ITALY: LEADING U.S. AUTHOR GORE VIDAL DEFENDS HIS DECISION TO WITNESS THE EXECUTION OF TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBER

Record ID: 646598

  • Title: ITALY: LEADING U.S. AUTHOR GORE VIDAL DEFENDS HIS DECISION TO WITNESS THE EXECUTION OF TIMOTHY MCVEIGH, THE OKLAHOMA CITY BOMBER
  • Date: 9th May 2001
  • Summary: RAVELLO, ITALY (MAY 9, 2001) (REUTERS ACCESS ALL) 1. GV/SLV OF VILLAGE/STREET SCENES (4 SHOTS) 0.18 2. LV GORE VIDAL'S HOUSE EMBEDDED IN A CLIFF 0.22 3. PAN FROM SEA TO GORE ON HIS HOUSE'S BALCONY 0.32 4. MCU GORE 0.38 5. SV (English) GORE VIDAL SAYING: "He's allowed six witnesses at the execution, would I be one? And since I am opposed to the death penalty and I am opposed to killing people in Oklahoma City and I am opposed to the Federal Government killing people in Waco, Texas, which is what aroused McVeigh to act I said yes I will go to Terra Haute for the event. So, I'm on my way" 1.22 6. SLV GORE VIDAL TALKING TO REPORTER 1.25 7. MCU (English) GORE VIDAL SAYING: "He has been depicted by the American media, which is incredible and ingenious when it comes to the demonization of people so they have turned him into a crazed killer who just wants to blow things up and he hates the world and so on. Well, he's neither crazy and certainly doesn't hate the world, but he hates the American Federal Government" 1.55 8. SV GORE VIDAL TALKING TO REPORTER 2.00 9. MCU (English) GORE VIDAL SAYING: "summed up last November when my cousin Albert Gore was elected President of the United States and the Supreme Court said he may not serve, yet he got 500,000 more votes than Mr. Bush This is plainly a country in great trouble, a country which is beginning to run amock and McVeigh's sacrifice of himself to his sense of justice, no I don't approve of his killing of children is a wake up call, an alarm bell of what is becoming increasingly a darker night" 2.37 10. SV OF GORE VIDAL IN HIS STUDIO 2.43 Initials Script is copyright Reuters Limited. All rights reserved
  • Embargoed: 24th May 2001 13:00
  • Keywords:
  • Location: MAY 9, 2001
  • Country: Italy
  • Reuters ID: LVA88U8844TWIUARY32D5U8DYK7O
  • Story Text: Leading U.S. author Gore Vidal defends his decision to
    witness the execution of Timothy McVeigh and said he shared
    the Oklahoma city bomber's views about the unconstitutionality
    of many of the American Federal Government's actions


    Gore Vidal will fly on Friday, May 11, 2001 to Terra
    Haute to attend at the execution of Timothy McVeigh, invited
    by McVeigh himself during the two-year long correspondence
    between the two.

    Vidal has never met McVeigh and has been contacted by the
    convict himself after reading one of Vidal's articles on a
    popular magazine.

    "He's allowed six witnesses at the execution, would I be
    one? And since I am opposed to the death penalty and I am
    opposed to killing people in Oklahoma City and I am opposed to
    the Federal Government killing people in Waco, Texas, which is
    what aroused McVeigh to act I said yes I will go to Terra
    Haute for the event. So, I'm on my way" McVeigh was quoted as
    saying in a recent book, "American Terrorist," that he
    detonated a truck bomb outside a federal building in Oklahoma
    City in 1995 to avenge the Waco raid.

    McVeigh also said in a note released last month that he
    had considered assassinating Reno and others instead of
    bombing the Oklahoma City federal building, an act that killed
    168 people.

    Vidal, like McVeigh in the past, took aim at former U.S.

    Attorney General Janet Reno who ordered the 1993 government
    raid of the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, that
    ended in the deaths of more than 80 cult members He believes
    there are more issues to this case than that of the death
    penalty.

    "He has been depicted by the American media, which is
    incredible and ingenuous when it comes to the demonization of
    people so they have turned him into a crazed killer who just
    wants to blow things up and he hates the world and so on.

    Well, he's neither crazy and certainly doesn't hate the world,
    but he hates the American Federal Government"
    The Oklahoma City bombing is something which raises issues
    of constitutionality within the American Federal Government's
    actions.

    What Gore Vidal believes to be a plutocratic and
    disenfranchising state was "summed up last November when my
    cousin Albert Gore was elected President of the United States
    and the Supreme Court said he may not serve, yet he got
    500,000 more votes than Mr. Bush."
    "This is plainly a country in great trouble, a country
    which is beginning to run amock and McVeigh's sacrifice of
    himself to his sense of justice, no I don't approve of his
    killing of
    children is a wake up call, an alarm bell of what is becoming
    increasingly a darker night"


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