‘No Support’ From Wyoming City : Glendale Group of White Supremacists May Move

A Glendale-based white supremacist group announced plans this week to move to Casper, Wyo., to support leader Daniel Johnson, who is running for Congress.

But the move depends on how receptive Casper city officials are to the idea. Johnson has indicated that the League of Pace Amendment Advocates will not relocate if the Casper City Council approves a resolution next week condemning the organization.

Johnson is running as an independent candidate for a House seat vacated when Rep. Dick Cheney was appointed secretary of defense. Johnson, who filed to run shortly after moving to Casper last month, has conceded that his chances for victory are extremely slim.

The organization calls for deporting all people who are not white Christians and transforming the United States into a homeland for whites. Johnson proposed the so-called Pace amendment in a book written under the pen name William Pace.

No Welcome Mat

Casper officials said their city is not about to extend a welcome mat. “They have not received any support here,” Assistant City Manager Max Trobert said Thursday. “And opposition to them has rallied around the issue of minority rights. I have to be cautious not to violate Mr. Johnson’s civil rights, but I can say that he has no support here.”

Republican state Sen. Tom Strook, a vocal opponent of the league’s relocation, said, “There’s been plenty of evidence that Johnson’s kind of thinking has no echo in a city like Casper with its tradition of independence and tolerance.”

Last week, the Casper school board adopted a resolution condemning the league, Strook said. A citywide rally has been organized April 22 to repudiate Johnson’s group, Trobert said, and the City Council will meet next week to consider condemning the organization.

If such a resolution is adopted, Johnson wrote in a letter to the council, his group will stay away from Casper.

“The league will abide by any resolution the city passes,” he wrote. He said the group is “frustrated that city after city has asked us to leave before we locate there. We ask the city of Casper not to prejudge us. . . .”

The league moved to Glendale from Sunland in 1987. Last year, the group proposed moving to Helena, Mont., but met strong opposition there and decided to stay in California.

‘Up in the Air’

As opposition to Johnson’s group mounts in Casper, Johnson’s followers are wrestling with uncertainty. “There’s a lot of confusion,” George King said as he packed literature at the Glendale office. “Everything’s up in the air.”

King said he was in no rush to leave. After all, he said, not too many cities have been as tolerant of the group’s views as Glendale.

King said the league has operated in Glendale with four staff members and has confined its activities to monthly “educational question-and-answer periods” and distribution of leaflets. The group announced in February that it would sponsor concerts to attract Nazi skinheads that it hoped to recruit, but no concerts have been held.

Glendale city officials said they would be elated to see the group go. “They’re absolutely despicable people and I’m glad they left,” said Councilwoman Ginger Bremberg.

Councilman Larry Zarian said the group realized that it “had no room, no buyers, no listeners in the city of Glendale.” He said the Glendale City Council never passed a resolution condemning the league because “I think we got our message across without a resolution. Sometimes you don’t need to go that far.”