1 00:00:01,680 --> 00:00:09,039 Speaker 1: Cool Zone Media. On a Sunday evening in late June 2 00:00:09,080 --> 00:00:12,760 Speaker 1: of nineteen eighty, a small group of supporters took their 3 00:00:12,800 --> 00:00:17,239 Speaker 1: seats in a little office space in Arlington, Virginia. The 4 00:00:17,280 --> 00:00:21,120 Speaker 1: meeting wasn't anything particularly special, at least not as hor 5 00:00:21,120 --> 00:00:25,160 Speaker 1: as history remembers. There were certainly meetings in that office 6 00:00:25,200 --> 00:00:27,319 Speaker 1: on other evenings that would change the course of the 7 00:00:27,320 --> 00:00:31,600 Speaker 1: white power movement, but this wasn't one of them. I 8 00:00:31,640 --> 00:00:34,840 Speaker 1: couldn't even tell you who all was there. I don't 9 00:00:34,880 --> 00:00:38,720 Speaker 1: think it matters. On that summer evening in June of 10 00:00:38,800 --> 00:00:42,519 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty, William Luther Pierce was giving a long winded 11 00:00:42,560 --> 00:00:45,000 Speaker 1: speech to a handful of assembled members of his neo 12 00:00:45,080 --> 00:00:50,360 Speaker 1: Nazi organization. This wasn't special either. He was hardly a 13 00:00:50,360 --> 00:00:54,959 Speaker 1: man known for his brevity. He had just returned from 14 00:00:54,960 --> 00:00:58,640 Speaker 1: a few out of town speaking engagements, addressing a Holocaust 15 00:00:58,640 --> 00:01:02,560 Speaker 1: denile organization in New York and visiting supporters in Chicago, 16 00:01:03,560 --> 00:01:05,960 Speaker 1: and he recounted for his little audience in the office 17 00:01:06,000 --> 00:01:10,480 Speaker 1: how successful the events had been. But he was frustrated. 18 00:01:11,880 --> 00:01:14,720 Speaker 1: In his public appearances. He was walking a very thin 19 00:01:14,920 --> 00:01:19,759 Speaker 1: rhetorical line of plausible deniability, and the crowds just couldn't 20 00:01:19,800 --> 00:01:24,320 Speaker 1: quite parse it. He seemed to be discouraging any kind 21 00:01:24,319 --> 00:01:28,600 Speaker 1: of radical action, advocating for a movement of newsletters and 22 00:01:28,600 --> 00:01:33,080 Speaker 1: speech making and not much else. But what are we 23 00:01:33,160 --> 00:01:38,560 Speaker 1: supposed to actually do? The crowds had asked. He was 24 00:01:38,560 --> 00:01:43,320 Speaker 1: spreading the message of his organization, National Alliance and talking 25 00:01:43,319 --> 00:01:47,800 Speaker 1: about his novel The Turner Diaries in New York. He 26 00:01:47,920 --> 00:01:53,240 Speaker 1: explained that The Turner Diaries was, of course only a novel. 27 00:01:54,360 --> 00:01:57,760 Speaker 1: It wasn't really a plan for revolution. It's just a 28 00:01:57,800 --> 00:02:04,560 Speaker 1: way of conveying certain ideas, certain values. Earl Turner, the 29 00:02:04,640 --> 00:02:09,600 Speaker 1: novel's terrorist hero, brings about white revolution through massive bloodshed. 30 00:02:11,320 --> 00:02:15,240 Speaker 1: Don't do what Earl Turner did, Pierce told the audience, 31 00:02:16,440 --> 00:02:23,600 Speaker 1: but believe as he believed, and act accordingly. The mixed 32 00:02:23,639 --> 00:02:29,280 Speaker 1: message left the crowd puzzled. In private, surrounded by his 33 00:02:29,360 --> 00:02:34,000 Speaker 1: closest supporters, he was free to express his frustration that 34 00:02:34,080 --> 00:02:36,680 Speaker 1: his thinly veiled call to arms had gone right over 35 00:02:36,720 --> 00:02:41,160 Speaker 1: their heads. In New York. Of course, the business of 36 00:02:41,280 --> 00:02:49,000 Speaker 1: National Alliance was ideas, education, consciousness, raising, newsletters and flyers 37 00:02:49,040 --> 00:02:55,320 Speaker 1: and essays and radio programs. Of course, here in private, 38 00:02:55,880 --> 00:03:00,280 Speaker 1: he explained that Obviously, changing hearts and minds comes first. 39 00:03:01,800 --> 00:03:06,720 Speaker 1: There are other ways of changing people's minds. Terrorist activities 40 00:03:06,760 --> 00:03:10,600 Speaker 1: carried out by front groups. That works too, But they 41 00:03:10,639 --> 00:03:16,920 Speaker 1: weren't there yet. The time hadn't yet come. Some of 42 00:03:16,960 --> 00:03:20,600 Speaker 1: his disciples were impatient, some of the men who heard 43 00:03:20,600 --> 00:03:22,760 Speaker 1: his message couldn't wait for the time to be right, 44 00:03:22,880 --> 00:03:27,519 Speaker 1: for permission to be given. And there in his office 45 00:03:27,960 --> 00:03:30,640 Speaker 1: on a Sunday evening in June of nineteen eighty he 46 00:03:30,720 --> 00:03:35,160 Speaker 1: acknowledged the actions of one of those men. He didn't 47 00:03:35,200 --> 00:03:39,640 Speaker 1: say the man's name, but he described a very particular murder, 48 00:03:40,840 --> 00:03:46,360 Speaker 1: one that technically remains unsolved to this day. But on 49 00:03:46,440 --> 00:03:50,600 Speaker 1: that day, in particular, that murder was only a few 50 00:03:50,680 --> 00:03:54,440 Speaker 1: days old, and yet he seemed to know who the 51 00:03:54,520 --> 00:04:01,080 Speaker 1: killer was and why he had killed. Months before Joseph 52 00:04:01,120 --> 00:04:04,800 Speaker 1: Paul Franklin was arrested, months before he was identified as 53 00:04:04,840 --> 00:04:09,680 Speaker 1: the sniper killer targeting interracial couples, and just days after 54 00:04:09,720 --> 00:04:18,040 Speaker 1: one of his attacks, his former mentor was talking about him. 55 00:04:18,200 --> 00:04:40,720 Speaker 1: I'm Molly Conger in this is weird, little guys. This 56 00:04:40,760 --> 00:04:46,480 Speaker 1: is a story about a book. Sort of two months ago. 57 00:04:46,600 --> 00:04:49,680 Speaker 1: I told you another story about a book. I feel 58 00:04:49,720 --> 00:04:52,360 Speaker 1: like I'm constantly talking about The Turner Diaries. So I 59 00:04:52,400 --> 00:04:57,200 Speaker 1: finally gave the damn thing its own episode. But really 60 00:04:58,080 --> 00:05:00,000 Speaker 1: I only did that so I could talk about the sequel. 61 00:05:01,360 --> 00:05:04,640 Speaker 1: The Turner Diaries gets all the attention, and for good reason. 62 00:05:05,760 --> 00:05:09,960 Speaker 1: It's still widely read by white supremacist terrorists. It still 63 00:05:10,000 --> 00:05:12,680 Speaker 1: shows up and the suggested reading lists mass shooters have 64 00:05:12,760 --> 00:05:16,720 Speaker 1: started including at the end of their manifestos. It still 65 00:05:16,760 --> 00:05:19,320 Speaker 1: shows up in the evidence logs when the FBI searches 66 00:05:19,320 --> 00:05:23,440 Speaker 1: the home of some aspiring mass murderer. It's a book 67 00:05:23,440 --> 00:05:29,000 Speaker 1: with a body count. It shows up everywhere. Timothy McVeagh 68 00:05:29,279 --> 00:05:32,120 Speaker 1: was carrying his favorite passages of the book with him 69 00:05:32,839 --> 00:05:34,719 Speaker 1: on the morning he blew up the Alfred py Mura 70 00:05:34,800 --> 00:05:39,400 Speaker 1: Building in Oklahoma City. Affidavits described the copies of the 71 00:05:39,400 --> 00:05:41,599 Speaker 1: book found in the bedrooms of people like Sarah Beth 72 00:05:41,600 --> 00:05:45,200 Speaker 1: Glen Daniel, the girlfriend and partner in crime of Adam Woffen, 73 00:05:45,240 --> 00:05:50,640 Speaker 1: founder Brendan Russell, or Timothy Hill Cucinelli, the January sixth 74 00:05:50,760 --> 00:05:54,720 Speaker 1: rioter with a Hitler mustache. You hear about it all 75 00:05:54,720 --> 00:05:57,839 Speaker 1: the time on this show. It's just part of their lives, 76 00:05:58,680 --> 00:06:02,320 Speaker 1: part of their world. When I was spoking around my 77 00:06:02,320 --> 00:06:04,760 Speaker 1: own notes, looking to see how often I'm writing about 78 00:06:04,760 --> 00:06:07,880 Speaker 1: that stupid book. I was reminded of a very funny 79 00:06:07,880 --> 00:06:10,040 Speaker 1: side quest we took during the month and a half 80 00:06:10,080 --> 00:06:13,200 Speaker 1: I spent writing about Klansmen and serial bomber Dennis Mahon. 81 00:06:14,560 --> 00:06:19,159 Speaker 1: His twin brother, Daniel Mayhon, once unsuccessfully sued American Airlines 82 00:06:19,200 --> 00:06:23,359 Speaker 1: for anti white discrimination after he was fired from his 83 00:06:23,440 --> 00:06:25,760 Speaker 1: job as an aircraft mechanic for showing up to a 84 00:06:25,760 --> 00:06:30,960 Speaker 1: meeting wearing a Turner Diaries T shirt. You just can't 85 00:06:31,000 --> 00:06:36,520 Speaker 1: avoid it. It's in all of these stories, but you 86 00:06:36,560 --> 00:06:43,680 Speaker 1: don't often hear about the sequel. In nineteen eighty nine, 87 00:06:44,160 --> 00:06:51,120 Speaker 1: William Luther Pierce published his second novel, Hunter. Hunter didn't 88 00:06:51,160 --> 00:06:57,400 Speaker 1: sell as well. It's largely forgotten. It turns up here 89 00:06:57,440 --> 00:07:01,560 Speaker 1: and there. It's harder to keyword search federal court filings 90 00:07:01,560 --> 00:07:05,080 Speaker 1: for this title, since it's just a word. But I 91 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:07,599 Speaker 1: did find it in filings for another case we've already 92 00:07:07,600 --> 00:07:11,360 Speaker 1: talked about. It was found on a bookshelf at Nicholas 93 00:07:11,400 --> 00:07:15,480 Speaker 1: Young's house. He was the DC transit cop who loved 94 00:07:15,600 --> 00:07:18,880 Speaker 1: dressing up as an SS officer and ended up going 95 00:07:18,880 --> 00:07:22,280 Speaker 1: to prison for texting Google play gift cards to a 96 00:07:22,280 --> 00:07:27,080 Speaker 1: guy who was pretending to be in isis complicated situation. 