WEBVTT - Ku Klux Kable Access TV 0:00:01.720 --> 0:00:02.920 Cool Zone Media. 0:00:07.240 --> 0:00:10.680 A little after sunset on December eighth, nineteen eighty four, 0:00:11.520 --> 0:00:15.000 firefighters from the Island County, Washington Fire Department were standing 0:00:15.040 --> 0:00:17.639 by in their truck on the side of Smuggler's Cove 0:00:17.760 --> 0:00:20.920 Road on Whidbey Island, about an hour north of Seattle. 0:00:22.360 --> 0:00:25.279 They'd been called in by an FBI swat team, but 0:00:26.079 --> 0:00:31.120 there was no fire, not yet anyway. The agents were 0:00:31.160 --> 0:00:34.760 more than thirty hours into an armed standoff, and they 0:00:34.760 --> 0:00:38.280 were getting desperate to end things one way or another. 0:00:39.840 --> 0:00:43.120 A volley of tear gas canisters didn't drive their subject out. 0:00:44.280 --> 0:00:47.560 A helicopter buzzing just feet above the house didn't seem 0:00:47.560 --> 0:00:50.160 to rattle him at all. He just fired his machine 0:00:50.159 --> 0:00:52.919 gun through the roof, forcing the agents to call off 0:00:52.920 --> 0:00:56.520 the helicopter for the sake of the pilot's safety. They 0:00:56.560 --> 0:01:00.480 wanted to take their fugitive alive if they could, but 0:01:00.560 --> 0:01:05.240 negotiations weren't getting them anywhere. After months spent tracking this 0:01:05.360 --> 0:01:08.840 Nazi terror cell, they finally had its ring leader cornered. 0:01:09.959 --> 0:01:13.080 Two other safe houses had been successfully raided the day before, 0:01:13.440 --> 0:01:16.600 and several of the man's co conspirators his closest friends 0:01:17.000 --> 0:01:20.600 were brought to the scene to reason with him. Communication 0:01:20.680 --> 0:01:23.399 broke down pretty quickly after the other man inside the 0:01:23.440 --> 0:01:28.320 house emerged ready to surrender. He was carrying a duffel 0:01:28.360 --> 0:01:31.280 bag stuffed with forty thousand dollars in cash from one 0:01:31.319 --> 0:01:34.600 of the group's robberies. Tucked into the cash and the 0:01:34.640 --> 0:01:38.120 bag was a suicide note penned by the man firing 0:01:38.120 --> 0:01:42.080 at them from the upstairs window. By the evening of 0:01:42.120 --> 0:01:45.520 the first day of the standoff, Robert J. Matthews was 0:01:45.560 --> 0:01:48.520 alone inside the house and he was ready to die 0:01:48.520 --> 0:01:53.000 in it. When FBI agents finally got their hands on Matthews, 0:01:53.520 --> 0:01:57.760 he was charred beyond recognition. The house had burned to 0:01:57.760 --> 0:02:01.400 the foundation, Any evidence it may have contained was gone, 0:02:01.920 --> 0:02:04.800 and Matthew's body had to be identified using dental X rays. 0:02:06.080 --> 0:02:08.880 A series of daring armored car robberies had netted the 0:02:08.880 --> 0:02:13.240 gang over four million dollars. Some of that money surely 0:02:13.280 --> 0:02:17.400 burned alongside Matthews, but in the months before his death, 0:02:17.680 --> 0:02:21.320 Robert Matthews took a cross country road trip handing out 0:02:21.360 --> 0:02:25.200 bags of cash. Some of that money went to the 0:02:25.280 --> 0:02:28.600 kinds of things you'd expect, buying land and keeping the 0:02:28.680 --> 0:02:31.200 dream of the race war alive. By purchasing guns and 0:02:31.280 --> 0:02:35.280 crates of grenades, and the majority of that money was 0:02:35.680 --> 0:02:40.120 never fully accounted for, let alone recovered. But some of 0:02:40.120 --> 0:02:47.560 those bags of cash went on some unexpected journeys. I'm 0:02:47.639 --> 0:03:08.560 Molly Conger and this is weird, little guys. As the 0:03:08.600 --> 0:03:10.760 sun set on the second day of the standoff on 0:03:10.760 --> 0:03:14.680 Whidbey Island and the last day of Robert Matthews's life, 0:03:14.760 --> 0:03:18.040 the decision was made to fire several flares into the house. 0:03:19.400 --> 0:03:22.280 The flares would almost certainly set the house on fire. 0:03:23.560 --> 0:03:26.560 The tear gas hadn't bothered Matthews. He had a gas mask, 0:03:28.000 --> 0:03:30.600 but maybe his romantic visions of dyeing with his fingers 0:03:30.600 --> 0:03:33.079 still on the trigger would go up in smoke if 0:03:33.080 --> 0:03:36.480 the house burned. The fire truck was waiting at the 0:03:36.560 --> 0:03:39.240 end of the driveway, ready to extinguish the flames as 0:03:39.280 --> 0:03:41.640 soon as they had their men and handcuffs, so they'd 0:03:41.680 --> 0:03:43.720 be able to recover any of the remaining cash from 0:03:43.760 --> 0:03:46.080 the armored car robberies that may still be in the house. 