0:07:37.000 loved pro football, comic books, and battles between good and evil. 0:07:37.400 --> 0:07:40.040 He even made his own Star Wars lightsabers by attaching 0:07:40.080 --> 0:07:43.920 flashlights to cardboard tubes. He was known as Noodle McVeigh 0:07:44.040 --> 0:07:48.760 because he was very slender, and he was a target 0:07:48.800 --> 0:07:52.880 for bullies, thus his hatred for bullies, and he came 0:07:52.920 --> 0:07:57.320 to realize the American government was the ultimate bully. But 0:07:57.400 --> 0:08:00.600 he didn't come to that realization right away, and in 0:08:00.680 --> 0:08:05.160 May he joined the Army. And one of the things 0:08:05.280 --> 0:08:10.000 he told Dan Herbeck and I was that the Army 0:08:10.040 --> 0:08:14.560 had all the ammunition anyone could ever want. McVeigh loved guns, 0:08:14.840 --> 0:08:18.000 and he loved the Army. At first, other soldiers might 0:08:18.040 --> 0:08:21.080 have hated the early morning wake ups, the strenuous training, 0:08:21.320 --> 0:08:25.840 the uniform inspections, and the discipline McVeigh thrived in late 0:08:25.920 --> 0:08:28.640 nineteen but they learned he was on the fast track 0:08:28.680 --> 0:08:31.840 to being in the US Special Forces, the elite of 0:08:31.880 --> 0:08:36.520 the elite. Then, just before his Special Forces tryout, McVeigh 0:08:36.600 --> 0:08:39.680 learned the Army had a different plan for him. A rock. 0:08:40.400 --> 0:08:42.960 I went over there, hyped up just like everyone else. 0:08:43.240 --> 0:08:45.800 This is McVeigh again. In that sixty minutes interview, not 0:08:45.840 --> 0:08:50.480 only is Saddam evil. All Iraqis are evil? Uh. What 0:08:50.600 --> 0:08:53.920 I experienced, though, is an entirely different ballgame. Dan Herbert 0:08:53.920 --> 0:08:58.480 co authored mcveigh's authorized biography, American Terrorist with Lou Michelle, 0:08:58.760 --> 0:09:03.400 and he looked at US involvement in the Persian Gulf 0:09:03.400 --> 0:09:09.120 War as a giant, cruel bully picking on the people 0:09:09.200 --> 0:09:12.480 of Iraq. By the time he got out of the army, 0:09:13.200 --> 0:09:16.520 he literally hated the US government, the government he had 0:09:16.559 --> 0:09:19.320 worked for. By the end of the year, McVeigh quit 0:09:19.360 --> 0:09:23.480 the army and without the discipline, paycheck, and authorized violence 0:09:23.480 --> 0:09:27.720 that it afforded him, McVeigh, the bitter anti government gun lover, 0:09:28.160 --> 0:09:31.120 was a loose cannon just waiting for a spark to 0:09:31.240 --> 0:09:38.840 light him up. Henry Ford was a lot like Timothy 0:09:38.920 --> 0:09:41.760 McVeigh in some ways. He came from a simple, working 0:09:41.800 --> 0:09:44.520 class home near Lake Erie, and he grew to hate 0:09:44.520 --> 0:09:47.640 war and those he believed to be behind it. This 0:09:47.720 --> 0:09:51.280 is Victoria Weisti, a legal historian and author of Henry 0:09:51.280 --> 0:09:56.960 Ford's War on Jews. Ford was a fierce, fierce pacifist 0:09:57.600 --> 0:10:04.440 and went on record publicly criticizing the way that World 0:10:04.440 --> 0:10:07.920 War One was being conducted. The eccentric tycoon may have 0:10:07.960 --> 0:10:11.160 made his fortune from the automobile, but in nineteen fifteen 0:10:11.200 --> 0:10:13.640 he decided to take a boat to Europe in a 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:17.199 bold effort in the war through diplomacy. It proved to 