American Journalists: Lou Michel,
Dan Herbeck & the Timothy McVeigh Story
By Anna Geronimo Hausmann
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Authors Michel and Herbeck at The Buffalo News.
Photo by Jessica Kourkounis. |
And yet they are currently celebrity journalists, and have been ever since their book, American Terrorist, appeared in early April of this year. As the authors of a book chronicling the worst terrorist attack on American soil, Herbeck and Michel are the experts on the April 19, 1995 bombing of the Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City. And on Timothy McVeigh, Western New York’s infamous, homegrown mass murderer.
In the weeks following the publication of their book, Michel and Herbeck have found themselves at the center of a whirlwind of publicity, questioned and analyzed from all perspectives. They have discovered what it’s like on the other side of the notebook. And they have found themselves at the center of a storm of controversy over their book, as they answer critics who question whether or not McVeigh’s story should have been told.
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Photo: merryweatherphoto.com From
American Terrorist. |
In those first several weeks, leading up to what had been McVeigh’s originally scheduled execution in mid-May, Herbeck and Michel did more than a hundred radio call-in shows and were interviewed on the Today Show, Prime Time with Diane Sawyer, Larry King, on Geraldo, Fresh Air with Terry Gross, C-SPAN, and on MSNBC, to name only a few of their appearances. At one point in their publicity tour, they did eighteen interviews in one day, from New York City satellite feeds to stations throughout the country. They have been interviewed by only a single journalist from Oklahoma City, who, Herbeck says “basically screamed at us the whole time.” They had a stop scheduled in Oklahoma City on their tour, says Herbeck, “but it was canceled for lack of interest. Only one reporter in the entire state wanted to meet with us.”
Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck are just your average guys, both as journalists and in the rest of their lives. They do not write sexy lifestyles articles about celebrity scandals. This being Buffalo, they do not even get to write about sensational crime or corruption very often. They do grunt journalism, writing the stories we read or pass over every day in the Buffalo News on common, and not-so-common, criminals. In the eighteenth century, they’d have been called “hacks,” which at that time was a pejorative, since what we now call “news” was still thought of as none of your business. But it was these early hacks, or “scribblers,” who pioneered the concept of news, and the newspaper, as we know it—originators of the right to a free and open press, of the right to report what government is doing, and the right of the people to know. For true journalists, those purists who see their job as reporting the news because it is news, being called a hack is a badge of honor.
On the day I interviewed him in his office at police headquarters, Lou Michel was trying to track down the details of various minor police incidents. At one point in our interview, he had to take a call which he transcribed into his computer while on the phone—it was a report of three kids who were caught spraying graffiti on a Lackawanna elementary school. As he apologized for the interruption, he laughed, “is this what a New York Times best-selling author should be doing?” But, more seriously, he added, “this is good for me, it’s humbling.” He meant not only that it reminds him that the New York City interview life is just a phase, but also reminds him of the sobering reason for that whirlwind. As Dan Herbeck says, “We’re not going around high-fiving people. As journalists we’re happy, but at the root of it is a bombing that killed 168 people.”
Michel...insists, for a number of reasons, that it is crucial that the story be told. “To say something is too painful, and so not to examine it, is to risk its happening again. What if we had never written about Hitler?” he asks.
Why tell this story?
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Authors Michel and Herbeck
at The Buffalo News. Photo by Jessica Kourkounis. |
As I researched this profile, I discovered my reaction was not unusual. But it has strained journalistic objectivity. How could I profile these authors, when I didn’t even want to read their book? I didn’t want to read about the monster who perpetrated this crime and I didn’t want to hear his side of the story, his petty, paranoid, government conspiracy theories. Lou Michel’s response is telling: “People are looking through the prism of emotions, and that’s okay, but many Americans want to know why.” Michel admits in the book’s introduction that he was not unconflicted about his assignment, that he sometimes felt he was no more than “a carnivore, picking at the bones” while interviewing McVeigh’s father, Bill McVeigh. But Michel also insists, for a number of reasons, that it is crucial that the story be told. “To say something is too painful, and so not to examine it, is to risk its happening again. What if we had never written about Hitler?” he asks.
