From: Jamie Shafer <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> See also Ambrose Evans-Prichard
New York Post
Monday, Oct. 18, 2999
Terrified Ex-spy Cuts Deal
Carol Howe, who claims she tipped off the FBI about the Oklahoma bombing but was ignored, sells her life story for 500G.
By Daniel Jeffreys
At 27, Carol Howe has already been a white supremacist, an FBI informant and the lover of an Aryan gang leader. She claims that weeks before the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing she warned the Justice Department that a terrorist attack at the Alfred P. Murrah Building was imminent.
Sounds like the stuff that movies are made of, and it soon will be. This terrifying true-life story is also the project closest to Meg Ryan�s heart. Through her company, Prufrock Productions, Ryan turns producer. And she has just enticed director Sydney Pollack ("Random Hearts") to take on material that many have deemed too hot to handle.
These days, Carol Howe goes by another name. She changed her identity two years ago, fearing reprisals from the far right and government agents, and she now lives quietly in a new town and with an altered appearance. This year she visited New York and rode the subway, but none of her fellow passengers would have been likely to suspect that the petite blonde with a model's figure was for nine months the FBI's star spy inside one of the country's most dangerous militia groups.
Her story is all the more surprising because of her origins. The adopted daughter of wealthy Tulsa socialites Aubyn and Bob Howe, Carol was a pretty debutante and an accomplished horsewoman.
Then, in 1994, a mugging in an Oklahoma park left her with broken ankles after the assailants threw her over a 16-foot drop. Carol's attackers were black. She says her subsequent depression and anger made her a racist, and she joined the extreme White Aryan Resistance.
"I wanted to kill black people and Jews," Howe says. "I had my body tattooed with swastikas."
When Howe realized hatred would not solve her problems, she tried to leave WAR. Its leader, Dennis Mahon, a former Imperial Dragon of the Klu Klux Klan told her nobody could leave WAR. Howe alleges he began stalking her.
She got a restraining order against him in August 1994. "A few days later, I got a visit from federal agent Angela Finley,� Howe says. �She told me the restraining order was useless. The only way I could protect myself was to get Mahon put behind bars."
Finleyn an agent with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms (ATF),
suggested Howe return to WAR, say she had made a mistake, and got close to Mahon with a view to passing intelligence on WAR back to the ATF and the FBI - a proposition that required Howe - as she later testified - to become a Mata Hari.
Finley�s words - never disputed - were that she use �all the seductive techniques of a woman.�
"I was thrilled to be asked,� Howe says. "I did not consider all the consequences. I thought I was doing a very important thing.�
Howe was a success. Mahon not only welcomed her back but took her to a remote armed camp called Elohim City, a gathering place for some of the most violent anti-government extremists in the country.
Here, she was trained in firearms and forced into night exercises,, trekking through near-frozen rivers.
Howe says she was also forced to perform many "loyalty tests," one of which was crawling under barbed wire while Elohim City head of security, Andreas Strassmeir, shot at her feet.
Others included pressure to have sex with senior members of Christian Identity, the main group operating out of Elohim City. Her ATF handlers encouraged her to "flirt but never consummate.�
Howe was now known at the ATF and FBI by the code number CI-183. In the first debriefing report of Howe compiled by agent Finley, the new spy offered a videotape she had taken of Mahon saying he supported violence against leading politicians.
In the next report, filed on Sept. 26, 1994, CI-183 describes Mahon teaching her how to make hand grenades and claiming that a race war would begin in April 1995.
She also reported that Strassmeir was in contact with an arms dealer who could supply C-4 explosive to "the cause."
To assess her credibility, Howe was given several polygraph tests, which she passed convincingly. Howe claims one was administered after she told Finley that Strassmeir had talked about truck bombs like the one which destroyed the Murrah Building, and indicated he had a list of federal buildings in Tulsa and Oklahoma City that would make good targets.
She repeated this before an Oklahoma grand jury, but the FBI has always denied they received a specific warning. (The FBI would not comment at all.)
Howe says she could not understand why more was not done by the FBI to apprehend leading Christian Identity members, especially Strassmeir. (He was questioned, once, in January 1994, but quickly released.)
The German had been living in the United States illegally for over five years by 1995. He always carried an unlicensed firearm, an offense that could have won him at least a five-year prison term.