0:10:17.240 --> 0:10:21.000 be a giant fiasco. Ford's reputation took a beating in 0:10:21.040 --> 0:10:25.040 the papers. The Chicago Tribune called him quote an ignorant, 0:10:25.040 --> 0:10:30.400 idealist and an anarchist. And Ford didn't particularly care for 0:10:30.480 --> 0:10:34.679 being called ignorant or an anarchist, so he sued for Liabel, 0:10:34.920 --> 0:10:37.920 which made matters even worse. Unable to stop the press 0:10:37.960 --> 0:10:44.200 from criticizing him, Ford tried something else, so in he 0:10:44.360 --> 0:10:48.599 purchased a newspaper in his own hometown, Dearborn, Michigan. It 0:10:48.679 --> 0:10:51.199 was about to go defunct. It was called the Dearborn Independent, 0:10:52.320 --> 0:10:56.840 and he even purchased a printing press. He brought it 0:10:56.880 --> 0:11:01.800 to the Ford Motor Company factory and he retooled it himself. 0:11:02.440 --> 0:11:04.960 Ford may not have called the national media fake news, 0:11:05.120 --> 0:11:07.360 but he was tired of the newspapers spreading what he 0:11:07.400 --> 0:11:10.000 considered lies. He wanted to have a means for reaching 0:11:10.120 --> 0:11:13.760 ordinary Americans directly and unfiltered, and it wasn't just to 0:11:13.800 --> 0:11:17.600 protect his own reputation. Or sell more cars. Ford was 0:11:17.640 --> 0:11:20.440 deeply concerned with where America was going as a nation, 0:11:20.760 --> 0:11:24.920 and he wanted to use the Dearborn Independent to reshape 0:11:26.080 --> 0:11:32.680 cultural practices, um people's leisure time activities, how immigrants were 0:11:33.000 --> 0:11:38.840 assimilated into American culture, and what kind of politics should prevail. 0:11:39.240 --> 0:11:41.840 Ford used every means at his disposal to bolster his 0:11:41.840 --> 0:11:45.840 newspapers readership. Free copies were sent to schools, libraries, and 0:11:45.960 --> 0:11:49.439 universities across the country. Ford dealers were even required to 0:11:49.480 --> 0:11:52.800 fill quotas for newspaper subscriptions, just like they did for 0:11:52.840 --> 0:11:57.400 their car sales. And because they never took subscriptions and 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:03.160 they never sold ads, it was a complete loss leader 0:12:03.320 --> 0:12:06.640 for Ford, but he didn't care even if it did 0:12:06.679 --> 0:12:09.600 not make him money. Ford realized the power that having 0:12:09.600 --> 0:12:12.920 his own print media pedestal gave him. He had entered 0:12:12.920 --> 0:12:16.040 the newspaper business to counter the lies he believed were 0:12:16.040 --> 0:12:19.040 being spread about him, and it didn't take long for 0:12:19.120 --> 0:12:31.280 Henry Ford to start spreading his own. Do you have 0:12:31.320 --> 0:12:35.240 an interesting tale about unintended consequences from history or your 0:12:35.240 --> 0:12:38.319 own life, Please share it with us by emailing flashback 0:12:38.400 --> 0:12:41.880 at Aussie dot com. That's flashback at o z y 0:12:42.040 --> 0:12:56.320 dot Com. Henry Ford learned to lean on his newspaper 0:12:56.360 --> 0:12:58.680 to help make sense of the world and then spread 0:12:58.720 --> 0:13:02.920 his own opinions. Timothy McVeigh leaned on his favorite book, 0:13:03.360 --> 0:13:06.240 So McVeigh found out about The Turner Diaries through a 0:13:06.280 --> 0:13:09.760 net and Soldier of Fortune magazine J. M. Burger is 0:13:09.800 --> 0:13:12.600 the author of the book Extremism and an