Back to Elohim City.
"Elohim City residents are notoriously secretive about their beliefs and activities and shield their racialism from outsiders. The city hosts a population that reportedly fluctuates between seventy and ninety residents. Members focus on 'pure' living, shunning the outside world and its decadence, which they claim will bring the apocalypse to cleanse the world of all impurities.
"Elohim City believes devoutly in racial separatism. Prior to his death in 2001, Millar preached separatism as a strategy to avoid conflict and strengthen bloodlines and kinship ties among 'true, pure Aryans.' Millar's son John now leads the community and continues his father's emphasis on racial separatism.
"The community includes a sawmill, trucking company, K-12 school, church, community medical service, armed patrol unit, and construction firm, which financially supports the community. Elohim City members begin each day with a Pentecostal-type church service that may last several hours. Recreational activities are exclusively community events. The entire community, including children, participates in parties, picnics, canoe trips, and even socializing."
(American Swastika, Pete Simi & Robert Futrell, pg. 103)
Over the years Elohim would attract virtually every major figure and group in the white supremacist underground.
"... extremist groups to which Elohim City members have ties include Aryan Nations, the Aryan People's Republic, and White Aryan Resistance. Mark Thomas, former Pennsylvania minister for the Aryan Nations, who hosted meanings of neo-Nazis, skinheads, and other white racist groups on his Pennsylvania farm, helped organize the Aryan Republican Army and arrange for several of its members to live at Elohim City. Cheyne and Chevie Kehoe, who found that the small but violent Aryan People's Republic, reportedly sought refuge at Elohim City. Dennis Mahone, a former imperial dragon in the Oklahoma Ku Klux Klan and an organizer for White Aryan Resistance, kept a trailer at Elohim City."
(ibid, pg. 103)
Beyond these groups Elohim also maintained ties with three of the most notorious movements/groups within the Christian Identity and white supremacist underground: the Posse Comitatus; the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA); and the Order also known as die Bruder Schwigen (German for "the Silent Brotherhood").We shall now consider these three outfits and their ties to Elohim City, beginning with the Posse Comitatus.
The Posse Comitatus, unlike the CSA and the Order, does not have a formal structure. It is a nationwide movement with various loosely connected chapters. While it is not implicitly a racialist movement it is has had close ties to the Christian Identity throughout its history.
"In the 1970s retired army colonel William Potter Gale formed a group of armed anti-tax and anti-federal government survivalists who agreed with his political philosophy that all government power should be rooted at the county, rather than the federal, level. Posse Comitatus members resist paying taxes because the federal government is controlled by Jews. Some members won't even apply for driver's licenses because to do so would be to submit to an illegal, subversive authority. The Posse soon attracted Klan members and other anti-Semites, including David Duke.
"This intermittently active, loosely organized group of antigovernment agitators and avowed followers of Christian Identity received nationwide attention in 1983 when Posse member Gordon Kahl murdered two federal marshals who had come to arrest him for a parole violation in connection with a conviction for nonpayment of taxes. Kahl became a fugitive and was later killed in a shootout with Arkansas law enforcement officers.
"In October 1987 Posse founder William Potter Gale and four associates from the California-based Committee of the States were convicted of threatening the lives of Internal Revenue Service agents and a Nevada state judge. Sentenced to federal prison in January 1988, Gale died in April that year, at age seventy-one.
"In 1991 an Identity minister and Posse leader based in Michigan, James Wickstorm, was convicted of scheming to distribute $100,000 in counterfeit bills to white supremacist at the 1988 Aryan World Congress. While he was doing time in prison, Wickstorm transferred his leadership position to Mark Thomas, an Identity preacher from Pennsylvania."
(Conspircies and Secret Societies, Brad Steiger & Sherry Steiger, pgs. 377-378)
Gordon Kahl,
a Christian identity believer
and early Posse Comitatus member
who has become a martyr
for the movementKeep Thomas in mind as we shall be coming back to him in just a moment. Before moving along let us briefly consider the influence the Posse Comitatus had on various right-wing grassroots groups such as the militia and sovereign citizens movements.
