By Will Lester, Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - A majority of Americans support the decision to let survivors and victims' relatives watch the execution of Oklahoma City bomber Timothy McVeigh, but only one in five say they would watch if they could, an Associated Press poll finds.

Poll respondents overwhelmingly support McVeigh's execution, though more whites than blacks support it, reflecting a long-standing racial divide on the death penalty.

Just over half, 51 percent, support a planned closed-circuit telecast to survivors and relatives, according to the poll conducted for the AP by ICR of Media, Pa.

"If they want to see it, then let them watch it," said 23-year-old Crystal Knowles of Ponca City, Okla., which is about 90 miles north of Oklahoma City. "I don't personally want to watch it, but if I had somebody hurt or killed in the explosion, I might feel different."

The remote, closed-circuit broadcast from Terre Haute, Ind., to about 200 survivors and victims' relatives in Oklahoma City will not be available for a wider audience _ at least that's the plan. The Justice Department is taking measures, including sophisticated encryption procedures, to make it very unlikely the pictures of the May 16 execution will become public.

McVeigh was convicted two years after the April 19, 1995, bombing that killed 168 people and injured hundreds in the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. He is to become the first federal inmate executed since 1963.

McVeigh's execution by lethal injection has the support of four out of five Americans, according to the poll. About two-thirds support the death penalty for murder. That has typically been the level of support in recent years, but that support can vary widely depending on how the question is asked - usually a sign of ambivalence in public attitudes.

Whites are more likely than blacks and men more likely than women to support the death penalty _ two long-standing patterns.

"I feel if you do the crime, then it's justified," said Charles Camacho, a 50-year-old foundry worker in Radford, Va. "There's something of a revenge factor."

The survey suggests more Americans approve of the McVeigh execution than generally support the death penalty in murder cases.

"If somebody is a psychopathic murderer, maybe it would be better to put them to sleep, then I cross over and say that's sort of like playing God," said Charlotte Roark, 48, of Sayersville, Ky. "McVeigh deserves the death penalty - when it's so disastrous like that - little children, mothers of children, fathers of children."

Supporters of the death penalty are very unlikely - only one in 20 - to believe McVeigh would deserve any mercy if he were to show remorse, something he has not done to this point. More than a fourth of death penalty opponents said they support it in the case of McVeigh. And a third of death penalty opponents support offering the closed-circuit broadcast.

The poll of 1,004 adults was taken May 2 through Sunday and has an error margin of plus or minus 3 percentage points.

While just over half support the closed-circuit broadcast, plenty of people, 44 percent, feel it is not a good idea.

"I don't think it's in the best interest of people," said 79-year-old Alvin Thornton, a retiree who lives outside Seattle and opposes the death penalty. "It was done in the early ages in Europe. We don't need to publicize murder by the state."

The poll suggested that fears of a terrorist attack in this country have dropped a bit since April 1995, when just over half said they weren't worried about such an attack. Now two-thirds of Americans say they don't worry much about such an attack.

The interest in watching McVeigh's execution is significantly higher among younger Americans, with one in four between the ages of 18 and 34 saying they would watch if they could. Only one in 20 of those over 65 said they would watch if they could.

Twenty-two-year-old Timothy Fairchild, a truck painter in Lynwood, Pa., said he opposes the death penalty generally, but not in the case of McVeigh. And he'd tune in if the execution were available on TV.

"I would watch it," Fairchild said, "because he put a bomb under a day care center."