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[typos mine. knm]

Anti-Defamation League (1993)

The Church of the Creator: Creed of Hate

Introduction

Since 1973, the Church of the Creator (COTC) has been a virulently 
anti-Semitic and racist organization that uses the rhetoric of 
religion as a flimsy camouflage for the promotion of hate. Its 
founder and longtime leader. the late Ben Klassen, a far-right 
political activist in the 1960s, gloried in the concept he fervently 
and frequently  proclaimed as his goal: racial holy war."

COTC propaganda is as hostile toward Christianity as it is toward 
Judaism; as hateful toward Blacks and other people of color as it is 
toward Jews. At this time, while its numbers are relatively small
-- membership comprises less than a thousand -- it has been growing. 
Yet the danger it poses and the concern it merits derive from factors 
beyond mere numbers. Disturbing recent developments include:

     * several COTC members have been convicted of, or are being 
tried for, serious violent crimes, including murder -- most recently, in 
July 1993, authorities uncovered two separate plots involving West Coast 
COTC members in efforts to firebomb Jewish and Black institutions and 
assassinate prominent Jews and African-Americans;

     * the group has close ties to other violence-prone extremist 
factions, including Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance and William 
Pierce's National Alliance, as well as to neo-Nazi Skinheads

     * two of Klassen's announced successors have been convicted of 
felony offenses -- one of them recently completed 6 years in a federal 
prison, while the other recently began a federal prison term following 
9 bombing convictions;

     * COTC activists operate beyond the U.S., in such countries as 
Canada, England, Sweden, and South Africa, extending the group's reach 
and providing it with international recruiting and propaganda outlets.

     Over the past three years, COTC membership and influence appear to 
have increased among white supremacists. This increase is particularly 
attributable to COTC activity involving the youngest and most 
violence-prone segment of the extremist underworld, the neo-Nazi Skinheads. 
The affiliation of these Skinheads with the COTC (and other established 
groups, particularly White Aryan Resistance) has coincided with a marked 
increase in violent, racist activity in the U.S. It is important to expose 
groups like COTC whose writings shape the beliefs and inspire the behavior 
of many of these young thugs.

     It is hoped that this report will enhance public awareness of the 
Church of the Creator, a viciously hateful and potentially violent 
organization whose self-expressed aim is nothing less than the fomenting 
of a worldwide racially based war.

The Creator of The Church of the Creator

     Ben Klassen, the founder of the Church of the Creator, was born on 
February 20, 1918, in Taurida, Ukraine. When he was six, his family moved 
to Mexico, and two years later re-settled in rural Saskatchewan. Canada. 
As an adult, Klassen taught elementary school in Canada, then worked as 
an electrical engineer in California. He also worked as a part-time 
inventor, reportedly earning a patent for an electric can opener in 1954.

     In 1958, Klassen moved to Florida, where he became a successful 
real estate agent. The first indication of his political views came to 
light in 1965, when he was elected as a Republican to the Florida State 
Legislature. At the time, he had campaigned against busing and the 
federal government -- conventional conservative positions of the day. 
James Eddy, a GOP leader in the Florida House at the time, said of 
Klassen, "He was a good legislator....  Most of his votes were 
well-reasoned."

     After his legislative district was reapportioned by court order, 
Klassen ran unsuccessfully for state senator in 1967. He next served as 
Florida chairman of Alabama governor George Wallace's 1968 independent 
presidential campaign. (Wallace was, of course, leading segregationist 
figure at the time.)

     Concurrent with his brief involvement with the democratic process, 
Klassen at the time was closely affiliated with the ultra-right John 
Birch Society; in 1966 he was introduced at the Society's eighth annual 
dinner by the group's founder and leader, Robert Welch. He later donated 
$1000 for a lifetime membership, and opened a Birch-affiliated American 
Opinion Bookstore.

     Klassen's lurch ever-rightward became even more apparent, however, 
by the end of the decade, when he accused George Wallace of intentionally 
courting African-American support, terming it "a complete betrayal of 
what he represented." He also later denounced the John Birch Society as 
a "smokescreen for the Jews."

New "Church," Old Hatred

     In 1973, Klassen founded the Church of the Creator in Lighthouse 
Point, Florida. At the same time, he published its first manifesto, 
Nature's Eternal Religion. He proclaimed in the 511-page screed: "We 
completely reject the Judeo-democratic-Marxist values of today and 
supplant them with new and basic values. of which race is the 
foundation." Klassen contrasted his new religion, "Creativity," with 
Christianity, which he termed a "suicidal religion."

     For much of the '70s, Klassen achieved little recognition for his 
self-created theology. Then, in 1979, he began mailing unsolicited copies 
of a booklet titled "The Brutal Truth About Inflation and Financial 
Enslavement  -- The Federal Reserve Board -- The Most Gigantic 
Counterfeiting Ring in the World." The essay alleged that "the Federal 
Reserve Banks are owned, lock, stock and barrel, by a criminal gang of 
International Bankers" and claimed, The Federal Reserve owns the U.S. 
Government and manipulates it like a puppet, solely for the interests of 
this avaricious international gang of Jewish jackals, who control the 
world, its money, and its economy.

     Klassen's pamphlet concludes, "Now that you understand the Jewish 
program of piracy, looting and enslavement by means of the Federal Reserve 
and money manipulations, now get the rest of the story and the program of 
The Church of the Creator by reading their White Man's Bible: Nature's 
Eternal Religion."

Klassen continued these apparently random mailings for much of the next 
decade.

     In 1981, the COTC founder published a sequel to Nature's Eternal 
Religion, titled The White Man's Bible. This 453 page book revealed such 
key Klassen teachings as:

     * "Today's Black Plague is spelled niggers.... We regard them as 
subhuman or humanoid....

     * The most deadly threat the White Race faces is the tremendous 
expansion of the mud [i.e., "non-white"] races led by the arch-enemy
-- the treacherous Jew....

     * We...declare everlasting war on the Jews, a war to the finish, 
until we have expelled them from all the lands inhabited by the white race."

A Moving Experience

     Thereafter, in May 1982, COTC announced the construction of new 
headquarters in Mulberry, North Carolina, three miles from the Georgia 
state line.  Klassen chose the new site because he believed Florida had 
become too dangerous. "I think South Florida is due for a lot of turmoil 
when bloody fighting breaks out," he stated. "Actually, I expect the 
financial collapse of the entire country, and blood will be flowing in 
the streets."

     By 1983, the North Carolina compound was completed, and Klassen 
opened a post office box in Otto, North Carolina. Now describing himself 
as COTC's "Pontifex Maximus" (Latin for "high priest"), Klassen began 
publishing a gutter-level monthly tabloid called Racial Loyalty.

     More books later flowed from the Klassen pen. In 1985, COTC 
published Expanding Creativity, an anthology of articles from Racial 
Loyalty. The following year saw the publication of a second collection. 
Building Whiter And Brighter World. In mid-1987, the Church published 
Rahowa! This Planet is All Ours. The term "rahowa" (taken from "racial holy 
war") itself was intended to be a COTC battle cry in the group's genocidal 
quest for world domination. In the book, Klassen declared:

     RAHOWA! In this one word we sum up the total goal and program of not 
only the Church of the Creator, but of the total White Race, and it is 
this: We take up the challenge. We gird for total war against the Jews and 
the rest of the goddamned mud races of the world -- politically, 
militantly, financially, morally and religiously. In fact, we regard it as 
the heart of our religious creed, and as the most sacred credo of all. We 
regard it as a holy war to the finish -- a racial holy war. Rahowa! is 
INEVITABLE. It is the Ultimate and Only solution.  [emphasis in original]

The ominous and threatening tone continued with a dire prediction:

     No longer can the mud races and the White Race live on the same 
planet and survive. It is now either them or us. We want to make damn 
sure it is we who survive. This planet is from now on all ours, and will 
be the one and only habitat for our future progeny for all time to come.

     In 1991, Klassen codified the "Creator" philosophy in a catechism 
titled The Little White Book -- clearly, yet astonishingly, inspired by the 
little red book of Mao-Tse Tung. His final publication, released in 1993, 
was an autobiographical work, Trials, Tribulations and Triumphs.

Growing Recognition in the Hate Business

     As Klassen cranked these writings out, the COTC name grew within the 
white supremacist movement -- particularly among its youngest and most 
violence-prone adherents -- throughout the '80s. By the start of the next 
decade, groups of neo-Nazi skinheads began congregating at COTC 
headquarters for indoctrination and weapons training.

     According to a September 1992 article in Mirabella magazine, the 
"seventeen-acre landscaped compound...includes small-arms firing ranges, 
paramilitary barracks and other buildings.... Inside a large converted barn 
that serves as headquarters, church founder and leader, Ben Klassen... 
sits beneath a large painted portrait of Adolf Hitler, 'The greatest leader 
the white race ever had,' says Klassen.... Since 1990 groups of committed 
young men have traveled here for extensive political mining under Klassen's 
tutelage. The recruits wear white berets or cowboy hats, live in the 
barracks and practice shooting with automatic weapons on the firing range. 
Many are older teenagers.  'Exceptional boys,' Klassen calls them."

     COTC's growth was attributable in part to the simultaneous, though 
only temporary, decline of Tom Metzger's White Aryan Resistance (WAR) 
organization.  which throughout the '80s exerted the greatest influence 
among neo-Nazi skinheads, as it again does today. In 1990, an Oregon jury 
found Metzger and his son John liable for inciting a group of skinheads to 
murder an Ethiopian immigrant.  (The civil suit was brought on behalf of 
the victim's family by the Southern Poverty Law Center and ADL") As a 
result, the Metzgers were ordered to pay a $12.5 million penalty. They 
also suffered a loss of prestige in the skinhead underworld when an 
investigation of their finances during pre-trial discovery revealed that 
they had used WAR funds to purchase personal items, such as the elder 
Metzger's toupee. COTC reaped the benefits of this disenchantment, picking 
up substantial new membership from former WAR chapters.

     As COTC's membership swelled, so did its rhetoric of violence (as 
well as the number of violent acts, detailed elsewhere in this report, 
allegedly committed by COTC members). Klassen -- quite possibly fearing 
a civil suit similar to the case against Metzger -- spent much of 1992 
looking for a successor to take over the Church. In September 1992, the 
Asheville, North Carolina, Citizen-Times reported that Klassen had sold 
the COTC compound for $100,000 to William Pierce.

     Pierce, a former officer in George Lincoln Rockwell's original 
American Nazi Party, is the head of another neo-Nazi group, the National 
Alliance. His connection with Klassen came as no surprise: like Klassen, 
Pierce is a recluse,  living on a 346-acre West Virginia compound he calls 
the Cosmotheist Community. Moreover, like Klassen, Pierce is a bitterly 
hateful opponent of Christianity.

     According to an unsolicited mailing sent to subscribers of Racial 
Loyalty in April 1993, Pierce once told his followers, "Any Alliance 
member who is also a member of a church or other Christian organization 
which supports racial mixing or Zionism should decide now where he stands, 
and should then resign either from his church or from the Alliance." Prior 
to their formal real estate transaction, Klassen had promoted his fellow 
white supremacist by advertising two grisly Pierce novels in Racial 
Loyalty, The Turner Diaries -- which provided the blueprint for a series 
of terrorist acts in the 1980s by the Order, an offshoot of the National 
Alliance and the Aryan Nations -- and Hunter, the sequel to The Turner 
Diaries.

     In March 1993, Pierce announced that he was putting up the COTC 
property for sale again, this time asking for $299,900. To date, no one 
has responded to this offer.

Other Extremist Links to the COTC

     Beyond Ben Klassen's financial ties to William Pierce, the COTC's 
path has intersected with assorted other white supremacists and 
right-wing extremists over the years. Principal among these connections was 
Klassen's relationship with Tom Metzger; for example, in January 1985, a 
letter from Klassen invited Metzger to form a COTC group in California, 
suggesting that he would appoint Metzger to "a higher title (equivalent to 
a bishop, cardinal, etc. in the Catholic Church, except we would come up 
with some Latin name for it)... which would provide prestige and some 
legal protection." Klassen reprinted the letter in a 1989 issue of Racial 
Loyalty, reiterating the offer.

     On both occasions, Metzger rebuffed Klassen, yet he apparently 
retained respect for the like-minded COTC leader. In an August 1993 
telephone message, Metzger stated, "It is with deep regret to announce 
[sic] the death of a long-time fighter for the cause, Ben Klassen.... 
Tom Metzger and Ben Klassen had a somewhat stormy relationship. Ben was 
not the easiest person to get along with.  However, his dedication and 
sacrifice should be noted by even his strongest critics." The following 
week, Metzger promoted the two main COTC "religious" manuals, Nature's 
Eternal Religion and The White Man's Bible, in his next telephone address.

     In May 1992, Racial Loyalty published an essay by David Lane on "the 
Christian Right-wing American Patriots, C.R.A.P. (since that is what they do 
to [sic] the future of all White children)." Lane, 54, was a member of 
the far-right terrorist group known as The Order, who is currently serving 
a 40-year racketeering sentence, as well as a 150-year term for civil 
rights violation in connection with the 1984 murder of a Denver, Colorado, 
Jewish radio personality, Allen Berg. (Lane had driven the getaway car in 
the killing.)

     More recently, current COTC leader Rick McCarty has appointed as his 
Florida state director Mike McCaffrey, whose extremist career includes a 
stint as producer of the neo-Nazi public access TV show "Race and Reason," 
hosted by Florida hatemonger Herb Poinsett. (The program itself is a 
spin-off of a Tom Metzger public access series, also called "Race and 
Reason.")

     In addition, Racial Loyalty has printed a number of
encouraging letters from Holocaust-deniers
affiliated with the Institute for Historical Review (IHR).
This pseudo-scholarly "Institute" is closely
tied to Liberty Lobby, the most important anti-Semitic
propaganda outfit in the U.S., founded and
led by longtime Jew hater Willis Carto. The willingness of
these Holocaust "revisionists" to endorse
the Church of the Creator's genocidal rhetoric further
betrays the lie that these propagandists are
engaged in an "objective" search for truth. Among the
deniers who have written to the COTC
tabloid are Martin A. Larson and Revilo P. Oliver, both of
whom serve on the "Editorial Advisory
Committee" of IHR's Journal of Historical Review, and Carlos
Porter, the author of such books as Made
in Russia: The Holocaust, distributed by IHR.

