McVeigh defense archive shows bomber viewed blast as failure

AUSTIN, Texas (AP) – Timothy McVeigh considered the Oklahoma City bombing a failure because he left the building standing and once suggested the government should pay his defense attorneys $800,000.

Documents revealing those things are among the more than 1 million pages the convicted bomber’s former lawyer donated to the Briscoe Center for American History at the University of Texas. The school began assembling the collection in 1998 but it only became fully organized late last year.

The executive director of the museum says lawyer Stephen Jones wasn’t comfortable putting the material at an Oklahoma institution, fearing it would be seen as a "shrine" to McVeigh.

McVeigh was executed by injection in 2001 for the 1995 bombing that killed 168 people. At the time it was the deadliest terrorist attack on U.S. soil.