0:03:47.680 --> 0:03:51.200 At six thirty pm on December eighth, nineteen eighty four, 0:03:51.960 --> 0:03:56.360 three flares were fired through a downstairs window. The glass 0:03:56.440 --> 0:03:59.600 was already gone shattered to bits by bursts of gunfire 0:03:59.600 --> 0:04:04.200 from boat sides, and as the agents had anticipated, a 0:04:04.240 --> 0:04:08.440 fire broke out. But they hadn't accounted for the contents 0:04:08.480 --> 0:04:12.520 of the room. The flares hadn't just ignited a sofa 0:04:12.760 --> 0:04:16.920 or the curtains or a throw rug. They ignited cases 0:04:16.960 --> 0:04:21.560 of ammunition. The controllable house fire they hoped with smoke 0:04:21.600 --> 0:04:25.240 out their fugitive, turned into a towering inferno as the 0:04:25.279 --> 0:04:28.599 flames reached a stockpile of explosives stored inside the home. 0:04:30.560 --> 0:04:33.200 The firefighters waiting out on the street couldn't even approach 0:04:33.240 --> 0:04:36.560 the house as crates of bullets fired themselves in the heat. 0:04:37.760 --> 0:04:40.200 They could only watch as the house burned laid into 0:04:40.240 --> 0:04:45.040 the night. Normally, this is the part of the episode 0:04:45.080 --> 0:04:48.719 where I tell you, but that's the end of Robert 0:04:48.720 --> 0:04:51.799 Matthew's story, and we have to start at the beginning. 0:04:53.240 --> 0:04:56.560 But not today. Today we're starting after the end of 0:04:56.560 --> 0:05:01.160 his story, partly because I'm still waiting on some archival 0:05:01.200 --> 0:05:03.839 materials from a special collections library on the other side 0:05:03.839 --> 0:05:09.080 of the country. My interlibrary loan is still pending. The 0:05:09.120 --> 0:05:12.080 story of Robert Matthews and his Nazi bank robbery gang. 0:05:12.279 --> 0:05:17.320 The order is forthcoming. Don't worry, that forty year old 0:05:17.360 --> 0:05:20.560 story is still very much alive within the white supremacist movement. 0:05:21.640 --> 0:05:24.839 Those fourteen words they're all so obsessed with were first 0:05:24.839 --> 0:05:27.560 penned by David Lane while he was in prison for 0:05:27.680 --> 0:05:31.360 the murder of Alan Berg. But as I started plotting 0:05:31.400 --> 0:05:35.000 out the framework of that story, I got a little 0:05:35.040 --> 0:05:39.479 lost down one hundred little rabbit holes. I had a 0:05:39.480 --> 0:05:43.240 lot of new questions about things I'd never wondered about before. 0:05:44.760 --> 0:05:46.840 If you're one of those listeners who wishes the show 0:05:46.880 --> 0:05:51.400 had a more linear narrative and fewer characters and fewer tangents, 0:05:52.279 --> 0:05:55.560 you're not going to like this one. But the story 0:05:55.600 --> 0:05:57.719 of the Order has had such an impact on the 0:05:57.800 --> 0:06:02.000 last forty years of white supremacist buy in America, there's 0:06:02.040 --> 0:06:05.360 no honest way to tell it neatly. Because if there's 0:06:05.360 --> 0:06:08.680 one thing I want this show to convey more than 0:06:08.800 --> 0:06:15.320 anything else, is that there are no lone wolves. And 0:06:15.400 --> 0:06:18.479 the myth of the lone wolf is so persistent, not 0:06:18.880 --> 0:06:23.080 just because it is maybe somehow less frightening to think 0:06:23.080 --> 0:06:25.920 of these acts of violence as some kind of completely 0:06:26.000 --> 0:06:31.320 random freak accident, but also because we crave these concise 0:06:32.000 --> 0:06:36.839 linear narratives. But if you tell any lone gunman's story 0:06:36.880 --> 0:06:40.440 that way, it tends to absolve the ecosystem that formed 0:06:40.480 --> 0:06:45.640 him and his network of accomplices. Think of this story 0:06:45.680 --> 0:06:49.120 as a sort of introduction to a cast of characters 0:06:49.160 --> 0:06:52.880 you'll be hearing about again. Just let me plant some 0:06:53.000 --> 0:06:55.880 narrative seeds that will take a little time to grow. 