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The Minutemen: The Status Politics of the Paramilitary Right

Article  in  The Journal of American Culture · June 2004

DOI: 10.1111/j.1542-734X.1978.0104_724.x

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 By Anthony E. Ladd

We must stop pretending t h a t the bureaucrats have a natural “right” to the

wealth they take from us. They are parasites a n d have gained power over
t h e people by trickery. . .If the citizens of the United States a r e to regain
their freedom from excessive government, they must do so by means of a
counterrevolution. This may be violent or nonviolent depending on future
developments.
Robert Bolivar Depugh

T
he sharp turn right is nothing new. It first emerged in the United
States during the 1850’swhen a Protestant population and economy,
threatened by a Roman Catholic immigration, organized into the
Know-Nothing Party. Although American history has seen the failure of all
efforts to create radical “third” parties, it has nevertheless been relatively
easy to create a variety of social movements that could gain considerable
support. From the birth of the abolitionist movement and the Ku Klux Klan
to the more recent movements of McCarthyism and George Wallace,
extremist groups have played a recurrent role on the national scene. While
their respective ideologies and numbers have differed, they have all drawn
their support and force from a conservative world deeply anxious over the
changing character of American life.

724
 725

Although the American ideology has traditionally embraced values

which have rejected extremist groups, a number of post-World War I1
factors precipitated the radical right into quick notoriety in the early 1960s.
After years of Democratic power, right-wing Republicans and their
supporters were deeply disillusioned when the election of Dwight
Eisenhower failed to produce the dismantling of communism in Europe.
The growth of the federal government and the national debt, and the
continuation of the Truman containment policy seemed to be vivid proof to
conservative factions that America had not only gone %oft)’ on
communism, but had indeed moved toward a dictatorship.’ These incidents,
combined with the stalemate in Korea and the failure in Cuba, set the stage
for a new power play from the elements of the radical right.
At the same time, three groups emerged to attract public attention to the
right-wing cause. One was the disclosure of the existence of the John Birch
Society, a secretive organization dedicated to awakening Americans to
communist methods. The second was the formation of anti-communist
“schools” conducted by fundamentalist preachers who promised to expose
the evils of “dialectical materialism” that would enslave American women
and children in Russian concentration camps. The third was the disclosure
of the existence of extreme fanatic groups, such as the “Minutemen,” who
organized guerilla-warfare training seminars to teach patriots armed
resistance against a communist-run America. Though not entirely
representative of the right-wing in general, the Minutemen embraced many
of the fundamental values of the conservative and radical fringes in
American political circles. What made the Minutemen unique, however,
among the other elements of the right was their particular method for
“saving” America from her enemies.
To many, the mere existence of an organization such as the Minutemen
seems to border on the fringe of lunacy. But even a cursory examination of
the literature yielded by journalists and political scientists over the past two
decades reveals that the Minutemen are no practical joke, nor are their
supporters solely “fanatics.” Those who have been publicly identified as
Minutemen have seemingly come from every walk of life-mechanics,
businessmen, milkmen, policemen, firemen, students, cab drivers and even
some professional men. Given this cross-section of American society, it is
important that we attempt to understand and analyze such a n organization
for the specific appeal it offers to some individuals. Indeed, we stand to
clarify not only some of the elements inherent to any examination of right-
wing politics, but the ones capable of manifesting themselves into a violent
cause.
As Lipset2 points out, any traditional analysis of the role of political
extremism in the United States has usually taken one of two courses. First,
the extremist activity can be viewed in terms of a “class politics” model
whereby individuals in similar class or economic strata attempt to change
or protect their position in society vis-a-visthose favoring preservation of
the status quo. This economicmodel does, of course, see these forces of social
change rooted in periods of unemployment and depression where oppressed
726 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE
groups act toward the attainment of a redistribution of the means of
production. Secondly, the extremist activity can be examined in terms of a
“status politics’’ model which asserts that status groups that perceive
external threats to their values and status will seek action against
scapegoats, real or symbolic, in an attempt to vent their frustrations. In
Lipset’s view, status politics becomes particularly ascendant in times of
prosperity where social groups are reacting to the changing status
relationships in the social order. It is not economic survival which is at
stake for these groups, but achieving or maintaining high social status
relative to other groups who seemingly threaten their status. Unlike
economic deprivations, however, status frustrations entail no clear-cut
solutions for handling the status threat. As a result, political movements
mobilized around status concerns have historically tended toward the
irrational by seeking out scapegoats to symbolize generalized status
frustrations.
In explaining the role of extremism in the American Temperance
Movement, for example, Gusfield3 demonstrated the validity of this latter
model. He concluded that status politics, as one form of social movement,
was a way by which members of a status group could strive to defend,
perserve or enhance the dominance and prestige of their style of life against
threats from other groups whose life style differed from theirs. In his study,
as the prohibitionists perceived their values and status being increasingly
threatened by a modern life style that sanctioned the use of alcohol, they
sought public acts by which they could reaffirm the dominance of the life
style to which they were committed. Gusfield saw this example of status
politics as essentially representing the plight of the “cultural
fundamentalist” who seeks to preserve the traditional values of the old
middle class against the “cultural modernist” whose outlook reveres a
cosmopolitan philosophy stressing the good of future change.4 Thus, status
politics are those acts aimed a t preserving a style of life, preferably at the
expense of those who are in opposition to it.
In similar fashion, the Minutemen also embrace a world view that is
culturally and politically fundamentalist. By whatever means available,
they seek to protect the traditional values of individual freedom, limited
government, the right to keep and bear arms and a free enterprise system-
in short, the “American way of life.” They have organized into a
paramilitary organization to defend these values against those who they
perceive to be dominant threat-the bearers of the communist and
collectivist banner. To the extent, however, that the Minutemen have
become increasingly aware of the difficulty of maintaining the notion that
the Communist Party alone is the sole threat, they have shifted their
argument to more nebulous ground-the identification of communism with
anything that smacks of domestic liberalism. The increasing growth of the
welfare state, the evolution of all government toward centralization and
collectivization, and the expanding power of the bureaucratic agency are, to
the Minuteman mind, but a few signs of the impending communist
takeover. Unlike other right-wing factions, then, the Minutemen direct their
 THE MINUTEMEN 727