"Some writers have also argued that the militia movement was significantly influenced by several 1980s extremist groups, including the Posse Comitatus, the Order, and the Committee of the States. The Posse was started in California by William Potter Gale and in Oregon by Henry Beach in the early 1970s, and by the early 1980s its activities had been document in nearly twenty states. Much for its growth was tied to its leaders' exploitation of the farm crisis. One of my interviewees discuss the influence of the Posse on the militia movement:
Well, the militia movement is different from the Posse, but it comes from the Posse. The Posse as an organization died out in the mid-1980s, but the ideology stuck around. In the mid-1990s you have seen a resurgence of that ideology in two different ways. The posse had this paper terrorism and paramilitary activity. In the 1990s, you see the paper terrorism in the common-law courts and sovereign citizens, and the paramilitary activity is seen in the militia movement. It is kind of a strange thing. The common law courts and sovereign citizens are more of a direct descendent of the Posse, and the militia movement is an offshoot of the Posse, but there are some connections there.
"There are several direct connections to Posse Comitatus that clearly influenced the militia movement of the 1990s. Posse adherents believe that the only 'true form of government was a near anarchic, highly localized form of government centered on the county sheriff.' The sheriff, they argue, was the law of the land, because the Constitution provided law enforcement powers only to him. The Posse believed that the federal government was part of a great conspiracy to deprive individuals of their rights and that the country needed to return to the basic text of the Constitution. The Posse movement also was influenced by survivalist practices. Survivalist prepared for society's collapse by storing weapons, food, water, and other supplies, and practicing field maneuvers in order to defend their lives and property."
(Searching For a Demon, Steven M. Chermak, pg. 29)
Keep all of this in mind as we shall return to it a bit later on. Anyway, returning to Mark Thomas, a Pennsylvania member of the Posse. Thomas would be instrumental in the formation of the Aryan Republican Army, also known as the Midwest Bank Robbers/Bandits, a group with ties to Elohim City. Two reputed members, Michael Brescia and Richard Lee Guthrie, were residents of Elohim for a time.
"Richard Lee Guthrie, Jr., the son of the CIA employee, discharge from the Navy for painting a swastika on the side of a ship and threatening superiors, his childhood friend Peter K. Langan, and Shawn Kenny, went on to form the nucleus of a group known as the Midwest Bank Bandits. The group stole more than $250,000 from 22 banks between January, '94 and December, '95 in a spree that led them across Ohio, Wisconsin, Iowa, Nebraska, Kansas, Missouri. The four member group would often wear FBI jackets to taunt the Bureau, and create diversions to foil police, including leaving behind inert pipe-bombs to slow pursuit. The bandits even had a macabre sense of humor, wearing a Santa Claus suit during a hold up around Christmas, and an Easter basket with a gold painted pipe bomb left inside a bank in Des Moines.
"'Wid Bill' Guthrie also admitted to a West Virginia sheriff that he had helped Butler's Aryan Nations raise another quarter million dollars through fraud. Both Guthrie and Langan were regular visitors to the Hayden Lake compound...
"In November, '94, Mark Thomas, the local Aryan Nations representative, united the two with others of their kind. Thomas' farm, located rather appropriately next to a toxic waste dump, has been the site of skinhead and neo-Nazi rallies such as White Pride Day and the annual Hitler Youth Festival, where participants enjoyed such wholesome activities as pagan rituals and cross burnings.
"Thomas introduced the pair to Pennsylvania native Scott Stedeford, a rock musician and artist, and Kevin McCarthy, bassist in a white power band named 'Day of the Sword.' Thomas was instrumental in helping the men form an alliance which they would call the Aryan Republican Army (ARA)...
"The Pennsylvania Posse Comitatus leader would also introduce Stedeford and McCarthy to Michael Brescia, a Philadelphia native and rock musician who would go on to form a speed metal band with McCarthy and Stedeford called 'Cyanide.' The rock 'n roll bank robbers decided to recruit the 24-year-old La Salle University student after planning the heist of a large bank in Madison, Wisconsin, which the trio robbed on August 30, 1995.
"The three men came to know 'Grandpa Millar' at Elohim City courtesy of Thomas, and Brescia was soon engaged to Millar's granddaughter, Ester. Brescia wound up living at the reclusive compound for two years."
(The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, David Hoffman, pgs. 119-121)
While there were never extensive ties between the Posse Comitatus and Elohim City there was at least a connection to one prominent member of the Posse, as the above indicates. In the wake of the Oklahoma City bombing it was alleged that Timothy McVeigh may also have been a member of this organization. Inevitably his connection would have been due to his ties to Elohim Cty, but more on that later. For now let us move along to the Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord (CSA).
The CSA has the most direct ties to Elohim City of the three subjects currently being considered, as we shall soon see. For now, let us consider the organization's history.
