1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:10,120 Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. It was raining in the suburbs outside 2 00:00:10,119 --> 00:00:15,760 Speaker 1: of Kansas City on April thirteenth, twenty fourteen. Mindy Corporn's 3 00:00:15,800 --> 00:00:19,160 Speaker 1: youngest son had a lacrosse game that morning, so she 4 00:00:19,239 --> 00:00:23,560 Speaker 1: was out the door early. As she left, she told 5 00:00:23,600 --> 00:00:26,560 Speaker 1: her oldest son she loved him and wished him luck. 6 00:00:28,000 --> 00:00:32,160 Speaker 1: Her oldest son, fourteen year old Rite Underwood, was auditioning 7 00:00:32,200 --> 00:00:36,360 Speaker 1: for Casey Superstar, an American Idol style competition for high 8 00:00:36,360 --> 00:00:40,680 Speaker 1: schoolers in the Kansas City area. Her father had volunteered 9 00:00:40,680 --> 00:00:44,680 Speaker 1: to drive him to the audition. William Corporn was a 10 00:00:44,680 --> 00:00:48,519 Speaker 1: few months away from retiring as a family physician, but 11 00:00:48,600 --> 00:00:50,920 Speaker 1: he always made time to spend with his grandchildren on 12 00:00:50,920 --> 00:00:54,880 Speaker 1: the weekends. When the weather took a turn for the 13 00:00:54,920 --> 00:00:59,080 Speaker 1: worse and the lacrosse game was called off, Mindy thought 14 00:00:59,080 --> 00:01:02,760 Speaker 1: she might still be able to catch Riet's audition. She 15 00:01:02,880 --> 00:01:05,319 Speaker 1: arrived at the Jewish Community Center just a few minutes 16 00:01:05,360 --> 00:01:09,080 Speaker 1: after her son and father had, but they'd never made 17 00:01:09,080 --> 00:01:13,160 Speaker 1: it inside. She saw her father's truck in the parking lot, 18 00:01:14,360 --> 00:01:20,600 Speaker 1: doors hanging wide open in the rain. Across town, Jim 19 00:01:20,680 --> 00:01:23,000 Speaker 1: Lamano was waiting for his wife Terry to come home, 20 00:01:23,240 --> 00:01:25,960 Speaker 1: so they could attend the evening mass together for Palm. Sunday, 21 00:01:27,400 --> 00:01:31,400 Speaker 1: Terry Lemano, an occupational therapist who worked with visually impaired toddlers, 22 00:01:32,040 --> 00:01:34,720 Speaker 1: had lunch every Sunday with her mother at the Village 23 00:01:34,760 --> 00:01:39,920 Speaker 1: Shalom retirement home. Jim was expecting Terry home any minute 24 00:01:40,560 --> 00:01:43,080 Speaker 1: when the police knocked on his door to tell him 25 00:01:43,080 --> 00:01:49,480 Speaker 1: she'd been killed. Rite Underwood, William Corporan, and Terry Lemano 26 00:01:50,400 --> 00:01:55,200 Speaker 1: were dead. William Corporn and his grandson Rite were shot 27 00:01:55,200 --> 00:01:58,280 Speaker 1: in the parking lot of the Jewish community center, and 28 00:01:58,400 --> 00:02:00,560 Speaker 1: Terry was shot in the parking lot outside of her 29 00:02:00,560 --> 00:02:05,480 Speaker 1: mother's nursing home. The killer reeked of whiskey when the 30 00:02:05,480 --> 00:02:09,600 Speaker 1: police caught up to him an hour later. The shootings 31 00:02:09,600 --> 00:02:12,120 Speaker 1: had both been outside of buildings that primarily served the 32 00:02:12,160 --> 00:02:18,440 Speaker 1: Jewish community, but none of the victims had actually been Jewish. 33 00:02:18,840 --> 00:02:22,200 Speaker 1: For a moment, perhaps there was a sliver of doubt 34 00:02:22,240 --> 00:02:26,840 Speaker 1: about the shooter's motive, But sitting alone, handcuffed in the 35 00:02:26,880 --> 00:02:30,040 Speaker 1: back seat of a police cruiser, seventy three year old 36 00:02:30,120 --> 00:02:33,519 Speaker 1: Frasier Glenn Miller looked right into the news camera set 37 00:02:33,560 --> 00:02:39,360 Speaker 1: up across the street and made his intentions clear. Shouting 38 00:02:39,480 --> 00:03:08,720 Speaker 1: just two words. I'm Molly Conger, and this is We're Blue, guys. 39 00:03:12,120 --> 00:03:16,640 Speaker 1: We are still talking about a book, really, really we are. 40 00:03:18,040 --> 00:03:21,160 Speaker 1: This episode is the second half of our examination of Hunter, 41 00:03:21,840 --> 00:03:25,960 Speaker 1: the nineteen eighty nine novel by William Luther Pearce. This 42 00:03:26,080 --> 00:03:29,560 Speaker 1: episode isn't about Fraser Glenn Miller. It isn't about the 43 00:03:29,560 --> 00:03:33,800 Speaker 1: twenty fourteen shootings in Overland Park, Kansas. It's about Hunter, 44 00:03:34,600 --> 00:03:37,760 Speaker 1: the novel that was dedicated to serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin. 45 00:03:39,280 --> 00:03:43,880 Speaker 1: I bring up Miller again here today, not just because 46 00:03:43,960 --> 00:03:47,440 Speaker 1: that mass shooting he carried out in twenty fourteen was 47 00:03:47,480 --> 00:03:51,040 Speaker 1: on Joseph Paul Franklin's birthday, a few months after Franklin 48 00:03:51,120 --> 00:03:56,000 Speaker 1: was executed after years of them exchanging letters and phone calls. 49 00:03:56,520 --> 00:04:00,800 Speaker 1: Not just because he'd become obsessed with Franklin over those 50 00:04:00,880 --> 00:04:05,400 Speaker 1: years they corresponded after Franklin was locked up. I've told 51 00:04:05,440 --> 00:04:10,960 Speaker 1: you that already. I bring him up again today because 52 00:04:10,960 --> 00:04:14,800 Speaker 1: he wasn't just some guy who happened to become pen 53 00:04:14,880 --> 00:04:19,359 Speaker 1: pals with a prisoner in his old age. We've already 54 00:04:19,400 --> 00:04:25,200 Speaker 1: spent six episodes talking about Joseph Paul Franklin and I'm 55 00:04:25,240 --> 00:04:29,200 Speaker 1: sick of him. Our discussion of the book dedicated to 56 00:04:29,279 --> 00:04:33,599 Speaker 1: him and loosely based on his crimes doesn't actually merit 57 00:04:33,680 --> 00:04:37,480 Speaker 1: much further discussion of him in particular. But in order 58 00:04:37,520 --> 00:04:39,520 Speaker 1: to truly get into the mind of the man who 59 00:04:39,600 --> 00:04:43,040 Speaker 1: wrote that book, we have to understand a little bit 60 00:04:43,080 --> 00:04:46,080 Speaker 1: more about his world, about what was going on around 61 00:04:46,160 --> 00:04:50,160 Speaker 1: him when he wrote it. Some parts of this timeline 62 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:53,440 Speaker 1: may sound familiar to you already, but I think the 63 00:04:53,560 --> 00:04:58,560 Speaker 1: secret to understanding this terrible novel can only be found 64 00:04:58,600 --> 00:05:03,000 Speaker 1: by overlaying the timelines I've created for several different key 65 00:05:03,120 --> 00:05:10,720 Speaker 1: figures in the movement. The book's author, Willie Luther Pierce, 66 00:05:11,320 --> 00:05:13,880 Speaker 1: was the founder and leader of a neo Nazi organization 67 00:05:14,000 --> 00:05:17,560 Speaker 1: called National Alliance. He got his start in the movement 68 00:05:17,560 --> 00:05:20,280 Speaker 1: in the mid nineteen sixties, working for George Lincoln Rockwell 69 00:05:20,279 --> 00:05:23,280 Speaker 1: in the American Nazi Party, which is where he was 70 00:05:23,400 --> 00:05:26,719 Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty nine when he met future serial killer 71 00:05:26,800 --> 00:05:30,960 Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin and mentored a young James Mason, the 72 00:05:30,960 --> 00:05:36,520 Speaker 1: future author of Siege. After George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated 73 00:05:36,520 --> 00:05:40,400 Speaker 1: in nineteen sixty seven, Pierce struggled to get along with 74 00:05:40,480 --> 00:05:44,719 Speaker 1: Rockwell's successor, Mattius Kale, and Pierce was one of several 75 00:05:44,800 --> 00:05:48,760 Speaker 1: high profile departures from the party. In nineteen seventy he 76 00:05:48,800 --> 00:05:51,240 Speaker 1: went to work with Willis Cardo of Liberty Lobby for 77 00:05:51,279 --> 00:05:57,320 Speaker 1: a bit, advising him specifically on Cardo's National Youth Alliance organization, 78 00:05:58,960 --> 00:06:02,680 Speaker 1: and while working for Carl Pierce formed Youth for Wallace, 79 00:06:03,640 --> 00:06:06,920 Speaker 1: an organization aimed to counter the influence of left wing 80 00:06:07,000 --> 00:06:11,480 Speaker 1: organizations on college campuses and mobilize young people to campaign 81 00:06:11,600 --> 00:06:16,960 Speaker 1: for segregationist George Wallace. Pierson Cardo had a falling out 82 00:06:17,000 --> 00:06:21,359 Speaker 1: before too long, as fascists always do, and Pierce kept 83 00:06:21,480 --> 00:06:25,880 Speaker 1: National Youth Alliance as his own. By nineteen seventy four, 84 00:06:26,440 --> 00:06:29,880 Speaker 1: he'd moved on forming his own neo Nazi group called 85 00:06:30,279 --> 00:06:37,039 Speaker 1: National Alliance. In the Joseph Paul Franklin Episodes, I struggled 86 00:06:37,080 --> 00:06:40,880 Speaker 1: a bit to piece together a clear and coherent timeline 87 00:06:41,000 --> 00:06:45,599 Speaker 1: of Franklin's movements and affiliations in the mid nineteen seventies. 