Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing.
April 19, 1995. The Alfred P Murrah Building in Oklahoma City is ravaged by a vicious bombing that claims 168 innocent lives. Two years later, 29-year-old Timothy McVeigh, a decorated Gulf War veteran, is convicted of the crime and sentenced to death. Most of America knows his name. But only McVeigh himself knows exactly what happened on that ill-starred day. And despite his conviction, he has never gone on record in any forum to discuss the bombing. Until now.
'American Terrorist' will change, unmistakably and permanently, our understanding of the Oklahoma City bombing. Journalists Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck have been researching the Oklahoma City bombing - and the life of Tim McVeigh - since the week the tragedy occurred.
They have interviewed more than 150 people from every stage of McVeigh's life, from his childhood friends to the psychiatrist hired by the defence team to examine him before his trial. They have garnered the co-operation of McVeigh's father, mother and sister and gained exclusive access to previously unpublished family photographs and personal effects.
And, in April 1999, Michel and Herbeck secured an extraordinary coup: in more than seventy-five hours of interviews, they persuaded Timothy McVeigh to give the first complete, candid, no-holds-barred account of his story - an account, given with no compensation or right of approval, that sheds light on every aspect of McVeigh's life. And in its pages every detail of the bombing itself is reconstructed, from the origins of the plot to the moment of detonation and McVeigh's aborted getaway.
'American Terrorist' puts to rest conspiracy theories that have previously gone unresolved. It clarifies the role and responsibility of every person who has been implicated in the plan.
