Sunday Patriots

The Sunday sun had not yet risen last week when 110 lawmen fanned out through New York State to snuff out a conspiracy that in firepower, at least, exceeded Guy Fawkes' plot to blow up Britain's Parliament 361 years ago to the week.

New York's Fawkesians were sparked by a Queens milkman whose nickname is "Nathan Hale," a Long Island land scape artist, and a 40-year-old Danbury State Teachers College sophomore. All belonged to the Minutemen, a hyper-patriotic organization whose members covertly train themselves in guerrilla warfare against the day when a Communist coup takes over the U.S. Not content to wait for the revolution, the Sunday warriors aimed last week to destroy three rustic, rundown camps that at one time or another had been used for left-wing or pacifist meetings.

Goggle-Eyed Cops. At dawn on the day of the planned raids, New York City cops swooped down on Goldy's Diner in South Ozone Park, Queens, and arrested six coffee drinkers who claimed that they were simply going hunting with the grenades, pipe bombs and rifles in their car. At the same hour, another platoon of policemen moved in on a Westchester County country house, which was flying a U.S. flag with 13 stars not far from its hillside fallout shelter; they found enough arms to fill a truck. In Syracuse, Brewerton, and Bay Shore, L.I., officers flushed more weapons by the score.

When the day was over, goggle-eyed cops found they had confiscated an array of weaponry that would have enabled the original Minutemen of 1775 to rout the British at Lexington and conquer England as well. The trove included 115 rifles, five mortars, nine machine guns, 26 pistols, brass-knuckled trench knives, machetes, hunting knives, throwing knives, cleavers, two bazookas, three anti-tank grenade launchers, 50 camouflage uniforms and steel helmets, 30 walkie-talkies, ten cans of black powder, crossbows, and more than a million rounds of ammunition--plus arrows for the crossbows.

Just Collectors. Also in custody were 19 Minutemen, charged with such offenses as conspiracy to commit arson, illegal possession of weapons, incitement to riot and unlawful assembly. At their arraignment, attorneys suggested that the suspects were really no more than innocent "gun collectors." But the district attorney's men said they knew better. Agents from B.O.S.S., New York City's Bureau of Special Services, had infiltrated the organization and clocked the Minutemen's every move for nearly a year. They reported that the would-be guerrillas had crashed the weekend maneuvers of reserve military units to gain experience and, possibly, arms. Planted officers participated in field maneuvers designed to perfect homemade bombs and hone the group's commando tactics. In one exercise, a Minuteman was observed firing cans of peas from a mortar at a pasture full of cows, while a forward lookout called back range corrections.

Once the arrests were made and the arsenals confiscated, the Minutemen's founder Robert Bolivar DePugh, 42, who runs the national headquarters in tiny (pop.: 965) Norborne, Mo., disclaimed any involvement with the New York fiasco. "If they were members of the Minutemen, they were working independently," he said, adding that the affair might really have been "a counterplot, .perhaps Government-inspired" to discredit his organization. He added: "I have urged our people not to own weapons." In fact, DePugh and two other men were scheduled to go on trial this week in Kansas City, Mo., on charges of possessing and reactivating machine guns in violation of the National Firearms Act.

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