Pastor Peters' efforts to step into the vacuum of Identity leadership brought on by the decline of Richard Butler's influence and the further splintering of the movement in the wake of the Fort Smith fiasco have, at this writing, brought him little more than increasing difficulties with Colorado authorities. An opportunity to assert this claim to influence presented itself in August, 1992. This occasion followed the events which took place near Naples, Idaho, on 21- 22 August 1992.There, in an event that would eerily resemble a small scale version of the federal action at the Branch Davidian compound in Waco, Texas, an eighteen month stakeout of the cabin of Identity adherent Randy Weaver, culminated with the deaths of a federal marshal, Weaver's 14 year old son and his wife- shot in the head while holding her infant daughter inher arms. The battle electrified the world of Christian Identity. By chance, this drama was played out during the 22- 28 August Scriptures for America Bible Camp conducted in Colorado by Peters.[1]
Following the camp, Peters attempted with limited success to channel the outrage felt throughout the far right wing into an organized movement which would seek to prevent such an event from happening again, either through legitimate political action or, if no other recourse were possible, by fighting back rather than allowing the federal government to eliminate Christian Patriots one by one.[2]
So fractious is the world of Christian Identity that it almost goes without saying that Pete Peters has had little success in his quest to unite the small, far- flung kingdoms that are the Identity ministries in North America. Worse, the authoritarian personality documented by Lipset in regard to those susceptible to right wing ideologies, while overstated, does seem to have come home to roost in the case of Pete Peters. A stubborn man, convinced of his own basic 'rightness', Peters held fast to his principles for over two years of complicated legal wrangling with the state of Colorado over a minor election law violation which carried a small fine. By refusing all efforts at compromise,Peters at this writing had amassed fines plus interest of over $10,000. On 26 February 1993 the state of Colorado seized his church and froze his bank accounts in an effort to make good on the debt.[3]
Pastor Dan Gayman of Schell City, Missouri, represents the opposite end of the Identity spectrum. Where a Richard Butler could gather a group of the disaffected and dream of revolution, and a Pete Peters could urge the Identity community to unite for self- defense against a government seen as bent on the destruction of the 'righteous remnant', Dan Gayman would urge the faithful to withdraw to the greatest possible degree from the surrounding society and prepare as best they can for the imminent End of Days. This is not to say that Pastor Gayman is a pacifist. A student of Gerald L. K. Smith acolyte Kenneth Goff, Gayman in his younger years was closely identified with the most radical wing of Identity believers. More, Gayman apparently received at least $10,000 from the Order, although at FBI insistence at the time of the Fort Smith trial, this money was returned.[4]
Yet in the wake of the Fort Smith trial, Pastor Gayman's evolution from confrontation to accommodation with government authority was greatly accelerated. These new found principles of non- violence were announcedin a 15 January 1987 resolution adopted by the congregation of Pastor Gayman's Church of Israel:
. . . be it hereby known that the CHURCH ...and the Board of Trustees, the Pastor, and the congregation of the same in America and throughout the world do not offer this Church as a sanctuary, cover, or "safe house" for any person or persons, organizations or groups, that teach civil disobedience, violence, militant armed might, gun- running, para-military training, hatred of blacks, reprisals against the Jews, posse Comitatus, dualist, odinist (sic), Ku Klux Klan, Neo- Nazi, national socialism (sic), Hitler cult, stealing, welfare fraud, murder, war against the government of the United States, polygamy, driving unlicensed vehicles, hunting game without proper licenses, etc.[5]This declaration was followed by a series of scriptural teachings based on Romans 13 mandating submission to all but the most unjust of secular authorities and culminated with a stern denunciation of the fictional commandos from the dawn of time, the Phineas Priesthood.[6]
The future of Christian Identity is difficult to gauge. The movementis in constant flux with adherents taking up the cause only to abandon the belief system months or years later. The decentralized nature of Identity combined with a largely mail order congregation precludes reliable estimates of the size of the Identity flock at any given time. Yet Identity has proven to be as resilient as was its British- Israel predecessor, and the ability of Identity pastors to combine Identity doctrines with other right wing appeals- Thom Robb's mix of Identity and the Ku Klux Klan comes immediately to mind- suggests that Christian Identity will be a feature of the North American racialist right for some time to come.
