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00:14In a secret hideout, they took a solemn oath to stand up like men and drive the enemy into the
00:21sea.
00:22Their enemy, the government of the United States.
00:25I was tried for conspiring to seditiously overthrow the United States government.
00:32And that is one of the proudest moments of my life.
00:35Tonight, you'll hear from the men who may have set the example for the deadly bombing in Oklahoma City.
00:41The Oklahoma bombing didn't surprise me.
00:43People seemed so shocked that it was domestic terrorism.
00:46I don't know why. That's what we did.
00:50What this group did was rob and kill in the name of revolution.
00:55We were all assigned someone to kill.
00:57Who did you get?
00:59Their leaders had a hit list and a plan to blow up power lines, poison water supplies, and sabotage the
01:07Los Angeles Olympics.
01:08This was undoubtedly the most organized group of terrorists that ever operated in the United States.
01:16How did these once law-abiding men turn into terrorists?
01:21I couldn't get out. There was no way out. There was no way out of it.
01:31Turning point. Tonight, Inside the Hate Conspiracy, America's Terrorists.
01:40Good evening. I'm Meredith Vieira.
01:42America was horrified by the pictures that came out of Oklahoma City almost six months ago.
01:48A federal building blown apart, hundreds trapped under the rubble.
01:53It was especially surprising when those arrested for the bombing turned out not to be terrorists from some foreign land,
01:59but Americans who served this country in the U.S. Army.
02:03But you might not have been so surprised at the idea of homegrown terrorism had you known the story that
02:09we're going to tell you tonight.
02:11It's a story about a group of men that was called The Order.
02:14Men who had a plan even more terrifying than what happened in Oklahoma City.
02:19They wanted to bring down an entire government.
02:22Many of the members of The Order are talking publicly tonight for the first time.
02:26Some of them in disguise because they live in fear for their lives.
02:30For the next hour, come with us as we go inside a Made in America terrorist group.
02:47The wilderness of the Northwest has long been a haven for loners, pioneers, and mavericks.
02:54In the autumn of 1983, a group of young men took that spirit of independence and turned it into terrorism.
03:03The fact is the suspects in two pickup trucks shot out the windows and the tires of the armored cars.
03:08These things happen and are not considered crimes or considered acts of war.
03:13Portland police SWAT teams were beginning a major search for the runway.
03:16I think we all justified it to ourselves in different ways and we told ourselves it was for a greater
03:22good.
03:23It involved the murder of a Jewish radio talk show host in Denver.
03:27We were all willing to give up our lives.
03:29Give up your lives for what?
03:31For our race.
03:32In the name of the white race, these men, most of whom had never been in trouble with the law,
03:38became the most wanted criminals in America.
03:41Part of a group that robbed millions of dollars and killed to silence their enemies.
03:47This was undoubtedly the most organized group of terrorist type people to have ever operated in the United States.
03:56They would become known as the order and launch what they call the second American Revolution.
04:03At the time of their arrest, some members were making plans to bomb public utilities, poison the water supplies of
04:10major cities and sabotage the 1984 Olympics in Los Angeles.
04:14Most of these men have never told their story before, never explained why they took up arms against their own
04:21government.
04:22How does anyone become a terrorist?
04:24For the order, it began with nine men, a secret ceremony and a solemn oath.
04:31The gist of it was that we were starting an order here.
04:34To do what?
04:36Basically, to bring down the government.
04:40To start chaos, to disrupt the system in the best way we could.
04:46You absolutely believed?
04:47We absolutely believed it.
04:49There was no question in our mind that we could do it.
04:56This is the man who inspired that belief.
04:59The man who brought the order together.
05:02Bob Matthews.
05:03The fate of every last white man, woman and child on this planet lies squarely on the shoulders of us.
05:10We cannot fail.
05:12Thirty-year-old Bob Matthews was a blue-collar worker and farmer in Medellin Falls, Washington.
05:17A hard-working family man with a baby face, which may have made what came out of his mouth seem
05:23acceptable.
05:24If you have not yet fully committed yourself, then you have, in effect, not only betrayed your race, you have
05:29betrayed yourself.
05:31Matthews had been toying with extreme views since childhood.
05:34At age 11, he stunned his middle class parents by joining the anti-communist John Birch Society.
05:40From there, he sampled one radical group after another, gradually becoming convinced there was a conspiracy to destroy the white
05:49race.
05:50Bob Matthews decided he wanted to do something about it.
05:54Hail his victory!
05:56Hail Aries!
05:58This is where Matthews would eventually recruit the most fanatic members of the order.
06:03Aryan Nations, a gathering place in Idaho for right-wing extremists.
06:09One of them was Bruce Pierce, an unemployed laborer seen in this video taken by an infiltrator in 1983.
06:17We felt that an inordinate amount of Jews were in key positions, media, finance, government,
06:25and they posed a threat to our continued existence if their policies continue.
06:30The resurrection of Swastika.
06:32Leaders at Aryan Nations preached a doctrine called identity, which claimed Jews were the spawn of Satan,
06:39and therefore the mortal enemies of the chosen people of God, white Christians.
06:44One God, one nation, one race, one God.
06:48This identity doctrine gave me a view of the Bible that said, wow, this is it. This is the reason
06:57things are going wrong.
06:58For Denver Parmenter, a hard-drinking army veteran who worked as a guard at Aryan Nations, anti-Semitism was a
07:05crusade.
07:08Blacks were just another issue used by the Jews to mingle and dilute the white race.
07:16Just take them back to Africa and, you know, let them know their lives will live ours.
07:21But the Jews were, that's another matter.
07:24The Jews had to be killed?
07:25They had to be killed, yes.
07:27Parmenter would prove to be a perfect recruit for Bob Matthews.
07:31Individuals who are inspired by the warped views of a Robert Matthews who are willing to lay it all on
07:39the line,
07:39because most of them have nothing to lose.
07:41Civil rights attorney Morris Dees has made a name for himself squaring off in court against leaders of the radical
07:47right.
07:47Responsible, responsible for enforcing...
07:49Over the years, he's seen the movement begin to tap into the mainstream.
07:53A lot of people who had never had been any Semitic or racist in their lives joined in with Robert
07:58Matthews.
07:59Two years before, if you'd ask them whether they've been involved in such a thing,
08:02they would have said no and the friends around them would have said,
08:05I wouldn't have believed this individual would have ever done this.
08:07In the early 80s, Dees formed an organization to monitor the growing number of hate groups.
08:12But back then, Dees wasn't aware of Bob Matthews or his powers of persuasion over people like the man we'll
08:19call Tony Walsh.
08:20He knew how to manipulate me, I guess.
08:22He knew what buttons he could push on me.
08:27Walsh and his wife had moved to Washington State to escape the big city problems of Los Angeles.
08:32Matthews became his best friend and slowly played on the frustrations that had driven him there.
08:38What was his dream?
08:40To have an area of America that was just for white people.
08:44Because he felt, you know, the white man made this country.
08:49And they, you know, they don't have a country anymore. He felt anyway.
08:54Did you think it was a good idea?
08:58Yeah. Yeah, I thought it was alright.
09:01So did Richard Kemp, a high school basketball star who'd recently dropped out of college and left home.
09:08Matthews took him in and got him a job at the local dam.
09:12He was like the older brother I never had.
09:15Looking back, I'd say that he was my mentor.
09:18Kemp says when he lost his job, Matthews blamed it on affirmative action and said it proved his point.
09:24He was mad and blustered about losing the job because you're a white man and it's a definite attack on
09:33you because you're a white male.
09:37Before long, Kemp and Walsh were going with Matthews to Aryan nations, whose members spent time taking pot shots at
09:44pictures of Jews, like Israel's Prime Minister Monatkin Begin.
09:55They burned crosses too. But by the summer of 1983, Matthews was getting tired of the symbolic cross burnings. Tired
10:04of the play acting.
10:05He was one of the impatient ones. But I think we were all getting impatient. We were all getting impatient
10:11with it. We were tired of the talk. Let's, let's do something.
10:16Events in America's heartland would help Matthews convince them to take action.
10:21I'm not leaving the land. And I'm not giving up possession of the land.
10:26The country was in a recession. And with every foreclosure, farmers saw their way of life disappearing.
10:32They blamed the politicians and bankers for selling them out.
10:40Farmers who believed in a government conspiracy were talking of fighting back.
10:45One of them, Gordon Call, traveled the countryside promoting tax revolt and armed resistance.
10:50Gordon Call would soon become a martyr for the extreme right wing and a hero to Bob Matthews.
10:58The confrontation began in North Dakota when U.S. Marshals came to arrest Call for violating his probation on a
11:05tax conviction.
11:07Two marshals were killed.
11:11Call escaped, only to be hunted down in Arkansas by the FBI four months later.
11:16He and the sheriff were shot and killed as Call's hideout went up in flames.
11:23Call's death would galvanize the extreme right and drive Bob Matthews that much closer to action.
11:30We're remembered of the words of Jesus Christ.
11:33Three weeks later, at an Aryan Nations rally in Spokane, Washington,
11:37Matthews stepped forward when counter demonstrators tried to disrupt the speeches.
11:42You Jews, get the heck out of here!
11:44I didn't come all the way down here to hear you!
11:46Go over there!
11:48Go across the barricade and let us see!
11:51Before I even realized what happened, I was right by his side with the other man.
11:56I felt like I took a stand for the first time myself.
11:59When it was over, it was like, damn, I stood by him.
12:04Bob Matthews had emerged as a leader.
12:07What do you think it was about Bob that day that impressed him?
12:10That he stood up, he stood up to the enemy.
12:13Very few white people do things like that, you know.
