Frank Smith. an Air Force veteran and retired tool-and- die maker, claims to lead the Georgia Militia. Days after the April 19 bombing of Oklahoma City's Federal Building, Smith echoed the sentiments of militia leaders across the country by blaming the U.S. Government for the blast. Speaking on the CNN television program "Talkback Live," Smith said the government was wtrying to get the militia movement to come out and fight. We expected them to do something drastic. We didn't expect it to be that drastic."

In March 1995, the Voice of Liberty Patriots, a group led by Rick Tyler of Epworth, held a conference in Atlanta featuring state and county rights advocates -- including Colorado State Senator Charles Duke and California State Senator Don Rogers -- as well as conspiracy theorists. Several in attendance sported "Georgia Militia" T-shirts reading "Don't Tread On Me." Literature offered for sale at the rally included the anti-Semitic Liberty Lobby's Spotlight tabloid.

Tyler also directs a so-called constitutionalist, anti- tax group known as the Georgia Taxpayers Association, and co- hosts "Voice of Liberty," a daily shortwave radio program. Soon after the Oklahoma City bombing, "Voice of Liberty" listeners were told that the disaster was being used by the government as an excuse ~to put across their agenda of establishing a police state.... They are ruthless, they are cunning, they are cutthroat, and furthermore, we are their target."

Another organization, known as Citizens for a Constitutional Georgia. meets weekly at an Atlanta hotel. Materials available for sale at the meetings have included pro-gun literature. but also The Protocols of the Elders of Zion and The Spotlight. The group has sponsored local appearances by well-known militia activists Mark Koernke (see Michigan) and Marietta native Linda Thompson (see Indiana). The latter gave a speech at the Cobb Counts Civic Center that was attended by some 800 people.

A militia group in north Georgia conducts paramilitary maneuvers on a 38-acre tract in Hall County. northeast of Atlanta.

ADL Fact Finding Report, "Beyond the Bombing: The Militia Menace Grows," Anti-Defamation League, 1995.

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