A Fan's Note

OKLAHOMA CITY: As fan mail goes, it doesn't get much better than having the FBI request it as evidence. Oklahoma Gazette reporter Phil Bacharach handed over to federal authorities a handwritten letter written by Timothy McVeigh last November in which the Oklahoma City bombing suspect detailed his beef against the Justice Department. The Gazette, a local arts weekly, made the letter public Tuesday. In the note, dated November 26, 1996, McVeigh commends an article Bacharach had written about him and provided this clarification: "You quote me as saying that the FBI are wizards at PR. What I actually said is that they are wizards of propaganda . . . If you have trouble believing that the Justice Department are adept liars, come to one of my pretrial hearings, to the trial itself, or ask Richard Jewell." It ends on a note straight out of The X-Files: "People need to question and analyze what they hear, and ponder the motivations of those spreading the propaganda. The truth lies deeper."