efforts not toward a Russian army division, but a Washington power elite.
But this shift of the Minutemen’s gaze from the sea to the homegrown
enemy indicates, we believe, more a symbolic struggle to regain a valued
way of life than it does an instrumental attempt to destroy the communist
seedbed. Although the status of the Minutemen and the radical right in
general is clearly threatened by the political ramifications of collectivist
ideologies, their intent to engage in paramilitary defense against such
perceived threats cannot be adequately understood within the traditional
status politics framework outlined above. Rather, such normative
movements represent the attempt to reaffirm the cultural dominance of
particular styles of life perceived to be dependent on “conservative,”
individualistic values and patterns of rule in the social order. The perceived
communist threat is not so much an attack on the personal prestige
positions of individual and collective Minutemen, but is essentially a battle
over the hegemony of conflicting ideological constructions of reality. In this
sense, we choose to analytically view the Minutemen as representative of a
status group who have organized around the defense of the “American way
of life,” the source of their self-esteem and autonomy in society.
Accordingly, the Minutemen are engaging in a radical form of status
politics by arming themselves against the perceived life style threat.
The central concern of this paper is to examine the Minutemen within a
reformulated conceptual framework of the status politics paradigm.
Although previous empirical research has accounted for a variety of radical
and minority movements under the rubric of status politics, the emphasis
has been on prestige defense rather than life style defense as a more careful
reading of Weber might stress. Justification for this particular approach,
rather than traditional models, stems from our contention that the
Minutemen are not engaged in the defense of economic or prestige concerns,
but are essentially involved in a struggle to maintain and propagate a style
of life based on traditionalism and political fundamentalism. By focusing
on the organization’s social base and ideology, as well as general history,
we hope to account for the validity of this approach.

The Status Politics F r a m e w o r k Status as a Derivative of Life Style

The idea of “status politics” is basically derived from Weber’s classic
essays on “~tratification.”~ Although Weber himself did not originate the
term, he did refer to status groups (Stande) as those groups deriving social
prestige or honor from a common “mode of living” or “style of life.”6
Continuing in this vein, Lipset and Hofstadter introduced the term “status
politics” into American sociology in an attempt to explain the rise of the
radical right by distinguishing political forces rooted in prestige concerns
from those related to class or economic interests.7 Their basic argument
revolved around the idea that social groups which experience external
threats to their values and status as a result of social change will seek
expressive outlets from which to vent their frustrations. These outlets are
typically found in the aggressive reactions of right-wing politics which seek
out scapegoats that can conveniently serve to symbolize the status threat.
728 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE

Historically, for example, the most common scapegoats in American

society have been minority, ethnic or religious groups that posed a
perceived threat to the majority’s position in the status order.
Since then, the status politics framework has been employed by a
number of researchers to account for a wide variety of political movements,
i n c l u d i n g Populism, Know-Nothingism a n d Progressivism,
Prohibitionism, rightrwing extremism, anti-pornography, and student
political movements.8 But the fact that the term has never really been
accepted as a fundamental unit of analysis in political sociology can be
attributed to a vulgarization of Weber’s conception of “status,” which in
turn has led to a misleading narrowing of focus.
In designating the basic structural conflict groups in society that cut
across economic classes, Weber added estates or “status groups” (Stande),
and parties, Although most sociologists have interpreted these terms to be
the three dimensions by which individuals may be ranked in society (class,
status and power), there is little in Weber’s work to indicate that he ever
conceived of society in terms of rank hierarchies, ordinal strata or layer-
cake arrangements. Rather, Weber saw such groupings as the consequences
of conflict between such basic units, members who shared similar positions
in regard to three types of power-economic, social and political. Just as
economic classes are defined by their ability to monopolize control of the
material means of production, status groups are in a constant struggle to
monopolize the symbolic production of social reality, that is, control of the
means of socialization and social intercourse. The success or failure of such
endeavors becomes reflected in common and specific styles of life
(Lebensfuhrung).
The importance of the foregoing discussion is to argue that Weber
conceived of status groups as being based upon a particular set of values, or
Weltanschauung, derived from a common way of life, rather than their
formation being linked to similar amounts of prestige among members.
Thus, social honor or prestige is a consequence of, and not a base for,
adherence to a particular way of life. Status groups are defined by a
common life style which is more than just a set of status characteristics and
consumptive patterns. As Page and Clellandg suggest:

... a status group stands for a way of life; and such groups are consequentlyinvolvedin constant
struggles for control of the means of symbolic production whereby their reality is constructed.
Such struggles are the essence of status politics.

