 Cover of the first edition illustrated by Dennis Nix | |
| Author | William Luther Pierce (as Andrew Macdonald) |
|---|---|
| Illustrator | Dennis Nix |
| Language | English |
| Genre | |
| Publisher | National Alliance |
Publication date | 1978 |
| Publication place | United States |
| Media type | Print (Paperback) |
| Pages | 315 (1st ed.) |
| ISBN | 0-937-94402-5 2nd edition, paperback |
| OCLC | 36567649 |
| LC Class | PS3563.A2747 |
| Followed by | Hunter |
The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel byWilliam Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman ofNational Alliance, an Americanwhite nationalist group, published under thepseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It was serialised in the National Alliance publicationAttack! from 1975–1978 before being published in paperback form by the National Alliance in 1978. As of 2001,[update] the book had sold an estimated 300,000 copies, initially only available through mail order from the National Alliance. In 1996, it was republished byBarricade Books with a foreword that disavowed the novel.
It depicts a violent revolution in the United States, caused by a group called the Organization. The Organization's actions lead to the overthrow of thefederal government, anuclear war, and ultimately arace war which leads to the systematic extermination of non-whites andJews worldwide. Whites viewed as "race traitors" are ultimately hanged in a mass execution called the "Day of the Rope". The novel utilizes aframing device, presenting the story as a historical diary of an average member, Earl Turner, with historical notes from a century after the novel's events.
The Turner Diaries was described as "explicitlyracist andanti-Semitic" byThe New York Times.[1] The book has been influential in shapingwhite nationalism and the later development of thewhite genocide conspiracy theory. It has also inspired numeroushate crimes and acts ofterrorism, including the 1984assassination ofAlan Berg and the1995 Oklahoma City bombing. It is estimated to have influenced perpetrators in over 200 killings.
The story is told from diary entries from Earl Turner from the period of September 16, 1991, to November 9, 1993 (originally the 1980s, but this was pushed up a decade in a later edition).[2][3] A future historian from 2099 (100 years after the events depicted) gives the novel's main text a historical context, which is presented as the journal of Earl Turner, an active but low-ranking member of a white nationalist movement known as the Organization. After the federal government has confiscated all white civilian firearms in the country under the Cohen Act, the Organization goes underground to wage aguerrilla war against what they term the "System", a loose network of America's most powerful institutions of government, media, society, and finance, which are depicted as all beingled by Jews. In response to the Organization's actions, the System begins by implementing numerous repressive laws and new surveillance measures.
Turner plays a large part in activities in theWashington, D.C. area; a former electrical engineer, he is skilled with technology and has an important role in the Organization's communications and in setting up weaponry for their terrorist attacks. He helps facilitate the first large scale attack by the Organization, in which they attack anFBI headquarters using a car bomb. Turner's service leads to his initiation into the Order, a secret higher level organization within the Organization, which secretly leads it. Inductees into the Order are given a poisonous capsule to kill themselves in the event of capture.
Turner's hideout is raided by law enforcement after he fails to maintain proper security practices, and during an ensuing gun battle with authorities, everyone in the unit manages to escape except Turner, who is captured and nearly killed. He is arrested and sent to a military base for interrogation by the FBI and anIsraeli intelligence officer. He is tortured for information on the Organization. Months later, other members of the Order rescue Turner. They inform him of his punishment for breaking his oath to the Order: he will be given a suicide mission in the future. If he completes the mission successfully, he will be forgiven by the Order, whether alive or dead; Turner accepts this.
Eventually, the Organization seizes thenuclear weapons atVandenberg Air Force Base inSouthern California and targets missiles atNew York City andTel Aviv. While in control of California, the Organizationethnically cleanses the area of all non-whites by forcing them into theEastern United States, which is still controlled by the System. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands ofAfrican Americans are forced into the desert to cause aneconomic crisis on the System's welfare system and all Jews are beaten,lynched, or shot. The resulting racial conflict in the east causes many whites to "wake up" and begin fleeing to Southern California, which becomes awhite ethnostate. Northern California also falls, but is ruled under martial law by a conservative general who refuses to cooperate with the Organization.
