-Caveat Lector-
Keeping an Eye on Would-Be Y2K Terrorists
By RICHARD A. SERRANO, Times Staff Writer
WASHINGTON--With the doomsday clock rapidly ticking down toward midnight
on New Year's Eve, the nation's angriest government haters say that they are
primed and ready for action.
John Trochmann, the gray-bearded leader of the Militia of Montana,
foresees terrorist attacks around the country if computers fail and utilities
go dark.
Ted Gunderson, former head of the FBI office in Los Angeles and now one
of the country's leading far-right figures, predicts fire and chaos.
Are they all bluff and bluster?
While officials generally consider such firebrands to be more mouth than
menace, the FBI and police departments from Washington to Los Angeles have
made elaborate contingency plans to deal with just about any scenario.
Authorities are increasingly going on alert over the possibility that
some cult or anti-government militia will choose the advent of the new
millennium for a major terrorist strike somewhere in America.
Officials see the Trochmanns and Gundersons of the world as agents
provocateurs who stir up anti-government feeling. But it is the silent
operator that they worry most about. They fear the small cell or lone wolf
who is out there somewhere, undetected by law enforcement. The 1990s brought
the first real look at these shadowy faces of terror in the likes of Timothy
J. McVeigh and Theodore J. Kaczynski.
Just last week, the FBI arrested two militia members for hoarding
firearms, ammunition and fertilizer and plotting to blow up several
installations in Northern California. Earlier this fall, a religious
fundamentalist in Florida was arrested for planning to poison two judges with
a concoction made of castor beans and rosary peas, which grow in the wild.
With just 20 days left in this fading millennium and with many groups
believing that a biblical end of the Earth is nigh, there seems to be a
growing paranoia among many extremists who think that it will be government
agents disguised as terrorists who will strike first. They fear that the
government then will declare martial law and impose a "new world order" on
America.
Indeed, they insist that many of the protesters at the World Trade
Organization meeting in Seattle last week were undercover federal agents
practicing how to disrupt society. "That was the dress rehearsal," said Jack
McLamb, head of Police Against the New World Order who will sweat out New
Year's Eve with fellow conspiracy theorists at their northern Idaho
community, called Doves of the Valley.
To prepare, some extremists and survivalists have dug bunkers deep
underground. Others have set up preparedness communities, both through the
Internet and on isolated compounds. Most are stockpiling food, medicine,
kerosene and other supplies to brace for Armageddon.
In their view, the end has always been coming.
But when?
As the Bible says, "of that day and hour knoweth no man."
Officials estimate that there are nearly 1,000 cults in this country,
large and small. There also are more than 500 hate groups in the United
States, many of them gun-loving.
A recent Newsweek magazine poll found that 2 in 10 Americans think the
world will end in their lifetime and that 6% of Americans, or about 15
million people, expect the Apocalypse in 2000.
"You have two months to live," prophesied a writer named Robert in one
of many e-mails sent by fellow believers on the Internet.
"Space ends," he wrote. "Space does not go on forever."
A magazine called the Y2K Survival Handbook recently printed an article
on the "case for a long gun," with photos of homeowners keeping rifles at the
ready near their beds. Warned the magazine: "The urban rifle comes into its
own in abnormal times."
Edward and Katie Thompson have started the Freeservers Community in
Kalispell, Mont., far up in the northern Rocky Mountains. They have stored
food to feed 50 people for almost three years. That's the period during which
they believe "God's angels"--also known as the "lost children"--will appear
on Earth.
"My group now has 110 acres and a cave," they wrote in an Internet
posting. "Running Glacial water (32 deg.) in the cave. Room for 50 people and
200 head of animals. Have had 1 fatality as to Bulls. Have you heard of
trouble with normally mild-mannered animals turning on people?"
A writer named Rick from Truckee, Calif., reminded Internet readers of
the cannibalism of the Donner Party, trapped high in the snows of the Sierra
Nevada near his home 150 years ago.
"I guess we can't say it hasn't ever happened here before," Rick wrote.
If you are not prepared for any catastrophe, he advised, "you're taking your
life into your own hands."
James G. "Bo" Gritz, once a decorated Army colonel in the Green Berets,
now deep in the militant Patriot movement, toured the country this year
cautioning that Washington is planning Y2K problems to allow a global
organization to take over America. At each stop he has set fire to the flag
of the United Nations.
He charged $150 a person for the seminars and taught them how to pick
the locks of offices, cars and homes--should anarchy reign.
"When the law might fail because of any emergency," he told a Kansas
City, Mo., audience, "the militias can supplement the police and government."
Predicted Gunderson, the former FBI official: "There's going to be
problems in some cities, depending on . . . which utility companies are
prepared. The police won't be able to communicate. The gangs will rise up.
And there will be riots."
Warned Montana militiaman Trochmann: "There will be this domino effect
and then things are going to get real nasty."
Clay Douglas, a motorcycle trader who publishes the radical Free
American magazine, will spend New Year's Eve in his hacienda in rural New
Mexico, lounging on his La-Z-Boy. He says that he will watch the world go mad
on television.
"They're not going to blow up little old Bingham, N.M.," he scoffed.
"Maybe Albuquerque. But the fallout will never make it over the mountains."
But police and government agencies insist that they will be ready. The
FBI and the Department of Justice said that their criminal computer systems
will make it through the Y2K date change (the computer glitch arose because
older software could interpret the year 2000 as 1900) and that additional
agents will be on hand to weather any crisis.
In Los Angeles, both the Police Department and the Sheriff's Department
are preparing for possible problems. "We will have extra officers, and we
have plans in place to deal with any unusual occurrences," said LAPD
spokesman Jason Lee. The Sheriff's Department will open its emergency
operations center for four days, beginning New Year's Eve and running through
Jan. 3. In addition, an extra 300 to 500 officers will be deployed New Year's
Eve and Jan. 1.
In a special report dubbed Project Megiddo, named after the hill in
northern Israel where some are waiting for the War of Armageddon to be
fought, the FBI conceded that there may be many would-be terrorists who have
not yet been brought under their surveillance net. More worrisome are those
unknown individuals ready to be martyrs for their cause.
In Sioux County, Iowa, Sheriff Jim R. Schwiesow said that he believes he
will be ready, but he has his own ideas on how to do that. In July, he mailed
a letter to 285 of his constituents, whom he had granted permits to carry
concealed weapons, asking them to volunteer as deputies to help police their
pocket of northwest Iowa.
"Sadly and tragically," he wrote, "this nation has renounced the
Christian principles upon which it was founded. Be not deceived, good
friends. God will not be mocked. If He withholds His presence from this
nation and leaves us to our own devices, we are indeed in deep trouble. And I
believe that time is at hand."
He said that 250 volunteers have signed up so far. One of them is
Maurice Scheider, a retired engineer.
"If problems arise, I guess you could call the National Guard," said the
79-year-old Scheider. "But then everybody is going to be calling the National
Guard. And who wants to wait in line for that?"
* * *
Times staff writer Doug Shuit in Los Angeles contributed to this story.
www.latimes.com
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