Michel explains, too, that the story needed to be told for historical and research purposes, and for the victims and their families. He points out that McVeigh did not confess or give a statement to investigators, nor did he testify at his trial. Their book stands as his only accounting of the months and years that led up to the bombing, including the days and moments before it. “We see this book as a resource,” he says, “We’re hoping this is the baseline for all scholarly research into this bombing, that forensic scientists, school psychologists, and educators can read it and learn about what made McVeigh tick.” Michel also sees the book as ultimately helping the victims and their families: “In time, I hope even our most vocal critics amongst the families—and there are only a handful—will see the book as a resource to help them with their grief.” Adds Herbeck, “When we went to Oklahoma City, every person we talked to was glad we’d gotten (McVeigh’s) story and were anxious to see it. But they wanted something they couldn’t get—they wanted their loved ones back. McVeigh couldn’t have said anything to give them comfort.”
Getting the story
Lou Michel believes fate had a hand in writing this story. “God demanded that this story be told,” he says. From the initial bond he was able to forge with McVeigh’s father, which ultimately provided him with access to the son, to the nearly unlimited access he and Herbeck were granted to McVeigh in the federal penitentiaries where he was being held, Michel insists that “Too many doors opened for us.”
As a result of Michel’s numerous interviews and conversations with the father, eventually McVeigh wrote to Michel and agreed to an in-person interview. After he agreed to tell his story for a book, Michel and Herbeck sat for two extensive interview sessions with McVeigh, each of which lasted for several days, eight hours a day. They also exchanged hundreds of letters and phone calls with McVeigh. At this point, Herbeck and Michel are as close to experts on Timothy McVeigh as one could get.
Getting the story itself reads a bit like a John Grisham thriller. While McVeigh originally agreed to talk only by qualifying his story as “hypothetical,” and Michel and Herbeck had agreed to proceed on that basis, on the second day of their first series of interviews, McVeigh changed his mind. In his introduction, Michel tells how McVeigh suddenly did his about-face—“I’m going to tell you everything,” Michel quotes McVeigh. Michel says the interviews were initially tense. “I didn’t know what to expect—was I going to meet someone willing to talk, a monster; as it turned out, McVeigh was extremely willing to talk. He understood we were just doing our job. But, at the same time, it was mind-bending, to be taking in such vast amounts of information, asking questions and follow-ups. But what propelled me was the fact that we were getting a story that until that moment no one had gotten.”
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Photo: Bob Lester Larue/Corbis Sygma, from American Terrorist (Harper Collins, 2001).
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But even though Michel and Herbeck both said that they intended to tell the “clean, clear-cut story of what happened” and leave the judgment to their readers, they assert that eventually they did challenge McVeigh. “We revisited many, many controversial issues,” said Michel. So many that at times McVeigh got impatient with them for going over the same details again and again. But, as Michel says, it was important to them that they understand his thought processes. Michel says he didn’t get into discussions with McVeigh about his political views or the ethics of his acts, “I’m not the debating society,” Michel says. But he does remember one discussion that involved some back and forth. “We did have one long discussion [about] grief and mourning. I argued that the victims had the right to grieve as long as they like, and he felt people were just wallowing in it. We went back and forth, he was really plumbing my value structure. Ultimately he conceded that they were entitled to grieve as long as they wanted, but from his perspective it’s a waste of time.”
The criticism has centered on reaction to McVeigh’s lack of remorse, the virulent aspects of his political views, and, of course, his now-infamous, cold-hearted references to the children killed in the bombing as “collateral damage.”
Writing the story
Once they realized that only a book could convey the enormity of this story, Michel approached then Buffalo News Editor Murray Light and asked his permission to proceed with the project. Light told him to go for it. Herbeck notes that Light and current editor Margaret Sullivan have been “tremendously supportive, even though it put the News in an awkward position because they couldn’t use any of this material we were gathering.”
Herbeck and Michel worked on the book nights and weekends for two years without a book contract. Working solely on “gut instinct,” they spent hours on the Internet reading news accounts of the bombing and transcripts of McVeigh’s trial. They traveled to Oklahoma City to meet with survivors and the families of those killed. They corresponded with and interviewed dozens of people in attempts to corroborate McVeigh’s story. Herbeck and Michel each took two months of unpaid leave from the News to work on the book. They both went for months at a time without a day off.
And beyond the physical toll of writing the book while working full time jobs, the process was emotionally wrenching. “I was crying as I wrote this, crying at the keyboard, especially as I wrote about the victims,” says Michel. “It was too much,” says Herbeck, “it was overwhelming at times. I’d find myself at 2 a.m. on a Sunday morning, my family asleep, sitting at my computer crying as I read trial testimony, thinking, ‘What the hell am I getting myself into?’” Says Herbeck, “This was no quickie bio, we worked on this book for three years. It’s been on the HarperCollins pending booklist for a year.” In fact, they didn’t even have a publisher until last summer.
