Oklahoma City: What the Investigation Missed--and Why It Still Matters - Softcover

On April 19, 1995, Timothy McVeigh drove into Oklahoma City in a rented Ryder truck and detonated a deadly fertilizer bomb, obliterating one-third of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and killing 168 people. McVeigh claimed he conspired only with his old army buddy Terry Nichols, who had helped him make the bomb the day before. At least officially, the government believed him. But McVeigh's was just one version of events, and much of it was wrong.

In Oklahoma City, veteran investigative journalists Andrew Gumbel and Roger G. Charles puncture the myth about what happened on that day. Working with unprecedented access to government documents, a voluminous correspondence with Terry Nichols, and more than 150 interviews with those immediately involved, Gumbel and Charles demonstrate how much was missed beyond the guilt of the two principal defendants: in particular, the dysfunction within the country's law enforcement agencies and the unanswered question of who inspired the plot and who else might have been involved.

Andrew Gumbel has worked for more than twenty years as a foreign correspondent for British newspapers. He has won awards for investigative reporting and political commentary, and written widely for U.S. publications including the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic. His book Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America was published to great acclaim in 2005. He was born in England and educated at Oxford University.

Roger G. Charles is a retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps and an award-winning investigative journalist. In 1996 and 1997 he was a consultant on the Oklahoma City bombing for ABC's 20/20. He also worked as an investigator for Stephen Jones and the legal team defending Timothy McVeigh in his federal trial. Charles was born in Texas, raised in West Virginia, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1967.

Andrew Gumbel has worked for more than twenty years as a foreign correspondent for British newspapers. He has won awards for investigative reporting and political commentary, and written widely for U.S. publications including the Los Angeles Times and The Atlantic. His book Steal This Vote: Dirty Elections and the Rotten History of Democracy in America was published to great acclaim in 2005. He was born in England and educated at Oxford University.

Roger G. Charles is a retired lieutenant colonel of the U.S. Marine Corps and an award-winning investigative journalist. In 1996 and 1997 he was a consultant on the Oklahoma City bombing for ABC's 20/20. He also worked as an investigator for Stephen Jones and the legal team defending Timothy McVeigh in his federal trial. Charles was born in Texas, raised in West Virginia, and graduated from the U.S. Naval Academy in Annapolis, Maryland, in 1967.