97 00:07:27,880 --> 00:07:30,520 Speaker 1: That episode was from July of last year, if you 98 00:07:30,600 --> 00:07:34,800 Speaker 1: missed it. But Hunter is more of a deep cut 99 00:07:35,360 --> 00:07:39,920 Speaker 1: even in the community. It's in the manifesto left behind 100 00:07:39,920 --> 00:07:43,920 Speaker 1: by the broadus Lava trogram Shooter Astoria covered on this 101 00:07:44,000 --> 00:07:49,280 Speaker 1: show back in September of twenty twenty four. That manifesto 102 00:07:49,280 --> 00:07:52,720 Speaker 1: includes the Turner Diaries as well, and it calls that 103 00:07:52,760 --> 00:07:59,280 Speaker 1: book legendary, but it describes Hunter as quote more relevant 104 00:07:59,280 --> 00:08:03,600 Speaker 1: to us right now than even the Turner Diaries. And 105 00:08:03,640 --> 00:08:07,800 Speaker 1: while Timothy McVeagh was carrying around the Turner Diaries, FBI 106 00:08:07,880 --> 00:08:11,240 Speaker 1: agents found a well worn copy of Hunter when they 107 00:08:11,240 --> 00:08:16,480 Speaker 1: searched the home of his co conspirator Terry Nichols. I 108 00:08:16,520 --> 00:08:18,400 Speaker 1: don't know why it never got the same kind of 109 00:08:18,440 --> 00:08:22,360 Speaker 1: traction of the movement that Turner Diaries did. Pierce himself 110 00:08:22,400 --> 00:08:28,120 Speaker 1: regarded Hunter as the superior work, but fans didn't agree. Personally, 111 00:08:28,160 --> 00:08:32,640 Speaker 1: I find both books equally unpleasant to read. Pierce clearly 112 00:08:32,679 --> 00:08:35,319 Speaker 1: made no effort to hone his skills as a fiction 113 00:08:35,400 --> 00:08:39,760 Speaker 1: writer in the decade between the two books, and I 114 00:08:39,840 --> 00:08:42,840 Speaker 1: promise I'm not just being a hater. I'm not just 115 00:08:42,880 --> 00:08:48,920 Speaker 1: saying this because it's Nazi literature. It's just bad. I 116 00:08:48,960 --> 00:08:52,760 Speaker 1: can't quite sort out why. David Mills reviewed Hunter for 117 00:08:52,840 --> 00:08:56,240 Speaker 1: The Washington Post in nineteen ninety three, but the man 118 00:08:56,280 --> 00:08:59,400 Speaker 1: who would later win Emmys writing and producing HBO shows 119 00:08:59,400 --> 00:09:04,160 Speaker 1: with David's side agrees with me. Of Pierce's writing, he 120 00:09:04,200 --> 00:09:11,800 Speaker 1: wrote in nineteen ninety three quote, his prose style is dense, flat, artless. 121 00:09:12,640 --> 00:09:18,920 Speaker 1: His imagination is bloodthirsty yet drained of passion. And I 122 00:09:18,920 --> 00:09:23,880 Speaker 1: think that's exactly the right way to describe it. Bloodthirsty 123 00:09:24,000 --> 00:09:32,680 Speaker 1: but bloodless. Right, It's cold. Truthfully, until this month, I 124 00:09:32,720 --> 00:09:37,280 Speaker 1: had only actually skimmed it. I'm sorry. That's a terrible 125 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:40,280 Speaker 1: thing to admit. I'm supposed to be your Nazi literature 126 00:09:40,280 --> 00:09:43,600 Speaker 1: subject matter expert, guiding you on this journey, and I 127 00:09:43,679 --> 00:09:45,520 Speaker 1: was only skimming the murder manuals. 128 00:09:46,240 --> 00:09:46,480 Speaker 2: I know. 129 00:09:46,600 --> 00:09:50,760 Speaker 1: I'm sorry. I feel like I had the gist of it, though, 130 00:09:51,720 --> 00:09:54,960 Speaker 1: you know. Protagonist kills interracial couples, gets caught up in 131 00:09:54,960 --> 00:09:57,960 Speaker 1: some drama with a corrupt FBI agent, has a weird 132 00:09:58,040 --> 00:10:02,120 Speaker 1: scheme involving conning the audience of a prominent televangelist kills 133 00:10:02,120 --> 00:10:04,840 Speaker 1: the evil FBI agent goes back to his passion project 134 00:10:04,840 --> 00:10:07,360 Speaker 1: of murdering interracial couples. I get it. I knew what 135 00:10:07,440 --> 00:10:13,040 Speaker 1: I needed to know. But this month I sat down 136 00:10:13,320 --> 00:10:15,800 Speaker 1: and I read every word of it. I did an 137 00:10:15,920 --> 00:10:19,920 Speaker 1: actual close reading of the text, and I took notes 138 00:10:19,960 --> 00:10:22,200 Speaker 1: on it, and I was trying to get into the 139 00:10:22,320 --> 00:10:26,199 Speaker 1: mind of the man who wrote it. And I can 140 00:10:26,240 --> 00:10:29,960 Speaker 1: say I hate it even more now. David Mills was right. 141 00:10:30,280 --> 00:10:35,880 Speaker 1: The prose is a fucking nightmare. The sex scenes are 142 00:10:36,120 --> 00:10:41,560 Speaker 1: so uncomfortable, and the dialogue is weird and stiff, and 143 00:10:41,640 --> 00:10:45,040 Speaker 1: the dialogue about sex reads like it was written by 144 00:10:45,080 --> 00:10:50,000 Speaker 1: a space alien. In one scene, the protagonist's girlfriend says 145 00:10:50,000 --> 00:10:52,240 Speaker 1: she's going to lie about having the flu to call 146 00:10:52,280 --> 00:10:56,000 Speaker 1: out of work, and he says to her, how will 147 00:10:56,040 --> 00:10:59,280 Speaker 1: you explain your usual gorgeous, exuberant, bouncing self at the 148 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:01,920 Speaker 1: office on WEDNESDA If you're just over the flu, you 149 00:11:01,920 --> 00:11:07,800 Speaker 1: should look pale, tired, and listless. And she replies to him, quote, 150 00:11:08,559 --> 00:11:11,000 Speaker 1: I'm counting on you to produce the desired effect by 151 00:11:11,080 --> 00:11:18,520 Speaker 1: screwing me half to death Tuesday night, lover, And he replies, Hey, sweetheart, 152 00:11:18,800 --> 00:11:20,719 Speaker 1: you know that I'll do my very best for you, 153 00:11:20,960 --> 00:11:23,800 Speaker 1: but you thrive on it. The more often we make 154 00:11:23,840 --> 00:11:26,160 Speaker 1: love at night, the better you look the next morning, 155 00:11:26,200 --> 00:11:30,120 Speaker 1: and the paler I am. Total abstinence is the only 156 00:11:30,160 --> 00:11:36,240 Speaker 1: way to make you look pale. What there are about 157 00:11:36,600 --> 00:11:41,920 Speaker 1: half a dozen very awkward sexual encounters in the book, 158 00:11:43,000 --> 00:11:48,080 Speaker 1: and the contrast between these stiff strange way he speeds 159 00:11:48,120 --> 00:11:51,640 Speaker 1: through a description of sucking on a woman's nipple and 160 00:11:51,720 --> 00:11:57,800 Speaker 1: the whole pages of florid erotic prose devoted to describing 161 00:11:57,840 --> 00:12:00,680 Speaker 1: things like how a man pissed himsel as he was 162 00:12:00,720 --> 00:12:05,120 Speaker 1: being grotted to death in a bathroom stall. I don't know. 163 00:12:06,120 --> 00:12:07,600 Speaker 1: I missed a lot of that when I was just 164 00:12:07,640 --> 00:12:11,800 Speaker 1: skimming it, but it was an unwelcome journey into this 165 00:12:11,880 --> 00:12:16,360 Speaker 1: man's psyche. I would love to get Klaus Thuillite's opinion 166 00:12:16,360 --> 00:12:20,600 Speaker 1: on Pierce's attempt at fiction. He's the German sociologist whose 167 00:12:20,600 --> 00:12:24,679 Speaker 1: book Male Fantasies examined the personal writings of members of 168 00:12:24,720 --> 00:12:28,720 Speaker 1: the Frei Korps and Weimar Germany. Sort of a horrible 169 00:12:29,200 --> 00:12:32,839 Speaker 1: psychoanalytic journey into the fantasies of sex and violence in 170 00:12:32,880 --> 00:12:35,160 Speaker 1: the minds of the men who became the first Nazis. 171 00:12:36,440 --> 00:12:44,320 Speaker 1: I feel like Hunter is very firmly in that territory. 172 00:12:44,480 --> 00:12:48,200 Speaker 1: I don't know the dialogue, especially the dialogue he has 173 00:12:48,240 --> 00:12:53,360 Speaker 1: with his girlfriend, is just a hot I mean, people 174 00:12:53,360 --> 00:12:58,640 Speaker 1: don't talk like that. It's not good dialogue. It doesn't 175 00:12:58,679 --> 00:13:05,160 Speaker 1: make sense. But this isn't some teenage virgin imagining what 176 00:13:05,200 --> 00:13:08,080 Speaker 1: it's like to be with a woman. Pierce was in 177 00:13:08,080 --> 00:13:11,200 Speaker 1: his fifties when he wrote this. By the time this 178 00:13:11,200 --> 00:13:15,000 Speaker 1: book was published, he had two grown adult sons, and 179 00:13:15,040 --> 00:13:19,640 Speaker 1: he was married to his third wife. He has presumably 180 00:13:20,280 --> 00:13:24,360 Speaker 1: seen a naked woman before, but when he describes the 181 00:13:24,400 --> 00:13:29,240 Speaker 1: imaginary naked woman in this book, there's a full paragraph 182 00:13:29,559 --> 00:13:34,160 Speaker 1: about her body, and it includes some normal type stuff 183 00:13:34,400 --> 00:13:40,320 Speaker 1: like perfect thighs and magnificent breasts, but most of it 184 00:13:40,400 --> 00:13:46,080 Speaker 1: is devoted to describing things like, quote a graceful neck 185 00:13:46,559 --> 00:13:54,280 Speaker 1: of extraordinary length and a longer quote a face so lovely, 186 00:13:54,520 --> 00:13:59,480 Speaker 1: so pure, so childishly peaceful and innocent that, looking at it, 187 00:13:59,559 --> 00:14:02,400 Speaker 1: nestled gently there in the pillow, half obscured in the 188 00:14:02,440 --> 00:14:05,839 Speaker 1: tangle of her long golden red hair, made his heart 189 00:14:06,000 --> 00:14:08,720 Speaker 1: ache with desire the way it ached when he watched 190 00:14:08,760 --> 00:14:12,920 Speaker 1: an unusually spectacular sunset in the desert, or came upon 191 00:14:13,000 --> 00:14:18,960 Speaker 1: an especially glorious vista while hiking in the mountains. One 192 00:14:19,040 --> 00:14:24,480 Speaker 1: benefit of having a head absolutely bursting with garbage is 193 00:14:24,520 --> 00:14:27,600 Speaker 1: that I've been listening to Nazi podcasts and taking notes 194 00:14:27,600 --> 00:14:31,960 Speaker 1: on them for close to a decade now, not always 195 00:14:32,040 --> 00:14:35,520 Speaker 1: even with any particular purpose in mind. I just do it. 196 00:14:36,840 --> 00:14:39,640 Speaker 1: I have a whole notebook full of half thoughts that 197 00:14:40,360 --> 00:14:42,520 Speaker 1: I don't know what they mean anymore, but they're very upsetting. 