Timothy McVeigh

Re “McVeigh Speaks Out, Receives Death Sentence,” Aug. 15: The object lesson to be gleaned from Timothy McVeigh’s defiant remarks is painfully clear: In the final analysis, the cause of the Oklahoma City tragedy is traceable to the overheated rhetoric spewed by hatemongering radio talk-show demagogues, sanctimonious gun advocates, fire-eating anti-government doctrinaires and other such ersatz patriots who routinely dispense incendiary “causes” to be acted on by misguided, megalomaniacal half-wits like McVeigh.

McVeigh will now take his proper place in history alongside the self-absorbed likes of John Brown and John Wilkes Booth in the pantheon of psycho-ideological assassins. What is unfortunate in this case, however, is that the equally culpable Iagos and Svengalis whose wantonly irresponsible shouting served to goad and cajole McVeigh to action will never be called on to answer for their part in the crime.

BASIL GEORGE DEZES

Beverly Hills

* McVeigh at his sentencing hearing spoke to the court and cited an extract, out of context, written by Justice Louis D. Brandeis from the case of Olmstead vs. United States, 1928. From the same case comes the following citation by the same justice:

“The greatest dangers to liberty lurk in insidious encroachment by men of zeal, well-meaning but without understanding.”

It is truly important to recognize the entire, unabridged message provided by Justice Brandeis, and not just one small out-of-context extract that is inconsistent, and perhaps contrary, to the complete message.

SYLVAIN FRIBOURG

West Hills

* Personally, I blame the media for the Oklahoma City bombing. Yep. After all, if McVeigh had known that state-sanctioned murder, sorry, the death penalty, was supposed to deter people from such actions, then he wouldn’t have done it, would he? Isn’t that right?

JOHN R. HARRIS