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After his 1992 populist presidential bid, James (Bo) Gritz says, he had a vision: "I observed a pouring out of virtuous people from the metropolitan centers into the hinterlands. I beheld covenant communities standing separate from a tyrannical government . . . It was Armageddon. Millions of massed soldiers -- both men and women -- were slaughtered, but the homeland was spared." The ex-Green Beret's dream of a homeland is now taking shape in a remote stretch of central Idaho overlooking the Clearwater River. He calls it "Almost Heaven" -- a 200-acre real-estate development 10 miles from Kamiah, the nearest town. Eventually it will be home to 30 like-minded families who, Gritz says, intend to live off the land and are prepared to fight the federal government, if necessary, for "our families, homes, [and] Constitution."
Armageddon is proving to be a powerful marketing tool. Almost Heaven's 30 lots are sold out at $3,000 an acre; so are 14 lots on another 400-acre spot less beatifically named Shenandoah. Gritz's warnings about the "predator" federal government have held special sway ever since the assault on the Branch Davidians in Waco, Texas (an action he calls a "federal-ly induced holocaust"), and the standoff between Idaho white separatist Randy Weaver and U.S. agents in 1992. The government doesn't knock anymore, insists Gritz, who talked Weaver into surrendering: "It's more like the Gestapo in Germany and the KGB in Russia than the U.S.A."
Gritz, 55, says he chose Idaho because he liked what he saw while visiting 49 states during his presidential bid. He was looking for a spot with mild winters and good growing soil that was far from nuclear power plants, toxic chemicals and Los Angeles-style social unrest. He says his communities will draw urban refugees, people who refuse to send their kids into the "cesspool of public education," and "gun nuts" like himself. (In his newsletter he exhorts: "Arm yourself now while you still can!") Tax protesters will also find company. Gritz doesn't file a return because he's "broken his contract" with the government and has no intention of collecting Medicare or social security.
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That motley mix of defiant philosophies worries some Idahoans, including some members of the Nez Perce tribe. Mary Tall Bull notes that "all kinds of weird people" are attracted to remote areas and fears Gritz may bring more of them. Others worry about more people of any kind in the area where timber, agriculture and pktourismpk make up the strained economy: "This is not exactly the job capital of the world," says Rosemarie Thibault, the manager at the Clearwater 12 Motel in Kamiah.
Some human-rights organizations are also alarmed. The Portland-based Coalition for Human Dignity charges Gritz is intent on forming "armed enclaves of white supremacists." Last year he did start a series of paramilitary preparedness seminars called SPIKE (Specially Prepared Individuals for Key Events). But he insists he's no bigot -- his first wife was Chinese, and he has two Amerasian children and a black godchild. The seminar training is only partly weap-ons-related. The rest is hippie-style survival skills that include home-birthing techniques and how to make buckskin clothes.
Most Idahoans think Gritz has a right to believe what he wants and settle where he wants. "People who are attracted to the Western United States are into a kind of freelance thinking," says Madison County Sheriff Greg Moffat, who nevertheless thinks Gritz's group should be monitored. Other neighbors wonder if Gritz isn't simply exercising his freedom to make money. They can't help but recall the 1983 film "The Survivors," in which Robin Williams joins a right-wing doomsday-monger who turns out to be a real-estate scam artist. Gritz says he's a zealot, not a mogul: "I have never done anything for money, only for a cause." Idahoans only hope that his dream about Armageddon stays just that -- and that Almost Heaven doesn't turn into Almost Hell.
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