198 00:14:43,920 --> 00:14:47,040 Speaker 1: But as I was reading this, it reminded me of 199 00:14:47,080 --> 00:14:49,760 Speaker 1: something I heard an old associate of Pierces say in 200 00:14:49,800 --> 00:14:52,640 Speaker 1: an interview a couple of years ago. So I went 201 00:14:52,720 --> 00:14:56,320 Speaker 1: back to my strange notebook full of half finished thoughts 202 00:14:57,240 --> 00:15:00,200 Speaker 1: and I found it. This is from a podcast episod 203 00:15:00,240 --> 00:15:01,560 Speaker 1: about five years ago. 204 00:15:03,640 --> 00:15:07,640 Speaker 2: Yeah, I knew Pierce and I had mixed feelings about him. 205 00:15:07,640 --> 00:15:12,880 Speaker 2: I admired immigrant to you, he's a brilliant man, just 206 00:15:13,560 --> 00:15:17,480 Speaker 2: you know, his mind was a fascination to me, the 207 00:15:17,480 --> 00:15:21,040 Speaker 2: way he could absorb material. And he was also kind 208 00:15:21,080 --> 00:15:25,960 Speaker 2: of strange guy. I mean he was he seemed very 209 00:15:26,040 --> 00:15:33,160 Speaker 2: uncomfortable around women, and he was also you know, I 210 00:15:33,240 --> 00:15:36,960 Speaker 2: ultimately concluded he was too negative. I felt he emphasized 211 00:15:37,000 --> 00:15:39,760 Speaker 2: too much negativity, and he sort of gave in to 212 00:15:39,880 --> 00:15:44,000 Speaker 2: these fantasies. I regarded them as violence. 213 00:15:47,840 --> 00:15:50,640 Speaker 1: Now, as always, if you're keeping up with your red 214 00:15:50,680 --> 00:15:53,520 Speaker 1: string board at home, the voice you just heard was 215 00:15:53,560 --> 00:15:58,040 Speaker 1: marilynd based attorney Glenn Allen. You may remember him from 216 00:15:58,080 --> 00:16:01,200 Speaker 1: past episodes as one of the lawyers currently representing members 217 00:16:01,200 --> 00:16:04,040 Speaker 1: of Patriot Front in one of the federal civil rights 218 00:16:04,120 --> 00:16:08,640 Speaker 1: lawsuits filed against the group. You may also remember him 219 00:16:08,680 --> 00:16:12,280 Speaker 1: as an old friend of Merlin Miller, the anti semite 220 00:16:12,320 --> 00:16:15,000 Speaker 1: with broken dreams of making it in Hollywood, who tried 221 00:16:15,000 --> 00:16:17,360 Speaker 1: to run for president at twenty twelve on the American 222 00:16:17,400 --> 00:16:22,200 Speaker 1: third position party ticket. Glenn Allen was revealed to have 223 00:16:22,240 --> 00:16:25,840 Speaker 1: been a longtime member of National Alliance when internal documents 224 00:16:25,840 --> 00:16:28,400 Speaker 1: were leaked to the Southern Poverty Law Center in twenty sixteen. 225 00:16:30,000 --> 00:16:34,040 Speaker 1: He tried unsuccessfully to sue the SPLC for outing him 226 00:16:34,160 --> 00:16:36,640 Speaker 1: and getting him fired from his job as an attorney 227 00:16:36,720 --> 00:16:41,080 Speaker 1: for the Baltimore Police Department. But the facts of the facts, 228 00:16:42,080 --> 00:16:45,240 Speaker 1: I can place him quite close to Pierce at least 229 00:16:45,240 --> 00:16:49,240 Speaker 1: as far back as the early nineties, so he definitely 230 00:16:49,320 --> 00:16:53,480 Speaker 1: knew the man, and he seems to agree with My 231 00:16:53,560 --> 00:16:56,520 Speaker 1: assessment based on the weird way the narrator talks in 232 00:16:56,560 --> 00:17:03,720 Speaker 1: the novel, William Luther Pierce was weird about women. He's 233 00:17:03,840 --> 00:17:08,040 Speaker 1: uncomfortable in the presence of a woman, and he's preoccupied 234 00:17:08,080 --> 00:17:14,560 Speaker 1: with fantasies of violence. This isn't clumsy dialogue. This isn't 235 00:17:14,600 --> 00:17:20,840 Speaker 1: just unskilled writing. It's who he is. He's horny for 236 00:17:20,960 --> 00:17:39,919 Speaker 1: death and confused about the female body. But what is 237 00:17:39,960 --> 00:17:47,240 Speaker 1: the novel actually about? Murder? Mostly it's mostly about murder. 238 00:17:48,680 --> 00:17:53,280 Speaker 1: The protagonist is a man named Oscar Jaeger. Jaeger spelled 239 00:17:53,560 --> 00:17:57,440 Speaker 1: y e a g e r, But it's a little 240 00:17:57,440 --> 00:18:02,040 Speaker 1: play on words because the German word Yaeger spelled j 241 00:18:02,720 --> 00:18:07,200 Speaker 1: a with an umlaut g Er is pronounced the same way, 242 00:18:07,880 --> 00:18:15,120 Speaker 1: but it means hunter. So Oscar Yeger is Joseph Paul Franklin. 243 00:18:16,119 --> 00:18:19,880 Speaker 1: That is a kind of true thing that I could 244 00:18:19,960 --> 00:18:25,200 Speaker 1: say the book was dedicated to Franklin. Oscar Yeger loved 245 00:18:25,280 --> 00:18:29,880 Speaker 1: killing interracial couples, just like Franklin. Oscar Yeger eventually moves 246 00:18:29,920 --> 00:18:34,080 Speaker 1: on to higher profile assassination targets, which is something that 247 00:18:34,320 --> 00:18:38,960 Speaker 1: Franklin tried to do but did not succeed at. Remember 248 00:18:39,000 --> 00:18:42,560 Speaker 1: he tried and failed to kill Larry Flint and Vernon Jordan, 249 00:18:44,560 --> 00:18:46,879 Speaker 1: and the novel opens with the description of one of 250 00:18:46,920 --> 00:18:51,680 Speaker 1: Oscar Yeger's murders that very closely mirrors real life details 251 00:18:51,720 --> 00:18:55,919 Speaker 1: of one of Franklin's murders. Yeger shoots and kills an 252 00:18:55,920 --> 00:18:59,040 Speaker 1: interracial couple in a parking lot without even getting out 253 00:18:59,080 --> 00:19:02,680 Speaker 1: of his car, which is very similar to Franklin's first 254 00:19:02,760 --> 00:19:05,399 Speaker 1: murder in the parking lot of a shopping mall in Madison, 255 00:19:05,480 --> 00:19:09,760 Speaker 1: Wisconsin in nineteen seventy seven. And it's not a stretch 256 00:19:09,800 --> 00:19:12,560 Speaker 1: at all to say that Pierce was certainly thinking of 257 00:19:12,600 --> 00:19:16,680 Speaker 1: Franklin when he wrote it. I mean he put Franklin's 258 00:19:16,720 --> 00:19:21,119 Speaker 1: name on it. He would deny actually basing the character 259 00:19:21,240 --> 00:19:24,440 Speaker 1: on Franklin if you asked him, and many people did. 260 00:19:25,840 --> 00:19:30,760 Speaker 1: But the dedication page on the first edition read quote 261 00:19:31,240 --> 00:19:35,400 Speaker 1: dedicated to Joseph Paul Franklin, the lone hunter who saw 262 00:19:35,400 --> 00:19:37,919 Speaker 1: his duty as a white man and did what a 263 00:19:38,000 --> 00:19:41,399 Speaker 1: responsible son of his race must do WHI to the 264 00:19:41,440 --> 00:19:45,200 Speaker 1: best of his ability and without regard for the personal consequences. 265 00:19:48,640 --> 00:19:53,639 Speaker 1: So Joseph Paul Franklin is the lone Hunter, capital L, 266 00:19:53,800 --> 00:19:56,719 Speaker 1: capital H right there on the dedication page. He is 267 00:19:57,400 --> 00:20:03,440 Speaker 1: the hunter, the Jaeger, Oscar Jaeger. I mean, it's all 268 00:20:03,520 --> 00:20:10,520 Speaker 1: right there, there's no subtext, it's just text. But I 269 00:20:10,520 --> 00:20:16,080 Speaker 1: think Oscar Jaeger is also a Mary Sue or Marty 270 00:20:16,200 --> 00:20:18,640 Speaker 1: Stu what do you call it when the Mary Sue 271 00:20:18,680 --> 00:20:23,080 Speaker 1: is a grown man. A mary Sue is a certain 272 00:20:23,160 --> 00:20:27,560 Speaker 1: kind of character often seen in amateur fiction. In fanfic 273 00:20:27,640 --> 00:20:33,760 Speaker 1: type writing, a Mary Sue is a perfect, brilliant, strong, capable, 274 00:20:33,800 --> 00:20:39,800 Speaker 1: and brave protagonist who often has extraordinary abilities. The term 275 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:43,760 Speaker 1: has sort of a pejorative connotation. Most of the time, 276 00:20:43,800 --> 00:20:46,320 Speaker 1: it's being used in the context of a young woman 277 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:50,880 Speaker 1: writing this spectacular heroine as the protagonist of her fanfic, 278 00:20:51,560 --> 00:20:56,320 Speaker 1: as a sort of idealized self insert. The mary Sue 279 00:20:56,400 --> 00:21:01,280 Speaker 1: is the author's fantasy version of themselves. And I think 280 00:21:01,280 --> 00:21:06,600 Speaker 1: Oscar Yeger is absolutely William Luther Pierce's Mary Sue. I 281 00:21:06,600 --> 00:21:11,159 Speaker 1: mean Oscar Yeger is Joseph Paul Franklin. Sure he's based 282 00:21:11,200 --> 00:21:15,480 Speaker 1: on Franklin. He's doing Franklin type activities, but beyond the 283 00:21:15,560 --> 00:21:21,320 Speaker 1: surface level, he's William Luther Pierce. I mean Franklin was 284 00:21:21,359 --> 00:21:24,880 