expert on 0:13:12.679 --> 0:13:16.200 white supremacist groups in America. And it was, you know, 0:13:16.320 --> 0:13:19.640 sort of nominally a magazine for mercenaries, so they published 0:13:19.679 --> 0:13:23.440 a lot of conspiracy theories. They were very supportive of 0:13:23.480 --> 0:13:26.839 the militia movements in the United States. McVeigh ordered the 0:13:26.880 --> 0:13:30.400 book advertised and Soldier of Fortune. The Turner Diaries is 0:13:30.400 --> 0:13:34.120 a dystopian novel by a white supremacist named William Luther Pierce. 0:13:34.480 --> 0:13:37.760 Pierce describes the journey of a man named Earl Turner 0:13:38.200 --> 0:13:44.679 who is involved in white supremacists organizations that were initially 0:13:44.760 --> 0:13:48.559 kind of covert terrorist organizations, and eventually it becomes an 0:13:48.640 --> 0:13:52.120 organized insurgency. Afraid that the liberal US government wants to 0:13:52.160 --> 0:13:55.400 take guns away from honest citizens. Earl Turner and the 0:13:55.480 --> 0:13:59.160 right wing insurgency fight back. In the course of this insurgency, 0:13:59.720 --> 0:14:03.680 there nuclear exchanges on US soil, millions of people die, 0:14:04.360 --> 0:14:08.600 and eventually the white supremacists when over most of the 0:14:08.640 --> 0:14:12.319 country and they institute something that is called the Day 0:14:12.320 --> 0:14:15.679 of the Rope, which is a day of revenge on 0:14:15.840 --> 0:14:19.200 minorities and on people white people who are considered to 0:14:19.200 --> 0:14:22.440 be race traders. The Turner Diaries is an epic racist 0:14:22.480 --> 0:14:27.120 fantasy like porn for white nationalists, and Timothy McVeigh was hooked. 0:14:27.440 --> 0:14:29.320 So he was a huge fan of this book, a 0:14:29.320 --> 0:14:31.400 big evangelist for it. He would he would give it 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:35.240 to everybody he knew. Uh. He gave it to his 0:14:35.240 --> 0:14:38.840 his army buddies. He passed around to his friends and family. 0:14:39.160 --> 0:14:41.160 A lot of people were like, oh my god, what 0:14:41.160 --> 0:14:43.640 are what are you doing? Get this away from me. 0:14:43.960 --> 0:14:47.040 And after McVeigh left the Army, the Turner Diaries provided 0:14:47.040 --> 0:14:53.800 a roadmap for what he had to do next. Timothy 0:14:53.840 --> 0:14:57.280 McVeigh struggled to get his bearings after leaving military life. 0:14:57.680 --> 0:15:00.400 He worked the graveyard shift at the Buffalo a Zoo. 0:15:00.840 --> 0:15:04.680 He started gambling on football. He wrote long, handwritten letters 0:15:04.760 --> 0:15:08.400 to local newspapers and Congress members that ranted about everything 0:15:08.440 --> 0:15:12.600 from affirmative action to gun control, and then something occurred 0:15:12.640 --> 0:15:15.920 that confirmed all of his worst fears about his own government. 0:15:20.280 --> 0:15:22.280 Good evening, everyone, and thank you for joining us. A 0:15:22.320 --> 0:15:25.520 fanatical scripture quoting religious leader who moved to Waco to 0:15:25.560 --> 0:15:28.080 await the end of the world instead maybe to blame 0:15:28.080 --> 0:15:32.400 tonight for the deaths of several federal agents. In February, 0:15:32.400 --> 0:15:35.840 federal agents rated a compound near Waco, Texas that was 0:15:35.880 --> 0:15:38.640 home to a religious cult known as the Brains Davidians. 