88 00:06:46,680 --> 00:06:49,680 Speaker 1: He was very definitely a member of the National Socialist 89 00:06:49,720 --> 00:06:54,520 Speaker 1: White People's Party from nineteen sixty nine through late nineteen 90 00:06:54,560 --> 00:06:59,800 Speaker 1: seventy one at least, and remember National Socialist White People's 91 00:06:59,800 --> 00:07:02,520 Speaker 1: Parts is the name that the American Nazi Party took 92 00:07:02,560 --> 00:07:05,880 Speaker 1: on in the late sixties. It's the same group, and 93 00:07:05,960 --> 00:07:11,080 Speaker 1: you'll sometimes hear the names used interchangeably. But in Franklin's 94 00:07:11,080 --> 00:07:14,160 Speaker 1: life there's a little bit of a blank spot in 95 00:07:14,240 --> 00:07:18,960 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy two nineteen seventy three, but after he left 96 00:07:18,960 --> 00:07:22,160 Speaker 1: the National Socialist White People's Party, he shows back up 97 00:07:22,240 --> 00:07:25,240 Speaker 1: as a member of the National States Rights Party from 98 00:07:25,320 --> 00:07:29,400 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three through nineteen seventy five, and at some 99 00:07:29,480 --> 00:07:32,240 Speaker 1: point in the mid nineteen seventies he was briefly a 100 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:36,080 Speaker 1: member of the Ku Klux Klan. And he claims that 101 00:07:36,160 --> 00:07:40,640 Speaker 1: he left all of these groups because they weren't enough 102 00:07:41,040 --> 00:07:45,280 Speaker 1: for him. They were full of fakers and snitches and posers, 103 00:07:45,320 --> 00:07:48,160 Speaker 1: and he was a man of action and he'd outgrown 104 00:07:48,200 --> 00:07:52,480 Speaker 1: them and he had to move on. That's what he says, 105 00:07:53,800 --> 00:07:57,880 Speaker 1: and in many cases all we have is his word 106 00:07:58,520 --> 00:08:00,960 Speaker 1: ed Fields and JB. Stoner, the men who were in 107 00:08:01,120 --> 00:08:03,880 Speaker 1: charge at the National States Rights Party in that time period, 108 00:08:04,760 --> 00:08:09,200 Speaker 1: both claimed they barely knew the man, but as we 109 00:08:09,280 --> 00:08:13,960 Speaker 1: discussed in those episodes, there is significant evidence that that 110 00:08:14,120 --> 00:08:17,600 Speaker 1: was a bald faced lie, and both Fields and Stoner 111 00:08:17,680 --> 00:08:25,480 Speaker 1: knew Franklin quite well. But I left something out of 112 00:08:25,480 --> 00:08:31,080 Speaker 1: those episodes, mostly because it might be nothing. I mean, 113 00:08:31,080 --> 00:08:34,240 Speaker 1: it feels a little bit uncouth to just guess in public. 114 00:08:34,280 --> 00:08:38,880 Speaker 1: I feel naked without facts and proof. But I haven't 115 00:08:38,920 --> 00:08:40,720 Speaker 1: been able to get this off my mind since I 116 00:08:40,760 --> 00:08:43,480 Speaker 1: read it a few weeks ago. So I'll at least 117 00:08:43,559 --> 00:08:46,400 Speaker 1: offer it to you and let you decide if you 118 00:08:46,440 --> 00:08:51,839 Speaker 1: think it means anything. See, I know, I said last week, 119 00:08:52,559 --> 00:08:55,760 Speaker 1: I'm going to start making an effort to spend I mean, 120 00:08:55,960 --> 00:09:01,120 Speaker 1: just maybe five percent less time researching. I spend way 121 00:09:01,160 --> 00:09:06,840 Speaker 1: too much time just browsing collecting information I know I 122 00:09:06,880 --> 00:09:10,680 Speaker 1: definitely will not need, even in the most tangential sixth 123 00:09:10,720 --> 00:09:15,760 Speaker 1: degree context establishing rabbit hole kind of way. It's my 124 00:09:15,800 --> 00:09:20,840 Speaker 1: emotional support research. I just like to have a global 125 00:09:20,920 --> 00:09:25,400 Speaker 1: picture before I focus on the details. I got to 126 00:09:25,440 --> 00:09:27,360 Speaker 1: scale it back a little bit because I would love 127 00:09:27,400 --> 00:09:31,360 Speaker 1: to have time for friends and family and a hobby 128 00:09:31,840 --> 00:09:33,800 Speaker 1: and be able to carry on a conversation that isn't 129 00:09:33,840 --> 00:09:40,400 Speaker 1: about a mass shooting. You know, the problem is sometimes 130 00:09:40,440 --> 00:09:45,080 Speaker 1: I find clues down there when I'm rooting around way 131 00:09:45,120 --> 00:09:50,320 Speaker 1: off the beaten path, wasting my own time. Sometimes there's 132 00:09:50,360 --> 00:09:55,520 Speaker 1: a shit covered diamond, you know, And I'm not sure 133 00:09:56,280 --> 00:09:59,280 Speaker 1: if this is one of those times. But in the 134 00:09:59,360 --> 00:10:03,040 Speaker 1: days that I I spent trying and mostly failing to 135 00:10:03,120 --> 00:10:08,840 Speaker 1: figure out exactly how, when, and why Joseph Paul Franklin 136 00:10:08,960 --> 00:10:13,640 Speaker 1: switched from one Nazi group to another in nineteen seventy three, 137 00:10:13,760 --> 00:10:15,960 Speaker 1: I did quite a bit of reading about the National 138 00:10:16,000 --> 00:10:20,560 Speaker 1: States Rights Party. It's not that moving from the National 139 00:10:20,559 --> 00:10:23,600 Speaker 1: Socialist White People's Party to the National States Rights Party 140 00:10:23,760 --> 00:10:28,160 Speaker 1: is particularly surprising. I mean, it's not a huge ideological swing. 141 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:33,120 Speaker 1: In fact, if we're looking at the mid nineteen seventies, right, 142 00:10:33,240 --> 00:10:35,640 Speaker 1: Mattias Kale is the head of the National Socialist White 143 00:10:35,640 --> 00:10:39,440 Speaker 1: People's Party, But in the late sixties, before he came 144 00:10:39,480 --> 00:10:42,400 Speaker 1: to the American Nazi Party, he'd been on the board 145 00:10:42,440 --> 00:10:46,400 Speaker 1: at the National States Rights Party. The groups were very similar, 146 00:10:46,640 --> 00:10:48,520 Speaker 1: and there were a lot of guys who'd been members 147 00:10:48,559 --> 00:10:52,760 Speaker 1: of both at one time or another. They believe mostly 148 00:10:52,840 --> 00:10:59,600 Speaker 1: the same things, they just dressed differently. But I just 149 00:10:59,640 --> 00:11:03,040 Speaker 1: wanted to understand why Franklin would have moved from the 150 00:11:03,120 --> 00:11:07,920 Speaker 1: DC suburbs down to Atlanta. How did he so suddenly 151 00:11:08,000 --> 00:11:10,920 Speaker 1: become so committed to a new group, that he was 152 00:11:10,960 --> 00:11:14,040 Speaker 1: willing to uproot his life and move to be closer 153 00:11:14,080 --> 00:11:18,640 Speaker 1: to his new leader. In whichever episode it was that 154 00:11:18,679 --> 00:11:22,040 Speaker 1: we talked about this, I had to be satisfied with 155 00:11:22,080 --> 00:11:26,240 Speaker 1: a question mark. Joseph Paul Franklin said he met J. B. 156 00:11:26,360 --> 00:11:30,320 Speaker 1: Stoner and Jerry Ray in nineteen seventy three, and that 157 00:11:30,440 --> 00:11:33,800 Speaker 1: was that J. B. Stoner was the chairman of the 158 00:11:33,840 --> 00:11:37,840 Speaker 1: National States Rights Party and Jerry Ray, brother of James 159 00:11:37,920 --> 00:11:40,080 Speaker 1: Earl Ray, the man who killed Martin Luther King Junior, 160 00:11:40,840 --> 00:11:45,560 Speaker 1: was Stoner's shadow, his assistant, his bodyguard, whatever the day required. 161 00:11:46,880 --> 00:11:48,720 Speaker 1: And he says he met them in nineteen seventy three, 162 00:11:50,040 --> 00:11:52,400 Speaker 1: and I had to just be satisfied with the possibility 163 00:11:52,400 --> 00:11:55,560 Speaker 1: that maybe Franklin saw Stoner give a speech at some 164 00:11:56,120 --> 00:12:00,559 Speaker 1: meeting or another. Maybe that's how they met. Stone was 165 00:12:00,559 --> 00:12:03,600 Speaker 1: always traveling around and speaking at various Nazi meetings for 166 00:12:03,640 --> 00:12:09,240 Speaker 1: other Nazi groups. So it's a strong possibility. But there 167 00:12:09,360 --> 00:12:20,959 Speaker 1: is another possibility. Maybe William Luther Pierce introduced them. Do 168 00:12:21,000 --> 00:12:26,040 Speaker 1: I have any direct evidence of this, No, not at 169 00:12:26,040 --> 00:12:30,280 Speaker 1: this time. This is one of those times that I'm 170 00:12:30,320 --> 00:12:34,120 Speaker 1: going out on a limb. I'm not telling you a 171 00:12:34,240 --> 00:12:38,520 Speaker 1: fact that I am certain of. I'm just offering you 172 00:12:39,559 --> 00:12:45,400 Speaker 1: an intriguing possibility, because here, in the absence of hard evidence, 173 00:12:46,640 --> 00:12:50,520 Speaker 1: there are some funny little breadcrumbs. I mean, if you 174 00:12:50,600 --> 00:12:54,760 Speaker 1: have the time and the patience and the mental derangement 175 00:12:55,240 --> 00:13:00,520 Speaker 1: necessary to browse thousands of pages of heavily were dacted 176 00:13:00,600 --> 00:13:10,440 Speaker 1: old FBI files, there are some redcrumbs. JB. Stoner and 177 00:13:10,480 --> 00:13:17,160 Speaker 1: William Luther Pearce were friends. They weren't just colleagues who 178 00:13:17,280 --> 00:13:21,000 Speaker 1: encountered each other often in shared environments within the movement. 179 00:13:22,360 --> 00:13:27,040 Speaker 1: They were friends. And Across files for these individual men 180 00:13:27,240 --> 00:13:30,600 Speaker 1: and the files kept on their various organizations over decades, 181 00:13:31,760 --> 00:13:35,360 Speaker 1: there are scattered references to them being spotted at rallies 182 00:13:35,400 --> 00:13:41,960 Speaker 1: together throughout the nineteen seventies. I mean tiny little rallies, 183 00:13:42,040 --> 00:13:47,440 Speaker 1: rallies with six, seven, maybe a dozen participants. I don't 184 00:13:47,440 --> 00:13:50,880 Speaker 1: mean they were just coincidentally both at the same big 185 00:13:50,960 --> 00:13:56,400 Speaker 1: movement event. They were together. They were at these events together. 