Speaker 1: an unemployed drifter who scared the sex workers he picked up. 285 00:21:25,880 --> 00:21:29,439 Speaker 1: He wore thick glasses and was vulgar and crass and 286 00:21:29,760 --> 00:21:32,080 Speaker 1: off pudding, and he drove beat up cars he brought 287 00:21:32,080 --> 00:21:36,760 Speaker 1: out of classified ads. But Oscar Yeger has a graduate 288 00:21:36,800 --> 00:21:42,800 Speaker 1: degree from the University of Colorado. Coincidentally, so does William 289 00:21:42,880 --> 00:21:47,480 Speaker 1: Luther Pierce. Oscar Yeger is in his forties, which is 290 00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:51,840 Speaker 1: how old Pierce was during Franklin's killing spree. Franklin himself 291 00:21:51,880 --> 00:21:55,879 Speaker 1: was in his twenties at the time. Oscar Yeger is 292 00:21:55,920 --> 00:21:59,480 Speaker 1: a tinkerer, an inventor. He's great with machines and equipment, 293 00:21:59,880 --> 00:22:04,200 Speaker 1: and he makes his money in defense contracting. William Luther 294 00:22:04,240 --> 00:22:07,879 Speaker 1: Pierce had a tinkering workshop in his basement, and before 295 00:22:07,880 --> 00:22:10,560 Speaker 1: he quit his day job to write Nazee newsletters full time, 296 00:22:11,119 --> 00:22:13,920 Speaker 1: he was working on government contracts at Pratt and Whitney, 297 00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:20,120 Speaker 1: an aerospace company. Oscar Yeager has a girlfriend, a beautiful 298 00:22:20,160 --> 00:22:23,440 Speaker 1: younger woman named Adelaide, who has a degree in mathematics, 299 00:22:24,800 --> 00:22:28,440 Speaker 1: and Pierce began writing this novel shortly after abandoning his 300 00:22:28,480 --> 00:22:35,040 Speaker 1: first wife, a math professor. I think Oscar Yeager is 301 00:22:35,080 --> 00:22:39,400 Speaker 1: the man Pierce wishes he could have been a man 302 00:22:39,440 --> 00:22:43,159 Speaker 1: who is so much like himself, but who is actually 303 00:22:43,200 --> 00:22:45,520 Speaker 1: willing and able to go out and do the kinds 304 00:22:45,560 --> 00:22:51,040 Speaker 1: of things Pierce only encouraged other men to do. Oscar 305 00:22:51,119 --> 00:22:55,159 Speaker 1: Yeger is Pierce's fantasy of being an even deadlier Joseph 306 00:22:55,200 --> 00:22:59,639 Speaker 1: Paul Franklin, of being a man who takes action and 307 00:22:59,720 --> 00:23:04,040 Speaker 1: does and just write about it. And I have no 308 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:07,240 Speaker 1: issue calling this a Mary Sue situation, because the whole 309 00:23:07,240 --> 00:23:10,280 Speaker 1: book has all the hallmarks of a teenager's first fanfit. 310 00:23:12,000 --> 00:23:15,639 Speaker 1: It's not creative. He's writing what he knows, and he 311 00:23:15,760 --> 00:23:19,480 Speaker 1: struggles to get beyond that. I mean, I can tell 312 00:23:19,520 --> 00:23:22,479 Speaker 1: he finished writing it in nineteen eighty nine, because the 313 00:23:22,520 --> 00:23:24,480 Speaker 1: president of the United States and the world of the 314 00:23:24,520 --> 00:23:29,760 Speaker 1: novel is a man named President Hedges. Hedges is in 315 00:23:29,840 --> 00:23:35,320 Speaker 1: like a large bush, and in our world, George Bush 316 00:23:35,400 --> 00:23:41,120 Speaker 1: was elected president in nineteen eighty eight. In chapter seven, 317 00:23:41,320 --> 00:23:44,639 Speaker 1: Oscar Yeger meets Harry Keller, the head of a Nazi 318 00:23:44,720 --> 00:23:50,680 Speaker 1: organization called the National League. National League is obviously National Alliance, 319 00:23:51,480 --> 00:23:55,080 Speaker 1: and Harry Keller is a fragment of Pierce's own psyche. 320 00:23:56,280 --> 00:23:58,800 Speaker 1: Harry Keller doesn't think the time is right for action. 321 00:24:00,520 --> 00:24:02,879 Speaker 1: He's very knowledgeable, but the kinds of things the Nazi 322 00:24:02,920 --> 00:24:06,280 Speaker 1: would be impressed by. And everyone laughs very hard at 323 00:24:06,280 --> 00:24:09,360 Speaker 1: his racist chokes. He's very clever. He knows a lot 324 00:24:09,359 --> 00:24:12,960 Speaker 1: about anti Semitism, and he helps shape Oscar Yeager's understanding 325 00:24:13,640 --> 00:24:17,639 Speaker 1: that his true enemies are the Jews. But Harry is 326 00:24:17,680 --> 00:24:21,399 Speaker 1: skeptical about all of Oscar's plans. He's cautious and he 327 00:24:21,440 --> 00:24:25,280 Speaker 1: wants to focus on newsletters and radio addresses. He doesn't 328 00:24:25,320 --> 00:24:29,000 Speaker 1: think the masses are ready for revolution, yet better to 329 00:24:29,040 --> 00:24:31,280 Speaker 1: just wait in the wings than expose himself to that 330 00:24:31,359 --> 00:24:36,560 Speaker 1: kind of unnecessary risk. Harry Keller is saying the kinds 331 00:24:36,600 --> 00:24:39,359 Speaker 1: of things in the book that Pierce was saying to 332 00:24:39,440 --> 00:24:41,879 Speaker 1: members of National Hawaiiance at that meeting in June of 333 00:24:41,920 --> 00:24:46,240 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty Right, there are two ways of going about things, 334 00:24:46,840 --> 00:24:52,600 Speaker 1: but the time is not here yet for terrorism. And 335 00:24:52,680 --> 00:24:55,000 Speaker 1: in the book, Harry has a beautiful wife who works 336 00:24:55,000 --> 00:24:58,280 Speaker 1: in the National League office. And I think this is 337 00:24:58,320 --> 00:25:02,680 Speaker 1: another curious pe Can to appear his own relationships. When 338 00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:05,360 Speaker 1: he started writing the novel in nineteen eighty four, he'd 339 00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,480 Speaker 1: recently left his first wife, the mother of his sons, 340 00:25:09,400 --> 00:25:12,439 Speaker 1: for a much younger woman who was his secretary in 341 00:25:12,480 --> 00:25:16,760 Speaker 1: the National Alliance Office. But by the time he published 342 00:25:16,760 --> 00:25:19,760 Speaker 1: the book in nineteen eighty nine, not only had this 343 00:25:19,920 --> 00:25:24,119 Speaker 1: second wife left him, he'd already married and divorced a 344 00:25:24,160 --> 00:25:30,080 Speaker 1: third wife. Most of the characters have a pretty clear 345 00:25:30,200 --> 00:25:35,600 Speaker 1: real world counterpart. There is a televangelist named Jerry Caldwell 346 00:25:36,119 --> 00:25:39,359 Speaker 1: who hosts a TV program called The New Time Gospel Hour, 347 00:25:40,080 --> 00:25:44,159 Speaker 1: which is a very obvious fictionalized version of Jerry Folwell 348 00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:49,680 Speaker 1: and his Old Time Gospel Hour and their passing references 349 00:25:49,720 --> 00:25:54,960 Speaker 1: to other televangelists. Billy Gresham is Billy Graham, Jimmy Braggart 350 00:25:55,119 --> 00:25:59,760 Speaker 1: is Jimmy Swaggert, Pat Robinson is Pat Robertson, and I 351 00:26:00,200 --> 00:26:05,040 Speaker 1: almost stumped by a character called Moral Richards, but I 352 00:26:05,080 --> 00:26:10,640 Speaker 1: think that's Oral roberts The National League member who runs 353 00:26:10,680 --> 00:26:12,879 Speaker 1: the local chapter of the group and works as a 354 00:26:12,880 --> 00:26:19,200 Speaker 1: broadcast engineer is named Kevin Linden, and that's just Kevin Strome, 355 00:26:19,480 --> 00:26:21,879 Speaker 1: the weird little guy from the first episode of this show. 356 00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,720 Speaker 1: Kevin Strome, in addition to his very troubling love of 357 00:26:26,800 --> 00:26:31,720 Speaker 1: child sexual abuse material, was very knowledgeable about radio broadcasting. 358 00:26:32,520 --> 00:26:35,960 Speaker 1: He ran the National Alliance Radio show and several illegal 359 00:26:35,960 --> 00:26:40,879 Speaker 1: pirate radio stations that broadcast Nazi propaganda. I was a 360 00:26:40,920 --> 00:26:43,760 Speaker 1: little confused at first about why Kevin Linden didn't have 361 00:26:43,800 --> 00:26:48,439 Speaker 1: a wife Kevin Strome did. But I went back to 362 00:26:48,440 --> 00:26:52,600 Speaker 1: my timeline in my Kevin Strome notes, and it lines up. 363 00:26:53,480 --> 00:26:56,040 Speaker 1: At the time Pierce was writing this novel, he'd only 364 00:26:56,119 --> 00:26:59,200 Speaker 1: recently introduced Kevin Strome to the woman who had become 365 00:26:59,240 --> 00:27:02,840 Speaker 1: his first wife. They didn't marry until the year after 366 00:27:02,960 --> 00:27:07,679 Speaker 1: Hunter was published. I had a little trouble with the 367 00:27:07,800 --> 00:27:11,800 Speaker 1: character of Bill Carpenter, the National League member who works 368 00:27:11,800 --> 00:27:15,840 Speaker 1: as a corporate attorney. The only corporate lawyer I can 369 00:27:15,920 --> 00:27:18,080 Speaker 1: think of who would have been in that social circle 370 00:27:18,119 --> 00:27:21,760 Speaker 1: in the nineteen eighties is Bill Johnson, Bill Carpenter or 371 00:27:21,800 --> 00:27:25,919 Speaker 1: Bill Johnson that could work. William Daniel Johnson, the lawyer 372 00:27:25,960 --> 00:27:28,720 Speaker 1: you might remember from the American Third Position Party episodes. 373 00:27:30,760 --> 00:27:33,760 Speaker 1: I don't know that he was ever specifically a member 374 00:27:33,760 --> 00:27:37,399 Speaker 1: of National Alliance though, so maybe that's not the answer. 