Neo- Nazi Groups
Right now this movement is plagued with little self- appointed SS groups who spend huge bucks in assembling SS paraphernalia and putting it on for secret photographic sessions that almost smack of queers coming out of the closet- - indeed, in some cases, that is what it is. The fact is (and we had better start admitting some of these unpleasant facts) that this movement has a distinct tendency to attract faggotsbecause of the leather- macho image that the System Jew media imparts to the SS uniform. . .
. . . in the past year we have had here in North Carolina as "house guests". . . : A 32- year- old 300 pound psychotic who tried to play junior Martin Bormann, spent his time here insulting, threatening, and spreading rumors about other Party members, and would throw screaming tantrums like those of a four- year- old child when opposed. One person described these fits as "a bearded Gerber baby on a rampage.". . .More a study in political pathology than a viable political movement, the highly disparate world of explicitly neo- Nazi groups in North America is notable both for its high profile activism- they are a highly visible feature of the landscape of every right wing march- and for itsminuscule size. This is not to say that National Socialist groups are without influence- quite the opposite is true- but if Christian Identity is fractious, National Socialism is fratricidal! The movement in fact has been preoccupied with its internecine rivalries since 1967 when Commander George Lincoln Rockwell was assassinated in Arlington, Virginia. Matthias Koehl inherited Rockwell's American Nazi Party, changing its name to the National Socialist White People's Party and beginning what would be an ongoing feature of the movement since then; a seemingly unending round of purges and angry resignations. Such high profile Christian Identity figures as James Warner and Ralph Forbes began their careers in the radical right in the ANP only to be harried into other appeals in the cultic milieu through this process of Koehl-era fragmentation. Dr. William Pierce, whose visionary novel The Turner Diaries had such a strong influence on the tactical approach of the Order and Harold Covington whose widely shared observations of the quality of adherents that neo- Nazi movements in North America manage to attract opened this section, were both purge victims as well.[8]And this is in Carolina, admittedly the best and most selective unit in the Party! The other units are even worse...drug addicts, tattooed women, total bums and losers, police informers, the dregs of urban life...[Harold Covington][7]
Today, National Socialism, in the widely shared observation of West Virginia Nazi figure George Dietz, is a movement boasting "a lot of little fuehrers with no brains and lots of guts."[9] In other words, it is a highly idiosyncratic collection of 'leaders' scattered around the country whose unenviable task it is to lead a tiny and unsavory band of followers toward the dream of revolution and the institution of a New Order. Here too, the movement is bitterly divided between the conservative majority of party activists who favor the theory of mass action which calls for carefully building a broad, revolutionary coalition and those few who favor immediate revolutionary violence on the model of 1960s era left wing guerrilla movements.[10] In either case, the dream is frankly millennial, and thus, admittedly, ahistorical. But it is a dream which is, to the faithful, very much worth fighting for.[11]
As the introduction to this section indicates, it is no easy task to find an influential leader in National Socialist ranks today. Many have passed through the movement, but almost all have gravitated to other racialist appeals less stigmatized by the negative public image of Nazism and less prone to attract the sort of adherents decried by Harold Covington in the quotes presented above. What remains are a small group of true believers- Hitler cultists in every sense of the term- and a relative few for whom veneration of the Third Reich does not stand inthe way of an objective analysis of the current condition of the movement and the flexibility to adapt National Socialist doctrine to the exigencies of contemporary North America. This section will examine several of the more influential of these modernist "little fuehrers" and consider how a movement with so few adherents- and those held in contempt by their own leaders no less than by the far right wing generally- could enjoy as much influence as it does.