12:18If Matthews inspired them, much of his inspiration came from an incendiary novel called The Turner Diaries,
12:25which describes the violent overthrow of the U.S. government to establish a whites-only homeland.
12:31That book became Matthews' Bible.
12:34He memorized every word.
12:36In September, the author of The Turner Diaries had Matthews speak to his neo-Nazi organization in Virginia.
12:43The signs of awakening are sprouting up across the Northwest, and no more so than amongst the two-fisted farmers
12:51and ranchers.
12:52A class of our people who have been hit especially hard by the filthy, lying Jews and their parasitical usury
13:00system.
13:00Bob Matthews was ready to launch his revolution.
13:04So kinsman duty calls. The future is now.
13:07So stand up like men and drive the enemy into the sea.
13:12Next thing I know, we're having a meeting in the barracks.
13:15There's eight or nine of us together forming the order.
13:20In late September, Matthews brought Denver Parmenter and seven others to a barracks he'd built on his property,
13:26and told them what they needed to do to save the white race.
13:30I think we probably all agree that, wow, we've arrived here at a decision.
13:36Now let's talk about what our first step will be.
13:39Using the Turner Diaries as a blueprint, Matthews outlined his plan to turn the men into a force of elite
13:45commandos.
13:46They would operate underground, just like the group called the order in the book.
13:51Their first mission was to raise a war chest for the extreme right.
13:55If not legally, then through counterfeiting and robbery.
13:59And then I said, well, guys, if you've got to rob, let's get rid of the evil.
14:05Let's rob these drug dealers or porno bookstores and stuff like that.
14:12And what were they going to do with the money once they got the money?
14:14Send it out to these organizations like Aryan Nation so they could expand.
14:19The men also debated whether or not to begin executing Jews and so-called race traitors, just like in the
14:26Turner Diaries.
14:27We were all assigned someone to kill.
14:30Who did you get?
14:31Some major network president, you know, ABC, NBC, CBS, I don't remember.
14:40The group got broken up.
14:43You know, that was our target to go out and get this guy.
14:46You who had never focused a gun on anybody when they said, and this is the person you're going to
14:52kill, that was okay?
14:54We were Aryan warriors. This was war.
14:56Civil rights attorney Morris Dees was Bob Matthews' number one target.
15:01I'm not Jewish and certainly not anti-Christ, but that's how I was labeled.
15:06We thought he was at least at the time.
15:08I would never question the fact that if someone said he was a Jew, he was a Jew.
15:12So he was an enemy of ours.
15:14When the planning was over, Matthews asked the men to stand.
15:17And an infant was placed in the middle of the circle.
15:20My baby.
15:22Probably asked me to have her there, so...
15:26Why would he want her there?
15:27That was our race right there. That was our future.
15:30That's why we were doing this.
15:33With Tony Walsh's four-week-old daughter looking up at them,
15:37Matthews had his new recruits repeat an oath.
15:40Swear a sacred oath upon the green grays of our sires.
15:44His words of revolution would now become theirs.
15:47From this moment on, I have no fear of death, no fear of foe.
15:52That I have a sacred duty to do whatever is necessary to deliver our people from the Jew
15:59and bring total victory to the Aryan race.
16:01I was admitting to them or pledging myself to them almost like a marriage vow
16:07that I'm going to ride with them to the end.
16:09We hereby invoke the blood covenant and declare that we are in a full state of war.
16:16So stand up like men and drive the enemy into the sea.
16:20We will not lay down our weapons until we have driven the enemy into the sea.
16:24When you stood in that circle, what were you saying?
16:34I just kept looking at my daughter, I guess.
16:39And justifying this, I guess.
16:42Within a few months, Tony Walsh would no longer be able to justify anything.
16:47I really didn't want anybody to die.
16:53I didn't want it to go this far. I really didn't want it to go that far.
16:58It would go much farther than Tony Walsh ever anticipated.
17:02When we return, the order launches its revolution and the killing begins.
17:09Inside the hate conspiracy, America's terrorists continues.
17:14How dangerous was the order?
17:17Until now, the activities of this group amounted to little more than talk.
17:21But soon you'll see how a disorganized band of men,
17:24with little or no criminal experience, launched a crime wave.
17:30The order's revolution began on October 28th, 1983,
17:35in this seedy section of Spokane, Washington.
17:38A place they felt represented everything wrong with America.
17:43Bob Matthews and three recruits held up this porn shop
17:46and made off with $369.
17:49For Bruce Pierce, it was an important first step.
17:53No, we didn't get much money, but it's better to start small and work your way up.
17:56If we can't take this first little step,
17:59then we might as well unpack our bags and go back home.
18:02But their revolution was barely off the ground when it suddenly came to a halt.
18:07Using the presses at Aryan Nations, the group had begun printing counterfeit money.
18:12When Bruce Pierce tried to pass the poorly forged bills, he was arrested.
