Aryan Nations leader anoints convicted felon as successor

Associated Press

COEUR D’ALENE, Idaho — Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler has named a white supremacist and convicted felon from Dayton, Ohio, as his successor, according to the group’s Web site.

Butler, 83, said Aryan Nations headquarters will remain in northern Idaho even after his death.

"I’m still in the picture here, and I’m controlling things," Butler told a Spokane newspaper late Monday. "I’m not dead yet."

The announcement is the latest event in a tumultuous year that saw the Aryan Nations compound burned after it was purchased by a human rights group; the death of Butler’s previously appointed successor; and a recent statement by Butler in support of the terrorist attacks on the East Coast.

Ray Redfeairn was named the new national director of the Aryan Nations and will succeed Butler upon the latter’s death. The announcement said Butler "will continue to remain the rock and spiritual leader of Aryan Nations but will be taking a less active role in the everyday running of the Aryan Nations affairs."

In mid-August, former heir apparent Neuman Britton died of cancer in San Diego at the age of 75.

Redfeairn testified on Butler’s behalf last year in a civil trial that led to a $6.3 million judgment against Butler and the Aryan Nations. He told the jury he did not share Butler’s views on nonviolence.

Redfeairn served six years in prison after being convicted of aggravated robbery and attempted aggravated murder in the shooting of a police officer in 1985, records show.

He was on parole and not supposed to leave Ohio when he was part of an honor guard that surrounded Butler for the group’s 1998 parade in Coeur d’Alene.

"I could never imagine the time when Pastor Butler would not hold the reigns (sic) of Aryan Nations solely in his hands," Redfeairn said on the Web site. "Nevertheless, he made his wishes known to me, and I have accepted."

Redfeairn said he shared Butler’s goal of "the advancement of the white, Aryan race."

"As we work toward our goals, let us remember that what is good for the Aryan Nations is good for the race, what is not good for the Aryan Nations is not good for the race. It’s that simple," Redfeairn, who like Butler holds the title of pastor of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian, said.

The group’s Web master, August Kreis III, was named director of information, and announced he planned to open an office near his home in Pennsylvania.

"We will soon be opening an Aryan Nations office and church grounds here in the beautiful mountains of Ulysses, Pennsylvania," Kreis wrote.

Immediately after the Sept. 11 terrorist attacks on New York City and the Pentagon, a statement was posted on the Aryan Nations Web site hailing the acts.

"May the war be started!" the message said, according to The Spokesman-Review of Spokane. "Death to His enemies. May the World Trade Center burn to the ground!"

That statement was hastily removed the same day and the Web site now contains a message expressing "our warmest heartfelt sympathies to the families of the firefighters and police officers that were lost in the attack of the World Trade Center."

The Aryan Nations shares with Muslim extremists a hatred of Jews and Israel, and a distrust of the U.S. government.

The Aryan Nations is part of the so-called Christian Identity movement, whose followers believe white people are the lost tribe of Israel, that Jews are descendants of Satan, and that nonwhites were created by the devil out of mud and are akin to animals.

The Web sites of hate groups across the nation have been buzzing since the terrorist attacks, said Joe Roy, who tracks such groups for the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala.

"The lion’s share of it is anti-Semitic," Roy said, with Jews or the U.S. government itself blamed for the attacks.

The Aryan Nations was forced into bankruptcy last year when it lost the civil rights lawsuit filed by the Southern Poverty Law Center on behalf of two people who were assaulted by security guards at the group’s headquarters near Hayden Lake, Idaho. The headquarters was auctioned this year to help satisfy the judgment. Its buildings were deliberately burned last summer.