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Divide and conquer;White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo in
race war

Divide and conquer;
White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo
in race war
THE DALLAS MORNING NEWS
November 2, 1992, Monday, HOME FINAL EDITION

Copyright 1992 The Dallas Morning News

Section: NEWS; Pg. 1A
Length: 1790 words
Byline: David Real, Staff Writer of The Dallas Morning News
Dateline: HAYDEN LAKE, Idaho

Body

Classical music plays softly from the radio at
the Church of Jesus Christ Christian-Aryan Nations.

Above the radio,

copies of Mein Kampf fill a bookshelf.
"Adolf Hitler was simply a son of God,' says pastor Carl Franklin.
"We don't worship him, but we do recognize and honor him as a white man
that stood up for Germany. '
White supremacy has long found a refuge in the remote wilderness of
northern Idaho, isolated from the ethnic groups that are targets of its
hatred but not far enough away to escape government authority.
The most recent confrontation erupted over the summer between
federal authorities and Randy Weaver, a self-proclaimed white
separatist and fugitive who subscribed to many of the beliefs of the
Aryan Nations church.

Three lives were lost.

A deputy U.S. marshal and Mr. Weaver's 14-year-old son died in a
shootout Aug. 21.

Mr. Weaver's 43-year-old wife, Vicki, died the next

day when she was shot in the head during another gunbattle that also
wounded her husband and a family friend.
Mr. Weaver later surrendered to his former Army superior, retired
Green Beret Lt.
candidate.

Col.

James "Bo' Gritz, an independent presidential

The two Special Forces veterans and Mr. Weaver's three

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Divide and conquer;White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo in
race war
surviving children came down the slopes to hundreds of heavily armed
federal agents.

There, at Mr. Weaver's request, Mr. Gritz gave a

stiff-arm Nazi salute to a crowd of cheering skinheads.
What happened during the 11-day siege is angrily disputed.
Those who loathe Mr. Weaver's ideology have described the
confrontation as an isolated event that revealed Mr. Weaver's true
colors.
"This was a guy that's accused of a serious federal crime, that
used his family as a shield to protect him from what the federal
government believed was his criminal behavior, and three people are
dead as a result,' said Norman Gissel, who serves on the board of the
Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations in Coeur d'Alene, a
resort town in northern Idaho.
"And then he gave himself up anyway.

If he had done that at the

beginning, nobody'd be dead. '
Mr. Weaver's friends say the tragedy exposed an elaborate cover-up
by a corrupt Jewish-dominated federal government that assassinated
women and children to stifle dissent.
Mr. Franklin believes that Mr. Weaver fired the opening salvo in a
bloody race war between white Aryans and the Zionist Occupational
Government, or ZOG.
"You have the tyranny of a ZOG occupational government coming
foursquare against a Christian, American white family,' Mr. Franklin
said.

"When the feds blew the head off of Vicki Weaver, I think

symbolically that was their war against the American woman, the
American mother, the American white wife.
"This is the opening shot of the second American Revolution. '
Rugged individualism
Idaho's Selkirk Mountains dominate a landscape known for its rugged
wilderness and tolerance of individualistic lifestyles.
Mr. Weaver was attracted to the area in 1984 and settled near
Naples, a town of about 100 people.
He brought with him his family and his beliefs, which closely
resemble those of Christian Identity, a loosely organized religion that
teaches that North America is the God-given inheritance of the white
man.
According to the principles of the religion's followers, that

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Divide and conquer;White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo in
race war
birthright is being threatened by a new world order intent on
destroying the Aryan race.
"They feel like the whites are the actual lost tribe of Israel,
that the Jews are the spawn of Satan and that there's going to be an
all-out race war by the white race against the Jews and other
minorities,' said Joe Roy, chief investigator of Klanwatch in
Montgomery, Ala.
"They're more or less on a mission from God to preserve the white
race -- whatever it takes. '
Dr. Tony Stewart, president of the Kootenai County Task Force on
Human Relations in Idaho, said the doctrines of white supremacy and
white separatism must be condemned in the strongest terms.
"We totally reject the doctrine as a violation of what democracy is
all about,' Dr. Stewart said.

"Those particular doctrines should be

rejected by all citizens. '
The Church of Jesus Christ Christian-Aryan Nations is a focal point
of Christian Identity beliefs.

The church headquarters at Hayden Lake,

about 60 miles south of Naples, lies beyond a sign at the gate that
warns visitors: "WHITES ONLY. '
During the past decade, federal agents have traced former members
of the Aryan Nations church to racial violence across the United
States.

When a Justice Department task force was established in the

mid-1980s to halt the spread of hate crimes in the nation, arrests
increased dramatically.
The federal government filed almost four dozen hate crime cases
against 63 defendants nationwide in 1988 -- double the number filed in
previous years.

About 90 percent of those charged were convicted.

Membership in Aryan Nations fell dramatically.

Some observers now

estimate that the church has only a few dozen active members.
Although Mr. Weaver attended the church several times, he never
formally joined.
But those visits, almost three years ago, may have caught Mr.
Weaver in the middle of a government crackdown.
On the lam
In October 1989, Mr. Weaver allegedly sold two sawed-off shotguns to
a federal informant he had met through Aryan Nations.
year, no action was taken.

