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> >Date: Sun, 19 May 2002 09:57:56 -0700
> >From: Michael Pugliese <debsian at pacbell.net>
> >Subject: Re: On Atta, Prague & Iraq
> >Wonder what
> >old lefty lawyer that also worked for McVeigh, Michael Tigar, thinks?
Tigar represented Nichols, not McVeigh. The Nichols' defense team investigated the allegations of foreign involvement and found nothing of merit. I was subpoened (not my idea of fun) by Tigar as an expert to help the Nichols defense prepare a response to the government allegation that anti-government ideas suggested a propensity for terrorism or neonazism - - -NOT!
The government dropped its witness who was going to make this claim after Tigar subpoened Joel Dyer and me. We both had written about the OKC bombing. Neither of us ended up testifying, although we both wrote up affidavits. Dyer and I both suspect there were more conspirators involved in the bombing, and that the Fortiers were not telling the truth, and that it would have made more sense for the government to offer Nichols immunity instead of the Fortiers, especially since Nichols had turned himself in. Tigar has suggested that Nichols might talk if Oklahoma dropped its death penalty case aimed at him. My opinion is that if the government really wanted to know what happened in the OKC bombing, they just have to ask Nichols after making Oklahoma drop its case.
Vidal cites Dyer's epilog to his new edition of his book Harvest of Rage, where Dyer adds new material, but then Vidal goes way beyond what Dyer is implying, and seems to suggest his expansive claims are based on Dyer's work when a reading of Dyer shows that Vidal goes way past anything suggested by Dyer. At best this is sloppy writing and citation by Vidal.
-Chip Berlet