"I Am A Very Smart Man--
And You Will Remember My Name For the Rest Of Your Life"
This is what Tim allegedly said to someone before the bombing; someone who recalled these somewhat chilling words and was haunted by them then and likely still is seriously troubled. I would imagine that some guilt gripped him when it came to pass that Tim was right. Or was he?
The reason I am able to see the positive side of Tim McVeigh and continue to feel compassion for him is that he really got in over his head and had taken the words for battle rooted in his military life: "Blood makes the grass grow." So reading this latest nugget of information leaves me wondering whether or not there really is something to the belief by many who believe that Tim was but one cog in the destructive machinery that was the Oklahoma City bombing. Each and every terrible event in history has fostered "conspiracy theories": Two tragedies from which were culled seeds of "others unknown" were the assassination of President John F. Kennedy and the bombing of 1995.
I have talked to individuals who swear to God that Tim was somehow set up to do the actually bombing by more powerful "people behind the scenes" and that the quote, "I am a very smart man.." provides the lynchpin around which they have constructed an unlikely and diabolical schenario whereby Tim was approached by the so-called "John Doe Number Two" and several others who told Tim he would achieve a measure of notoriety and would be guaranteed more than a mere footnote in the annals of history.
I do not believe this for many reasons; too many to list here. The primary one concerns the uneasy notion that the Murrah Building was of such importance as a type of "bad seed" that somehow stood for all that was wrong about the US government. It was primarly an office building for Federal employees and of course, a daycare centre. People coming in for their pension cheques comprised the majority of persons who were there when the bombing occurred. So why does this innocuous edifice become the focus of so many individuals in such a potent manner that would necessitate taking it down? These questions leave me feeling that something is very, very wrong with the notion that possible Mideast terrorists and other secretive people took such a keen and fatal interest in the bombing of the Murrah Building. It makes no sense.
Did Tim actually say that the reason he allowed himself to be part of that tragedy because he wished to be a force in history? Yes, he felt his life didn't mean very much and perhaps he did realize that the world didn't have much of anything to offer him, but to allow himself to be part of some ill-conceived bombing plot? No. It's ludicrous.
