SPOKANE, Wash. — Richard G. Butler, the notorious white supremacist who founded the Aryan Nations and was once dubbed the "elder statesman of American hate," has died at the age of 86, authorities said Wednesday.
Deputies responding to a call at Butler's Hayden, Idaho, home found him dead in his bed about 11:20 a.m. Wednesday. He appeared to have died peacefully in his sleep, Sheriff's Capt. Ben Wolfinger said. The time of death was not immediately known.
"Everything appears to be natural," Wolfinger, of the Kootenai County, Idaho, sheriff's department, told The Associated Press.
Several phone calls to Butler's Hayden home ended when someone picked up the telephone and then hung up without speaking.
Butler, a longtime admirer of Adolf Hitler and white supremacist religious teaching, had moved to Idaho in the early 1970s, claiming later that he was impressed by its high percentage of white residents. To the dismay of many locals, the region became known as a place hospitable to white supremacist groups.
"The passing of Richard Butler is the end of an era for that movement here," said Tony Stewart, a human rights leader in Coeur d'Alene. "There is no one to take his place here."
The Aryan Nations might have survived if Butler had been able to retain his compound, Stewart said.
Mark Potok of the Southern Poverty Law Center said Butler's death will likely kill the so-called Northwest Imperative, Butler's movement to turn the Northwest into a whites-only retreat.
Coupled with the 2002 death of National Alliance leader William Pierce, it may also signal the "end of the era of megagroups with compounds," Potok said.
However, he expected the Aryan Nations to continue for awhile, run by remaining members. There are an estimated 17 chapters with about 200 members around the country, Potok said. A rival group with the same name operates in Pennsylvania, he said.
There is no obvious successor, Potok said. Butler often would anoint successors, only to fall out with them.
Butler, born in Colorado and trained as an aeronautical engineer, claimed he became an admirer of Hitler while serving the U.S. Army Air Corps during World War II. He said Hitler "led a nation, a division of our race, to fight for the life of our race."
Butler's Church of Jesus Christ Christian/Aryan Nations held that whites were the true children of God, that Jews were the offspring of Satan and that blacks and other minorities were inferior. It incorporated many symbols of Nazi Germany, and Butler kept a silver bust of Hitler at the compound.
The compound drew skinheads, ex-convicts and others from the fringes of society. Over the years, Butler's disciples included some of the most notorious figures in the white supremacist movement.
In the 1980s, followers who called themselves The Order committed a series of armored car robberies and bombings, and murdered Denver talk radio host Alan Berg. In 1985, 10 Order members were convicted of racketeering and other charges.
Other followers included Buford Furrow, a former Aryan Nations security guard who killed an Asian-American postal carrier and shot up a Jewish day care center in Los Angeles in 1999.
In a 1999 report, the FBI said the goal of Aryan Nations was to forcibly take five states — Oregon, Idaho, Wyoming, Washington and Montana — and form an Aryan homeland.
The Aryan Nations lost its church and 20-acre compound in northern Idaho in 2000 after a $6.3 million civil judgment led to a bankruptcy filing. Butler moved into a modest tract house bought by a supporter and made few public appearances in recent years because of failing health.
But he continued to frustrate his opponents. Last year, he ran for mayor of Hayden, collecting just 50 out of 2,122 votes cast in November.
In July, the virulent anti-Semite rode in the back of a pickup truck that was dragging the flag of Israel during a parade by about 40 of his followers through downtown Coeur d'Alene, Idaho, 30 miles east of Spokane.