186 00:13:58,120 --> 00:14:00,960 Speaker 1: Within those FBI files, I found evidence that the pair 187 00:14:01,000 --> 00:14:04,120 Speaker 1: were spotted together outside the White House, specifically half a 188 00:14:04,160 --> 00:14:08,760 Speaker 1: dozen times, and one FBI surveillance report notes that Pierce 189 00:14:08,800 --> 00:14:11,720 Speaker 1: had been tasked with snapping photos of Stoner's speech to 190 00:14:11,800 --> 00:14:18,000 Speaker 1: a crowd of just ten supporters on one occasion. Other 191 00:14:18,120 --> 00:14:21,880 Speaker 1: FBI memos note that the pair maintained a close working 192 00:14:21,920 --> 00:14:26,000 Speaker 1: relationship and that they shared things like membership and mailing 193 00:14:26,040 --> 00:14:30,000 Speaker 1: list with one another, which is actually a very big 194 00:14:30,040 --> 00:14:33,720 Speaker 1: deal in their circles. Those mailing lists are the most 195 00:14:33,840 --> 00:14:40,240 Speaker 1: valuable thing a hate group leader owned. And curiously, in 196 00:14:40,280 --> 00:14:45,760 Speaker 1: the FBI files concerning Pierce's organization National Alliance, there were 197 00:14:45,800 --> 00:14:50,320 Speaker 1: a series of almost entirely redacted memos in the summer 198 00:14:50,360 --> 00:14:55,800 Speaker 1: of nineteen seventy four. The portions that aren't obscured indicate 199 00:14:55,880 --> 00:15:00,400 Speaker 1: that there was an investigation at that time concerning civil 200 00:15:00,480 --> 00:15:07,240 Speaker 1: rights violations, seditious conspiracy, insurrection, plots to overthrow the government, 201 00:15:07,800 --> 00:15:11,760 Speaker 1: and civil disorder, the kind of thing Pierce was always 202 00:15:11,760 --> 00:15:16,400 Speaker 1: talking about, honestly, right, starting a race war, murdering enough 203 00:15:16,440 --> 00:15:19,880 Speaker 1: black people to start a civil war, That's what that's 204 00:15:19,920 --> 00:15:24,360 Speaker 1: talking about. But whatever it was that the FBI was 205 00:15:24,400 --> 00:15:30,320 Speaker 1: looking into, specifically amidst those pages of redactions, there is 206 00:15:30,320 --> 00:15:34,680 Speaker 1: an appendix that explains what the National States Rights Party was, 207 00:15:36,000 --> 00:15:39,400 Speaker 1: implying that that is relevant to the information that is 208 00:15:39,440 --> 00:15:46,840 Speaker 1: redacted because they were perhaps involved The piece that really 209 00:15:46,880 --> 00:15:50,200 Speaker 1: got me thinking that Peers could be the missing link 210 00:15:50,280 --> 00:15:53,920 Speaker 1: between Franklin and the National States Rights Party is a 211 00:15:53,960 --> 00:15:57,360 Speaker 1: redacted portion of a memo in the National States Rights 212 00:15:57,360 --> 00:16:02,720 Speaker 1: Party file from early nineteen seventy three. And the memo 213 00:16:02,880 --> 00:16:07,480 Speaker 1: is about someone whose name is redacted, but that person 214 00:16:07,760 --> 00:16:10,800 Speaker 1: is the head of the National Youth Alliance, and in 215 00:16:10,880 --> 00:16:15,840 Speaker 1: nineteen seventy three, that's William Luther Pierce. It can only 216 00:16:16,200 --> 00:16:21,160 Speaker 1: be William Luther Pierce. And this man whose name is 217 00:16:21,200 --> 00:16:27,320 Speaker 1: redacted has reportedly been very successful at recruiting high school 218 00:16:27,320 --> 00:16:31,320 Speaker 1: age boys into the movement, using the National Youth Alliance 219 00:16:31,360 --> 00:16:35,040 Speaker 1: to bring young men into white supremacist activity with the 220 00:16:35,120 --> 00:16:39,760 Speaker 1: express intention of preparing them for membership in JB. Stoner's 221 00:16:39,880 --> 00:16:44,160 Speaker 1: National States Rights Party. And that's Peers to a t. 222 00:16:45,000 --> 00:16:47,480 Speaker 1: I mean, we know he was doing that. He was 223 00:16:47,520 --> 00:16:51,760 Speaker 1: a chicken hawk who preyed on impressionable teenagers. He never 224 00:16:51,760 --> 00:16:53,640 Speaker 1: would stick his own neck out, but he had an 225 00:16:53,680 --> 00:16:58,160 Speaker 1: eye for finding boys who would. James Mason was still 226 00:16:58,160 --> 00:17:00,920 Speaker 1: in high school when Peerson cururaged him to leave home 227 00:17:00,920 --> 00:17:03,040 Speaker 1: in Ohio and come live at the Nazi Party barracks 228 00:17:03,080 --> 00:17:07,359 Speaker 1: in Virginia. David Duke was freshly nineteen when he was 229 00:17:07,400 --> 00:17:10,560 Speaker 1: invited to his first Nazi convention where he first met Pierce. 230 00:17:11,480 --> 00:17:14,919 Speaker 1: Joseph Tomasi was barely eighteen the first time he pops 231 00:17:15,000 --> 00:17:18,639 Speaker 1: up in Pierce's FBI file. Pierce was using him to 232 00:17:18,720 --> 00:17:24,560 Speaker 1: run radio addresses in California containing extremely explicit and detailed 233 00:17:24,640 --> 00:17:29,720 Speaker 1: calls for terrorism and murder. Joseph Paul Franklin was still 234 00:17:29,720 --> 00:17:34,879 Speaker 1: a teenager when he met William Luther Pierce. William Luther 235 00:17:34,960 --> 00:17:40,520 Speaker 1: Pierce was good at this. He was good at convincing 236 00:17:40,600 --> 00:17:47,000 Speaker 1: impressionable young men to act out his fantasies, and according 237 00:17:47,040 --> 00:17:50,720 Speaker 1: to the FBI, after William Luther Piers left the National 238 00:17:50,720 --> 00:17:55,280 Speaker 1: Socialist White People's Party, the arrangement was he would recruit 239 00:17:55,359 --> 00:17:59,080 Speaker 1: boys and pass the ones with the most potential off 240 00:17:59,119 --> 00:18:03,239 Speaker 1: to his friend JB's And if you'll recall from some 241 00:18:03,280 --> 00:18:07,200 Speaker 1: of those episodes about Joseph Paul Franklin, JB. Stoner was 242 00:18:07,240 --> 00:18:13,040 Speaker 1: a serial bomber, and that memo was written in nineteen 243 00:18:13,080 --> 00:18:17,199 Speaker 1: seventy three, which happens to be the same year that 244 00:18:17,359 --> 00:18:20,880 Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin disappeared from the National Socialist White People's Party. 245 00:18:20,880 --> 00:18:24,879 Speaker 1: In the DC suburbs, met JB. Stoner and moved to 246 00:18:24,960 --> 00:18:43,639 Speaker 1: Atlanta to work directly for Stoner. The fact that Pierce 247 00:18:43,760 --> 00:18:46,160 Speaker 1: was in the business of passing off his most promising 248 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:51,080 Speaker 1: prospects to other movement leaders was news to me, but 249 00:18:51,160 --> 00:18:56,240 Speaker 1: it was perhaps not actually a secret. We don't have 250 00:18:56,400 --> 00:18:59,159 Speaker 1: to get all the way into the background here. I 251 00:18:59,200 --> 00:19:02,600 Speaker 1: will do some episode it's about Pioneer Little Europe eventually, 252 00:19:03,359 --> 00:19:07,360 Speaker 1: but for now, suffice it to say. Pioneer Little Europe 253 00:19:07,440 --> 00:19:12,000 Speaker 1: or pl E is the name for the general idea that, 254 00:19:12,920 --> 00:19:15,359 Speaker 1: while it may be too hard to actually form a 255 00:19:15,400 --> 00:19:20,240 Speaker 1: white ethno state, white supremacists can successfully move into very 256 00:19:20,240 --> 00:19:24,440 Speaker 1: small towns in large enough numbers that they essentially create 257 00:19:24,840 --> 00:19:27,840 Speaker 1: a whites only community in which they are able to 258 00:19:27,920 --> 00:19:31,879 Speaker 1: exert a certain amount of political control. This was the 259 00:19:31,880 --> 00:19:35,560 Speaker 1: principle behind the very strange saga of the Nazi takeover 260 00:19:35,640 --> 00:19:39,240 Speaker 1: of the town of Leith, North Dakota, A story for 261 00:19:39,280 --> 00:19:43,439 Speaker 1: another day, I promise. I only bring it up now 262 00:19:44,119 --> 00:19:46,920 Speaker 1: as a way to introduce the man who is credited 263 00:19:46,960 --> 00:19:51,080 Speaker 1: with shaping the idea of Pioneer Little Europe, a man 264 00:19:51,160 --> 00:19:56,639 Speaker 1: named Hamilton Michael Barrett. Barrett wrote a treatise on the 265 00:19:56,720 --> 00:20:02,960 Speaker 1: topic well, he called it a prospectus. It is actually 266 00:20:03,080 --> 00:20:06,080 Speaker 1: just an eighty five page slog made up mostly of 267 00:20:06,480 --> 00:20:11,439 Speaker 1: lightly edited posts he'd previously made on Stormfront and buried 268 00:20:11,440 --> 00:20:15,320 Speaker 1: somewhere in chapter four, a chapter called My Favorite pro 269 00:20:15,359 --> 00:20:20,760 Speaker 1: White Cults. He's writing about his own past, which included 270 00:20:20,800 --> 00:20:24,359 Speaker 1: a period of membership in the National Socialist White People's Party, 271 00:20:25,160 --> 00:20:29,159 Speaker 1: which is where he first met William Luther Pierce. In 272 00:20:29,240 --> 00:20:34,440 Speaker 1: the treatise, he writes, I eventually left the National Socialist 273 00:20:34,480 --> 00:20:37,560 Speaker 1: White People's Party in nineteen seventy when a major split occurred. 274 00:20:38,200 --> 00:20:40,960 Speaker 1: I was accompanied by the late Doctor William Pierce, who 275 00:20:41,000 --> 00:20:44,040 Speaker 1: was the party's second in command, Robert Lloyd, who'd been 276 00:20:44,040 --> 00:20:47,439 Speaker 1: third in command, and Pierce's secretary, Earl, for whom the 277 00:20:47,440 --> 00:20:50,879 Speaker 1: Turner Diaries would eventually be named in some ways the 278 00:20:50,960 --> 00:20:54,120 Speaker 1: National Youth Alliance, which eventually became the National Alliance. While 279 00:20:54,160 --> 00:20:56,480 Speaker 1: I was there was much closer to what I thought 280 00:20:56,520 --> 00:20:59,760 Speaker 1: was the right approach, but Earl Lloyd and myself all 281 00:20:59,760 --> 00:21:02,239 Speaker 1: theime deed to leave when Doctor Pierce revealed that he 282 00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:07,320 Speaker 1: was intent on publicly and privately encouraging our supporters, though 283 00:21:07,320 --> 00:21:11,960 Speaker 1: never himself into a high risk lifestyle of revolutionary adventure. 284 00:21:13,040 --> 00:21:15,720 Speaker 1: This was an enormous disappointment to me, as I knew 285 00:21:15,720 --> 00:21:18,320 Speaker 1: by then that only a conscious community would ever support 286 00:21:18,320 --> 00:21:22,160 Speaker 1: anyone physically fighting for its existence. I spoke to Pierce 287 00:21:22,160 --> 00:21:25,720 Speaker 1: about this widely known dictum, and after realizing he was 288 00:21:25,760 --> 00:21:30,239 Speaker 1: determined to generate martyrs anyway, I got out while there 289 00:21:30,280 --> 00:21:33,000 Speaker 1: was still time to avoid any involvement in the unknown 290 00:21:33,040 --> 00:21:39,680 Speaker 1: disaster that was surely to come. And there it is again. 