: It just might be that Gore Vidal, Key and Hoffman along with
: Free Republic " Freepers " and others are about
: to open Pandora's Box.

Monday August 27 9:13 PM ET

Author Vidal Charges FBI with Shoddy Investigation

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Author Gore Vidal sent an open letter to FBI director-designate Robert Mueller on Monday, saying the agency dropped the ball on the investigation into Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City bombing and asking him to reopen the probe.

Telling Mueller ``we see you as Shane come to town,'' a reference to the Western movie hero, Vidal cited 19 FBI reports that he said contained crucial information about the bombing but were ignored by agents investigating the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

Vidal, who corresponded with McVeigh before his execution last June, maintains the Gulf War veteran had help and may not have been the lone bomber responsible for the April 19, 1995, explosion that killed 168 people.

``It appears the FBI never actually bothered to pursue the information provided in any substantive manner,'' Vidal said in his letter to Mueller.

Vidal said that the documents reveal a witness to the assembling of the bomb that destroyed the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building who saw several people other than McVeigh at work. Other documents that Vidal said were ignored contain information about anti-government radicals who the author said could have been involved.

Vidal, who writes about the case in the current issue of Vanity Fair magazine, said one ignored report was about a man who was thought to have exploded fertilizer bombs on his remote Kansas property prior to the explosion in Oklahoma City.

After directing Mueller to the case file, Vidal noted: ''I've been told this file number was mysteriously reassigned to an unrelated case in New Jersey and that new numbers have been issued for the Kansas man's files. What, one wonders, can this mean?''

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