375 00:27:38,840 --> 00:27:41,399 Speaker 1: I mean, Bill Johnson certainly knew Peers. They would have 376 00:27:41,400 --> 00:27:43,959 Speaker 1: crossed paths every year at the Area Nation's World Congress 377 00:27:44,000 --> 00:27:46,880 Speaker 1: at the very least, But don't hold me to that one. 378 00:27:50,480 --> 00:27:55,080 Speaker 1: The book is fiction. Of course, no one ever murdered 379 00:27:55,080 --> 00:27:57,920 Speaker 1: a congressman in a bathroom at a gala, or assassinated 380 00:27:57,960 --> 00:28:00,399 Speaker 1: two state governors and a Catholic cardinal a one go 381 00:28:00,440 --> 00:28:06,000 Speaker 1: in a church bombing. That's imaginary, but he is following 382 00:28:06,000 --> 00:28:10,800 Speaker 1: that old writing advice write what you know. Oscar Yeger 383 00:28:10,840 --> 00:28:15,399 Speaker 1: spends several pages complaining bitterly about the Affirmative Action paperwork 384 00:28:15,400 --> 00:28:18,800 Speaker 1: he has to fill out as a government contractor. Harry 385 00:28:18,880 --> 00:28:23,639 Speaker 1: Keller extoles the virtues of Nazi pamphlet writing. Characters spend 386 00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:28,399 Speaker 1: quite literally dozens of pages at a time discussing the 387 00:28:28,480 --> 00:28:33,360 Speaker 1: reasons why they hate the Jews. Every character as either 388 00:28:33,400 --> 00:28:40,239 Speaker 1: someone Pierce knows or some warped reflection of himself. And 389 00:28:40,280 --> 00:28:43,760 Speaker 1: that's why the timing is so interesting to me. The 390 00:28:43,760 --> 00:28:48,640 Speaker 1: book doesn't exist in a vacuum. It's in conversation with 391 00:28:48,720 --> 00:28:52,800 Speaker 1: the state of the white power movement. It's expressing ideas 392 00:28:52,880 --> 00:28:55,400 Speaker 1: its author is too cowardly to own in the pages 393 00:28:55,400 --> 00:29:00,320 Speaker 1: of his own little Nazi newsletter. William Luther Pierced later 394 00:29:00,360 --> 00:29:03,240 Speaker 1: tell his own biographer that he actually wrote the first 395 00:29:03,320 --> 00:29:06,960 Speaker 1: chapter in nineteen eighty four, although elsewhere in the same 396 00:29:07,040 --> 00:29:09,240 Speaker 1: book the author puts that date at nineteen eighty three 397 00:29:10,000 --> 00:29:14,960 Speaker 1: without any citation, and Pierce's son Kelvin also puts the 398 00:29:15,040 --> 00:29:18,440 Speaker 1: date at nineteen eighty three in his memoir, noting that 399 00:29:18,480 --> 00:29:22,240 Speaker 1: his father began writing Hunter Quote the same year he 400 00:29:22,320 --> 00:29:25,920 Speaker 1: abandoned his family, leaving his first wife for that much 401 00:29:25,960 --> 00:29:31,800 Speaker 1: younger secretary. But either way, nineteen eighty three nineteen eighty four, 402 00:29:32,480 --> 00:29:34,640 Speaker 1: he put it on shelf and didn't finish it until 403 00:29:34,680 --> 00:29:39,800 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty nine. I do wish we could pin down 404 00:29:40,840 --> 00:29:44,760 Speaker 1: which one it was. If it was nineteen eighty four, 405 00:29:45,680 --> 00:29:49,200 Speaker 1: he's writing that first chapter, the one that describes Oscar 406 00:29:49,280 --> 00:29:53,280 Speaker 1: Yeger murdering a couple in a store parking lot, after 407 00:29:54,400 --> 00:29:57,920 Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin has publicly confessed to the murders of 408 00:29:57,960 --> 00:30:00,360 Speaker 1: Tony Span and Alphonse Manning in a mall park Latin, 409 00:30:00,360 --> 00:30:04,520 Speaker 1: Wisconsin in nineteen seventy seven. If he wrote that in 410 00:30:04,560 --> 00:30:09,640 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty three, well, I'd like to see the first draft. 411 00:30:10,520 --> 00:30:12,840 Speaker 1: I'd be interested to know how many details of that 412 00:30:12,920 --> 00:30:18,280 Speaker 1: murder he knew prior to the confession. And if it 413 00:30:18,320 --> 00:30:20,840 Speaker 1: was nineteen eighty three, I'd be curious to know what 414 00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:24,840 Speaker 1: month he wrote it in. In September of nineteen eighty three, 415 00:30:25,040 --> 00:30:28,760 Speaker 1: at the annual National Alliance Conference, a young member Pierce 416 00:30:28,760 --> 00:30:32,440 Speaker 1: had been mentoring made a speech, a call to arms, 417 00:30:32,440 --> 00:30:37,360 Speaker 1: if you will, And after that speech, Robert Matthews formed 418 00:30:37,520 --> 00:30:41,320 Speaker 1: the Order, the Nazi terrorist group modeled and named after 419 00:30:41,360 --> 00:30:45,840 Speaker 1: the group in Pierce's first novel, The Turner Diaries. So 420 00:30:45,880 --> 00:30:48,520 Speaker 1: it would seem odd for him to start writing the 421 00:30:48,560 --> 00:30:53,400 Speaker 1: novel that gives up on the idea of organizations just 422 00:30:53,400 --> 00:30:57,280 Speaker 1: as he's mentoring a young man who's forming an organization. 423 00:30:58,280 --> 00:30:58,480 Speaker 2: You know. 424 00:31:00,680 --> 00:31:04,520 Speaker 1: But if he wrote it in nineteen eighty four, he 425 00:31:04,600 --> 00:31:08,040 Speaker 1: may have already seen the failure of the Order. By 426 00:31:08,080 --> 00:31:10,600 Speaker 1: the end of eighty four, the dream was dead. The 427 00:31:10,720 --> 00:31:14,280 Speaker 1: Order didn't work. Robert Matthews was no Earl Turner, and 428 00:31:14,320 --> 00:31:18,719 Speaker 1: the group had failed to trigger a violent revolution. And 429 00:31:18,760 --> 00:31:21,720 Speaker 1: so by the time he's writing Hunter, he's a man 430 00:31:21,800 --> 00:31:27,000 Speaker 1: retreating into smaller fantasies of more intimate violence, just one 431 00:31:27,080 --> 00:31:31,560 Speaker 1: man on the road with a rifle. Oscar Jeger tells 432 00:31:31,560 --> 00:31:34,480 Speaker 1: the reader that he kills because he hates his targets, 433 00:31:35,640 --> 00:31:40,280 Speaker 1: but also because it's therapeutic. It soothes his need to 434 00:31:40,360 --> 00:31:44,280 Speaker 1: quote purge himself of this spiritual malaise, which had been 435 00:31:44,280 --> 00:31:51,600 Speaker 1: afflicting him increasingly in the last few years. I had 436 00:31:52,040 --> 00:31:55,280 Speaker 1: fully intended for this to be a pretty straightforward discussion 437 00:31:55,280 --> 00:31:58,160 Speaker 1: of the plot of the novel, but I got lost again. 438 00:31:59,560 --> 00:32:02,240 Speaker 1: I mentioned in the Turner Diaries episode in January that 439 00:32:02,480 --> 00:32:05,600 Speaker 1: one of the most robust sources of information on Pierce's 440 00:32:05,640 --> 00:32:08,600 Speaker 1: life is I biography, published in two thousand and one 441 00:32:09,360 --> 00:32:12,640 Speaker 1: by a man who claimed to be an interested observer 442 00:32:13,440 --> 00:32:17,479 Speaker 1: and not a member of the movement. Robert S. Griffin, 443 00:32:17,560 --> 00:32:20,680 Speaker 1: a professor at the University of Vermont, spent the summer 444 00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:23,440 Speaker 1: living on Pierce's Nazi compound in West Virginia at nineteen 445 00:32:23,520 --> 00:32:26,680 Speaker 1: ninety eight, and he seems to have come away from 446 00:32:26,680 --> 00:32:34,200 Speaker 1: the experience as a true believer. The book is utterly incurious. 447 00:32:34,880 --> 00:32:37,920 Speaker 1: He just takes Pierce at his word and quotes him 448 00:32:37,920 --> 00:32:41,640 Speaker 1: at length. He doesn't press him for answers, he doesn't 449 00:32:41,680 --> 00:32:47,680 Speaker 1: explore contradictions or ask hard questions, and Pierce died not 450 00:32:47,760 --> 00:32:51,120 Speaker 1: long after the book was published, so no one really 451 00:32:51,160 --> 00:32:53,240 Speaker 1: had a chance to ask a lot of follow up questions. 452 00:32:55,400 --> 00:32:58,920 Speaker 1: In one section of the book, Griffin asks Pierce about 453 00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:02,960 Speaker 1: his move to West Virginia in nineteen eighty five. It's 454 00:33:03,000 --> 00:33:05,120 Speaker 1: been mentioned in a handful of episodes in the past, 455 00:33:05,160 --> 00:33:08,480 Speaker 1: but during the short lived Crimes Free carried out by 456 00:33:08,560 --> 00:33:11,360 Speaker 1: members of the Order in nineteen eighty four, the group 457 00:33:11,440 --> 00:33:15,560 Speaker 1: robbed several armored cars, making off with millions of dollars, 458 00:33:16,680 --> 00:33:19,160 Speaker 1: and a good chunk of that was distributed to various 459 00:33:19,160 --> 00:33:23,880 Speaker 1: white supremacist movement leaders around the country. In August of 460 00:33:23,960 --> 00:33:27,920 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty four, Robert Matthews personally delivered a big bag 461 00:33:28,000 --> 00:33:33,120 Speaker 1: of cash to William Luther Pierce. This fact is fairly 462 00:33:33,120 --> 00:33:36,480 Speaker 1: well attested to, although the government never did have to 463 00:33:36,520 --> 00:33:39,280 Speaker 1: prove it at trial because Pierce was never charged with 464 00:33:39,320 --> 00:33:44,720 Speaker 1: anything and Pierce has always denied it. There aren't a 465 00:33:44,760 --> 00:33:47,840 Speaker 1: lot of other explanations though, for how he came up 466 00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,560 Speaker 1: with the ninety five thousand dollars in cash. He paid 467 00:33:51,600 --> 00:33:54,560 Speaker 1: for a large parcel of undeveloped land in West Virginia. 