An Inside Look
At One Secluded Wilderness Compound

Date: Mon, 1 May 1995 07:53:25 -0700

An inside LOOK AT ONE secluded WILDERNESS COMPOUND
By DONNA HALES and KRISTI FRY

Muskogee Daily Phoenix

ELOHIM CITY, Okla. -- The rumors run wild, like the flowers sprinkled across 
the hills along the rocky road that winds its way to this secluded hideaway.

There may be rocket launchers up there, people who live in the vicinity of 
southeastern Adair County have said. There are federal fugitives living with 
them, the government alleged several years ago. Some fear that people are being 
brainwashed and kept there against their will.

Those rumors have Elohim City residents wondering what the federal government 
might do next in trying to solve the deadliest terrorist attack in American 
history -- the April 19 bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in 
Oklahoma City.

Tim McVeigh, arrested in connection with the attack, has been linked to a 
militia group. He has espoused hatred of the government over destruction of the 
Branch Davidian compound near Waco, Texas, that killed four federal agents and 
cremated men, women and children.

The Waco inferno was two years ago to the day of the bombing in Oklahoma City. 
McVeigh is charged in the bombing and another suspect is identified only in a 
police sketch as ``John Doe No. 2.''

McVeigh's militia link has turned the eyes of the government and all America 
toward militia and patriot groups and some of their right-wing religious 
sympathizers.

Thus, the concern by residents and leaders at Elohim City, who shy away from 
the media because of past publicity, said the Rev. Robert Millar, spiritual 
leader.

This week, journalists from Japan, Israel, New York City and ``60 Minutes'' 
have flocked to Elohim City to inquire about the lives of its residents. Morley 
Safer of ``60 Minutes'' is to visit Elohim City Wednesday, and a film crew will 
be at Elohim City Tuesday, Millar said.

``We're not overly happy about it,'' Millar said. But if the community doesn't 
cooperate, ``You don't know what kind of a curve they'll throw you,'' he said.

The religious group here began building homes on 400 acres in 1973. Nestled in 
the timber and pasture land they own in the lush foothills of the Ozarks, the 
group began drawing the attention of federal authorities a decade ago.

Millar caught the attention of federal agents for ministering to targets of 
government suspicion. The semi-cloistered group's tolerance of others, Millar 
believes, prompted past visits and aerial surveillance from the FBI and the 
Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.

Elohim City appeared on a list of ``armed military encampments'' after Millar 
spent two days talking white supremacist leader Jim Ellison out of a 224-acre 
paramilitary encampment known as the Covenant, Sword and Arm of the Lord in 
Arkansas in April 1985.

An FBI plane flew Millar to the northern Arkansas enclave, near the Missouri 
line. Ellison had wanted to consult with Millar, who government officials hoped 
would be able to diffuse what by then had been a two-day standoff between CSA 
members and 300 local, state and federal lawmen surrounding the compound.

It was a tense time. America was listening, but the media was kept away from 
the siege. Helicopter gunships hovered near the area. Multiple deaths on both 
sides were feared if Ellison didn't surrender on what U.S. Attorney Asa Hutchinson 
told Millar was a firearms charge.

Millar talked Ellison and four members of a neo-Nazi group, The Order, into 
surrendering. Two days later, Ellison was indicted on numerous charges, Millar said.

Armed residents patrol this heavily wooded wilderness area 20 miles southeast 
of Stilwell, Okla., but remain a spiritual group, not a military group, Millar said.

``Elohim City Inc., which is one of our corporations, and Bethel Christian 
Schools and Church Inc., do not own one firearm,'' Millar said. ``... We have 
firearms owned by individuals and all of them are legal. We don't have one 
illegal firearm and we do not have a stockpile of ammunition.''

The group's tolerance of others and its concern about overzealous federal 
bureaucrats whose actions fly in the face of the Constitution have led to the 
misconceptions of what people who live here are about, Millar said.

George Eaton, publisher of a Christian patriot newsletter called the ``Patriot 
Report'' and friend of residents of Elohim City, joined residents here this 
week in denouncing the Oklahoma City bombings.

``It is a catastrophe,'' Eaton said of the bombing. ``The patriot movement has 
lost. The militia has lost. The nation has lost some innocent lives and we've 
lost the patriot momentum that we had.''

A renewed cloud of suspicion has mushroomed over the community because of:

-- Its association with Arkansas convicted killer Richard Wayne Snell, a white 
supremacist who was executed the same day as the Oklahoma City bombing. Millar 
was the person he spent his final hours conversing with.

-- The community's denouncement of the FBI and ATF turning the Branch Davidian 
compound into an inferno.

Federal agents have been curious recently about who is and who is not at Elohim 
City.

Snell, at his request, was buried here April 20 in an area accessible only by 
four-wheel drive vehicle.

Millar's last hours spent with Snell were monitored by law enforcement 
officers.  Every word they uttered to each other was written down by one of those 
officers, Millar said.

Snell, in a newsletter published with the help of his wife had alleged the 
deaths of 25 people are homicides connected to President clinton.

A former international importer, Snell said he didn't tell everything he knew 
because he feared for the safety of his family. Millar believes Snell's 
knowledge of governmental wrongdoing prompted the unusually close surveillance 
of all his conversations while he was on death row.

And as long as any chance exists that Big Brother may come calling, the young 
people of Elohim City say they will continue to don camouflage and high black 
boots, arm themselves and keep a 24-hour vigil over their loved ones.

A blonde-haired 18-year-old takes her turn at guard duty when she arrives home 
from college classes, where her grades place her among the top of her class.

Her older cousin spoke in church here last Sunday of spending an hour on the 
phone with his mother on April 19, trying to calm her fears. The mother was 
pleading for him to take his wife and children and leave Elohim City.

``I told her, where would I rather be than in the hands of the Father,'' the 
young man testified. ``This is His day in the place He would have me.''

Will government agents converge on the community in what some have predicted 
will be a sweep of such groups across the nation?

``It's a gamble. It's a risk on their (government's) part to do that,'' said 
Eaton. ``If they do that, they could be exposed as overreacting. I'm hoping 
that's not the case.

``I can't imagine the justification.''

Laws aren't yet in position for a full-scale sweep of organizations composed of 
militia members, patriots and some right wing religious groups, Eaton said. But 
he fears those laws could be coming. And if such laws clash with the 
Constitution, trouble will break out with militia and patriot groups across the 
nation, he said.

The message is out, Eaton said: Alleged government plots are planned to stifle 
individual freedom and move toward a one-world government led by international 
bankers and industrialists. They will orchestrate the economic fall of nations 
at their whim, he said.

But words of warning from patriots will survive beyond their deaths, he said.

``We're not doing this for money or fame,'' Eaton said. ``None of us will be 
president, senators or wealthy. We're not going to be Oral Roberts or Billy 
Graham. We're not bowing to the system or part of the system. From the bottom 
up, most of us are probably blue collar workers.''