Minutemen (1960s group)
The Minutemen were a right-wing paramilitary organization formed in the 1960s, primarily by Robert Bolivar DePugh. DePugh, inspired by a mix of personal ideologies and various right-wing literature, envisioned the group as a response to an anticipated communist takeover in the United States. The organization operated with a strict policy of secrecy, utilizing small squads to avoid infiltration by authorities, although many members were already known due to their ties to other radical groups.
Despite its militaristic rhetoric, the Minutemen distinguished themselves from other extremist factions by not primarily focusing on racism or anti-Semitism, instead promoting an anti-communist agenda. The group's activities included attempts at violent actions, such as bombings and assassination plots, but these efforts were largely thwarted by law enforcement. Membership remained low, peaking at around two thousand, and the organization struggled with internal issues, including factionalism and financial mismanagement.
By the 1970s, the Minutemen had diminished in influence and were seen as ineffective by both the public and other right-wing groups. DePugh himself faced numerous legal challenges throughout his tenure, and the movement ultimately faded into obscurity.
Minutemen (1960s group)
A right-wing secret paramilitary organization opposing a feared communist takeover in the United States. The Minutemen’s penchant for secrecy about its members and activities brought the group media and law enforcement attention disproportionate to its small size.
Origins and History
Minutemen mythology suggests that Robert Bolivar DePugh, a chemist from Norborne, Missouri, was inspired to form this organization during a 1960 duck hunt when he fantasized about sportsmen forming guerrilla bands in a future United States under communist domination. More likely, DePugh was influenced by the widely available literature of such groups as the John Birch Society, American Nazi Party, and Liberty Lobby. The Minutemen followed a policy of organizational secrecy. Squads of five to twenty-five were to be organized, with no lists of members maintained. State commanders would know only the squad leaders. These precautions were meant to avert infiltration by authorities or “neutralization” in case of the takeover they anticipated. Ironically, most members were already known to authorities from their membership in other radical right-wing organizations, which were heavily infiltrated by law enforcement agencies. The organization differed from other extremist groups in that it did not emphasize racism and anti-Semitism but merely anticommunism and paramilitary exercises. Targeted by media and government for its terrorist potential, the Minutemen suffered from low membership, factionalism, embezzlement by officers, and the repeated prosecution of DePugh on numerous charges. Another weakness was the willingness of members to divulge information to authorities in plea-bargain arrangements.
Activities
Described as “essentially a paper organization,” attracting people through the promise of violence and the lure of military weapons, the Minutemen had fewer than two thousand members at any time. Between 1966 and 1968, Minutemen attempted bombings against targets such as a pacifist community in Voluntown, Connecticut. Members also tried to assassinate Marxist historian and activist Herbert Aptheker in 1967. All of these efforts were intercepted by law enforcement agencies. DePugh published two books that still circulate: Blueprint for Victory (1966) and Can You Survive? (1968). The subject of repeated prosecutions on charges ranging from firearms violations to sexual exploitation of a minor, DePugh once successfully fought a subpoena demanding membership lists by getting legal assistance from the American Civil Liberties Union. As an inmate, he published Behind the Iron Mask (1970), a call for liberal prison reform.
Impact
Erratic, ineffective, the creation of a man discharged from the U.S. Army in 1944 for “psychoneurosis . . . anxiety and depressive features and schizoid personality,” the Minutemen were an embarrassment even to other right-wing extremist groups. A one-time member called the erstwhile guerrilla patriots “the damndest collection of blabbermouths, paranoids, ding-a-lings and f kups.” DePugh craved the attention of the media and law enforcement agencies but accomplished nothing and even lost money on his activities. By 1973, the organization was moribund.
Additional Information
J. Harry Jones, Jr.’s The Minutemen (1968) is a contemporaneous source. A more recent source of information is the Anti-Defamation League of B’nai B’rith’s Extremism of the Right: A Handbook (1983).