William Luther Pierce
Encyclopedia
William Luther Pierce III (September 11, 1933 – July 23, 2002) was the leader of the white separatist National Alliance organization, and one of the most important ideologists of the white nationalist movement. Pierce originally worked as an assistant professor of physics
at Oregon State University
, before he became involved in politics. He achieved notoriety as the author of the novels The Turner Diaries
and Hunter, which were written under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald and published under National Vanguard Books. He is also the founder of "Cosmotheism", a religion based on white
racialism
, panentheism
, eugenics
, and National Socialism.
to Marguerite Farrell and William Luther Pierce, Jr. His father was born in Christiansburg, Virginia
in 1892. His mother was born in Richland, Georgia
in 1910, with her family being part of the aristocracy
of the Old South
, descendants of Thomas H. Watts
, the Governor of Alabama and Attorney General
of the Confederate States of America
. Pierce's father once served as a government representative on ocean-going cargo ships and sent reports back to Washington, D.C.
; he later became manager of an insurance agency but was killed in a car accident in 1942. After the elder Pierce’s death, the family, which included a younger brother, Sanders, moved to Montgomery, Alabama
and then to Dallas, Texas
.
Pierce performed well academically in school, skipping one grade. His last two years in high school were spent in a military academy. As a teenager his hobbies and interests were model rockets, chemistry
, radio
s, electronics, and reading science fiction
. His first aspiration was to become an astronaut
.
After finishing military school in 1951, Pierce worked briefly in an oil field as a roustabout
. He was injured when a four-inch (10 cm) pipe fell on his hand, and he spent the rest of that summer working as a shoe salesman. Pierce earned a scholarship to attend Rice University
in Houston, Texas
. He was graduated from Rice in 1955 with a baccalaureate in physics
. He worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
before attending graduate school, first at Caltech and then the University of Colorado at Boulder
, where he earned his doctorate
in 1962. He taught physics as an assistant professor at Oregon State University
from 1962 to 1965.
. They were married in 1957, and had twin sons, Kelvin and Erik, born in 1962. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Pierce remarried that same year to Elizabeth Prostel, whom he met in the National Alliance
office in Arlington, Virginia. The marriage ended in 1985, at which time Pierce moved his headquarters to Southern West Virginia
. Pierce married Hungarian Olga Skerlecz in 1986, a marriage that lasted until 1990. Olga left Pierce "for greener pastures in California", as Pierce refused to leave West Virginia. Pierce then married a Hungarian woman named Zsuzsannah in early 1991. They met through an advertisement that Pierce placed in a Hungarian women's magazine aimed at arranging international marriages. Zsuzsannah left him and moved to Florida
in the summer of 1996. His final marriage, which lasted until his death, was with another Hungarian woman, whom he married in 1997.
and the Vietnam
anti-war movement. Pierce saw the civil rights movement, with its emphasis on racial equality, as a threat to the white race. He also saw the anti-war movement as communist-inspired and led primarily by Jews
. He was briefly a member of the John Birch Society
in 1962, but eventually resigned.
He stated that he decided to join the neo-Nazi movement while teaching at Oregon State University when he saw a mulatto
on campus and he came to believe that miscegenation
was a threat to the racial integrity of the white race. In 1966, he became an associate of George Lincoln Rockwell
, founder of the American Nazi Party
. During this time he was the editor of the party's ideological journal, National Socialist World. When Rockwell was assassinated in 1967, Pierce continued to work with the group and became an official member. The American Nazi Party had been renamed the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) around this time. Pierce left the NSWPP and took control of the National Youth Alliance
in 1970, which was renamed the National Alliance in 1974.
as its symbol. Pierce intended this organization to be a political vanguard that would ultimately bring about a "white racial redemption". His Cosmotheist Community Church, which was to be the second step in this plan, was organized in 1976, alongside Pierce's political projects: the National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and the weekly broadcast American Dissident Voices. In 1978 Pierce applied for, and was denied, tax exemption
, at which point he claimed that the Internal Revenue Service
was controlled by Jews. Pierce appealed, but an appellate court upheld the I.R.S. decision. In 1985, Pierce moved his operations from Arlington, Virginia, to a 346 acres (1.4 km²) location in Mill Point, West Virginia
that he paid for with $95,000 in cash. He called his new church the Cosmotheist Community Church.