468 00:33:55,160 --> 00:34:01,840 Speaker 1: A few weeks later, in his biography, Griffin asks Pierce 469 00:34:02,520 --> 00:34:07,120 Speaker 1: what prompted the move? Why did you move to West Virginia? 470 00:34:07,560 --> 00:34:10,640 Speaker 1: And the answer is meandering and long winded, which is 471 00:34:10,760 --> 00:34:14,280 Speaker 1: very typical for Pierce, and Griffin just quotes him at length. 472 00:34:15,800 --> 00:34:17,880 Speaker 1: He says he didn't want to live in the city anymore. 473 00:34:18,040 --> 00:34:18,239 Speaker 2: You know. 474 00:34:18,320 --> 00:34:20,880 Speaker 1: He'd lived in the suburbs just outside of Washington, d C. 475 00:34:21,040 --> 00:34:24,440 Speaker 1: For nearly twenty years. He moved down to Arlington to 476 00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:26,480 Speaker 1: work for George Lincoln Rockwell in the sixties, and he 477 00:34:26,520 --> 00:34:30,520 Speaker 1: never left. He says he doesn't like crowds. He's not 478 00:34:30,640 --> 00:34:33,840 Speaker 1: an urban night. He didn't care for the noise or 479 00:34:33,840 --> 00:34:38,640 Speaker 1: the pollution. He hated the traffic, and he'd gotten very 480 00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:44,520 Speaker 1: tired of seeing so very many black people, saying, quote, 481 00:34:44,800 --> 00:34:46,920 Speaker 1: I was reacting in a very negative way to the 482 00:34:46,960 --> 00:34:50,160 Speaker 1: sight of all of them around everywhere. I was doing 483 00:34:50,200 --> 00:34:52,720 Speaker 1: some things back in Washington that if I had been caught, 484 00:34:52,800 --> 00:34:54,400 Speaker 1: it would have gotten me put in jail for the 485 00:34:54,440 --> 00:34:57,399 Speaker 1: rest of my life. So I figured I'd better get 486 00:34:57,400 --> 00:35:02,560 Speaker 1: out of town, and I did. What does that mean? 487 00:35:04,280 --> 00:35:07,360 Speaker 1: Griffin asks him, if that's just a figure of speech, 488 00:35:07,719 --> 00:35:10,359 Speaker 1: He says, when you say you were doing some things 489 00:35:10,440 --> 00:35:12,279 Speaker 1: in Washington that would have put you in jail for 490 00:35:12,320 --> 00:35:15,320 Speaker 1: the rest of your life, is that just a figure 491 00:35:15,400 --> 00:35:19,040 Speaker 1: of speech? Why would it be a figure of speech. 492 00:35:19,080 --> 00:35:22,160 Speaker 1: That's not a figure of speech people use. That's not 493 00:35:22,239 --> 00:35:26,040 Speaker 1: a euphemism I've ever heard anyone use. People don't say 494 00:35:26,680 --> 00:35:28,360 Speaker 1: I was doing some things that would send me to 495 00:35:28,440 --> 00:35:31,520 Speaker 1: jail forever as a figure of speech. What would that 496 00:35:31,560 --> 00:35:35,800 Speaker 1: even mean. That's the only question he asks about that statement, 497 00:35:35,840 --> 00:35:37,839 Speaker 1: and the answer Pierce gave is printed in the book, 498 00:35:37,920 --> 00:35:40,799 Speaker 1: and this is all it says. There's no follow up 499 00:35:40,840 --> 00:35:45,160 Speaker 1: after this. He doesn't ask another question. So Pierce's response 500 00:35:45,280 --> 00:35:50,799 Speaker 1: is quote, no, I was doing some crazy things. I 501 00:35:50,840 --> 00:35:53,800 Speaker 1: wrote Hunter about what Oscar Yeager was doing and why 502 00:35:53,880 --> 00:35:57,120 Speaker 1: he was doing it. Yeager was engaged and what could 503 00:35:57,160 --> 00:36:00,440 Speaker 1: be called terrorists activity, but he was do we get 504 00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:06,120 Speaker 1: primarily for therapeutic reasons. When he started blowing away racially 505 00:36:06,160 --> 00:36:08,479 Speaker 1: mixed couples. He didn't expect to make a big change 506 00:36:08,480 --> 00:36:11,520 Speaker 1: in society. It was just that he couldn't live with 507 00:36:11,600 --> 00:36:14,040 Speaker 1: himself if he didn't do something to oppose what he 508 00:36:14,080 --> 00:36:18,560 Speaker 1: saw happening around him. I didn't do what he did, 509 00:36:19,640 --> 00:36:22,239 Speaker 1: but I was doing some things that were ill advised. 510 00:36:23,719 --> 00:36:29,000 Speaker 1: Washington is very cosmopolitan and imbued with government spirit. I 511 00:36:29,080 --> 00:36:32,839 Speaker 1: was drowning in that goddamn environment. I hated it. I 512 00:36:32,880 --> 00:36:38,319 Speaker 1: was feeling a sense of desperation, and I reacted. If 513 00:36:38,320 --> 00:36:42,400 Speaker 1: I'd stayed, I probably would have gotten caught. But fortunately 514 00:36:43,360 --> 00:37:00,239 Speaker 1: I was able to get away from there. I was 515 00:37:00,280 --> 00:37:03,400 Speaker 1: doing some crazy things. I was doing things that were 516 00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:05,840 Speaker 1: ill advised. If I had stayed, I probably would have 517 00:37:05,840 --> 00:37:11,040 Speaker 1: gotten caught. What does that mean? What does that mean? 518 00:37:11,080 --> 00:37:14,640 Speaker 1: What was he doing? I have no idea. I couldn't 519 00:37:14,640 --> 00:37:19,120 Speaker 1: even guess. But William Luther Pierce told his biographer that 520 00:37:19,200 --> 00:37:21,880 Speaker 1: he had to move to West Virginia. He had to 521 00:37:21,920 --> 00:37:25,160 Speaker 1: move to the middle of nowhere because he was worried 522 00:37:25,160 --> 00:37:31,080 Speaker 1: he is going to get caught doing something. So in 523 00:37:31,080 --> 00:37:34,319 Speaker 1: the summer of nineteen eighty four, William Luther Peers is 524 00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:40,040 Speaker 1: doing some unspecified, unspeakable crime. Josephul Franklin has been in 525 00:37:40,080 --> 00:37:42,239 Speaker 1: jail for a few years, and he's back in the 526 00:37:42,239 --> 00:37:46,000 Speaker 1: news because he's confessing to more murders. The Order is 527 00:37:46,000 --> 00:37:48,200 Speaker 1: at the height of their crime spree. They've just murdered 528 00:37:48,239 --> 00:37:51,360 Speaker 1: Alan Berg, a Jewish talk radio host in Denver in June, 529 00:37:52,040 --> 00:37:54,120 Speaker 1: and in July they robbed a Brinks truck and made 530 00:37:54,160 --> 00:37:57,920 Speaker 1: off with millions. Robert Matthews has no idea at this 531 00:37:58,000 --> 00:37:59,719 Speaker 1: point that he's going to burn to death hiding in 532 00:37:59,760 --> 00:38:02,440 Speaker 1: a bouttab by the time the year is out and 533 00:38:02,480 --> 00:38:06,080 Speaker 1: he's doling out cash to Nazi leaders all over the country. 534 00:38:06,320 --> 00:38:08,600 Speaker 1: He even tries to put five hundred dollars in Joseph 535 00:38:08,600 --> 00:38:13,480 Speaker 1: Paul Franklin's commissary fund in prison. And this is the 536 00:38:13,600 --> 00:38:17,920 Speaker 1: context surrounding that trial we talked about last week. When 537 00:38:18,000 --> 00:38:21,040 Speaker 1: Joseph Paul Franklin is on trial in July of nineteen 538 00:38:21,080 --> 00:38:25,400 Speaker 1: eighty four in Chattanooga, Tennessee, for that synagogue bombing. He 539 00:38:25,480 --> 00:38:30,560 Speaker 1: sits quietly for several days while his attorneys defend him. 540 00:38:31,120 --> 00:38:34,239 Speaker 1: They did their jobs, they provided a zealous defense of 541 00:38:34,280 --> 00:38:38,120 Speaker 1: their client, right, and then Joseph Paul Franklin gets up 542 00:38:38,640 --> 00:38:42,360 Speaker 1: and gives a bizarre speech about the Jews. 543 00:38:42,960 --> 00:38:43,160 Speaker 2: Right. 544 00:38:43,200 --> 00:38:46,080 Speaker 1: He admits that he bombed this synagogue, and he uses 545 00:38:46,120 --> 00:38:49,080 Speaker 1: this as an opportunity to propagandies in front of a 546 00:38:49,120 --> 00:38:51,880 Speaker 1: room full of reporters, and it works. They put it 547 00:38:51,880 --> 00:38:56,880 Speaker 1: in the newspaper. And again, this is July of nineteen 548 00:38:56,920 --> 00:39:01,319 Speaker 1: eighty four. Alan Burg is dead. The Brinx robberies in 549 00:39:01,360 --> 00:39:04,120 Speaker 1: a few days. The order is out there, and he's 550 00:39:04,160 --> 00:39:07,120 Speaker 1: not talking to the jury. He's talking to Robert Matthews. 