18:16Matthews saw his dream falling apart as members started to drift away.
18:21I never saw Bob like that before.
18:22He was upset, real pale.
18:26He said, I go, what's the matter, Bob?
18:28I said, I gotta do something.
18:29Bruce is still in prison.
18:31I gotta get him out. I'm letting everybody down.
18:34I'm letting everybody down.
18:35He took off with a gun.
18:37We didn't see him again for three months.
18:39And he's talking about robbing a bank.
18:41For one, I didn't think he would follow through because he was scared to death.
18:44Just before Christmas 1983, Bob Matthews followed through.
18:49All alone and armed, he walked into this bank north of Seattle and left with nearly $26,000,
18:56which he stashed in a child's trick-or-treat bag.
18:59Bob Matthews had good reason to smile again.
19:02He comes back.
19:05He's euphoric, were euphoric.
19:07The people that drifted away, now they're back again.
19:10He made it look so easy.
19:12By then, Bob Matthews had recruited Gary Yarborough, a security guard at Aryan Nations, who was also a convicted felon.
19:19He helped the order perfect its criminal technique, and the results were soon apparent.
19:25In March 1984, order members rob an armored car at a shopping mall in Seattle.
19:31The take is $43,000.
19:34April, a bomb is set off in a different part of town to divert police, so the order can hold
19:39up another armored car.
19:41It's Richard Kemp's first robbery.
19:44Well, they already got it planned. They got away with all these other ones.
19:46I'm going to get away with it, too.
19:48At first, that's what I thought.
19:50Then I thought, I could die doing this.
19:54I guess that this is going to prove myself once and for all that I'm down for Bob, and that
20:00I'll help him do anything.
20:01All I'll do is just jump out and wave a gun around.
20:06Next thing I know, we're gone.
20:08Gone with $230,000 cash.
20:11There are no suspects and few clues.
20:13Bob Matthews begins fulfilling his promise to help bankroll the extreme right.
20:19I felt almost like a Robin Hood type thing because I knew most of the money that we stole was
20:24being given away.
20:25If I would go around the country and meet with these people and, you know, give them a few thousand
20:30and say there's more if I like the way your movement is going and if it's going in the right
20:37direction.
20:38They say money gives you power. I think the money gave him power thinking that he was invincible because things
20:46were happening and he was getting away with it.
20:49With money, the order moved deeper underground. Most of the members who still held jobs quit them.
20:54They bought automatic weapons and were given security code names and false identities.
21:01Matthews brought in more recruits, including a professional counterfeiter and a street smart racist from the East Coast named Tom
21:08Martinez.
21:09And he came to a, to a guy like me in a big city and a good place of laundry,
21:14a street kid.
21:16He only had a laundry to money more than these farm boys he was hanging around with.
21:20And that's exactly what he did. He used me.
21:23Appeal to your greed?
21:24For sure. We all have a little greed in us.
21:27At that point I had a lot of greed that day.
21:30But when Martinez visited Matthews in Washington State, he knew laundering money was as far as he wanted to go.
21:37Matthews asked him to move out west permanently. He said no.
21:40No, there was something telling me not to move out there because I was afraid of what was going to
21:45be asked of me next.
21:46And the way things were going, I would know it was going to come to murder.
21:50In May 1984, it did come to murder.
21:53Ironically, their first victim was one of their own, Walter West, a member of Aryan Nations, whom Bob Matthews suspected
22:00of talking too much.
22:02Matthews asked four of his men to carry out West's execution.
22:06Among them, according to Tony Walsh, were Randy Dewey and Richard Kemp.
22:11They lured him into the woods and Richard tried to kill him with a hammer.
22:19And he didn't kill him though.
22:21That's when Randy, Randy put him out of his misery.
22:27He shot him, you know, to finish him off.
22:29Randy Dewey declined our request for an interview.
22:32Richard Kemp has never talked publicly about the murder.
22:36I just wonder if you acknowledge what this group did that you were a part of.
22:47That was the first time that this turned into more than just waving a gun and running off with some
22:57money.
22:58And it wasn't a euphoric moment anymore.
23:04Something else was happening the moment Walter West died.
23:14You can't talk about it?
23:15Can't talk about it.
23:17How did you find out that Walter West had been murdered?
23:21Uh...
23:22Rich told me.
23:25Kemp?
23:26Yeah.
23:28Because he told me what happened, you know.
23:30And he did it for Bob.
23:34That young kid did it for Bob.
23:36The body of Walter West was never found.
23:39A week later, according to several Order members,
23:42Bob Matthews and a few of the men met secretly to plan other assassinations.
23:47They discussed killing Morris Deeds,
23:49the civil rights lawyer who had come to the Order's attention for monitoring the Radical Right.
23:54And they argued about whether it was time to begin carrying out their oath to rid the world of Jews.
24:01Now, you apparently feel that the Jews are part of a communist conspiracy, is that correct?
