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Big Bad Buck Revell

The former head of the Dallas FBI office is more outspoken than ever. He sounds off on militias, the Oklahoma City bombing, and why he still fights the bad guys.
By ANGELA GENUSA |

AT HALF PAST NOON IN A CONFERENCE ROOM AT UNION Station, Oliver “Buck” Revell sits next to the podium, clear-ly pleased as his many accomplishments are enumerated by an official of the Dallas Salesmanship Club.

Revell waits as the speaker recounts his credentials as former special agent in charge of the Dallas office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation and before that, associate deputy director for investigations-third in command-at FBI headquarters in Washington, D, C. Finally the speaker declares that Revell needs no further introduction, which for many in the room is true. After all, he appeared on ABC’s “Nightline” the night before, exchanging verbal cut-and-thrust with Ted Koppel and other talking heads on the subject of the Oklahoma City bombing.

Revell rises to applause and takes the podium. Despite his imposing bulk-he’s 6’3″ and carries 250 pounds-his receding hair, glasses, round face, and slightly fair complexion make Revell look more like an Oliver than a Buck, more like an insurance adjuster than a former G-man. He speaks with a voice made for oatmeal commercials, larded with folksy expressions and Okie jokes. But don’t be misled by the down-home, y’all-take-your-shoes-off warm-up. With shotgun straightforwardness, he delivers a point-blank warning to Mr. and Mrs. Dallas, Texas, USA: The world is a more dangerous place than we like to believe. Oklahoma City proves that it can happen here. And unless we are eternally vigilant, it will happen again.

The former special agent’s speech is mostly a sort of Revell’s Believe-It-Or-Not, an encyclopedic assortment of startling facts and pungent observations about domestic and international terrorism.

On the World Trade Center bombing: “Their intent was to punish the United States, the Great Satan, the land which was furnishing them the opportunity to express themselves freely under our Constitution.”

On paramilitary groups: “There are now 39 states that have these so-called militia groups. There are at least five in Texas, including two in North Texas.”

On the future: “The end of the Cold War was supposed to bring on a nirvana, a Pax Americana, a stability around the world. Those of you who have been watching what’s going on in Bosnia know just how far that went.”

Revell has much more to tell his audiences, both here and across the nation. After 37 years as a Marine and an FBI agent, he believes his country still needs him. Having shed the bureau’s mantle of secrecy, he feels liberated. “Now, fortunately, I can speak my piece.”

While speaking his piece-he delivers dozens of speeches to civic and professional groups throughout Dallas and is frequently interviewed as an expert on terrorism and counterintelligence- Revell will most likely make a good deal more money than he did as an FBI agent. As president of Revell Group International Inc., a worldwide business and security consulting company, he’s helping fight the bad guys in another, more lucrative way.

“My organization will provide some of the same services to the private sector that the FBI provides to the government-threat assessments, risk analysis, where to locate, where not to locate, how to conduct crisis management, and soon.” Revell won’t discuss particular clients, hut he says he’ll he using “a network of former FBI, CIA, and Secret Service agents,” and he adds: “I have a number of associates overseas who are capable of extending our international reach.”

In his spare time, Revell says, he is writing “the definitive book” on the FBI, chronicling his 30 years in the bureau, including his last three as special agent in charge of the Dallas office. He promises far more than he says was delivered by Ronald Kessler’s recent account, The FBI: Inside the World’s Most Powerful Law Enforcement Agency, which he dismisses as “anecdotes and sort of chit-chat gossip.” The Kessler book, by the way, devotes almost an entire chapter to Revell’s tenure here, called “Dallas: My Place, My Rules.”

But Revell spends a lot of time these days peering into the future, preoccupied with the climate of opinion in the country he has served for most of his life. Like other observers, he sees a link between the Oklahoma City bombings and the Branch Davidian tragedy in Waco two years before. But he grimaces with disgust at those who try to justify Oklahoma City as some kind of belated vengeance for Waco.

“In Waco, there were several mistakes made by government forces,” Revell says. “But in 51 days, no agent of the FBI fired a single shot. There were 19 individuals who died by gunfire within that compound, and none of the shots were delivered by FBI agents. The fires were set from within. The decision to end that confrontation in mass death and destruction was David Koresh’s and no one else’s.”

Given his long career with the agency, it’s not surprising that Ruck Revell believes that the FBI must be given new-powers to fight terrorism. He acknowledges that the Bureau under J. Edgar Hoover overstepped its boundaries in the 1960s, infiltrating campus anti-war groups and even wiretapping the phones of the Rev. Martin Luther King. Still, he believes that the FBI is now hamstrung by the restrictions Congress placed on the agency.

“Today the FBI cannot even collect information that is out there in the public realm, in the newspapers, until there is evidence or information that a crime has been or is being committed,” Revell says. “That is too late. I knew several of those agents who were killed [in Oklahoma City). 1 don’t want to see another 168 Americans die.”

On this point, Revell grows fervent. “As a society, we’re essentially asleep at the switch. We have an almost inherent naivete about how to protect ourselves.” A major problem, says Revell, is our “outdated notion” that we have more to fear from vigorous law enforcement than we do from potential terrorists. “We’ve got to have a realistic program to assess and deter chose who espouse the use of violence. We could be talking about gas attacks, biological materials, perhaps nuclear-enhanced explosives. Can we really wait, as a society, until there’s blood on the ground ?”

The answer, for Revell, is absolutely not. Having spent years studying the thinking and tactics of extremist groups, he believes that the terrorist threat to society today is far greater than it was in the 1960s, when radicals of a different political stripe flourished. “These groups are feeding on each other’s propaganda,” he says. “If you read the traffic on the Internet, if you saw some of the brochures and pamphlets, you would probably think they were talking about the Soviet Union under Stalin or Germany under Hitler.”

It’s a climate of opinion that has affected Revell personally. In some right-wing hate literature, he has been dubbed “the infamous Buck Revell.” The name was spread by Texas militia groups, he claims, and sent out over the Internet-with frightening consequences.

“1 have recently found out that a series of 14 banks have been robbed in the Midwest by three men who rented their cars with a driver’s license and Social Security card in the name of Oliver “Buck” Revell,” he says. “Now I could care less if a bunch of folks want to run around in camo gear and shoot targets and play war games. But it gives me great concern when my name is being spread among these people as a target.”

In the end, Revell says, it will take more than enhanced FBI powers and greater police surveillance to preserve a peaceful society. When he talks to community groups, he stresses the need for civic leaders and concerned citizens to speak up against the “scurrilous attacks on all elements of our government.” He’s referring to the often-repeated charges by militia members that the federal government is engaged in a murderous, many-tentacled conspiracy against the American people.

“Learn the facts,” Revell urges his listeners. “Be prepared to rebut this malicious propaganda about One World Government, the UN taking over, the black helicopters and the Russian troops that are supposedly coming in to dominate us.”

In the darkness of paranoia and violence, Revell finds encouraging light in the actions of ordinary people following the Oklahoma City disaster. “We’re in a time when so many people feel they’re not responsible for anything and yet they’re entitled to everything. That’s why the people’s actions in Oklahoma were so significant. The way they came together, the way they sacrificed their time and material assets. . .there’s very little of that anymore in our society.”

Revell plans to keep sounding off, trying to awaken people from complacency. After a year away from the FBI, he’s bemused by the reaction he sometimes stirs. “I’m not a bombastic person,” he says. I speak my mind when people ask. It’s funny. Sometimes I get calls from the media for my opinion. 1 give it, and then they say, ’The outspoken Buck Revell said this,’ and I think, ’Well, if you didn’t want to know what 1 had to say, why’d you ask?’”

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