Strassmeir could also have faced indictment on incitement charges, based on Howe's testimony about the way he talked to Elohim City visitors - one of whom was Timothy McVeigh, now facing the death penalty for his role in the Oklahoma City bombing.
"I saw them talking together at Elohim City," says Howe. "They were walking together and talking.'
Howe does not know the content of their conversation, but by March 1995, one month before the bombing in Oklahoma City, Howe's reports had generated enough alarm that the FBI and ATF planned a raid on Elohim City. A document released to Howe�s attorney in 1997 show the raid was scuttled because of concerns about Christian Identity's potential firepower.
And yet - believe it or not - sources say the portion of Howe's story that hooked Meg Ryan comes after the Murrah building was bombed.
When the Oklahoma City bomb claimed 168 lives on April 19, 1995, Carol Howe, was at home in Tulsa. ATF agent Finley transported Howe to the FBI�s bomb investigation headquarters within hours of the deadly blast.
(An ATF report from that day states, "It was determined that CI-183 [Howe] would be sent to Elohim City to obtain any intelligence relating to the bombing.�)
For the next month, federal documents make clear, Howe was regarded by the FBI as one of their key assets in discovering who else apart from McVeigh had been involved, which makes what happened to Howe next all the more disconcerting.
"The FBI had arrested McVeigh and Terry Nichols," she says. "I think they suddenly decided I was a liability because I believed McVeigh and Nichols were only foot soldiers, following orders. The FBI wanted to close the case.�
In the aftermath of MeVeigh�s arrest, the FBI blew Carol Howe's cover. Her identity was revealed in a document released to McVeigh's defense attorneys, which immediately became part of the public record.
According. To ATF documents, a subsequent FBI threat-assessment report conceded that Howe�s life was in danger. She was told everything would be done to protect her, but Howe claims no protection was forthcoming.
She did get plenty of death threats from WAR members and became extremely scared, In what she calls a �severe depression,� Howe decided she was a dead woman unless she could persuade the WAR she was still loyal.
Howe dove deep back into right-wing politics, setting up house with WAR member James Viefhaus, becoming his lover and participating in several WAR exercises. She also recorded racist messages for the DIAL-A-RACIST hot line.
Howe claims in her testimony at trial that she tried to offer the FBI information on Viefhaus in return for FBI protection but was rebuffed. The FBI's testimony says that by this point Howe was considered �unstable� and hence not "suitable� for use as a protected source.
In December 1996, Howe's home was raided by the FBI and ATF. Bomb-making materials were removed - some of which Howe had been given by the ATF.
In March 1997, Howe was indicted, charged with possession of bomb-making materials, conspiracy to bomb and make bomb threats. According to Howe's lawyer, Clark Brewster, his client's indictment had only one purposes "They realized Carol's testimony might be inconsistent with their tidy theory that it was only McVeigh and Nichols who did Oklahoma" he says. "The indictment was designed to shut her up.�
The government's case against Howe was a shambles. At an August 1997 trial, the ATF claimed Howe had been �deactivated� prior to the April 1995 bombing, but internal federal documents reveal she was still carried as an active agent at the time of her 1996 arrest. ATF agents testified that Howe was paranoid and mentally unstable, but the FBI's 1996 threat-assessment report contradicts that, saying Howe was �not overly fearful or paranoid during undercover operations.�
In the same report where Finley vouches for Howe's good character, the ATF agent concludes, "I believe CI-183 could be in serious danger when WAR associates discover his/her identity."
Since her acquittal, Howe has been terrified of reprisals. Viefhaus, arrested with her, has been sentenced to three years in jail. She has little faith in the FBI, whom she believes would be happy to see her disappear. Had she not gone into hiding to build a new life, Howe believes she would most probably
have been killed by now. That leaves her with mixed feelings about Meg Ryan's challenging movie project.
She is happy to have the money. Sources at Prufrock say she was paid over half a million dollars for her life rights. But she is scared of the consequences, for the movie will expose both the FBI and the vicious WAR/Christian Identity militias.
In the end, it was that which made her decide to accept Ryan's offer. �I wanted people to know my version of what happened,� she says. �I think it is the truth. Which means I believe McVeigh and Nichols did not strike alone. And those who worked with them will one day strike again.�
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