24:05Well, as I went into the study of communism, I came up...
24:07When this exchange was broadcast from the studios of KOA in Denver, the Order was listening.
24:13The program was run by liberal talk show host Alan Berg.
24:17This night, Berg was tangling with a leader of the extreme right, Jack Moore from Mississippi.
24:22I have been on programs like this many, many times before, and I've run into fellows like you that interrupt
24:28and try to stop.
24:29Jack, you have barely been interrupted so far, Jack, so don't give me that garbage.
24:34You haven't been interrupted at all, man.
24:36Berg's combative style had brought him national attention and fame.
24:39More than anything, Berg, who was Jewish, hated anti-Semitism, and he went after those who preached it.
24:46I'll hang up on you if you...
24:48Hey, Jack, go ahead. Both of you hang up, cowards.
24:50This February broadcast was typical.
24:53It may also have made Berg a marked man.
24:56David Lane, a member of the Order old enough to have rooted for Hitler in World War II, was listening
25:02to Berg that night and phoned in.
25:04I think the Jews are still firmly in control of the Soviet Union. I think they're responsible for the murder
25:08of 50 million white Christians.
25:09You think so, huh?
25:10Yes, I do.
25:11I think you're sick, I think you're prophetic, I think your ability to reason and use any logic is a
25:16graduate.
25:16Why don't you put a Nazi on your program and then you'll have somebody...
25:18Sir, you are a Nazi by your very own admission.
25:21Thanks so much.
25:22That's right, you heard it.
25:24The Order would not forget this confrontation.
25:27In June, David Lane and Bruce Pierce were reportedly part of a hit team assembled by Bob Matthews, who led
25:33them south to Denver to assassinate Alan Berg.
25:37It was just after 9 p.m. on June 18th when Alan Berg's VW Beetle made the turn off Colfax
25:43and headed up the street to his driveway.
25:47They watched as the VW passed by and pulled out after him.
25:57As Berg made the turn up his short driveway to his garage door, the other car blocked the road behind
26:03him.
26:04Instantly, 13 .45 caliber slugs burst from the automatic weapon.
26:08A silencer muffled the blast and Berg was probably dead before he hit the ground.
26:14I can remember the crime scene, the victim's body here in the driveway, you know, the massive destruction.
26:20We didn't have eyewitnesses.
26:22The only evidence that we had were shell casings and bullets.
26:26You know, it was clear early on, immediately, that this was an assassination, a hit, an ambush.
26:33Police in Denver say they have no firm leads yet.
26:36The Order's crimes were now making national news, but no one knew who was committing them.
26:41I'm going to talk to you this sunny Colorado morning about a friend I once had.
26:46And his name was Alan Berg.
26:47The next morning in Denver, another KOA radio talk host, Ken Hamblin, eulogized his friend and challenged Berg's killers.
26:56And I found myself speaking to them.
26:59I found myself saying, you can't kill ideas.
27:04You can't kill words.
27:06You can only kill the man.
27:10Who are you?
27:11Who are you people?
27:12You've reached out with all of that power to kill him?
27:17No.
27:18You didn't show strength, sir.
27:20You didn't show strength.
27:23That morning, Matthews and his hit team were already on their way north out of Colorado.
27:29Some Order members say Bruce Pierce was the trigger man.
27:32Were you there when Alan Berg was killed?
27:35I have no comment. I'm sorry.
27:38He talked about it?
27:39Oh, yeah.
27:39Proud of it?
27:40Proud of it.
27:41He was bragging about how the gun jammed on the 13th bullet and how 13 means something, you know.
27:48Back in the Northwest, some Order members were shocked at the news of the murder.
27:52Most were not.
27:54Was Berg even, in your mind, a person?
27:58He was a Jew.
28:00And, therefore, worthy of death.
28:04In my mind at that time.
28:06End of story.
28:08End of story.
28:11With Bob Matthews and his recruits in the Northwest, there would be no turning back.
28:15That July, near Lake Mendocino in Northern California, in broad daylight, Matthews and 11 others lay in wait with automatic
28:23weapons.
28:24They'd been tipped off by a new member of the Order who worked at Brinks.
28:28As an armored car labored slowly up this hill, they surrounded it with pickup trucks and flashed a threatening sign.
28:35It was Brinks guard Aaron Davis' first week on the job.
28:39I said, why are they slowing down?
28:40I said, we have to go around them.
28:42And that's when that sign went up.
28:44Get out or die.
28:46I said, well, it must be a joke.
28:47Until they stood up and stopped firing.
28:49The armor-piercing shells passed easily through the bulletproof windshield.
28:53You think you're going to die?
28:56And, you know, hope it's over.
28:58If you die, die quickly.
28:59We just formed a line from the door of the truck to the pickup and we just passed it.
29:06Matthews was in the vehicle and I was in one of the lines.
29:09Bags of money.
29:09Bags of money.