0:15:39.240 --> 0:15:43.200 The resulting shootout, caught on live television, resulted in the 0:15:43.240 --> 0:15:47.520 deaths of four agents and six cult members. Timothy McVeigh 0:15:47.520 --> 0:15:49.920 packed up his car and drove to Texas to join 0:15:50.000 --> 0:15:53.480 those watching the events unfold. He left after a couple 0:15:53.560 --> 0:15:56.160 of days and went to visit his army buddy Terry 0:15:56.240 --> 0:16:00.600 Nichols and his brother James on their Michigan farm. The 0:16:00.640 --> 0:16:05.760 Waco standoff continued. Loue Michelle again. McVeigh had been preparing 0:16:06.000 --> 0:16:09.160 actually to make a second trip to Waco, and was 0:16:09.240 --> 0:16:13.600 out in front of the Nichols brother's farmhouse in Decora, Michigan, 0:16:14.040 --> 0:16:18.800 underneath the car working on the exhaust system, and Terry 0:16:18.880 --> 0:16:22.400 Nichols came to the door and started shouting, Tim, Tim, 0:16:22.520 --> 0:16:26.160 get in here. McVeigh ran inside and couldn't believe what 0:16:26.240 --> 0:16:28.520 he was seeing on the old color television in the 0:16:28.560 --> 0:16:32.400 living room. Armored federal tanks ran the walls of the 0:16:32.440 --> 0:16:34.920 compound and Waco in an effort to drive out the 0:16:34.920 --> 0:16:39.120 cult members. Then flames began to engulf the building. I 0:16:39.200 --> 0:16:41.920 must tell you this is this is a horrible site. 0:16:41.960 --> 0:16:48.040 From two miles away, this is really a horrible site. 0:16:49.880 --> 0:16:53.720 Nearly everyone inside the compound was killed, including twenty children, 0:16:54.000 --> 0:16:58.160 and that's what really drove McVeigh off the deep bend. 0:16:59.040 --> 0:17:03.920 He stood in Terry nichols living room with tears in 0:17:04.000 --> 0:17:07.800 his eyes as he watched on live TV the burning 0:17:07.840 --> 0:17:12.080 of Waco. McVeigh resolved to do something about it. Dan Herbeck. 0:17:12.480 --> 0:17:16.760 On the day of that incident, he had decided he 0:17:16.840 --> 0:17:21.359 was going to take some drastic action of bombing a 0:17:21.480 --> 0:17:27.919 federal building of some kind. He scouted probably six or 0:17:27.960 --> 0:17:32.400 seven different cities and looked at federal office buildings as 0:17:32.440 --> 0:17:36.840 possible targets. Why did McVeigh pick Oklahoma City, Well, for 0:17:36.920 --> 0:17:39.240 one thing, it contains several of the U. S. Government 0:17:39.280 --> 0:17:42.919 agencies like the FBI that he hated the most. But 0:17:43.000 --> 0:17:46.320 there was another reason. McVeigh told us that when he 0:17:46.400 --> 0:17:51.040 looked at the building in Oklahoma City, the Federal Office Building, 0:17:51.880 --> 0:17:55.000 because of the way it was separated from other buildings, 0:17:55.920 --> 0:17:59.520 he believed that it would make a very striking visual 0:17:59.640 --> 0:18:05.199 in after it was bombed. It's disturbing to think that 0:18:05.240 --> 0:18:09.399 a terrorist was thinking in terms of photo ops, but 0:18:09.600 --> 0:18:13.520 that's one of the main reasons why he chose Oklahoma City. 0:18:14.240 --> 0:18:16.800 So why did McVeigh choose to bomb a federal office 0:18:16.880 --> 0:18:19.600 building to get back at the government. Well, that goes 0:18:19.640 --> 0:18:23.959 back to his favorite book, The Turner Diaries, J and Burger. Again, 0:18:24.160 --> 0:18:28.199 there's one key event in the book where Earl Turner 0:18:28.280 --> 0:18:32.280 and his band of colleagues, who