Clinton Calls for Purge of the ‘Dark Forces’

President Clinton on Sunday attacked anti-government extremists for helping create a climate of violence that engendered last week’s bombing of the federal building here, and he pledged to “shut down” organized political violence before it spreads.

“One thing we owe those who have sacrificed is the duty to purge ourselves of the dark forces which gave rise to this evil,” Clinton said somberly at a memorial prayer service. “They are forces that threaten our common peace, our freedom, our way of life. Let us teach our children that the God of comfort is also the God of righteousness. Those who trouble their own house will inherit the wind.”

Later, in a television interview, the President was more blunt, saying that the bombing was a kind of “organized, systematic, political violence” that the nation has rarely known before.

“We have got to take steps aggressively to shut it down,” he said. “And I’m going to do everything in my power to shut it down.”

“We’re going to have to be very, very tough in dealing with this,” he said on CBS-TV’s “60 Minutes.” “We cannot allow our country to be subject to these things.”

And in his first direct verbal attack on the rightist anti-government militias to which a suspect in the bombing has been linked, Clinton denounced groups that have made a cause of the 1993 federal raid on the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Tex.

“Before that raid was carried out, those people murdered a bunch of innocent law enforcement officials,” he said, his voice rising with passion. “To make those people heroes for what they did--killing our innocent federal officials and then killing their own children--is evidence of what is wrong.”

“They have a right to believe whatever they want,” he said of the paramilitary groups. “They have a right to say whatever they want. They have a right to keep and bear arms . . . (but) they do not have a right to kill innocent Americans. They do not have the right to violate the law.”

It was Clinton’s first extended comment on the phenomenon of the militias. His aides have carefully avoided any direct attack on the groups, which have not been linked directly to the bombing.

Some terrorism experts outside government have warned that an escalation of rhetoric against the groups could heighten their paranoia and even push some toward more confrontations with government authorities.

But Clinton--who noted that an anti-government extremist had “killed a sheriff who was a friend of mine” in Arkansas--appeared eager to take on the groups and determined to portray them as a danger to society. (The incident to which Clinton referred involved tax protester Gordon Kahl, who later died in a confrontation with law enforcement officers.)

Clinton said violent anti-government rhetoric had contributed to the climate that allowed the bombing to occur.

“It’s spouting violence,” he complained. “People should examine the consequences of what they say and the kinds of emotions they’re trying to inflame.”

In a written outline released to reporters accompanying him on his one-day visit here, Clinton announced actions to step up the federal government’s counterterrorism efforts.

Clinton adviser George Stephanopoulos said the measures are not aimed specifically at domestic paramilitary groups. “This is supposed to go toward both domestic and foreign terrorism,” he said.

Asked whether the measures he is proposing would limit civil liberties, Clinton compared them to metal detectors in airports, which he said are “a minor infringement on our freedom.”

“I don’t think we have to give up our liberties. But I do think we have to be more disciplined and make sure serious threats to our liberties are limited,” he said.

“We will still have freedom of speech . . . but we may have to have some discipline in doing it.”

The President’s visit to Oklahoma City gave him an opportunity to appear presidential and to remind his audience--both in the Oklahoma State Fairgrounds Arena and on nationwide television--of the role that the federal government plays in disaster relief. It is a point Clinton has made before--from earthquake-hit Southern California to the flood-ravaged Mississippi Valley--to rebut Republican advocates of a much smaller federal government.

In this case, the President paid a graceful tribute to the federal government employees who died in the blast, saying that they “worked to help the elderly and the disabled (and) to support our farmers and our veterans. . . . Let us say clearly: ‘They served us well, and we are grateful.’ ”

Clinton received several standing ovations from the 11,000-strong audience in the arena. Gov. Frank Keating, a Republican, said Oklahomans are grateful that the President had come “to touch our lives.”

Clinton did not visit the site of the explosion, where rescue workers were still searching the wreckage, but he met with survivors, rescue personnel and Oklahoma Highway Patrol Trooper Charlie Hanger, who arrested bombing suspect Timothy J. McVeigh.

An aide said Clinton was near tears as he talked with Aren Almon, the mother of blast victim Baylee Almon, a 1-year-old girl whose photograph as she was carried in the arms of a rescue worker was one of the most indelible images of the tragedy.

“I’m sorry. I’m so sorry,” the President said to the bereaved mother.

Baylee Almon died in a hospital shortly after she was pulled from the rubble.