     In addition to these long-standing advocates of the
Holocaust "revisionist" cause, a more recent
associate of the IHR, David Cole, published a letter in the
July 1989 issue of Racial Loyalty. The
producer of a grotesque 1992 IHR video about the Auschwitz
concentration camp, Cole wrote to the
COTC. "1 am very happy to become a member of the Church of
the Creator.... Creativity gives my
Race meaning and, therefore, gives my whole life meaning....
My work as a video producer puts me in
touch with many other White Men who are looking to wrestle
away the mass media from its Jew
controllers and use the media to further the goals of the
White Race." However, Cole's more recent
prominence in IHR circles, which seek to mask the anti-
Semitic intent of their propaganda, is
directly attributable to his claim of being Jewish.

     Nonetheless, COTC has also made a number of enemies in
the typically fractious extremist
community. The most vociferous of these detractors include
the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan, led by
"Pastor" Thom Robb; the Knights, who dress up their racist
and anti-Semitic agenda with David
Duke-inspired euphemisms promoting "White, Christian
values," despise the Church of the Creator's
virulent rejection of Christianity. An equally hostile feud
has taken place between Ben Klassen and
Harold Covington, a North Carolina-based neo-Nazi whose most
recent affiliation has been with a
British right-wing terrorist group, Combat 18. The rivalry
accounted for a bilious exchange of
obscenities, taunts, and threats between the two hatemongers
and their supporters. For example, the
January 1992 Racial Loyalty printed, "AN OPEN LETTER TO THE
JEW BASTARD [Covington]
THAT SENT THE PORNOGRAPHIC POST CARD CONDEMNING OUR PONTIFEX
MAXIMUS THROUGH THE MAIL!...if I could ever be so lucky to
meet you, I promise I'll trim
your wick."

Death of the High Priest

     The sale of the COTC property was virtually the last
public act by Klassen; for the last six
months of 1992, he limited his contact with supporters to
periodic letters announcing the abrupt
dismissal or sudden elevation of a new member as "Pontifex
Maximus." On August 6, 1993, Klassen
committed suicide by consuming four bottles of sleeping
pills. His body (along with a hand-written
suicide note) was discovered on August 8 by his daughter.
The farewell letter justified his act by
referring to chapter 59 of The White Man's Bible, which
describes suicide as "an honorable and
dignified way to die for any...of a number of reasons, such
as having come to the decision that life is
no longer worthwhile."

Charges of Extreme Violence

     Two recent cases on the West Coast are worthy of
examination in order to illustrate the nature
and consequences of the COTC program of violent hate.

The Los Angeles Plot

     On July 15, 1993, federal and local police agents in
Los Angeles, California, arrested eight
individuals, some of whom had ties to COTC. These
individuals were accused of plotting to instigate
a race war by bombing the First African Methodist Episcopal
Church_a major Black religious
institution in South Central Los Angeles_and by
assassinating Rodney King, the victim of a
notorious videotaped beating by white police officers.
According to court documents, the King
murder was to have taken place on August 4, the sentencing
date for two policemen convicted of
federal civil rights violations in connection with the
beating.

     The arrests, which culminated an 18-month investigation
of right-wing extremist groups in
Southern California, were made three weeks prior to the
assassination date because at the time, one of
the key suspects was allegedly preparing a letter bomb to be
sent to an Orange County rabbi.
Additionally. police stated that the alleged conspirators
had planned to target leaders of the NAACP
and the National Urban League; Nation of Islam leader Louis
Farrakhan; the Rev. Al Sharpton, rap
music stars Eazy-E and members of the group Public Enemy; as
well as unspecified "Jewish leaders."

     During the arrests, police seized pipe bombs and
machine guns, as well as racist paraphernalia
including Confederate and Nazi flags, and a framed portrait
of Adolf Hitler. Of the eight people
arrested, only one, Christopher David Fisher, was
specifically charged with conspiracy to destroy the
First A.M.E. church. Five other adults were charged with
weapons offenses: Geremy Rineman, 22; Jill
Scarborough, 22; Josh Lee, 23; Chris Nadal, 35; and Doris
Nadal, 42. Two unidentified juveniles were
also arrested on unspecified charges_according to Time
magazine, however, one of the minors had
been charged with a pipe-bomb attack against a "half Asian
and half Mexican" member of the "Spur
Posse," a gang of Lakewood, California. teenagers who
awarded points among themselves for sexual
conquests

     Fisher, the son of a grade-school teacher and a
computer-science instructor, was the leader of an
obscure Skinhead gang, the Fourth Reich Skins. Rineman, an
associate of Metzger's White Aryan
Resistance, had been featured in WAR, the Metzger monthly
tabloid, after he was paralyzed in a brawl
with Black and Latino youths Scarborough, Rineman's
girlfriend, had written to another Metzger
publication, White Sisters, distributed by the Aryan Women`s
League, in 1991. The couple also wrote
COTC's Racial Loyalty together in May 1992, stating, "After
searching through many organizations..
we are now proud to say that we are new members of a program
and creed that will bring about the
salvation and redemption of the White Race. As Creators we
now know that we can give our all to a
real movement that will stop at nothing until we have a
Whiter and Brighter World. We are now
working hard to start a strong chapter out here in Southern
California. We have started recruiting
many of our friends...."

     Ironically, among these newly recruited friends,
Rineman and Scarborough were responsible for
bringing into the COTC the FBI informant who foiled their
alleged terroristic plot. A man who_
according to press accounts_presented himself in extremist
circles as "Rev. Joe Allen" wrote in the
May 1992 issue of Racial Loyalty, "I would like to express
my thanks to Jill and Geremy VonRineman
[sic], our wounded warrior, for showing me to the light of
Creativity.... As a newly ordained minister
of the COTC. I will dedicate myself to the cause and
encourage others to join our movement. I am
moving my base of operations to Southern California to work
with Jill and Geremy and others that
they have recruited, but I am willing to give assistance
wherever it can be used."

     After the arrests of Rineman, Scarborough, and their
associates, Metzger wrote in WAR that he
had suspected Allen's connection to the FBI over three years
ago. Perhaps the WAR leader shared his
concerns with Rineman, for he and Allen began publicly
feuding, though Allen continued to use
COTC as the base for his activities. In an issue of Racial
Loyalty published only days before the
arrests, Allen wrote, "I am continuing to spread the
C.O.T.C. philosophy of purifying mind and body
for a whiter and brighter California by training and
educating young Skinheads at our training center.
Unfortunately, a former C O.T.C. associate, who has never
accomplished anything for the white race
except getting himself shot and paralyzed by a mud, has made
himself an obstacle to our success by
spreading vicious lies about me in the local area for his
own childish motives.... I would like to urge
any white patriot who has not contacted me because of
something that spoiled brat said about me, to
meet with me and let me show them documents I have acquired
which prove that these lies are not
true."

     Current COTC leader Rick McCarty entered into the fray
by writing, "Rev. Joe Allen has been
a tremendous help to this organization.... In fact, he has
never turned down a request from this office.
Rev. Joe Allen has always been there for us and he will be
there for you...call him...enough said."
When questioned about Allen's FBI work in the July 21 issue
of The Toronto Sun, McCarty said, "He
sent up $500 [U.S.] to help bail out our group in
Toronto.... For an FBI agent he's been a big help. I
wish we had 100 more like him."