291 00:21:40,960 --> 00:21:44,960 Speaker 1: People close to Peerce all seemed to agree, regardless of 292 00:21:45,000 --> 00:21:47,600 Speaker 1: what he's telling his own biographer later. Never mind the 293 00:21:47,600 --> 00:21:50,160 Speaker 1: fact that he was never charged with, let alone convicted 294 00:21:50,200 --> 00:21:53,439 Speaker 1: of a serious crime, or implicated in a conspiracy or 295 00:21:53,520 --> 00:21:56,600 Speaker 1: satisfactorily linked to the actions of men in his orbit. 296 00:21:58,040 --> 00:22:02,960 Speaker 1: The people who were actually close to him, we're all saying, yeah. 297 00:22:03,760 --> 00:22:09,840 Speaker 1: In private, he talked a lot about terrorism in private. 298 00:22:10,560 --> 00:22:17,479 Speaker 1: He fantasized about violence. In private. He was telling people 299 00:22:18,240 --> 00:22:22,160 Speaker 1: to do it. And I went combing through h. Michael 300 00:22:22,160 --> 00:22:27,360 Speaker 1: Barrett's old Stormfront post too. There's more. There's a lot 301 00:22:27,400 --> 00:22:31,040 Speaker 1: of texts that didn't make it into the Prospectus. He 302 00:22:31,119 --> 00:22:35,399 Speaker 1: claims William Luther Pierce asked him to become a martyr. 303 00:22:37,480 --> 00:22:40,040 Speaker 1: I can't pin down exactly what year it was that 304 00:22:40,080 --> 00:22:43,879 Speaker 1: Barrett became disillusioned with Pierce and they parted ways, but 305 00:22:43,960 --> 00:22:46,760 Speaker 1: it had to have been in the late nineteen seventies, 306 00:22:47,680 --> 00:22:51,160 Speaker 1: after seventy five at least, because Pierce didn't start writing 307 00:22:51,200 --> 00:22:55,240 Speaker 1: The Turner Diaries until nineteen seventy five, and Barrett describes 308 00:22:55,320 --> 00:22:57,560 Speaker 1: Pierce sending him out to do a little recon work 309 00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,200 Speaker 1: to help with research for the book. So the incident 310 00:23:01,240 --> 00:23:04,679 Speaker 1: he's describing here had to have happened sometime in the 311 00:23:04,760 --> 00:23:09,320 Speaker 1: latter portion of the mid nineteen seventies. And again just 312 00:23:09,440 --> 00:23:13,200 Speaker 1: grounding us in our broader time line, remember that Joseph 313 00:23:13,240 --> 00:23:17,800 Speaker 1: Paul Franklin started killing in nineteen seventy seven. So in 314 00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:23,200 Speaker 1: this undated incident, Barrett describes walking into Pierce's office one 315 00:23:23,240 --> 00:23:28,960 Speaker 1: afternoon and Pierce says to him rather plainly, I need martyrs, 316 00:23:31,960 --> 00:23:38,000 Speaker 1: Barrett writes, quote as Pierce presumed I'd be interested. He 317 00:23:38,080 --> 00:23:41,280 Speaker 1: continued on about how he had a special understanding with 318 00:23:41,359 --> 00:23:45,240 Speaker 1: the Reverend Butler of Argan Nations. Pierce was to locate 319 00:23:45,280 --> 00:23:48,880 Speaker 1: the most committed people, noting all the sensitive inside business 320 00:23:48,920 --> 00:23:51,080 Speaker 1: access that they had access too because it was on 321 00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:54,840 Speaker 1: their membership application. Then the Reverend Butler was to provide 322 00:23:54,880 --> 00:23:59,200 Speaker 1: a role for them that didn't involve Pierce. It didn't 323 00:23:59,200 --> 00:24:01,720 Speaker 1: surprise me at all, and he made this proposal, and 324 00:24:01,800 --> 00:24:03,840 Speaker 1: I know it was more than just the casual jest. 325 00:24:03,920 --> 00:24:07,879 Speaker 1: It was first couched as I was an idealist and 326 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:10,760 Speaker 1: had pretty much done absolutely everything asked of me in 327 00:24:10,840 --> 00:24:13,920 Speaker 1: both the National Socialist White People's Party and the National Alliance. 328 00:24:18,520 --> 00:24:21,600 Speaker 1: So in the first half of the nineteen seventies, the 329 00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:25,560 Speaker 1: FBI knows that William Luther Pierce is recruiting young people 330 00:24:26,240 --> 00:24:30,320 Speaker 1: and passing off the best prospects to JB. Stoner. In 331 00:24:30,359 --> 00:24:33,000 Speaker 1: the latter half of the decade, one of his longtime 332 00:24:33,040 --> 00:24:36,760 Speaker 1: associates says that he had the same arrangement with Richard 333 00:24:36,800 --> 00:24:41,520 Speaker 1: Butler and the Arian Nations. So in both of these scenarios, 334 00:24:41,560 --> 00:24:46,600 Speaker 1: he's sort of a terrorism talent scout. He recruits these 335 00:24:46,640 --> 00:24:50,200 Speaker 1: eager young Nazis and doctrinates them, grooms them in some cases, 336 00:24:51,080 --> 00:24:56,200 Speaker 1: and develops a sense for which ones have talent, which 337 00:24:56,240 --> 00:25:00,679 Speaker 1: ones might be willing to do it, and then he 338 00:25:00,760 --> 00:25:03,960 Speaker 1: passes them off to some one else for the final 339 00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:09,199 Speaker 1: preparation so his hands stay clean. I've been reading a 340 00:25:09,200 --> 00:25:12,320 Speaker 1: lot of his writing lately, and he's always writing about 341 00:25:12,320 --> 00:25:18,080 Speaker 1: how his organization, National Alliance, was just about education, consciousness, 342 00:25:18,160 --> 00:25:23,639 Speaker 1: raising flyers, newsletters, not action. And in Hunter, his novel, 343 00:25:23,840 --> 00:25:27,959 Speaker 1: the character of Harry Keller, who is a version of Pierce, 344 00:25:28,320 --> 00:25:30,919 Speaker 1: says the same thing. Right at the National League, the 345 00:25:30,960 --> 00:25:35,840 Speaker 1: fictional group in the book is about education, it's about flyers, 346 00:25:35,840 --> 00:25:41,320 Speaker 1: it's about radio addresses, not action. Pierce says in public, 347 00:25:42,359 --> 00:25:46,240 Speaker 1: don't do what Earl Turner did, don't go off half cocked, 348 00:25:46,320 --> 00:25:51,719 Speaker 1: don't do anything. And I guess that is a version 349 00:25:52,800 --> 00:25:56,600 Speaker 1: of the truth. He did not want his public facing 350 00:25:56,640 --> 00:26:00,679 Speaker 1: members to do anything. He kept himself and the National 351 00:26:00,720 --> 00:26:05,560 Speaker 1: Alliance at arm's length from the violence. Robert Matthews had 352 00:26:05,560 --> 00:26:07,800 Speaker 1: been a member of National Alliance for a few years, 353 00:26:08,680 --> 00:26:12,240 Speaker 1: but Pierce claims Matthews left the group when he formed 354 00:26:12,240 --> 00:26:17,520 Speaker 1: the Order, so he's sort of air gapping the terror cells, right, 355 00:26:18,080 --> 00:26:20,960 Speaker 1: this is a separate thing from National Alliance that can't 356 00:26:21,000 --> 00:26:26,840 Speaker 1: come back to him personally. He's manufacturing the illusion of 357 00:26:26,960 --> 00:26:34,439 Speaker 1: lone wolves allegedly. I guess, like I said, there's no 358 00:26:35,400 --> 00:26:40,000 Speaker 1: hard proof, not that I have anyway, the FBI might 359 00:26:40,040 --> 00:26:47,080 Speaker 1: have it. All I have are breadcrumbs possibilities. The possibility 360 00:26:47,640 --> 00:26:51,520 Speaker 1: exists here that it does mean something. That in nineteen 361 00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:55,639 Speaker 1: seventy three, the FBI pendamemo noting that William Luther Pierce 362 00:26:55,800 --> 00:26:59,440 Speaker 1: was recruiting and indoctrinating young men and funneling them into 363 00:26:59,440 --> 00:27:02,320 Speaker 1: the National ste Dates Rights Party. In nineteen seventy three 364 00:27:03,000 --> 00:27:05,920 Speaker 1: was the same year that Joseph Paul Franklin, a man 365 00:27:05,920 --> 00:27:11,080 Speaker 1: who'd known Pierce and worshiped him for years, joined that 366 00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:17,040 Speaker 1: same organization. But that's all just speculation. You can decide 367 00:27:17,040 --> 00:27:22,720 Speaker 1: if you think it means anything. Coming back to our timeline, 368 00:27:23,359 --> 00:27:26,720 Speaker 1: in nineteen seventy five, William Luther Pierre started publishing one 369 00:27:26,800 --> 00:27:29,200 Speaker 1: chapter at a time of what would become his first novel, 370 00:27:29,960 --> 00:27:34,480 Speaker 1: The Turner Diaries. In nineteen seventy seven, Joseph Paul Franklin 371 00:27:34,480 --> 00:27:37,040 Speaker 1: started his three year murder spree, ending with his arrest 372 00:27:37,119 --> 00:27:41,600 Speaker 1: in nineteen eighty. In nineteen eighty three, William Luther Pierce 373 00:27:41,720 --> 00:27:45,159 Speaker 1: encouraged a young protege named Robert Matthews to give a 374 00:27:45,200 --> 00:27:49,800 Speaker 1: speech at the annual National Alliance Member convention, and that 375 00:27:49,920 --> 00:27:52,800 Speaker 1: speech led to the formation of the Order, the Nazi 376 00:27:52,880 --> 00:27:55,399 Speaker 1: terror group modeled and named after the group in the 377 00:27:55,440 --> 00:27:59,560 Speaker 1: Turner Diaries. After the Order robbed De Brinkstruck in the 378 00:27:59,600 --> 00:28:02,640 Speaker 1: summer of nineteen eighty four, William Luther Pierce was one 379 00:28:02,640 --> 00:28:06,440 Speaker 1: of many recipients of stolen cash. Members of the Order 380 00:28:06,480 --> 00:28:10,199 Speaker 1: traveled the country handing out big bags of money to 381 00:28:10,280 --> 00:28:15,080 Speaker 1: movement leaders. That had been the plan all along, funding 382 00:28:15,119 --> 00:28:18,200 Speaker 1: the movement, getting money into the hands of men who 383 00:28:18,200 --> 00:28:22,959 Speaker 1: would use it to buy land and guns, bombs, and 384 00:28:23,040 --> 00:28:26,800 Speaker 1: to train their followers for the coming race war. Just 385 00:28:26,920 --> 00:28:31,000 Speaker 1: like the book. It's come up a handful of times 386 00:28:31,040 --> 00:28:34,879 Speaker 1: in past episodes that