A pipe bomb exploded at the Coeur d'Alene home of the Rev. Bill Wassmuth just before midnight on September 27, 1986. No one was hurt but the blast shook the neighborhood and sent pieces of shrapnel and a garbage can into the air/SR photo.

Memory Lane
During the taping of the show, Morlin and I playfully jabbed each other about which side was more dangerous to report on. Bill’s subjects were thugs with guns, bombs and evil intentions. And he covered them superbly. But there were times when things got touchy on my side, too. I missed the second biggest civic crime that supremacists committed in our midst, the 1986 bombing of Coeur d’Alene. I was vacationing in Kalispell when my sister informed me that “they’re blowing up your town.” But I didn’t miss the bombing of Wassmuth’s parish house shortly afterward. I still remember the look on Bill’s face when I arrived early in the morning to report on the bomb that had been planted in a trashcan by his back steps: shock, fear, dog-tiredness. The blast had ripped up the back of his home, knocked out windows and sent shrapnel into the ceiling of the kitchen and through a garage roof across the street. But for the grace of God …

Scary Times At Noxon High
Then, there was the time I traveled with Bill, Tony, Marshall Mend and African-American Walt Washington to Noxon, Mont., to cover the task force’s attempt to introduce human-rights concepts to western Sanders County, an area being overrun by racists activity at the time. I knew we were no longer in Idaho, Toto, when Montana cops in bullet-proof vests met us at the state line and escorted us to the high school gym. About 400 residents packed the gym, including some 40 racists in various Nazi regalia at the back. When the speeches began, Tony, smiling weakly, mentioned to Mend that the white shirt he was wearing made him a prime target for anyone looking for one. I was glad I was in the audience and could pretend I was still a northwest Montana resident if things got ugly. We survived. The cops escorted us back to the Idaho border afterward. Only later did we truly realize the danger we’d been in.

The Big Apple
Easily, the dumbest thing Butler’s disciples did was to bomb Coeur d’Alene and Wassmuth’s home. That rallied a community that had been debating whether it was best to confront the Aryan Nations menace or ignore it. The task force was struggling to make inroads into the business community and most local politicians had their finger in the wind. Responding to a question at the time, Broadbent told a secret business gathering what would happen if the task force wasn’t around. Instead of 60 Aryans, he said, you’d be dealing with 600. The bombings shattered the apathy, led to an outpouring of community support for Wassmuth, and attracted the attention of the Raoul Wallenberg Committee, which bestowed its first – and maybe only – civic award on Coeur d’Alene, for its battle for human rights. At the City Hall, only feet from where Abraham Lincoln had rested in state, with the world’s media looking on, I heard Coeur d’Alene held up as a model for a racially divided New York by civil rights giant Bayard Rustin and future mayor David Dinkins. And then listened, with Bill and Larry, as Coeur d’Alene mayor Ray Stone gave the speech of his life as he told of seeing the evil of racism as a young man helping liberate a Nazi concentration camp.

Huckleberries
I didn’t intend to dedicate this column to my 21 years of covering the task force. But there are so many memories … Of the shock that occurred at a task force press conference during the Ruby Ridge siege when we learned Sam Weaver had been killed, too … Of Butler droning on about race traitors during an interview while he was running for Hayden mayor and of one of his followers calling me “rabbi” … Of visiting the deserted compound with Tony after Butler had been sued into bankruptcy and seeing the burnt logs that’d been used for crosses … Of retracing the desperate escape route of Virginia and Jason Keenan along Rimrock Road as they tried to escape Butler’s bullies in hot pursuit … Of Bill and Larry, now gone.

Parting Shot
I covered the ribbon-tiers, the lemons-to-lemonade makers, the turn-the-other-cheekers, the tortoises who plodded along, consistent in message and purpose, never realizing that I was watching Inland Northwest history unfolding.

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