The Nation : Protection for Polygamists

Federal agents, highway patrolmen and sheriff’s deputies guarded two tiny polygamist settlements on the Arizona-Utah border from a threatened attack by machine-gun-wielding religious zealots. Roadblocks and air searches began after a letter warned of “blood atonement” against the communities of Hilldale, Utah, and Colorado City, Ariz., which practice plural marriage, a tenet rejected by the Mormon Church at the turn of the century. Authorities said the letter, written by Leo Evoniuk, threatened violence against 2,000 followers of a rival polygamist leader, LeRoy Johnson, 98.