Nichols Denies He Is Blast Collaborator in FBI Reports : Oklahoma: He declares McVeigh could not be bomber. Later, he says he may have ‘accidentally’ helped him.

Terry L. Nichols began talking almost the moment he surrendered two days after the bombing of the Oklahoma City federal building.

Throughout the afternoon and evening, past midnight and into the days that followed, he laid out a long and rambling story, first declaring that his former Army friend, Timothy J. McVeigh, could not have planted the device that killed 169 people at the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building.

Later, he conceded it might be possible but that he himself knew nothing about it. And then finally that McVeigh could well have been the bomber and that he might have “accidentally” played a role.

“I guess you really don’t know what your friends will do,” he said at one point, distraught and about to collapse into tears.

From dozens of pages of confidential FBI reports obtained this week by The Times comes a richly detailed account of the man authorities believe did not drive the truck bomb to Oklahoma City for the infamous terrorist strike, but--almost as importantly--was an ally, co-strategist and materials supplier for the man who did.

As an indicted conspirator with McVeigh in the bombing, Nichols shared a love of guns and a hatred for the federal government. And like McVeigh, he too faces the death penalty if convicted at trial next spring. Both men have pleaded not guilty.

As recorded by investigators in Nichols’ first and only statements after his arrest, the account generally echoes the defense’s portrayal of him in recent months--that he was a friend of and fellow military-surplus trader with McVeigh, but not a criminal collaborator.

As a onetime farmer and junk dealer, the reports suggest, Nichols had innocent uses for all of the chemicals and equipment that authorities found on his property and that they suspect may help link him to the blast.

Bomb-Making Data

But in other ways Nichols’ account may add to, rather than allay, suspicions surrounding the two defendants’ movements and activities.

In detail, he outlines for investigators how he and McVeigh methodically assembled information at gun shows over the last year on how to make bombs from common agricultural compounds.

He recounts some of their travels together, including a rendezvous in downtown Oklahoma City only a few days before the blast and eerie conversations on the trip back, held partially in “code.”

And the documents reveal the shift in Nichols’ portrayal of his friend’s likely culpability--a change that could presage a commonly anticipated defense strategy in the case--one or both defendants striving to shift blame to the other.

In page after page of investigators’ relentless, monotone report language, the documents conjure up the image of Nichols under the harsh glare of the proverbial naked light bulb, trying to explain his five-year relationship with McVeigh and hoping to convince authorities that it was never more than benign.

“I cannot believe it was him,” Nichols said flatly of McVeigh. “I cannot see why he would do it.”

Later, the documents show, he said he was “shocked” by the indications of a possible plot, fueled in part by McVeigh’s anger over federal law enforcement raids near Waco, Tex., and at Ruby Ridge, Ida. “He could be capable of doing it,” Nichols said at one point. “I must not have known him that well for him to do that,” he said at another.

And finally, two weeks after his arrest, Nichols was on the verge of tears in a Wichita, Kan., jail cell. Suddenly, he confided to a jail guard his dark conclusions.

“We were good friends for five years,” he said, according to an investigation report. “But it looks like . . . maybe he did it. . . . And I think I may have, I may have accidentally helped him in doing it.”

Michael E. Tigar, Nichols’ defense attorney, declined Thursday to discuss specifics about his client’s statements to federal investigators. But he did point out that Nichols voluntarily surrendered to authorities, only to be confronted by a “posse” of FBI agents.

“It was a long time they had him in there,” Tigar said. “But I can’t talk about all of Terry’s statements because I don’t have them all yet.”

But Tigar said he would not characterize any of Nichols’ statements to the FBI as specifically incriminating McVeigh or suggesting Nichols shared culpability.

Federal prosecutors declined to comment on the documents, whose confidentiality has been closely guarded.

Nichols, 40, drove to police in his hometown of Herington, Kan., on April 21 to turn himself in after seeing Atty. Gen. Janet Reno announce on television that McVeigh had been arrested and hearing on the radio that he too was a suspect.

The subsequent interrogations and conversations were conducted at various times in the police chief’s office, in an FBI van and inside Cell N202 at a Wichita detention facility. Agents interviewed him in rotating teams, while Nichols was brought cups of water and slices of pizza. At one point, agents played taped telephone messages from his family, including one from his 12-year-old son, Josh.

Promising cooperation, he gave his consent for the government to search his home and property in Herington, but later refused to sign a form showing he had been advised of his legal right to an attorney. He pointed to the word “Interrogation” at the top of the form and said it reminded him of the Nazis.

But slowly, somewhat disjointedly, and with increasing emotion, his story began to unfold.

New Insights

The new insights it offered include:

* Nichols’ self-education with McVeigh on how to build homemade explosives.