There is little question that the single most influential neo- Nazi in North America is National Alliance leader William Pierce. It was Pierce, writing under the pseudonym of Andrew Macdonald, who authored The Turner Diaries which strongly influenced the founder of the Order, Robert Mathews. Indeed, Mathews was once a member of the National Alliance before his discovery of Christian Identity, as was Tom Martinez, the man whose betrayal would cost Mathews his life. Pierce's career considerably predated the Turner Diaries, however. A Ph.D. physicist who resigned a professorship at Oregon State University to become a core member of Rockwell's American Nazi Party, Pierce edited the ANP's quarterly journal, National Socialist World. Pierce remained with the ANP for three years after Commander Rockwell's assassination before that organization's internal upheavals forced him into the arms of veteran racist Willis Carto and his National Youth Alliance. Like every associate of Carto, this affiliation was short lived and the National Alliance was born. After 1978, the National Alliance was joined by a new Pierce creation, the Cosmotheist Church, whose primary tenet of faith appears to be that 'Thou shalt not deny Dr. Pierce tax exempt status' as had the Internal Revenue Service in that year.[12]
Prior to producing Turner Diaries, Dr. Pierce's influence in the world of the radical right was based less on his Rockwellian pedigree than on his own ecumenical approach to National Socialism. No mere Hitler cultist, Pierce has consistently eschewed the swastika or other overt displays of Third Reich nostalgia. Instead, his journals (Attack! and its successor National Vanguard, and the internal Action and its successor National Alliance Bulletin) have consistently been not only literate but intellectually challenging. This is no mean feat in this milieu! More, with the unremarkable exception of Willis Carto, Dr. Pierce has managed to remain on good terms with a considerable number of radical right figures, remaining in fact perhaps the last man that Church of the Creator creator Ben Klassen could call a friend before Klassen's 1993 suicide. This too was no mean feat, and Pierce's reward was the opportunity to buy Klassen's North Carolina property at the bargain price of $100,000.[13] But it is the Turner Diaries, and perhaps its successor, Hunter, for which Pierce will best be remembered. The Turner Diaries is at this writing the most accurate encapsulation available of the seductiveness of the chiliastic dream that allowed a certain segment of the radical right to ignore the glaring disparity between the forces of ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government) and those of the 'revolution' and to enlist in Robert Mathews' quixotic Order. With the Order crushed and the dream of the 'revolutionary majority' in tatters, Pierce launched Hunter into the post- Fort Smith void to suggest to the dispirited movement that all was not lost. Rather, a change in tactics was in order, with the lone wolf assassin providing for the moment the only realistic outlet for revolutionary violence.[14]
Rick Cooper and Gerhard (Gary) Lauck do not approach the status of William Pierce in the world of the radical right. Both head National Socialist organizations which have no members. Yet both do enjoy a certain degree of influence in National Socialist circles; Cooper in North America and Lauck abroad, most notably in Germany. Theirapproaches to NS doctrine are polar opposites. Where Cooper seeks to adapt NS principles to the creation of a small, separatist utopian communalism, Lauck unabashedly dreams of world revolution and pledges explicit obeisance to the ghost of Adolph Hitler.