29:11The pickups were abandoned a mile away and all 12 Order members escaped with $3.6 million, at the time
29:19the largest armored car heist in U.S. history.
29:23Never in my career had I seen anything to compare to this.
29:29FBI case agent Wayne Maness would spearhead the nationwide investigation into the order.
29:35They had sophisticated weaponry, plenty of ammunition.
29:38Their equipment, I would say, was certainly as good as that being used by the FBI at the time.
29:42But now the FBI had a solid lead.
29:45Bob Matthews had dropped a traceable gun in the back of the Brinks truck.
29:49The hunt was on and would eventually lead investigators to assassination target Morris Dees.
29:55I'll never forget this agent who identified himself said that, that let me know that there was a serious threat
30:04against my life from a white supremacy group.
30:08Did he name the group?
30:10No.
30:11But it doesn't mean that I'm gonna, you know, back off on what I'm doing because you got some nut
30:16out there that wants to shoot you in the back.
30:19It was just a war to them. It was a war to us.
30:22We were every bit as committed to the task as they were.
30:26Back in the Northwest, order members argued with Bob Matthews that it was time to lay low.
30:31Matthews would have none of it.
30:34He wouldn't slow down.
30:36He wouldn't slow down one bit.
30:38Bob couldn't wait.
30:40Bob had to keep going.
30:42Go, go, go, go, go.
30:46Matthews made plans for a paramilitary camp deep in the woods to train an army of believers.
30:51They would take his revolution to the next level.
30:54One of the plans was to blow up or carry havoc at the Olympics.
30:59If innocent people had to die for the cause, then again, that was just a means to justify the enemy.
31:07Bob Matthews knew the authorities were closing in.
31:10But he was so busy looking for the enemy behind every tree, he missed the traitor standing right next to
31:17him.
31:19Turning point. Inside the hate conspiracy, America's terrorists will continue in a moment.
31:28When we continue, the order escalates its plan to overthrow the U.S. government.
31:32But the FBI and Bob Matthews are about to come face to face.
31:37I've been involved in gun battles before during my tenure in the FBI, but never anything like this.
31:44Turning point. We'll continue after this from our ABC stations.
31:50Inside the hate conspiracy, America's terrorists.
31:54Tonight's turning point continues.
31:56Now the incredible story of how the FBI was able to track down and infiltrate this band of terrorists.
32:03It began when Tom Martinez, the man who had helped the order launder that counterfeit money, was arrested on the
32:09East Coast.
32:10Martinez agreed to cooperate with the FBI.
32:13He told them the order was responsible for the Brinks robbery and for the murder of Alan Berg.
32:19Most importantly, he agreed to take them to the order's leader, Bob Matthews.
32:27Friday, November 23rd, 1984. The beginning of the end for Bob Matthews.
32:33Tom Martinez flies into Portland, Oregon. Having told Matthews, he's willing to talk about going underground with the order.
32:41What Matthews doesn't know is that Martinez has made a deal with the FBI.
32:46I said, I can take you to Bob Matthews. And they were like in shock.
32:50I said, under two conditions. You don't reveal me, and no one gets hurt, and you gotta promise that.
32:57Matthews meets the plane, but seems nervous. And he's brought along order member and ex-convict Gary Yarborough.
33:05We took off going about 80 miles an hour in the streets of Portland.
33:09And as I glanced behind me, the fellow behind me, Yarborough, has a machine gun in his hands.
33:15Matthews suspects he's being followed and turns down a dead-end street.
33:19Martinez panics, afraid of what will happen if agents tailing them show up.
33:24And when we pulled into this wooded area, my heart just started throbbing, thinking, what are these guys planning on
33:31doing?
33:31Are they gonna kill me? Do they know I'm working for the feds?
33:35Luckily for Martinez, the FBI has lost his trail.
33:38But now he has no protection, as Matthews drives to a nearby motel.
33:43And no choice but to go along when Matthews takes him upstairs and gives Martinez his new assignment.
33:49He wasn't asking me, he was telling me now, you're gonna be part of a cell to kidnap and murder
33:56Mars Dees.
33:57And he said, we're gonna torture him.
34:00And he said, we're gonna torture him.
34:01We're gonna find out information from Dees, we would murder him, bury him, and throw a lie in the ground.
34:09Well, that's kind of, um, you know, that's kind of, uh, chilling.
34:16And did you have any doubt in your mind that he meant it?
34:18Oh, he definitely meant it.
34:20That's when it just clicked to me that he's crazier than crazy.
34:25You could see it in his eyes.
34:27Martinez makes an excuse to leave, then slips out to a nearby restaurant.
34:32Much to his relief, the FBI finds him.
34:35He tells them about the plot to murder Morris Dees, and then returns to his room, number 14.
34:43At dawn, Tom Martinez gets a call.
34:46It's the FBI.
34:47It's going down now, the agent tells him.
34:50Don't come out of your room.