When Pierce bought the West Virginia property, he named it the "Cosmotheist Community Church" and applied for federal, state, and local tax exemptions. However, in 1986, the church lost its state tax exemption for all but 60 (out of nearly 400 acres) acres, which had to be exclusively used for religious purposes. The other 340 acres (1.4 km²) were used for both the National Alliance headquarters and the National Vanguard Books business and warehouse, and were denied tax exemption.
After Pierce's death, the National Alliance entered a period of internal conflict and decline.
, as Timothy McVeigh
was alleged to have been influenced by The Turner Diaries
(1978), the novel written by Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. The book is a graphically violent depiction of a future race war
in the United States, which includes a detailed description of the mass hangings of many "race traitors" in the public streets of Los Angeles
, followed by the systematic ethnic cleansing
of the entire city. The story is told through the perspective of Earl Turner, an active member of the white revolutionary underground The Organization.
The part most relevant to the McVeigh case is in an early chapter, when the book's main character is placed in charge of bombing the FBI
headquarters. Some have pointed out similarities between the bombing in the book and the actual bombing in Oklahoma City
that damaged the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
and killed 168 people on April 19, 1995. McVeigh personally stated that his attack was in response to the Waco massacre.
The Turner Diaries also inspired a group of white revolutionary nationalists in the early 1980s who called themselves the Silent Brotherhood, or sometimes simply The Order
. The Order was connected to numerous crimes, including counterfeiting and bank robbery
, and supposedly gave money to the Alliance. The Order's leader, Robert Jay Mathews
, died in a stand-off with police and federal agents on Whidbey Island
, Washington, when police fired flares into his hideout, igniting a fire. Other Order members, most notably the late David Lane
, were all captured and sent to federal prisons, where they still continue to voice their support for white nationalism and racial separatist
ideals.
, which tells the story of a man named Oscar Yeager, a veteran of the Vietnam
War
and F-4 Phantom
pilot who assassinates mixed-raced couples.
In interviews, Pierce called Hunter "more realistic" and described his rationale for writing it as taking the reader through "...an educational process".
This book was dedicated to serial killer
Joseph Paul Franklin
, a longtime member of various racist groups who, like Hunters protagonist, preyed on interracial couples. Joseph Paul Franklin is currently incarcerated at Potosi Correctional Center
in Potosi, Missouri
.
, or it is an impersonal panentheism
, or it is a belief that an impersonal "creative spiritual force," i.e. "God," is the animating force within the whole universe.
Cosmotheism asserts that "all is within God and God is within all." It considers the nature of reality and of existence to be mutable and destined to co-evolve towards a complete "universal consciousness," or godhood. Cosmos
means an orderly and harmonious universe and thus the divine is tantamount to reality and consciousness, an inseparable part of an orderly, harmonious, and whole universal system.
In his speech "Our Cause", Pierce said:
Pierce described his form of panentheism as being based on "[t]he idea of an evolution
ary universe ... with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics
as the means of advancing the white race first towards a superhuman
super race
, and then towards a personal godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore it should be kept genetically separate from all other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in a collective personal godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including the survival of the fittest
. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" (mass expulsion) and of eugenics
, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
, where he hosted a weekly radio show, American Dissident Voices, and oversaw his publications, National Vanguard
, Free Speech and Resistance, as well as books published by his publishing firm National Vanguard Books, Inc. and his record company, Resistance Records
. He stated that although he himself preferred classical music
, he realized that Aryan youth needed White power music to bind themselves to the cause.
On May 19, 1996, Pierce made a rare personal appearance in the mainstream media, on 60 Minutes
, during which Pierce was asked if he approved of the Oklahoma City bombing, and he replied "No. No, I don't. I've said that over and over again, that I do not approve of the Oklahoma City bombing because the United States is not yet in a revolutionary situation".
Before Pierce died, he allowed Robert S. Griffin to live with him for a month, with the result being the self-published work The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds (2001).
Pierce died of cancer
on July 23, 2002, in the home in West Virginia he had lived in for the last 20 years.
After his death, the British National Party
contributed an article in remembrance of him.
