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The Third Man: Was There Another Bomber in Oklahoma City?
On April 19, 1995, a massive truck bomb destroyed Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, killing 168 men, women and children. The terrorists were homegrown.
In the blast debris, the FBI found a twisted truck axle and traced its identification number to a nearby rental agency. Employees there described two men who had rented the Ryder truck used in the attack. A flyer with likenesses of the fugitives - John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 – was distributed nationwide.
The FBI conducted what was then its largest ever manhunt. More than a dozen eyewitnesses put the John Does together in the days before the attack. Some told field agents they were in the same bomb-laden truck as it drove to the Murrah building.
John Doe 1 turned out to be the plot’s ringleader, Timothy McVeigh, a decorated 26-year-old army veteran of the first Gulf War. But the FBI never found John Doe 2. The Bureau eventually decided that all the eyewitnesses were mistaken and no such person existed.
Was the FBI right? Or did the Bureau miss critical evidence and overlook credible eyewitnesses in order to quickly close the case?
The Third Man is long form journalism. Gerald Posner, an award winning investigative reporter, was assigned to answer those questions by The New Yorker. Posner’s article was submitted only weeks before the start of McVeigh’s trial, but the magazine did not publish it, worried that the FBI probe might not be complete.
The Third Man is Posner’s 1997 New Yorker draft (including some brief updates). Based on dozens of original interviews, and access to then confidential FBI files and secret grand jury testimony, The Third Man was then, and remains, one of the largest private reexaminations into the question of whether there was a John Doe 2.
In weighing the credible evidence, The Third Man ultimately highlights disturbing failures in the official investigation and in the process raises the real possibility that a bomber got away.
In the blast debris, the FBI found a twisted truck axle and traced its identification number to a nearby rental agency. Employees there described two men who had rented the Ryder truck used in the attack. A flyer with likenesses of the fugitives - John Doe 1 and John Doe 2 – was distributed nationwide.
The FBI conducted what was then its largest ever manhunt. More than a dozen eyewitnesses put the John Does together in the days before the attack. Some told field agents they were in the same bomb-laden truck as it drove to the Murrah building.
John Doe 1 turned out to be the plot’s ringleader, Timothy McVeigh, a decorated 26-year-old army veteran of the first Gulf War. But the FBI never found John Doe 2. The Bureau eventually decided that all the eyewitnesses were mistaken and no such person existed.
Was the FBI right? Or did the Bureau miss critical evidence and overlook credible eyewitnesses in order to quickly close the case?
The Third Man is long form journalism. Gerald Posner, an award winning investigative reporter, was assigned to answer those questions by The New Yorker. Posner’s article was submitted only weeks before the start of McVeigh’s trial, but the magazine did not publish it, worried that the FBI probe might not be complete.
The Third Man is Posner’s 1997 New Yorker draft (including some brief updates). Based on dozens of original interviews, and access to then confidential FBI files and secret grand jury testimony, The Third Man was then, and remains, one of the largest private reexaminations into the question of whether there was a John Doe 2.
In weighing the credible evidence, The Third Man ultimately highlights disturbing failures in the official investigation and in the process raises the real possibility that a bomber got away.
42 pages, Kindle Edition
First published March 9, 2013
4 people are currently reading
44 people want to read
About the author
Gerald Posner
17 books290 followersGerald Posner is an award winning journalist, bestselling author and attorney. The Los Angeles Times dubs him "a classic-style investigative journalist." "His work is painstakingly honest journalism" concluded The Washington Post. The New York Times lauded his "exhaustive research techniques" and The Boston Globe talked of Posner's "thorough and hard-edge investigation." "A meticulous and serious researcher," said the New York Daily News.