William Luther Pierce used his portion 387 00:28:34,960 --> 00:28:37,639 Speaker 1: of the stolen money to purchase over three hundred acres 388 00:28:37,680 --> 00:28:42,959 Speaker 1: of undeveloped land in Hillsboro, West Virginia. I'm not sure 389 00:28:43,440 --> 00:28:46,640 Speaker 1: if I've mentioned in the past that Fraser Glenn Miller 390 00:28:46,840 --> 00:28:51,200 Speaker 1: was also a recipient of the Order's generosity. His White 391 00:28:51,200 --> 00:28:55,600 Speaker 1: Patriots Party in North Carolina received two hundred thousand dollars, 392 00:28:56,160 --> 00:28:59,320 Speaker 1: and he immediately set about using that money to purchase 393 00:28:59,360 --> 00:29:03,160 Speaker 1: weapons that had had been stolen from Fort Bragg. And 394 00:29:03,280 --> 00:29:06,400 Speaker 1: remember from the Joseph Paul Franklin episodes that nineteen eighty 395 00:29:06,440 --> 00:29:09,080 Speaker 1: four was the year that Franklin was on trial in 396 00:29:09,120 --> 00:29:13,040 Speaker 1: Tennessee for a nineteen seventy seven synagogue bombing. At the 397 00:29:13,120 --> 00:29:15,200 Speaker 1: end of that trial, he stood up and shocked the 398 00:29:15,240 --> 00:29:18,560 Speaker 1: courtroom by giving a statement against the advice of his attorneys, 399 00:29:19,080 --> 00:29:23,640 Speaker 1: confessing to the bombing. That dramatic performance in the courtroom 400 00:29:24,280 --> 00:29:29,440 Speaker 1: was just days before the Order's most daring robbery. After 401 00:29:29,480 --> 00:29:31,800 Speaker 1: Pierce received the stolen money from Matthews in the fall 402 00:29:31,800 --> 00:29:35,120 Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty four, he paid ninety five thousand dollars 403 00:29:35,120 --> 00:29:37,440 Speaker 1: in cash for the land that would become his compound 404 00:29:37,440 --> 00:29:40,120 Speaker 1: in the mountains of West Virginia, and he moved out 405 00:29:40,160 --> 00:29:45,080 Speaker 1: to the property in nineteen eighty five. The FBI records 406 00:29:45,080 --> 00:29:50,880 Speaker 1: are a bit sparse. Pierce chose well. The location was 407 00:29:51,000 --> 00:29:56,480 Speaker 1: very remote, making it incredibly difficult to surveil. The nearby 408 00:29:56,560 --> 00:30:01,000 Speaker 1: town was small and close knit, which would make it 409 00:30:01,080 --> 00:30:05,240 Speaker 1: nearly impossible to embed and undercover in the community. Everybody 410 00:30:05,280 --> 00:30:10,719 Speaker 1: would notice some strange neugui. The FBI resorted to combing 411 00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:14,120 Speaker 1: through the local landfill trying to find bags of trash 412 00:30:14,160 --> 00:30:20,280 Speaker 1: that had originated on the compound. Invoices from contractors painted 413 00:30:20,280 --> 00:30:29,840 Speaker 1: a troubling picture. Electric fencing bunkers underground tunnels. Like Miller, 414 00:30:30,560 --> 00:30:37,040 Speaker 1: Pierce was preparing for a coming war. If a war 415 00:30:37,200 --> 00:30:40,320 Speaker 1: was coming, though the Order wasn't going to be there 416 00:30:40,320 --> 00:30:43,480 Speaker 1: for it. By the end of nineteen eighty four, the 417 00:30:43,560 --> 00:30:47,120 Speaker 1: Order was finished. Robert Matthews died in a house fire 418 00:30:47,200 --> 00:30:50,840 Speaker 1: during a stand off with the FBI. The group's members, 419 00:30:50,880 --> 00:30:53,479 Speaker 1: as well as dozens of associates, were rounded up and 420 00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,640 Speaker 1: charged with a wide variety of federal crimes for their 421 00:30:56,720 --> 00:31:01,560 Speaker 1: roles in the group's year long nationwide crime spree. The 422 00:31:01,600 --> 00:31:04,440 Speaker 1: model of white revolution laid out in the Turner Diaries 423 00:31:05,120 --> 00:31:09,520 Speaker 1: was obviously a failure. Robert Matthews might have imagined that 424 00:31:09,560 --> 00:31:12,640 Speaker 1: he was Earl Turner, and both men did die a 425 00:31:12,680 --> 00:31:16,560 Speaker 1: fiery death, but Earl Turner crashed a plane armed with 426 00:31:16,600 --> 00:31:19,080 Speaker 1: a nuclear bomb into the Pentagon, allowing the Order to 427 00:31:19,080 --> 00:31:21,400 Speaker 1: succeed at taking over the world and eliminate all non 428 00:31:21,480 --> 00:31:26,120 Speaker 1: white people. Robert Matthews burnt to a crisp because the 429 00:31:26,200 --> 00:31:28,880 Speaker 1: FBI accidentally fired a flare into a crate of hand 430 00:31:28,880 --> 00:31:32,680 Speaker 1: grenades that he was keeping in the living room. The 431 00:31:32,680 --> 00:31:38,360 Speaker 1: book wasn't real. Life didn't work, and it was in 432 00:31:38,440 --> 00:31:42,120 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four that Pierce claims he wrote the first 433 00:31:42,200 --> 00:31:47,800 Speaker 1: chapter of his second book, Hunter. He doesn't say why 434 00:31:47,840 --> 00:31:50,240 Speaker 1: he started in eighty four, and another source puts the 435 00:31:50,320 --> 00:31:53,840 Speaker 1: date at eighty three, but either way, he put the 436 00:31:53,880 --> 00:31:57,160 Speaker 1: idea away for a few years, and he finished and 437 00:31:57,240 --> 00:32:02,280 Speaker 1: published it in nineteen eighty nine. You can never really 438 00:32:02,320 --> 00:32:05,600 Speaker 1: know what's in a man's heart, but I suspect he 439 00:32:05,720 --> 00:32:08,719 Speaker 1: returned to the project in nineteen eighty eight. In the 440 00:32:08,760 --> 00:32:14,160 Speaker 1: aftermath of the Fort Smiths edition trial in nineteen eighty eight, 441 00:32:14,560 --> 00:32:20,320 Speaker 1: fourteen prominent White supremacists were acquitted at trial after nearly 442 00:32:20,400 --> 00:32:24,640 Speaker 1: two months of testimony, alleging a wider conspiracy related to 443 00:32:24,640 --> 00:32:27,440 Speaker 1: the crimes of the Order, as well as some alleged 444 00:32:27,480 --> 00:32:30,680 Speaker 1: plots to commit terrorist attacks involving members of the Covenant 445 00:32:30,720 --> 00:32:34,800 Speaker 1: the Sword in the Arm of the Lord. The defendants 446 00:32:34,840 --> 00:32:40,400 Speaker 1: were big names in the movement, Clansman Louis Beam, the 447 00:32:40,440 --> 00:32:45,840 Speaker 1: guy who popularized the term leaderless resistance, Robert Miles, a 448 00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:49,160 Speaker 1: Christian identity leader in Michigan who once conspired to bomb 449 00:32:49,200 --> 00:32:53,040 Speaker 1: school buses back in his clan days. Richard Butler, the 450 00:32:53,200 --> 00:32:57,840 Speaker 1: Aryan Nations David Lane, the guy who invented the fourteen words, 451 00:32:59,080 --> 00:33:01,480 Speaker 1: Richard Wayne Snell of the Covenant, the Sword and the 452 00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:06,080 Speaker 1: Arm of the Lord, who was eventually executed for murdering 453 00:33:06,120 --> 00:33:13,840 Speaker 1: a state trooper. Snell's execution was perhaps coincidentally, perhaps not 454 00:33:15,240 --> 00:33:19,000 Speaker 1: April nineteenth, nineteen ninety five, the same day as the 455 00:33:19,000 --> 00:33:37,080 Speaker 1: Oklahoma City bombing. The rest of those fourteen defendants are 456 00:33:37,360 --> 00:33:40,760 Speaker 1: assorted associates of either the Order or the Covenant the 457 00:33:40,800 --> 00:33:44,320 Speaker 1: Sword and the Arm of the Lord, but William Luther 458 00:33:44,400 --> 00:33:49,240 Speaker 1: pears is upon that list. William Luther Pearce was not 459 00:33:49,440 --> 00:33:54,480 Speaker 1: charged in this case, alleging a larger conspiracy surrounding the 460 00:33:54,520 --> 00:33:59,680 Speaker 1: crimes of the Order. He was investigated, but not indicted, 461 00:34:00,720 --> 00:34:06,880 Speaker 1: not charged, not put on trial. The FBI subpoened his 462 00:34:06,920 --> 00:34:10,720 Speaker 1: bank records in nineteen eighty five, presumably looking for evidence 463 00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,319 Speaker 1: of that big pile of cash he'd received from Robert Matthews, 464 00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:19,000 Speaker 1: but somehow he wasn't on the list when the indictments 465 00:34:19,040 --> 00:34:23,640 Speaker 1: came down in April of nineteen eighty seven. A memo 466 00:34:23,719 --> 00:34:26,959 Speaker 1: in his FBI file shows that a few months later, 467 00:34:27,800 --> 00:34:32,120 Speaker 1: FBI headquarters denied a request from the Pittsburgh Field office 468 00:34:32,800 --> 00:34:37,920 Speaker 1: to continue their investigation into him. They were denied permission 469 00:34:38,000 --> 00:34:41,560 Speaker 1: to continue investigating what was going on at his compound, 470 00:34:42,840 --> 00:34:47,080 Speaker 1: and his file went dormant for a while. At the 471 00:34:47,080 --> 00:34:50,360 Speaker 1: Fort Smith trial, the government's case relied heavily on a 472 00:34:50,400 --> 00:34:54,839 Speaker 1: pair of cooperating witnesses. One of the men who'd gotten 473 00:34:54,880 --> 00:34:57,440 Speaker 1: a lot of money from the order's robbery had agreed 474 00:34:57,440 --> 00:34:59,919 Speaker 1: to turn state's witness in exchange for a sweetheart deal 475 00:35:00,080 --> 00:35:04,040 Speaker 1: on some criminal charges of his own. Fraser Glenn Miller 476 00:35:04,480 --> 00:35:07,040 Speaker 1: sang like a bird on the stand in exchange for 477 00:35:07,080 --> 00:35:11,799 Speaker 1: a reduced sentence on some weapons charges. He served a 478 00:35:11,800 --> 00:35:15,960 Speaker 1: few years and was released with a new identity into 479 00:35:16,000 --> 00:35:21,800 Speaker 1: the witness protection program. The government also relied on cooperative 480 00:35:21,800 --> 00:35:25,000 Speaker 1: testimony from Jim Ellison, the leader of the Covenant the 481 00:35:25,000 --> 00:35:28,960 Speaker 1: Sword in the Arm of the Lord, But it wasn't enough. 