     Nonetheless, McCarty took pains to distance himself
from the plot in which his group had
become entangled. Denying that he had advocated violence
against the African-Americans targeted
for assassination. the COTC leader told the NW Florida Daily
News, "We support Rodney King
because the police that beat him will beat us.... And we
support Louis Farrakhan because he's a black
separatist." (Ben Klassen had been less enthusiastic in his
assessment of the Nation of Islam leader;
the July 1989 Racial Loyalty excerpted a wire service
article on Farrakhan under the headline, "Do We
Really Want to Negotiate With This Nigger?")

Significance of the Skinhead Connection

     Members of the Fourth Reich Skins not arrested in
connection with the alleged conspiracy also
tried to disentangle themselves from the widening gyre of
terrorism. In an interview printed in the
August 1 Las Vegas Review-Journal, a Skinhead girl
explained, "We may have prejudices..but I don't
want to start a war." Denials  notwithstanding, however, the
charges against the eight could signify a disturbing
tendency among neo-Nazi Skinheads[1] to act upon more
ambitious and organized violent schemes either by working
with or by taking inspiration from older, more established
hate groups
such as WAR and the COTC.

     Thus far, only two defendants, Christian and Doris
Nadal, have been brought to trial in
connection with these charges. On October 1, 1993, Christian
Nadal was convicted on 16 counts of
selling and transferring illegal weapons, for which he could
receive a maximum sentence of 145 years
in prison. Doris Nadal, acquitted of three charges, was
found guilty on a single conspiracy count, for
which she could receive a five year sentence. A ninth
defendant, charged after the July 15 arrests,
Christopher Berwick, 49, pleaded guilty in late September to
conspiring to manufacture and sell
approximately 16 Sten machine gun receiver tubes for gun
kits provided by Christian Nadal; Berwick
faces a maximum sentence of five years in prison and a
$250,000 fine.

As of October 1993, the other six defendants remain in jail
awaiting trial.

The Tacoma Plot

     On July 26, 1993, police arrested two Washington state
residents. Jeremiah Gordon Knesal (a
reported leader of the COTC) and Wayne Paul Wooten, both 19,
for shoplifting at a mall parking lot
in Salinas California During a search of Knesal's car, the
officers uncovered three pipe bombs, four
loaded long-barrel weapons, military apparel, ammunition,
wigs, climbing gear, white supremacist
literature and a page from a Portland, Oregon, telephone
book listing Jewish agencies and synagogues.

     Under subsequent questioning by the FBI, Knesal
confessed to his involvement in the July 20
bombing of an NAACP office in Tacoma, Washington. According
to the FBI, Knesal also implicated
Mark Frank Kowaalski (aka Mark Stevenson), 24, an ex-convict
and member of the Skinhead group
American Front, in the Tacoma bombing. Kowaalski was
arrested the same day in Seattle and was
charged with being a convicted felon in possession of a
destructive device. Agents reported that the
Skinhead ringleader possessed "physical evidence" linking
all three suspects to the bombing.

     Authorities stated that the Tacoma firebombing was part
of a larger plot to attack Jewish and
African American institutions, military installations
(particularly those housing submarines), gay and
lesbian gathering places, and radio and television stations.
The three also reportedly planned to
assassinate two rap music performers, Ice Cube and Ice-T.

     In addition to Kowaalski's association with American
Front, Knesal described himself to the FBI
as Washington state director of the Church of the Creator.
His COTC membership card was among
the white supremacist paraphernalia found at the time of his
arrest.

     COTC has figured prominently in Northern California
recently, too, due to the distribution of
Racial Loyalty in Berkeley, Piedmont, and Oakland. In
Berkeley, police have speculated publicly that
COTC members may be linked to swastika graffiti painted on a
Judaica store, "Afikomen," on July 18;
on June 27, copies of the COTC pamphlet "On the Brink of a
Bloody Race War: With the White
Race Targeted for Extinction" were left on the doorsteps of
the shop, as well as at several other
businesses and homes in the area.

     Following the Tacoma bombing, McCarty for the second
time in two weeks felt the need to
distance himself from the actions of some of his West Coast
followers. "These kids are crazy, aren't
they" he told The San Francisco Chronicle. "We don't promote
any type of violence whatsoever. We
do, however, want to repatriate the colored races back to
their own countries and stop immigration
and so forth. just like the [U.S.] government used to move
Indians around. we want to do the same
thing."

     As of October 1993, the three Skinheads currently
remain in police custody awaiting trial; in
addition to the charge filed against Kowaalski relating to a
"destructive device," Knesal and Wooten
have been arraigned on three counts of manufacturing and
possessing explosive devices, felony
offenses carrying a maximum penalty of 10 years in prison
and a $10,000 fine on each count.

The Search for a New High Priest

     To round out the picture of C0TCs leadership struggle,
the following is a review of efforts by
Klassen and his chosen successors to maintain control and
direction of the organization.

Heirs Apparent: l-Rudy "Butch" Stanko

     Klassen announced in February 1990 that his successor
as Pontifex Maximus would be Rudy
"Butch" Stanko, whom he described to COTC followers as an
"outstanding man, who has been tested
by fire and torture, by success and adversity."

     Stanko, 46, was at one time owner of the Nebraska Beef
Packer and Cattle King companies. He
held contracts worth $20 million to supply ova 18 million
pounds of ground beef to public school
cafeterias until the NBC news program "First Camera"
reported in 1983 that the meat was produced
under unsanitary conditions. (Racial Loyalty later alleged
that the series, since canceled, was
"probably set up specifically and for no other reason than
to smear and slander Rudy.") The U.S.
Departments of Justice and Agriculture then investigated
Stanko, and the meat magnate was
convicted in 1984 of six violations of the Federal Meat
Inspection Act. He was sentenced to six years
in prison and ordered to pay a $70,000 fine.

     Stanko apparently came to Klassen's attention while in
prison as the author of The Score, an
intensely anti-Semitic book which details how Stanko's meat-
packing corporation was destroyed by a
Zionist conspiracy. The 389-page tome opens with an un-
Creatorly, though predictably hateful,
epigraph: "This book is dedicated to Jesus Christ. He was
the first to tell The Score about the
conspiracy of the Sanhedrin and its followers. For this they
crucified him." The book proceeds to
cover such topics as "Zionism"; "The Sanhedrin" and "Who
Rules America." It concludes with a
reprise of the megalomaniacal chestnut, "the Protocols of
the Learned Elders of Zion."

     The felonious abattoir operator welcomed his
appointment as Klassen's successor by writing
in the February 1990 Racial Loyalty:

     It is a great honor and a supreme challenge to be
selected as the next Pontifex
     Maximus of the Church of the Creator.... It is my
avowed purpose to provide the
     necessary leadership, organizational and promotional
talents to...smash the
     tyrannical Jewish network once and for all time. It is
my hope and dedicated
     goal to bring this about in the next decade, the last
decade history has allowed
     us for the final showdown.

