Tapes of Metzger Phone Line Give Look at Message Before Bombing

Tom Metzger, the white supremacist from Fallbrook, recorded a telephone call-in hot line message the day before the Sept. 15 bombing of the San Diego federal courthouse that included comments that may have inspired prosecutors’ current investigation of Metzger.

In a tape recorded Sept. 14 for the White Aryan Resistance, the racial-hatred group he founded, Metzger says “it is obvious there is no longer any possibility of justice” in the courts or at the polls, according to a transcript. “It is time to cut the (expletive),” he says.

In transcripts of more tapes recorded in the months after the explosion, Metzger speaks of “all federal buildings” falling to “Aryan court-ordered wrecking balls.” He also talks at various times of the “firecracker” that exploded at the courthouse and pokes fun at federal agents for being unable to figure out who planted it.

Metzger consistently has denied involvement in the bombing--which damaged the front doors to the courthouse but caused no injuries--or even knowing anything about it beforehand. He said he told a federal grand jury Thursday that he was not involved and neither was anyone connected to WAR.

However, the transcripts suggest the reason why prosecutors have been eager to talk to Metzger, and why they spent the bulk of the time that he was before the grand jury focusing not on the bombing but, instead, on the WAR call-in line and the group’s newspaper--and who calls in or buys the paper.

Metzger said Thursday that prosecutors were “fishing” for information during several hours of questioning. Apparently, he said Friday, they were searching for the names of WAR supporters or sympathizers who might be linked to the courthouse bombing.

Because the bombing has generated adverse publicity, “It sounds to me like someone who doesn’t like Tom Metzger would be more likely to have planted the bomb than anyone connected to me,” he said.

Besides, Metzger said, “I can’t understand why people get mad at me with being right out in the open for saying what I think.”

He added a few moments later, “I would think that’s what this country would say is the best option. I would think they would want people to be out in the open with what they are, rather than being secret and stealing around in the night. I don’t see how to make these people happy.”

Metzger was ordered Thursday, at the end of several hours of questioning, to produce the newspaper’s subscription list at the next grand jury session next Thursday. He repeated Friday that he will resist that demand, a stance that could prompt a contempt hearing.

Assistant U.S. Atty. Larry Burns, the lead prosecutor in the case, declined Friday to comment on the grand jury proceedings or on the tapes, transcripts of which are available from the San Diego chapter of the Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai B’Rith.

Morris Casuto, head of the San Diego chapter of the Anti-Defamation League, said Friday: “We, in fact, believe that Metzger has always served as a catalyst for the violence of others.”

In October, a jury in Portland, Ore., found Metzger, his son, John, the White Aryan Resistance and two skinheads liable for $12.5 million in the beating death of Mulugeta Seraw, a 27-year-old Ethiopian immigrant whose skull was split open when he was attacked by skinheads in November, 1988.

The jury found that the two skinheads, who pleaded guilty in the slaying, were incited by the Metzgers and WAR’s racial-hate campaign.

Tom Metzger is appealing the judgment.

The courthouse bombing happened Sept. 15.

The Sept. 14 tape is devoted heavily to Metzger’s Portland case. Shortly after saying that there “is no longer any possibility of justice” in the courts or through voting, he talks about the possibility of losing the Portland trial.

“In losing, I would lose a few sticks of wood called a house, but I would gain a hatred and vengeance that would no longer call for moderation, but call for war,” the transcript says.

On Oct. 16, the federal grand jury indicted an unemployed Ocean Beach man who reportedly claimed credit for the bombing, charging Mark George Somes, 44, with sending threatening letters to a San Diego television station, a civil rights activist and a lawyer.

However, Somes, who reportedly has made minor financial contributions to WAR, was not indicted in connection with the bombing.

On Nov. 27, Metzger, who frequently changes his comments on the tape, recorded a new message. He said: “FBI stooges, or cross-dressers, whichever you choose, are busy making the rounds in their investigation of an oversized firecracker that someone exploded” at the courthouse. He also said that “WAR associates seem to be the No. 1 target.”

On Dec. 11, another message spoke again of the bombing.