Posner's first book, Mengele, a 1986 biography of the Nazi "Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, was the result of a pro-bono lawsuit Posner brought on behalf of surviving twins from Auschwitz. Since then he has written ten other books from the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Case Closed, to bestsellers on political assassinations, organized crime, national politics, and 9/11 and terrorism. His upcoming God’s Bankers has spanned nine years of research and received early critical praise.
ohn Martin of ABC News says "Gerald Posner is one of the most resourceful investigators I have encountered in thirty years of journalism." Garry Wills calls Posner "a superb investigative reporter. "Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, demolishes myths through a meticulous re-examination of the facts," reported the Chicago Tribune. "Meticulous research," Newsday.
Anthony Lewis in The New York Times: "With 'Killing the Dream, he has written a superb book: a model of investigation, meticulous in its discovery and presentation of evidence, unbiased in its exploration of every claim. And it is a wonderfully readable book, as gripping as a first-class detective story."
"What we need is a work of painstakingly honest journalism, a la Case Closed, Gerald Posner's landmark re-examination of the assassination of John F. Kennedy," concluded Joe Sharkey in The New York Times.
Gene Lyons, in Entertainment Weekly: "As thorough and incisive a job of reporting and critical thinking as you will ever read, Case Closed does more than buttress the much beleaguered Warren Commission's conclusion ….More than that, Posner's book is written in a penetrating, lucid style that makes it a joy to read. Even the footnotes, often briskly debunking one or another fanciful or imaginary scenario put forth by the conspiracy theorists, rarely fail to enthrall...Case Closed is a work of genuine patriotism and a monument to the astringent power of reason. 'A'"
Jeffrey Toobin in the Chicago Tribune: "Unlike many of the 2,000 other books that have been written about the Kennedy assassination, Posner's Case Closed is a resolutely sane piece of work. More importantly, 'Case Closed' is utterly convincing in its thesis, which seems, in light of all that has transpired over the past 30 years, almost revolutionary....I started Case Closed as a skeptic - and slightly put off by the presumptuous title. To my mind historical truth is always a slippery thing. The chances of knowing for sure what happened in any event - much less one as murky as the Kennedy assassination - seem remote. But this fascinating and important book won me over. Case closed, indeed."
Based in the mixed realms of politics, history, and true crime, his articles - from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Newsweek, Time and The Daily Beast - have prompted Argentina to open its hidden Nazi files to researchers; raised disturbing questions about clues the FBI missed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; sparked a reinvestigation of the Boston Strangler; and exposed Pete Rose's gambling addiction, which led to his ban from baseball.
Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A Political Science major, Posner was a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1975), where he was also a national debating champion, winner of the Meiklejohn Award. At Hastings Law School (1978), he was an Honors Graduate and served as the Associate Executive Editor for the Law Review. Of Counsel to Posner & Ferrar
Posner's first book, Mengele, a 1986 biography of the Nazi "Angel of Death” Josef Mengele, was the result of a pro-bono lawsuit Posner brought on behalf of surviving twins from Auschwitz. Since then he has written ten other books from the Pulitzer Prize-finalist Case Closed, to bestsellers on political assassinations, organized crime, national politics, and 9/11 and terrorism. His upcoming God’s Bankers has spanned nine years of research and received early critical praise.
ohn Martin of ABC News says "Gerald Posner is one of the most resourceful investigators I have encountered in thirty years of journalism." Garry Wills calls Posner "a superb investigative reporter. "Posner, a former Wall Street lawyer, demolishes myths through a meticulous re-examination of the facts," reported the Chicago Tribune. "Meticulous research," Newsday.
Anthony Lewis in The New York Times: "With 'Killing the Dream, he has written a superb book: a model of investigation, meticulous in its discovery and presentation of evidence, unbiased in its exploration of every claim. And it is a wonderfully readable book, as gripping as a first-class detective story."
"What we need is a work of painstakingly honest journalism, a la Case Closed, Gerald Posner's landmark re-examination of the assassination of John F. Kennedy," concluded Joe Sharkey in The New York Times.
