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Book: FBI Vs. Aryan NationsHow Special Agent Helped Informant Infiltrate Neo-Nazi Hate GroupInto The Devil's Den, true crime memoir by Dave Hall and FBI agent Tym Burkey, takes readers behind scenes of white supremacist cults that targeted Jews and Blacks
The violent and racist world of neo-Nazi and white supremacist organizations in the U.S. is exposed in all its paranoia in a new book that details how a dangerous group was infiltrated in the 1990s by a 350-pound former biker. What’s unique is that the narrative is told from two points of view: that of the FBI special agent in Domestic Terrorism, Tym Burkey, and that of his informant, Kentucky-born Dave Hall. How FBI Recruits InformantsFBI Special Agent Tym Burkey, who was based in Dayton, Ohio, recruits Dave Hall with a promise of getting his sentence on a drug felony reduced. Burkey asks Hall, a martial-arts black belt, to spy on Pastor Ray Redfeairn, a criminal who heads the Church of Jesus Christ Christian. Redfeairn is a rabble rouser who frequents a biker-gang bar called Ikes in Dayton. On Sundays he preaches hate to members of Aryan Nations, the Klu Klux Klan and other white supremacist, paranoid crazies. Odd Couple Against TerrorismHall turns out to be a decent man who loves his girlfriend and his dog Gary… and who has a near-photographic memory. Burkey is a conscientious officer who sincerely wants to stop bad guys. This odd couple slowly forges a unique friendship as Hall makes contact with Redfeairn and becomes his confidant. It is supposed to be a short-term assignment but more than a year goes by as Hall gathers information on how groups plan terrorist action in the wake of Tim McVeigh’s Oklahoma City bombing. The strongest part of the book shows how Hall struggles to cling to his hold on reality even as he trains to become an ordained minister in Redfeairn’s church. But he becomes isolated from most of his family and begins to rely on vodka and prescription drugs to ease his anxiety. His personal beliefs are at odds with the neo-Nazis group but he pretends to adopt them, Dancing with the DevilThe point of the book, written with crime specialist Katherine Ramstand, is that if you dance with the devil, “the devil doesn’t change, the devil changes you,” as Hall quotes an old Appalachian saying. After Hall’s dog falls ill and must be put to sleep, Hall suffers bouts of insomnia, night terrors, and panic attacks. But he cannot back out. Can Burkey save his informant before a planned assassination? Is domestic terrorism as serious a threat as Al Qaeda? Read the book and find out. Into the Devil’s Den: How an FBI Informant Got Inside the Aryan Nations and a Special Agent Got Him Out Alive,by Dave Hall and Tym Burkey, with Katherine Ramsland. Ballantine Books, 397 pages, $25.
The copyright of the article Book: FBI Vs. Aryan Nations in Biographies/Memoirs is owned by Grace Lichtenstein. Permission to republish Book: FBI Vs. Aryan Nations in print or online must be granted by the author in writing.
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