And that was no picnic, according to Herbeck. Their agent sent proposals to twenty-seven of the major publishing houses in New York City and they met with five of them. Eventually, only one of them, HarperCollins, was willing to take a chance on the book. “They were all interested,” says Herbeck, “but only Judith Regan, our editor, saw what a huge story it was. All the rest were scared of the public’s reaction to the book.” And, Herbeck admits, it didn’t help that he and Michel were from the provincial Buffalo News. “The fact that we were from the Buffalo News and not the New York Times definitely hurt us. We were shown very little respect from the publishing industry. Only Judith Regan had the guts to publish this story,” he says.
Herbeck also corrects the perception of many people that he and Michel are raking it in from the book. “People think we’re millionaires, but far from it. We got a modest advance that almost covered the costs of our research and travel and our leaves from the News.” Beyond that, he says, they haven’t seen any proceeds from the book. And when they do, they’ll be making donations to a number of charities. They originally wanted to donate proceeds from the book to the Oklahoma City Red Cross and the bombing Memorial Site, but both have declined their donations. That stung the two, who say they had only the best of intentions when they asked to make the donations. Herbeck notes that after initially accepting the donation, the Red Cross declined it several days later, before reading the book, even before the book was in print. This backlash toward the book, and toward its authors, has only added to the emotional toll writing the book has taken.
Only...HarperCollins was willing to take a chance on the book. “They were all interested,” says Herbeck, “but only Judith Regan, our editor, saw what a huge story it was. All the rest were scared of the public’s reaction to the book.”
The backlash
As a journalistic project, Dan Herbeck likens their book to In Cold Blood, Truman Capote’s account of the grisly killing of a Kansas farmer and his family. “In Cold Blood really influenced us,” says Herbeck, “We were striving to achieve the matter of fact yet compelling approach of Capote’s book. Just lay out the story and let the readers judge it.” The huge difference, as Herbeck notes, is that “Everyone in America has already formed their impressions of the Oklahoma City bombing.” It would have been hard for them to write anything that would not have been criticized from some perspective.
The criticism has run the gamut. They’ve even been criticized for not writing pretty enough prose—“I know how to write nice sentences,” laughs Michel, “but it’s a journalist’s job to tell the story, not to adorn it.” But mostly, the criticism has centered on reaction to McVeigh’s lack of remorse, the virulent aspects of his political views, and, of course, his now-infamous, cold-hearted references to the children killed in the bombing as “collateral damage.”
Michel and Herbeck say that they understand people’s reactions and expected there to be an outcry because of what McVeigh had said. But what they seem particularly upset about is that the book has been, in some cases, judged only on those outrageous statements, and that it has been judged, in many cases, without even being read. Michel says that when the initial criticism of the book came out, he was beside himself. “I couldn’t sleep for nights. Eventually, my skin toughened, but we wrote this with a lot of thoughtfulness and prayers. To be seen as profiteers, I couldn’t believe it. This was the hardest thing I’ve ever written.”
As the initial outcry over the book has subsided, and as people have actually begun to read it, Herbeck and Michel say they have been heartened by the praise and thanks they have begun to receive from critics and, especially, from the people of Oklahoma City. Michel notes that they have had numerous cards and letters from people in Oklahoma City thanking them for writing the book, including Dr. Paul Heath, president of the largest survivor’s association.
But they are especially galled by Wal-Mart’s refusal to carry the book. “Wal-Mart’s banning the book really disappoints me,” says Michel, “because it is the largest retailer in the country with over 2500 stores.” Michel says that in some parts of the country, it may be the only store for a hundred miles that sells books and maybe the one person who could in some way prevent another such tragedy won’t have access to the book. Herbeck goes even further in his disgust at the retailer: “I went into a Wal-Mart on our tour and you could buy thirty-four kinds of guns and thirty-one kinds of knives there, but they wouldn’t sell a book that describes the violence that results from weapons. It was cowardly of Wal-Mart not to sell the book.”
The end game
Lou Michel is one of six people Timothy McVeigh invited to witness his execution. There was no question Michel would go. “I was asked for historical purposes,” Michel says. Though both he and Herbeck personally oppose capital punishment, they both clearly feel that witnessing the execution is part of completing the story which their book tells. “This is our story,” says Herbeck, “we want to follow it through to the very end.” That end was almost dramatically delayed by the eleventh-hour revelation that the FBI had failed to turn over thousands of documents to McVeigh's defense team. At press time, judges had twice ruled that the execution would not be delayed in order to provide his lawyers with more time to review the newly discovered evidence, and McVeigh had decided not to pursue further appeals.
