Looking For The Next McVeigh

If you're one of those people who wonders if America will ever produce another Timothy McVeigh, you're not alone. Mark Potok has made a profession of it, Jim Stewart reports.

Potok, who is with the Southern Poverty Law Center in Montgomery, Ala., ought to know. Next to the FBI - and even they consult him regularly - no one has studied the militia movement more intensely. In the months leading up to McVeigh's execution, Potok discovered a surprising trend. Far from becoming the spark for the revolution he killed for, McVeigh's death may actually signal the end of the movement he hoped to inspire.

"The truth is, when you look at the militia movement today, it's only about a fifth of what it was back in '96, when it peaked out," he says.

Every day, another group seems to fold its tent. By Potok's count, the number of organized militias in America has plummeted from 858 to fewer than 200.

"These people have either picked up their marbles and gone home - in some cases they've gone to jail, in other cases they just quit - or they've left the movement because they're essentially tired of waiting around for the revolution that never arrives," he says.

For those that do remain - Potok keeps active files on them, and watches closely. Among this group is Mike Kemp.

Kemp, who believes the federal government is his enemy, has his headquarters in the north Alabama town of Gadsden. Kemp insists the group is still active - the remnants of his militia

Kemp says that McVeigh affected the movement in contradictory ways. "In lots of ways, he helped it just by advertising," Kemp says. "In lots of ways - many, many ways - he hurt it. It gave the enemies of the movement a huge lever."

Kemp says he has personally experienced this lever. After the Olympic Park bombing in Atlanta, and just about every terrorist incident since, Kemp received numerous visits from federal investigators. Clearly one reason for that is that he is not a shy man.

He told Stewart, for example, that he was a "very good bomb maker."

Does the thought ever cross his mind to load up a rental truck full of explosives? "Well, that's insane," says Kemp. "I'm a very practical man, and I don't see the purpose of setting a bomb of any description to indiscriminately kill men, women, children, combatants, non-combatants."

There was a time when its organizers placed Alabama's militia strength at 5,000. Now, it's doubtful they could organize a pickup basketball game. There are now four members. Still, the fire is there.

Kemp agrees that the next McVeigh will be a loner. "That's what they're really afraid of," says Kemp. "Because there are a lot of loners out there who have had it! And they do something stupid."

The federal government still keeps an eye on him. But it has a far more nervous interest in militia sympathizers it doesn’t know about. Recently, the FBI and the ATF interviewed 60 convicted bombers looking for some common traits.

Gregg McCary, a former senior agent with the FBI's Behavioral Science Unit, says that many serial bombers share a cluster of personality traits. But the FBI cannot draw up a profile for the next McVeigh, he says.

McCrary says that the bombers tend to be white, middle to lower class, and have military experience, or a fascination with the military, and a fixation on firearms. Do they have delusions?

"I'd be careful about delusion in the sense that they're not mentally ill," McCrary says. "They know the difference between right and wrong, but they choose to do it anyway and there's a difference. They're not normal."

They're not joiners either. McVeigh may have flirted with the militia movement, but eventually kissed it off as ineffective and probably infiltrated by the law. He was right.

Potok agrees with McCrary. He thinks that in the future, individuals will cause more problems than groups. "As far as murder and mayhem, terrorism - it's going to come from an individual," Potok says. "Lone wolves or people like McVeigh who are operating with maybe one or two helpers."

What would Kemp say to the federal agents out there who are worried that there's another McVeigh hiding in the ranks of the remnants of militia movements?

"Squeeze a little harder," he says. "Squeeze harder. You're looking for Tim McVeigh? Squeeze harder. You'll find some."

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