[Congressional Record Volume 144, Number 140 (Thursday, October 8, 1998)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E1970-E1972]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE: HATRED AND BIGOTRY IN ITS MOST FRIGHTENING FORM
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HON. TOM LANTOS
of california
in the house of representatives
Thursday, October 8, 1998
Mr. LANTOS. Mr. Speaker, I would like to ask my colleagues to join me
in studying the recently released report of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) entitled Explosion of Hate: The Growing Danger of the National
Alliance. This comprehensive and well-written document addresses the
activities and proclivities of one of the most dangerous hate groups in
America, the neo-Nazi National Alliance.
The stated goal of the National Alliance is to secure ``a racially
clean area of the earth . . . no non-whites in our living space . . . a
thorough rooting out of Semitic and other non-Aryan values and customs
everywhere.'' To achieve this warped end, this organization of
intolerance pledges ``to do whatever is necessary to achieve this White
living space and to keep it White. We will not be deterred by the
difficulty or temporary unpleasantness involved.'' Indeed, the ADL
report details the depths of ``temporary unpleasantness'' to which the
National Alliance has sunk in its pursuit of its depraved agenda,
tracing numerous cold-blooded murders and other terrorist activities to
National Alliance members. Declared National Alliance leader William L.
Pierce: ``We should not flinch from this. We should not focus on the
fact that it will be horrible and bloody, but on the fact that it is
necessary, and because it is necessary it is good.'' The dramatic
growth of this frightening organization over the past several years
should alarm us all.
Mr. Speaker, I would like to enter into the Record selected portions
of ``Explosion of Hate: The Growing Danger of the National Alliance.''
I hope that my colleagues will read the entire report on the ADL's web
site at www.adl.org.
Explosion of Hate: The Growing Danger of the National Alliance
Introduction: Thriving on Hate
The Most Dangerous Organized Hate Group
A new ADL investigation reveals that the neo-Nazi National
Alliance (NA) is the single most dangerous organized hate
group in the United States today. The NA sprang to national
attention several years ago, when it was discovered that a
fictitious incident in The Turner Diaries, a violent and
racist novel written by the NA's leader, might have been used
as a model for the Oklahoma City bombing. Convicted bomber
Timothy McVeigh was a devoted reader of The Diaries, which
features a bombing scenario that is eerily reminiscent of the
April 19, 1995 blast. The book was also the blueprint for The
Order, a revolutionary terrorist group that robbed and
murdered its way to fame in the early 1980s. The ringleader
of The Order was an organizer for the NA.
Now, the National Alliance has leaped to prominence again.
In the last several years, dozens of violent crimes,
including murders, bombings and robberies, have been traced
to NA members or appear to have been inspired by the groups's
propaganda. At the same time, the National Alliance's
membership base has experienced dramatic growth, with its
numbers more than doubling since 1992. The group,
headquartered near Hillsboro, West Virginia, is led by former
University of Oregon physics professor and veteran anti-
Semite William L. Pierce.
Active Cells From Coast to Coast
With 16 active cells from coast to coast, an estimated
membership of 1,000 and several thousand additional Americans
listening to its radio broadcasts and browsing its Internet
site, the National Alliance is the largest and most active
neo-Nazi organization in the nation. The group has also
developed significant political connections abroad. In the
past three years there has been evidence of
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NA activity in no fewer than 26 states across the country.
The organization has been most active in Ohio, Florida,
Michigan, New York, Maryland, North Carolina, Virginia, and
New Mexico.
The National Alliance's current strength and influence can
be attributed to several factors; its skillful embrace of
technology, its willingness to cooperate with other
extremists, its energetic recruitment and promotional
activities, and its vicious, but deceptively intellectualized
propaganda.
A Hate-Filled Netherworld
Learning From The Turner Diaries
Around the country, local National Alliance leaders are
responsible for ensuring that their charges read Pierce's
novel, The Turner Diaries, from cover to cover. Some of these
unit coordinators have suggested that they regard the novel--
which depicts an Aryan world takeover--as a model for their
own activities. For instance, The Turner Diaries describes
the protagonists' defiance of the fictitious ``Cohen Act,'' a
law against private ownership of weapons. Convinced that the
government will one day confiscate the weapons of all
citizens as it does in The Diaries, some NA leaders have
instructed members to keep guns and ammunition hidden on
their property. Some coordinators have further advised
followers to acquire M-16s and other weapons used by the U.S.
Army, so that in the event the government does disarm its
citizens, NA members will be able to raid military bases and
steal ammunition for their hidden guns.
The Ideology of Hate
Beyond these specific tactical instructions, National
Alliance leaders school their adherents in an ideology of
hate. The NA is determined to secure ``a racially clean area
of the earth . . . no non-whites in our living space . . . a
thorough rooting out of Semitic and other non-Aryan values
and customs everywhere. . . . We must have new societies
throughout the white world which are based on Aryan values
and are compatible with the Aryan nature.'' The National
Alliance claims it ``will do whatever is necessary to achieve
this White living space and to keep it White. We will not be
deterred by the difficulty or temporary unpleasantness
involved, because we realize that it is absolutely necessary
for our racial survival.''
Fundamental to the organization's doctrine is the belief
that ``our world is hierarchical'' and that the Aryan race is
endowed by nature with superior qualities. The National
Alliance laments that ``nature'' is currently unable to take
its course, because ``the sickness of multiculturalism is
destroying America, Britain and every other Aryan nation in
which it is being promoted.''
Rejecting Democracy
The group's racist vision extends to its views on
government. The National Alliance decries ``the growth of
mass democracy,'' including ``the enfranchisement of women
and of non-whites,'' and favors a government that will
``reverse the racially devolutionary course of the last few
millennia and keep it reversed.''
NA activists are also eager to erase the special progress
made by women in the last century, and believe that
``feminism is a threat to our race.'' ``A woman's battlefield
is the maternity ward,'' They say, and her ``greatest
`diploma' is to give birth to the `superman' or `superwoman'
''
NA members believe that people are the masters of their
destiny, and can control the trajectory of their lives,
within the laws of nature. The doctrines of various religious
groups are therefore a target. The National Alliance
specifically rails against Christianity, because most of its
members have Christian family backgrounds. ``We are obliged
to oppose the Christian churches and to speak out against
their doctrines,'' read the group's tenets. ``It is not an
Aryan religion . . . like the other Semitic religions [it]
is irredeemably primitive.''
Jews as THE Threat
While Pierce and other NA figures dehumanize both Blacks
and Jews, depicting them as threats to ``Aryan culture'' and
``racial purity,'' Jews are considered a more immediate
menance to white survival. In his infamous essay, ``Who Rules
America?'' Pierce's hatred of Jews turns to paranoia and
conspiracy mongering, as he describes the United States as
being in the thrall of a malevolent Jewish-owned media.
``The Jewish control of the mass media,'' Pierce writes,
``is the single most important fact of life, not just in
America, but in the world today. There is nothing--plague,
famine, economic collapse, even nuclear war--more dangerous
to the future of our people.''
The National Alliance attempts to intellectualize its
racist agenda in the page of its glossy magazine, the
National Vanguard. The magazine, which is published
irregularly, glorifies Aryan civilization and racial purity
in articles such as ``Aryans: Culture Bearers to China'' and
``Miscegenation: The Morality of Death.'' The National
Vanguard's highbrow tone contrasts sharply with the cruder,
poorly edited propaganda materials of some other extremist
groups, and perhaps heightens the NA's appeal among better-
educated bigots.
The Diaries: An Inspiration
While he wrote ``The Turner Diaries'' more than two decades
ago, Pierce continues to champion its ugly vision of a world
for whites only. A National Alliance radio broadcast aired in
early 1997 provides one of many examples:
In 1975, when I began writing ``The Turner Diaries'' . . .
I wanted to take all of the feminist agitators and
propagandists and all of the race-mixing fanatics and all of
the media bosses and all of the bureaucrats and politicians
who were collaborating with them, and I wanted to put them up
against a wall, in batches of a thousand or so at a time, and
machine-gun them. And I still want to do that. I am convinced
that one day we will have to do that before we can get our
civilization back on track, and I look forward to the day.
Following its broadcast on shortwave and conventional radio
stations, a recording of Pierce's explicitly violent
statement was featured on the NA's Web site.
A Racist Crime Spree
Other murderers and terrorists appear to have shared the
racist fantasies Pierce voiced in his radio address. ``The
Turner Diaries'' is thought to be the inspiration behind a
crime spree in the early 1980s perpetrated by a gang of
extremists called The Order. The Order's crimes included
murders, robberies, counterfeiting and the bombing of a
synagogue.''
After a Seattle bank robbery in 1983, the terrorist gang's
leader, Robert Mathews, told an acquaintance that he had
orchestrated the heist as the opening scene in what he hoped
would be a reenactment of Pierce's American Nazi revolution.
Prior to The Order's formation, Mathews was a Pacific
Northwest representative of the National Alliance, and other
founders of this terrorist gang also traced their roots to
the NA. Even the group's name, ``The Order'' was chosen as a
reverent nod to its inspiration--an elite, clandestine
paramilitary unit featured, in ``The Turner Diaries.''
The Aryan Republican Army: Reading the Turner Diaries
More recently, members of a white supremacist gang calling
itself the ``Aryan Republican Army'' took its cues from The
Order. Authorities say the ``Army,'' led by Peter Langan,
committed 22 bank robberies and bombings across the Midwest
between 1992 and 1996 using tactics reminiscent of The Order.
Four members of the group have pleaded guilty to a variety of
robbery charges, while Langan was convicted in two Federal
trails. In a racist video discovered by the FBI, Langan
praised Robert Mathews and instructed his viewers to ``learn
from Bob,'' Federal prosecutors have also demonstrated that
The Turner Diaries was required reading in the Aryan
Republican Army.
The New Order: Planning Violence
The activities of The Order have also been cited as a role
model for an alleged conspiracy by a group of white
supremacists in East St. Louis, Illinois. In March 1998,
Federal authorities arrested Dennis McGiffen, an Aryan
Nations leader and former Klansman, Wallace Weicherding,
also a former Klansman, and Robert Bock. The three were
charged with conspiracy to possess and make machine guns.
McGiffen and Bock pleaded guilty to the charges one month
later. Wallace Weicherding was convicted on September 1,
1998.
At the time of their indictment, an FBI agent testified
that McGiffen had been forming a group called ``The New
Order,'' patterned after Robert Mathews' terrorist gang. The
group allegedly planned to bomb the Anti-Defamation League's
New York headquarters, the Southern Poverty Law Center in
Montgomery, Alabama, and the Simon Wiesenthal Center in Los
Angeles. They had also talked of bombing state capitols and
post offices, and poisoning public water supplies with
cyanide. Like other admirers of The Order, McGiffen's beliefs
were reportedly heavily influenced by ``The Turner Diaries.''
Racist Links
The Fort Bragg Murders
Also on the East Coast, the NA has attempted to attract
members among U.S. Army personnel at Fort Bragg, in
Fayetteville, North Carolina. A member of the elite 82nd
Airborne Division, Robert Hunt, reportedly worked as a
recruiter for the National Alliance while stationed at Fort
Bragg. In April 1995, according to the NA, Hunt rented a
billboard outside Fort Bragg and used it to post an
advertisement and local phone number for the group.
In December 1995, a Black couple was gunned down near the
Army base in what prosecutors called a racially motivated
killing. James Burmeister and Malcolm Wright, members of the
82nd Airborne Division, were ultimately convicted of the
murders and sentenced to life in prison. (A third soldier,
Randy Meadows, pleaded guilty to conspiracy and accessory
charges.) Burmeister and Wright were active neo-Nazi
Skinheads, and reportedly read National Alliance propaganda.
Racist Shooting in Mississippi
Another racial incident that can be linked to National
Alliance propaganda occurred in April 1996, when Larry Wayne
Shoemake killed one African American and injured seven others
in Jackson, Mississippi. Police say Shoemake piled a small
arsenal of weapons into an abandoned restaurant in a
predominantly Black neighborhood, and from his hideout began
shooting wildly into the street in a murderous rampage. As an
ambulance tried to rescue a dying victim, Shoemake continued
firing his rifle, preventing emergency workers from remaining
on the scene. Shoemake ultimately took his own life.
In a police search of Shoemake's home, authorities found a
Nazi flag draped over his
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bed, a copy of Adolf Hitler's Mein Kampf and literature from
the National Alliance. According to his ex-wife, Shoemake
first encountered NA propaganda in the mid-1980s, when he
borrowed ``The Turner Diaries'' from a friend. She said her
husband wasn't the same after he read Pierce's novel. ``It
was like an eye-opener for him,'' his wife said. ``There was
a distinct difference in him.'' Shoemake also began
subscribing to Pierce's monthly publications.
Separation or Annihilation
The October 1995 issue of ``Free Speech,'' a monthly
newsletter sent to financial supporters of the NA's
``American Dissident Voices'' radio program, seems to have
had a particular impact on Shoemake. The issue featured an
article called ``Separation or Annihilation,'' which exhorted
readers to choose between ``racial separation'' and
``annihilation'' of whites. It stated that ``attaining racial
separation and avoiding racial annihilation is worth any
cost. We should be willing to give up every material thing we
own to achieve it.'' Along the margins of the essay, Shoemake
scrawled: ``I say: Separation or annihilation! Who is crazy?
Me or you? We will see.'' Shoemake repeated the NA's slogan
in a final, rambling letter obtained and published by the
Jackson, Mississippi, Clarion-Ledger. Shoemake wrote: ``Black
is the problem. It's in their genes. . . . They will never
forgive whites for all the supposedly terrible treatment we
did to them. The bottom line is: Separation or
annihilation.''
A Venomous Voice
Broadcasting Hate
Despite these crimes, Pierce continues to glorify violence,
offering it as the ultimate solution to what he calls--in
words reminiscent of Adolf Hitler--``the Jewish problem.''
Much like his writings, Pierce's weekly radio show is rife
with incendiary speech. Moreover, while the program's topic
varies from week to week depending on current events,
Pierce's material never truly changes. Each broadcast is a
springboard for the NA's enduring message of anti-Jewish,
anti-Black and anti-government hatred.
The broadcasts can be picked up in most of the country on
shortwave radio, are aired on local radio stations in parts
of Arkansas, Texas, Alabama, New England, Florida and
California and can be downloaded in audio form from the NA's
World Wide Web site. Transcripts of the speeches are sent via
E-mail to subscribers and are sent to financial supporters in
the form of a monthly newspaper.
A Continuing Theme: Eliminating Jews and non-whites
In a November 1997 broadcast discussing the revelation that
a Black man in upstate New York had infected dozens of local
white girls with the AIDS virus, Pierce said:
Ultimately, we must separate ourselves from the Blacks and
other non-whites and keep ourselves separate, no matter what
it takes to accomplish this. We must do this not because we
hate Blacks, but because we cannot survive if we remain mixed
with them. And we cannot survive if we permit the Jews and
the traitors among us to remain among us and to repeat their
treachery. Eventually we must hunt them down and get rid of
them.
Continuing his tirade, Pierce said that while individual
Blacks and Jews may seem worthy of redemption, the only
tenable solution for white people is to eliminate all non-
whites.
Calling for Racial Cleansing
In January 1998, in a speech titled, ``What Is a Patriot to
Do?'' Pierce spoke of starting an armed revolution against
the Jewish people. He agreed that such an act of resistance
would demand sacrifice, but deemed its rewards far greater:
Yes, the great cleansing which must come may destroy
millions of our own people, the innocent along with the
guilty, the good along with the bad. * * * But eventually it
must come, because otherwise our people will die, and
everything that has gone before as well as everything that
might come in the future will be lost forever. The great
cleansing must come, and we must do whatever it takes to
ensure that it does, so that our people will live.
The bottom line to listeners was a shrill cry for violence.
``We should not flinch from this,'' Pierce said. ``We should
not focus on the fact that it will be horrible and bloody,
but on the fact that it is necessary, and because it is
necessary it is good.''
Looking Ahead
The National Alliance's dramatic growth is significant
because it comes at a time when other neo-Nazi organizations,
as well as groups like the Ku Klux Klan, are becoming weaker
and more fragmented. Moreover, the NA does not appear to be
siphoning members from these declining groups, but actually
recruiting a fresh cast of educated, middle-class bigots.
These new followers appear to be attracted to the National
Alliance's dedicated membership, its commanding presence on
the Internet, its emphasis on maintaining a ``sophisticated''
image, and its powerful leadership. As the National Alliance
continues to gather momentum and strength, its threat of
violence grows. Crimes being plotted or committed by NA
members of ``Turner Diaries'' devotees have been mounting. By
publishing this report, ADL seeks to increase public
awareness of the dangers posed by these individuals, as well
as to encourage stepped-up vigilance by law enforcement
officials at all levels.
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