Michel notes that McVeigh doesn't care if he lives: "Ideologically, he is ready and willing to die for his cause;...personally, he is completely indifferent to life, and has been since he came back from the army." Much more important to McVeigh than his own life is his belief that the federal government, and specifically the FBI, tramples on the rights of Americans.
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Terry Nichols. Photo: Lou Michel.
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According to Michel, everyone, including McVeigh, was surprised that the FBI publicly admitted its bungling of the evidence, but he's not at all surprised that McVeigh used this to seek a delay in his execution. "McVeigh believes this is an institutionalized problem with the FBI, that they routinely violate defendants' civil rights." But Michel also notes that McVeigh likens his life to Queen’s “Bohemian Rhapsody:” "any way the wind blows, doesn't really matter to me."
Herbeck says that McVeigh is convinced that his life is going for a good cause, and that he achieved at least part of his goals. “He’s convinced he has backed off federal agents, that they’ll think twice before they get into another Ruby Ridge or Waco situation,” he says. The scary part is that he’s probably right. Even scarier, says Herbeck, is the fact that so many people in the country agree with McVeigh’s views, and that at least some are ready to see him as a martyr. “I read his mail for two years,” Herbeck continues. “He sent me everything and he got a lot of fan mail, people who agreed one hundred per cent with his political views.”
Ironically, though, McVeigh’s bomb brought some consequences he would never have intended. Michel believes the bombing brought about some much-needed security measures at federal buildings and really served as a wake-up call to the country that had been long complacent toward the dangers of terrorism, making us realize that we are vulnerable to acts of violence. “It’s hurt us in subtle ways,” he says. “There were no winners; we were all losers.”
The nature—or nurture—of evil
Lou Michel closes his introduction with this hope: “Surely a better understanding of the mind behind this act can help us all come to terms with humankind’s capacity for evil—and our even more remarkable capacity for healing.” But Michel and Herbeck are both uncomfortable with the word “evil” in describing McVeigh. Although it is tempting to put labels, from the pejorative to the pathological, on McVeigh, to just say he’s insane, twisted, evil, that, as Herbeck says, he’s missing his “compassion chip,” or to look for some Other or bogeyman, a foreign terrorist plot or even an organized domestic militia threat, the real lesson Michel and Herbeck derive is much more prosaic, but no less profound.
Rather than throw around words like “evil,” both authors describe their take on McVeigh’s motives in late-twentieth century social worker/therapist language, the kind that makes knee-jerk “fry-‘em” fundamentalists fume. They cite McVeigh’s lack of connection to his family, especially the lack of attention from his parents, as a major source of his anger. As Michel explains, “What this story tells us is that we need to know what’s going on in our children’s minds, that we need to spend time with our children. For kids today, pop culture becomes their whole frame of reference; but we need to remember that parents really craft a person, a person doesn’t just happen.” The inherent contradictions in this reasoning just don’t satisfy as an explanation for the bombing and Herbeck and Michel acknowledge that. And they both emphatically do not blame Bill McVeigh, Timothy’s father, for the bombing. But, that said, Herbeck reiterates, “The simplest truth someone could draw from our book is that parents need to be in tune with their kids.”
In the larger picture, Michel and Herbeck see a direct connection between McVeigh’s actions and the epidemic of school shootings. Michel points out that “our book draws a straight line connecting McVeigh to today’s high school shooters.” He notes that McVeigh shares four fundamental markers with numerous of the school shooters, “bullying, broken family bonds, fascination with violence in entertainment, and failed personal relationships.”
In the end, Michel insists that the simplification of the notion of evil, while tempting, is dangerous. “It would be so easy to write McVeigh off as evil incarnate,” he says,” but McVeigh is a three-dimensional human being and that makes him even scarier. It is to our peril that we write him off.” Says Herbeck, “What this book shows is that many people have the capacity to be drawn toward evil or the evil act, but it’s not necessarily going to be the guy with the swastika tattoo on his forehead that you should worry about. It could be the nice, clean-cut guy who helps you start your car.”
Anna Geronimo Hausmann is a writer and teacher who lives in Buffalo.
Timothy McVeigh was put to death by lethal injection at 8:14 a.m., Monday, June 11, 2001, at the Terre Haute Federal Penitentiary. Lou Michel and Dan Herbeck witnessed the execution.
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