For more than a

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Divide and conquer;White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo in
race war
Then, in December 1990, Mr. Weaver was indicted on charges of
making and possessing illegal firearms.
1991.

He was arrested in January

After he made bail, he holed up in his mountain cabin and failed

to show up for his February 1991 trial.

He vowed never to be taken

alive.
Military reconnaissance jets periodically photographed the terrain
surrounding Mr. Weaver's remote cabin.

Special agents tracked the

movements of the fugitive and his family for 1 1/2 years.
A deadly gunfight broke out Aug. 21 when federal agents were seen
stalking the Weavers' cabin.
Deputy U.S. Marshal William F. Degan, 42, of Boston was killed.
Federal charges of murder have been filed against a Weaver family
friend, Kevin Harris, 24.
Also killed that day was Mr. Weaver's 14-year-old son, Samuel.
Federal authorities declined to discuss details of the shootings.
The Weaver family, however, contended that Samuel was shot in the back
after exchanging shots with federal agents.
The siege of the Weaver cabin continued.

The next day, Mr. Weaver's

wife was killed.
The Weaver family, in a written statement, contends that a bullet
fired by a "sniper' slammed into her skull while she held her
10-month-old daughter.

The same bullet also wounded Mr. Harris in the

chest.
Mr. Weaver was wounded in the arm.
The siege ended after federal authorities agreed to allow Mr.
Gritz, who describes himself as the country's most-decorated Green
Beret commander, to negotiate Mr. Weaver's surrender.
Couple defended
After Mrs. Weaver died, Jackie Brown scrubbed her friend's blood off
the floor of the cabin.

Mrs. Brown does not share the Christian Identity

views of the Weavers, but she said she doesn't believe reports that her
friend was involved in a gunfight outside the cabin when she was killed. "I'm the one
that went in the house and helped move her body,' Mrs.
Brown said.

"And I'm the one that took towels and cleaned all the blood

off the kitchen floor and walls.
"If there was a gunfight outside, why wasn't there any blood on

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Divide and conquer;White supremacists see Idaho cabin standoff as first salvo in
race war
that front porch?

There wasn't one drop outside that front door.

So

that kind of blows a hole in their theory. '
Mrs. Brown described her friend as a wonderful housewife and mother
who helped her husband build the cabin she died in.
"They lived by the Scripture,' she said.
Mrs. Brown's husband, Tony, said Mr. Weaver never hid behind his
family.

He asked them to leave, but the family voted to stay.

He said

Mr. Weaver was not the threat that some believed he was.
"Nobody considered him all that dangerous,' Mr. Brown said.

"He was

just kind of a wacko to most people, even though I never considered him
that way.

I always thought he was fairly intelligent and a little

paranoid, maybe.
"He had Scripture figured out,' Mr. Brown said.

"So, in my mind,

when I look for the reason why he went up there and did that, he
thought it was going to be a revolution, some sort of Armageddon. '
Bill and Judy Grider were among the neighbors who brought supplies
to the Weavers after their troubles with the law began.
Less than a month after the shootings, Mrs. Grider relaxed on her
couch with a pistol strapped into her shoulder holster.

Her 15-year-old

son, Eric, sat on a nearby chair, carrying a holstered pistol on his
left hip.

His father, Mr. Grider, was unarmed.

But a rifle leaned

against the wall next to the front door and a loaded pistol was within
easy reach behind his recliner.
"I'm all for white separatism,' Mr. Grider said.
separatism.

"I'm all for black

You tell somebody you're a white separatist, and bingo,

they start saying things like we've got loaded guns sitting by our
doors.
"Well, what the hell.

Why can't we have loaded guns sitting by our

doors? '
Mr. Grider said he and his family brought supplies to the Weavers
in their mountain hideaway for five months.

Even Rebel, the Grider

family dog, was outfitted with a homemade burlap sack to carry
groceries to the cabin.
Mrs. Grider said the federal weapons charges were trumped up.

The

real reason is that Mr. Weaver knew the government wants to homogenize
the races and "bring this country down. '
"The government is out of control,' she said.

Mr. Weaver held fast

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to his faith in God, whom he called Yahweh.

"His master, Yahweh, had

told him to stay on the mountain, and he did. '
Morality play
Those who monitor the nation's ethnic hatred believe that Randy
Weaver is no hero.

He was not on a mission from God.

The shootings were

no morality play pitting rugged individualist against evil federal
bureaucracy.
But Marvin Stern, director of the Anti-Defamation League's Pacific
Northwest region, said he worries that others won't see it that way as
the trial of Mr. Weaver and Mr. Harris approaches.

The two men are in

prison pending trials early next year.
"I think Weaver may end up being almost a folk hero . . . in the
eyes and rhetoric of some folks in the right-wing extremist movement,'
he said.

"What's going to be totally lost is the fact that a U.S.

marshal was killed. '
He said the "martyr factor' may promote the message of the
movement: The government is corrupt, the government is out to get us,
and "we've got to get them before they get us. '
"This is likely to have some aftershocks,' Mr. Stern said.

Graphic

PHOTO(S): Randy Weaver . . . white separatist held off federal agents for 11 days
over the summer in a siege that killed three people. MAP(S): Idaho; (DMN)

Load-Date: December 27, 1992

End of Document