And this is where they have their Aryan Congress every July. About 300 people from all over the world show up for that one.” As we drove back toward Hayden, my friends told me that the annual neo-Nazi convention attracts a few older people from Europe. “There’s some old European money financing part of this movement,” Ben said. “It just takes one or two old Nazi widows writing checks to Butler every Summer to keep things rolling.” Were Butler and the neo-Nazis, ever the opportunists, milking the dregs of the Third Reich? Perhaps the strident bleats of the Aryan Nations were nothing more than the dying gasps of a fading Teutonic dream. I dropped my friends off and went into Couer d’Alene. I looked up Phil, another friend who had lived in the Idaho Panhandle all his life. When I brought up the subject of neo-Naziism, Phil had plenty to say. “This part of the state was a logical place for them to settle," he told me. “This area is fairly isolated and sparsely populated...there are only about 60,000 people in this county, and Spokane is the nearest real city. Our local police departments are under-funded. And the people hereabouts are three shades: white, whiter, whitest; good Aryan stock. “People have always been tolerant of lifestyles around here. But now there’s a feeling of suppressed anticipation. This neo-Nazi thing has been blown all out of proportion. It’s no wonder everyone is uptight in Hayden. Who wants the cops poking around? A lot of people have guns around, and they don’t want the police trying to take them away." “Is it easier to buy a gun here now than it used to be?” I asked him. “You know it’s always been real easy,” Phil said. “Come in here...I’ll show you mine.” We went into an adjoining room, where there were several rifles, shotguns and pistols in plain view. “Look at this one,” Phil continued, opening a drawyer and taking out what appeared to be a camouflage-colored plastic rifle stock. Peeling off the rubber butt, Phil pulled a barrel, trigger mechanism and clip of bullets from inside the stock, assembling the weapon in less than a minute. “See?" he said, handing the rifle to me. “It’s a .22. I paid a guy $50 for it back in 1971. He and his friends have a few barrels full of guns like these buried out on the Rathdrum Prairie. It’s not very accurate, but you could kill somebody with it. The survivalists like them because they’re easy to smuggle and hide. It’s made by Armalite.” Putting the gun aside, we went back into the front room. “The guy I bought that rifle from doesn’t like the neo-Nazis at all,” Phil said. “He thinks that the best thing to do would be wait until they’re having their big summer fascist jamboree and then hit the compound with a small neutron bomb.” I told Phil about Ben’s plan to sell slashes at a Nazi flag. “I'll bet he'd only get four or five takers,” Phil responded. “But you never know. Parts of this area are in the ’80s. For instance, I know a man of Japanese descent who works for the local telephone company. When Butler and the Aryan Nations moved in, they applied for telephone service, and my friend was sent out on the call. Butler refused to let him on the grounds! He made a hell of a stink about it, but the phone company refused to send out anyone else. It took two years, but finally Butler gave in. After all, he needed his telephone.” We talked for a while longer and then called it a night. Driving back to my motel in Hayden to soak up more atmosphere, it suddenly struck me how far out of the mainstream this neck of the woods had drifted. This was a place where you actually had to think about the pros and cons of desecrating a Nazi flag! You never knew what the Nazi nuts might do, just as people feared in pre-WWII Germany. I pulled into my parking slot and went into the bar, just to make sure that I wasn’t missing anything important. Things were normal. The conversation froze into apprehensive mutterings. I bought a pack of peanuts and went back to my room. This seemed like a good time to reread The Turner Diaries. I’d gotten a copy by sending $5.55 to The Thunderbolt, Marietta, Georgia, and had first read it in one sitting. It’s one of the most powerful books I’ve ever come across, and probably unique in American literature: racist science fiction, artfully crafted and Breakfast in Hayden, Idaho seething with the purest hatred ever to reach print. It’s the kind of book you should read just to find out what we’re up against. The book recounts the adventures of Earl Turner, a militant white supremacist who bands together with others of his ilk in the 1990s and topples the American government, laying the groundwork for a completely Aryan world. The author “When a stranger shows up, the locals figure that he’s either a cop, a reporter, or maybe a right-wing nut. We don’t say much because you never know who might be listening.” makes the message perfectly clear: kill the Jews, kill the blacks and all people of color, stop the mongrelization of the white race; anything goes in the fantasy war between the species. The Order comes out swinging against the System. They