The former head of the Minutemen, a rightwing extremist group in the 1960’s, is planning to hold a paramilitary training session on guerrilla tactics and firearms this weekend in Kansas City, Mo., the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith revealed today.
According to Justin Finger, head of ADL’s national civil rights division, Robert DePugh, who was jailed for four years on federal weapons charges and now heads the Committee of Ten Million, will conduct a “convention” tomorrow to Monday.
“Seminars, “some to be held outdoors, will include instructions on “basics of guerrilla and counterguerrilla warfare, combat use of pistols, rifles and shotguns, booby-traps, sniping, raids, ambushes, infiltrations, sabotage, demolitions and how to change your identity, ” Finger said, A nighttime training exercise is also on the “convention” agenda.
Disclosure of the weekend paramilitary “convention” comes a month after ADL released a report indicating that the Ku Klux Klan is conducting paramilitary activities in six states.
“This upsurge in paramilitary activities by extremist groups in America, ” Finger said, “underscores the need for federal surveillance of paramilitary activities by radical organizations with records of lawlessness and violence.”
COALITION OF RIGHTWING GROUPS
The Committee of Ten Million, established in 1978, is a coalition of rightwing groups with a “leadership council” which includes Robert Shelton, Imperial Wizard of the United. Klans of America (KKK), and other rightwing leaders: The Committee envisions enlisting ten million American “patriots” in a crusade to “save Western civilization” and “our Christian heritage.”
In the 1960’s, Finger said, DePugh’s Minutemen, network of small armed bonds scattered throughout the country, stockpiled weapons against a perceived ” Communist takeover” and on occasion clashed with law enforcement officers and private citizens.
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