The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building is the location at the center of Netflix’s documentary Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror. A bomb planted in front of the building on the morning of April 19, 1995, exploded at 9:02 am, killing more than 150 people and wounding several hundred more. This event was a deliberate act of terrorism committed by two far-right extremists that shook the United States to its core. However, the reasons for the bombing and its perpetrators choosing the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building as their target weren’t immediately clear.
The warped reasoning that led bombers Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols to kill so many innocent people in the Oklahoma City Bombing later came to light, though, via the evidence presented at their respective trials, including the testimony of their close friend, Michael Fortier. In fact, McVeigh himself later explained his motives during 75 hours of interviews recorded by journalists Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck while they were researching and writing his authorized biography American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing. This is also covered in the Netflix documentary.
Timothy McVeigh & Terry Nichols’ Motives For The Oklahoma City Bombing Explained
They Wanted To Put Their Extreme Ideology Into Practice While Exacting Revenge
Having met in the US Army prior to their service together in the Gulf War, Timothy McVeigh, Terry Nichols and Michael Fortier were united in their profoundly anti-government sentiments and interest in neo-Nazism. McVeigh was carrying a copy of The Turner Diaries, a novel by famed neo-Nazi William Luther Pierce which hypothesized a white-supremicist uprising against the federal US government, on his way to blow up the federal building in Oklahoma City.
It was the ideology espoused in The Turner Diaries, along with the radical anti-government sentiment stirred up by the FBI’s siege of the Mount Carmel Center near Waco, Texas, two years earlier, that incited McVeigh and Nichols to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. The true story of what happened in Waco is recounted in the Netflix documentary Waco: American Apocalypse, which was made by the same production company as Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror.
The FBI’s actions essentially led to the deaths of 76 members of the Davidian doomsday cult, and angered those who felt the Davidians were simply exercising their right to bear arms. As Netflix’s documentary about the Oklahoma City Bombing explains, Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols essentially saw bombing a federal building as a form of revenge for what happened in Waco. McVeigh himself was present outside Mount Carmel during the 51-day siege undertaken by the FBI, before the center was razed to the ground.
What’s more, the idea for blowing up a federal building with a truck bomb came straight from the pages of The Turner Diaries. In Pierce’s novel, the bombing of the FBI headquarters in this manner is the trigger for the white-supremacist uprising.
Why Timothy McVeigh Decided To Bomb The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building In Oklahoma City
The Building Ticked All The Boxes According To McVeigh’s Warped Logic
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was specifically chosen as the target for McVeigh’s bomb because it housed a regional branch of the ATF, the federal agency that regulates firearms in the US, and which enlisted the FBI to try and confiscate weapons from the Davidian leader David Koresh in Waco. The building also hosted the American Secret Service and the Drug Enforcement Administration (DEA), other federal government agencies that were widely detested by anti-government elements of the far-right.
In addition, there was a recruitment office for the Armed Forces in the building. McVeigh and Nichols had come to despise the US military after feeling that their individual rights had been taken from them during their time serving on the frontline. A voiceover actor in Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror quotes McVeigh in describing how he “didn’t have a single choice” in what he was used for in the army. His resentment towards the American military made a building with an army recruiting center in it an even more attractive target.
Out of several targets that McVeigh considered, the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building apparently seemed like the best fit for the physical description of the location he was looking for. It was separated from other buildings by a large car park, which he thought would limit “non-government” casualties, while its glᴀss facade ensured the bomb would cause the maximum damage to the building itself.
Why Timothy McVeigh Planned The Oklahoma City Bombing On April 19
It Was The Date Of 2 Important Anniversaries
Timothy McVeigh and Terry Nichols were very specific about the time and date of their terror attack, as well as its location. They deliberately planned for the Oklahoma City Bombing to happen on April 19, because this date was the anniversary of the fire that had killed 76 Davidians at the end of the FBI’s Waco siege. As one news channel journalist identifies in the documentary, it was the date of the attack that first indicated it might be an act of revenge for Waco.
McVeigh had other reasons for choosing this date and time, too, that aren’t mentioned in Oklahoma City Bombing: American Terror. April 19 was also the date of the Battles of Lexington and Concord, which effectively signaled the start of full military engagement in the American Revolutionary War for independence from the British Crown. He settled on just after 9.00 am as the time of the bombing, because this was the time at which white-supremacist insurgents blew up the FBI headquarters in The Turner Diaries.
Sources: American Terrorist: Timothy McVeigh & The Oklahoma City Bombing
