Oklahoma City Memorial Looms Big for GSA Chief : Tragedy: Circumstances have made Orange County’s Roger Johnson the tender of sacred ground. His mission is to get a community consensus on a fitting tribute.

It still moves him, his recollection of watching the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City crumple in a huge cloud of dust.

Standing on one of the top floors of a nearby apartment building while the bombed structure was demolished, Roger Johnson recalls, he didn’t know if his tears were from grief or relief. The horror of domestic terrorism was still sinking in.

But as he watched the final destruction of the building where 168 people had died, Johnson knew his work was just beginning. Handpicked by President Clinton to head the General Services Administration, this former Orange County corporate executive had essentially been the building’s landlord.

Now, in a most unexpected way, Johnson had become the tender of sacred ground.

It was here, two months ago Monday, that children, workers and visitors died in the bombing. Two suspects are now in custody--former military servicemen who allegedly acted out their anger against the federal government by blowing up the building.

What is a fitting memorial for this downtown square, Johnson wondered, where good succumbed to evil, only to be resurrected in the spirit of those who came together to help the city recover?

It is not just a passing worry for Johnson. As the top federal official responsible for the land, it will be his job to help this community of 440,000 decide that question. The decision won’t be easily reached, Johnson concedes.

But he is certain of one thing: The lasting legacy of this patch of earth should not “demonstrate that the bad guys won. Because they didn’t.”

If Johnson sounds emotional, it’s because he is.

For Johnson--like the families of the victims--the grieving process is not finished.

Even now, after the rescue workers have returned home and the television lights have dimmed, every day on the job for GSA workers means dealing with the lasting memory of the deadliest act of terrorism on American soil.

Planning must begin to repair a parking garage, federal courthouse and post office damaged by the blast. Last week, rumbling thunderstorms across the Midwestern skies delayed the removal of debris from the bombing site. Once that is done, grass will be planted on the downtown square.

Work has become their coping mechanism. Workers have learned to “sort of turn off everything and turn on what your job is,” Johnson said recently.

The hours and days after the blast were especially tough. It was the job of the GSA to set up an emergency command center and find office space, supplies and telephone communication to quickly restart the federal bureaucracy until reinforcements arrived.

“They moved from [being] survivors to rescue personnel almost simultaneously,” Johnson said of his employees. There had been little time to feel any emotion, pausing only briefly to mourn for the victims, including two GSA co-workers.

Aware that the Oklahoma City bombing has been replaced on newspapers’ front pages, Johnson worries that the people of Oklahoma City will soon be forgotten.

“There was a great commotion around it, and then people left. It’s very important for us not to leave the people,” he said.

So, he frequently returns to the city, offering reassurances to residents that the federal government is there to help them through this trauma.

And he listens--to local officials, families of survivors, and others who want to help find a suitable memorial for the site.

Some have already suggested a monument that lists the names of those killed; others have proposed a statue re-creating one of the lasting images of the disaster, the firefighter who gently held the dying child he had pulled from the rubble.

At one point, before the bodies of all of the victims had been found and the building razed, some local residents thought the remains of the building--with its insides ripped apart--should be left alone.

“We calmly explained safety issues and questioned whether they really did want a disaster to stand, or have a more suitable memorial,” Johnson said. “That was such an open wound, we felt.”

It took six years for survivors to dedicate a small monument in San Ysidro, after 21 people were killed by a gunman at a McDonald’s restaurant in 1984. It had been delayed by a dispute between the city, the franchise owner and survivors over what would be a fitting memorial and proper use of the site.

Well aware of the San Ysidro controversy, Oklahoma City Mayor Ronald J. Norick said he is optimistic that his community will not become similarly divided.

“I think there will be debate, but I think it will be a healthy debate on just what exactly is put on that site,” Norick said. Already, Norick added, officials from GSA and the National Endowment for the Arts have discussed funding a memorial.

One decision is clear: The federal office building will not be rebuilt on this site--and maybe not anywhere else in the city anytime soon.

For his part, Johnson is also settling in his own mind the sharp distinction between those who are critical of the government and those who want to destroy it, as was the case with the alleged bombers.

As a conservative Republican businessman in Orange County--in what he described as the life of a “pretty sophisticated” person--Johnson had complained of the stifling federal bureaucracy. His first two years of service in the Clinton Administration would prove to be equally frustrating at times, he said.

Returning to his home state recently for commencement ceremonies at the College of San Mateo, Johnson spoke sadly of this “age of cynicism--a time of lost hope and lost faith in our government.” He urged the audience not to give up.

“In the final analysis,” Johnson told the graduates, “our democracy may not be a perfect system, but it is the best one anyone has conceived so far. Its success is up to each one of us, and if we quit, in the end, we fail ourselves.”