Richard Butler | |
|---|---|
.png) Butler in 1984 | |
| Born | (1918-02-23)February 23, 1918 Bennett, Colorado, U.S. |
| Died | September 8, 2004(2004-09-08) (aged 86) |
| Alma mater | Los Angeles City College |
| Occupation | Aerospace engineer |
| Spouse | |
| Children | 2 |
| Military career | |
| Allegiance |  United States of America |
| Branch |  United States Army Air Forces |
| Service years | 1942–1945 |
| Conflicts | World War II |
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| Christian Identity |
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Richard Girnt Butler (February 23, 1918 – September 8, 2004) was an American engineer, pastor, andneo-Nazi activist. After dedicating himself to theChristian Identity movement, a racist offshoot ofBritish Israelism, Butler founded the National SocialistAryan Nations and would become the "spiritual godfather"[1] to the white separatist movement, in which he was a leading figure.[2] He has been described as a "notorious racist".[1]
Butler was born inBennett, Colorado, the only child to Winifred Girnt and Clarence Butler. His father was ofEnglish ancestry, while his mother was ofGerman-English ancestry.[1] He was raised inLos Angeles, California beginning in 1931, and after graduating from high school in 1938, he became anaeronautical engineering major atLos Angeles City College. He was a co-inventor of the rapid repair oftubeless tires.[1]
Butler was a member of theSilver Shirts, an Americanfascist organization modeled on theNaziBrownshirts, which was active until its suppression following theJapanese attack on Pearl Harbor.[3]
While he was a member of aPresbyterian church, he married Betty Litch in 1941, with whom he fathered two daughters.[2] Litch died on December 1, 1995. AfterPearl Harbor, Butler enlisted in theArmy Air Corps where he served stateside for the duration ofWorld War II. During this time, he said he developed an admiration forHitler.[4]
In 1946, Butler organized and operated a machine plant for the production and precision machining of automotive parts and engine assemblies for commercial and military aircraft in the United States,Africa, andIndia.[2] Butler was a marketing analyst for new inventions from 1964 to 1973. He later became a senior manufacturing engineer forLockheed Martin inPalmdale, California.[2]
In the 1960s, Butler lived inWhittier, California. He collaborated withWilliam Potter Gale andWesley Swift in the California Committee to Combat Communism. The three men later founded theChristian Defense League in 1964. Butler served as the organization's executive director and ran the organization out of his Whittier home. Both organizations promotedwhite supremacy andantisemitism under the guise of preserving American heritage and opposing communism.[5] He also lived inMontebello, California.[6]
In the early 1970s, he moved with his family fromPalmdale, California, toNorth Idaho, where he founded theAryan Nations, a wing of theChurch of Jesus Christ–Christian, whose ideology is a mixture ofChristian Identity andNazism. The organization operated from a 20-acre (81,000 m2) compound inHayden Lake, Idaho,[7][8] a suburb of the tourist townCoeur d'Alene, Idaho, which became the center of aNeo-Nazi network with worldwide links. Beginning in the 1980s, Butler was implicated in plots to overthrow the United States government, and he had ties to theneo-Nazi group known asThe Order. His group often blanketed the community with fliers and mass mailings, and held an annual parade in downtown Coeur d'Alene; however, the group was condemned by the town of Coeur d'Alene, and locals responded almost immediately by forming the Kootenai County Task Force on Human Relations, with legal battles often overshadowing the parades.
Starting in 1981, Butler organized yearly gatherings of white supremacists at his compound in Idaho which he termed the "Aryan Nations World Congress." At their height in 1984–86, several hundred people would attend including most of the well known leaders of theAmerican far right, such asKlansmanLouis Beam,White Aryan Resistance leaderTom Metzger,Gordon "Jack" Mohr,Robert E. Miles,Posse Comitatus leaderJames Wickstrom,Thomas Robb,Grand WizardDon Black, and John Trochmann, the leader of theMilitia of Montana.[9] At his first conference, Butler called for the division of the United States into racial mini-states, including awhite ethnostate in the Pacific Northwest. He said that he had a black ally in the plan,Louis Farrakhan, leader of theNation of Islam.[10]
In 1987, Butler was among fourteen far right activists indicted forseditious conspiracy by the U.S. Department of Justice as part of theFort Smith sedition trial. Theirtrial was held at a federal court inArkansas.[11] However, "prosecutors failed to convince an Arkansas jury that Butler and several other prominent racists had conspired to start arace war."[12]
In 2000, Victoria and Jason Keenan, a Native American mother and son who were harassed at gunpoint by Aryan Nations' members, successfully sued Butler.[13] Represented by local attorney Norm Gissel andMorris Dees'sMontgomery, Alabama-basedSouthern Poverty Law Center, they won a combined civil judgment of $6.3 million from Butler and the Aryan Nations members who attacked them.[14] The couple also received his compound, which they later donated toNorth Idaho College, who turned it into "Peace Park". In September 2000, fellowSandpoint, Idaho millionaireVincent Bertollini provided Butler with a new house inHayden, Idaho. The house was troublesome for neighbors; police were forced to respond to at least one domestic disturbance call, in which two Aryan Nations members were engaged in an altercation on his lawn.
Butler's 2002 World Congress drew fewer than 100 people, and when he ran for mayor of Hayden against incumbent Ron McIntire, he lost by 2,100 votes to 50.[2]
Butler died in his home on September 8, 2004. A spokesman for Aryan Nations stated that he died in his sleep from congestive heart failure. At the time of his death, Aryan Nations had 200 members.[2]
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