The Organization raids the houses of all individuals who have been reported to berace traitors in some way, including those white people who "defiled" their race by living with ormarrying non-whites. These individuals are dragged from their homes and hanged in the streets ofLos Angeles in an event which comes to be known as the "Day of the Rope" (August 1, 1993). The Organization then uses its Southern Californian base of operations and its nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which it launches nuclear strikes against New York City andIsrael, initiates a nuclear exchange between the United States andSoviet Union, and plants nuclear weapons and new combat units throughoutNorth America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, includingBaltimore andDetroit. Governments all over the world fall one by one, and violentanti-Jewishriots break out in the streets. Meanwhile, the United States is put in a state of absolutemartial law and transformed into amilitary dictatorship.
The United States government decides to invade the Organization's stronghold in Southern California. The leaders of the Order now inform Earl Turner of his punishment for having failed to resist interrogation: he must pilot an aircraft equipped with a nuclear warhead and destroythe Pentagon in akamikaze style suicide strike, before the invasion can be launched. The 2099 epilogue summarizes how, following the success of Turner's mission, the Organization went on to conquer the rest of the world and how all non-white races of people were murdered.
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The Turner Diaries was written byWilliam Luther Pierce.[4][5] Pierce was both founder and leader of theNational Alliance organization, which theAnti-Defamation League called in 2000 "the single most dangerous organized hate group in the United States today" (largely as a result of Pierce's authorship ofThe Turner Diaries).[6] Pierce himself was said by theSouthern Poverty Law Center to have been "America’s most important neo-Nazi" as well as "the movement’s fiercest antisemitic ideologue".[5]
Pierce was aphysicist who received his doctorate from theUniversity of Colorado, and a former professor atOregon State University.[5] He was formerly a member of theJohn Birch Society (JBS), before leaving the JBS to become an affiliate ofGeorge Lincoln Rockwell and hisAmerican Nazi Party (ANP).[7] He edited the ANP-affiliated magazineNational Socialist World.[8][9] AfterRockwell's 1967 murder, Pierce became a member of the ANP's successor, the National Socialist White People's Party, before leaving due to several internal feuds and joining theNational Youth Alliance (NYA).[7][9] He edited their journal,Attack![7] When the NYA collapsed, Pierce founded the National Alliance out of what remained.[7] With his schism from the NYA, he took overAttack![7][10]
Attack! had "Revolutionary Notes" which included practical advice for revolutionaries, including how to build bombs.[7] Content inAttack! prior toThe Turner Diaries used similar language to what was found in the book.[3] For example, in late 1970 Pierce wrote:[11]
the System which rules America today is on the way out [...] before a people can rid themselves of an unwholesome order of things, as a preparation for building a new and healthy order, they must be emotionally prepared to dispense with the old order
Pierce stated in a 1997 interview that at the time he had writtenThe Turner Diaries, he had desired to put "all of the feminist agitators and propagandists and all of the race-mixing fanatics and all of the media bosses [...] up against a wall, in batches of a thousand or so at a time, and machine-gun them". He added that he still wished to do so.[12] Pierce denied that he had written the book intending for it to function as a model for the depicted violent race war,[13] and in a 1990 documentaryJacob Young directed about him,Dr. No?, claimed the book's portrayal of violence was entirely fictional.[14] In his self-review of the book in 1978, he called it a "blueprint for victory".[15]
Pierce grew up as a fan of science fictionpulp novels, which have also been viewed as a possible influence onTurner. The book utilizes some science fiction tropes.[16]
The Turner Diaries is a work ofdystopian fiction; this genre emerged prominently in the early 19th century, and early dystopian novels often had racist themes.[17][18] Terrorism researcherJ.M. Berger connectedTurner to several other racial dystopia novels, saying they had influencedTurner's development directly or indirectly (i.e. having been directly read by Pierce, or having inspired works that he read).[18] He particularly notedThe Turner Diaries as having "striking similarities" with the bookAnticipations of the Future.[19]
