By Joshua Cohen

RICHARD G. BUTLER, 86 Racist, inveterate preacher of hate: "Pastor" Richard G. Butler, founder of the political branch of the Church of Jesus Christ Christian and progenitor of the Aryan Nations, did the world a favor last week.

Born in Colorado in 1918, Butler studied aeronautical engineering before serving without distinction in WWII. Returning from the war "deeply troubled concerning the future of my nation," Butler soon fell in with anarchist elements, most notably the Christian identity teachings of William Potter Gale, an ex-aide to General MacArthur and founder of the anti-government Posse Comitatus.

By the 60s, Butler was national director of the Christian Defense League, an organization founded by America's all-time greatest anti-Semite, Wesley Swift. After Swift's death in 1971, Butler founded his Church of Jesus Christ Christian in northern Idaho, a ramshackle political group that grew into the Aryan Nations. The objective of the Aryan Nations was to form "a national racial state."

The Aryan Nations became America's foremost racist organization, though that ascension was not as smooth as Butler would have liked. In the 80s a few of his followers broke away to join with KKK splinter factions and members of a similar organization, the National Alliance. They formed the Silent Brotherhood, better known as the Order, a group that planned to overthrow the U.S. government and establish an Aryan State in the Northwest.

That mission failed when members were arrested and imprisoned for various murders in 1983 and '84, and its leader Robert Matthews was killed in a shootout with federal agents. Butler's Aryan Nations compound, situated in the bucolic community of Hayden Lake, Idaho, became the de-facto Aryan Homeland and the self-described "international headquarters of the White race." In this well-guarded compound, Butler supervised training sessions in urban terrorism and paramilitary warfare. During the annual summer World Congress of Aryan Nations, he sought to unite disaffected anti-government and anti-immigration groups.

The 90s were not kind. Many of Butler's closest adherents left to form their own special-interest racist groups, and in 1995 allegations of financial impropriety splintered the Nations further. In December of that year Butler's wife Betty died, sending the leader's health into decline. In 2000, in what the Nations characterized as a "Jew-inspired lawsuit" stemming from an assault charge, the Nations went bankrupt and its compound was seized.

In 2001 Butler appointed Ray Redfeairn his successor, and the Nations set up new headquarters in Ulysses, PA.

Last week, the Nations posted a tribute to Butler on its website: "Although all of us will take time to reflect and honor [Butler]," it reads in part, "we shall continue to build Aryan Nations above and beyond its former glory."

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