0:06:57.200 --> 0:06:59.240 So before I can tell you a story about how 0:06:59.240 --> 0:07:02.040 a fifty cents lottery ticket purchased with a counterfeit ten 0:07:02.080 --> 0:07:04.839 dollar bill at a liquor store in Philadelphia ended up 0:07:04.920 --> 0:07:08.720 unraveling a network of Nazi terrorists, I want to talk 0:07:08.760 --> 0:07:13.760 about where some of that stolen money ended up. Specifically, 0:07:14.480 --> 0:07:18.120 I want to talk about public access television, four hundred 0:07:18.120 --> 0:07:23.880 acres of undeveloped land and Appalachia, a racist chiropractor from Tampa, 0:07:24.360 --> 0:07:28.000 and the nineteen eighty eight AT and T shareholders meeting. 0:07:29.360 --> 0:07:35.040 Bear with me. What would you do if you suddenly 0:07:35.080 --> 0:07:39.520 had four million dollars in dirty money? I think for 0:07:39.600 --> 0:07:42.480 most of us, the first answer is something like I 0:07:42.480 --> 0:07:46.160 would help my friends and my family. I'd fund worthwhile 0:07:46.280 --> 0:07:51.680 projects and advance causes I believe in. And that's kind 0:07:51.680 --> 0:07:55.440 of what our Nazi gang did here, but their friends 0:07:55.440 --> 0:08:00.000 and family were also Nazis, and the causes they believed 0:08:00.240 --> 0:08:05.120 in where things like arming an Aryan paramilitary force to 0:08:05.200 --> 0:08:10.760 overthrow the government, etc. Robert Matthews was generous with this 0:08:10.880 --> 0:08:14.520 ill gotten cash. He paid members of the group handsomely. 0:08:15.480 --> 0:08:18.280 But the Order wasn't your average gang of thieves who 0:08:18.320 --> 0:08:21.760 were out for themselves. They weren't trying to get rich. 0:08:22.400 --> 0:08:26.160 They were trying to fund a movement, and Robert Matthews 0:08:26.360 --> 0:08:30.200 wanted to be a sort of racist Robin Hood, stealing 0:08:30.240 --> 0:08:33.600 from the Jewish controlled system to give to the downtrodden 0:08:33.800 --> 0:08:39.080 Aryan Man. Accounts vary as to who received a share 0:08:39.080 --> 0:08:42.200 of this stolen money, and most of those accounts are 0:08:42.240 --> 0:08:46.760 from embittered rivals who turned state's witness, and those accounts 0:08:46.800 --> 0:08:50.960 don't always match up across sources. For the most part, 0:08:51.080 --> 0:08:53.920 the figures I'm using here are found within the nineteen 0:08:54.000 --> 0:08:57.760 ninety book The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. 0:08:58.840 --> 0:09:01.719 The authors were able to secure cooperative interviews with some 0:09:01.800 --> 0:09:04.480 former members of the Order, some of the recipients of 0:09:04.520 --> 0:09:09.400 the money, and Robert Matthews's mistress, Zilla Craig. When there's 0:09:09.400 --> 0:09:12.959 a discrepancy between the sources I'm using, I am defaulting 0:09:13.000 --> 0:09:16.560 to those in Kathleen Blues bring the war home, which 0:09:16.640 --> 0:09:21.800 is exhaustively researched and well footnoted. The whole story of 0:09:21.840 --> 0:09:25.480 the string of robberies is one for another day, But 0:09:25.600 --> 0:09:28.679 most of the money we're talking about here came from 0:09:28.720 --> 0:09:34.160 a single score. On July nineteenth, nineteen eighty four, six 0:09:34.240 --> 0:09:37.839 members of the Nazi group the Order loaded three point 0:09:37.880 --> 0:09:41.240 eight million dollars in cash out of the back of 0:09:41.240 --> 0:09:44.880 a Brinx armored car on Highway twenty near Yucaya, California. 0:09:46.160 --> 0:09:49.040 Two weeks later, Robert Matthews left his wife and son 0:09:49.080 --> 0:09:52.400 behind in Washington and loaded his pregnant mistress into a 0:09:52.480 --> 0:09:58.920 used Pontiac Bonneville and drove east. Their first stop was 0:09:58.960 --> 0:10:02.040 at a farm near Kaha to Michigan to visit Robert Myles. 0:10:03.480 --> 0:10:06.640 Myles had once been an influential clan leader, rising to 0:10:06.679 --> 0:10:09.000 the rank of Grand Dragon of the Realm of Michigan. 0:10:10.280 --> 0:10:13.520 In nineteen seventy one, he bombed ten empty school buses 0:10:13.720 --> 0:10:16.800 the week before a court ordered desegregation program was set 0:10:16.880 --> 0:10:20.800 to begin in Pontiac, Michigan. Earlier that year, he and 0:10:20.880 --> 0:10:24.640 four other clansmen forced a high school principle in Ipsilani 0:10:24.760 --> 0:10:29.559 out of his car at gunpoint and literally tarred and 0:10:29.720 --> 0:10:34.200 feathered the man. They doused a high school principle with 0:10:34.320 --> 0:10:39.360 hot tar and coated him in chicken feathers. He'd been 0:10:39.440 --> 0:10:41.880 driving home from a school board meeting where he was 0:10:41.920 --> 0:10:45.200 advocating for the district to honor Martin Luther King Junior Day. 0:10:46.679 --> 0:10:49.720 The years Myles spent in federal prison for those acts 0:10:49.880 --> 0:10:54.240 did little to change his attitudes about race. By the 0:10:54.320 --> 0:10:57.560 nineteen eighties, Myles's clan days were more or less behind 0:10:57.600 --> 0:11:01.439 him his true calling as the pastor of a Christian 0:11:01.480 --> 0:11:05.040 identity church that he called the Mountain Church of Jesus 0:11:05.160 --> 0:11:09.680 Christ's Savior. He was also the Midwest coordinator for Richard 0:11:09.720 --> 0:11:13.200 Butler's Aryan Nations and hosted Aryan Nations gatherings at his 0:11:13.280 --> 0:11:17.280 farm in Michigan, and in August of nineteen eighty four, 0:11:18.040 --> 0:11:21.679 Robert Matthews and his mistress spent the night on that farm. 0:11:22.320 --> 0:11:25.640 Matthews gave Miles three hundred thousand dollars in stolen cash 0:11:25.679 --> 0:11:28.440 for use in his church, which included a prison ministry 0:11:28.480 --> 0:11:32.520 aimed at radicalizing incarcerated white men through letter writing campaigns 0:11:32.559 --> 0:11:36.800 and mailing them white power newsletters. In return, Myles gave 0:11:36.800 --> 0:11:41.440 Matthews a letter of introduction to Fraser Glenn Miller. A 0:11:41.440 --> 0:11:44.400 few days later, in Annengeer in North Carolina, Matthews knocked 0:11:44.440 --> 0:11:46.960 on the front door of Fraser Glenn Miller, the leader 0:11:47.000 --> 0:11:50.840 of the White Patriot Party. Robert Miles's letter of introduction 0:11:50.960 --> 0:11:53.600 was enough to gain his trust, and he invited Matthews 0:11:53.640 --> 0:11:57.439 and his mistress in for dinner. Later that night, Miller 0:11:57.480 --> 0:12:01.760 met Matthews again, this time at a hotel. Miller was 0:12:01.800 --> 0:12:05.640 suspicious of this generous offer of two hundred thousand dollars 0:12:05.640 --> 0:12:09.439 in cash, concerned that Matthews may be an FBI informant 0:12:09.480 --> 0:12:13.120 trying to entrap him in some kind of scheme. But 0:12:13.240 --> 0:12:16.800 he did take the money, and ironically, it would be 0:12:17.360 --> 0:12:21.079 Fraser Glenn Miller who would later turn state's witness, returning 0:12:21.080 --> 0:12:24.560 most of the money to the government. He testified against 0:12:24.600 --> 0:12:27.840 many of Matthew's associates and entered the witness protection program 0:12:27.880 --> 0:12:32.480 as Fraser Glen Cross. But it's hard to stay in 0:12:32.520 --> 0:12:37.120 the program if you can't leave the movement. Miller's story 0:12:37.200 --> 0:12:40.800 is one better saved for his very own episode because 0:12:40.840 --> 0:12:43.199 it ends with him dying of old age on death row. 0:12:46.160 --> 0:12:48.880 This cross country road trip also included a night at 0:12:48.920 --> 0:12:53.680 a hotel in Arlington, Virginia. It's no surprise that Robert 0:12:53.720 --> 0:12:57.480 Matthews would pay a visit to William Luther Pearce. Honestly, 0:12:57.520 --> 0:13:00.880 you'll be shocking if he hadn't. Matthews had been a 0:13:00.920 --> 0:13:05.400 member of Pierce's National Alliance since nineteen seventy nine. It 0:13:05.480 --> 0:13:08.280 was at the nineteen eighty three National Alliance General Convention 0:13:08.440 --> 0:13:10.800 that he gave the fiery speech that kicked off the 0:13:10.800 --> 0:13:14.920 formation of the Order just a year earlier, and the 0:13:15.040 --> 0:13:17.920 Order took its name directly from the plot of Pierce's 0:13:18.040 --> 0:13:23.360 novel The Turner Diaries. And on August sixth, nineteen eighty four, 0:13:23.800 --> 0:13:28.680 Matthews handed his mentor a paperbag. The amount of cash 0:13:28.720 --> 0:13:32.920 inside is usually put at fifty thousand dollars, although that 0:13:33.000 --> 0:13:36.079 seems to trace back to a single statement made by 0:13:36.080 --> 0:13:39.679 another member of the Order, man named Bruce Pearce, who 0:13:39.760 --> 0:13:46.000 is not related Zillah Craig. Matthews's mistress witnessed this handoff, 0:13:46.840 --> 0:13:48.920 but she was only able to say that it was 0:13:48.960 --> 0:13:54.120 a quote large amount of money, and considering she had 0:13:54.160 --> 0:13:57.440 seen Matthew's hand Robert Miles three hundred thousand dollars and 0:13:57.880 --> 0:14:01.360 Fraser Glenn Miller two hundred thousand dollar that very same week, 0:14:02.360 --> 0:14:06.960 I wonder what she means by a large amount. Tom Martinez, 0:14:06.960 --> 0:14:09.800 a member of the Order who would turn informant, says 0:14:09.840 --> 0:14:13.240 Matthews never disclosed how much money had given William Luther Pierce. 0:14:14.880 --> 0:14:18.400 Like I said, the only figure ever offered is fifty 0:14:18.480 --> 0:14:22.280 thousand dollars. I just really struggled to understand why he 0:14:22.280 --> 0:14:27.760 would give his personal hero so little. Three weeks after 0:14:27.760 --> 0:14:31.040 William Luther Pierce received that paper bag full of cash, 0:14:31.440 --> 0:14:34.400 he announced at the nineteen eighty four National Alliance Annual 0:14:34.400 --> 0:14:38.000 Convention that the group now had enough money to proceed 0:14:38.040 --> 0:14:41.040 with his plan, which was to purchase three hundred and 0:14:41.040 --> 0:14:44.960 sixty four acres in Hillsboro, West Virginia, and begin building 0:14:45.000 --> 0:14:50.360 his compound. Headline. Speakers at that meeting included Kevin alfred Strom, 0:14:50.600 --> 0:14:53.120 who you may remember as the pedophile from the first 0:14:53.120 --> 0:14:57.320 episode of this show, and a chiropractor from Florida named 0:14:57.360 --> 0:15:03.080 Herbert Poinsett. Penn and Herb were coming back to him, 0:15:04.000 --> 0:15:07.720 Pierce paid ninety five thousand dollars, all in cash for 0:15:07.800 --> 0:15:10.720 the land in West Virginia just a few weeks later. 0:15:12.560 --> 0:15:15.880 Other recipients of generous gifts from the Order's coffers were 0:15:15.920 --> 0:15:19.040 men like Michael Stanley Norris, who played a part in 0:15:19.080 --> 0:15:23.080 the future Stormfront webmaster Don Black's hair brained scheme to 0:15:23.240 --> 0:15:27.400 overthrow the government of a small Caribbean nation. That's a 0:15:27.400 --> 0:15:31.320 story I'm really looking forward to telling. Louis Beam, the 0:15:31.360 --> 0:15:34.640 man who popularized the concept of leaderless resistance, is said 0:15:34.640 --> 0:15:38.760 to have gotten one hundred thousand dollars. Forty thousand went 0:15:38.800 --> 0:15:42.680 to Richard Butler and his Aryan Nations, one hundred thousand 0:15:42.800 --> 0:15:44.560 went to the Covenant the Sword in the Arm of 0:15:44.600 --> 0:15:49.080 the Lord in Arkansas. An unnamed history professor in Columbus, 0:15:49.160 --> 0:15:52.920 Ohio received an unknown amount of cash to fund a 0:15:53.000 --> 0:15:57.240 White Power band. Dan Gamon, the pastor of a Christian 0:15:57.240 --> 0:16:01.320 identity church in Missouri, got fifteen thousand. And there were 0:16:01.400 --> 0:16:05.400 rumors that Matthews had left one or maybe two million 0:16:05.480 --> 0:16:10.400 dollars with a lawyer in Denver for safekeeping. But nobody 0:16:10.400 --> 0:16:12.920 knows who that might have been or how much it was. 0:16:14.880 --> 0:16:17.240 But the money I've been working my way around to 0:16:18.480 --> 0:16:23.000 is this three hundred thousand dollars gifted to California clansman 0:16:23.840 --> 0:16:31.280 Tom Metzker. Tom Metzker is such a central figure in 0:16:31.360 --> 0:16:33.760 so many stories of white power in America in the 0:16:33.800 --> 0:16:37.280 eighties that I'm troubled by the need to condense his 0:16:37.360 --> 0:16:41.120 biography for our purposes here. But he was a rising 0:16:41.160 --> 0:16:44.000 star in the Klan in the seventies and organized his 0:16:44.040 --> 0:16:47.240 own clan border patrols at the Mexican border in California, 0:16:47.960 --> 0:16:50.280 a stunt that was later copied by Louis Beem and 0:16:50.320 --> 0:16:54.880 David Duke in Texas. He ran for Congress in California's 0:16:54.880 --> 0:16:58.920 forty third congressional district in nineteen eighty, winning the Democratic 0:16:58.960 --> 0:17:03.800 primary but losing badly to the incumbent Republican. He was, 0:17:04.080 --> 0:17:08.199 of course, disavowed by the entire Democratic establishment in California. 0:17:08.920 --> 0:17:12.399 Even Governor Jerry Brown publicly endorsed the Republican in that race. 0:17:14.000 --> 0:17:18.400 But guys like Metzger don't run to win. They run 0:17:18.440 --> 0:17:23.479 for free access, to unlimited attention. And he got it. 0:17:24.800 --> 0:17:27.200 And he ran again in nineteen eighty two, this time 0:17:27.240 --> 0:17:30.760 for Senate, and he earned just two percent of the 0:17:30.840 --> 0:17:35.960 vote in the primary. Gore Vidal, who I'd honestly forgotten 0:17:36.040 --> 0:17:39.760 ever had political aspirations, came in at fifteen percent in 0:17:39.800 --> 0:17:46.040 the same primary. Everybody knew Tom Metzker's name. A story 0:17:46.040 --> 0:17:49.040 in the North County Times in Oceanside, California around that 0:17:49.080 --> 0:17:53.560 same time period about a woman's passion for knitting includes 0:17:53.560 --> 0:17:57.920 the line Metzger forty seven, who emphasizes she is not 0:17:58.119 --> 0:18:01.639 related to Ku Klux Klan leader Tom Metzger says she 0:18:01.720 --> 0:18:04.200 was taught by her mother to knit forty three years ago. 0:18:06.119 --> 0:18:11.800 Riding high on this attention, Metzger's movement aspirations evolved. He 0:18:11.880 --> 0:18:14.960 left the clan behind and formed his own organization that 0:18:15.080 --> 0:18:20.959 he originally called the White American Political Association. He quickly 0:18:21.000 --> 0:18:26.280 renamed it White American Resistance and then finally White Aryan Resistance, 0:18:26.720 --> 0:18:32.479 often just called war. But the attention was fading. He 0:18:32.520 --> 0:18:33.920 was in the news all the time when he was 0:18:34.000 --> 0:18:37.679 running for office, but in early nineteen eighty four, the 0:18:37.720 --> 0:18:41.480 local paper was clowning on him for his poorly attended crossburnings, 0:18:42.080 --> 0:18:47.879 running headlines like KKK gave crossburning. Nobody came about the 0:18:47.960 --> 0:18:51.320 December nineteen eighty three cross burning ceremony in la where 0:18:51.359 --> 0:18:55.000 Metzger had been arrested alongside Arian Nation's leader Richard Butler 0:18:55.560 --> 0:18:59.439 and several members of the Order. The article notes that 0:18:59.760 --> 0:19:02.600 while the first issues of his new White Arian Resistance 0:19:02.640 --> 0:19:07.159 newspaper had been quote a slick tabloid on quality paper, 0:19:08.160 --> 0:19:12.080 recent issues were down to just a single mimeographed sheet. 0:19:13.640 --> 0:19:16.400 But his fortunes seemed to have changed just a few 0:19:16.440 --> 0:19:20.400 months later. Just weeks after Tom Metzger would have received 0:19:20.440 --> 0:19:23.600 that three hundred thousand dollars from the Order, the Daily 0:19:23.640 --> 0:19:27.440 Times Advocate in Escondido, California ran a front page story 0:19:27.840 --> 0:19:32.240 about Metzger's newest venture. He was going to be on TV. 0:19:33.760 --> 0:19:36.800 Of course, Metzger had been on TV before. He loved 0:19:36.800 --> 0:19:40.040 being on TV. He had debated IRV Rubin from the 0:19:40.119 --> 0:19:43.800 Jewish Defense League on a local program in May. But 0:19:43.920 --> 0:19:48.760 on September twenty eighth, nineteen eighty four, Tom Metzger wasn't 0:19:48.800 --> 0:19:55.000 just on TV. He was hosting his own show. 0:19:57.560 --> 0:20:02.000 Hello, I'm Tom Metzger, host of ra Race and Raisin 0:20:02.359 --> 0:20:05.560 is a show dedicated to free speech, a small island 0:20:05.640 --> 0:20:08.560 of free speech and a sea of controlled and managed news. 0:20:11.840 --> 0:20:14.920 The first episode of Race and Reason debuted that day 0:20:14.960 --> 0:20:18.760 at four thirty five pm. It aired on Public Access 0:20:18.840 --> 0:20:22.720 Channel twenty four in Poway, California, but Metzger promised that 0:20:22.760 --> 0:20:25.520 he would soon be broadcast on public access channels throughout 0:20:25.520 --> 0:20:28.639 the San Diego area. He claimed he already had deals 0:20:28.640 --> 0:20:30.520 in the works to get the show on public access 0:20:30.600 --> 0:20:34.800 channels in Orange County, San Francisco, New York, Philadelphia, and Austin. 0:20:36.119 --> 0:20:38.679 People weren't happy that The Klansman was going to be 0:20:38.760 --> 0:20:42.960 on TV, but Metzger told the paper quote, I tell 0:20:42.960 --> 0:20:45.280 you I would be a much better fellow to interview 0:20:45.280 --> 0:20:47.639 people on television than I wouldn't be on the streets. 0:20:48.480 --> 0:20:51.840 It's much easier on the public if you remember Ocean Side. 0:20:53.480 --> 0:20:56.879 Ocean Side in this context is a reference to a 0:20:56.960 --> 0:20:59.760 March nineteen eighty Clan rally that he led through largely 0:20:59.760 --> 0:21:04.639 his Spanic neighborhood of Oceanside, California, just months after the 0:21:04.640 --> 0:21:07.879 Greensboro massacre, where members of the American Nazi Party murdered 0:21:07.880 --> 0:21:12.600 five communists in North Carolina. The Klansmen chanted, if the 0:21:12.680 --> 0:21:18.280 Nazis don't get you, a Klansman will, and just as 0:21:18.280 --> 0:21:20.800 they had in Greensboro, the police and Ocean side failed 0:21:20.800 --> 0:21:26.200 to intervene as white supremacists violently attacked protesters. No one 0:21:26.280 --> 0:21:29.600 was killed at the Ocean Side rally, thankfully, but at 0:21:29.680 --> 0:21:32.760 least seven people were injured, including a news cameraman who 0:21:32.760 --> 0:21:36.080 was bludgeoned with a large rock and a socialist organizer 0:21:36.119 --> 0:21:38.560 named Bruce Kala who was beaten by a group of 0:21:38.600 --> 0:21:42.520 klansmen with clubs. Kala had to be hospitalized for a 0:21:42.520 --> 0:21:46.760 severe head injury and received two hundred stshes. The line 0:21:46.800 --> 0:21:50.600 of riot cops seemed not to move at all until 0:21:50.600 --> 0:21:54.600 a Klansman's Doberman lunged at one of them. The officers 0:21:54.600 --> 0:22:11.800 shot and killed the dog. The article about the show's 0:22:11.800 --> 0:22:14.800 debut quotes the public access manager for the cable company 0:22:14.920 --> 0:22:19.560 saying we don't establish the guidelines. The city does. A 0:22:19.600 --> 0:22:22.719 representative from another cable company said they hadn't been approached 0:22:22.840 --> 0:22:25.880 yet by Metzger, but if asked, they probably would air 0:22:25.920 --> 0:22:29.160 the program, saying if we say no to the clan, 0:22:29.560 --> 0:22:33.480 then pretty soon we're saying no to another group. And 0:22:34.680 --> 0:22:39.040 maybe they did have to air it. In nineteen eighty four, 0:22:39.160 --> 0:22:42.399 the Cable Communications Act, written by Barry Goldwater, was passed. 0:22:43.320 --> 0:22:46.720 Among other things, the bill barred cable operators from exercising 0:22:46.880 --> 0:22:51.480 editorial control over the content aired on public access channels, 0:22:52.280 --> 0:22:54.960 and it absolved the cable company of any liability for 0:22:55.080 --> 0:22:59.080 the content aired on those non commercial, public, educational, and 0:22:59.119 --> 0:23:03.240 government access chains as long as the show wasn't criminal 0:23:03.320 --> 0:23:06.840 and it didn't violate basic standards of what's allowed on television. 0:23:07.560 --> 0:23:10.240 The cable company was prohibited by law from refusing to 0:23:10.280 --> 0:23:15.359 air the show just because it was racist. I feel 0:23:15.359 --> 0:23:19.119 like there were episodes that a determined lawyer could have 0:23:19.119 --> 0:23:23.120 fought to keep off the air as defamatory or incitement 0:23:23.160 --> 0:23:28.080 to violence or something. But what incentive was there for 0:23:28.119 --> 0:23:31.600 them to try. If they lost a fight like that, 0:23:32.320 --> 0:23:35.639 they'd have to pay the racist for his trouble. But 0:23:35.720 --> 0:23:38.679 if they aired it, no matter how bad it was, 0:23:39.840 --> 0:23:44.639 they were completely shielded from liability. In articles about the 0:23:44.640 --> 0:23:49.000 resulting public outcry, cable executives said, our hands are tied. 0:23:50.320 --> 0:23:53.000 The director of Community Programming said when people called her 0:23:53.040 --> 0:23:56.280 office to complain about Metzger's show, all she could do 0:23:56.359 --> 0:23:58.399 was tell them that they would have to complain to 0:23:58.440 --> 0:24:03.439 Metzker personally, and within months he made good on his promise. 