Lauck's name is perhaps better known to an international audience. Through translations of its newspaper New Order, the NSDAP/AO reaches an audience throughout Europe, the Americas and South Africa, with its primary appeal directed to skinheads. New Order in America is published and distributed from a post office box in Lincoln, Nebraska. Lauck's current loner status in the world of National Socialism may have been the result of an ill- starred alliance with Frank Collin, the head of the National Socialist Party of America in Chicago in the late 970s. Collin's reign ended ingloriously, although in the milieu of North American National Socialism, hardly atypically. First, it was revealed that Collin was half- Jewish- his father had been a prisoner in the Nazi concentration camp at Dachau. As if this wasn't enough, Harold ovington, his rival for NSPA 'power', made the fortuitous discovery (while rifling through Collin's desk) that the half- Jewish fuehrer also had a weakness for pedophelia and did not hesitate to photograph hisdalliances with a number of young boys. As a result, Collin was sent to rison, Covington inherited the NSPA and moved its operations to North Carolina, and the luckless Lauck found a new calling; translating American neo- Nazi propaganda and smuggling it into Germany. The NSDAP/NO was founded in 1974 following his expulsion from West Germany for giving a speech on American National Socialism. Undaunted, Lauck tried again in 1976 and was arrested, briefly incarcerated and banned from entering the country for life.[15]
Ricky Cooper's National Socialist biography is less colorful than Gary Lauck's. A former member of Matt Koehl's NSWPP, Cooper and co- founders Don Stewart and Fred Surber, both NSWPP veterans, made a virtue of necessity in stating at the inception of their National Socialist Vanguard (NSV) that the organization neither had nor would they accept followers. Rather, the NSV would work to create a separatist enclave which they called Wolf Stadt which would ultimately provide a refuge for the 'righteous remnant' of the racialist right. Wolf Stadt would be built from the proceeds of a group of private business' established by the trio in Salinas, California. The NSV would migrate from Salinas to Oregon and then Washington, with the service companies reportedly doingworse at each location. Nonetheless, the NSV could hardly be accused of obfuscation. Among its ventures were: Nordic Carpet and Upholstery Cleaning; Hessian Janitorial Service, Quartermaster Laundry, and the memorable Galactic Storm Troop Amusement Center![16]
Cooper's influence in National Socialist circles stems from his affability- he never met a racialist ideology in which he couldn't find at least some positive points- and from the role of the NSV Report which provides something of a friendly tabloid documenting the recent doings of the radical right and reviewing the latest books, television programs and films which might be of interest to what the NSV calls the White Nationalist community. Cooper is of particular note for making himself available for class room appearances (there seem to be no shortage of these opportunities) and for his innovative mass mailings to high school students in selected cities in the U. S.[17]
Cooper's willingness to forge alliances across ideological chasms, like that of William Pierce, is the key to the riddle of how so tiny a movement as National Socialism could exercise such a considerable influence on the radical right wing. The minuscule number of literate, intelligent propagandists that North American National Socialism hasmanaged to produce in the wake of George Lincoln Rockwell's assassination have proven to be a valuable resource for a broad spectrum of appeals across the spectrum of the radical right wing.
Reconstructed Traditions: Odinism
Brothers will fight and kill each other, siblings do incest; men will know misery, adulteries be multiplied, an axe- age, a sword- age, shields will be cloven, a wind- age, a wolf- age... [Odin's description of Ragnarök, Prose Edda, 12th c.][18]Reconstructed traditions are belief systems which are consciously modeled on idealized traditions of the past and are adopted by adherents attempting to reconstruct in the modern world the spirit if not thesubstance of that past Golden Age. In the world of the radical right, two reconstructed traditions have played important roles. Dualism, an elaborate construct based on Mountain Kirk impresario Robert Miles' Francophile fascination for the medieval dualist sect, the Cathars, died with pastor Miles in 1992. The other, Odinism, remains vibrant and shows considerable potential for growth in the foreseeable future.
Odinism, a reconstruction of the Viking- era Norse pantheon, plays a vital role in the world of the radical right and in the wider universe of the cultic milieu.19 In terms of mapping theory, Odinism is located at the spiritual crossroads linking the racialist appeals of the radical right with the occult/magical community of Wiccan witchcraft and neo-paganism. As denizens of the cultic milieu, Odinists practice an imaginative blend of ritual magic, ceremonial forms of fraternal fellowship, and an ideological flexibility which allows for a remarkable degree of syncretism in adopting elements of other white supremacist appeals- Nazism and, remarkably, Christian Identity in particular. More, as the above text indicates, Odinists tend to subscribe to a number of beliefs which are explicitly Christian. Anti- Semitism for example would have puzzled the pagan era Norse, as would the variousconspiratorial fantasies which are ubiquitous in the radical right.
