APut 07/20 1554 Butler COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- The Rev. Richard G. Butler, head of th

APut 07/20 1554 Butler


   COEUR D'ALENE, Idaho (AP) -- The Rev.  Richard G. Butler, head
of  the Church of Jesus Christ Christian (Aryan Nations), says he
does not know who might  succeed  him  as  leader  of  the  white
supremacist church based at nearby Hayden Lake.

   In  an  interview published Sunday by the Coeur d'Alene Press,
Butler, 69, also said he has completely recovered from  quadruple
bypass heart surgery.

   Butler  was  among 15 white supremacists indicted by a federal
grand jury in Fort Smith, Ark., on sedition charges in April.

   On May 1 he underwent  emergency  heart  surgery  in  Spokane,
Wash.,  and  in a court appearance 18 days later he appeared pale
and weak.

   In the newspaper interview, however,  he  seemed  healthy  and
said  he  had  made a complete recovery and resumed all his usual
Aryan Nations work.

   As in the past, he dismissed the indictments as  a  "vendetta"
by   the   government   "to  shut  up  certain  segments  of  the
population."

   Government lawyers lack the evidence to  sustain  convictions,
and  the  case  will  wind up strengthening the white supremacist
movement, Butler said.

   He added that no one had emerged as a potential successor  for
the day he retires as Aryan Nations pastor.

   He  said  his  beliefs  dated  back  to his early childhood in
Bennett, Colo., adding that he had always  suspected  his  father
was a member of the Ku Klux Klan.

   "He was  a white separatist.  He felt you didn't live with the
other races," Butler said.

   Butler  said  he  didn't  oppose  the  existence   of   racial
minorities but feared for the future of the white gene pool.

   "I don't  hate rattlesnakes.  I just don't want my bed full of
rattlesnakes," he said. "They have their place and I have mine."

   
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