     But, it was not meant to be. Though released from a
federal penitentiary in December 1991,
Stanko was arrested for speeding in his Nebraska hometown on
February 3, 1992. He was also
charged with obstructing a police operation, criminal
mischief, and driving with an expired license.
After being taken to the local jail, Stanko reportedly
wrestled with officers while they attempted to
inventory his property during the booking procedure. He was
then taken to a hospital, where he
broke a light fixture with a crutch; when police entered his
room, Stanko allegedly tried to assault an
officer with the crutch.

     The Pontifex Maximus-elect was released on bond the
following evening. Though a February
11, 1992, Ashville Citizen-Times article reported that
Stanko was scheduled to assume COTC
leadership the following month. it also noted that a Montana
parole officer "said Stanko had told him
that he was not interested in taking over the church." The
Scottsbluff, Nebraska, Star-Herald
confirmed in a March 5, 1992. article that "Stanko said
recently he is no longer a reverend in the
church." The Star-Herald added that Stanko had filed a
$1.375 million lawsuit alleging police
brutality and civil rights violations in connection with his
February arrest. Stanko's lawsuit was
dismissed by a district court on May 29. 1992. He appealed
this decision to the Nebraska Supreme
Court, which upheld the lower court ruling in November 1992.
With respect to the criminal charges
pending against him, Stanko planned to enter a plea bargain
agreement in October 1993, in which he
will be sentenced for misdemeanor destruction of property
and speeding infraction violations.

     Shortly after these incidents. it became clear that
Stanko would not be taking over the
leadership of COTC As Klassen scrambled to find a new
successor, he referred to his first attempt as
the "Rudy Stanko fiasco." Stanko nonetheless addressed
another temporary Pontifex Maximus, Mark
Wilson, in the November 1992 Racial Loyalty: "I want to
congratulate you on being appointed the
Pontifex Maximus and the new leader of the CHURCH OF THE
CREATOR.... I realize the
tremendous responsibility placed on your shoulders, and you
have my wholehearted support. If I can
be of any assistance in the Rocky Mountain West, please do
not hesitate to drop me a line."

Heirs Apparent: 2-Charles Altvater

     In early May 1992, Klassen announced that his new
successor would be Charles Edward
Altvater, 31, of Baltimore, Maryland. Unlike the notorious
Stanko, Altvater was almost completely
unknown prior to this sudden promotion. His only previous
mention in Racial Loyalty was a January
1989 letter to the editor, in which he wrote:

     I go back to college in January and will soon have my
degree in electronics. The
     C.O.T.C. gave me the incentive to make myself
successful so I can truly be an
     asset to our Cause. I promise to have a Church of the
Creator under
     construction here within the next 3-5 years and will be
spreading Creativity for
     the rest of my days.
     Last but not least, I'll be getting married later this
year and would very much
     like Pontifex Maximus |Klassen] to perform the
services....

     Only a month after the Altvater appointment, Klassen
changed his mind, naming Mark Wilson,
a Milwaukee Skinhead, as the new Pontifex Maximus. According
to Klassen, Altvater accepted the
demotion  without rancor.

     Apparently still intent on spreading the work of
"Creativity," Altvater came to public attention
once more on December 14, 1992, when he was indicted in
Baltimore on 16 criminal counts,
including attempted murder, reckless endangerment,
possession and manufacture of explosives, and
destruction of property. According to the indictment,
Altvater allegedly placed a bomb on the porch
of a Baltimore County police officer's home; he was also
alleged to have bombed a state police car on
the same day. There were no reported injuries in either
explosion.

     A search of Altvater's home later revealed 92 quarter
sticks of dynamite. He currently is serving
two sentences in connection with the incidents: a 5-year
term for reckless endangerment and a 20-
year sentence (seven years of which were suspended) relating
to the pipe bombing charges.

Heirs Apparent: 3-Mark Wilson (aka Brandon O'Rourke)

     Mark Wilson, 25, first came to the attention of
observers of the radical right as a member of the
Wisconsin Skinhead gang SHAM_Skinhead Army of Milwaukee_also
referred to as the
Northern Hammerskins. He was introduced to Racial Loyalty
subscribers as Klassen's successor in
June 1992 under the new name "Brandon O'Rourke"; the
adoption of one or various pseudonyms by
COTC members is quite common, as it is for many in the white
supremacist movement, and it offers
individuals the obvious advantage of eluding, at least
temporarily, the scrutiny of law enforcement.

     Under Wilson/"O'Rourke's" six-month tenure, the Church
of the Creator published only two
issues of Racial Loyalty, neither of which showed the
rhetorical intensity or palpable rage the tabloid
exhibited under Klassen, but the local organization
reportedly re-energized the Milwaukee Skinhead
scene. Wilson also established a close relationship with the
growing COTC presence in Canada.
particularly in the Toronto area.

     Perhaps sensing, rightly though belatedly, that the
Milwaukee Skinheads' propensity for reckless
behavior would spin out of his ability to control, Klassen
abruptly dismissed Wilson as COTC chief in
January 1993. Unlike Stanko or Altvater, however, Wilson,
who was the first Klassen-successor to
actually take control of the "religion," did not go gently
into the good-night of hate-group obscurity.
According to the Klanwatch Intelligence Report, Wilson
loyalists even attempted a last minute "coup"
against the new, and current, leader, Rick McCarty, during
an early meeting with him at a Milwaukee
hotel. The plan was accidentally thwarted when police
arrested three members of the Wilson faction
on concealed weapons charges in the hotel parking lot.

     Though Wilson's effort to retain power failed, he
remains active and disgruntled. After his
falling out with Klassen, the former Skinhead spread rumors
of the COTC founder's senility, and he
reportedly even asked WAR leader Tom Metzger to take control
of the group; Metzger, who eulogized
Klassen in an August 16, 1993, phone message, has shown no
inclination to grant Wilson's alleged
request.

Heir Apparent:4-Rick McCarty

     Richard Lane McCarty. 39, was utterly unknown in hate
group circles before Klassen announced
in January 1993 that he would take over COTC, and that its
headquarters were moving to Niceville,
Florida, a tiny community near the Gulf Coast resort town of
Pensacola. McCarty's professional
background apparently includes a career in telemarketing;
Klassen's introductory letter alleges that
the new leader had earned a Ph.D., and had a background in
business and psychology. However,
court records reportedly indicate that McCarty vas arrested
in 1985 on charges, since dropped, that
he operated a telemarketing scam in Birmingham, Alabama, by
claiming to sell distributorships for a
soft drink company.

     In March 1993, McCarty sent letters to Racial Loyalty
subscribers announcing that he would
appear that month on the nationally syndicated Sally Jessy
Raphael talk show. The letters stated:
"See Dr. McCarty P.M. and Executive Director of the C.O.T.C.
fight it out with the Jews and Muds.
Even though the show was stacked with half-breeds, gays and
muds Dr. McCarty held his own and
pulled no punches.... We now have a leader to carry us into
battle with the enemy. RAHOWA."

     McCarty did appear on the program with three fellow
white supremacists_former Ku Klux
Klansman Scott Shephard; Kirk Lyons, a one-time National
Alliance member who heads CAUSE, a
white supremacist legal defense agency; and an unidentified
Skinhead woman and Christian
"Identity" adherent. These extremists were joined by a
handful of comparably benighted Black
separatists.