Jack London's 1907 novelThe Iron Heel has also been seen an influence;The Turner Diaries shares some themes, descriptions and its main narrative device (that of a work annotated by a future historian) with that book.[20][21] Pierce disputed that this book was an influence.[22] The 1969 novelThe Spook Who Sat by the Door by black authorSam Greenlee is also seen as a possible influence onThe Turner Diaries; the release of its film adaption was controversial and widely publicized. It follows the first black CIA agent, who then uses his knowledge to lead a black insurgency against the CIA. Greenlee described it as "a training manual for guerrilla warfare", and all white characters in the book are racists who have exclusively hostile interactions with the protagonists.[23]
In Pierce's authorized biographyThe Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds, the anonymous 1959 novelThe John Franklin Letters was cited by Pierce as the most direct inspiration for the novel.[22] Pierce was given this book byRevilo P. Oliver, who is considered the most probable author ofThe John Franklin Letters.[24] Oliver had written a review forAttack! In a meeting, probably in late 1974, Pierce expressed to Oliver that he was having difficulty getting people to respond to his message. Oliver suggested he write fiction, something Pierce had not previously done, arguing that the kinds of people who would agree with Pierce's views were not the kind of people who would read the non-fiction material Pierce had previously written.[25] Oliver suggested that Pierce write in a genre enjoyed by the people who Pierce's ideas would appeal to, which Oliver said was "fiction, and particularly light, action-filled recreational fiction".[25] Similar toThe John Franklin Letters,The Turner Diaries utilizes a framing device where the events are prefaced by an in-universe future historian.[24][25]
While Pierce was writingThe Turner Diaries, his favorite book wasThe Riot Makers: The Technology of Social Demolition byEugene H. Methvin. That book was a right-wing survey of left-wing propaganda and tactics, which Methvin saw as instigating 1960s rioting; Methvin is critical and attempts to expose these tactics, especially the practice of what Methvin called "pre-conditioning". Pierce, however, saw inThe Riot Makers a guide to making his own propaganda based on the very tactics Methvin was criticizing.[26] Pierce believed identification and was the key element in writing propaganda fiction. Pierce said:[27]
Simply, the reader—or television watcher or movie viewer or playgoer—comes to identify with the protagonist. And once that happens, you’ve got this person where you want him.
The Turner Diaries was originally serialized inAttack! between 1975 and 1978,[12][28] with one chapter released per issue during this period.[3] The first issue ofAttack! to serializeTurner was the January 1975 issue.[25] The main story was originally set in the 1980s; Pierce changed it to the 1990s when the series was compiled to be published as a book.[3]
Enthusiastic reactions among readers led Pierce to publish the story through the National Alliance as apaperback in 1978,[29][30] under thepseudonym Andrew Macdonald.[4][5] Its first edition was illustrated by artist Dennis Nix.[31][32] The book was later distributed by the National Alliance's publishing arm National Vanguard Books.[33] The third edition was published under Pierce's name rather than a pseudonym.[2] When it was published, Pierce reviewed his own book in theNational Vanguard (Attack!, later renamed).[15] The periodical also sold the book.[34]
In 1996, after theOklahoma City bombing,Barricade Books published a new edition of the novel, including a foreword by the publisher denouncing it.Lyle Stuart, the owner of Barricade Books, was criticized by several organizations and individuals (among others, the SPLC,Morris Dees, theAmerican Jewish Committee, theSimon Wiesenthal Center), who told major book chains to refuse to carry it.[35] Dees stated that they had found the book in "almost every single case" of "white supremacy, neo-Nazi, Ku Klux Klan-type activity that resulted in violence that caused deaths and injuries to many innocent people". Stuart defended his decision to republish the book by saying "I felt it was important the average American see how sick these minds are and how dreadful and perverted their thinking process is".[36] By the late 1990s, the book was widely distributed online.[37]