551 00:39:07,120 --> 00:39:11,319 Speaker 1: He's talking to William Luther Pierce. He's in conversation with 552 00:39:11,400 --> 00:39:16,120 Speaker 1: the movement and here in nineteen eighty four, Pierce should 553 00:39:16,160 --> 00:39:19,000 Speaker 1: have been on top of the world. Two men who 554 00:39:19,000 --> 00:39:22,919 Speaker 1: had hung on his every word for years went out 555 00:39:22,920 --> 00:39:27,200 Speaker 1: there and did it. They did what he wouldn't do, 556 00:39:27,520 --> 00:39:35,000 Speaker 1: what he wished he could do. There isn't much written 557 00:39:35,000 --> 00:39:39,440 Speaker 1: about how well Pierce knew Franklin. I mean, it actually 558 00:39:39,520 --> 00:39:41,840 Speaker 1: doesn't even come up in most of the writing about 559 00:39:41,840 --> 00:39:45,400 Speaker 1: either of them. Pierce's biographer doesn't even ask if he 560 00:39:45,440 --> 00:39:49,320 Speaker 1: knew Franklin at all. But there's no way they didn't 561 00:39:49,360 --> 00:39:53,320 Speaker 1: know each other. Remember, back in nineteen sixty nine, Franklin 562 00:39:53,400 --> 00:39:55,720 Speaker 1: was a member of the National Socialist White People's Party, 563 00:39:56,719 --> 00:39:59,240 Speaker 1: and for some time he lived at the party barracks 564 00:39:59,239 --> 00:40:03,719 Speaker 1: in Virginia. Pierce was still a high ranking officer in 565 00:40:03,760 --> 00:40:07,560 Speaker 1: the party at the time, and he might think, okay, 566 00:40:07,640 --> 00:40:12,279 Speaker 1: but with someone in leadership necessarily know every member of 567 00:40:12,320 --> 00:40:16,279 Speaker 1: the party, isn't that kind of a leap? But it's 568 00:40:16,320 --> 00:40:20,239 Speaker 1: really not. There were not a lot of members of 569 00:40:20,280 --> 00:40:23,080 Speaker 1: the National Socialist White People's Party in nineteen sixty nine, 570 00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:27,759 Speaker 1: especially not ones who lived on the premises. I mean, 571 00:40:27,760 --> 00:40:31,240 Speaker 1: they were having regular events, but they were getting maybe 572 00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:35,520 Speaker 1: a dozen guys at these rallies in DC, and Franklin 573 00:40:35,560 --> 00:40:40,640 Speaker 1: was there every time in uniform, and he lived at 574 00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:43,560 Speaker 1: the barracks. They could not have not known each other. 575 00:40:43,600 --> 00:40:46,480 Speaker 1: It would be impossible for them to have avoided one 576 00:40:46,480 --> 00:40:52,799 Speaker 1: another even if they wanted to. But oddly I can't 577 00:40:52,880 --> 00:40:55,360 Speaker 1: find any place where either of them is ever asked 578 00:40:55,360 --> 00:41:00,520 Speaker 1: about it. And of course Robert Matthews had been actively 579 00:41:00,560 --> 00:41:04,719 Speaker 1: corresponding with Pierce for years before forming the Order. And 580 00:41:04,760 --> 00:41:08,239 Speaker 1: again Pierce washes his hands of what his young protege 581 00:41:08,280 --> 00:41:11,880 Speaker 1: ends up doing. But I'm not in the business of 582 00:41:11,920 --> 00:41:13,960 Speaker 1: believing a Nazi when he says he didn't know about 583 00:41:13,960 --> 00:41:18,360 Speaker 1: the terrorism, you know, which is why I never believed 584 00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:22,320 Speaker 1: Pierce when he said Hunter wasn't about Joseph Paul Franklin. 585 00:41:23,200 --> 00:41:25,359 Speaker 1: I mean, obviously it's about him. It's not even worth 586 00:41:25,360 --> 00:41:28,000 Speaker 1: re litigating. His name is on the dedication page. But 587 00:41:29,080 --> 00:41:30,919 Speaker 1: I just had a funny feeling that there was more 588 00:41:30,960 --> 00:41:36,920 Speaker 1: than that, that there's more he's not saying in every interview. 589 00:41:36,960 --> 00:41:39,680 Speaker 1: I could find every quote, every scrap of writing. After 590 00:41:39,760 --> 00:41:44,359 Speaker 1: the fact, he just shuts the conversation down. No, it's 591 00:41:44,400 --> 00:41:49,840 Speaker 1: not about him. Next question, he doesn't elaborate, and nobody 592 00:41:49,840 --> 00:41:54,839 Speaker 1: pushes Nobody probes, nobody asks, well, did you know him? 593 00:41:55,600 --> 00:42:01,200 Speaker 1: Did you keep in touch? So he is lying, but 594 00:42:01,239 --> 00:42:03,759 Speaker 1: I wish you would say more, even if that was 595 00:42:03,800 --> 00:42:10,400 Speaker 1: a lie too. Whether he started the book in nineteen 596 00:42:10,440 --> 00:42:14,080 Speaker 1: eighty three or nineteen eighty four doesn't change the fact 597 00:42:14,080 --> 00:42:16,080 Speaker 1: that by the time he put the character of Oscar 598 00:42:16,160 --> 00:42:19,920 Speaker 1: Yeger on the page, Joseph Paul Franklin was already in jail. 599 00:42:21,239 --> 00:42:23,520 Speaker 1: He could have gotten most of the details he needed 600 00:42:23,560 --> 00:42:26,760 Speaker 1: from the newspaper. There's no reason to suspect he knew 601 00:42:26,800 --> 00:42:31,560 Speaker 1: more than that. I didn't like that answer. It didn't 602 00:42:31,600 --> 00:42:34,879 Speaker 1: feel true to me, but it seemed like the best 603 00:42:34,920 --> 00:42:39,600 Speaker 1: I was going to get. But I was scrounging, and 604 00:42:39,640 --> 00:42:44,759 Speaker 1: in one last desperate search for clues, I looked back 605 00:42:44,760 --> 00:42:49,480 Speaker 1: over a book I skimmed ages ago last year. Maybe 606 00:42:49,680 --> 00:42:51,680 Speaker 1: I think at some point I'll circle back and do 607 00:42:51,760 --> 00:42:54,680 Speaker 1: maybe a fun episode reviewing the made for TV movie 608 00:42:54,680 --> 00:42:58,480 Speaker 1: made about this book, It features a lesser Baldwin brother 609 00:42:58,520 --> 00:43:03,440 Speaker 1: as a very sympathetically portrayed neo Nazi. But in his 610 00:43:03,560 --> 00:43:06,560 Speaker 1: memoir about his time in the Order, a man named 611 00:43:06,560 --> 00:43:09,719 Speaker 1: Tom Martinez writes about the day he met Robert Matthews 612 00:43:11,360 --> 00:43:15,200 Speaker 1: not just for the record, it is spelled Martinez, but 613 00:43:15,280 --> 00:43:18,520 Speaker 1: he apparently likes to pronounce it Martinez because it makes 614 00:43:18,560 --> 00:43:22,120 Speaker 1: him sound less Hispanic, which is kind of a big 615 00:43:22,160 --> 00:43:25,640 Speaker 1: deal if you're a neo Nazi, you know. But Tom 616 00:43:25,680 --> 00:43:29,000 Speaker 1: Martinez first met Bob Matthews at the September nineteen eighty 617 00:43:29,000 --> 00:43:33,000 Speaker 1: one National Alliance convention, two years before Matthew formed the 618 00:43:33,120 --> 00:43:37,360 Speaker 1: Order and invited Martinez to join. And so he's describing 619 00:43:37,440 --> 00:43:40,920 Speaker 1: sort of his early years in National Alliance before joining 620 00:43:40,960 --> 00:43:44,520 Speaker 1: the Order, and the chapter mixes in his own recollections 621 00:43:44,560 --> 00:43:47,239 Speaker 1: about being a member of National Alliance with some sort 622 00:43:47,239 --> 00:43:50,600 Speaker 1: of general historical facts about the group and its founder. 623 00:43:50,640 --> 00:43:55,359 Speaker 1: It runs through the broad strokes of William Luther Pierce's biography, 624 00:43:55,640 --> 00:44:00,320 Speaker 1: and Martinez describes Pearce's newsletters as quote filled with long, 625 00:44:00,880 --> 00:44:05,080 Speaker 1: dull articles of a pseudo scholarly nature designed to prove 626 00:44:05,120 --> 00:44:10,960 Speaker 1: Varian superiority, which I have to admit is extremely correct. 627 00:44:11,000 --> 00:44:13,839 Speaker 1: I mean, Tom was kind of cooking there. I am 628 00:44:13,880 --> 00:44:17,319 Speaker 1: getting a permanent crease between my eyebrows from squinching up 629 00:44:17,360 --> 00:44:22,200 Speaker 1: my face reading these stupid articles. But Martinez goes on 630 00:44:22,280 --> 00:44:26,000 Speaker 1: to say that Pierce was much more explicit about his 631 00:44:26,160 --> 00:44:32,560 Speaker 1: actual beliefs his actual desire for real violence when he 632 00:44:32,600 --> 00:44:37,600 Speaker 1: wrote in his Member's Only Bulletin, and Martinez cites one 633 00:44:37,600 --> 00:44:41,040 Speaker 1: issue in particular, a July nineteen eighty issue that quotes 634 00:44:41,040 --> 00:44:44,239 Speaker 1: from a speech Pierce had given the month before in 635 00:44:44,320 --> 00:44:48,759 Speaker 1: June of nineteen eighty, and the line Martinez quotes in 636 00:44:48,800 --> 00:44:53,200 Speaker 1: the book, the singular line he chose from the literally 637 00:44:53,680 --> 00:44:57,560 Speaker 1: thousands of essays he could have chosen to illustrate this point, 638 00:44:58,560 --> 00:45:05,160 Speaker 1: was this one quote. Some may engage in individual activities, 639 00:45:05,960 --> 00:45:09,000 Speaker 1: like the Pennsylvania sniper who dispatched inter racial couples with 640 00:45:09,080 --> 00:45:18,600 Speaker 1: his rifle. We certainly don't want to discourage that last activity. Honestly, 641 00:45:19,680 --> 00:45:23,080 Speaker 1: I don't think Martinez realized what this was about. I 642 00:45:23,120 --> 00:45:25,680 Speaker 1: don't think he chose this for a particular reason. I 643 00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,759 Speaker 1: think this was just the random snippet he picked to 644 00:45:29,880 --> 00:45:33,320 Speaker 1: demonstrate how much Pierce liked the idea of shooting people. 645 00:45:34,960 --> 00:45:38,600 Speaker 1: I don't think he knew what this was. But when 646 00:45:38,640 --> 00:45:42,719 Speaker 1: I saw this, I couldn't believe it. I wasn't sure 647 00:45:42,760 --> 00:45:46,960 Speaker 1: I did believe it. I mean, the book has some inconsistencies. 648 00:45:47,040 --> 00:45:51,200 Speaker 1: It's not a scholarly text. There's no citations, so maybe 649 00:45:51,200 --> 00:45:55,320 Speaker 1: this is the wrong date. Maybe it wasn't the July 650 00:45:55,560 --> 00:46:02,320 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty issue. It's pretty hard to find issues of 651 00:46:02,360 --> 00:46:06,160 Speaker 1: the National Socialist Bulletin from that era, but I got 652 00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:11,360 Speaker 1: lucky and I found this one, and Tom Martinez wasn't wrong, 653 00:46:12,320 --> 00:46:16,600 Speaker 1: he was right. This July nineteen eighty issue has that 654 00:46:16,719 --> 00:46:20,080 Speaker 1: quote from a speech that Pierce gave the month before, 655 00:46:20,200 --> 00:46:26,920 Speaker 1: in June of nineteen eighty. The Pennsylvania sniper who dispatched 656 00:46:26,960 --> 00:46:32,120 Speaker 1: an interracial couple with his rifle was Joseph Paul Franklin. 