     Though it is doubtful that McCarty made much of a
national impact as a result of his television
debut, local newspapers began taking note of the white
supremacist in their midst the following
summer. A July 17, 1993, NW Florida Daily News article
reported that McCarty was stopped by
Niceville police on July 1, and charged with driving under
the influence of alcohol. The Pontifex
Maximus refused to sign his citation and is reportedly still
contesting the charge.

The Palm Beach Post quoted McCarty on August 2, 1993, using
rhetoric more subdued than
Klassen's. He told the paper, "People are finally waking up
to the fact that the white man is going to
have no country of his own. We don't have nothing against
anybody. We just want to repatriate the
blacks and Jews back to their countries of origin." The Post
also reported that COTC has no temple
or compound in Niceville, "but it does have a warehouse that
holds $500,000 in white supremacist
pamphlets, newspapers and books. They are distributed in all
50 states, and 37 foreign countries,
McCarty said."

     McCarty's most recent letter to Racial Loyalty
subscribers was a eulogy of Ben Klassen. McCarty wrote:
[Typographical and spelling errors in original]

     Three weeks ago Mr. Klassen came to visit with me in
Niceville, Florida. To
     chart were the COTC had been and were we are going in
the future. Even
     though we converse on the phone a couple of times a
week, we had not
     physically seen each other since January.

     When Mr. Klassen arrived and stepped out of his car I
held out my hand to
     him. Mr. Klassen surprised me by pushing my hand away
and gave me a big bear
     hug instead.... It was at that time I become aware of
the bond we had formed, of
     the dreams and aspirations that we shared. Many times I
have asked myself why
     I would take over such an awesome task and headaches of
running the COTC?
     Each the time the same answer echoes back, "Mr. Ben
Klassen".

     ...I am still unable at this time to say good-bye to
Ben.... Ben came into my life
     like a coma, lit up the ski, and then moved on.

     Next month we will have some articles going back to our
roots so as not to
     loose crack of who we our, where we are going, and the
goals we plan to
     accomplish. Every ending has a new beginning_Lets
begin.

More COTC Violence: The Saga of George David Loeb

     On May 17, 1991, George Loeb, 36, a COTC "reverend,"
killed Petty Officer 3rd Class
Harold J. Mansfield, Jr., 22, an African-American Persian
Gulf War veteran from Oklahoma city, Oklahoma. The murder
took place in the parking lot of a shopping center in
Neptune Beach, Florida, where the two individuals lived.

     According to press accounts at the time of the murder,
the incident occurred when Loeb's car
made a left turn into the parking lot, almost sideswiping
Mansfield's car, which was backing out.
Trouble began when Mansfield honked his horn at Loeb; an
argument ensued, but Mansfield pulled
away. Loeb then pulled into a convenience store, where,
while buying two six-packs of beer, he
handed the cashier a business card that read "White People
Awaken. Save the White Race." The
cashier told reporters that Loeb had also angrily shouted
his racist views throughout the store.

     The whole incident might have ended there, but
Mansfield tragically decided to return to the
parking lot. accompanied by a friend and armed with a brick,
to confront Loeb. When Mansfield and
the COTC member saw one another, their argument resumed.
Mansfield brought out his brick; Loeb
produced a .25-caliber semiautomatic handgun. According to
newspaper accounts, Mansfield
retreated at this point, but Loeb fired a single bullet into
Mansfield's chest, blowing the veteran back
into his car.

     Loeb continued to fire his gun, apparently at
Mansfield's companion, who was running toward
the grocery store to call for help. By the time the man
returned to the car, Mansfield was already near
death. "I was telling him [Mansfield] not to die on me," he
told reporters. "He was my best friend."

     Though this was certainly the most graphic
manifestation of Loeb's COTC-derived racist
philosophy, it was not the first In November 1990, he had
been arrested after an African-American
woman told police that she and her daughter had been
followed by Loeb, who had called the woman
a racist name and had threatened to shoot her. The following
January, he reportedly started a fistfight
with a Black neighbor the morning after he had been arrested
on charges of disorderly intoxication
and resisting arrest. During this period, the tenant
association at Loeb's condominium complex
attempted unsuccessfully to have him and his wife evicted.
"The tense situation can only get worse,
culminating in possible violent action." the tenants wrote
to Loeb's landlord.

     Loeb himself had recorded his violent beliefs in a
number of writings over the years. For
example, only seven weeks before the murder, he wrote a
letter to The Fort Pierce Tribune, in
which he stated:

     To you, your readers and all of chose quoted [in a
Tribune article]. let me just say
     this_WAKE UP! There is no need to judge each individual
nigger. We do
     not have the time.... It is your obvious intention to
reinforce the mistaken
     impressions of the ignorant. This is to the detriment
of the besieged white
     community. It is also why we publish and distribute
Racial Loyalty: to offset the
     deliberate lies and distortions of the jewish [sic]
media and to motivate White
     people to clean up this mess themselves since they
cannot count on you, your
     paper or your police for any help.

     Loeb had also once told a reporter that, "The only
thing they [Blacks] can do is get'in
my face,  and that's a mistake.... If my back's against the
wall, I won't run. I have to do what I have
to do." In all, police seized 1,600 pages of personal
correspondence and racist propaganda from Loeb's
apartment, of which only 15 pages were introduced at his
trial; according to news accounts, the most
significant of these documents was a handwritten note to a
member of the Ku Klux Klan in which
Loeb advised: "The frequent use of the word nigger should
lead to a widespread and violent black
uprising that should give whites (and possibly police) the
opportunity to kill large numbers of them
with impunity. It is our feeling as Creators [i.e., C0TC
members] that shrinking the numbers of
blacks worldwide is one of the highest priorities."

     Within hours of the killing, Loeb and his wife Barbara,
31, had moved out of their
condominium, and had fled the state. Though police reported
that Barbara Loeb was spotted two
weeks later in Wisconsin, where members of her family lived,
the fugitive couple was arrested on June
6, 1991, in Poughkeepsie, New York. Police tracked the two
down to a grocery store where Loeb had
allegedly assaulted a security guard who had caught him
trying to steal a $3.35 package of turkey
breast. When the arriving officers searched the Loebs' car,
they found two smoke bombs, a .22-caliber
rifle with a scope and extra magazines, a 12 gauge shotgun,
and approximately one thousand rounds of
assorted ammunition. Additionally, Barbara Loeb's purse
contained a handgun and ammunition.

The Law Catches Up with the Loebs

     Barbara Loeb was sentenced to one year in jail on
weapons possession charges; she served at least nine months
of her term in New York State. George Loeb was extradited to
Florida in December
1991 to face murder charges for killing Mansfield. During
the trial, which began the following July,
Loeb chimed that he was acting in self-defense when he shot
the sailor; he also told jurors that he
had considered fleeing to Canada because it is a
"predominantly white country," where he might
expect to be treated more impartially. Regardless, on July
29, a jury of nine whites and three African-
Americans, after only three hours of deliberation, found
Loeb guilty of first-degree murder.

     The night after his conviction, Loeb attempted suicide
by slashing his forearms with the blade of
a disposable razor included in his prison toiletries kit. By
the time police discovered his injuries,
apparently only minutes after he inflicted them, Loeb had
lost 20% of his blood, and had gone into
shock. A police report stated that Loeb told officers while
his wounds were being treated that, "I
want to die because the whole world is an asshole." As a
result of his suicide attempt, Loeb's
sentencing was moved up one week, to August 12; he received
a life sentence with no chance of
parole for 25 years.

