Louis Freeh's 1/4/96 OKBOMB teletype: An SPLC informant, and Andy Strassmeir
Teletype reveals Morris Dees had informant inside Elohim City
A January 4, 1996 teletype from FBI Director Louis Freeh to field offices in Birmingham, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Oklahoma City, Omaha, and to the OKBOMB command post is just one of a number of ‘explosive’ documents discovered by dedicated researchers over the years.
First reported on by Roger Charles and J.D. Cash, the teletype discloses that:
The Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) had an informant at Elohim City
Tim McVeigh called Elohim City on April 5th and April 17th to reach a [REDACTED] individual
likely the same [REDACTED] individual “allegedly had a lengthy relationship with McVeigh”
I’m just going to say it: the redacted name is Andreas Strassmeir.
It’s obvious.
Here are passages from two pages of the teletype with the redactions filled in using a monotype font that closely matches the one used in the document.
Surrounding contextual clues in the document reveal that the redacted person is likely to be Strassmeir - he was known to be in North Carolina and planned to leave the U.S. via Mexico in the near future. In addition, the phone calls were reported in several media accounts which said McVeigh was calling Elohim City for Strassmeir.
Here is the groundbreaking J.D. Cash and Roger Charles story from December 14, 2003 titled “Morris Dees had informant at Elohim City before OKC Bombing” in which this teletype is discussed:
In their 2003 story, Cash & Charles reported on previously having caught up with Morris Dees when he was speaking at Southeastern Oklahoma State University in Durant, Oklahoma. There, Cash pointedly asked Dees what the SPLC was doing at Elohim City.
Cash summarized the inquiry in the 2003 story, and related how it went down on an episode of the Scott Horton Show. Describing Dee's reaction to J.D.'s question about the January 4th, 1996 FBI memo:
"He's just about to die. He said, 'do you have it with you?' I said 'no, obviously I don't because I don't want to share it with you. Not at this time. I just want to ask you some questions.' He goes, 'how did you get it?' I just looked at him and he said, 'you got it from a FOIA.' And he's sitting there thinking, 'how can they be so stupid?' And I said 'Let's just talk about it.' I said 'number one, why were you there?' He said, 'we were there but if I had to tell you, I'd kill you first before I would tell you."
"I walked up to him and I said, 'well now that you've had years to think about this, what do you think about Andy Strassmeir now? He gave me the coldest go-to-hell look that I've had in a long time and he said "I am not going to talk about that man. I will never talk about him." So I tell Bruce I think we've got something here."
Yeah, it was Strassmeir.
-Richard
