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I got permission to go up to the compound from Christian Teague; I got it because I was polite, I did not carry a sign or start a fight during the parade, and I am white -- in fact, as it turned out, I was the only journalist around who was white enough. Although I had not wanted to visit the headquarters alone, I could not find anyone to accompany me who was sufficiently Aryan. The Associated Press reporter was Jewish; Boise's Channel 2 News correspondent was Asian-American; the protesters, of course, were out of the question; and a journalist from the local paper, who has covered the Aryan Nations for 20 years, was white enough but on deadline. "Just be careful, these aren't nice people," he told me.

In this case, "be careful" translates into "don't do anything that will cause them to shoot at you." Idaho law allows people on private property to shoot and kill people who could be classified as intruders. Although the Coeur d'Alene Nazis have not killed anyone approaching the compound, they have vigorously exercised their right to "defend" themselves with gunfire. Photographers and protesters who have come near the property have reported being greeted with bullets. Just last weekend, an anti-Nazi activist, who asked not to be identified, was allowed on the compound during the convention, but only after passing through an armed security checkpoint manned by Aryans in Nazi uniform. After that, her only harassment was verbal; she was called a Jew and asked to leave. The most publicized incident happened last July to a woman driving by with her young son when their car backfired outside of the compound. She ended up in a high-speed car chase with the Aryan chief of security, while two men with him fired shots at her car. When one of the shots blew out her tire and she pulled over, the men roughed them up.

But then again, after last year's march, the Aryans invited the protesters who picketed the compound to come up for a barbecue dinner. The protesters declined.

I headed out to the compound accompanied only by Jack, a white cab driver. Before I left, I tore out all the notes in my notebook; emptied my satchel of all photographs, phone numbers and anti-Nazi literature; and left everything in my overnight bag with the bellhops at the Coeur d'Alene resort, who also had the phone numbers of people to call if I didn't return in two hours. Jack, however, was not afraid. A Coeur d'Alene native and veteran of World War II, he was less disturbed by the Aryan Nations march than he was by an incident at the "Car d'Alene" hot-rod show riots two weeks before, when a rowdy drunk began throwing beer bottles at bicycle cops in shorts. It escalated into a riot that had to be quelled by a full-county police squad with tear gas. Coeur d'Alene, Jack tells me, is prone to such senseless gestures. For instance, there was the beer riot of '57 or '58, caused when all the taverns in town ran out of beer on the same night. Like most Coeur d'Alene residents, Jack claims to be bored with the Nazis and believes if they are ignored -- particularly by out-of-town protesters and journalists like me -- they will simply go away. Jack can recall only one African-American family living here -- he says they finally left town because the town barbers claimed they did not know how to cut their hair.

Jack and I expected the Aryan Nations compound to look like a military bunker. Instead, we find a Nazi pastoral. The only thing alive at the open gate is a horse. Granted, it is a horse grazing in a field studded with metal Nazi flags, but it doesn't look especially menacing and I've never heard of an attack horse. The only thing we pass on our way up the drive is a sign posted to a tree that reads "Whites Only."

"Well, we're both white," Jack said as we decided, uncertainly, to proceed. "I'm going to be the first cab driver to go all the way up to the compound."

Next page | How does Idaho breed racists when everyone here is white?