657 00:46:33,880 --> 00:46:39,120 Speaker 1: On June fifteenth, nineteen eighty, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania, Joseph Paul 658 00:46:39,120 --> 00:46:44,400 Speaker 1: Franklin murdered Arthur's mothers and Kathleen mccoolaugh. And if Pierce 659 00:46:44,480 --> 00:46:49,560 Speaker 1: gave this speech on a Sunday in June, that means 660 00:46:49,600 --> 00:46:53,360 Speaker 1: he's talking about this murder a week after it happened, 661 00:46:54,600 --> 00:46:59,880 Speaker 1: months before Franklin's arrest and the murders were reported in 662 00:46:59,880 --> 00:47:04,200 Speaker 1: the newspaper, of course, but based on what I have 663 00:47:04,280 --> 00:47:07,920 Speaker 1: been able to find, that story did not appear in 664 00:47:08,000 --> 00:47:12,400 Speaker 1: a June issue of any newspaper. Peers would reasonably have 665 00:47:12,480 --> 00:47:15,960 Speaker 1: been reading. There's no internet, right, so he would have 666 00:47:16,000 --> 00:47:17,959 Speaker 1: had to read this in a newspaper that he could 667 00:47:17,960 --> 00:47:22,000 Speaker 1: get where he lived. It wasn't in his local paper 668 00:47:22,000 --> 00:47:24,560 Speaker 1: in northern Virginia, and I couldn't find it in the 669 00:47:24,680 --> 00:47:27,840 Speaker 1: archives of the Washington Post or the New York Times, 670 00:47:28,440 --> 00:47:33,040 Speaker 1: not the week that had happened. But he knew, He 671 00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:38,600 Speaker 1: already knew that someone had killed that couple, specifically because 672 00:47:38,760 --> 00:47:42,000 Speaker 1: he was black and she was white. He knew that 673 00:47:42,040 --> 00:47:46,120 Speaker 1: it was a targeted crime, a political act, and he 674 00:47:46,200 --> 00:47:49,760 Speaker 1: knew that it had been done by someone in the movement, 675 00:47:49,920 --> 00:47:55,520 Speaker 1: someone specifically motivated by his work. The context of the 676 00:47:55,560 --> 00:47:58,760 Speaker 1: speech makes that plane. He's talking about someone who follows 677 00:47:58,800 --> 00:48:07,799 Speaker 1: his teachings. But got impatient. Was it my intention to 678 00:48:07,840 --> 00:48:12,400 Speaker 1: be done with this story? Absolutely, of course it was. 679 00:48:12,600 --> 00:48:15,080 Speaker 1: I mean I always think I'm going to be done, 680 00:48:15,520 --> 00:48:18,319 Speaker 1: and I rarely am. But I really had it in 681 00:48:18,360 --> 00:48:21,040 Speaker 1: my head that this was finally over. I mean, I've 682 00:48:21,040 --> 00:48:25,400 Speaker 1: spent the entirety of this year so far thinking about 683 00:48:25,440 --> 00:48:29,759 Speaker 1: this book. But then I did what I always do, 684 00:48:30,360 --> 00:48:32,440 Speaker 1: and I spent what was supposed to be my writing 685 00:48:32,520 --> 00:48:39,279 Speaker 1: day reading more old Nazi newsletters. Again, I just really 686 00:48:39,360 --> 00:48:41,760 Speaker 1: wanted to do my due diligence. I wanted to see 687 00:48:42,560 --> 00:48:46,600 Speaker 1: everything that William Luther Peerce was writing during the years 688 00:48:46,600 --> 00:48:50,279 Speaker 1: I was curious about what was he writing during the 689 00:48:50,360 --> 00:48:53,719 Speaker 1: years Joseph Paul Franklin was killing nineteen seventy seven through 690 00:48:53,800 --> 00:48:57,160 Speaker 1: nineteen eighty What was he writing in his newsletter the 691 00:48:57,239 --> 00:49:01,359 Speaker 1: year he started writing Hunter in nineteen eighty four. What 692 00:49:01,440 --> 00:49:03,560 Speaker 1: was he saying in his public writings in nineteen eighty 693 00:49:03,640 --> 00:49:07,319 Speaker 1: nine when he finally finished the book What's going On 694 00:49:07,400 --> 00:49:10,400 Speaker 1: in His World? In nineteen ninety eight, the year he 695 00:49:10,480 --> 00:49:15,840 Speaker 1: reprinted the book without the dedication page. I wanted some 696 00:49:16,080 --> 00:49:20,359 Speaker 1: external information about what's going on in his mind at 697 00:49:20,400 --> 00:49:23,600 Speaker 1: all these points in time where he's writing, publishing, and 698 00:49:23,719 --> 00:49:28,520 Speaker 1: modifying this text, because I mean, he's dead, but when 699 00:49:28,560 --> 00:49:31,800 Speaker 1: he was alive, he was never going to be honest 700 00:49:31,840 --> 00:49:35,400 Speaker 1: with us about that, So I'm just left trying to 701 00:49:35,400 --> 00:49:40,600 Speaker 1: piece it together. And he was a prolific writer. There 702 00:49:40,680 --> 00:49:43,279 Speaker 1: was more out there than I could reasonably consume, and 703 00:49:43,760 --> 00:49:47,839 Speaker 1: ten times as much. That's just lost a time. I 704 00:49:47,880 --> 00:49:50,600 Speaker 1: did have a pretty hard time finding archives of his 705 00:49:50,600 --> 00:49:54,680 Speaker 1: newsletters from the seventies and eighties, which is maybe for 706 00:49:54,719 --> 00:49:58,160 Speaker 1: the best, or else I'd still be reading. And I 707 00:49:58,200 --> 00:50:00,319 Speaker 1: lost a day scrounging around to see if he had 708 00:50:00,320 --> 00:50:03,680 Speaker 1: any associates in hot Water during any of those years, 709 00:50:03,760 --> 00:50:08,560 Speaker 1: and the answer was always yes. I do think it's 710 00:50:08,680 --> 00:50:11,839 Speaker 1: very relevant to his thought process, to his political strategy 711 00:50:11,880 --> 00:50:15,000 Speaker 1: in any given year to know if any of his 712 00:50:15,120 --> 00:50:19,840 Speaker 1: associates are I don't know, being indicted for seditious conspiracy, 713 00:50:19,960 --> 00:50:22,480 Speaker 1: or if a guy on his way home from a 714 00:50:22,520 --> 00:50:24,840 Speaker 1: bank robbery stopped at the compound to give him a 715 00:50:24,840 --> 00:50:27,320 Speaker 1: bunch of money and then got arrested for building bombs. 716 00:50:27,320 --> 00:50:31,040 Speaker 1: Stuff like that. And he puts so much of himself 717 00:50:31,040 --> 00:50:33,560 Speaker 1: in his work that you have to know where his 718 00:50:33,640 --> 00:50:38,719 Speaker 1: head's at when he's writing, you know, But it'll have 719 00:50:38,840 --> 00:50:45,479 Speaker 1: to wait. I lost track of time. Truthfully, I'm trying 720 00:50:45,520 --> 00:50:47,319 Speaker 1: to find a way to make this process a little 721 00:50:47,400 --> 00:50:52,360 Speaker 1: less self destructive. I'm so addicted to finding every available 722 00:50:52,400 --> 00:50:56,000 Speaker 1: crumb of context, but the better I get it doing 723 00:50:56,040 --> 00:51:00,920 Speaker 1: the research, the worse it gets. Kind of assumed that 724 00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:03,120 Speaker 1: at some point I would get good at this and 725 00:51:03,160 --> 00:51:07,040 Speaker 1: then it would take less time, But the opposite has happened, 726 00:51:07,480 --> 00:51:10,560 Speaker 1: And I love researching so much that I don't get 727 00:51:10,600 --> 00:51:14,680 Speaker 1: the actual episode written until the literal eleventh hour. I 728 00:51:14,719 --> 00:51:18,760 Speaker 1: have pulled an all nighter writing the script quite literally 729 00:51:18,880 --> 00:51:22,200 Speaker 1: every week for over a year, and I've been promising 730 00:51:22,200 --> 00:51:24,120 Speaker 1: my husband for months that I'm going to stop doing 731 00:51:24,160 --> 00:51:29,320 Speaker 1: that because it is making me weird. So as the 732 00:51:29,360 --> 00:51:32,120 Speaker 1: sky starts to turn a little pink and my dogs 733 00:51:32,120 --> 00:51:34,600 Speaker 1: are starting to whine for their breakfast, I'm just including 734 00:51:34,640 --> 00:51:38,680 Speaker 1: this here for some public accountability. I'm committing to doing 735 00:51:38,719 --> 00:51:44,280 Speaker 1: like five percent less research. I'll still read enough Nazi 736 00:51:44,280 --> 00:51:47,680 Speaker 1: newsletters to get us where we need to go. Don't worry, 737 00:51:47,719 --> 00:51:50,719 Speaker 1: but we'll all have to wait till next week to 738 00:51:50,719 --> 00:52:09,120 Speaker 1: figure out where that even is. Weird Little Guys it's 739 00:52:09,120 --> 00:52:12,480 Speaker 1: a production of Coolsome Media and iHeartRadio. It's researched, written 740 00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:15,759 Speaker 1: and recorded by me, Molly Hunger. Part executive producers are 741 00:52:15,800 --> 00:52:18,560 Speaker 1: Sophie Lechtreman and Robert Evans. The show is edited by 742 00:52:18,560 --> 00:52:21,520 Speaker 1: the wildly talented Ory Gagan. The theme music was composed 743 00:52:21,520 --> 00:52:24,000 Speaker 1: by Brad Dickert. You can email me at Weird Little 744 00:52:24,000 --> 00:52:26,600 Speaker 1: Guys podcast at gmail dot com. I will definitely read it, 745 00:52:26,640 --> 00:52:29,200 Speaker 1: but I probably won't answer it. It's nothing personal. You 746 00:52:29,239 --> 00:52:32,080 Speaker 1: can exchange conspiracy theories about the show with other listeners 747 00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:35,920 Speaker 1: on the Weird Little Guys subreddit. Just don't post anything 748 00:52:35,920 --> 00:52:37,680 Speaker 1: that's going to make you one of my weird little guys.