The Nizkor Project: Remembering the Holocaust (Shoah)

Beyond the Bombing:
Wyoming


The Western United Militia (WUM), a small group based in Cheyenne. is led by Robert Becker, identified as "Col. Becker" in WUM materials. The group has advertised for recruits in a free shopper's weekly in Cheyenne, and a WUM flier was distributed at a Cheyenne gun show in May. Headed "Patriots Unite!", the handbill contends, in familiar militia fashion, that President Clinton, the United Nations and other global conspirators seek to establish a one-world government, and that -- presumably toward this end -- Soviet- built tanks are being transported to various U.S. locations. The flier, which makes the (certainly exaggerated) claim that WUM has "21 divisions in 17 Western States," instructs would-be members to enclose 20 dollars with their applications.

In Sweetwater County, in southwestern Wyoming, leaflets headed "Wyoming Militia" have surfaced, possibly indicating some nascent local activity. The materials cite several laws as justifying the militia's existence, but they also offer, for use in unsecured telephone communications, suggested code words for "enemy," "contraband," "weapons," and "making or using explosives." Recommended reading includes such titles as "The Ultimate Sniper" and "Can You Survive?" -- the latter work written by Robert B. DePugh, who served time in prison for firearms violations and other offenses related to activity with the Minutemen, a heavily armed, far-right group he founded in the 1960's. Other names that appear on the leaflets include "Sweetwater Citizen Emergency Response Group" and "Wyoming `Unorganized' (Reserve Militia, 4th Group."

ADL Fact Finding Report, "Beyond the Bombing: The Militia Menace Grows," Anti-Defamation League, 1995.


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