Contemporary Odinism originated in the fanciful revival of the cult of Odin among certain of the Weimar era 'German Youth Movement'. This cultic activity would flourish in Nazi Germany, and would find resonance with sympathizers abroad whose anti- Semitic beliefs would lead them to conclude that, as Christianity is built on a Jewish foundation, it too must be swept away in the construction of a chiliastic 'New Order'. Alexander Rud Mills, an eccentric Australian, was one such, and it is his writings that inspired the first generation of Odinist adherents in the post- war Americas.[20]
Mills' work disappeared for a time, only to be resurrected in the late 1960s by Else and Alex Christensen in Florida as the culmination of their search for 'the answer' to society's ills which is typical of the right wing milieu. The quest went from Spengler to Yokey before quite by accident coming across Mills.[21] The formation of the widowed Else Christensen's Odinist Fellowship and the publication of the first issue of The Odinist in 1971 coincided with the discovery of the Norse pantheon by other seekers, most notably Steve McNallen who would at virtually the same time found the Ásatrú Free Assembly.
Although Christensen's Odinism and McNallen's Ásatrú were at their inception difficult to distinguish, by the late 1970s the two movements would come to differ considerably, with the primacy of racialism in Odinism at the heart of this division. At that time, the inherent tensions within the Ásatrú Free Assembly (race being a primary but not sole source of this tension) would shatter the movement. How difficult the issue of race- and of National Socialism- would be for the fledgling Odinist/Ásatrú movement would be illustrated in 1978 when the tiny National Socialist White Workers Party led by ANP veteran Allen Vincent obtained a meeting room in San Francisco by claiming to be "The Odinist Society." McNallen's reaction marks a decisive and painful break with the racialist roots of the modern Odinist revival:
[this] Nazi- Odinist identification has persisted down to this day, but most of us either learned to live with it or simply hoped it would go away if we ignored it.traditions of the pagan Norse- Germanic peoples while at the same time aspiring to create an Ásatrú 'priesthood' modeled closely on that of the early Church. The Alliance, however, whose leader was himself a graduate of the NSWPP's odd Nazi Motorcycle Club headed by James Warner and who in those days signed his letters with a hearty "Heil Hitler," would present a more complex case. The Alliance resolved the conflict between those whose primary quest was spiritual and those for whom Ásatrú would be primarily a racialist vehicle by adopting a Steve McNallen AFA policy and banning the Alliance from espousing any political line while allowing its constituent kindreds to follow any path they wished so long as they made no attempt to involve the nationalorganization in their activities.
The Ásatrú Free Assembly announces the end of that tolerance.
We. . . sympathize with the legitimate frustrations of white men who are concerned for their kind and for their culture. These concerns areully justified. It is a tragedy that these men are driven to radical groups such as the NSWWP because there is no well- known, responsible organization working for white ethnic awareness and identity.[22]
Else Christensen's Odinist Fellowship followed quite a different path in these years. Primarily a mail order kindred, Mrs. Christensen began to fashion the OF into an influential prison ministry, offering according to her version of events an educational vehicle providing white prisoners with a message of racial pride, self- respect, and a way to transcend violence and anger so as to emerge from prison a new man. That this transformation of criminals into productive citizens was not always efficacious is amply demonstrated by the octogenarian Mrs. Christensen's arrest and current incarceration on a marijuana charge--the result of her loyalty to her 'boys' upon their release![23] Nonetheless, Mrs. Christensen's influence should not be underestimated. She remains the most recognizable figure in contemporary Odinism, and her American vehicle, The Odinist, as well as the Toronto based Sunwheel (for which she was listed in an apparently honorary capacity as managing editor) has had a remarkable impact on a generation of Odinists.[24]
The current constituency of North American Odinism is, to put it mildly, diverse. Best known are David Lane and other Odinist members of the Order,[25] although a variety of skinhead groups and bikers, as wellas more than a smattering of National Socialists profess to be followers of Odinism. Too, Odinism travels well, linking racialist adherents in North America with like minded groups in Germany, southern Africa and Scandinavia. For example, Ásatrúarmenn in Iceland was formed by the late Svienbjörn Beinteinsson in 1973,26 and in the same year, the Committee for the Restoration of the Odinic Rite was founded by John Yeowell in England. Indeed, the primary challenge faced by Odinism today may be less the related appeals of other ideologies in the constellation of white supremacist groups than with competition from the non- racialist Ásatrú community.