destroy FBI headquarters with a bomb; they rob, counterfeit and kill dispassionately, all in the name of white supremacy. They launch a mortar attack on Congress, contaminate a nuclear power plant, and manage to instigate a limited nuclear exhange between the superpowers. As I re-read The Turner Diaries, I realized that the veiled agenda of the neo-Nazis is nothing but the precipitation of fear. Viewing the American populace as nothing but a sodden mass of beerswilling, TV-opiated cretins who sold out to the System years before. “There is no way we can destroy the System without hurting innocent people—no way,” the fictional Turner writes. The neo-Nazis regard the American citizenry as nearly neutralized already; all that is needed to keep them cowering in their homes is a good healthy dose of fear. It seemed to be working in the real world. I read to the point where The Order sets out to murder a few newspaper editors to intimidate the media and then fell asleep. The next morning I had breakfast at a cafe in Hayden. I knew from news accounts that Butler and the other neo- Nazis often frequented the establishment. When I went in, the atmosphere was the same as that in the other local establishments. Hostile, antagonistic stares and withdrawn silence filled the cafe. I ordered the German Plate, a superman-sized portion of scrambled eggs and potatoes. The waitress served it with a grim expression on her face—a somber way to start the day. In the parking lot outside the restaurant ■ a pickup truck displayed a bumper sticker that read, “They stole our gold and silver—now let’s give them some lead.” I got in my car and drove into Couer d’Alene to visit another friend whom I hadn't seen for years, wondering all the way who “they” were. The Many Faces o f“They” Julie had moved to Northern Idaho after graduating from college, and when her brother joined a Moonie sect in the area she had become involved with the Couer d’Alene Cult Awareness Center. “What exactly does the Cult Awareness Center do?" I asked her as we sat at the kitchen table drinking instant coffee. “Did you start it yourself?” “Oh no,” Julie laughed. “There are 60 Cult Awareness Centers nationwide, all part of the Cult Awareness Network. We're not deprogrammers; what we do is keep track of groups that we believe to be destructive cults as a resource for families who lose members to their influences.” There have always been tall tales of weird cults living in the Idaho Panhandle. Stories abound of strange rituals and grotesque murders and mutilations. When I’d lived there years before, I’d noticed a reclusive sect that locals referred to as the “Blue Army,” and hear rumors of many more. “How many cults are there around here, anyway?” I asked Julie. “We’ve identified 21,” she said matter- of-factly. “Destructive cults, that is. We have ten characteristics that we use to identify destructive cults. In general, they exhibit deception, coercion and mind control.” “Do you consider the Aryan Nations to be a destructive cult?” “Without a doubt. Besides the Aryan Nations, some of the neo-Nazi spin-off groups are destructive. The Order is one, of course. And there’s another white supremacist cult called the Social Nationalist Aryan People’s Party/Restored Church of Jesus Christ. It's in Post Falls, and the leader is a man named Keith Gilbert. He’s got about a dozen followers, and they are definitely dangerous.” I had already heard of Keith D. Gilbert, a full-blown racist who spent several years in a California prison for an abortive plot to kill Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. Locally, Gilbert had gotten in trouble in Couer d’Alene for spitting at two dark- skinned children and attempting to run over them with his car. Arrested in 1985 on charges of welfare and tax fraud, Gilbert was cooling his heels in a Wallace, Idaho jail cell. “What about the ‘Blue Army'?” I asked. “Are they still around?” You mean the Fatima Crusade, or Tridentine Latin Rite," she said. “Yes, they’re still around, though most of them have moved to a monastery they bought near Spokane. There are several very active cults around here, but no more than you’d find in any rural, sparsely- populated area.” Just then the doorbell rang. Julie had a visitor, a sociology professor from an Idaho university who was in the area collecting information for a book about the Aryan Nations and their galaxy of hate groups. He was there to compare notes with Julie, who had a great deal of detailed background information on the neo-Nazis. The professor spread his thick sheaf of notes and research data out on the table as he spoke with Julie. It was impressive. He had compiled a list of 128 people who had been identified as members of the Aryan Nations and their allied groups, as well as biographical data and criminal records. “What are you trying to find out?” I asked him. “I want to know what common social factors made these people turn to white supremacy," the professor said, “and what made the members of The Order Clinton St. Quarterly 7
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