Although status groups with differing ways of life do make prestige claims
in the ideological marketplace, they are not ordered along any hierarchy
because there can be no full consensus across groups concerning the basis
for such a hierarchy.1° Moreover, the ambiguity of analyzing movements in
terms of objective prestige criteria seems to warrant the fruitfulness of
employing a more verifiable, concrete life style approach. As Rush11 argues,
“If such heuristic concepts (status politics) are to have utility in scientific
research, there must be some way of ‘grounding them in reality’.”
 THE MINUTEMEN 729

It is our contention, therefore, that sociologists have misinterpreted

Weber’s use of the term “status” and portrayed status groups as being
organized around prestige concerns rather than life style concerns.12
Consequently, the failure to make this distinction has led to a n analysis of
status politics in terms of groups mobilizing over declining status levels
instead of their ability to retain control over their valued way of life.
Although an emphasis on prestige has some utility in understanding
various political movements, the vast amount of the literature points to the
fact that these collective actions might be better conceptualized in terms
other than prestigelose, status insecurity or status instability.13 Indeed,
concerns over one’s prestige in society and concerns over the defense of
one’s life style are not only conceptually distinct, but might generate
entirely different social and political reactions on the part of those
threatened.
We feel that this distinction between status and life style within the
status politics model is crucial to understanding the Minutemen and much
of the radical right in general. While relative prestige and status
frustrations are probably latent in most reactionary groups in America,
they are, at best, secondary reasons for membership. Historically, at least, a
traditional source of conservatism in the United States has been groups
which make a claim to the American past, such as the Daughters of the
American Revolution, veterans’ organizations, patriotic leagues, etc. The
individuals who participate in these groups tend disproportionately to be
those who have few other claims to status and, by participation in these
circles, can make a claim to history and identify with a n heroic American
past. But more importantly, these groups derive their primary membership
by making a fetish out of tradition and past styles of life. Their rejection of
“newcomers” and ~~cosmopolitanism~~14 is aimed more a t maintaining a
valued way of life than it is bolstering their status, although as Hofstadterls
noted, the two are closely linked for Americans.
We now turn to an examination of the Minutemen organization itself.
By then looking at the social base of the membership, as well as their
ideological structure and goals, we hope to show the fruitfulness of
identifying status politics with life style concerns rather than the previous
prestige accent. In fact, this paper views the Minutemen as a status group
that essentially illustrates the validity of this emerging school of thought.

A Brief History of the Minutemen

Legend has it that the Minutemen came into being quite spontaneously
on a small Missouri lake in June of 1960. It was the height of the U-2 crisis
and Robert Bolivar DePugh, age 37 and a former veteran of World War 11,
and nine other duck hunters were speculating on the outcome. “Well, if the
Russians invade us,” one hunter quipped, “we can come up here and fight
on as a guerrilla band.” Another hunter, a Special Forces veteran,took the
proposal seriously and hauled out his training manuals. In deadly earnest,
the group started preparing for the day when “Americans will once again
fight in the streets for their lives and their liberty.”16
730 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE

DePugh became national leader and set up a national headquarters at

Independence, Missouri (later Norborne), with the other nine fanning out
across the country to proliferate the desparation movement and seek
volunteers. Soon after, guerilla maneuvers were being staged in San
Antonio, Omaha, Philadelphia, Kansas City, Columbus, Newark and San
Diego, with members clothed in World War I1camouflage garb and helmets
and carrying unloaded M-1 rifles. Minutemen squads clambered up ravines
hurling defused grenades at a n imaginary enemy, put up skirmish lines,
blasted away at silhouette targets, and learned to subsist in the desert on
cactus juice and lizard meat. Although local deputies broke up an early
guerilla exercise in Illinois in 1961, seizing a n arsenal of recoilless rifles,
mortars and machine guns, the press and public continued to look on them
with amusement as a bunch of gung-ho veterans vicariously experiencing
the next world war. To bystanders who questioned their purpose,
Minutemen spokesmen reminded citizens of their right to bear arms dating
back to Colonial days and replied that “We’rejust loyal Americans who are
tired of being pushed around by the Comrnunists.”17
The Minutemen feel that the U.S.is involved in a life-and-death
struggle with communism and its derivatives for freedom and world
supremacy. They feel that World War I11 has already begun and that they
must serve as a “last line of defense” against the communist advance. In
meeting this threat, DePugh feels that guerrilla tactics are best suited to
defeat the Red onslaught. The Minutemen strategy is based on guerrilla
warfare and they point out that throughout history, larger armies have
been overcome and defeated by guerillas. As Depugh elaborates: “The
guerrilla’s strength is in his heart, in his love for his country, in his hatred of
the enemy. His chief weapons are stealth, cunning, endurance, and most of
all, an intense belief in the righteousness of his own cause.”18
Although the Minutemen are organized into a paramilitary structure, it
is operated more like a franchise operation, with DePugh providing the
national identity, policy directives, publicity coordination, propaganda
materials and training publications. The units, which are generally squads
of six to twelve men, submit dues and intelligence to the main national
headquarters in Norborne. Location and membership of each squad is kept
in separate sealed envelopes near Minutemen headquarters, thus ensuring
that in case of capture, the enemy will be unable to hunt down the other
squads. Moreover, the ranks of Minutemen are filled with experts and near-
experts in such special fields as guerrilla warfare, clandestine
communications and detonation. The Minutemen handbook contains
instructions on such subjects as silencer construction, booby-traps, anti-
vehicular mines, and incendiary weapons composition, and DePugh
himself is an expert in explosives, code communication, automatic weapons
and biological warfare.
In conjunction with their irregular warfare capacity, the Minutemen
also put a premium on intelligence and security, conducting nation-wide
clandestine operations in infiltration and counter-tactics. At Minutemen
headquarters, data are kept on hundreds of individuals and groups-such
 THE MINUTEMEN 731