Written as William Pierce
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
at Oregon State University
Oregon State University
Oregon State University is a coeducational, public research university located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees and a multitude of research opportunities. There are more than 200 academic degree programs offered through the...
, before he became involved in politics. He achieved notoriety as the author of the novels The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
and Hunter, which were written under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald and published under National Vanguard Books. He is also the founder of "Cosmotheism", a religion based on white
White people
White people is a term which usually refers to human beings characterized, at least in part, by the light pigmentation of their skin...
racialism
Racialism
Racialism is an emphasis on race or racial considerations. Currently, racialism entails a belief in the existence and significance of racial categories, but not necessarily that any absolute hierarchy between the races has been demonstrated by a rigorous and comprehensive scientific process...
, panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
, and National Socialism.
Early life
William Pierce was born in Atlanta, GeorgiaAtlanta, Georgia
Atlanta is the capital and most populous city in the U.S. state of Georgia. According to the 2010 census, Atlanta's population is 420,003. Atlanta is the cultural and economic center of the Atlanta metropolitan area, which is home to 5,268,860 people and is the ninth largest metropolitan area in...
to Marguerite Farrell and William Luther Pierce, Jr. His father was born in Christiansburg, Virginia
Christiansburg, Virginia
Christiansburg is a town in Montgomery County, Virginia, United States. The population was 21,041 at the 2010 census. It is the county seat of Montgomery County...
in 1892. His mother was born in Richland, Georgia
Richland, Georgia
Richland is a city in Stewart County, Georgia, United States. The population was 1,794 at the 2000 census.-Geography:Richland is located at ....
in 1910, with her family being part of the aristocracy
Aristocracy
Aristocracy , is a form of government in which a few elite citizens rule. The term derives from the Greek aristokratia, meaning "rule of the best". In origin in Ancient Greece, it was conceived of as rule by the best qualified citizens, and contrasted with monarchy...
of the Old South
Old South
Geographically, Old South is a subregion of the American South, differentiated from the "Deep South" as being the Southern States represented in the original thirteen American colonies, as well as a way of describing the former lifestyle in the Southern United States. Culturally, the term can be...
, descendants of Thomas H. Watts
Thomas H. Watts
Thomas Hill Watts was the 18th Governor of the U.S. state of Alabama from 1863 to 1865, during the Civil War....
, the Governor of Alabama and Attorney General
Attorney General
In most common law jurisdictions, the attorney general, or attorney-general, is the main legal advisor to the government, and in some jurisdictions he or she may also have executive responsibility for law enforcement or responsibility for public prosecutions.The term is used to refer to any person...
of the Confederate States of America
Confederate States of America
The Confederate States of America was a government set up from 1861 to 1865 by 11 Southern slave states of the United States of America that had declared their secession from the U.S...
. Pierce's father once served as a government representative on ocean-going cargo ships and sent reports back to Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
; he later became manager of an insurance agency but was killed in a car accident in 1942. After the elder Pierce’s death, the family, which included a younger brother, Sanders, moved to Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery, Alabama
Montgomery is the capital of the U.S. state of Alabama, and is the county seat of Montgomery County. It is located on the Alabama River southeast of the center of the state, in the Gulf Coastal Plain. As of the 2010 census, Montgomery had a population of 205,764 making it the second-largest city...
and then to Dallas, Texas
Dallas, Texas
Dallas is the third-largest city in Texas and the ninth-largest in the United States. The Dallas-Fort Worth Metroplex is the largest metropolitan area in the South and fourth-largest metropolitan area in the United States...
.
Pierce performed well academically in school, skipping one grade. His last two years in high school were spent in a military academy. As a teenager his hobbies and interests were model rockets, chemistry
Chemistry
Chemistry is the science of matter, especially its chemical reactions, but also its composition, structure and properties. Chemistry is concerned with atoms and their interactions with other atoms, and particularly with the properties of chemical bonds....
, radio
Radio
Radio is the transmission of signals through free space by modulation of electromagnetic waves with frequencies below those of visible light. Electromagnetic radiation travels by means of oscillating electromagnetic fields that pass through the air and the vacuum of space...
s, electronics, and reading science fiction
Science fiction
Science fiction is a genre of fiction dealing with imaginary but more or less plausible content such as future settings, futuristic science and technology, space travel, aliens, and paranormal abilities...
