7

The Connection

"It's a total conspiracy. It has government written all over it."
— Tom Posey, Civilian Military Assistance Group/Iran-Contra Player

April 19, 1995 was, like November 22, 1963, a day that devastated America. Stunned citizens everywhere watched anxiously as another painful drama unfolded before them.

Within minutes of the brutal attack on Oklahoma City, an army of agencies leapt into action. In the White House Situation Room the atmosphere was tense as officials from the National Security Council, the Secret Service, the FBI, ATF, NSA, and CIA all assembled to brief the President.

This crisis team, led by the Justice Department, linked up to command centers around the globe, monitored by a plethora of intelligence agencies on extra-high alert. The FBI, the CIA's Directorate of Operations and their domestic arm, the National Resources Division, sent agents hither and yonder in a frantic and desperate search for information concerning the catastrophic attack.

In a quite Maryland suburb, one former CIA official sat back and calmly monitored the ensuing chaos. He picked up his pipe, casually adjusted the volume on his television, and leaned back in his comfortable leather chair.

Two thousand miles away in Albuquerque, D'Ferdinand Carone, the daughter of former police detective, CIA operative, and Mafia bag-man, "Big Al" Carone, picked up the telephone and dialed a very private number.

A half a continent away, the former CIA Deputy Director of Covert Operations tapped the contents of his pipe into an ashtray, hit the mute button on his remote control, and answered the phone.

Carone had been trying to reach Theodore Shackley for over two weeks. As they talked, her attention was suddenly diverted by a horrible scene. What appeared to be an office building lay smoldering in ruins. People and sirens were screaming in the background as bodies were carted away by ambulance.

"I said, 'oh my God, they bombed Oklahoma!'

"This was about the time they were talking about the plane they stopped in Heathrow [with Abraham Ahmed], and I said, 'here we go again.'

Carone was referring of course to the World Trade Center bombing by a group of Mid-East terrorists. She assumed that this was more of the same.

"And Ted said, 'Now wouldn't you find it interesting if you found out it was terrorists from here?'

"I said, 'excuse me?'

"And he said, 'just what I said.'

"Then it hit me like a ton of bricks. I got the distinct feeling that he knew who it was, and that it actually had something to do with the Agency."^[999]

While scores of intelligence and law-enforcement agencies scoured the globe for clues as to who had bombed the Alfred P. Murrah Building, one man in a small office in Maryland seemed to have the answer.^[1000]

How did he know?