     Members of the COTC predictably hailed Loeb as a hero
and martyr. The August 1991 edition
of Racial Loyalty, for example, printed a letter from "A Pro-
White Activist" under the heading "Self-
Defense is Our Right" which stated: "[Loeb was supposed to
have been just another non-publicized
statistic in the wave of the black/mud/Jew criminal terror
against Whites_how evil and racist of
him to spoil The Plan. SELF-DEFENSE is our right, and they
will never be able to destroy us Whites
if we keep pulling these stunts"' In the same issue, the
tabloid reprinted a Tampa Tribune account of
the murder under the headline, "More publicity for the COTC!
White Man, spread the word of
Creativity. Words are powerful weapons."

     At least publicly. however, Klassen shrank from
connecting his organization with the Loeb
murder. By most accounts, it was this incident in particular
which motivated the Pontifex Maximus's
desperate attempts to disentangle himself from the COTC.
Indeed, when questioned on the subject
by Miabella, Klassen said, "I am no more responsible for
that than the pope is responsible for all the
Catholic felons in prison.... Not at all." The reporter
interviewing Klassen then pointed out that
another COTC member, Steve Thomas, who was charged with
aiding and abetting Loeb's flight from
Florida, was currently living at the North Carolina
compound. "Oh," Klassen replied, "He's leaving
tomorrow."

Steve Thomas

     The first person arrested in connection with the murder
of Harold Mansfield was Steve Gabott
Thomas, 47, who was charged in late May 1991 with being an
accessory after the fact_a felony
potentially carrying a sentence of five years in prison_in
the slaying. Thomas, a boatyard worker,
was apparently the only other member of the COTC in Loeb's
community. According to police,
Thomas helped Loeb pack to leave town, then told detectives
he hadn't seen the assailant. He was
then booked into the Duval County Jail under a $100,000
bond.

     Thomas pleaded guilty and was sentenced to a year's
probation in August 1992. He reportedly
received the light sentence in exchange for providing
information to law enforcement which
indirectly assisted in Loeb's capture.

     Despite his alleged "ratting" against Loeb, Thomas
remained prominent in COTC circles. In
early 1992, he served as editor of Racial Loyalty, using the
pseudonym "Max Yeager." When Klassen
temporarily appointed Mark Wilson as Pontifex Maximus,
Thomas moved to Milwaukee, where he
shared an apartment with the 24-year old Wilson.

     Another significant incident in Thomas's biography
resurfaced at the time of the Loeb murder
trial. According to the Florida Times-Union, Thomas had been
one of four Army soldiers charged with
the rape and murder of a Vietnamese woman, Phan Thi Mao, in
1966. (This crime formed the basis
for Brian De Palma's 1989 film, Casualties of War. ) Thomas
was convicted for the rape/murder in
1976, and sentenced to life in prison. However, on appeal
the sentence was reduced to eight years,
based on Thomas's "good military record"; he eventually
served four years.

Beyond the Horizon: The COTC Abroad

COTC activists have established ties with violent extremists
in countries as widespread as
Canada, Sweden, England, and South Africa. To illustrate the
nature of these foreign connections,
the following is an examination of COTC activities in two of
these countries.

Canada

     As is the case with the COTC on the U.S. West Coast,
the Church of the Creator in Canada
for the most part is comprised of neo-Nazi Skinheads. The
group became active in Canada in 1990
when it set up post office boxes in Scarborough, Agincourt,
and Woodbridge, Ontario. The head of
these Ontario chapters is George Burdi (aka Rev. Eric
Hawthorne). Burdi, 23, is a college-educated
Skinhead; his menacing looks and relative sophistication
have earned him appearances on the
Geraldo Rivera and Sally Jessy Raphael talk shows, as well
as MTV News. In addition to his COTC
affiliation, Burdi is active with Heritage Front_Canada's
most notorious hate group, led by
Wolfgang Droege. (Droege is an ex-convict and former member
of David Duke's Knights of the Ku
Klux Klan who in 1992 sponsored rallies at which WAR leader
Tom Metzger and his lieutenant
Dennis Mahon spoke.) Burdi has been credited by Canadian law
enforcement and other observers of
the radical right with bringing a younger, more militant
contingent into the more established hate
group. Burdi also serves as lead singer of the Skinhead rock
group RaHoWa (the term, taken from
"racial holy war," which is the COTC slogan).

     Burdi spoke of his music career in the August 18, 1993,
Toronto Star: "Music is the ultimate
form of bringing a message to the masses.... Youth seek role
models through musicians. They say,
"Wow, I love this band and if this is the opinion of the
band, then it is my opinion too."' The self-
styled performing artist has shown no reticence in
expressing his opinions through the vehicle of
song. One of his biggest crowd pleasers is a racist re-write
of the Nancy Sinatra tune, "These Boots
Arc Made for Walkin." In RaHoWa's rendition, Burdi squawks,
"These boots are made for stompin'/
And that's just what they'll do/One of these days these
boots/Are gonna stomp all over Jews."

     To distribute RaHoWa's medleys of hate, which blatantly
violate Canada's strict anti-racist laws,
Burdi established Resistance Records, a music label
comparable to France's marketers of Skinhead
music, Rebelles Europeens_RaHoWa's former label_and
Germany's Rock-o-Rama.[2] Resistance
Records is operated by a COTC member in Detroit, Michigan.
(Canada's statutes prohibiting
publication of hate propaganda also account for Burdi's
loyalty to COTC, because without Racial
Loyalty, he would have no means of publishing or
disseminating his propaganda north of the border.)
Resistance Records has also signed the racist bands Nordic
Thunder, Aggravated Assault, Aryan, and
the Voice. "The market's phenomenal," Burdi told the Toronto
Star. "We have a monopoly on it and
it's virtually untapped." He astutely added that Canada's
restrictions on hate speech could
inadvertently spread the music's appeal. "Music is fed on
controversy. Ignore us and we get huge
because we can develop unhindered. Attack us and we get huge
because you create controversy and
the youth want to hear us. Either way, we win."

     Burdi, moreover, is one of the most regular
contributors to Racial Loyalty; over the past two years,
regardless of who was serving as "Pontifex Maximus," Burdi's
letters and essays_printed under the
"Hawthorne" alias_have appeared in virtually every issue of
the tabloid.

     Not content with "mere" hate speech, however, Burdi has
organized his followers, who number
approximately three to four dozen, into the most active and
dangerous COTC faction in North
America. To this end, the group conducts weekly paramilitary
sessions under the direction of COTC
"Security" chief Eric Fischer, 29, a former member of the
elite Canadian Forces Airborne Regiment.
Fischer's training program is reportedly so grueling that in
1992 one COTC recruit collapsed and
died; no charges were filed in connection with the incident.

