Bush Opens Oklahoma City Memorial

President Bush opened the Oklahoma City National Memorial Center on Monday with consoling words for this still-grieving community--and an uncompromising message to wrongdoers.

“Our first response to evil must be justice,” Bush said resolutely during a moving hourlong ceremony on the site of the former Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building, which was destroyed in 1995 by a truck bomb.

One of the bombing’s convicted perpetrators, Timothy J. McVeigh, is scheduled to be executed May 16.

Bush stopped here for the museum’s opening ceremony while en route from his ranch near Crawford, Texas, to Washington. He had spent the holiday weekend at the ranch after a trip to Mexico on Friday, where he met Mexican President Vicente Fox.

In his brief remarks, Bush also urged citizens to report troubling behavior in people that may be a prelude to violence.

“We all have a duty to watch for and report troubling signs,” the president said.

Citing a recent federal study on school violence, Bush told the several thousand people at the ceremony: “They [researchers] found that most of the time, the person who planned the violence told someone before the attack. In almost every case, the individual displayed some behavior that caused others to be concerned.”

Before his remarks, the president and First Lady Laura Bush toured the museum and met with family members of some of the blast victims. The museum is part of an elaborate $29-million, three-acre national memorial commemorating the 168 dead, as well as the survivors.

During the tour, the Bushes saw and heard exhibits that re-create the moments before and after the blast--including recorded sounds of the explosion.

At the tour’s end, the president wrote on a card in the museum’s registry: “God bless all.” Laura Bush added: “With love.”

In the almost six years since the bombing, presidential visits here have become a regular occurrence. Bill Clinton came days after the tragedy and returned last April to help dedicate the “Gates of Time” memorial.

Speaker after speaker on Monday struck lofty notes about grief, forgiveness and love. Near the end of the ceremony, Laura Bush wiped tears from her eyes.

“We could have responded with more hate, but we did not,” said Bob Johnson, chairman of the Oklahoma City National Memorial Trust. “Evil did not triumph here.”

“Love always wins out over hate,” added Oklahoma City Mayor Kirk Humphreys.

“The legacy of this place is heroism and goodness,” Gov. Frank Keating said, referring to the rescue workers and others who rushed to help in the wake of the worst act of domestic terrorism in U.S. history.

“Memorials do not take away the pain. They cannot fill the emptiness. But they can make a place in time and tell the value of what was lost,” Bush said in his keynote address. “The debris is gone and the building is no more. Now this is a place of peace and remembrance and life.

“Your loss was great and your pain was deep, but far greater and deeper was your care for one another. Oklahoma City will always be one of those places in our national memory where the worst and best both came to pass.”

In addition to urging citizens to be vigilant predictors of antisocial behavior, the president said America also must “enforce laws and reject hatred and bigotry.”

He concluded: “We must search for more [than justice]--for understanding and healing, beyond punishment.”