34:52And, uh, I went over to the peak hole, and I could see Bob come out on the balcony.
34:57I never in my life was so scared.
35:00I heard a shot fired.
35:02I heard voices yelling.
35:04And I heard running.
35:07Thumping, sounding, running.
35:09It's Bob Matthews racing from the motel.
35:12In the gunfire, an FBI agent and the motel manager are wounded.
35:17Matthews himself is shot in the hand.
35:19Still, he manages to escape.
35:23Next thing you know, I hear sirens.
35:26Police are out there.
35:28Cameras, news people, reporters.
35:31Yarborough is arrested at the scene, but the FBI has no idea where Matthews has gone.
35:36And something he's left behind suggests authorities had better find him fast.
35:41A handwritten threat from Bob Matthews to the government.
35:44Surrender now, or face daily firefights with the heavily armed warriors of the white American Revolutionary Army.
35:54Two days later, Matthews is on a ferry to Whidbey Island just north of Seattle, where he writes a formal
36:00declaration of war, confirming his intent to do battle.
36:05He summons Bruce Pierce and others to his hideout.
36:07I signed, and I'm proud that I did sign.
36:12It was more of a formality in my eyes.
36:14We declare ourselves to be in a full and unrelenting state of war.
36:16A state of war against the United States government.
36:18But nothing has changed.
36:20I still feel the same way.
36:22After Pierce leaves the island, Matthews decides to go public with a letter to the media.
36:27Included in it, a warning for the traitor in room 14, Tom Martinez.
36:32We will find him, Matthews writes, and when we do, we will remove his head from his body.
36:39Matthews also has a message for Richard Kemp, the young man who'd once idolized him but had now distanced himself
36:46from the group.
36:47This, unless you change your mind, will be the last time I ever talk to you.
36:53Matthews has an order member phone Kemp and play this audio tape.
36:57I hope that you know what you are doing.
37:00They're some of the last recorded words of Bob Matthews.
37:04As for myself, I will never submit nor surrender.
37:10My conscience is clear.
37:13I think his last words were, you guys are going to have to live with that.
37:18Goodbye, Kinsley.
37:20At dawn on December 7th, the enemy Matthews hated so much finally catches up with him.
37:27Another informant who has never been identified has tipped off the FBI.
37:32And more than 75 elite federal agents have descended on Whidbey Island.
37:38Including FBI investigator Wayne Maness.
37:42I remember thinking that finally, after all this work, I'm going to come face to face with Bob Matthews.
37:49Within hours, other order members on the island give up without a fight, but not their leader.
37:54We'll continue to negotiate with the subject or subjects in the house as of about five minutes ago.
38:00Over the next 32 hours, the FBI tries to get Matthews to surrender.
38:05Ron Edwards from the county sheriff's office listens to the bizarre negotiations.
38:10One of the things that he wanted was that all of the blacks be put on boats and shipped back
38:16to Africa.
38:17By the next afternoon, Matthews is refusing to talk anymore.
38:21Five SWAT team officers storm into the house, only to find him barricaded on the second floor.
38:27When Matthews opens fire with an assault rifle, Maness and Edwards are right outside.
38:32I saw bullets splattering through the wall directly over my head.
38:36The roar of the weapon that Maness was using was, it was unbelievable.
38:40Well, I've been involved in gun battles during my tenure in the FBI, but never anything like this.
38:46After 10 minutes, the SWAT team is ordered back.
38:49A second gun battle erupts that night when a helicopter is called in.
38:57And then there was silence.
39:01A decision is made. Flares will be used to light up the ground floor.
39:11A fire begins, then spreads.
39:17The whole time the house was burning, he was still firing.
39:20He wouldn't give up.
39:22The leader of the order never emerges from his safe house.
39:27I will never submit, nor surrender.
39:31Goodbye, kinsmen.
39:33Bob Matthews' war with the government has finally come to an end.
39:38I feel quite certain that he succumbed to the heat smoke.
39:44One by one, the order members hear the news.
39:47The next morning, one body was found in the smoking rubble.
39:49I felt it was my fault that he was dead.
39:52And I thought of him burning in fire.
39:55Was he thinking of me? Was he blaming me? Was he cursing me?
39:59Somehow I couldn't even bring myself to cry when it happened.
40:02Because I knew that Bob was the catalyst for everything that was happening.
40:07And that maybe it could be over once and for all.
40:13Now.
40:14Try to identify where the computers are.
40:16It wasn't over for Bruce Pierce.
40:18In this audio tape made after Matthew's death, he seems to be planning more terrorist attacks.
40:24Use time devices and the water supply to contaminate the water of a major city.
40:33Were you seriously, Bruce, considering poisoning a water supply?
40:37Actually, at that time, I can't say whether I was serious or not serious.
40:41But, theoretically speaking, when one is at war, one has to consider such things, unfortunately.
40:47Armed with an arsenal of weapons, Pierce and a handful of others take off across the country.