In 1994 and early 1995, the two Army buddies--individually having tried and abandoned different occupations--decided to try to make money selling military-surplus items at gun shows around the nation. According to Nichols, he and McVeigh both “would drive to the shows; other times only one would go depending on the volume of goods for sale. [They] would usually pool their money, deduct their expenses and then split the proceeds.”

With some shows attracting right-wing militia members in “full battle dress” and open circulation of anti-government literature, getting information about bomb making was easy, he told the agents.

“Nichols has read articles that have come across the table at gun shows about bomb making,” the interrogation report says. “Nichols would review these articles and talk to McVeigh about the different types of bombs and if the bombs would work, and whether the directions on making the bombs sounded logical.”

They “would ask each other, whether it made sense or would this bomb make more sense than another bomb?” the report shows.

At one show, Nichols said in the report, a farmer stopped by his table and explained how to mix ammonium nitrate fertilizer with diesel fuel to blast a tree stump. At another time, a patron said “to mix ammonium nitrate and diesel fuel for explosions involving rock-quarry work.”

According to the report, Nichols volunteered that he believed a 28% nitrogen mixture was desirable but “that there are different percentages in making the right mixture for a bomb.” Asked about his own firsthand knowledge, Nichols backed off, saying: “I have not made any.”

Of McVeigh, however, he said: “McVeigh has lots of free time and likes to stay busy by reading etc. about guns and bombs.”

Authorities believe the truck bomb that destroyed the federal building was made from a fertilizer-fuel oil mixture.

* Nichols’ rendezvous with McVeigh in Oklahoma City before the bombing.

According to the documents, Nichols said that after working the gun show circuit together for some time, he and McVeigh “parted ways” for a while last fall.

But on Easter Sunday, April 16, McVeigh called him at his home in Herington. According to Nichols, McVeigh told him he was working his way back East to visit relatives in New York state but that he had had car trouble in Oklahoma City. He said he had a television set belonging to Nichols’ son and would give it to Nichols if he would pick him up.

According to the reports, he said McVeigh warned him: “Just keep this between the two of us.

“McVeigh typically did not want people to know what he was doing and that was just his nature,” Nichols explained in the reports.

Nichols made the five-hour drive south and made repeated passes though downtown Oklahoma City, looking for McVeigh at their meeting site. He said he saw the nine-story Murrah building and “went past that building a couple of times.”

Eventually, he spotted McVeigh in an alley, wearing a T-shirt, jeans and tennis shoes rather than his trademark “combat boots,” Nichols said in the reports.

On the trip back to Kansas, they talked about a number of things, including the siege near Waco. McVeigh sometimes talked “in code,” Nichols said. He acted as though he were “hyper or nervous.”

Nichols said McVeigh was vague about what he had been doing. “You will see something big in the future,” Nichols said McVeigh told him.

Nichols asked if he was referring to his work at gun shows. “I’m doing fine,” McVeigh responded. “I should get something going here shortly. You will see something big in the future.”

“What are you going to do, rob a bank?” Nichols asked.

“Oh no,” McVeigh reportedly said. “I got something in the works.”

According to the reports, the conversation turned to an upcoming rally in Washington to mark the April 19 anniversary of the Waco confrontation.

“Yes,” McVeigh said, “it was two years.”

Nichols said he dropped off McVeigh in Junction City, Kan. All McVeigh took with him was his laundry bag. But then McVeigh, Nichols said, always “lives and travels light.”

During the interrogation, the reports show, the agents pressed Nichols repeatedly about his knowledge of McVeigh’s background. At the time, McVeigh, held in another jail, was refusing to answer any questions.

Ft. Riley Days

Nichols began with their days together at Ft. Riley, Kan. By the time McVeigh mustered out, Nichols said, his attitude about the service--and the government in general--had soured.

On April 19, Nichols said, he learned about the bombing while at his local cable TV sales outlet store. On April 21 came the surprise that McVeigh had been arrested--and that he himself was wanted.

“When I heard his name on TV, that is when I figured out why my name was on the radio: because I was his friend,” Nichols told the FBI.

He said out loud: “How am I involved? How am I connected to it? I must not have known him that well for him to do that.”

Nichols then took the conversation a step further. “I feel upset that I am involved, in a sense, because of him, and knowing that I am not,” he said in the reports.

But he also expressed absolute confidence in McVeigh. “I feel I cannot trust anyone any more than Tim,” he said. “I would be shocked if he implicated me. Tim takes responsibility for his actions, and he lives up to his arrangements.”

By the end of the interrogations, Nichols was suggesting he might have been an unwitting partner in the bombing, but also that he never planned nor knew McVeigh was considering such an act.

“In my eyes,” he told the FBI, “I did not do anything wrong. But I can see how lawyers turn stuff around.”

For emphasis, in his hope that the government understood him correctly, he added one more time: “I did not know anything.”