Minutemen (anti-Communist organization)

For other uses, see Minutemen (disambiguation).

The Minutemen was a militant anti-Communist organization formed in the United States in the early 1960s. The founder and head of the right-wing group was Robert DePugh, a biochemist from Norborne, Missouri. The Minutemen believed that Communism would soon take over all of America. The group armed themselves and were preparing to take back the country if necessary. The Minutemen organized themselves into small cells and stockpiled weapons for an anticipated counter-revolution.

In February 1968, DePugh was indicted by a federal grand jury in Seattle, Washington for conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Also in 1968, he was arrested for violation of federal firearms laws. He skipped bail and went underground for over a year until he was caught in 1969 in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. He was released from prison in May 1973. DePugh later wrote a survival manual, Can You Survive?, and was associated briefly with Liberty Lobby.

DePugh, 86, died at home June 30, 2009.[1]

Publications

The Minutemen's publication was a newsletter called "On Target".

References

  1. T.J. Greaney, "Minuteman outlasted notoriety, died with regrets", Columbia Daily Tribune, Thursday, August 6, 2009.
  2. Google books, no preview

Further reading

FBI files on the Minutemen and DePugh, obtained under the FOIA and hosted at the Internet Archive

This article is issued from Wikipedia - version of the 10/31/2016. The text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution/Share Alike but additional terms may apply for the media files.