leaders of an ultrarightist conspiratorial group, the "Minutemen," were sentenced in Kansas City, Missouri, January 17, to relatively light prison terms. They had been convicted last November 14 of conspiracy to violate the firearms act after a cache of machine guns was seized in a rural area of the state.
The head of the fascist-minded organization, 43-year-old Robert Bolivar DePugh, was sentenced to four years in prison to be followed by five years probation. Troy Houghton, 33, of San Diego, the West Coast coordinator, was sentenced to three years in prison; and Walter P. Peyson, 24, to two years in jail and three on probation.
In New York on December 14, sixteen members of the group were indicted on charges of plotting to burn and blow up three camps of pacifist or leftist organizations. They were arrested the same day they set out to carry out their plot. In raids October 30 the authorities confiscated more than a ton of machine guns, rifles, mortars, grenade launchers that had been accumulated by the group.
Before the arrests, the organization was regarded as one of those capable of having organized the series of bombings and arson attacks on the headquarters of the Communist and Socialist Workers parties, the DuBois Clubs and the Vietnam Day Committee.
No evidence as to the organization's guilt in this has as yet been brought out. It is noticeable, however, that after these would-be storm troopers were taken into custody, the attacks ceased.