In Bad Company: America's Terrorist Underground
With the roots and trappings of terrorism at the forefront of national consciousness, Hamm's study of domestic terrorism is especially timely. Hamm (Apocalypse in Oklahoma), a criminology professor at Indiana State University, offers a detailed look at the Aryan Republican Army (ARA), a radical right cell that he suspects actively assisted Timothy McVeigh. Based upon information from shared acquaintances, a reconstruction of McVeigh's movements in the months preceding the bombing and other circumstantial evidence, Hamm theorizes that the mysterious "John Doe 2" allegedly seen with McVeigh on the day of the bombing may have been an ARA member. These disaffected racists cast themselves, not unlike McVeigh, as patriots battling a corrupt federal government. Hamm interviewed the group's principal leader, Pete Langan, at length in prison, where he is serving a life sentence, and the account is based largely on his perspective. The colorful Langan took a few ideologically warped young men and led them on 22 successful bank robberies. Not your run-of-the-mill right-wing radical, Langan is a pre-operative transsexual. Hamm perceives sublimated homoerotic undercurrents among these neo-Nazis; Langan hid his sexuality from his gun-toting cohorts. He now blames his criminal actions on "`gender dysphoria.'" Despite Hamm's compelling perspective on right-wing subculture, his central theory that the ARA actively participated in the Oklahoma bombing is less than fully convincing, based as it is on only circumstantial evidence. Regardless, and despite the overlong, overly simplistic psychological portrait of Langan, the book will interest readers seeking more information about this violent subculture. Illus. not seen by PW.Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.