as the National Council of Churches, B’nai Brith, various government

officials, union leaders, and the like, that are considered subversive. Even
within the field of entertainment, for example, the Minutemen list of
“communists and fellow travelers” includes such figures as Lucille Ball,
Frank Sinatra, Burgess Meredith, Katherine Hepburn and Orson Welles.
DePugh claims there are 65,000 persons on file, including 1500 “verified”
members of the communist conspiracy, many of whom are currently
marked for “reprisals” in the event of a communist takeover.19 The
Minutemen have also penetrated the Black Muslims, CORE, SNCC and
various other “leftist” groups throughout the country. During the 608, for
example, the Minutemen were fairly successful in discrediting various civil
rights and peace demonstrations by dressing up in “hippie” garb, acting
obnoxiously, and thereby creating disturbances within the groups.
Moreover, the Minutemen have also kept extensive tabs on other elements
of the right not directly aligned with their group, including the American
Nazi Party, the KKK, and the Christian Anti-Communist Crusade.
Obviously, the perceived ability of the communists to infiltrate all sectors of
American life has left the Minutemen skeptical of any areas that are indeed
“untouched.”
While the rhetoric of the Minutemen has certainly been inflammatory,
it has not lacked content. DePugh, although he has denied a hand in some of
the violent turns the Minutemen “patriotism” has taken, has made it clear
that his group is prepared to take any action to maintain the United States
Constitution for future generations. As he puts it, “Thereis no act too brutal
or illegal for us to take if it will help save this country from Communism-
including assassination. There’ll be a lot of dead s.o.b.’sbefore this fight is
over.”20 In 1966, for example, New York City Police, after months of
infiltration and surveillance, arrested nineteen Minutemen actiyists who,
disguised as hunters, had planned to launch a firebomb attack against four
area targets identified by the Minutemen as centers of left-wing agitation.
They confiscated 125 rifles, 10 pipe bombs, 5 mortars, brass knuckles, 220
knives, 1 bazooka, 3 grenade launchers and 6 grenades. Over a million
rounds of amunition and a crossbow were also collected. A local citizen,
remarking on the raid, told reporters that “It’s a helluva thing that they
molest real Americans and leave the Communists and Cosa Nostra alone.21
Shortly, after the raids, its was also reported that if the attack on the
leftist camps had been successful, the Minutemen’s next target was to have
been an assassination attempt on former CORE leader James Farmer,
marked for death as a “top black Red.”22In 1967, a band of Minutemen
attempted the bombing of a Bronx building where Herbert Aptheker,
director of the American Institute of Marxist Studies, had been slated to
lecture on Marxist dialectics. Again, in August of 1968, a six-member
Minutemen team launched a second attempt on the pacifist encampment at
Voluntown, New York, but FBI infiltration of the plot again tipped off local
authorities who almost arrived too late. A brief gun battle ensued between
the Minutemen and state troopers before the former threw down their
weapons and surrendered. Six people were shot in the melee, a tooper, a
732 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE
woman resident, and four of the raiders.23
In response to the increasing Minutemen violence, the legislatures of
New York and California, two states that rank high in Minutemen activity,
have already passed laws outlawing all paramilitary organizations. An
intensive inquiry led at the request of then Governor Rockefeller, reported
that a ten-month probe of the organization disclosed “shocking evidence of
violence and potential guerilla warfare by Minutemen activities” in 33 New
York counties. The Minutemen had even told investigators that they would
not hesitate to shoot such “communist sympathizers” as Earl Warren,
Hubert Humphrey, and Nelson Rockefeller himself. Although DePugh has
condemned such extremist activities in his ranks, plots such as these
continue to be uncovered, and despite the surveillance of Federal, State, and
local police, the Minutemen’s organizational effectiveness does not seem to
have been significantly impaired. As recently as two years ago,
approximately 13tons of explosives, weapons, and ammunition-enough to
outfit a 200-man army-were uncovered in the Southern California desert.
Although officials could not attribute the catch to any paramilitary group,
Minutemen operatives have claimed majority ownership of the lot.
Although the previous pages have only offered a scanty outline of the
Minutemen over the past decade or so, it should be evident that the
organization has succeeded in attracting particular segments of the
American population to its ideology. To the extent, however, that the
Minutemen are a relatively unexamined phenomenon by social scientists,
we cannot draw on studies which show a breakdown of demographic
characteristics of the organization. Hence, our knowledge of the social base
of the Minutemen becomes limited to general journalistic accounts, as well
as conclusions based on the membership of other right-wing factions.
Although any social movement attracts different people for different
reasons, studies of support for such movements are always marked by a
certain degree of ambiguity.25 Likewise,those who indicate support for such
right-wing groups might be merely expressing perservatist feelings, rather
than specific acceptance of the explicit strategies of the organization.

THE SOCIAL BASE O F THE MINUTEMEN

In examining the membership of the Minutemen, it is, of course,
important to consider the size of the organization. Although DePugh and
the Minutemen have been quick to capitalize on the media and newspapers
in spreading information about the organization, it is almost impossible to
find independent verification of their reports. Considering too that one of
the basic canons of the group holds that “The first principle of security is
deception,” public statements by its spokesman can be relied upon to
contain calculated untruths. In late 1961, for example, DePugh placed the
Minutemen membership a t 25,000, a comment that led the FBI, for their
own deceptive undercover purposes, to term the group a “paper
organization” with less than 500 members.26 More reliable sources,
however, have estimated the hard-core membership as of 1968to be between
8,000 and 10,000 individ~als.2~ But it is perhaps more significant to note
 THE MINUTEMEN 733

that sources both inside and outside the organization contend that there are
possibly as many as 40,000 “fellow travelers” who either subscribe to
Minutemen literature, or would a t least sympathize with their goals.
While DePugh sees it as an advantage to keep the enemy guessing as to
the group’s real strength, he points out that the membership’s
concentrations generally follow the large urban centers of the United
States. Such areas of the country as New York, southern California, St.
Louis, and Kansas City have been frequent centers for the violent outbreaks
of Minutemen activity. The exception is the Deep South, which apparently
indicates the Minutemen’s inability to compete with the Ku Klux Klan in
that region.
Unfortunately, as we have noted, the highly secretive and underground
existence of the Minutemen means that we have no first-hand data
accounting for their membership characteristics. Based primarily on
newspaper reports, however, Richard Albares has suggested that the
Minutemen appeal to the same elements as the KKK outside the South.28
Although DePugh and the Minutemen ideology officially eschew racial and
religious prejudice, reports confirm that many of the members are indeed
antisemites and racists. As Albares writes:

A non-random, one percent sample of membership suggests that the Model Minuteman is a
male of Western European descent and of Christian faith who is married and in his late thirties or
early forties. Roughly half the membership is composed of blue-collar workers, and over a quarter
are semi- or unskilled laborers. Professionals and salaried white-collar employees are rare, and
proprietors are by far the largest whitecollar group. Among the proprietors, owners of gun shops
seem to be much over-represented.
These findings suggest that the average socio-economic status of the Minutemen is
somewhat lower than that of supporters of.. .the John Birch Society, and the Christian Anti-
Communist Crusade.. . . Indeed, my estimate of the membership of the Minutemen is quite
similar to (the)profile of Klan membership. . . . To overstate the case, it is 88 though the Klan were
the Minutemen of the Fundamentalist South, and the Minutemen the Klan of the Puritan North.

An interview with DePugh for Playboy magazine gives us another look at

the Minutemen membership:

“A key factor in the U.S. is that in the crunch we could count on support from sizeable
segments of the Armed Forces and police; in fact, if you break down Minutemen membership into
employment categories, you’ll find more cops than any other single group.”29

Although we cannot draw any definite conclusions about the social

base of the Minutemen from the available data, they nevertheless suggest a
membership with characteristics associated in the literature with right-
wing extremist and status politics crusades. Indeed, a membership
composed primarily of small proprietors, military, police, and blue-collar
workers could well be expected to lean towards groups espousing political
and social fundamentalism, nativism, preservatist feelings, and to a
smaller extent, status frustrations. Proprietors, for example, as Trow30 has
noted, often tend to be characterized by a petty-bourgeoisiementality that is
compatible with right-wing ideologies. A more recent study of Bechhofer et
734 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE

a1.31 concurs and finds that small businessmen and shopkeepers are
characterized by deeply held beliefs regarding independence,economic
traditionalism, fear of “control” and “intervention” from rational-legal
organizations in society, and fear of change in general. Thus, it is easy to see
that the ideology of the Minutemen is indeed quite compatible with the
traditional values of the petty bourgeoisie that stress individualism,
autonomy, and a rejection of the increasing bureaucratic control of the
economic and social order.
Likewise, it seems logical to assume that the occupational values of the
military and police would also be inclined towards such a group as the
Minutemen. DePugh and his followers place a high priority on protecting
the right to keep and bear arms, and consequently, have been able to attract
a sizeable amount of gun buffs and those fascinated with weapons in
general. Indeed, the Minutemen’s preoccupation with the threat of direct,
violent action has offered a new outlet to such American elements as the
Anti-Castro forces, the remnants of the Hungarian Freedom Fighters, and
frustrated U.S.servicemen. The marginality of such paramilitary groups in
our society suggests that they might be predisposed towards any
organization offering them the chance to utilize their skills in armed
defense.
Although most right-wing movements have typically drawn
substantial support from the blue-collar, working class population, their
representation in the Minutemen does not suggest their presence be
identified as a n explanatory variable in that it does not exceed their
representation in the larger American population. Rather, we believe that
the Minutemen are most likely to attract those particular segments of the
working class who adhere to the petty bourgeoisie values outlined
previously. Although we lack conclusive data to support our contention,
there does not seem to be significant working class support of the
Minutemen. . .among those in unionized or new white collar occupations.
This again suggests that the Minutemen. . .appeal primarily to the “rugged
individualist” who values autonomy outside of the external demands of
large-scale organizations, rather than the “organization man” mentality
dependent on collective mobility, big government, and bureaucratic
advancement. Thus, the underrepresentation of bureaucratic, white collar,
and union employees within the Minutemen ranks seems to support our
conception of status politics crusades that find their membership among
those most committed to defending a traditional, autonomous way of life.
Clearly, those who support the preservatist themes of the Minutemen are
those individuals and groups most threatened by the expansion of liberal
and collectivist values.
As a final point in considering the social base of the Minutemen, it is, of
course, important to note that the organization, despite its different focus,
has a considerable number of members drawn from other right-wing
factions. Emerging as the charismatic leader of the paramilitary right,
DePugh has found his organization filled with the ranks of the American
Nazi Party, the KKK, the National State Rights Party, the Soldiers of the
 THE MINUTEMEN 735

Cross, and, of course, the more respectable conservatives of the John Birch
Society. All of these groups, despite their ideological differences, strongly
supported the candidacy of George Wallace, an individual who based his
appeal on the defense of fundamentalist and preservatist politics, and who
saw the decline of traditional values in America as a result of liberal
cultural elements intensifying with the passing of time. In short, the
Minutemen find their support from those factions of the right who are
concerned with defensive politics, whether the life style threat is perceived
as “communist” or otherwise. Those who identify with the Minutemen are
essentially those groups in society who feel the most threatened by change
and modernism.

THE IDEOLOGY OF THE MINUTEMEN

While a n examination of the social base helps us understand the
Minutemen as a status group involved in defending a particular way of life,
an analysis of their ideology significantly improves the validity of this
conception. The Minutemen’s call to arms against internal liberalism,
rather the foreign external invasion, indicates, we believe, a definite
attempt to publicly reaffirm the dominance of traditional values and styles
of life. Although their attacks are directed at perceived communist centers
of activity, these targets are essentially symbolic of more funadamental
concerns.
Whatever form the Minutemen’s defense of America has taken, DePugh
has justified the existence of the organization by quoting a statement made
by President Kennedy in 1961:

Today we need a nation of Minutemen-citizens who are not only prepared to take up arms
but citizens who regard the preservation of freedom as a basic purpose of their daily life and who
are willing consciously to work and sacrifice for their freedom.

