TIME - Man of the Year/CompactPublishing-TimeMagazine-TimeManOfTheYear-Win31MSDOS.iso/moy/021792/0217510.000

Text File | 1992-08-28 | 10.1 KB | 250 lines

                                                                                INTERVIEW, Page 14

The Cantor and the Klansman


Grand Dragon LARRY TRAPP harassed Jewish clergyman MICHAEL
WEISSER, but instead of responding with hatred, Weisser
transformed an enemy into a friend

By DANIEL S. LEVY LINCOLN and Larry Trapp and Michael Weisser


    Q. Mr. Trapp, when you realized that Michael Weisser lived
in your town of Lincoln, Neb., you started trying to intimidate
him. What were you hoping to achieve?

    Larry Trapp: The initial thing is fear, with the intention
of getting him out of the community. White supremacists think
everything is theirs -- the community, the state, everything.
As the state leader, the Grand Dragon, I did more than my share
of work because I wanted to build up the state of Nebraska into
a state as hateful as North Carolina and Florida. I spent a lot
of money and went out of my way to instill fear.


    Q. When Larry Trapp started harassing and threatening you,
what did you do?

    Michael Weisser: I called the police, and I had the
telephone company put a tap on my telephone. Two days later I
got a package of hate mail, anti-Jewish and anti-black material.
We knew it was from Larry Trapp, but we couldn't prove it. We
were pretty frightened. It went on that way for a while, and
then I talked with my wife Julie, and I said I had to confront
this. The only thing I hoped to accomplish was to let him know
that I wasn't afraid of him. I was pretty angry, but I never
expressed any anger on the telephone to him.


    Q. Had you actually spoken to him?

    Weisser: At first it was just messages. The very first
time I reached his answering machine, I had to listen to a
10-minute taped diatribe about how evil the Jews and the blacks
were. There was a beep at the end to leave a message, and I
said, "Larry, you'd better think about all this hatred you're
doing, that you are involved in, because you're going to have
to deal with God one day, and it's not going to be easy." Larry
is disabled, and another time I called, I said, "Larry, the very
first laws that the Nazis passed were against people like
yourself, who have physical disabilities, and you would have
been among those to die under the Nazis. Why do you love the
Nazis so much?"

    Trapp: I knew that too.

    Weisser: I just kept leaving messages, until finally one
day, Larry Trapp, in a fit of anger, picked up the phone. "What
do you want?" he said. "You're harassing me! My phone's got a
tap on it." I was real quiet and calm. I said I knew he had a
hard time getting around and thought he might need a ride to
the grocery store. He just got completely quiet, and all the
anger went out of his voice, and he said, "I've got that taken
care of, but thanks for asking."


    Q. Mr. Trapp, what was it that first made you hate?

    Trapp: When I was 13 or 14 years old in reform school in
Kearney, Neb., I was raped by four or five black boys. From then
on I just hated blacks. Every time I was around them, I felt
like killing them. Anybody who wasn't like me was my enemy.


    Q. Cantor Weisser, over the next few months, the man who
considered you his enemy had his doubts about his past and
grudgingly accepted your existence. What happened the night you
finally met?

    Weisser: The phone rang, and Larry said, "I want to get
out of this, and I don't know how." I asked if he had had
dinner and said I would bring something over and we'd have a
bite to eat and talk about it. I told Julie what had happened,
and she said, "I'll bet Larry Trapp is just as apprehensive
about us as we are about him. I think we ought to bring him a
peace offering." She found a silver ring, and we went over
there. As we walked in I touched his hand and he burst into
tears. He didn't know we were bringing the ring, and he had two
silver swastika rings on, one on each hand. He took the two
rings off and said, "I want you to take these rings; they just
symbolize hatred and evil, and I want them out of my life."
Julie gave him the other ring and put it on his finger.


    Q. Mr. Trapp, have you now completely renounced the Klan
and the Nazi Party?

    Trapp: I denounce everything they stand for. But it's not
the people in the organizations that I hate. I hate what they
stand for and what they do. If I were to say I hate all Klansmen
because they're Klansmen and all Nazis because they're Nazis,
I would still be a racist. I was one of the most hardcase white
activists in the U. S. If I can have that change of mind or
change of heart, anybody can.


    Q. There is another former Klansman, David Duke, who
claims to have renounced the Klan. How is he different?

    Trapp: Racism used to take a more blatant form: the
hangings, the beating of blacks half to death on the streets.
Listen to David Duke's policies. What he is doing -- and I've
talked to him personally -- what he's doing is using a more
subdued racism. If you check his policies closely, you'll find
that they're the same policies that they have always been. There
is no change.


    Q. Should white supremacists be taken seriously?

    Trapp: The end goal of the white movement is the complete
annihilation of all nonwhites. There is talk of setting up
purely white colonies here in the U.S. That way they'll have
their economy established when the rest of the U.S. is taken
over by the whites. What they are talking about is basically
tyranny.

    There are books that have been written that are more or
less a philosophy of the white movement. They talk about
pregnant white women hanging from trees and lampposts with signs
on them saying I WAS A RACE TRAITOR, with their belly cut open,
their baby cut out. This is what they plan on. They're a bunch
of savages.


    Q. I understand that you have been threatened since you
left the Klan.

    Trapp: I really rattled that applecart and caused a lot of
damage within the movement by retiring. I'm sure there's a
contract out on me. Usually what happens is, the word gets
passed around among the skinheads. They're the ones to worry
about, because they're the ones who do all the dirty deeds. The
skinheads around town know me, and I am not afraid of them.


    Q. If a Klansman got in touch with you and said he wanted
to leave the organization, would you help him?

    Trapp: I'd check him out real good. The Klan pulls a lot
of scams on a lot of people, even their own. For years they've
been backstabbing themselves. Not one Klansman or one Nazi can
really say he actually trusts the other. It's constant
conflict. This is one of the reasons they're in a decline.


    Q. Do you think the Klan or the Nazi Party will live on?

    Trapp: They're going into what they call the Fifth Era.
Things are getting kind of bad for them, so they're going to
act, and I think it is going to be very soon. I think what
they're going to do is get into smaller terrorist groups, and
there's going to be a lot of terrorist acts. This is what I fear
more than anything.


    Q. Cantor Weisser, Larry Trapp once represented a
white-cloaked devil to you. How does it feel to realize that
he's basically a good man?

    Weisser: I think Larry Trapp has always been a good man,
yet he's had a life that's been messed up. Until I spoke to
Larry Trapp, I'd only had a couple of other experiences with
people who are involved in the organizations that Larry was
involved with. I never wanted to talk to them; I was afraid of
them. The experience of having met and talked with and learning
to love Larry Trapp has been eye-opening for me. Larry has
helped me realize something about my religion that I've taught
a lot of people: I am obligated to try to love Larry Trapp --
to hate what he stood for, but to love Larry Trapp.


    Q. Before you met Mr. Trapp, did you have any idea how
extensive these racist organizations were?

    Weisser: They are larger than I might have expected. The
extent of the hate network in the U.S. is frightening, and that
network extends beyond our borders. The neo-Nazis are on the
rise in Germany, France and other countries of Europe. The
appearance of swastikas in Jewish cemeteries is again on the
rise, and the destruction of Jewish-owned property is on the
rise.


    Q. Mr. Trapp, what do the past few months tell you about
the past few decades of your life?

    Trapp: They tell me I've got a lot of rebuilding to do. I
want to try to change some minds. I know I can't change the
hard-core racists, but maybe I can put something in the back of
their mind that they can think about as time goes on. People who
are borderline racists -- maybe I can get to them before they
cross that line, because once they cross that line, they get
indoctrinated too heavily.


    Q. I understand that you received distressing medical news
recently. Does that change any of your plans?

    Trapp: The doctor told me I have six months to a year to
live. I think I can push it further, because I'm ornery as hell.
At least I want to get a group started that will teach people
to help one another. I'm not going to stop just because I'm
sick.


    Q. You were born Roman Catholic. Do you have any interest
in converting to Judaism?

    Trapp: Yes. Oh, definitely. That's my goal. I think the
Jewish religion saved me. The only thing that'll keep me from
converting is if there's not enough time.


    Q. Cantor Weisser, how do you feel about his converting?

    Weisser: Judaism doesn't actively seek converts, but if
Larry wants to make the effort to adopt the Jewish religion, I
don't think I or anybody else should put barriers in his way.
I would be more than happy and, in fact, honored if Larry
follows through and makes that religious affirmation.


    Q. Quite a sea change.

    Weisser: The whole course of Larry's history has changed.
My history has changed.

    Trapp: I think I was meant to be a Klansman, meant to be
a Nazi, meant to do the various things I've done so I could
learn that they weren't right, so that maybe, out of my
experience, I can help other people change their way of
thinking. I think the whole thing was planned out. I really do.