     The law appears to have caught up with Fischer,
however, as a result of his bizarre effort to
avenge the alleged theft of a computer, complete with
extremist mailing lists and correspondence
from a fellow extremist. In the early morning hours of June
9, 1993, police arrested the COTC
officer, along with his brother, Elkar (aka Carl) Fischer,
22, and Drew Maynard, 21, charging the three
with kidnapping, forcible confinement, and assault causing
bodily harm for their alleged role in
abducting a Heritage Front member whom they suspected of
stealing the computer. Carl Fischer and
Maynard were additionally charged with threatening death and
bodily harm.

     This criminal episode, which graphically illustrates
the violence-prone nature of the group,
began when the victim of these acts was reportedly taken on
a three-hour ride through metropolitan
Toronto, during which, he told police, he was handcuffed and
tied, thrown on top of a sleeping bag in
the back of a white van, and beaten. His assailants also
placed a plastic bag over his head, and
allegedly threatened to inject him with a poisonous cleaning
solution: Beaten, bleeding, and
disoriented, the victim was dropped off by his abductors at
St. Michael's Hospital.

     At approximately one o'clock the following morning,
police surrounded the four-bedroom
bungalow that was home to the three suspects, as well as
George Burdi and two other COTC
members, and took the accused men into custody. Law
enforcement agents also seized a 12-gauge
shotgun, a .22-caliber pistol, and a .45-caliber semi -
automatic handgun during the arrest. The three
accused are currently out on bail_$500 of which was provided
by FBI agent "Joe Allen," the COTC
member who later provided evidence leading to the arrest of
nine white supremacists in Los Angeles.

     Meanwhile, as a result of these charges, the two
Fischer brothers have been suspended from the
Queen's Own Rifles reserve militia until the resolution of
the criminal investigation against them.
Additionally, the Canadian military's special investigation
unit is looking into claims by Wolfgang
Droege that more than two dozen Heritage Front members
currently serve in the armed forces.

     George Burdi himself has been the subject of criminal
charges in connection with a street brawl
between the COTC and anti-racist activists which occurred on
June 18, 1993. According to police,
Alicia Reckzin, 23, a member of the group Anti-Racist
Action, received a concussion, a broken nose,
and bruises when Burdi allegedly assaulted her outside the
Chateau Laurier hotel in Ottawa. Burdi
currently awaits trial, accused of assault causing bodily
harm. A voice reportedly "described as
Burdi's" recorded a description of the fight for the
Heritage Front telephone line; in the recording he
referred to a "tremendous victory last night."

South Africa

     According to the February 1992 edition of Searchlight,
an "anti-fascist" magazine in Great
Britain, two self-professed members of the Civil Cooperation
Bureau (CCB), an undercover unit of
the South African security police, fled to England after
awaiting trial for over a year in connection
with the bombing of a taxi line which injured 15 Black
people. The two fugitives, Adrian Maritz and
Henry Martin, reported that as CCB operatives, they were
instructed by superiors to join the Church
of the Creator in order to recruit South African racists
into a "dirty war" against the African National
Congress (ANC). The two COTC members also alleged that they
had knowledge of "several
operations through which large quantities of arms were
delivered to the Zulu Inkatha Party"; the
security force is reputed to have used armed Inkatha members
in a "campaign of atrocities" waged in
Black townships.

     Nelson Mandela, the leader of the ANC, had visited the
two men in a South African hospital
after they had gone on a hunger strike to protest their
arrests. He declared himself "convinced they
have very valuable information about the role of the
National Intelligence Service and military
intelligence, who instructed them to commit some heinous
offences."

To date, further developments regarding these allegations
remain unclear.

     Nonetheless, Searchlight also reported in the same
issue that two other COTC activists, Jurgen
Matthews White and Johannes Jurgens Grobbelaar, were killed
in a gun battle with South African
police while they were reportedly attempting to smuggle
weapons and explosives into an alleged
"survivalist" compound in Namibia. The two "Creators" were
stopped by police suspicious that their
vehicle had been stolen. According to the report, while
being escorted to a nearby police station, the
two detonated a smoke bomb and attempted to escape. After
coming across their abandoned vehicle
five miles away, police came under fire from the two
suspects. who lay in ambush. Two officers were
shot, one fatally, before law enforcement agents returned
fire. The COTC members died in the gun
battle.

Conclusion

     The Church of the Creator in recent years has become
one of the most militant and volatile
groups in the white supremacist underworld. Its anti-
religious, anti-democratic, and violently and-
social philosophy make the organization a natural haven for
young Skinheads, while its nominal
status as a "church" offers a thin veneer of
respectability_and, on occasion, tax breaks_for older
"reverends."

     Though its international following probably numbers
well under 1000, the potential for
destructive behavior inherent in a belief system organized
around "racial holy war" has recently
become all too obvious. In Florida last year, COTC "Rev."
George Loeb was convicted of first-degree
murder. In South Africa, two COTC members were killed in a
shoot out with police; two other
COTC members alleged that undercover South African
intelligence agents had recruited "Creators"
to wage a "dirty war" against the African National Congress.

     This year, amid COTC founder Ben Klassen's desperate
search for a successor (which led him to
consider an ex-convict, and a neo Nazi Skinhead, among
others), police in Las Angeles uncovered an
alleged conspiracy implicating COTC members in a scheme to
blow up one of the city's largest Black
churches. Only days later, FBI agents charged that the
bombing of a Tacoma, Washington, office of
the NAACP had been perpetrated by a local COTC leader.

     COTC members have even been responsible for violence
against fellow hatemongers. After
Klassen abruptly dismissed Milwaukee Skinhead Mark Wilson as
leader of the "Church," supporters of
Wilson reportedly planned to use firepower to force Wilson's
successor, Rick McCarty, to relinquish
control of the group. Police narrowly averted violence by
arresting the individuals on concealed
weapons charges in the parking lot of the hotel where the
"coup" was to have been staged. In
Canada, just weeks before the Los Angeles plot and the
Tacoma bombing came to public attention,
three Toronto members of the COTC were charged with
assaulting and threatening with death a rival
member of the hate group Heritage Front.

     Clearly, such a legacy of violence, and the potential
for more, must concern law enforcement
agencies and private citizens alike. However, the future
status of the Church of the Creator remains
unclear. With Klassen's suicide, the group has lost its
driving force, and its principal financial backer.
Thus far, McCarty has shown neither the perverse gift nor
the relish for uncompromising, nihilistic
rhetoric which so distinguished Klassen among hate
propagandists. It is also reasonable to speculate
_though only time, of course, will tell_that the prominence
of federal informants in exposing
COTC links to the Los Angeles plot will further dilute the
appeal of the group.

     Nonetheless, both COTC members and COTC propaganda have
made an indelible impact on
the white supremacist scene in the last few years. Recently,
McCarty alleged that he maintained a
warehouse of $500,000 worth of pamphlets, newspapers, and
books; he further claimed that COTC
membership ranges over all 50 states, and 37 foreign
countries. Whatever its actual size, COTCs
calls for "Racial Holy War" must be taken seriously by a
public alert to the threat of ethnic conflict
exploited by hateful fanatics.

Footnotes:

1. According to the 1993 ADL Special Report, "Young Nazi
Killers - Rising Skinhead Danger,"
    neo-Nazi Skinheads number 3,500 in 40 states and are
responsible for at least 22 murders since
    July 1990.
2. See the 1992 ADL Special Report , "Sounds of Hate: Neo-
Nazi Rock Music from Germany."


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