"From its formation in 1971 until its destruction in 1985, The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord was one of the most active and notorious Aryan settlements. CSA became a model for later private Aryan communities. Texas minister James Ellison founded CSA on more than 200 acres near the Missouri-Arkansas border. Their geographical isolation separated CSA families from the taint of mainstream society, and the area's isolated and rugged terrain made monitoring by authorities especially difficult. The property's location on state borders also complicated jurisdictional responsibilities...
"During the late 1970s, after Ellison claimed to have a vision of the coming race war that would engulf America, he and his followers turned to the Christian Identity principles and transformed the property into a white supremacist, paramilitary training camp. The group adopted the name The Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord to reflect their increasing radicalization. Ellison began characterizing 'the CSA mission as establishing an "Ark for God's people" for the coming race war. God's people were white Christians [while] Jews, he told his followers, were not really God's chosen people, but rather a demonic an inferior race...'
"The CSA settlement build a church, a communications center, workshop, munition storage bunker, and member houses. Each family lived in their own 24 square-foot residence without electricity and running water. Reflecting their apocalyptic worldview, member strategically position their homes in three separate directions from the main settlement as defensive vantage points in case of attack. Families also prepared for attacks with underground storage and safety bunkers...
"To supplement their income, CSA members traded semiautomatic rifles, silencers, and other weapons on the gun-show circuit. Ellison prodded his followers into thievery and pawning personal goods that were not crucial to warfare and survival. Followers even pawned their own wedding rings. Such income increased the CSA stockpiles of weaponry, chemicals, explosives, food, and first aid supplies.
"Ellison and his CSA followers originally stockpiled weapons and did survivalist training as a defensive preparation for racial conflict. But in the early 1980s, CSA planned several terrorist plots. In 1983, federal marshals killed Christian Identity adherent Gordon Kahl in a shootout. after that event, CSA declared the compound 'an arms depot and paramilitary training ground for Aryan warriors.' CSA plan the assassinations of a local FBI agent and a U.S. district Judge, and plotted the poisoning of municipal water supplies, arsons, and bombings.
"The original plan to destroy the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in Oklahoma City was hatched by CSA members nearly 12 years before Timothy McVeigh and his accomplices bomded it to complete the mission. Although CSA failed to execute most of its terrorist plans, CSA members and their associates bombed a Missouri community church known to support homosexuality and a Indiana Jewish community center. CSA radicals also detonated explosives near a natural gas pipeline in Arkansas, robbed and murdered a pawnshop owner they thought was Jewish, murdered in African-American Arkansas State Trooper.
"CSA's spree of violence ended in April 1985. Ellison and other CSA followers surrendered at CSA's compound following a four-day standoff federal agents. The FBI's search of the CSA compound uncovered nearly 200 firearms, including landmines, machine guns, assault rifles, thousands of rounds of ammunition, antitank rockets, and the large supply of cyanide.
"In September 1985, CSA leaders James Ellison and Krry Noble and four other CSA activists were sentenced to federal prison on racketeering and weapons charges, which effectively destroyed the group and the settlement."
(American Swastika, Pete Simi & Robert Futrell, pgs. 100-102)
the CSA compoundUpon being released from prison Ellison took up residence at Elohim City, along with several other followers.
"CSA founder James Ellison and his close associate Richard Wayne Snell repeatedly visited Elohim City in the early 1980s. in the FBI surrounded the CSA compound to arrest Ellison and his followers. In 1985 they requested Millar's cooperation to mediate a peaceful surrender to the armed standoff. Robert Millar was Snell's spiritual advisor, and John Millar testified as a character witness when Snell was sentenced to death for the 1984 murder of an Arkansas State Trooper. On April 19, 1995, the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing, Robert Millar visited Snell just before he was executed. Millar witnessed the execution and arranged for Snell's body to be buried at Elohim City."
(ibid, pg. 103)
James EllisonAccounts of Millar and Snell's reaction to the Oklahoma City bombing have been mixed.
"...Snell was executed on the ever-prophetic date of April 19, 1995, the very day the Murrah Building was bombed. Snell was convicted of killing a black state trooper in 1984, and a pawnshop owner he thought was Jewish. While under arrest, Snell called himself a ' prisoner of war,' precisely what authorities claim McVeigh said.
"Before his death, Snell had time to watch scenes from the bombing on his jail room TV. Millar, who was with the 64-year-old Snell during his final hours, said he was appalled at the destruction. Yet according to Arkansas prison official Alan Ables, 'Snell chuckled and laughed as he watched television coverage of the Oklahoma City disaster.'
"Both Millar and Snell's wife contended the convicted murderer was saddened by the bombing..."
(The Oklahoma City Bombing and the Politics of Terror, David Hoffman, pg.117)