INTERVIEW TRANSCRIPTS

Delores Everts

Delores Everts, was Gordon's sister

DELORES EVERTS & JOHN

08/40...That's Gordon and I in 1926, he would have been six and I would

have been three...now this is at our grandparents farm

...9/45 (photo) this was taken at our grandparents farm...he was five

and I was two.

...10/43... he always liked to wear hats... (kid w/hat photo)

...11/38...

...12/18... This is when Gordon was 17... (photo of family lined up...

...13/37...He liked to tease...he umm, he liked mechanical things and

he liked to hunt...he did not like farm livestock or chores...when dad would

go out in the barn , gordon would still be in the house and mother would

send him out to help dad...and he'd stand around a little bit and if dad

didn't give him something specific to do, he'd wander off and go hunting...

...14/40... he, uh, he was a rebel, it was difficult for him to take

orders...and in school, he did not have the kind of discipline to do something

if he didn't like to do it...

...15/00...for instance when he went to the AC, now this is after he

got out of the army....he thought he was going to become an engineer and

he could not see why he should have to take english and learn how to write

term papers to become an engineer...and that was one of his big problems,

he just couldn't fit into the pattern of things, it had to be his way...15/29...

EVERTS#6

...15/34... as a young person he was very opinionated...more so, it

increased...

...15/58 ....well, I resented some of that. He liked to tease and, he

was always making jokes and sometimes that hurt....When I was a fresshman

in highschool, I had a crush on the principals son, who was a senior...and

gordon told him , that if he came out to our place to get me for a date,

that my dad would take the shotgun after him...16/29...

...so, one time, the first day he came out there and gordon rushed out

of the house with the shotgun...and ohh, I could of died. This was an example

of what he thought was funny....and from my point of view it wasn't a bit

funny...

...16/58...another thing that he and clarence did to me one time, they

went up to the barn and got a sparrow and put it in my bed. And , it was

in the winter and I got in bed and here someting started fluttering around

and they laughed and laughed, they thought that was so funny...17/20...

...JOHN == ...17/37... well, I first met him in Grand Forks, I was ,

I had a room there and I was going to school and he was going to come down

and take us home for thanksgiving to the farm. And Delores and I had gotten

married without anybody knowing it. So, I didn't quite know what his reaction

was going to be. I had heard about some of these farm guys could get kind

of rough, particularly ND you know...18/04...

...and I thought he maybe didn't totally approve of me marrying his

sister, so I was a little apprehensive. But, when he came to get us, he

was a normal nice sort of guy, so I was really reliieved...

...18/31...Well, he, sure was a fighter of windmills, a don quizote

type, as i say, he had this steriotype of a german when they get an idea

they stick to it, which can be great when you're an engineer and an architect,

bach or beethoven...but he got the wrong idea and stuck to it and it was

a scenario for disaster...19/03...

...DELORES= ...19/26... GORDON CHANGED COMPLETELY FROM THE TIME HE WENT

IN THE service until he came home...I talked to one of my cousins about

this and he shrugged his shoulders and said, well we all change...

...19/43...but gordon came out of the service with a chip on his shoulder.

I can't remember him ever having his feelings about jewish people before

he went into the service and after he came out this is when he started his

expressions of anti-semitism expressions...20/10... and he was awfully hard

to get along with when he came home that fall and before that he was so

much , he was easy going and happy go lucky...20/23...

...20/33...yes and I remember my father expressing one time, that he

felt gordon was all messed up...

...I'm sure that he did, but I was no longer at home...

...

...20/55...I don't know, I always felt that if my father had lived longer

that gordon wouldn't have gotten so carried away with the IRS, because dad

believed in paying income tax...and that statement in that book about dad

not going to the congregational church, that is completely wrong...he had

no feelings about the congregational church ....the reason he quite going

to church is because he wqsn't well, he had high blood pressure and it was

just too hard to get ready in time on sunday morning to go to church and

it embarrassed mother so to come in late...he had a lot of chores and he

was the one that took care of the cattle and did the milking then and rather

than have a great big to do and mother and the rest of us would go to church...so

that part of the book was wrong too...21/57...

...22/11...well, I think that , well dad did an awful lot to help gordon...

when you read the book it sounds like gordon had to go work in califormia

to send money back to ND, that wasn't true at all, Dad was the one that

was helping gordon pay for his farm...22/38...

...rather than gordon helping him out. dad was a wonderful person...

...23/08... even when dad wasn't well he went out in the field to help

with the crops... I think they argued politics, mother used to, when they

worked the fields on our farm, gordon would come down there to eat and there

would always be a big argument about politics, but I wasn't home at tha

time, so I don't know what the politics was...

24/00 ...no, I was working in the bank...I started working in the bank

in the fall of 41 and gordon was working in the hardware store at that time...

...24/15...oh I was real sad, I felt real bad, but, he couldn't wait

to get in...he had had an appendectomy that summer, but by that time they

had sulfa, so he survived alright...but I think he had a little heart murmur.

so that when his draft number came up, ...I think it was that little heart

murmur and it was the result of that surgery...

...24/56...and then after pearl harbor, gordon couldn't wait...he went

to Fessenden, he knew the members of the draftboard and asked them to give

him another chance, so that's what they did, they pulled his draft card

and when it came up a second time, he passed the physical and then I think

it was in Jan. of 42 that he and another boy enlisted...

...25/30 ...yes, because he was a tailgunner , and when he went in it

didn't take him too long ...he wanted to be a pilot, but here again was

the discipline. He of course had to go to cadet training school and he couldn't

wait to get into combat and so he volunteered for gunnery school then...25/56...

...JOHN= ...26/00... HE TOLD ME one time that he was flying in India,

and they a plane, a fighter plane came at him and it was one of ours. and

the man must have been confused, the pilot of the fighter plane , becuase

he kept making passes and shooting at the plane that gordon was in...so,

gordon says that he had to shoot the guy down, our own people...he alwyas

told it with a lot of sadness, so I assume that he risked his life as long

as he could and then he had to do it...

26/42...DELORES= ... HE MENTIONED that in that letter he wrote after

the medina incident...

27/17... Well you know gordon was first sent to N. africa, he tried to

give us a clue, he left on christmas eve and he sent us a card and he said

their pink planes were already and he thought that we would recongnize because

he said pink, that they were painted so that they would blend in with the

sand, but of course that didn't mean anything to us, he was only there for

a short time, when he and some other guys were going to town to a movie

and they stepped on a landmine///...see he was never shot down, it was this

landmine that blew him up and left him crippled. And then he spent months

in the hospitacl in Cairo...

JOHN= ...28/08... isn't that when he wrote the letter to joan that she

misunderstood...

DELORES...yes, he wrote a letter to joan, we didn't hear from him for

months...joan finally got a letter from him...and he said his legs hurt

him quite badly while his calves were on, but after they took them off then

the pain wasn't so bad...and the way that it was censored it looked like

they had took off his legs...28/43...and we thought he had lost both legs....

28/46... I crided all night that night and then her brother in law read

the letter the next day and decided that the part had been censored and

it was the casts that had been taken off and not the leg...29/00...

END TAPE

DELORES EVERTS#07

00/50... well, gordon was in N. africa, he had only made a few missions

in n.africa as a gunner and of course once he had his accident he couldn't

fly any more....so, then he I don't know worked around the planes and got

to be an instrument specialist. They would have sent him home but he didn't

want to go home...1/23...

...he wanted to stay with the outfit, so then he went from N.Africa

to Sicily. It was his outfit , but he was no longer a gunner, he was an

instrument specialist then...and I don't know if he got back into the air

then...

...1/40...and I don't know...they sent him to the China, Burma, India

area and what they did there was to fly supplies over the hump...1/50...

...then he finished out his 25 missions in that CBI theatre and that's

where he was when he came home...

2/20... he got wounded on the ground, never in the air...

DELORES EVERTS#07

JOHN=...2/47... HE didn't belive in accepting social security for his

mother for instance, but his pension, that was different. He said I earned

that. So, I think there was a little contradiction of philospy there...

DELORES=...03/02... YES, mother only got $59 /mon. and he wanted her

to refuse that because he thought it was wrong to accept soc. security...

3/23...he came hojme in Nov., he was there for a short time, then he

and joan were married the sixth of Jan in '45, this was nov. of '44 when

he came home...

3/41...during the christmas, it was, let's see he came back to the states

in Nov. but he didn't get back to ND until I think maybe the day before

christmas, and he was very annoyed with us to think that we were concerned

with christmas presents and christmas dinner when there was this terrible

war going on...4/05...

...he just was really annoyed that christmas, and then he and joan got

married the sixth of Jan after that. And he went to Greeville SC, I didn't

see him then until the fall of '46 when he got home...

4/46...well, that winter of '46, they stayed on the farm and he was awfully

hard to get along with...I wasn't there, cause I was teaching then , we

had gotten married. So I wasn't home any longer...but, he picked on Alva

and critized her and made life miserable for her that winter...5/09...

5/30...JOHN=... wasn't the first manifestation of this rebellion thing

when he went into the religious part of it...He went into the Mormon and

then there was going to be the world was going to come to an end and you

had to stockpile all this flour and all these things, as I recall that was

the first time he rebelled against structure...5/52...

DELORES=...5/53...must have been the early fifties wasn't it., no, the

early sixties...I would say it was during the sixties...we used to come

back from Maryland in the summer and mother would always have a family dinner

for all the relatives and it got to the point where she couldn't have the

family dinners because Gordon would start preaching about his beliefs, his

political beliefs...

JOHN...6/26... WELL, it was religious too wasn't it, I mean the jewish

thing...

DELORES=...yes, it was jewish and then, (the masons)...

JOHN= ...6/55...WELL, it annoyed me, because my father was a shriner

and a 32nd degree Mason, and he was the greatest guy you ever knew. To hear

him talk about it like this, annoyed me...

...7/34...I'm not too clear, I don't know...you read that a lot, in

germany they blamed everything on jewish people, they always talked about

international finances...

JOHN=...8/19... his friends would say, I heard several of them say, as

long as you talked to gordon about fixing farm machinery, everything was

normal, but the minute the politics came up, everybody wanted to back away...

DELORES= ...9/16... well, I was hurt, I felt real bad about the whole

thing...it painted him, he wasn't as mean as it sounded...(MEDIA) but, he

did get carried away. for instance when he joined the mormon church, he

got my mother to join the mormon church and he just thought it was wonderful...9/43...

(CUT W/MORMON SECTION)

...and then all at once he got a nail in his head and he decided there

was a bunch of communists in the leadersh of mormon church and so he didn't

want to have anything more to do with them then...9/55...

...and just before mother died and now here I am without any church,

he doesn't want to go anymore...yes, he left her dangling...10/11...well,

that was kind of the way it was with farm. He got her to sell him the farm

and he promised her that she could live there as long as she wanted to in

the house...and this was in the fall of '67...he decided he was going to

sell everything and get cash and leave the country...10/42...

...I don't know where he thought he was going...at one time he told

you that he thought he was going to Rhodesia, but, I don't know where he

thought he was going that fall...10/52...

...but that hurt mother terribly, to think that she had trusted him,

because she really enjoyed her home and then he was going to sell it right

out from under her...but he thought, he really belived that this country...11/14...

...was going to fall apart, and so he was going to get out of here...

...11/32...well, Clarence is five years younger then I am and Alva is

9 years younger than I am...

...11/50... well, Clarence thought a lot of Gordon but he was the one

that made all the effort, but it wasn't a two way thing, gordon didn't make

as much effort as Clarence did...but when they both lived on farms there,

clarence was the one that made the effort to go the extra mile...I think

the wifes' didn't get along very well...

...12/39...there was a problem there because gordon did not believe

in educating his children. He felt that, ...12/45...he told me one time

that oh all they teach in school is communism. Well, here I was, I'd been

teaching all those years and I knew what we taught in school. And he oh,

he didn't belive in educting his children and to me that was a disaster...13/04...

(CUT W/MARK STAGG ON EDUCATION /LOREEN,LAYNE)

...so we could never agree on how to raise our children, we believed

in sending our children to college and he didn't approve of that...

...13/48...well, I was suprized at taht, I wasn't aware of that at all...the

only inkling I had was after that picnic up there, after all this came out,

I wondered if that was a posse meeting that sunday...(AM I MISSING A TAPE?)

...instead of just being a picnic with friends...

...14/56... No, I don't believe that, he was always willing to help

other people. if anybody ever needed any help, whether it was farm work

or with their machinery or something like that, he was helpful...but I know

he was potrayed as a radical...but,...

JOHN=...15/20... WELL, he didn't shoot until somebody shot at him, right...

MEDIA DELORES=...15/28... THERE WAS ONE TIME WHEN SOMEBODY FROM THE COUNTY

paper interviewed him. and he said he was not going to, I think this was

after he'd been in prison for tax evasion. and he said he was never going

to go back and he said that if they ever came after him it was going to

be WWIII. well, I don't think he really meant that. He used to do a lot

of bluffing and I think this is what he was doing, is he was just saying

that. And I wonder that night at Medina if that wasn't a lot of bluff and

somebody called his bluff...16/05...

(CUT THE ABOVE WITH THE NEWSPAPER ARTICLE)

...16/15... no for the life of me, I can't see why in the world, ...when

they knew that somebody had been watching them all afternoon, why they didn't

stay there all night...16/31...

JOHN=...wasn't there a little politics in that, didn't the man that led

the raid, didn't he have political ambitions and he thought that that would

help.?...

DELORES=...yes, the marshal, kenneth muir...

17/00... well see, I don't have any first hand info. other then what

I've heard from bud warren , what joan has told me about that...

EVERTS#7

...17/30...clarence called me. they were watching tv and when it came

on tv they called us...and we turned on ours...

...17/49...oh, it was terrible...just terrible...we were living here

then...

...18/12...we were here yes, but I didn't go to the trial, now clarence

went to the trial, but I didn't go... there were be something in the paper

everyday and that was really hard on me, I suffered a lot...there were nights

that I didn't sleep...

...18/39...oh, how could this terrible thing happen, I remember sitting

at the table crying , feeling so bad to think that Gordon could actually

stand up there and kill people...and john said well that wasn't my falt,

I didn't do it, ....

JOHN...and there was a whole period when the shooting and gordons death

and we didn't know where he was and there was some FBI people out here who

asked delores if she knew where he might be and we said no...but that was

kind of touch and go, where we didn't know where he was or what was going

to happen to him...

DELORES...19/44...yes, and there again, of course, clarence called because

he called b ecause he got the news before we did...and we watched the news

that night...

20/07...I wasn't in touch with Joan until she got out of jail, the house

was so destroyed she couldn't stay there so she stayed at the Brakels and

I called there and I went back for the funeral...

JOHN ...THEY really destroyed the house, teargas and things...

DEOLORES... and that really hurt me too because dad built that for mother

and it really hurt me to think that they could destroy that when they knew

he wasn't there...20/46...

...

JOHN=... THE old farmhouse was a , needed paint, they lived in so long,

they finally got this modern place...

21/22 ...DELORES... yes, ah, my sister had a friend who was from walnut

ridege , ARK, and he sent them copies of the ark. paper , so she had a whole

collection of news stories...of course I talked to Joan about it and read

the articles that Alva had...

...22/16... well, it hurt me to think of him, it seemed to me to be

such a waste. Just to be so stubborn that he'd go that far...

...22/43...he talked about some friend of his that that happened to,

some friend that was sent to prison that that happened to him.

22/52...The last time that we saw gordon, we stopped at the farm, remember

Joan had dinner for all of us, ....and gordon , it seemed like he was so

discouraged that night, I think of him sitting there in that chair, he seemed

so old and tired and it seemed to me that he was discouraaged about the

whole thing, but I really didn't talk about his experiences in prison...23/19...

JOHN= ...23/20... IT'S THE FIRST I'D SEEN HIM that he was ready to give

you a big speech about his political ideals, he just kind of sat in that

big chair and just kind of dosed off a little bit...

DELORES= 23/56... that was when I visited them in the summer of '75.

He was all involved in that then...

(SHE HOLDS UP PHOTO OF GK W/POSSE EMBLEM ON CAR)

...and, oh he even gave me some literature, how to start a group and

talked to me about how I shouldn't pay taxes and I shouldn't pay my soc.

sec. and he was all fired up at that time..and he seemed to think that this

tax protest group that he worked with, that they, it didn't make any difference,

that they would protect him. He said, why they'll pay my legal fees and

everything if it comes to a trial. It seemed to me tha he was just carried

away...

(CUT W/ BUFORD & RALSTON)

...25/17...well, that's the way I felt, that he was just, that they

had him tied and they were dragging him right along...

...27/11... I wondered after the medina incident. I remember writing

Joan and asking her, what he did that made them so mad, made the govt. so

mad at him...it seemed to me that they were out to kill him in medina...27/29...

...JOHN.=...27/58... I think that the dog wagged the tail, I think that

he was just the kind of guy who was independent and had his own ideas and

he was looking for an outlet to express himself this way and the first thing

that came, it seems weird, but the Mormon church which is a kind of a rebellion

in a little bit of a way and the other different churches he was in and

then the posse comitatus...It seems to me he was always looking for a way

to express himself...28/39...

...I don't think that people came and influenced him all that much,

but, delores probably knows more than I do...

Do you think that he was led into all this?

DELORES=...28/54...no, I think it was part of his personality that got

him attracted to these people. and then once he was attracted to them, they

may have led him, but I think he was looking for something...

...30/29... well, yes, I did at the time, I wondered why in the world?

and didfferent people have said, why if they really wanted him, why didn't

they come and get him when he was in carrington and that's what Bud Warren

had said, he really planned to arrest him, but to do it, to not to run into

that kind of problem...(BAD VIDEO FOCUS) ...YOU KNOW IN THAT BOOK AND I

THINK I READ IN THE PAPER WHERE gordon was supposedly going to all kinds

of auction sales and creating problems for the govt.. I wasn't aware of

that until I read about it...I didn't realize he was running around the

country trying to incite farmers...(MEDIA)

END TAPE #07:31/16

EVERTS#8

...00/22... when he went in he was going to send her this money and

she was going to save it so when he got out they could get married, but

she wasn't saving it though...he found out about it, so he started sending

it to mother and she did put it in a savings account for him and that was

his savings...00/40...

...01/04... yes, he had a wonderful sense of rythmn. when we were oh

I don't know how old we were, the lady that gave us piano lessons, she felt

that she should give piano lessons to all the kids in Heaton and she used

to take eggs and cream and chickens to pay for the lessons. She also was

the largest shareholder in the bank , the Turners owned the bank at that

time, and Mrs. Turner gave us piano lessons. Gordon had a much better sense

of rythmn than I had at that time and he played very well...but, he did

, here again was the discipline, he didn't like...1/49...

...to practise classical music, so he'd sit there and try picking out

songs from the hit parade and he could play by ear. And he did play very

well by ear and at one time he played with a little dance band from Bowden...

2/26...no, he played it up to the very end...that one time we went there

and yorie had been playing a music session, Yorie had his drums there and

Gordon had his piano and they were playing together...2/40...

...

...2/54... well, uh, the sunday when we were at wesley's we all talked

about it. We thought it was very well written and was fair to Gordon. It

treated him very farily, of course we objected to some of these things that

were wrong...

...3/19... well, one was that dad homesteaded that, he didn't homestead

that. Dad as a young man went from SD to Washington, he worked at Pullman

WA, he worked for a wealthy farmer there for a number of years and his parents

sold their farm in SD and bought the farm in Heaton. Then my grandfather

Kahl had liver cancer and he started to get sick soon after they moved there

so my dad came home from washington to work there, he was the oldest one.

kind of took over the running of the farm, he did not buy it or homestead

it either one, his father...4/07...and then later on after Grandpa Kahl

died, grandma couldn't keep it up, so she lost it. So then dad bought it

back . Dad bought the 160 acres that we lived on and mother's brother bought

the 160 acres that Gordon lived on and after Gordon came home from the war,

he bought those from uncle Ned, so that how we...4/35...

4/35...JOHN=... Wasn't there in the book something about Gordon being

a kind of crusader and he went around , that sort of a Grapes of Wrath sort

of thing, that he went around influencing the farmers, is that true?...4/54...

DELORES=...See, none of us are aware of that...

JOHN= ...FAct the title of the book almost sounds like it's based on

this idea, Grapes of Wrath, bitter harvest...5/06...

5/42...DELORES=... He was easy going and ...he had a good sense of humor,

lots of time when I sit down and watch Carson I think of Gordon, cause he

used to crack jokes and have that little smirk on his face...6/00...

7/55...FAMILY PHOTOS GO TO "photos/GK" file

END TAPE @ #8/25/34

CREDITS

with interviews of...

Joan Kahl
Yorie Kahl
Lynn Crooks
Toots Mathis
Dennis Fisher
John Noah
Irv Nodland
Bill Kennelly
Prof. Ed Gran
Jack McLamb
Delores Everts
Scarlet Skiftu
Herman Widicker
August Pankow
Victor Seil
Marlys Klimek
Ron Perleberg
Len Martin
Brad Kapp
Robert Holiday
Tom Lee
Ed Fitzpatrick
Gene Nail
Buford Terrell
Marlene Gaysek
Bob Ralston
Darrel Graf
Steve Schnabel
Jack Swan
Loreen Dyck
Lorna/Loreen
Mark Stagg
Sheriff Ray Weatherby
Jack Miller

cinematography

Tracy Adams
Allison Hoffman
Jeffrey F. Jackson

production design

Jim Haddon
Peter Lloyd

film editing

Tracy Adams
Martyn Hone
Jeffrey F. Jackson

original music by

Tracy Adams

sound department

Tracy Adams
Jeffrey F. Jackson

stunts

Rex Reddick

produced by

Jeffrey F. Jackson
Angela Kaye

writing by

Jeffrey F. Jackson

directed by

Jeffrey F. Jackson

CHRONOLOGY

A timeline of the life of Gordon Kahl, from early childhood interests, to his marriage to Joan Kahl, his decorated military experience, his outspoken tax protest, the Medina shootout, and his unusual death in Arkansas in 1983.

REVIEWS

VARIETY / Indie documaker Jeffrey F. Jackson sticks it to the IRS and the Feds in "Death & Taxes," a hard-hitting reinvestigation of the 1983 Gordon Kahl case, about which questions still linger. Jackson's unfazed, investigative reporting-style approach and inventive handling of familiar material make this a controversial item for fests and progressive webs. Non-U.S. viewers will also get a charge out of its conspiracy theme. read more

CHRONICLES MAGAZINE / Gordon Kahl was a simple farmer who became famous for not filing income tax returns. Imprisoned and hounded by IRS agents who never did prove he owed any amount of money, Kahl and his son were involved in a shootout with police. The son is still serving a prison sentence, but the father was surrounded and shot in Arkansas by police officers who mutilated and burned his body. read more

GUNS & AMMO / A new video documentary, Death & Taxes, details a case of government murderously out of control that was briefly mentioned in the October 1994 Guns & Ammo article "The Ugly Truth About Gun Control." Death & Taxes is the story of Gordon Kahl, a North Dakota farmer and decorated World War II veteran, and his apparent death at the hands of federal agents. read more