Timothy McVeigh and other foreign countries. The handwritten essay, submitted to and published by the alternative national news magazine "Media Bypass", was distributed worldwide by the Associated Press on May 29, 1998. This was written in the midst of the 1998 Iraq disarmament crisis and a few months before Operation Desert Fox. The essay, which marked the first time that McVeigh publicly discussed the Oklahoma City bombing, continued: McVeigh included photocopies of a famous Vietnam War-era picture showing terrified children fleeing napalm bombs, and of nuclear devastation in Japan. He said in a preface that the essay was intended to "provoke thought
Oklahoma City bombing conspiracy theories into the United States to fund covert activities and "were to work hand-in-hand w/civilian police agencies to "quiet" anyone whom was deemed a "security risk." (We would be gov't-paid assassins!)" In a 2001 declaration Terry Nichols, McVeigh's convicted co-conspirator, also alleged that McVeigh reported in December 1992 how he "had been recruited to carry out undercover missions" which initially involved visiting gun shows and making contact with a loose network of anti-government and far-right sympathizers. This undercover activity allegedly escalated to armed robberies and a planned bombing under the direction of FBI agent Larry A. Potts. Filmmaker Bill Bean believes