The Oklahoma City Bombing: The Third Man?

A report in today's Los Angeles Times is sure to dredge up the conspiracy mongering that has long surrounded the April 19, 1995, bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building. Reporter Richard A. Serrano, who had done yeoman's work during the criminal investigation, writes that bombing conspirator Terry Nichols has implicated a third man in the attack: Arkansas gun dealer Roger Moore.

In letters to the grandmother of two children killed in the bombing, Nichols recounts that Moore, a militia sympathizer who was friends with Timothy McVeigh, helped supply explosives for the bomb that shattered the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Moore, as fate would have it, was a star prosecution witness in both the McVeigh and Nichols trials. Federal authorities alleged that in November of 1994, a masked man -- likely Nichols -- robbed Moore of firearms and cash, and that the stolen loot subsequently helped finance the bomb plot.

Nichols writes in one letter that Moore and his girlfriend, Karen Anderson, provided McVeigh with binary explosives. According to the Times, Nichols contends: "The Fed Gov't knows of Roger Moore's corrupt activities and they are protecting him and covering up his involvement with McVeigh at the OKC bombing!"

If Moore was up to his eyeballs in the bomb plot, it might explain certain curiosities about the alleged gun robbery. In Nichols' trial, Moore's girlfriend, Karen Anderson, read off a list of Moore's stolen firearms, complete with serial numbers, that were later found in Nichols' home. One of the guns listed actually turned out to be a rifle that Nichols had purchased in Michigan a year before the reported robbery.

But let's not get carried away, either. Nichols obviously has an axe to grind with Roger Moore, and even if the gun dealer did give McVeigh explosives, that is scant evidence that he was part of the bomb conspiracy. I mean, hell, Michael Fortier had as large a role in the plot, and the feds had to offer him a plea bargain because they needed his testimony. There has never been any question, at least in my mind, that others unknown were involved in the Murrah building attack. Whether those people had anything more than a peripheral role is doubtful.

Unfortunately, the L.A. Times scoop is sure to fuel the crackpot bid by U.S. Rep. Dana Rohrabacher to launch yet another federal probe into the bombing. Neither the victims nor survivors deserve to be put through hell again just because a lawmaker wants to get his stupid mug on "The O'Reilly Factor."