Indeed, this statement, as used by the Minutemen, reflects a defensive

posture that must be taken by citizens if they are to preserve the values
underlying their daily life. As such, the Minutemen base their call to arms
on a symbolic past dedicated to upholding the traditional sentiments of the
American nation. In passing, an interesting irony might be noted here by
mentioning that the Minutemen have since refused to mourn the death of
Kennedy and have printed that “We will not soon forget that he ignored the
best interests of his country from the day he took office to the day he died.”32
Further evidence of the Minutemen’s concern over the declining ability
of America to save herself from communist domination is reflected in the
Minutemen manifesto drawn up at the organization’s inception. In this
booklet, DePugh and his followers came to the following conclusions:

1 . Our diplomatic war against communism has already been lost by bunglers or traitors
within our own government.. .
2 . This diplomatic war has been and continuesto be lost by appointed governmentalofficials
beyond the reach of public opinion.
3 . We cannot win a diplomatic war against communism abroad until we first establish a
 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE
genuinely preAmerican government here at home.
4. A pro-American government could no longer be established by normal political means.
5. The minority blocs, controlled labor unions and corrupt political machines so completely
monopolize the American political scene that there is no chance for the American toregain
control of his own destiny at the ballot box. . .
6 . . . .any further effort, time or money spent in trying to save our country by political means
would be wasted.. .
7. . . .the leaders of most other conservative organizations privately agree that it is
politically impossible to elect a conservative government. . .
8. . ..We concluded that the American people are moving inexorably toward a time of total
control and frustration such as must have been felt by the people of Budapest and East
Germany when they finally staged their suicidal revolta.
Therefore, the objectives of the Minutemen are to abandon wasteful, useless efforts and begin
immediately to prepare for the day when Americans will once again fight in the streeta for their
lives and their liberty. We feel there is overwhelming evidence to prove that this day must come.

While these sentiments of pessimism are situated in a political context, they

are clearly statements of concern about the destruction of a way of life-that
is, the “American way of life.” External control, powerlessness, and lack of
autonomy are obvious themes here. As the Minutemen define the situation,
the traditional American is no longer in control of his own destiny and
reality, and must, therefore, act within any means available to reaffirm this
control over one’s life chances. Subsequently, the Minutemen have taken it
upon themselves to train the leaders who must lead the counterrevolution
against this perceived internal threat.
The Minutemen’s ideology further parallels our conception of the status
politics model by its insistence that the United States government should
return to the fundamental values on which it was created. Consistent with
most rightist groups, the Minutemen’s vision of a perfect America involves
a “return to limited government” that acts as a paid-for service, rather th a n
a deficit bureaucracy. Taxation, therefore, is seen as one of the major
weapons of the collectivist arsenal. As DePugh himself notes, “As
government takes money from the people it increases control over them,
then again as this money is redistributed the control is extended even
further.”33 Moreover, the Minutemen feel that the current blurring of lines
between state and federal governments is destroying traditional checks and
balances. They demand that the U.S. withdraw from the United Nations so
as to stop the further blurring of lines between U.S. rule and international
government. “Among nations, loss of national freedom is directly
proportional to the extent of international commitments and the
progressive trend toward one-world g ~ v e r n m e n t . ”In~ ~fact, some factions
of the Minutemen who consider DePugh too moderate hatched a plot in 1965
to wipe out all the occupants of the U.N. building in one swoop by injecting
cyanide gas into the air-conditioning system. Concerned over the possible
repercussions, DePugh decided to foil the plan, much to the dismay of his
more fanatic followers. Said one Minuteman about the U.N.: “That place is
a symbol of everything they hate. They’re bound to take a crack at it some
day.”35
The central theme of the Minutemen ideology, as we have noted earlier,
is one that equates the forces of collectivism as the real power behind the
 THE MINUTEMEN 737
communist’s determination to destroy the American way of life. In
DePugh’s Blueprint for Victory, the most comprehensive statement of the
Minutemen ideology to date, he attacks the increasing bureaucratic
centralization as the ultimate threat to freedom. Thus, DePugh brands as
traitors to the American people all who advocate the expansion of any
government function, be they state, federal, or international. Two central
paragraphs here clearly relay the group’s fears:

The basic proposition of modem socialist doctrine is the belief that a n all-powerful
government bureaucracy can direct the lives of the people in every respect better than the people
can direct themselves.. . Only when we recognize the essential identity between modem
socialism and modem communism can we fully realize the threat to our freedom which is
inherent in the continued rapid growth of a n all-powerful oentral government.
Communists, like chameleons, are able to change their color to blend with the environment.
As the American people begin to realize the true dangers of socialism the ‘communists’ merely
move on to new names and new tactics. No matter what the name by which this collective
ideology is known: commun-ism. social-ism, liberal-ism, progressiveism, or welfare-ism, it still
adds up to the same thing, it is the antithesis of individualism. it is the enemy of freedom.

DePugh’s analysis, therefore, centers around the presence of a Washington

power elite composed of various groups, each with the common goal of
centralizing power and enslaving the broad mass of the American people.
In preparing to fight the socialist-bureaucratic elite, then, the Minutemen
propose a defensive “resistance warfare” in which American “patriots”
must be remorseless in their fight for freedom. Such struggles, real or
otherwise, are the essence of status politics.
Perhaps what terrifies the Minutemen most of all is that the
constitutional right to bear arms has been tampered with by internal
communist sympathizers in the federal government. As a rule, the
organization has urged people to form gun clubs and affiliate themselves
with the NRA, thereby qualifying for free government ammunition. More
recently, however, the Minutemen’s gun-control paranoia has become
transferred into a new organization, the “National Alliance to Keep and
Bear Arms.” As treasurer for this Minutemen-aligned group, DePugh has
warned members that the NRA might possibly become a “sick”
organization infiltrated by “anti-gun environmentalists and one-world
advocates.” To stem this trend, he urges a “no compromise” platform to
force the NRA to take a stronger stand against gun registration.36
Moreover, the Minutemen newsletter has urged loyal Americans, before
left-wing legislators pass anti-gun laws, to buy up guns and ammunition for
their defense. It has listed suitable weapons for purchase, including semi-
automatic .22 rifles for children.
Indeed, the overriding theme of the Minutemen’s literature is the urgent
need for Americans to restore their individual freedoms by fighting the
forces of collectivism that threaten these cherished rights. This concern for
personal autonomy is not only a traditional value orientation of the
occupational classes found in the Minutemen, but is a fundamental
ideological component of the “American way of life” itself. The Minutemen
see the increasing bureacratization of American life and government as a
738 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE

social fact that erodes the power and autonomy of the individual, as well as
the foundation of American democracy. Their firm belief that the average
American no longer controls his or her own life or destiny enables them to
easily rationalize the righteousness of the paramilitary right and its
crusade to reaffirm cultural freedoms.
It is for these very reasons that we choose to interpret the actions of the
Minutemen as constituting a concrete concern over everyday life-style
control, rather than some more abstract feeling of status-loss or prestige
erosion. We have particularly noted that economic and prestige concerns-
even economic individualism-play a relatively minor role in the
paramilitary right ideology. Moreover, there appear to be few complaints
about loss of status or respect among Minutemen members, suggesting
again that the traditional status politics framework outlined by Lipset and
Hofstadter has little usefulness for understanding such zealous right-
wingers. Rather, we believe that the Minutemen can be better
conceptualized as representing not only the “politics of life-style,” but the
“politics of autonomy” as well.
As we have suggested in an earlier part of this paper, the shift in
Minutemen thinking from concern over external communist attack to
internal liberal subversion indicates, we believe, that their crusade against
communism is really symbolic of their fight against cultural modernism
and an experienced general loss of autonomy, and it should be self-evident
a t this point that the perceived existence of such an extreme internal threat
is crucial to the ideology of the Minutemen, for if they conceded that
communism was largely a n external threat, then they would have to
support an expanded federal bureacracy and military budget, as well as
confront the fact that American forces alone might not stop a communist
onslaught. Although the nature of these. . .anxieties, as they relate to
political movements, have typically been.. .related to power and status
deprivations,37 students of the political process have usually attributed
such compulsive preoccupation with a presumed internal threat to
psychological mechanisms which create “fear-justifying” threats in order
to explain given situations. In other words, the Minuteman, fearing a
communist takeover, “needs to find some story or explanation to explain,
or justify, that fear.”38 As they perceive themselves as having experienced a
loss of life style control and autonomy, they need a n external scapegoat to
explain that loss. Since they cannot readily point to the presence of “real”
communists in the environment, their attacks have been directed towards
those individuals and institutions, such a8 the United Nations, that
represent those forces in conflict with fundamental American values and
life-styles.
The Minutemen are, like the Conporns in Zurcher’s study,39those “good
citizens” who must save the country’s basic values from the conspiratorial
efforts of communists and liberals. Like most groups engaged in
preservatist extremism, the Minutemen’s feelings of power and status have
had a greater symbolic investment in past life styles than those of the
present, and consequently, has found in convenient to utilize conspiracy
 THE MINUTEMEN 739

theory and nativist bigotry in an attempt to stem the direction of change

which seems related to the life style threat. Linton40sums up this analysis
when he writes:

Rational nativist movements are almost without exception associated with frustrating
situations and are primarily attempts to compensate for the frustrations of the society’s
members. The elements revived become symbols of the period when a society was free or in
retrospect happy or great. . . .By keeping the past in mind, such elements help to reestablish and
maintain the self-respect of the group’s members in the face of adverse conditions.

We find, then, that organizations like the Minutemen are those groups
who share the fundamentalist vision of America’s past and its fears of the
new ideas of the future. To this extent, it is assured that their struggle to
maintain a valued way of life, disrupted by the ever-widening stream of
change, will be a long and frustrating plight to little avail.