40:54Vowing to carry on Bob Matthews' revolution.
40:59What happened to the men who escaped?
41:01Did the FBI succeed in tracking them all down?
41:04Some surprising developments when we return.
41:07It took the FBI four months to capture most of the remaining members of the order.
41:12In that time, a hardcore group of them continued to plan an attack on the Los Angeles water supply.
41:18Another member killed a state trooper.
41:20Finally, almost a year after Bob Matthews' death, the soldiers in his revolution were put on trial in Seattle, Washington.
41:28The charges? Conspiracy and racketeering.
41:33In September 1985, authorities stood guard outside the Seattle Federal Courthouse with submachine guns.
41:41Inside, ten order members sat behind two tables.
41:45Their chairs literally bolted to the floor.
41:48U.S. Marshals were so concerned they'd use them as weapons.
41:51The defendant sat here for 16 weeks and listened to the testimony against them.
41:56The most damning came from men who had once sworn total loyalty to their comrades.
42:02Among them, Tony Walsh, Bob Matthews' best friend, who broke down as he testified.
42:08Tom Martinez, the FBI informant who led the authorities to Matthews.
42:13And Denver Parmenter, who once belonged to the order's inner circle and renounced everything to become the government's star witness.
42:20It was a logical thing to do. I mean, do I... How can you go on and be a martyr
42:25when you don't believe in it anymore?
42:27Ten remained silent and were convicted, including Randy Dewey, who received 100 years.
42:33Richard Kemp, who once called Bob Matthews his mentor.
42:37Kemp was sentenced to 60 years.
42:40And Bruce Pierce. For his role in the order's crimes, including the murder of Alan Berg, he eventually was sentenced
42:47to 252 years.
42:48So essentially, you gave your life for this.
42:53Yes.
42:55And that's okay?
42:57In the end, we're gonna win.
43:00Only a quarter of the four million stolen dollars was ever recovered.
43:04The rest was reportedly distributed among the radical right.
43:08Do you have it in you to be strong, to be brave, to stand up for your folk and your
43:13people and to act like a white person?
43:15Do you? Yes!
43:16The same faces and voices of hate that once inspired Bob Matthews are still out there, inspiring a growing extremist
43:25fringe.
43:26They did destroy the order, but they didn't destroy the movement.
43:30It still exists.
43:32The proof for Denver Parmiter came just five months ago.
43:36The Oklahoma bombing didn't surprise me.
43:38You know, people seemed so shocked that it was domestic terrorism.
43:42I don't know why. I mean, that's what we did.
43:46Timothy McVeigh, accused of the Oklahoma City bombing, is reported to have studied the order.
43:52And like Bob Matthews, passed out copies of the Turner Diaries, the extremist handbook for the violent overthrow of the
43:59federal government.
44:00The day it happened, the first thing I thought of was that damn book, the Turner Diaries.
44:05And that book has got a part in there about where they take a rider truck and put it in
44:09the bottom of the federal building.
44:11The bomb in Oklahoma City was a mixture of fuel oil and fertilizer, and was detonated shortly after 9 a
44:18.m., just like in the Turner Diaries.
44:22And even though the book reads like some sick science fiction, there's people that take it seriously.
44:29This is going to happen again.
44:31It doesn't take 20 people to plane a bomb.
44:34One person takes, and you're going to see another order if you mark my words.
44:39And although we may have lost, temporarily lost a battle, we haven't lost the war.
44:42Time is on our side.
44:45To the extreme right, Bob Matthews is a martyr, but he has left another legacy.
44:50His son, Clinton, is now 14 and already active in the movement for which his father lived and died.
45:02...comrades have renounced their racist beliefs.
45:05Most serve short prison terms and went on to establish new identities.
45:26because of threats against their lives.
45:29One of them, Tom Martinez, the counterfeiter who led the FBI to Bob Matthews,
45:34spends time lecturing against racism.
45:37Now a look at our next turning point.
45:41The unforgettable true life tale of a family and their search for a miracle.
45:46When a mysterious genetic disease strikes two of their young sons,
45:50Brad and Vicki Margus begin a race against time.
45:54They're your children, they're counting on you.
45:56Their quest leads them to a medical breakthrough that could help us all.
46:01Barbara Walters is one of the most inspirational stories you'll see this year.
46:09That's our broadcast for this evening.
46:12Don't forget to watch a special Nightline Viewpoint after local news.
46:15The media and the trial.
46:17Among Ted Koppel's guests, Johnny Cochran.
46:19For ABC News, I'm Meredith Vieira.
46:22Good night.
46:33To order a videocassette, please call 1-800-913-3434.
46:38The cost is $29.95 plus $4 shipping and handling.
46:42For a transcript, please call 1-800-ALL-NEWS.
46:49The turning point has been a presentation of ABC News.
46:52More Americans get their news from ABC News than from any other source.
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