APut 07/14 1242 Beam-Most Wanted HOUSTON (AP) -- A former local Ku Klux Klan leader wanted

APut 07/14 1242 Beam-Most Wanted


   HOUSTON  (AP)  -- A former local Ku Klux Klan leader wanted on
charges of plotting a violent overthrow of  the  U.S.  government
was  placed today on the FBI's "Ten Most Wanted" wanted list, the
FBI said.

   Louis Ray Beam Jr. "had access to large supplies of ammunition
and  weapons  and  should  be  considered  armed  and   extremely
dangerous,"  said  Johnie  Joyce,  spokesman  for  the  agency in
Houston.

   "Certainly, there is a good chance  he  is  in  Houston  since
Houston  is his home, but we really don't know where he is," said
Joyce. "There are lots of people who agree with his philosophy in
this area; of course, he can find them anywhere in the country."

   The FBI said Beam is the only one  of  15  white  supremacists
indicted April  21 in Fort Smith, Ark., still at large.  Beam was
placed on the FBI's list to replace Robert Alan  Litchfield,  37,
who was arrested May 20 in Nevada.  He was serving a sentence for
bank robbery and had escaped prison.

   Beam  left  the  Klan  in  the  early  1980s and allegedly had
contacts with The Order, an extremist group in the Northwest that
authorities say sought to overthrow the U.S.  government  through
violence and replace it with an "Aryan Nation" of white warriors.

   Testimony  during  a  1985 Seattle racketeering trial of Order
members indicated  Beam,  who  was  not  charged  in  that  case,
received  money  from  armored-car robberies staged by members of
the sect.

   Beam is wanted on charges of seditious conspiracy, plotting to
overthrow the government of the United States.    He  and  others
allegedly  involved  in  the conspiracy have been accused of more
than 100 criminal acts designed to foment revolt,  including  the
attempted assassinations of a federal judge and an FBI agent, the
destruction  of public utilities, pollution of water supplies and
establishing illegal guerrilla training camps.

   Two weeks before he was indicted,  Beam  was  married  by  the
Church  of  Yaweh in rural Pennsylvania, according to federal law
enforcement officials.  Authorities said Beam  may  be  traveling
with  his  wife,  Sheila  Marie  Beam, also known as Sheila Marie
Toohey, 20.  She is not wanted by authorities.

   Beam may also be accompanied by his 7-year-old daughter from a
previous marriage, Sarah Hadassah Beam.

   Beam was born in Lufkin in 1946  and  has  friends  in  Texas,
particularly in the Houston area, the FBI says.  He was last seen
publicly in the Houston area in December 1985 as he came out of a
public library.

   Beam  had  been  grand  dragon  of the United Klans of America
until he was banished in  the  1970s  for  allegedly  mishandling
funds, and formed his own Klan group.

   Beam  left  the local Klan and Houston for Dallas in the early
1980s when a federal court here enjoined  him  and  his  Klansmen
from intimidating Vietnamese fishermen in Galveston Bay.

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