482 00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:35,360 Speaker 1: Weeks of testimony from inside the movement, people testifying about 483 00:35:35,360 --> 00:35:39,239 Speaker 1: stolen money, plans to commit acts of terrorism, proof that 484 00:35:39,280 --> 00:35:42,160 Speaker 1: money had changed hands and been used to purchase weapons. 485 00:35:43,640 --> 00:35:47,520 Speaker 1: None of it mattered. The jury didn't buy it. It 486 00:35:47,640 --> 00:35:51,160 Speaker 1: was too far fetched. There can't be a nationwide network 487 00:35:51,160 --> 00:35:53,719 Speaker 1: of white supremacists held bent on starting a race war. 488 00:35:53,760 --> 00:35:58,319 Speaker 1: That's crazy. Besides, why should we believe the testimony of 489 00:35:58,320 --> 00:36:01,080 Speaker 1: two guys who were only testifying to save their own skin. 490 00:36:03,120 --> 00:36:09,239 Speaker 1: The jury just couldn't believe it, so the Nazis won. 491 00:36:10,760 --> 00:36:13,080 Speaker 1: All of the defendants at the Fort Smiths edition trial 492 00:36:13,120 --> 00:36:16,960 Speaker 1: were acquitted, but it was a hollow kind of victory. 493 00:36:17,680 --> 00:36:19,880 Speaker 1: I mean, half of them were already in prison anyway, 494 00:36:20,920 --> 00:36:22,880 Speaker 1: and the leaders who had gotten through the experience with 495 00:36:22,920 --> 00:36:28,280 Speaker 1: their freedom intact had been battered by it. After the trial, 496 00:36:28,360 --> 00:36:31,120 Speaker 1: a reporter asked Robert Miles what impact the case had 497 00:36:31,120 --> 00:36:36,440 Speaker 1: had on the white supremacist movement, and Miles answered, what movement? 498 00:36:37,200 --> 00:36:43,000 Speaker 1: What's left after this? The jury hadn't convicted them, but 499 00:36:43,080 --> 00:36:46,520 Speaker 1: the FBI had gone through their underwear drawers metaphorically speaking 500 00:36:47,560 --> 00:36:51,919 Speaker 1: and literally probably come to think of it, but their 501 00:36:51,920 --> 00:36:55,240 Speaker 1: bank records, their mail, their trash, everything had been dragged 502 00:36:55,239 --> 00:36:58,960 Speaker 1: out into the open, and men they'd trusted had testified 503 00:36:59,000 --> 00:37:03,560 Speaker 1: against them. It makes sense to think that William Luther Peers, 504 00:37:04,200 --> 00:37:08,080 Speaker 1: even though he wasn't charged, would have been shaken by 505 00:37:08,080 --> 00:37:12,520 Speaker 1: the case. So maybe that's why he sat down to 506 00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:16,600 Speaker 1: finish his second novel. The Turner Diaries had been about 507 00:37:16,600 --> 00:37:20,440 Speaker 1: the power of an organization. Members of the Order working 508 00:37:20,520 --> 00:37:23,560 Speaker 1: together fought the system, and they brought about the revolution. 509 00:37:24,680 --> 00:37:29,399 Speaker 1: They won. But now, in the wake of this real 510 00:37:29,440 --> 00:37:36,399 Speaker 1: life experience, after watching this trial, organizations are obviously dangerous, right. 511 00:37:36,600 --> 00:37:39,200 Speaker 1: It was the fact that these men were organized, they 512 00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:42,840 Speaker 1: had membership organizations, they had so many associates. That was 513 00:37:42,880 --> 00:37:48,640 Speaker 1: what hurt them. So Hunter abandons the idea of the organization. 514 00:37:49,320 --> 00:37:52,920 Speaker 1: It is an ode to the fantasy of unchecked violets. 515 00:37:55,320 --> 00:37:59,600 Speaker 1: And if you'll indulge me for one more brief excursion 516 00:37:59,640 --> 00:38:04,000 Speaker 1: into the realm of speculation. Positioning all of these bits 517 00:38:04,000 --> 00:38:08,720 Speaker 1: and pieces of historical context together like this, I started 518 00:38:08,719 --> 00:38:11,800 Speaker 1: to wonder if there's another element of the plot of 519 00:38:11,880 --> 00:38:18,000 Speaker 1: Hunter that was autobiographical. Last week we talked about the 520 00:38:18,360 --> 00:38:21,680 Speaker 1: broad strokes of the plot of Hunter and about how 521 00:38:21,719 --> 00:38:26,440 Speaker 1: Pierce really isn't that creative. A lot of the elements 522 00:38:26,440 --> 00:38:29,799 Speaker 1: of the novel are pulled from his own real life, right. 523 00:38:29,880 --> 00:38:32,520 Speaker 1: The character of Kevin Lindon is obviously based on his 524 00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:36,800 Speaker 1: real life right hand man, Kevin Strom. The protagonist Oscar 525 00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:40,600 Speaker 1: Yeager is carrying out crimes that share very specific details 526 00:38:40,680 --> 00:38:44,719 Speaker 1: with the real life crimes of Joseph Paul Franklin, but 527 00:38:45,320 --> 00:38:50,479 Speaker 1: also big chunks of his fictional biography match real life 528 00:38:50,520 --> 00:38:55,080 Speaker 1: details about peerce. The character, Harry Keller, leads an organization 529 00:38:55,200 --> 00:38:59,560 Speaker 1: called the National League, and that's obviously National Alliance. The 530 00:38:59,600 --> 00:39:03,160 Speaker 1: way Harry ry Keller talks about National League is identical 531 00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:05,719 Speaker 1: to the way Pierce talks about National Alliance in his 532 00:39:05,760 --> 00:39:12,440 Speaker 1: own newsletters. And interestingly, it seems like both Oscar Yeger 533 00:39:13,280 --> 00:39:18,920 Speaker 1: and Harry Keller are Peers. He wrote himself into both 534 00:39:18,960 --> 00:39:22,640 Speaker 1: of these characters, and when those two characters argue with 535 00:39:22,680 --> 00:39:26,040 Speaker 1: each other about the value of running a technically legal, 536 00:39:26,080 --> 00:39:30,239 Speaker 1: neo Nazi organization that keeps crime at arm's length, he's 537 00:39:30,400 --> 00:39:36,000 Speaker 1: using these two characters to externalize his own inner turmoil. 538 00:39:37,520 --> 00:39:40,520 Speaker 1: They are both him, and he is at war with himself. 539 00:39:42,000 --> 00:39:45,080 Speaker 1: Oscar Yeger is in love with a beautiful mathematician and 540 00:39:45,200 --> 00:39:48,160 Speaker 1: is anxious about sharing the fullness of his racist ideology 541 00:39:48,200 --> 00:39:52,480 Speaker 1: and terrorist activities with her, but in the book he 542 00:39:52,560 --> 00:39:56,040 Speaker 1: ultimately does share this with her and she accepts him. 543 00:39:57,680 --> 00:40:00,560 Speaker 1: Harry Keller, on the other hand, is happily married to 544 00:40:00,600 --> 00:40:04,560 Speaker 1: a woman who works in the National League office, and 545 00:40:04,640 --> 00:40:09,560 Speaker 1: this is Pierce, again working out his own inner turmoil. 546 00:40:10,600 --> 00:40:14,080 Speaker 1: Yeager's relationship with Adelaide is an impossible fantasy version of 547 00:40:14,120 --> 00:40:18,960 Speaker 1: Pierce's first marriage. His real first wife, a math professor, 548 00:40:19,600 --> 00:40:22,880 Speaker 1: was never involved in the movement, and he started writing 549 00:40:22,920 --> 00:40:27,120 Speaker 1: the book shortly after leaving her. Oscar Yeager's fear that 550 00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:31,640 Speaker 1: Adelaide could never understand his mission proved unnecessary, and Adelaide 551 00:40:31,680 --> 00:40:36,680 Speaker 1: stayed with him, and perhaps part of Pierce wishes that 552 00:40:36,680 --> 00:40:40,840 Speaker 1: could have been true. So these two characters sort of 553 00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:45,920 Speaker 1: represent this split within himself. Right, Oscar Yeager is successfully 554 00:40:45,960 --> 00:40:48,960 Speaker 1: able to continue this relationship with the woman that represents 555 00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:53,239 Speaker 1: Pierce's first wife, and Harry Keller, the other half of 556 00:40:53,280 --> 00:40:57,319 Speaker 1: this split version of Pierce, is married to the secretary 557 00:40:57,360 --> 00:41:01,000 Speaker 1: and National League. The woman Pierce left his first wife 558 00:41:01,000 --> 00:41:06,560 Speaker 1: for was his secretary at National Alliance, and by the 559 00:41:06,600 --> 00:41:09,759 Speaker 1: time the book was finished, that woman had left him 560 00:41:09,760 --> 00:41:11,960 Speaker 1: too because she didn't want to move out to a 561 00:41:11,960 --> 00:41:16,240 Speaker 1: compound in the mountains. So Keller and Yeager are living 562 00:41:16,280 --> 00:41:24,640 Speaker 1: different versions of Pierce's own fantasies. There's fiction in there, absolutely, 563 00:41:25,000 --> 00:41:26,960 Speaker 1: I mean it gets pretty far fetched when it comes 564 00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:29,880 Speaker 1: to the murders and the bombings that the protagonist is 565 00:41:29,880 --> 00:41:32,840 Speaker 1: able to pull off. Then the stuff about black people 566 00:41:32,840 --> 00:41:36,160 Speaker 1: across the country secretly conspiring to rise up simultaneously one 567 00:41:36,239 --> 00:41:39,239 Speaker 1: day and slit the throats of random white people. That's 568 00:41:39,280 --> 00:41:45,200 Speaker 1: made up, but there is a powerful thread of autobiography 569 00:41:45,920 --> 00:41:52,080 Speaker 1: and semi autobiographical wish fulfillment. Pierce wishes he could have 570 00:41:52,080 --> 00:41:55,680 Speaker 1: been like Joseph Paul Franklin, and that's why he made 571 00:41:55,719 --> 00:42:00,680 Speaker 1: the Franklin character an idealized version of himself. Talked about that. 572 00:42:02,920 --> 00:42:07,800 Speaker 1: So if the book's protagonist is a wish fulfillment version 573 00:42:07,880 --> 00:42:14,080 Speaker 1: of reality, what if the books antagonist has some basis 574 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:17,960 Speaker 1: in reality too. I didn't get too deep into the 575 00:42:17,960 --> 