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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Paper Trail Links Nichols To Mcveigh, Say Bombing Prosecutors

Richard A. Serrano Los Angeles Times

Prosecutors in the second Oklahoma City bombing trial matched Timothy McVeigh’s far-right, anti-government ideology Wednesday with Terry Nichols by presenting a series of underground newspaper articles and other documents found both in McVeigh’s car and Nichols’ home.

The materials were recovered from McVeigh’s 1977 Mercury Marquis after he was arrested in Oklahoma shortly after the 1995 federal building bombing, and similar items were discovered during a search of Nichols’ home in Herington, Kan.

The two men are former army buddies. McVeigh was convicted in the bombing earlier this year and sentenced to death. Nichols is on trial now.

The political literature was often violent in tone and sometimes urged armed action against the federal government for the failed raid on a religious compound near Waco, Texas, in 1993.

In McVeigh’s getaway car was a sealed envelope that included the phrase “Obey the Constitution and we won’t shoot you.” Other literature claimed the Waco raid was similar to the Nazi attack on the Jewish ghetto in Warsaw, Poland, in 1943.

McVeigh was arrested wearing a T-shirt with a quotation from Thomas Jefferson: “The tree of liberty must be refreshed from time to time with the blood of patriots and martyrs.”

He also was known to pass around copies of an anti-government novel called “The Turner Diaries,” which depicts the destruction of FBI headquarters in Washington.

Two FBI agents described the items they found during a search of Nichols’ home after the bombing, specifically materials taken from a storage room off the kitchen.

“The articles are the same” as McVeigh’s, said Agent William K. West. Agent Leslie Earl said he recovered a book at Nichols’ home called “Hunter,” written by the same author as “The Turner Diaries.” “Hunter” tells the story of a series of bombings that are similar to the one in Oklahoma City.