Gene Lyons, in Entertainment Weekly: "As thorough and incisive a job of reporting and critical thinking as you will ever read, Case Closed does more than buttress the much beleaguered Warren Commission's conclusion ….More than that, Posner's book is written in a penetrating, lucid style that makes it a joy to read. Even the footnotes, often briskly debunking one or another fanciful or imaginary scenario put forth by the conspiracy theorists, rarely fail to enthrall...Case Closed is a work of genuine patriotism and a monument to the astringent power of reason. 'A'"
Jeffrey Toobin in the Chicago Tribune: "Unlike many of the 2,000 other books that have been written about the Kennedy assassination, Posner's Case Closed is a resolutely sane piece of work. More importantly, 'Case Closed' is utterly convincing in its thesis, which seems, in light of all that has transpired over the past 30 years, almost revolutionary....I started Case Closed as a skeptic - and slightly put off by the presumptuous title. To my mind historical truth is always a slippery thing. The chances of knowing for sure what happened in any event - much less one as murky as the Kennedy assassination - seem remote. But this fascinating and important book won me over. Case closed, indeed."
Based in the mixed realms of politics, history, and true crime, his articles - from The New York Times to The New Yorker to Newsweek, Time and The Daily Beast - have prompted Argentina to open its hidden Nazi files to researchers; raised disturbing questions about clues the FBI missed in the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing; sparked a reinvestigation of the Boston Strangler; and exposed Pete Rose's gambling addiction, which led to his ban from baseball.
Posner was one of the youngest attorneys (23) ever hired by Cravath, Swaine & Moore. A Political Science major, Posner was a Phi Beta Kappa and Summa Cum Laude graduate of the University of California at Berkeley (1975), where he was also a national debating champion, winner of the Meiklejohn Award. At Hastings Law School (1978), he was an Honors Graduate and served as the Associate Executive Editor for the Law Review. Of Counsel to Posner & Ferrar
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 12, 2013
This is was an investigation my husband, Gerald, did in 1997 for The New Yorker magazine about whether there was a John Doe 2 in the Oklahoma City bombing of the Murrah Federal Building. He spent weeks chasing the story in the midwest and then pouring through FBI files and interviewing the eyewitnesses. This article has been published in part over the years, but this is the first time it is digitally available in full. Read this work of long form journalism and draw your own conclusions about whether a bomber got away from the FBI or the second sightings are figments of people's imaginations.....
A great fast read.
A great fast read.
March 21, 2013
Once again, Mr. Posner delivers a meticulously investigated piece of work, which is easy to read and understand.
Each piece of eyewitness evidence for another bomber is addressed, and the pros and cons are weighed. There are no crazy theories about cover-ups.
I look forward to reading more of his work.
Each piece of eyewitness evidence for another bomber is addressed, and the pros and cons are weighed. There are no crazy theories about cover-ups.
I look forward to reading more of his work.
July 22, 2024
This book combines two great factors that make it a must read. (1) The idea that Tim McVeigh had additional acomplices and that John Doe #2 was a real guy have always been pet theories of mine AND (2) Gerald Posner had period where he did some of the best long form investigative journalism of anyone out there. Posner's book "Case Closed" was in the nail in the coffin for my belief in grand JFK assassination theories.
This is a short book consisting of research GP had been doing for a longer NewsWeek/Daily Beast piece that never got going. There are other books that go into even more detail on Oklahoma City loose ends with Jon Ronson even doing a fascinating podcast on the topic, but GP does identify some rather hard witness testimony of another man that was not Terry Nichols being with McVeigh in the days leading up to the bombing.
This is a short book consisting of research GP had been doing for a longer NewsWeek/Daily Beast piece that never got going. There are other books that go into even more detail on Oklahoma City loose ends with Jon Ronson even doing a fascinating podcast on the topic, but GP does identify some rather hard witness testimony of another man that was not Terry Nichols being with McVeigh in the days leading up to the bombing.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews