Although President Bush used the occasion of Timothy McVeigh's execution to speak to the nation about capital punishment, the death of the Oklahoma bomber is unlikely to stem calls for the abolition of federal executions.
These rare executions, carried out by the US government rather than by single states, have come under fiercest attack from opponents of the death penalty.
The last federal execution was in 1963, when Victor Harry Feguer was hanged in Iowa. The circ*mstances 38 years ago could hardly have been more different from the extraordinary scenes and media coverage of McVeigh's last days.
Feguer, 27, was a borderline psychotic and career criminal who abducted an Iowa doctor and took him across the state line into Illinois where he shot him in the head. It was the crossing of the state line that turned his crime into a federal offence. The motive was robbery, although Feguer gleaned only $25 and tried to blame an associate.
Iowa's governor at the time, Harold Hughes, opposed the death penalty and attempted to have the sentence commuted by President Kennedy. But Kennedy said that considering all the facts he saw no reason for a stay of execution.
"I sure hope I'm the last one to go in Iowa," said Feguer. "It would be too much to expect that I will be the last one anywhere."
He was right. At present, 38 states have the death penalty with some 3,500 people on death row.
As a small-time criminal Feguer was typical of most federal execution cases, but there were more celebrated cases, the most famous being that of Ethel and Julius Rosenberg, both of whom were executed for passing nuclear secrets to the Soviet Union in 1953 despite worldwide opposition and the mobilisation of the American left against the deaths across the US.
Ethel Rosenberg was the first woman executed by the US government since Mary Surratt was hanged for her role in the assassination of Abraham Lincoln.
A wide variety of groups have joined forces to attack the federal death penalty, including Amnesty International, the American Civil Liberties Union, and Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions.
However, all the groups recognise that in the current president they have an unsympathetic ear: as governor of Texas, Mr Bush authorised the execution of more people than any other US governor -152.
One of the main thrusts of opposition to federal execution is that studies show a racial and geographical imbalance between those sitting on federal death row.
At his confirmation hearings, the current attorney general, John Ashcroft, said that he was troubled by evidence of racial disparities in the use of the federal death penalty, and that he supported a "thorough study of the system".
Under the previous administration of Bill Clinton, both the president and his attorney general, Janet Reno, expressed concern when a federal study showed that 17 of the 21 inmates on federal death row were either African-American or Latino prisoners.
The study found that Latinos were 2.3 times more likely than their white counterparts to face federal execution.
President Clinton said last year: "The examination of possible racial and regional bias should be completed before the United States goes forward with an execution in a case that may implicate the very questions raised by the justice department's continuing study. In this area there is no room for error."
According to Citizens for a Moratorium on Federal Executions, which includes former members of the justice department and civil rights and religious leaders: "Whether someone convicted of a capital crime will receive a death sentence is highly dependent on the state or county in which that person was tried and convicted."
Some of the people in this lobby group support the death penalty but argue that they object to federal executions because they are administered unfairly - by which they mean that the circ*mstances vary so widely in different parts of the country.
US attorneys - that is, prosecutors - in 16 states, including Texas, have been authorised to seek the death penalty in at least 50% of the cases submitted for consideration to the justice department.
US attorneys in 21 other states have either never requested or never obtained authorisation to seek the death penalty.
Of the inmates who are currently sitting on federal death row, almost one in three were prosecuted in a single state - Texas.
One last ice cream, or a final mango
Thirty-eight years and an act of symbolism separate Timothy McVeigh and the last US federal prisoner to be executed.
At his final meal in Iowa in 1963, Victor Harry Feguer chose a single olive with pip, calling it the "fruit of the tree of peace". The 27-year-old killer said he hoped a new tree would sprout from his remains.
McVeigh sent no such message. He chose two pints of chocolate-chip ice cream.
Sebastian Bridges, killed recently by lethal injection in Carson City, Nevada, chose, among other things, lobster tail, lychee nuts, vanilla ice cream and a mango and wore a suit and tie to his execution.
Murderer Jay Scott, 48, has had two final meals and lived to digest both. Twice he came within an hour of being executed in Ohio but was reprieved. His lawyers call his execution unconstitutional punishment for someone suffering mental illness. His new execution date is on Thursday. Michael Ellison, New York
Audio
McVeigh attempts to 'control' execution
McVeigh's final statement
The poem Invictus, by William Ernest Henley
George Bush's statement
Full text of statement
Comment
11.06.2001: The killer is dead, long live the killer
The issue explained
The execution of Timothy McVeigh
Talk about it
What do you think?
Graphic
Inside the execution chamber
What the papers say
McVeigh's final hours
Related articles
11.06.2001: McVeigh executed
11.06.2001: Beyond McVeigh: executions worldwide
11.06.2001: McVeigh faces his day of reckoning
11.06.2001: John Sutherland on the execution
09.06.2001: Death row diaries reveal McVeigh's goal of martyrdom
16.05.2001: FBI bottom draw yields more bomb files
06.05.2001: McVeigh's letters to the Observer
05.05.2001: John Ronson on Timothy McVeigh
Original reports
20.04.1995: Workers describe panic and horror
14.06.1997: Oklahoma bomber is to be executed
Photo gallery
The blast and its aftermath
Useful links
Lethal injection: how it works
Oklahoma City national memorial
Oklahoma City bombing photographs
Oklahoma City bombing trial
National coalition to abolish the death penalty
Pro death penalty.com
