Don't Give Him The Satisfaction

Last Thursday 250 victims of Timothy McVeigh's bomb--some who survived the blast, others who lost loved ones to it--were granted their request to witness his execution on closed-circuit television. In announcing this departure from normal procedure, Attorney General John Ashcroft spoke of the need "to close this chapter in their lives" and emphasized "the magnitude of this case." (There are too many mourners, given the 168 killed, to fit into the prison observation room.)

Ashcroft is right to grant the survivors anything they think will help them through the night. But there's a question whether this execution will be a last milestone in their hellish journey or yet another trauma to absorb. Will public witness deliver a moment of catharsis, restore a measure of equilibrium to a shattered universe? Or is it one last way for McVeigh to victimize them? Many of the survivors obviously hope for a closure that has so far eluded them, for a miraculous lifting of their grief. But they have their expectations in check. "In the early stages I wanted to see the execution because I was hoping to hear 'I'm sorry' from McVeigh," says Tom Kight, who is raising his eight-year-old granddaughter after his stepdaughter's death. "But from what I gather there will be no remorse. The execution is just an end to one part of this. It's not closure." Priscilla Salyers, who was critically wounded, is watching not as "part of a healing process" but in solidarity with fellow victims.

Bud Welch, who lost his 23-year-old daughter to McVeigh, has decided to stay home. He once talked to a Texas couple who told him that if they had it to do over again they wouldn't witness the death of the man who killed their son. "There is nothing good about watching a human take their last breath," Welch says, "that is going to give you any peace."

No one can be certain whether witnessing will help the survivors. But we can be sure that it helps McVeigh. He behaves as if the unexamined death is not worth dying. He needs a spectacle to confirm his sense of martyrdom. Indeed, his attorney told reporters that McVeigh's desire for an audience was an argument in favor of granting his request for a public broadcast, when it should be an argument against. McVeigh will be the first condemned killer to get not only a last meal and last words but also a last photo op. Other moves to deprive him of the attention he craves--forbidding jailhouse interviews, limiting phone calls--are futile in light of the telecast. Cynthia Ferrell Ashwood, who lost her sister, hopes for a boycott, believing it would punish McVeigh more. "I would like him to die very much alone, which is how my sister died. It won't hurt him for me to watch him die. It will just please him."