Tampico Affair

April 19, 1995 was a day of horror for countless families. 168 people were killed including children. A massive car bomb containing approximately 4000 pounds of ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel destroyed the Alfred Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma. The Oklahoma City Bombing was the largest domestic terrorist attack in the history of the United States. The possibility of a terrorist attack striking America was unheard of in the minds of American citizens who were more accustomed to viewing major disasters in places like Bosnia. One by one people across the country Americans said the same thing, "This does not happen here. It happens in countries so far away, so different they might as well be on the dark side of the moon. It happens in New York. It happens in Europe" ( Johnson 12). The incidental location of Oklahoma City in the geographic middle of America inspired the most frequently used metaphor to describe the bombing, "Terror in the Heartland." Other media headlines likewise stated, "A Blow to the Heart" ( Lacayo 36), "A Strike at the Very Heart of America" (Roberts 51).

Americans quickly realized how safety had been taken for granted and that terrorism could happen to anybody, anywhere. The fact that children had died in the bombing raised the sense of vulnerability and awareness of the horror, but the children also served to share grief and unite against the terrorist act. The day after the bombing, President and Mrs. Clinton held their weekly radio address before 26 children in the Oval Office. They urged the children to express their fears about the bombing. Through Oklahoma City, all of America was struck, and through the children, all of America was hurt.

The recognition that terror had hit America was so devastating that to bridge the

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clash between expectation and reality, the guilty were presumed to come from abroad. Terrorism in America did not make sense if it had not originated from outside America's borders. Following the first reports of the bombing, various sources hinted at the involvement of international terrorists. Several news organizations reported that investigators were looking for several Middle-Eastern men who had driven away from the building shortly before the bomb went off. The first list of suspects was long, including possibly anybody but surely foreign suspects.

On April 20, one day after the bombing, the FBI issued warrants for the arrest of two suspects described as white males. The "sickening evidence" indicated that the enemy was not some foreign power "but one within ourselves" ( Johnson 10). This came as a shock to many people. The horror was "homegrown" ( Alter 28). Timothy J. McVeigh, alias John Doe #1, was taken to the Noble County jail in Perry, Oklahoma. A telephone tip from a former co-worker confirmed McVeigh's name and identity. Through a national computer search, federal authorities discovered the arrest of McVeigh, who was handed over to the FBI and charged with malicious damage and destruction of a federal building. He faced the death penalty. On April 25, a new sketch of John Doe #2 was released, but investigators came to believe the sketch was based on witness accounts or refer to Joshua Nichols, Terry Nichols' 12-year old son. Later, a third sketch was released and investigators claimed the hunt for John Doe #2 was still on. By mid-June, several former Army enlisted