By Melanie Brittain

The Oklahoma City Bombing came to life at Buffalo State College on Thursday with a speech from Lou Michel, a Buffalo News reporter and author of The American Terrorist.

Michel, a graduate of Buffalo State, read passages from his book and answered questions posted by COM 389 Media and Crime students. He said he was unbiased in his research, though some students of the class felt differently.

“I interviewed McVeigh for about 40 hours face-to-face and exchanged about 200 letters between he and I,” he said.

The letters however were not restricted to just Michel and McVeigh. Michel admitted that McVeigh also sent letters to his son and had phone conversations with his wife and other family members, also admitting, “I allowed myself to be pulled into the story.”

“He became part of the family,” said Michel.

Michel, whose speech lasted a little over an hour, became agitated when a student questioned his ethical detachment from the bomber. When criticized for his comment that McVeigh was a part of his family, Michel explained that he meant in the family in the way a mechanical pool cleaner is.

Planning

Michel called his book, “a blueprint for how (terrorists) operate” detailing the massive planning that went into McVeigh’s attack on the Murrah Building, his time on death row, and his execution that Michel witnessed.

In his book, Michel chronicles McVeigh’s life and what led him to bomb the Murrah Building with a rented moving truck.

In the book he said: “To McVeigh, a serious loss of human life was the only way to put a sufficiently powerful exclamation point behind his message to the American government,” referring to McVeigh’s anger over the events of Waco.

In Michel’s opinion McVeigh’s actions may have had an alternate effect.

“He empowered the federal government to create more laws,” he said.

Questioned Ethics

Michel was criticized by other reporters and the public who said he had become an ally to McVeigh and the McVeigh family, serving as a liaison with the media.

“I think he just meant McVeigh was a presence in his life, not family in the way Bill McVeigh would,” said Assistant Professor Bill Raffel. “It brings into question how much you should bring your work home.”

Another reaction came from student Laura Gerwitz.

“I think that his ethics are questionable, but I personally agreed with the way he went through the entire process,” she said. “A lot can go wrong in a situation like that, he ended with a best-seller and a once in a lifetime opportunity.”

Michel said he believed McVeigh suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome after his time in the Gulf War and said the bomber was “totally sane” and that McVeigh did not want to be caught in Oklahoma City.

“He didn’t want to get caught there; he didn’t want a mob scene. He wanted a soap box, he wanted a trial,” he said.

Michel also admitted that his wife and family cried when McVeigh died. He said that he didn’t.

“I hope I never have to experience that again, it was horrible, I never really wept over it,” he said. “And in my heart capital punishment is not the answer.”

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