operate under the name 0:18:32.359 --> 0:18:36.320 the Order, bomb the FBI headquarters in Washington, d C. 0:18:36.760 --> 0:18:39.879 And when they do this, they use a truck bomb 0:18:39.960 --> 0:18:42.520 that is a very similar construction to the one that 0:18:42.600 --> 0:18:45.000 McVeigh used. And it wasn't just the idea for building 0:18:45.040 --> 0:18:47.880 a bomb that McVeigh got from the book. The process 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.240 of making this bomb is described in some detail in 0:18:51.280 --> 0:18:53.760 the book. Um the book has a very much a 0:18:53.800 --> 0:18:56.080 how to kind of quality. It's a it's a guide 0:18:56.160 --> 0:18:59.800 to revolution. McVeigh and Terry Nichols started to buy thousands 0:18:59.840 --> 0:19:03.000 of hounds of ammonian nitrate to build their bomb, which 0:19:03.040 --> 0:19:06.159 McVeigh planned to deliver by truck to the Mura Federal Building. 0:19:06.760 --> 0:19:09.480 Just like our old Turner and the Turner Diaries, McVeigh 0:19:09.520 --> 0:19:12.400 considered himself a martyr acting in the name of liberty. 0:19:12.880 --> 0:19:15.320 He hoped someday he would be regarded as a hero. 0:19:21.640 --> 0:19:25.240 Back in Henry, Ford had his own favorite book. It 0:19:25.359 --> 0:19:28.720 was called The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. Ford 0:19:28.800 --> 0:19:33.320 historian Victoria Westi again a Russian mystic named Sergei Nihilis, 0:19:33.359 --> 0:19:37.600 published an addition in nineteen o five that starts to 0:19:38.480 --> 0:19:43.640 gain traction. People circulated it, they reprinted it um, and 0:19:43.840 --> 0:19:49.000 Nihilis had thoughtfully supplied an introductory essay to his addition 0:19:50.359 --> 0:19:55.600 that connected a lot of dots for conspiratorially minded anti semits. 0:19:56.800 --> 0:19:59.399 The Protocols is written in the second person. There's an 0:19:59.400 --> 0:20:02.640 omniscient narrator that speaks to an audience of Jewish elders, 0:20:02.800 --> 0:20:05.800 the Elders of Zion, who are conspiring to take over 0:20:05.800 --> 0:20:08.800 the world, but he also speaks directly to the reader, 0:20:09.040 --> 0:20:11.600 who was drawn in as kind of a co conspirator, 0:20:11.880 --> 0:20:17.240 And that was part of the great psychological brilliance of 0:20:17.520 --> 0:20:24.479 the document is that it assumes that you're interested in 0:20:24.560 --> 0:20:29.679 this conspiracy that explains everything that's wrong with the world. 0:20:30.359 --> 0:20:33.960 Black or white, rich or poor, Protestant or Catholic. Most 0:20:34.000 --> 0:20:38.120 Americans regarded Jews as alien and inferior, and the Protocols, 0:20:38.320 --> 0:20:42.880 the fictional fabricated story, played to that mindset. For the 0:20:43.200 --> 0:20:47.239 anti Semitic mind of the early twentieth century, and for 0:20:47.320 --> 0:20:50.000 someone like Ford who thought who saw World War One 0:20:50.600 --> 0:20:55.080 as entirely the product of Jewish war mongering and profiteering. 0:20:56.280 --> 0:21:01.359 This was the explanatory document. This document meant laid it 0:21:01.400 --> 0:21:04.760 all out. Henry Ford fell hook line and sinker for 0:21:04.800 --> 0:21:09.480 the forgery. For Ford, this was confirmation of everything he believed. 