The Project 7 drama unfolded against a backdrop of snowcapped peaks and alpine meadows not far from Glacier National Park. It's a landscape that inspires millions of tourists every year, and their spending here is the backbone of the local economy. The landscape also has inspired a fierce local fight over government land-use policy. To understand the local political climate, it is essential to listen to the popular talk show of radio station owner John Stokes, Toole's arch-nemesis. Stokes is a vigorous proponent of the "wise use" environmental movement -- which counts timber and mining interests, off-road vehicle users and others among its chief supporters -- and he has no patience for federal land rules. Stokes frequently refers to environmentalists as the "Fourth Reich," and with former militia leader J.J. Johnson, he recently burned a 12-foot green swastika. Dave Burgert occasionally called in to Stokes' show.

Project 56 is one of the new breed of militia groups finding fertile conditions in that landscape. Members of Project 56 say they had never heard of Burgert or his group until the arrest. There are parallels, though: Just as the "7" in Project 7 represents the Montana license plate code for Flathead County, 56 stands for Lincoln County. Founded in 2000, the group is headquartered in Libby, an old mining town recently designated a federal Superfund site.

Project 56 considers itself to be a conservative government watchdog group. Its mission statement says it opposes racism, atheism, socialism, the New World Order and the United Nations, while supporting God, the Constitution, free enterprise and local self-government. Using relatively conventional methods, members have tried unsuccessfully to get their county declared a U.N.-free zone and to pass a "home rule" ordinance that would give local government supremacy over the federal government in some land-use disputes.

The group's meetings have drawn up to 40 people, a broad blue-collar assortment that includes many with military and police backgrounds. In an effort to show that it is harmless, the group welcomes law enforcement officials and journalists to its meetings. "We have an open-door policy," says member Ken Short, himself a former cop.

That's a dramatic departure from the militias of just a decade ago. The roots of the modern militia movement go back at least to the 1970s and 1980s, to the survivalist movement and the Posse Comitatus organization whose adherents sometimes financed extremist political activity with crime. Gun-control legislation, world-trade treaties and talk of a New World Order during the administration of President George Bush I fanned the populist paranoia that often drives the groups. But when federal agents botched standoffs at Ruby Ridge and Waco -- with deadly results -- interest in the militia movement soared.

Early leaders included white supremacists like Louis Beam of Texas, who advocated a system of small militia "cells" across the country. By 1994, the movement included some racists and anti-Semites but also a large number of less extreme Americans concerned about issues like gun control, alienated by the Clinton administration and seduced by the militia's dark warnings of a world government conspiracy.

Timothy McVeigh never joined a militia, but he traveled along the fringes of the self-styled patriot movement. After he helped detonate the bomb outside the Oklahoma City federal building -- killing 168 people and injuring more than 500 others -- the militias were discredited and vilified in public opinion and pushed back to the fringe.

According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors militias, the "patriot" movement peaked in 1996 with 858 groups across the country. By 2000, the number had fallen to 194, of which 72 were militias.

Several are in Montana counties, and law enforcement officials here say that, Project 7 notwithstanding, there's hope for productive relations with some of them. "There are other militia groups here in Flathead that are law-abiding, good citizens," says Sheriff Dupont. "They feel if there ever comes a time when the local police or National Guard need help, they'd be there."

The Project 7 bust came after a bizarre series of events centered around Burgert, a man well-known locally for his conflicts with law enforcement. Dupont has said that Burgert held a grudge after the sheriff kept him off a county search-and-rescue team because of his past criminal record.

Burgert, 38, was arrested in 2001 for assaulting a peace officer. At the end of last year he had another run-in with police in which he was charged with obstruction and resisting arrest; he was found guilty in connection with that case in late June. Burgert's own account of the incident, circulated on some Web sites, claimed police tortured him. While he was out on bail in January, Burgert's wife reported him missing. Word traveled in militia circles that police had killed him, while investigators suspected he faked his own death.

In February, an informant's tip led Dupont's deputies to Burgert, and he was arrested only after a seven-hour standoff in the woods. A search of several sites uncovered more than 30 weapons, over 30,000 rounds of ammunition and survival gear. Evidence gleaned from an informant and from dossiers containing personal information about more than 26 local officials -- including Dupont -- formed the basis for the alleged assassination plot.

At most, investigators say, Project 7 had 10 members. Deputies also arrested Tracy Brockway, a friend of Burgert's, accusing her of gathering information on potential targets through her job as a cleaning woman for the city of Whitefish police department. She pleaded guilty in May to obstructing justice by harboring Burgert. Shortly after he was arrested, Dupont said he suspected that other members were at large and potentially dangerous, but no further arrests have been made.

Burgert, in a jailhouse interview with the Daily Interlake here, denied there was ever a plot to kill anyone. His attorney, Don Vernay of Kalispell, predicted to Salon that the federal government won't have the evidence to file formal charges based on the conspiracy allegations.

"Every witness I've interviewed says it's a joke," Vernay says. "That's the most overblown story that's hit the media in I don't know how long."

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