‘An American Bombing: The Road to April 19’ Director Marc Levin Recalls Bill Clinton’s Chilling Summation about Timothy McVeigh

An American Bombing director Marc Levin talks to Awards Daily about why the Oklahoma City bombing connects to so much of what’s going on today and the interview with Bill Clinton that left him speechless.

Director Marc Levin was surprised to learn that many Gen Z college students have no idea what the Oklahoma City bombing was. So with his HBO documentary An American Bombing: The Road to April 19, he set out to explore what could be the single most relevant historical event of the last 30 years.

“We started with the idea of telling the story for a new generation,” said Levin. “[Producer] Daphne (Pinkerson) and I had done a film around 1996 called Oklahoma City: One Year Later, so we had a connection, but even when we started this project, I didn’t fully grasp how much that event contained the seeds of so much of what we are grappling now with the threat of political violence, domestic terrorism, and civil war. As we got deeper and deeper, it became clearer and clearer that, yes, we were going back in time but, yes, this is a film about what’s happening right now. And you can’t understand what’s happening now unless you go back and track this movement.”

An American Bombing not only tracks what caused Timothy McVeigh to commit a heinous act on April 19, 1995, but delves further into the political climate surrounding Oklahoma and the Midwest, including the group The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord and white supremacist Richard Snell, who had tried to bomb the Alfred P. Murrah Building, the same one later targeted in the Oklahoma City bombing, in the 1980s.

“When we made the film back in 1996, we weren’t even aware that there was a plot to blow up the building in 1983. There were articles about it, but I wasn’t aware of it. Most of the people in Oklahoma weren’t aware either. That was a mind-blower. This misfit Richard Snell, a racist neo-Nazi, had a beef with the IRS and the federal government.”

The Meaning Behind the Car on the Open Road

While the doc mostly relies on archival footage and interviews, a recurring cinematic conceit that the film comes back to is a car on an open road, which proves to be an important image for McVeigh as well as how people consume right-wing messaging.

“In a way, that was a behavior modification chamber for McVeigh. He lived out of that car. We realized this is where he conditioned himself, listening over and over to this hate, talk radio, audio tapes of people with crazy theories. It got him ready. Today, you don’t need to go to gun show to gun show because you can just put your headphones on in your basement and do it right online. We thought it was important to show that process, to show there were legitimate grievances like the farm crisis, loss of manufacturing and industrialization, and the war and how we treat veterans coming home. Then you stoke it with this hate and extremist language. He’s thinking, ‘Hey, I’m going to be a hero in the second American revolution, and I’m going to be the one that starts it.'”

Anyone alive in 1995 remembers that the media was surprised to learn that Timothy McVeigh, an American white army vet, was the mastermind behind the bombing. Was this a turning point for American perception of terrorism?

“It should have been. 9/11 eclipsed a lot of things, it was so overwhelming, so the Oklahoma City bombing became forgotten. I think the popular imagination saw it as a crazed disgruntled veteran, but they didn’t see this connection to this larger movement that was percolating and the militia movement that was growing. Now we see it again, what we call the ‘Third Wave.’ We prefer to think, ‘deranged loan bomber, let’s move on.’ It doesn’t speak to larger issues in our culture. But hello, wake up. That’s why we go back and try to contextualize it in this larger historical setting.”

‘It Was Also Like McVeigh Won’

Levin interviewed bombing victims and surviving family members, including Kathy Wilburn who lost her two grandsons in the Oklahoma City bombing and Wilburn’s son Daniel Coss, an Oklahoma City cop who responded that day, and 26 years later, was on duty in D.C. during the January 6 protests.

“They would say, this is the time to tell this story because of what’s happening in our country now. I was the one who was a little hesitant. I was looking at current white supremacist groups, like the Proud Boys, but they encouraged us to go back further.”

The people Levin interviewed are very forthcoming, including former President Bill Clinton, who shares his insight on this historical event with refreshing honesty.

“It was stunning. Katie Couric made it happen. He saw this connection and never had a forum to discuss it. The group in 1983 plotting to blow up the federal building, the sedition trial in Arkansas—all these things were happening when he was governor. He was hip to this movement, and his initial instinct was that this is homegrown. He wanted to talk about it, so that was fascinating. And of course, his summation just left me speechless. He dropped that bomb that not only have these ideas gone mainstream, but ‘it was also like McVeigh won.’ I was speechless. I still find that shocking.”

Shocking for viewers is meeting Kerry Noble, a former member of The Covenant, The Sword, and the Arm of the Lord who wanted to get out of the group but couldn’t. Eventually, he does, and Levin said having his point of view proved to be “absolutely indispensable.”

“He was such a beautiful spirit who unfortunately passed away a year ago. His story of redemption and the fact that he came so close to participating in bombings and then turned around; it’s incredibly moving and an essential part of what’s unique about the film. It’s one of those things that gives you some hope in a dark time, that you can see someone who came so close and was able to come out. That’s one place to start in terms of looking for some hope in this crazy world of ours.”

An American Bombing: The Road to April 19 is streaming on Max.