0:21:10.400 --> 0:21:16.320 So everything that Ford despised about nine twenties culture, everything 0:21:16.359 --> 0:21:21.560 that undermined you know, wholesome values and you know, good 0:21:21.640 --> 0:21:28.160 religious church going people on Sundays, Ford believed was attributable 0:21:28.200 --> 0:21:31.840 to Jews, and the Protocols proved it. But of course 0:21:32.160 --> 0:21:35.320 Henry Ford was not just your average anti Semitic reader. 0:21:35.880 --> 0:21:40.719 He was a publisher. So beginning on May and running 0:21:40.880 --> 0:21:44.480 for the better part of two years, The Deerbone Independent 0:21:44.520 --> 0:21:49.080 published a weekly essay that was entitled The International Jew. 0:21:49.600 --> 0:21:53.280 Over more than ninety installments, Ford's newspaper published the Protocols 0:21:53.280 --> 0:21:56.880 of the Elders of Zion, adapting the anti Semitic propaganda 0:21:57.240 --> 0:22:01.800 for an American audience. People wonder why someone can get 0:22:01.800 --> 0:22:04.680 away with something like this, you know, why would anyone 0:22:04.800 --> 0:22:10.720 let forward? And the answer is that when you acquire 0:22:10.840 --> 0:22:16.359 the kind of wealth and attain the status of American 0:22:16.440 --> 0:22:20.600 industrial royalty. You know, Ford was king. Ford was the 0:22:20.760 --> 0:22:28.359 most wealthy American ever. And nobody says no to that person. Nobody. 0:22:28.480 --> 0:22:31.480 It's estimated that Ford's newspaper spread the fallacious text and 0:22:31.520 --> 0:22:35.359 nearly seven hundred thousand readers. When you go online today 0:22:35.400 --> 0:22:39.800 and you search for The International Jew, Henry Ford's name 0:22:39.800 --> 0:22:44.400 is all over it, and there is no erasing any 0:22:44.440 --> 0:22:47.280 of that. That's that toothpaste is not going back into 0:22:47.320 --> 0:22:52.600 the tube. You know, Ford is for all time associated 0:22:52.640 --> 0:22:57.720 with the most heinous piece of anti Semitic propaganda that's 0:22:57.760 --> 0:23:00.680 that's ever been written. If only it had just been 0:23:00.720 --> 0:23:10.200 toothpaste that Ford let out of the tube. By April, 0:23:11.480 --> 0:23:14.359 Timothy McVeigh had completed the Homemade truck bomb he had 0:23:14.400 --> 0:23:17.440 designed with the help of the Turner Diaries the night 0:23:17.440 --> 0:23:19.919 before the bombing, but they drove to a hotel in 0:23:20.040 --> 0:23:24.320 Kansas Loue Michelle. Again, he stopped in a gravel parking 0:23:24.400 --> 0:23:30.960 lot behind a hotel, parked his yellow Rider truck and 0:23:31.000 --> 0:23:34.360 told Dan and I that he slept like a baby 0:23:34.400 --> 0:23:38.800 that night with a seven thousand pound bomb in the 0:23:39.000 --> 0:23:44.320 cargo bay. McVeigh chose April nine for his act because 0:23:44.320 --> 0:23:46.480 it was both the second anniversary of the raid in 0:23:46.520 --> 0:23:49.520 Waco and the two twentieth anniversary of the Battle of 0:23:49.600 --> 0:23:53.240 Lexington and Concord, the first battle of the American Revolution. 0:23:53.680 --> 0:23:58.520 He wakes up, gets out of the Rider truck, checks 0:23:58.560 --> 0:24:04.720 the tires, gets back in, has his breakfast, a army 0:24:05.280 --> 0:24:08.600 meal called an m r E Meals ready to eat, 0:24:09.040 --> 0:24:12.600 and it was cold spaghetti. But they finished his breakfast 0:24:12.760 --> 0:24:16.000 and started driving toward Oklahoma, careful to stay under the 0:24:16.000 --> 0:24:21.560 speed limit. But if an observant highway patrol officer had noticed, 0:24:22.040 --> 0:24:24.119 you would have seen that the back of that truck 0:24:24.440 --> 0:24:28.080 was really sitting low the cargo bay. But nobody noticed that. 0:24:29.040 --> 0:24:31.560 So he's driving on the highway and at one point 0:24:32.280 --> 0:24:35.879 there's a patrol car behind him for the longest time, 0:24:36.040 --> 0:24:38.879 and McVeigh is starting to sweat it out. Oh no, 0:24:39.040 --> 0:24:42.520 am I gonna get caught. Finally the cop exited the highway. 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:45.520 Then McVeigh breathed the sigh of relief. He soon arrived 0:24:45.520 --> 0:24:49.520 in Oklahoma City and he rolls up to the Murrah 0:24:49.640 --> 0:24:53.320 Building and there's a little cut out in the sidewalk 0:24:54.000 --> 0:24:59.080 and he gets calmly gets out of the truck, locks 0:24:59.160 --> 0:25:05.119 it and starts walking away. McVey parked the rider truck 0:25:05.240 --> 0:25:07.919 right below the windows of the daycare center located on 0:25:07.920 --> 0:25:11.639 the building second floor. He didn't look back, and about 0:25:11.640 --> 0:25:23.399 a minute later, mcvey's homemade bomb killed twenty more people 0:25:23.400 --> 0:25:26.160 than the one forty eight Americans killed in combat during 0:25:26.200 --> 0:25:29.639 the First Gulf War and injured hundreds more. But they 0:25:29.720 --> 0:25:33.040 killed nineteen children who were five and younger. The children's 0:25:33.080 --> 0:25:36.199 playground behind the building became a makeshift more as rescue 0:25:36.240 --> 0:25:39.600 workers carried the bodies from the rubbel President Bill Clinton 0:25:39.640 --> 0:25:44.520 addressed a shattered nation. Bombing in Oklahoma City was an 0:25:44.520 --> 0:25:51.159 attack on innocent children and defenseless citizens. It was an 0:25:51.160 --> 0:25:56.720 act of cowardice, and it was evil. But for McVeigh, 0:25:56.840 --> 0:25:59.399 the loss of human life was not an act of evil, 0:26:00.080 --> 0:26:03.320 was an exclamation point on his message for the American government. 0:26:03.880 --> 0:26:07.280 McVeigh was expecting to be caught, maybe hoping for it. 0:26:07.760 --> 0:26:10.560 Inside his getaway car, he had placed an envelope packed 0:26:10.560 --> 0:26:13.119 with items he wanted law enforcement and the media to 0:26:13.200 --> 0:26:17.399 find and publicize. Among them a quote from Earl Turner 0:26:17.560 --> 0:26:21.520 and the Turner Diaries. Turner says, quote, the real value 0:26:21.560 --> 0:26:25.439 of our attacks today lies in the psychological impact, not 0:26:25.640 --> 0:26:30.119 the immediate casualties. Today we are still living with the 0:26:30.160 --> 0:26:34.000 psychological impact of mcveigh's own attack, and in more ways 0:26:34.040 --> 0:26:56.919 than you might imagine, we all need a break from 0:26:56.960 --> 0:27:01.160 the constant cycle to learn something new, to get new perspectives. 0:27:01.960 --> 0:27:04.919 The Great Courses Plus streaming service is an excellent resource 0:27:04.960 --> 0:27:07.959 to expand our knowledge on a variety of subjects or 0:27:08.000 --> 0:27:10.520 pick up a new hobby. I've been enjoying the Great 0:27:10.520 --> 0:27:15.040 Courses Plus while researching this season of flashback lectures like Playball, 0:27:15.119 --> 0:27:18.199 the rise of Baseball is America's pastime, History of the 0:27:18.200 --> 0:27:21.679 Supreme Court, and Battlefield Europe have helped me connect the 0:27:21.720 --> 0:27:25.280