Notes
’For a n excellent discussion of the American political climate preceding the rise of the radical
right, see Daniel Bell, “The Dispossessed,” in Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right, 2nd ed., New
York: Doubleday, 1963.
2See Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Sources of the ‘Radical Right,” in Daniel Bell, ed., The
Radical Right. New York Criterion, 1955.p. 260.
3Joseph R. Gusfield, Symbolic Crusade: StatLls Politics and the American Temperance
Movement. Urbana: Univ. of Ill. Press. Although “status politics” as used in this paper is
somewhat more general and expanded than Gusfield’s treatment of the term, my orientation to
the concept borrows heavily from his formulation and conclusions.
“bid., p. 140.
5Max Weber, “Class, Status, Party,” in H.H. Gerth and C.W. Mills, eds. and trans., From Max
Weber:Essays in Sociology, New York: Oxford Univ. Press, 1946;and Max Weber, The Theoryof
Social and Economic Organization,A.M. Henderson and T. Parsons, trans. T. Parsons, ed., New
York: The Free Press, 1947.
6Weber, 1947,p. 937.
7Seymour Martin Lipset, “The Sources of the ‘RadicalRight,”’ and Richard Hofstadter. “The
Pseudo-ConservativeRevolt.” in Daniel Bell, ed., The Radical Right, New York: Criterion, 1955.
Both articles are also reprinted and updated in Bell’s 1963 revised edition.
8For a n overview of the literature not so far cited that deals with the concept of status politics,
see Richard Hofstadter, The Age oflieform,New York: Knopf, 1955;S.J. Mennell, “Prohibition: A
Sociological View,” American Studies, Vol. 3,1973,pp. 159-175;Daniel Bell, ThEndofIdeology,
New York: The Free Press, 1960;Seymour Martin Lipset and Earl Raab, The Politics of Unreason:
Right Wing Extremism in America, 1790-1970. New York: Harper & Row, 1970;James McEvoy
111, Radicals or Conservatives? The Contemporary American Right, Chicago: Rand McNally,
1971;Louis A. Zurcher, Jr., et. al., “The Anti-Pornography Campaign: A Symbolic Crusade,”
Social Problems, Vol. 19,1971,pp. 217-238;David L. Westby and Richard C. Braungart, “The
Alienation of Generations and Status Politics: Alternative Explanations of Student Political
Activism” in Roberta A. Sigel, ed.,learningAbout Politics, New York Random House, 1970;and
Richard C. Braungart, “Status Politics and Student Politics: a n Analysis of Left and Right-wing
Student Activists,” Youth and Society, vol. 3,1971,pp. 195-209.
gAnn L. Page and Donald A. Clelland, “The Kanawha County Textbook Controversy: A
Study of the Politics of Life Style Concern,” Social Forces (forthcoming).
losee, for example, Gregory P. Stone and William H. Form,“Instabilities in Status: The
Problem of Hierarchy in the Community Study of Status Arrangements,” in G.W. Thielbar and
S.D. Feldman, eds., Issues in Social Inequality, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1972.
 740 JOURNAL OF AMERICAN CULTURE
“Gary B. Rush, “Toward a Definition of the Extreme Right,” Pacific Sociological Review,
Val. 6, 1963, p. 69.
’‘For a cogent discussion of conceptualizing status politics as “life-style” politics, see Donald
A. Clelland, “On the Theory of Status Politics: A Critique and a n Extension.” Paper presented a t
the annual meetings of the Society for the Study of Social Problems, 1976; and Donald A. Clelland
and Leverett Lynn Guess, “The Politics of Life Style Concern: a Review of the Literature on
Status Politics.” Paper presented a t the Southern Sociological Society meetings, 1975.
I U e l l a n d and Guess, 1975, p. 5.
14Gusfield, 1963, p. 140.
ISHofstadter, 1955, p. 69.
IbWilliam W. Turner, “The Minutemen,” Ramparts, Vol. 5, 1967, p. 70.
I’Peter W. Salsich, J r . “The Armed Superpatriots,” Nation, Vol. 193, 1961, p. 372.
)“bid., p. 374.
IgIn Blueprint /or Victory, DePugh’s own monograph that serves as the Minutemen
manifesto, he lists a number of well-known personalities supposedly belonging to “communist
front organizations.” More recently, the Anti-Defamation League’s December 1975 Group
Research Report bears evidence that many American personalities are marked for death by
Minutemen operatives, should the “need’ arise.
“”Newsweek, Vol. 68, Nov. 1966, p. 31.
”Eric Norden, “The Paramilitary Right,” Playboy, Vol. 16, p. 104.See this piece for a n in-
depth look a t the Minutemen, a s well a s a revealing interview with DePugh himself.
lNorden, 1969, p. 146.
‘?William W. Turner, Power on the Right, Berkeley: Ramparts Press, 1971, p. 73.
24Narda Zacchino, “Buried Arms and Rightest Visions in the Desert,” New York Post, Dec.,
28, 1976, p. 10.
”See Lipset and Raab, 1970, p. 288.
ZfiForone of the few books devoted entirely to the Minutemen, see Harry J . Jones, Jr., The
Minutemen, New York: Doubleday, 1968.
”For another in-depth look a t the Minutemen, see Richard P. Albares, “Nativist
Paramilitarism in the United States: The Minutemen Organization,” Chicago Center for Social
Organizational Studies, University of Chicago, 1968, p. 25.
‘“bid., 1968, pp. 25-30.
”Norden, 1969, p. 254.
”’Martin Trow, “Small Businessmen, Political Tolerance and Support for McCarthy,” in
Lewis A. Coser, ed., Political Sociology, New York: Harper & Row, 1966. jp. 203.
“Frank Bechoffer, et. al., “The Petite Bourgeois in the Class Structure: the case of the Small
Shopkeepers,” in Frank Parkin, ed., The Social Analysis of Class Structure, London: Tavistock
Publishers, Ltd. 1974, p. 114.
.”Turner, 1967, p. 75.
.+’’RobertDePugh, Blueprint /or Victory, 1966, p. 44.
““bid., p. 15.
.’sTurner, 1971, p. 72.
”Reported in Armed Citizens News, March 27, 1976, pp. 1-3.
”1,ipset and Raab, 1970, p. 23.
I”Bel1, 1963, p. 12.
,J!’Zurcher, et. al., 1971, p. 433.
*“Ralph Linton, “Nativist Movements,” in R.H. Turner and L.M. Killian, eds., Collective
Behavior, Englewood Cliffs: Prentice-Hall, 1957, p. 390.

This paper is a revised version of one presented at the North Central Sociological Association
meetings, May 18-20, 1978, Cincinnati, Ohio. I would like to express my gratitude to Professor
Donald A. Clelland for his comments and suggestions on a n earlier draft of this paper.

Anthony E. Ladd is a doctoral student in the Department of Sociology at the University of

Tennessee. Knoxville.
 74 1

Anniversary Of Lindbergh’s Flight

It came as second shock-
reminding me: Lindbergh is dead.
I had forgot.
I thought he was alive
as big as life
as Joe DiMaggio.

Valentino-yes;
Will Rogers, maybe;
Colin Kelly,
even Ike himself.
But we never thought Lindbergh could die
and, since he could,
can we hold how the world was easy then
and somewhat kinder-surely
that was real?

Weren’t there handsome roses,

And weren’t we loved and loving?
Oh, isn’t the newsboy shouting still,
“Get your Extra paper-
Lindy Did it.”

Virginia Downs

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