Customer Reviews

Bitter Harvest: The Birth of Paramilitary Terrorism in the Heartland

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The shoot-out at Medina which inspired this book is a fascinating study in both the rural tax protest mentality and the little Caesar enforcement federal mentality.

The author takes the perspective of Freud, who does a reasonable job of analyzing the former, while glossing over the later. Both deceased marshalls, an Arkansas sheriff and Gordon Kahl would be alive today (or pehaps dead of natural causes) had Kenneth Muir simply followed the advice of his predecessor that Kahl was a pipsqueak best ignored.

Yes, the marshalls were just doing their jobs, but no, the arrest of Kahl was not a high priority. We could fill our jails and our cemetaries in short order with every two-bit bigot and loudmouth, but Kahl grew into a legend only after the arrest attempt went awry.

A far more balance perspective of the incident can be read in the book "Its All About Power", from two local law enforcement officers who tried to do their job of preventing trouble rather than making a statement.

Sadly, a deputy marshall with a young family from Bismarck who was just doing his job ended up paying with his life by following the orders of a Little Caesar superior who refused to take the good advice of his predecessor Bud Warren, who has been unfairly maligned in the drama.

A very intense and well researched book. It shows a great insight to the dark side of America that too few of us do not realize is right here with us.

Make no mistake, Kahl is no hero. By his actions he disgraced his military record and the country he stood for. Corcoran certainly provides a thorough backgrand into what was happening to the rural communities in the eighties and how such times made farmers like Kahl ripe for recruitment by right-wing paramilitary zenophobes. Kahl and the Posse stem from the same roots that created homegrown terrorists like Tim McVeigh. For Kahl, a man who had served his country in WWII, the treatment of rural America in general and farmers in particular, must have been a bitter betrayal. While some have critized the local sheriff and federal agents for the way they handled the arrest, it is important to note that Kahl had a choice, to go peacefully or to take up arms. He chose violence, and in the end, there were no winners, only victims.

Bitter Harvest attempts to tell the story af Gordon Kahl, a man who combined the patriotism of the founding fathers with bigotry and paranoia. Kahl's life culminated February 13, 1983, when he engaged in a shootout with federal law enforcement near Medina, North Dakota. The LEO's were trying to serve a warrant for Kahl's arrest relating to a parole violation in Texas. Kahl, who earned less than $10,000 a year and had failed to file for at least seven years, had originally been charged with tax evasion after he appeared on television urging others to do the same. It is not certain who fired the first shot, but within seconds Kahl had killed two officers and wounded two more. Robert Cheshire, a deputy marshal, was killed when Kahl blew the already wounded man's head open from point blank range. The only indisputable fact of the shootout was the incompetency of the government. Kahl had sworn repeatedly that he would not be taken without a fight, was well armed, and surrounded by friends and family. Yet the officers apparently had no plans for a shootout, and the marshal in charge didn't even bother wearing his bulletproof vest. He was killed by a single shot to the heart.

The author, James Corcoran, is hardly unbiased in his treatment of the story. Corcoran attributes rural sympathy toward Kahl to prejudice born out of poverty, and doesn't seem to consider the possibility that some of what Kahl said might be true. Especially unforgivable is Corcoran's treatment of Kahl's death. He provides a "factual," official narrative in which Kahl and a sheriff shoot and kill each other. Corcoran later mentions, in a single paragraph, that the state Medical Examiner concluded that both men were shot from behind, and that a spent casing from Kahl's rifle was never found. Corcoran makes no attempt to fit this into
his narrative, or provide an alternative sequence of events.

In closing, Bitter Harvest is a disappointing effort to tell a fascinating story. The ideas and actions of Gordon Kahl are a noteworthy part of America's past, and may very well reappear in it's future.

Bitter Harvest is about a man who gets accused of something he did out of self-defense. He goes though racism and torture. This man murdered three men out of self-defense. This book was all about how people are so prejudice that they cannot even look passed their feelings about others. Bitter Harvest was based on a true story.
I enjoyed this book because it was a true story about the passed. About racism and how people hated each other. This is something that I really find interesting to read about. How people lived in America in the 60's or 70's. Bitter Harvest had tons of exciting adventures put in to the story. This is what people thought when they were apart of this story.
He reason I chose this story is because it is about crime. It is also about trust and truth. Also I loved the cover. I thought it would be interesting. It was believed that it would be about World War 2. Even though it wasn't it was still okay. Anyways all of these events are true with plenty of depth.