0:24:04.560 --> 0:24:06.879 Race and Reason was on public access channels and a 0:24:06.880 --> 0:24:11.359 growing number of cities. In many communities, the public access 0:24:11.359 --> 0:24:17.560 television program requires that local public access programming actually be local, 0:24:18.359 --> 0:24:21.359 so he couldn't just mail these tapes to studios across 0:24:21.400 --> 0:24:25.000 the country and expect them to air. To get around 0:24:25.000 --> 0:24:28.359 this requirement, Metzger sold tapes of Race and Reason on 0:24:28.400 --> 0:24:30.800 the back cover of every issue of his White aryan 0:24:30.840 --> 0:24:35.840 resistance newsletter. Subscribers around the country could mail Metzger a 0:24:35.960 --> 0:24:39.280 check for thirty five dollars and receive a VHS copy 0:24:39.320 --> 0:24:42.560 of the show in the mail. By nineteen eighty nine, 0:24:42.600 --> 0:24:45.520 he'd sweetened the deal. Any four episodes of Race and 0:24:45.560 --> 0:24:48.480 Reason could be bundled together for just thirty nine ninety 0:24:48.480 --> 0:24:53.000 five And that's in nineteen eighty nine dollars. Like that's 0:24:53.600 --> 0:24:55.679 that's a wild amount of money to pay for a 0:24:55.720 --> 0:24:59.840 thirty minute tape of some guy saying slurs. But once 0:24:59.880 --> 0:25:02.600 you you had the tape, you could sponsor the show 0:25:02.640 --> 0:25:07.959 on your own local public access channel. With this piecemeal 0:25:08.000 --> 0:25:11.960 distribution system, it's hard to nail down how many episodes 0:25:12.000 --> 0:25:17.000 ever existed and what order they aired in The episodes 0:25:17.000 --> 0:25:20.000 that aired in any given city depended on which PHS 0:25:20.080 --> 0:25:22.840 tapes your local racist bought out of a Nazi catalog 0:25:23.920 --> 0:25:26.639 and even in his own home market. A TV guide 0:25:26.640 --> 0:25:30.920 printed in November nineteen eighty five notes Metzker's program under 0:25:30.920 --> 0:25:36.800 the public access offerings, but it's listed as quote airs infrequently. 0:25:38.280 --> 0:25:41.080 A nineteen eighty six article in the Korvalis Gazette Times 0:25:41.240 --> 0:25:43.920 says a local resident had been hand delivering a new 0:25:43.960 --> 0:25:47.639 cassette to the station three times per week. The station 0:25:47.760 --> 0:25:51.520 declined to publicly name the program sponsor, but it came 0:25:51.560 --> 0:25:56.280 out anyway. Richard Masker had recently settled a lawsuit against 0:25:56.320 --> 0:25:59.120 the city of Corvalis regarding his termination from the water 0:25:59.200 --> 0:26:03.359 treatment plant nineteen eighty three. He felt that he'd been 0:26:03.400 --> 0:26:07.239 discriminated against. They felt it was not appropriate for him 0:26:07.280 --> 0:26:11.280 to have mailed Jewish residents of Cravallis cards on Hitler's 0:26:11.280 --> 0:26:14.760 birthday that read, may his memory refresh your soul and 0:26:14.800 --> 0:26:20.600 give you inspiration. Hyle Hitler. Articles about his firing make 0:26:20.680 --> 0:26:24.840 a passing mention of the fact that the police closed 0:26:24.920 --> 0:26:28.080 down the entire water treatment plant for several days after 0:26:28.160 --> 0:26:31.199 he was let go, but they don't offer any explanation 0:26:31.320 --> 0:26:35.040 for that. Masker pops up in some strange places later 0:26:35.119 --> 0:26:38.120 on in his life, But this isn't a story about 0:26:38.160 --> 0:26:40.679 guys who keep getting fired from water treatment plants. So 0:26:41.480 --> 0:26:43.720 suffice it to say he did what many Nazis do 0:26:43.840 --> 0:26:48.720 and move to Idaho. The first few episodes of Race 0:26:48.760 --> 0:26:51.560 and Reason were filmed in Metzger's home, but as the 0:26:51.560 --> 0:26:55.879 show evolved, the production quality began to improve. In nineteen 0:26:55.920 --> 0:26:58.439 eighty six, he was using the public Access TV studio 0:26:58.480 --> 0:27:02.080 at California State University. A student who worked in the 0:27:02.080 --> 0:27:04.199 studio said he was so offended by the content that 0:27:04.280 --> 0:27:08.679