00:42:21,480 Speaker 1: plot last week, but a few weeks into Oscar Yeger's 576 00:42:21,520 --> 00:42:27,160 Speaker 1: murder spree, an FBI agent solves the case. Instead of 577 00:42:27,239 --> 00:42:33,440 Speaker 1: arresting Yaeger, agent William Ryan extorts him, using Jaeger to 578 00:42:33,480 --> 00:42:38,040 Speaker 1: carry out assassinations of his choosing. At the end of 579 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:40,799 Speaker 1: the novel, Yeger has finally had enough and he kills 580 00:42:40,840 --> 00:42:44,120 Speaker 1: the agent, thus allowing him to return to his chosen 581 00:42:44,160 --> 00:42:49,359 Speaker 1: life of murdering interracial couples and Jews at random. I'm 582 00:42:49,400 --> 00:42:55,759 Speaker 1: not saying that's specifically based in reality, not literally, but 583 00:42:55,840 --> 00:42:59,960 Speaker 1: if the novel's two main characters are manifestations of Pierce's 584 00:43:00,120 --> 00:43:03,239 Speaker 1: psychic turmoil about his own relationships, the way he runs 585 00:43:03,280 --> 00:43:08,920 Speaker 1: his organization, his desire for violence. Is it possible that 586 00:43:09,000 --> 00:43:12,360 Speaker 1: the struggle between his self insert character of Oscar Yeger 587 00:43:13,200 --> 00:43:19,200 Speaker 1: and what is essentially a highly dramatized fictionalized FBI handler, 588 00:43:20,760 --> 00:43:24,879 Speaker 1: Is it possible that has some connection to something he's 589 00:43:24,880 --> 00:43:28,960 Speaker 1: struggling with in real life? Right? I don't mean I 590 00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:32,400 Speaker 1: think it's possible there was a real life agent William 591 00:43:32,520 --> 00:43:37,279 Speaker 1: Ryan who is literally extorting peers into committing murders for him. 592 00:43:37,360 --> 00:43:43,120 Speaker 1: That's fiction. But what if this is a highly dramatized, 593 00:43:43,360 --> 00:43:50,080 Speaker 1: fictionalized psychodrama of sorts representative of his feelings of impotence 594 00:43:50,120 --> 00:43:57,520 Speaker 1: and being controlled by an FBI handler. The character of 595 00:43:57,560 --> 00:44:00,960 Speaker 1: the FBI agent doesn't appear in the first chapter, the 596 00:44:01,120 --> 00:44:05,000 Speaker 1: chapter written in nineteen eighty four, but he dominates the 597 00:44:05,040 --> 00:44:09,400 Speaker 1: rest of the novel, a novel Pierce wrote in nineteen 598 00:44:09,400 --> 00:44:13,480 Speaker 1: eighty eight, shortly after the FBI closed their investigation into 599 00:44:13,560 --> 00:44:18,040 Speaker 1: him and the decision was made not to charge him 600 00:44:18,360 --> 00:44:21,080 Speaker 1: in connection with the alleged conspiracy involving the crimes of 601 00:44:21,120 --> 00:44:25,520 Speaker 1: the Order. The Order Remember was based on a novel 602 00:44:25,520 --> 00:44:28,960 Speaker 1: he wrote. It was started by a man he mentored. 603 00:44:30,120 --> 00:44:32,239 Speaker 1: The original call to arms for the group was made 604 00:44:32,280 --> 00:44:35,080 Speaker 1: in a speech he encouraged Robert Matthews to give, and 605 00:44:35,120 --> 00:44:38,680 Speaker 1: it was given at the annual member conference for Pierce's organization. 606 00:44:40,800 --> 00:44:43,600 Speaker 1: He paid cash for nearly four hundred acres of land 607 00:44:43,880 --> 00:44:48,239 Speaker 1: weeks after meeting with Matthews, weeks after Matthews robbed a brinkstruck. 608 00:44:50,239 --> 00:44:54,760 Speaker 1: It doesn't actually make any sense at all that Pierce 609 00:44:54,880 --> 00:44:57,680 Speaker 1: was not indicted with the others in nineteen eighty seven. 610 00:45:00,080 --> 00:45:06,600 Speaker 1: But that's all there is, just breadcrumbs, just unanswered questions. 611 00:45:08,360 --> 00:45:12,560 Speaker 1: All I can offer you is the timeline, and I 612 00:45:12,640 --> 00:45:15,400 Speaker 1: pulled Fraser Glenn Miller back into the story to illustrate 613 00:45:15,400 --> 00:45:20,680 Speaker 1: a particular point. Cooperating with the US government does not 614 00:45:20,840 --> 00:45:24,000 Speaker 1: mean he gave up his commitment to the movement. I 615 00:45:24,000 --> 00:45:26,840 Speaker 1: mean he didn't care if he wrecked the movement if 616 00:45:26,880 --> 00:45:30,520 Speaker 1: it meant saving his own skin. Sure, but he still 617 00:45:30,560 --> 00:45:34,359 Speaker 1: believed all the same things. He didn't change his mind 618 00:45:34,400 --> 00:45:37,919 Speaker 1: about anything, and it didn't mean the government had any 619 00:45:38,000 --> 00:45:44,319 Speaker 1: real control over him long term, not necessarily. There are 620 00:45:44,320 --> 00:45:48,480 Speaker 1: a lot of misconceptions about what it means when someone cooperates. 621 00:45:49,960 --> 00:45:52,760 Speaker 1: All too often it's a man who isn't as smart 622 00:45:52,760 --> 00:45:55,000 Speaker 1: as he thinks he is, who thinks he can win 623 00:45:55,120 --> 00:45:57,799 Speaker 1: coming and going. He thinks he can get what he 624 00:45:57,920 --> 00:46:03,680 Speaker 1: needs from the government without compromising his values too much. 625 00:46:04,880 --> 00:46:06,840 Speaker 1: He thinks he can use the state as both a 626 00:46:06,880 --> 00:46:09,839 Speaker 1: sword and a shield, feeding them just enough to keep 627 00:46:09,880 --> 00:46:13,439 Speaker 1: them off his back and himself out of trouble, and 628 00:46:14,280 --> 00:46:18,600 Speaker 1: maybe take out some of his rivals. Miller nearly put 629 00:46:18,640 --> 00:46:20,680 Speaker 1: half the leaders in the movement in prison just to 630 00:46:20,719 --> 00:46:24,560 Speaker 1: shave a few years off his own sentence. But in 631 00:46:24,600 --> 00:46:28,560 Speaker 1: his old age, he was still so committed to Joseph 632 00:46:28,560 --> 00:46:30,960 Speaker 1: Paul Franklin's vision of a race war that he tried 633 00:46:31,000 --> 00:46:35,480 Speaker 1: to finish what Franklin started. And it's easy to imagine 634 00:46:35,840 --> 00:46:38,000 Speaker 1: he's not the only man who ever found himself in 635 00:46:38,000 --> 00:46:43,359 Speaker 1: that position, right cooperating with the government that you are 636 00:46:43,400 --> 00:46:49,160 Speaker 1: so dedicated to overthrowing. It's interesting to think about. It 637 00:46:49,239 --> 00:46:52,000 Speaker 1: reminds me of an FBI memo I read back in 638 00:46:52,200 --> 00:46:55,600 Speaker 1: twenty twenty four when I was researching the first episode 639 00:46:55,600 --> 00:46:59,719 Speaker 1: of this show. After William Luther Piers died in two 640 00:46:59,760 --> 00:47:02,560 Speaker 1: thousand and two, there was a lot of infighting about 641 00:47:02,560 --> 00:47:07,360 Speaker 1: who would take over leadership of National Alliance, and apparently 642 00:47:08,280 --> 00:47:13,000 Speaker 1: the FBI was very worried about his absence that if 643 00:47:13,000 --> 00:47:15,919 Speaker 1: the group splintered, if they did not have the kind 644 00:47:15,920 --> 00:47:20,279 Speaker 1: of central leadership Pierce had provided, that there would be 645 00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:24,960 Speaker 1: terrorist attacks. They no longer had the kind of inside 646 00:47:25,000 --> 00:47:30,759 Speaker 1: sourcing they'd once had within the group. If Pierce was 647 00:47:30,800 --> 00:47:33,680 Speaker 1: occasionally slipping information to the fans about his own members, 648 00:47:33,719 --> 00:47:37,680 Speaker 1: it wouldn't be surprising. He would have learned that from 649 00:47:37,680 --> 00:47:43,080 Speaker 1: his own mentor, George Lincoln Rockwell. Rockwell wrote directly to 650 00:47:43,160 --> 00:47:46,760 Speaker 1: j ed Garover on multiple occasions to provide the names 651 00:47:46,760 --> 00:47:52,000 Speaker 1: of members he no longer wanted around. I don't know. 652 00:47:52,960 --> 00:47:58,000 Speaker 1: It's a little thin, but the way Pierce writes about 653 00:47:58,040 --> 00:48:01,120 Speaker 1: Oscar Yeager's battle of wills the Agent Ryan, and the 654 00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:05,600 Speaker 1: immense satisfaction in Yeager's final triumph over the agent when 655 00:48:05,600 --> 00:48:09,560 Speaker 1: he kills him, it has the same sort of wish 656 00:48:09,560 --> 00:48:13,080 Speaker 1: fulfillment energy I feel in his descriptions of the idealized 657 00:48:13,160 --> 00:48:16,080 Speaker 1: version of his own life elsewhere in the book, as 658 00:48:16,080 --> 00:48:19,960 Speaker 1: if he were imagining how satisfying it would be to 659 00:48:20,000 --> 00:48:22,840 Speaker 1: be rid of the agent who was restricting his ability 660 00:48:22,880 --> 00:48:27,839 Speaker 1: to run his Nazi activities his own way. I don't know, 661 00:48:28,840 --> 00:48:36,239 Speaker 1: it's just a feeling. I'll keep thinking about it and 662 00:48:36,400 --> 00:48:39,440 Speaker 1: rounding out our timeline, we arrive in the late nineties. 663 00:48:41,120 --> 00:48:44,959 Speaker 1: It was actually very difficult to track down exactly when 664 00:48:45,160 --> 00:48:48,240 Speaker 1: William Luther Pierce removed the dedication page from the novel. 665 00:48:49,600 --> 00:48:52,960 Speaker 1: Some sources just say it was later removed, but they 666 00:48:52,960 --> 00:48:56,239 Speaker 1: don't say when. Some sources say it was absent in 667 00:48:56,280 --> 00:48:59,240 Speaker 1: the first edition and added later, which is not correct. 668 00:49:00,520 --> 00:49:03,720 Speaker 1: Other sources don't mention any discrepancy at all between editions 669 00:49:03,760 --> 00:49:07,520 Speaker 1: of the book. I had to look in some very 670 00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:11,920 Speaker 1: weird places to find multiple scans of different editions of 671 00:49:11,960 --> 00:49:15,680 Speaker 1: this book. But I can now say with confidence but 672 00:49:15,800 --> 00:49:19,719 Speaker 1: Hunter was printed for the first time in nineteen eighty nine, 673 00:49:20,840 --> 00:49:23,000 Speaker 1: and a second printing of the first edition was done 674 00:49:23,040 --> 00:49:26,600 Speaker 1: in spring of nineteen ninety four, and both printings of 675 00:49:26,640 --> 00:49:30,760 Speaker 1: the first edition bear the dedication page to Joseph Paul Franklin. 