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Butch Razey, a cherry farmer in Washington State who commands the 419th Yakima County Militia, blames the slump on a lack of "Y2Ks or anything like that." The smooth turnover of the clocks on Jan. 1, 2000, was a blow to many conspiracy-minded groups, which had predicted global chaos. "After Y2K," says Potok, "there were a lot of angry letters in the extremist publications saying, 'You've made fools of us--we have a basement full of supplies and nothing to use them for.'" But if the militias are fading, some of their paranoid fervor lives on. Take John Trochmann, who still runs the Militia of Montana. "If they kill McVeigh, they'll be destroying more evidence that points to the government," he says. But fewer Americans are listening.
--By Terry McCarthy. With reporting by Patrick Dawson/Billings, Heidi Marotz/Idaho Falls, Mike Roarke/Spokane and Joseph R. Szczesny/Detroit