Idiosyncratic Sectarians: Church of the Creator and Assorted Survivalists
Idiosyncratic sectarians were described in my Spring 1993 essay in Terrorism and Political Violence as groups whose structures more nearly approximate a religious cult than a political movement. These groups may have started out in a particular camp, principally the Klan or Christian Identity, but in the course of their development thereoccurred a marked change in the group's structural dynamic. This change often followed a withdrawal from the surrounding society into isolated compounds where increasing psychological and physical isolation, a shared sense of persecution, and the increasing dominance of the group by a single charismatic, authoritarian leader may have led to a powerful strain of antinomianism. Where the earlier essay concentrated on isolated compounds, this section will examine individual survivalists through the microcosm of the Randy Weaver incident and the broader universe of idiosyncratic appeals through the uncertain fate of the Church of the Creator in the wake of Ben Klassen's suicide.
The individual survivalist and the 'creators' as the adherents of the Church of the Creator like to be called have more in common than it might seem at first glance. Both are composed of highly idiosyncratic individuals who profess fealty to no one. This might seem odd in the case of the creators, given their affiliation with an appeal which styles itself as a 'church' and was headed by a charismatic and highly authoritarian leader. However, despite these organizational trappings, the Church of the Creator remains a mail order ministry in every sense of the word. Beyond an ever changing core of would be successors to thelate 'Pontifex Maximus' Ben Klassen, the COC membership is diffuse and no more substantial than a name on an application form, a check to pay dues and buy literature, and in the case of the most committed adherents, an avocation for passing out the COC newspaper Racial Loyalty to anyone willing to buy or accept a copy. This diffuse organizational structure combined with the COC's histrionic racialist appeal brought the COC a scattered group of adherents worldwide. Yet despite the fact that 'creativity' tends to be an urban phenomenon, creators in reality are every bit as alienated and alone as are the rural survivalists. More, where the geographic isolation of the survivalist makes him a rather unlikely candidate to commit an act of violence against anyone, the urban creators have been implicated in a number of invariably random acts of racially motivated street violence. This violence is at once encouraged by the tone of COC literature and overtly discouraged by the cautious Klassen's practice of framing the most violently racialist prose with disavowals of any intent to foment violent behavior among his church's 'ministers'.
The COC centers on the belief that Christian Identity's quest to wrest back the divine covenant from the Jews is misguided. Rather, the COCholds that the nearly universal perception that Christianity is built upon the foundation of Judaism, and that Jesus himself was a Jew, is in fact correct. Thus, Christianity itself is Jewish and therefore anathema--as is the society which would embrace such a Jewish religion (styled JOG or Jewish Occupation Government). Following this line of reasoning, the Pontifex Maximus deduced that as Christianity is built on a lie, so then must all religions be false. More, as the Jews are the font of all of the lies of this world, it therefore stands to reason that all religions are Jewish creations constructed to mislead and thus enslave the world.[27]
Having rejected the existence of God or any other supernatural being, the COC has erected in His place a religion it calls Creativity; an odd blend of rewritten Christianity, health faddism, and scabrous racism. Theologically, the COC's program is primarily negative. That is, literally thousands of pages are devoted to debunking religious belief, especially those religions seen as appealing to potential COC adherents. Thus, COC publications attack every belief system from Mormonism to Odinism, but it is Christianity that comes in for the most violent attack.