676 00:49:32,600 --> 00:49:36,560 Speaker 1: The second edition, printed in nineteen ninety eight, is the 677 00:49:36,600 --> 00:49:39,320 Speaker 1: first time the dedication page was gone from the text. 678 00:49:40,560 --> 00:49:43,800 Speaker 1: So for nine years copies of Hunter had a dedication 679 00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:49,040 Speaker 1: to Josephaul Franklin. In nineteen ninety eight, there's no dedication 680 00:49:50,960 --> 00:49:54,960 Speaker 1: and I found no explanation for this anywhere, not in 681 00:49:55,040 --> 00:50:00,279 Speaker 1: any book or academic article. But I did read a 682 00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:05,719 Speaker 1: lot of Nazi forum posts in twenty sixteen, in a 683 00:50:05,760 --> 00:50:08,760 Speaker 1: thread started by a man who'd taken it upon himself 684 00:50:08,800 --> 00:50:12,400 Speaker 1: to create an audiobook of Hunter. An old friend of 685 00:50:12,480 --> 00:50:17,960 Speaker 1: Pierce's weighed in on the issue. Fred Streed actually died 686 00:50:18,200 --> 00:50:20,719 Speaker 1: a couple of weeks ago, so I can't ask him 687 00:50:20,760 --> 00:50:25,319 Speaker 1: about it, but he was very close to Pierce. He 688 00:50:25,360 --> 00:50:27,319 Speaker 1: was on the board at National Alliance, and he lived 689 00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:30,840 Speaker 1: on the compound for more than a decade. When Pierce 690 00:50:30,920 --> 00:50:33,600 Speaker 1: died in two thousand and two, Streed was the executor 691 00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:38,239 Speaker 1: of his will. So back in twenty sixteen he responded 692 00:50:38,239 --> 00:50:42,800 Speaker 1: to a poster who asked about the dedication. He wrote, quote, 693 00:50:43,960 --> 00:50:46,920 Speaker 1: The problem for doctor Pierce was that JPF was confessing 694 00:50:46,920 --> 00:50:50,040 Speaker 1: to murders he did not commit, including the Rainbow Girls, 695 00:50:50,760 --> 00:50:54,040 Speaker 1: so he removed the dedication in later printings. There were 696 00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:56,920 Speaker 1: several copies on hand that still had the dedication, and 697 00:50:57,000 --> 00:51:00,560 Speaker 1: Doctor Pierce instructed the National Vanguard book staff to remove 698 00:51:00,600 --> 00:51:04,560 Speaker 1: the dedication page by cutting it out with box cutters. 699 00:51:06,160 --> 00:51:10,240 Speaker 1: The Rainbow Girls here refers to Vicky Durian and Nancy 700 00:51:10,280 --> 00:51:13,239 Speaker 1: Santa Mario, the two young white women Franklin killed in 701 00:51:13,280 --> 00:51:16,239 Speaker 1: West Virginia in the summer of nineteen eighty They were 702 00:51:16,320 --> 00:51:19,040 Speaker 1: hitchhiking to something called the Rainbow Gathering when he picked 703 00:51:19,080 --> 00:51:25,600 Speaker 1: them up, and Fred Streed made several other posts about 704 00:51:25,600 --> 00:51:30,640 Speaker 1: this issue in that thread. But the problem with what 705 00:51:30,680 --> 00:51:36,400 Speaker 1: Street is saying is it doesn't make sense. Franklin had 706 00:51:36,440 --> 00:51:39,880 Speaker 1: confessed to those murders in particular plenty of times. He 707 00:51:39,960 --> 00:51:41,960 Speaker 1: confessed to them for the first time in nineteen eighty four. 708 00:51:43,400 --> 00:51:47,520 Speaker 1: So Street is framing this as Pierce becoming exasperated in 709 00:51:47,600 --> 00:51:51,440 Speaker 1: nineteen ninety eight, that Franklin is confessing to more murders 710 00:51:51,640 --> 00:51:54,440 Speaker 1: simply to delay his execution. Right, this is a cowardly 711 00:51:54,480 --> 00:51:57,000 Speaker 1: thing for him to do, and he's upset that Franklin 712 00:51:57,040 --> 00:52:03,640 Speaker 1: would falsely confess to the unaccepted act of murdering white women. Right, 713 00:52:03,680 --> 00:52:06,759 Speaker 1: that you're undermining the cause by confessing to something so 714 00:52:06,880 --> 00:52:12,400 Speaker 1: terrible as murdering a white woman. But again, Franklin confessed 715 00:52:12,400 --> 00:52:14,840 Speaker 1: to those murders for the first time in nineteen eighty four, 716 00:52:15,760 --> 00:52:18,440 Speaker 1: before Hunter was even published, So if that was the problem, 717 00:52:18,440 --> 00:52:21,480 Speaker 1: it never would have had the dedication. And it's not 718 00:52:21,600 --> 00:52:23,719 Speaker 1: just to delay his death sentence, because the first time 719 00:52:23,760 --> 00:52:26,799 Speaker 1: he confessed to those murders. Was thirteen years before he 720 00:52:26,840 --> 00:52:30,600 Speaker 1: was sentenced to death, and these weren't the only white 721 00:52:30,640 --> 00:52:33,800 Speaker 1: women he'd confess to murdering. And Peers doesn't seem to 722 00:52:33,840 --> 00:52:37,200 Speaker 1: have taken issue with Franklin's confessions to killing Rebecca Bergstrom 723 00:52:37,280 --> 00:52:43,000 Speaker 1: or Mercedes Masters, just the Rainbow Girls, and it didn't 724 00:52:43,000 --> 00:52:49,080 Speaker 1: become a problem until nineteen ninety eight. I suspect it 725 00:52:49,120 --> 00:52:51,360 Speaker 1: had something to do with the fact that those murders 726 00:52:51,400 --> 00:52:56,319 Speaker 1: took place in Focohannas County. That's the same county where 727 00:52:56,360 --> 00:53:01,239 Speaker 1: Peerce was by nineteen ninety eight living in his big 728 00:53:01,280 --> 00:53:06,200 Speaker 1: old Nazi compound. He hadn't lived there in nineteen eighty 729 00:53:06,360 --> 00:53:09,040 Speaker 1: when the murders happened, right, he wasn't there. He didn't 730 00:53:09,080 --> 00:53:11,120 Speaker 1: have anything directly to do with those murders. That's not 731 00:53:11,160 --> 00:53:14,880 Speaker 1: what I'm saying. But in the nineties, when another man 732 00:53:15,080 --> 00:53:17,279 Speaker 1: was falsely convicted for those murders and he was trying 733 00:53:17,280 --> 00:53:20,640 Speaker 1: to get a new trial, and Josephaul Franklin was confessing 734 00:53:20,680 --> 00:53:23,640 Speaker 1: to them again, and he was getting deposed, and he 735 00:53:23,680 --> 00:53:28,239 Speaker 1: was being brought to court about those murders, and the 736 00:53:28,239 --> 00:53:31,040 Speaker 1: man who was falsely convicted of them was about to 737 00:53:31,080 --> 00:53:32,880 Speaker 1: get a new trial, and the murders are back in 738 00:53:32,920 --> 00:53:35,040 Speaker 1: the news and it's a big local news story in 739 00:53:35,040 --> 00:53:41,960 Speaker 1: Pocahontas County, West Virginia. Now it's a problem. Now Weers 740 00:53:42,040 --> 00:53:45,440 Speaker 1: is upset that Franklin is drawing attention to the murders 741 00:53:45,480 --> 00:53:51,440 Speaker 1: he'd committed so close to the compound. I don't think 742 00:53:51,480 --> 00:53:53,759 Speaker 1: William Luther Piers was so foolish as to think he 743 00:53:53,760 --> 00:53:57,440 Speaker 1: could sever their connection or avoid scrutiny about their relationship 744 00:53:58,560 --> 00:54:02,480 Speaker 1: just by cutting out the dedication. I think he was 745 00:54:02,520 --> 00:54:06,239 Speaker 1: an emotionally immature man who was angry that he could 746 00:54:06,239 --> 00:54:10,600 Speaker 1: no longer control the killer he'd helped create. He didn't 747 00:54:10,600 --> 00:54:15,200 Speaker 1: want to be embarrassed by his creation. He forced the 748 00:54:15,239 --> 00:54:18,120 Speaker 1: staff on his Nazi compound to cut Josephaul Franklin's name 749 00:54:18,160 --> 00:54:21,640 Speaker 1: out of his book with box cutters, and most copies 750 00:54:21,680 --> 00:54:25,319 Speaker 1: of the book you'll find today don't have the dedication page. 751 00:54:25,520 --> 00:54:27,879 Speaker 1: Until his death, Pierce would insist to anyone who asked 752 00:54:27,880 --> 00:54:30,560 Speaker 1: that Hunter was absolutely not at all based on the 753 00:54:30,560 --> 00:54:32,879 Speaker 1: real life crimes of Josephaul Franklin, and he simply did 754 00:54:32,880 --> 00:54:36,840 Speaker 1: not want to discuss it. And I knew that was 755 00:54:36,880 --> 00:54:39,239 Speaker 1: a lie when I started writing this mini series two 756 00:54:39,239 --> 00:54:43,120 Speaker 1: months ago. We all knew while along that he'd been 757 00:54:43,160 --> 00:54:50,480 Speaker 1: inspired by Franklin's crimes. Now, well, now I wonder if 758 00:54:50,520 --> 00:54:53,080 Speaker 1: he was the one who inspired those crimes in the 759 00:54:53,120 --> 00:55:11,360 Speaker 1: first place. Weird Little Guys it's a production of Coolsome 760 00:55:11,440 --> 00:55:14,520 Speaker 1: Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written and recorded by me, 761 00:55:14,680 --> 00:55:18,600 Speaker 1: Molly Hunger. Our executive producers are Sophie Lichtreman and Robert Evans. 762 00:55:18,840 --> 00:55:21,320 Speaker 1: The show is edited by the wildly talented Wordy Gagan. 763 00:55:21,640 --> 00:55:24,200 Speaker 1: The theme music was composed by Brad Dickert. You can 764 00:55:24,239 --> 00:55:26,800 Speaker 1: email me a Weird Little Guys podcast at gmail dot com. 765 00:55:26,800 --> 00:55:28,960 Speaker 1: I will definitely read it, but I probably won't answer it. 766 00:55:28,960 --> 00:55:32,360 Speaker 1: It's nothing personal. You can exchange conspiracy theories about the 767 00:55:32,360 --> 00:55:34,760 Speaker 1: show with other listeners on the Weird Little Guys subreddit. 768 00:55:35,520 --> 00:55:37,880 Speaker 1: Just don't post anything that's going to make you one 769 00:55:37,920 --> 00:55:38,920 Speaker 1: of my Weird Little Guys.