The Minutemen was an anti-communist, nativist militia organization formed in the United States in the early 1960s. The founder and head of the group was Robert DePugh, a biochemist from Norborne, Missouri. The Minutemen organized themselves into small cells and stockpiled weapons for an anticipated counter-revolution.
DePugh published a 10-page pamphletonguerrilla warfare via the Minutemen in 1961.[1] The Minutemen's newsletter was called On Target. He was a founder of the Patriotic Party in 1966.[2]
In 1966, DePugh was arrested on federal weapons charges, which were later dismissed.[3] Their offices were bombed in 1967,[4] and DePugh resigned from the Minutemen in 1967. In February 1968, he was indicted by a federal grand juryinSeattle, Washington, for conspiracy to commit bank robbery. Also in 1968, he was arrested for violation of federal firearms laws. He skipped bail and went underground for over a year until he was caught in 1969 in Truth or Consequences, New Mexico. He was convicted in 1970 and released from prison in May 1973. DePugh later wrote an anti-communist quasi-survivalist manual, Can You Survive? and was associated briefly with Liberty Lobby.[5]
The Minutemen's publication was a newsletter called "On Target".
FBI files on the Minutemen and DePugh, obtained under the FOIA and hosted at the Internet Archive