Washington, DC, July 11, 1995...The threat of the fanatical anti-Federal Government militias was the focus of Anti-Defamation League (ADL) expert testimony today at a public hearing on the connection between the militia movement and racist hate groups. Thomas Halpern, Acting Director of the ADL Fact Finding Department, told the hearing, "America Under the Gun: The Militia Movement and Hate Groups in America," that since the Oklahoma City bombing, membership in the anti-democratic, paranoid militias has grown nationwide.

Today's hearing was convened by U.S. Rep. Charles E. Schumer (D-NY) after he, Secretary of the Treasury Robert E. Rubin and others -- including ADL -- met with resistance to their requests for Congressional hearings on the militia movement, in view of the already scheduled extensive House investigation on supposed Government abuses during the 1993 events at the Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas. Concerned about the increasing harassment and violence by the militias, Schumer, the Ranking Democrat on the House Crime Subcommittee, provided a forum for specialists, victims of militia intimidation and others to testify unofficially.

Halpern testified how some militia strategists have advised groups "to organize into small units designed to be less susceptible to detection, monitoring and infiltration by law enforcement." Known as "leaderless resistance," this approach is a concept promoted by the former leader of the Texas Ku Klux Klan and other far right figures.

ADL has issued two reports on the militias: Armed and Dangerous: Militias Take Aim at the Federal Government, published in October 1994 -- months before the Oklahoma City bombing -- and Beyond the Bombing: The Militia Menace Grows, released last month. Halpern said the "first report on militias noted that a number of militia figures have histories of bigotry. The current survey confirms that some militia propaganda continues to exhibit an anti-Semitic strain that could well become more pervasive among militia groups as a result of the movement's obsessive conspiracy-mongering."

Stating the chief responsibility for keeping on top of the militia threat plainly rests with the law enforcement arm of the government, Halpern said. ADL urges states that do not have anti-paramilitary training statutes to seriously consider implementing them. In the 1980's, ADL drafted a model anti-paramilitary training statute in response to a proliferation of paramilitary training camps then being operated by the KKK and other racist groups in clandestine training centers in several states. The ADL model statute provides for criminal penalties.

Editor's Note: Copies of the reports are available on-line on Nexis, code search USNWR, and from the ADL Public Relations Department.

The Anti-Defamation League, founded in 1913, is the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry.