22-04-2009, 03:23 AM
(This post was last modified: 22-04-2009, 03:49 AM by Bruce Clemens.)
This harkens back to the attempted Carter assassination where the two perpetrators were Raymond Lee Harvey and Osvaldo Ortiz. At least we can't claim that The Powers That Be don't have a sense of humor...
[Emphases mine]
CNN
July 7, 1995
SHOW: NEWS 8:16 pm ET
Book Shares Similar Facts of Oklahoma City Bombing
BYLINE: TONY CLARK
SECTION: News; Domestic
LENGTH: 516 words
HIGHLIGHT: Martin Keating is the author of "The Final Jihad", a book which has eery similarities to the bombing in Oklahoma City. The author is already planning a sequel. He is the brother of Oklahoma's governor.
LINDEN SOLES, Anchor: The Oklahoma City bombing has been re-told in books and magazines. But a book written four years ago has some haunting similarities to the actual tragedy. Even more ironic, the book's author is the brother of Oklahoma's governor.
Here's CNN's Tony Clark.
TONY CLARK, Correspondent: When a bomb destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City, Martin Keating was personally shocked and grieved. But as an author, he was not completely surprised.
Four years ago, Keating finished writing a novel called The Final Jihad. It deals with terrorist bombings across the U.S. The terrorists in Keating's book are based in Oklahoma.
MARTIN KEATING, Author, 'The Final Jihad': The reason I based my terrorists in Oklahoma was precisely that, because it was a place you would overlook. And this would be an ideal place.
TONY CLARK: The similarities between fact and fiction are striking. For example, the prime bombing suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing is named Tim McVeigh. One of Keating's characters is Tom McVeigh. In real life, McVeigh was arrested by highway patrol trooper Charlie Hanger for a traffic violation. In the novel -
MARTIN KEATING: We also have a highway patrolman who, doing his job, pulls over a suspicious vehicle and he makes a discovery, which at the time he doesn't understand fully the significance of, and it breaks the case open. Of course, that happened in real life with Charlie Hanger.
TONY CLARK: Keating started his as of yet unpublished novel in 1988. Over the years, he's had to make several revisions, as fictional events he wrote about became reality- the fall of the Berlin Wall; Gorbachev's resignation and the breakup of the Soviet Union; the attack on the World Trade Center, and an airplane crashing into the White House.
MARTIN KEATING: When those things happened, I had to go back and change the book, make past tense out of what I had as future tense.
TONY CLARK: However, Keating's bombers were international terrorists financed by hard line communists, a group not suspected in the real bombing. But the similarities between Keating's fiction and reality have been grist for the Internet, fueling the suspicion of some conspiracy theorists.
Some even see a conspiracy connection because Keating's brother is Oklahoma's governor.
Gov. FRANK KEATING (R-OK): You know there are silly people who say silly things. There are dumb people who do dumb things, and to suggest that there is any connection or similarity is very, very remote.
[More remote than...Tim McVeigh...Tom McVeigh?!]
TONY CLARK: The author, Martin Keating, is already planning a sequel to The Final Jihad. Because at the end of The Final Jihad, one of the bad guys gets away. That's one piece of Keating's fiction people here hope doesn't come true.
Tony Clark, CNN, Oklahoma City.
[Too late...they all got away.]
[Emphases mine]
CNN
July 7, 1995
SHOW: NEWS 8:16 pm ET
Book Shares Similar Facts of Oklahoma City Bombing
BYLINE: TONY CLARK
SECTION: News; Domestic
LENGTH: 516 words
HIGHLIGHT: Martin Keating is the author of "The Final Jihad", a book which has eery similarities to the bombing in Oklahoma City. The author is already planning a sequel. He is the brother of Oklahoma's governor.
LINDEN SOLES, Anchor: The Oklahoma City bombing has been re-told in books and magazines. But a book written four years ago has some haunting similarities to the actual tragedy. Even more ironic, the book's author is the brother of Oklahoma's governor.
Here's CNN's Tony Clark.
TONY CLARK, Correspondent: When a bomb destroyed the federal building in Oklahoma City, Martin Keating was personally shocked and grieved. But as an author, he was not completely surprised.
Four years ago, Keating finished writing a novel called The Final Jihad. It deals with terrorist bombings across the U.S. The terrorists in Keating's book are based in Oklahoma.
MARTIN KEATING, Author, 'The Final Jihad': The reason I based my terrorists in Oklahoma was precisely that, because it was a place you would overlook. And this would be an ideal place.
TONY CLARK: The similarities between fact and fiction are striking. For example, the prime bombing suspect in the Oklahoma City bombing is named Tim McVeigh. One of Keating's characters is Tom McVeigh. In real life, McVeigh was arrested by highway patrol trooper Charlie Hanger for a traffic violation. In the novel -
MARTIN KEATING: We also have a highway patrolman who, doing his job, pulls over a suspicious vehicle and he makes a discovery, which at the time he doesn't understand fully the significance of, and it breaks the case open. Of course, that happened in real life with Charlie Hanger.
TONY CLARK: Keating started his as of yet unpublished novel in 1988. Over the years, he's had to make several revisions, as fictional events he wrote about became reality- the fall of the Berlin Wall; Gorbachev's resignation and the breakup of the Soviet Union; the attack on the World Trade Center, and an airplane crashing into the White House.
MARTIN KEATING: When those things happened, I had to go back and change the book, make past tense out of what I had as future tense.
TONY CLARK: However, Keating's bombers were international terrorists financed by hard line communists, a group not suspected in the real bombing. But the similarities between Keating's fiction and reality have been grist for the Internet, fueling the suspicion of some conspiracy theorists.
Some even see a conspiracy connection because Keating's brother is Oklahoma's governor.
Gov. FRANK KEATING (R-OK): You know there are silly people who say silly things. There are dumb people who do dumb things, and to suggest that there is any connection or similarity is very, very remote.
[More remote than...Tim McVeigh...Tom McVeigh?!]
TONY CLARK: The author, Martin Keating, is already planning a sequel to The Final Jihad. Because at the end of The Final Jihad, one of the bad guys gets away. That's one piece of Keating's fiction people here hope doesn't come true.
Tony Clark, CNN, Oklahoma City.
[Too late...they all got away.]
"If you're looking for something that isn't there, you're wasting your time and the taxpayers' money."
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses
-Michael Neuman, U.S. Government bureaucrat, on why NIST didn't address explosives in its report on the WTC collapses