. His first aspiration was to become an astronaut
Astronaut
An astronaut or cosmonaut is a person trained by a human spaceflight program to command, pilot, or serve as a crew member of a spacecraft....
.
After finishing military school in 1951, Pierce worked briefly in an oil field as a roustabout
Roustabout
A roustabout is a labourer typically performing temporary, unskilled work. The term has traditionally been used to refer to traveling-circus workers, natural gas, or oil rig workers....
. He was injured when a four-inch (10 cm) pipe fell on his hand, and he spent the rest of that summer working as a shoe salesman. Pierce earned a scholarship to attend Rice University
Rice University
William Marsh Rice University, commonly referred to as Rice University or Rice, is a private research university located on a heavily wooded campus in Houston, Texas, United States...
in Houston, Texas
Houston, Texas
Houston is the fourth-largest city in the United States, and the largest city in the state of Texas. According to the 2010 U.S. Census, the city had a population of 2.1 million people within an area of . Houston is the seat of Harris County and the economic center of , which is the ...
. He was graduated from Rice in 1955 with a baccalaureate in physics
Physics
Physics is a natural science that involves the study of matter and its motion through spacetime, along with related concepts such as energy and force. More broadly, it is the general analysis of nature, conducted in order to understand how the universe behaves.Physics is one of the oldest academic...
. He worked at the Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory
Los Alamos National Laboratory is a United States Department of Energy national laboratory, managed and operated by Los Alamos National Security , located in Los Alamos, New Mexico...
before attending graduate school, first at Caltech and then the University of Colorado at Boulder
University of Colorado at Boulder
The University of Colorado Boulder is a public research university located in Boulder, Colorado...
, where he earned his doctorate
Doctor of Philosophy
Doctor of Philosophy, abbreviated as Ph.D., PhD, D.Phil., or DPhil , in English-speaking countries, is a postgraduate academic degree awarded by universities...
in 1962. He taught physics as an assistant professor at Oregon State University
Oregon State University
Oregon State University is a coeducational, public research university located in Corvallis, Oregon, United States. The university offers undergraduate, graduate and doctoral degrees and a multitude of research opportunities. There are more than 200 academic degree programs offered through the...
from 1962 to 1965.
Marriages
Pierce married five times. His first marriage was to Patricia Jones, whom he met while attending California Institute of TechnologyCalifornia Institute of Technology
The California Institute of Technology is a private research university located in Pasadena, California, United States. Caltech has six academic divisions with strong emphases on science and engineering...
. They were married in 1957, and had twin sons, Kelvin and Erik, born in 1962. The marriage ended in divorce in 1982. Pierce remarried that same year to Elizabeth Prostel, whom he met in the National Alliance
National Alliance
The National Alliance is a white separatist political organization. It was founded by University physics teacher Dr. William Luther Pierce in 1974, and is based in the Pierce family's compound in Hillsboro, West Virginia. Although it operates primarily in the United States, the National Alliance...
office in Arlington, Virginia. The marriage ended in 1985, at which time Pierce moved his headquarters to Southern West Virginia
Southern West Virginia
Southern West Virginia is a culturally and geographically distinct region in the U.S. state of West Virginia. Generally considered the heart of Appalachia, Southern West Virginia is known for its coal mining heritage and southern affinity...
. Pierce married Hungarian Olga Skerlecz in 1986, a marriage that lasted until 1990. Olga left Pierce "for greener pastures in California", as Pierce refused to leave West Virginia. Pierce then married a Hungarian woman named Zsuzsannah in early 1991. They met through an advertisement that Pierce placed in a Hungarian women's magazine aimed at arranging international marriages. Zsuzsannah left him and moved to Florida
Florida
Florida is a state in the southeastern United States, located on the nation's Atlantic and Gulf coasts. It is bordered to the west by the Gulf of Mexico, to the north by Alabama and Georgia and to the east by the Atlantic Ocean. With a population of 18,801,310 as measured by the 2010 census, it...
in the summer of 1996. His final marriage, which lasted until his death, was with another Hungarian woman, whom he married in 1997.
Beginnings
His time spent at Oregon State University (1962–1965) coincided with the rise of two social movements, the civil rights movementCivil rights movement
The civil rights movement was a worldwide political movement for equality before the law occurring between approximately 1950 and 1980. In many situations it took the form of campaigns of civil resistance aimed at achieving change by nonviolent forms of resistance. In some situations it was...
and the Vietnam
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
anti-war movement. Pierce saw the civil rights movement, with its emphasis on racial equality, as a threat to the white race. He also saw the anti-war movement as communist-inspired and led primarily by Jews
American Jews
American Jews, also known as Jewish Americans, are American citizens of the Jewish faith or Jewish ethnicity. The Jewish community in the United States is composed predominantly of Ashkenazi Jews who emigrated from Central and Eastern Europe, and their U.S.-born descendants...
. He was briefly a member of the John Birch Society
John Birch Society
The John Birch Society is an American political advocacy group that supports anti-communism, limited government, a Constitutional Republic and personal freedom. It has been described as radical right-wing....
in 1962, but eventually resigned.
He stated that he decided to join the neo-Nazi movement while teaching at Oregon State University when he saw a mulatto
Mulatto
Mulatto denotes a person with one white parent and one black parent, or more broadly, a person of mixed black and white ancestry. Contemporary usage of the term varies greatly, and the broader sense of the term makes its application rather subjective, as not all people of mixed white and black...
on campus and he came to believe that miscegenation
Miscegenation
Miscegenation is the mixing of different racial groups through marriage, cohabitation, sexual relations, and procreation....
was a threat to the racial integrity of the white race. In 1966, he became an associate of George Lincoln Rockwell
George Lincoln Rockwell
George Lincoln Rockwell was the founder of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell was a major figure in the neo-Nazi movement in the United States, and his beliefs and writings have continued to be influential among white nationalists and neo-Nazis.-Early life:Rockwell was born in Bloomington,...
, founder of the American Nazi Party
American Nazi Party
The American Nazi Party was an American political party founded by discharged U.S. Navy Commander George Lincoln Rockwell. Headquartered in Arlington, Virginia, Rockwell initially called it the World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists , but later renamed it the American Nazi Party in...
. During this time he was the editor of the party's ideological journal, National Socialist World. When Rockwell was assassinated in 1967, Pierce continued to work with the group and became an official member. The American Nazi Party had been renamed the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) around this time. Pierce left the NSWPP and took control of the National Youth Alliance
National Youth Alliance
The National Youth Alliance was a right-wing political organization founded on November 15, 1968 at the Army and Navy Club by Willis Carto, head of the right-wing Liberty Lobby. The aim of the group was to recruit students to counter liberal and Marxist groups on college campuses like Students for...
in 1970, which was renamed the National Alliance in 1974.
National Alliance
The National Alliance adopted the life runeAlgiz
The Algiz is part of the ancient Nordic and Anglo-Saxon runic alphabet, often equated to the modern day z, however was traditionally pronounced yr. The letter has come to symbolize many neo-pagan religions and is often worn as a pendant...
as its symbol. Pierce intended this organization to be a political vanguard that would ultimately bring about a "white racial redemption". His Cosmotheist Community Church, which was to be the second step in this plan, was organized in 1976, alongside Pierce's political projects: the National Alliance, National Vanguard Books, and the weekly broadcast American Dissident Voices. In 1978 Pierce applied for, and was denied, tax exemption
Tax exemption
Various tax systems grant a tax exemption to certain organizations, persons, income, property or other items taxable under the system. Tax exemption may also refer to a personal allowance or specific monetary exemption which may be claimed by an individual to reduce taxable income under some...
, at which point he claimed that the Internal Revenue Service
Internal Revenue Service
The Internal Revenue Service is the revenue service of the United States federal government. The agency is a bureau of the Department of the Treasury, and is under the immediate direction of the Commissioner of Internal Revenue...
was controlled by Jews. Pierce appealed, but an appellate court upheld the I.R.S. decision. In 1985, Pierce moved his operations from Arlington, Virginia, to a 346 acres (1.4 km²) location in Mill Point, West Virginia
Mill Point, West Virginia
Mill Point is an unincorporated community in Pocahontas County, West Virginia, United States. Mill Point is located at the junction of U.S. Route 219, West Virginia Route 39, and West Virginia Route 55 northeast of Hillsboro....
that he paid for with $95,000 in cash. He called his new church the Cosmotheist Community Church.
When Pierce bought the West Virginia property, he named it the "Cosmotheist Community Church" and applied for federal, state, and local tax exemptions. However, in 1986, the church lost its state tax exemption for all but 60 (out of nearly 400 acres) acres, which had to be exclusively used for religious purposes. The other 340 acres (1.4 km²) were used for both the National Alliance headquarters and the National Vanguard Books business and warehouse, and were denied tax exemption.
After Pierce's death, the National Alliance entered a period of internal conflict and decline.
The Turner Diaries
Pierce gained international public attention following the Oklahoma City bombingOklahoma City bombing
The Oklahoma City bombing was a terrorist bomb attack on the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building in downtown Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995. It was the most destructive act of terrorism on American soil until the September 11, 2001 attacks. The Oklahoma blast claimed 168 lives, including 19...
, as Timothy McVeigh
Timothy McVeigh
Timothy James McVeigh was a United States Army veteran and security guard who detonated a truck bomb in front of the Alfred P. Murrah Building in Oklahoma City on April 19, 1995...
was alleged to have been influenced by The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries
The Turner Diaries is a novel written in 1978 by William Luther Pierce under the pseudonym "Andrew Macdonald"...
(1978), the novel written by Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. The book is a graphically violent depiction of a future race war
Race war
Race war is a term referring to developing hostilities between ethnic groups divided on the basis of racial group or skin color. The term may refer to specific violent acts or to general overt or covert hostilities between ethnic groups; compare ethnic conflict.-Manson:The murders perpetrated by...
in the United States, which includes a detailed description of the mass hangings of many "race traitors" in the public streets of Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, followed by the systematic ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing
Ethnic cleansing is a purposeful policy designed by one ethnic or religious group to remove by violent and terror-inspiring means the civilian population of another ethnic orreligious group from certain geographic areas....
of the entire city. The story is told through the perspective of Earl Turner, an active member of the white revolutionary underground The Organization.
The part most relevant to the McVeigh case is in an early chapter, when the book's main character is placed in charge of bombing the FBI
Federal Bureau of Investigation
The Federal Bureau of Investigation is an agency of the United States Department of Justice that serves as both a federal criminal investigative body and an internal intelligence agency . The FBI has investigative jurisdiction over violations of more than 200 categories of federal crime...
headquarters. Some have pointed out similarities between the bombing in the book and the actual bombing in Oklahoma City
Oklahoma city
Oklahoma City is the capital and largest city of the U.S. state of Oklahoma.Oklahoma City may also refer to:*Oklahoma City metropolitan area*Downtown Oklahoma City*Uptown Oklahoma City*Oklahoma City bombing*Oklahoma City National Memorial...
that damaged the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building
The Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building was a United States Federal Government complex located at 200 N.W. 5th Street in downtown Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, United States. The building was the target of the Oklahoma City bombing on April 19, 1995, which killed 168 people, including 19 children...
and killed 168 people on April 19, 1995. McVeigh personally stated that his attack was in response to the Waco massacre.
The Turner Diaries also inspired a group of white revolutionary nationalists in the early 1980s who called themselves the Silent Brotherhood, or sometimes simply The Order
The Order (group)
The Order, also known as the Brüder Schweigen or Silent Brotherhood, was an organization active in the United States between 1983 and 1984...
. The Order was connected to numerous crimes, including counterfeiting and bank robbery
Bank robbery
Bank robbery is the crime of stealing from a bank during opening hours. According to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's Uniform Crime Reporting Program, robbery is "the taking or attempting to take anything of value from the care, custody, or control of a person or persons by force or threat of...
, and supposedly gave money to the Alliance. The Order's leader, Robert Jay Mathews
Robert Jay Mathews
Robert Jay Mathews was the leader of an American white nationalist group The Order.Mathews was burned to death during the intense gunfight with approximately seventy-five of the federal law enforcement agents who surrounded his house on Whidbey Island, near Freeland, Washington.Mathews' life was...
, died in a stand-off with police and federal agents on Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island
Whidbey Island is one of nine islands located in Island County, Washington, in the United States. Whidbey is located about north of Seattle, and lies between the Olympic Peninsula and the I-5 corridor of western Washington...
, Washington, when police fired flares into his hideout, igniting a fire. Other Order members, most notably the late David Lane
David Lane (Neo-Nazi)
David Eden Lane was an American white nationalist leader and convicted felon. A founding member of The Order, he died while serving a 190-year prison sentence in the Federal Correctional Complex in Terre Haute, Indiana....
, were all captured and sent to federal prisons, where they still continue to voice their support for white nationalism and racial separatist
Racial separatism
Racial separatism refers to a belief that people of different races should live apart. It can be used in either the sense of:* Racial segregation* White separatism or Black separatism...
ideals.
Hunter
In 1984, again under the Andrew Macdonald pen name, William Pierce published another novel, HunterHunter (novel)
Hunter is a 1989 novel written by William Luther Pierce, the late founder and chairman of the National Alliance, a white nationalist group, under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. Pierce also used this pseudonym to write the better-known The Turner Diaries, a 1978 novel with similar themes...
, which tells the story of a man named Oscar Yeager, a veteran of the Vietnam
Vietnam
Vietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
War
Vietnam War
The Vietnam War was a Cold War-era military conflict that occurred in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia from 1 November 1955 to the fall of Saigon on 30 April 1975. This war followed the First Indochina War and was fought between North Vietnam, supported by its communist allies, and the government of...
and F-4 Phantom
F-4 Phantom II
The McDonnell Douglas F-4 Phantom II is a tandem two-seat, twin-engined, all-weather, long-range supersonic jet interceptor fighter/fighter-bomber originally developed for the United States Navy by McDonnell Aircraft. It first entered service in 1960 with the U.S. Navy. Proving highly adaptable,...
pilot who assassinates mixed-raced couples.
In interviews, Pierce called Hunter "more realistic" and described his rationale for writing it as taking the reader through "...an educational process".
This book was dedicated to serial killer
Serial killer
A serial killer, as typically defined, is an individual who has murdered three or more people over a period of more than a month, with down time between the murders, and whose motivation for killing is usually based on psychological gratification...
Joseph Paul Franklin
Joseph Paul Franklin
Joseph Paul Franklin is an American serial killer. He has been convicted of several murders, and has confessed to the attempted assassinations of two prominent people — the 1978 shooting of magazine publisher Larry Flynt and Flynt's attorney, and the 1980 shooting of Vernon Jordan, Jr....
, a longtime member of various racist groups who, like Hunters protagonist, preyed on interracial couples. Joseph Paul Franklin is currently incarcerated at Potosi Correctional Center
Potosi Correctional Center
Potosi Correctional Center is a Missouri Department of Corrections prison located in unincorporated Washington County, Missouri, near Potosi. The facility currently houses 800 capital punishment, maximum security and high-risk male inmates....
in Potosi, Missouri
Potosi, Missouri
Potosi is a city in Washington County, Missouri, United States. Potosi is about 10 miles north of Belgrade. The estimated population in July 2008 was 2,698. It was 2,662 at the 2000 census. It is the county seat of Washington County...
.
Cosmotheism
Pierce adopted Cosmotheism as his religion in 1978. In effect it is a form of panentheismPanentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, or it is an impersonal panentheism
Panentheism
Panentheism is a belief system which posits that God exists, interpenetrates every part of nature and timelessly extends beyond it...
, or it is a belief that an impersonal "creative spiritual force," i.e. "God," is the animating force within the whole universe.
Cosmotheism asserts that "all is within God and God is within all." It considers the nature of reality and of existence to be mutable and destined to co-evolve towards a complete "universal consciousness," or godhood. Cosmos
Cosmos
In the general sense, a cosmos is an orderly or harmonious system. It originates from the Greek term κόσμος , meaning "order" or "ornament" and is antithetical to the concept of chaos. Today, the word is generally used as a synonym of the word Universe . The word cosmos originates from the same root...
means an orderly and harmonious universe and thus the divine is tantamount to reality and consciousness, an inseparable part of an orderly, harmonious, and whole universal system.
In his speech "Our Cause", Pierce said:
Pierce described his form of panentheism as being based on "[t]he idea of an evolution
Evolution
Evolution is any change across successive generations in the heritable characteristics of biological populations. Evolutionary processes give rise to diversity at every level of biological organisation, including species, individual organisms and molecules such as DNA and proteins.Life on Earth...
ary universe ... with an evolution toward ever higher and higher states of self-consciousness," and his political ideas were centered on racial purity and eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
as the means of advancing the white race first towards a superhuman
Superhuman
Superhuman can mean an improved human, for example, by genetic modification, cybernetic implants, or as what humans might evolve into, in the near or distant future...
super race
Super race
A super race is a future race of improved humans that it is proposed be created from present day human beings by deploying various means such as eugenics, genetic engineering, yoga, or nanotechnology and brain-computer interfacing to accelerate the process of human evolution.-Aryan super race:The...
, and then towards a personal godhood. In his view, the white race represented the pinnacle of human evolution thus far and therefore it should be kept genetically separate from all other races in order to achieve its destined perfection in a collective personal godhood.
Pierce believed in a hierarchical society governed by what he saw as the essential principles of nature, including the survival of the fittest
Survival of the fittest
"Survival of the fittest" is a phrase originating in evolutionary theory, as an alternative description of Natural selection. The phrase is today commonly used in contexts that are incompatible with the original meaning as intended by its first two proponents: British polymath philosopher Herbert...
. In his social schema, the best-adapted genetic stock, which he believed to be the white race, should remain separated from other races; and within an all-white society, the most fit individuals should lead the rest. He thought that extensive programs of "racial cleansing" (mass expulsion) and of eugenics
Eugenics
Eugenics is the "applied science or the bio-social movement which advocates the use of practices aimed at improving the genetic composition of a population", usually referring to human populations. The origins of the concept of eugenics began with certain interpretations of Mendelian inheritance,...
, both in Europe and in the U.S., would be necessary to achieve this socio-political program.
Final years
Pierce spent his final years living in West VirginiaWest Virginia
West Virginia is a state in the Appalachian and Southeastern regions of the United States, bordered by Virginia to the southeast, Kentucky to the southwest, Ohio to the northwest, Pennsylvania to the northeast and Maryland to the east...
, where he hosted a weekly radio show, American Dissident Voices, and oversaw his publications, National Vanguard
National Vanguard
National Vanguard refers to three entities:*National Vanguard *National Vanguard *National Vanguard...
, Free Speech and Resistance, as well as books published by his publishing firm National Vanguard Books, Inc. and his record company, Resistance Records
Resistance Records
Resistance Records is a record label owned by Resistance LLC, a society closely connected to the National Alliance. It produces and sells music by neo-Nazi and white separatist musicians, primarily through its website...
. He stated that although he himself preferred classical music
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, he realized that Aryan youth needed White power music to bind themselves to the cause.
On May 19, 1996, Pierce made a rare personal appearance in the mainstream media, on 60 Minutes
60 Minutes
60 Minutes is an American television news magazine, which has run on CBS since 1968. The program was created by producer Don Hewitt who set it apart by using a unique style of reporter-centered investigation....
, during which Pierce was asked if he approved of the Oklahoma City bombing, and he replied "No. No, I don't. I've said that over and over again, that I do not approve of the Oklahoma City bombing because the United States is not yet in a revolutionary situation".
Before Pierce died, he allowed Robert S. Griffin to live with him for a month, with the result being the self-published work The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds (2001).
Pierce died of cancer
Cancer
Cancer , known medically as a malignant neoplasm, is a large group of different diseases, all involving unregulated cell growth. In cancer, cells divide and grow uncontrollably, forming malignant tumors, and invade nearby parts of the body. The cancer may also spread to more distant parts of the...
on July 23, 2002, in the home in West Virginia he had lived in for the last 20 years.
After his death, the British National Party
British National Party
The British National Party is a British far-right political party formed as a splinter group from the National Front by John Tyndall in 1982...
contributed an article in remembrance of him.
Published
The following works were published under the pseudonym "Andrew MacDonald".Written as William Pierce