Extremists have new weapon of choice

Martin Kuz

Friday, Feb. 20, 1998 | 10:13 a.m.

The 1996 movie "12 Monkeys" depicted a world in the not-too-distant future in which a deadly virus loosed by a megalomaniacal scientist kills nine out of every 10 people on the planet.

As farfetched as some viewers found the film's premise, the arrest of two men Wednesday on charges of possessing the germ anthrax for use as a weapon brought the cinematic future uncomfortably close to present-day Las Vegas. For the time when biological weapons kill hundreds or even thousands of people is inevitably, tragically approaching, say experts on right-wing extremism.

"Ultimately, we're very likely to see one of these plots succeed," said Mark Potok, spokesman for the Southern Poverty Law Center, an Alabama-based organization that tracks separatist groups. "It hasn't happened yet, but it could happen any day."

And it could happen in Nevada, a virtual breeding ground of anti-government sentiment. The odds of chemical terrorism occurring in Las Vegas are disturbingly good, said Leonard Weinberg, a political science professor at the University of Nevada, Reno and an expert on militia and extremist group activity.

Wednesday's arrest of Larry Wayne Harris, 46, and William Leavitt Jr., 47, has cut open anxiety about Las Vegas' -- and the country's -- susceptibility to biological terrorism. According to experts, the incident suggests that chemical weapons eventually may become more popular than conventional firepower among extremists for two reasons: the ease with which harmful bacteria can be obtained, and the ability to kill thousands with small amounts of such substances.

Harris' arrest in 1995 illustrates the first point all too well. A former member of the Aryan Nations and author of the tome "Bacteriological Warfare: A Major Threat to North America," Harris pleaded guilty to illegally obtaining bubonic plague through the mail. That something so pernicious was procured so easily "is definitely cause for concern," said Sue Stengel, spokeswoman for the Anti-Defamation League's western branch.

"Chemical weapons are a newer thing that we didn't use to have before," Stengel said Thursday from Los Angeles, shortly before flying to Las Vegas to learn more about the investigation of Harris and Leavitt. "It gives me pause to think that they (extremists) are willing to use those kinds of weapons."

This week's events also appear to lend credence to the genocidal delusions often ascribed to separatists. An FBI affidavit indicates that last summer Harris "told a group of plans to place a 'globe' of bubonic plague in a New York subway station, where it would be broken by a passing subway train, causing hundreds of thousands of deaths."

The report calls to mind the 1995 attack in which a sect of anti-government zealots released sarin in a Japanese subway, killing 12 and leaving thousands sick. Such potent chemicals feed the deranged fantasy of mass murder for "some lunatics out there for whom the benchmark to surpass now is Timothy McVeigh's murdering of 168 people," said Potok, referring to the bombing of a federal building in Oklahoma City three years ago.

"Biological weapons carry almost a romantic fascination (for terrorists)," added Eric Ward, spokesman for the Seattle-based Northwest Coalition Against Malicious Harassment, a six-state coalition formed in 1986 to counter the Aryan Nations Annual Congress held at Hayden Lake, Idaho. "To some of these people, these weapons seem sexy."

In Nevada, most of the violence that could be attributed to far-right groups has occurred in or near Reno. Four years ago, a bomb was tossed into the Bureau of Land Management's state headquarters. In 1995, a pipe bomb blew up in the Forest Service's district office there. The next year, Joseph Bailie of Gardnerville was convicted for the attempted bombing of an Internal Revenue Service office.

Last August, three Virginia City men were arrested for selling bombs and illegal machine guns to undercover authorities; one of the men said he hated government and would kill federal agents. On a nominally less treacherous level, the white separatist group World Church of the Creator frequently distributes pamphlets around the UNR campus, Weinberg said.

While McVeigh's conviction for the Oklahoma City bombing has helped to diminish the militia movement's visibility nationwide, Potok maintains that extremist groups are no less active, only cagier. He notes that before the bombing, on April 19, 1995, the FBI had 100 open domestic terrorist investigations. Today, there are more than 900.

Despite the figures, tracking extremism has not become easier. Increasing numbers of separatists have embraced the credo of infamous ex-Klansman Louis Beam to pursue "leaderless resistance," which refers to individuals or small cells of supremacists acting on their ideologies. That shadowy, underground approach makes accurate monitoring of domestic terrorism -- and possible germ warfare -- nearly impossible, Ward said.

"Eventually, the odds are that if a group is involved in some kind of biological terrorism, they will get lucky and succeed," he said.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this story.