A Finnish translation of the Turner Diaries was published in 1993 and sold by theNational Democratic Party ofPekka Siitoin.[38] A decade after the publication ofThe Turner Diaries, Pierce wrote another novel,Hunter, also under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It was called by historianGeorge Michael "in some ways the sequel to" the book.[39][40] One interpretation ofHunter is that it is a prequel tothe Turner Diaries, with the organization shown there becoming the Organization inTurner.[41]
The book is prohibited in Canada as "obscene" and "hate propaganda" literature.[42] The book was made illegal in France in 1999 because of its advocacy of racism, antisemitism and the use of violence.[43][44] It has been banned in Germany since April 2006.[45] In late 2020, online bookstore Amazon removed all new and used print and digital copies ofThe Turner Diaries from its bookselling platform, including all subsidiaries (AbeBooks,The Book Depository), effectively stopping sales of the title from the digital bookselling market. Although Amazon did not state a specific reason for the removal, it followed the company's purge of a number of self-published and small-press titles connected withQAnon from its platform.[46][47] The book had previously been on Amazon with a disclaimer noting its history of being associated with terrorist acts.[2][47]
The Turner Diaries was initially, until 1996, only sold via mail order from the National Alliance headquarters in West Virginia.[32] Earlier versions of the book's blurb strongly emphasized the racist elements of the story:[15]
This nightmare is coming true. Day by day conditions are coming closer to the nightmare world in which Earl Turner and his comrades struggle to overthrow a tyrannical, race-destroying System [...]
However, later advertisements and the book blurb later moved to emphasizing gun rights,[5][15] and the book was widely spread at gun shows in the United States.[48][33] Later blurbs emphasized the gun rights framing, and de-emphasized the racial element in an effort to expand the reach of the book. The later version of the book's blurb read:[27]
What will you do when they come to take your guns? Earl Turner and his fellow patriots face this question and are forced underground when the U.S. government bans the private possession of firearms and stages the mass Gun Raids to round up suspected gun owners. The hated Equality Police begin hunting them down, but the patriots fight back with a campaign of sabotage and assassination. An all-out race war occurs as the struggle escalates. Turner and his comrades suffer terribly, but their ingenuity and boldness in devising and executing new methods of guerrilla warfare lead to a victory of cataclysmic intensity and worldwide scope.
It was also sold at some book stores, but its largest method of distribution was through gun shows and venues like the Soldier of Fortune Convention as well as mail order advertisements in related publications likeSoldier of Fortune magazine andShotgun News.[49] It had sold 200,000 copies by the late 1990s according to self-estimates generally considered reliable by scholars.[50][51] By the end of 1999 estimates were at 250,000 copies,[12] and 2001 estimates were at 300,000 copies.[48]
John Sutherland, in a 1996 essay for theLondon Review of Books, said of the work that it "is not the work of a Holocaust-denier (although Pierce gives us plenty of that) so much as a would-be Holocaust-repeater."[32]The Turner Diaries was described as being "explicitlyracist andanti-Semitic" byPeter Applebome ofThe New York Times. Applebome called it "by almost any standard [...] a chilling read", "almost compulsively violent".[1] Ted Daniels said the characters were "pure cardboard, amounting to nothing more than names and actions, heroic or squalid according to Pierce’s racist morality" and that "death is the only life in this book."[52]
The book is also critical of most white people—those who do not agree with neo-Nazism. The death of "many thousands of innocent people" as collateral damage is seen as acceptable, if a "heavy burden".[53][52] Whites not of the Organization are presented in a harsh manner, portrayed as brainwashed and apathetic in contrast.[52] Despite the book's explicitly racist messaging, any time the word racist appears in reference to the Organization, it is done in quotations as if a false accusation.[52] Noah Berlatsky of theLos Angeles Review of Books said the book drew much fromscience fiction, saying that Pierce had "radicalized readers in part by radicalizing the tropes of popular pulp." Berlatsky argued that while recounting the plot it seemed cold, but that within the book Pierce justified it through science fiction concepts and references.[16]
HistorianKathleen Belew described the book as a valuable lens which researchers should look through in order to understand white nationalists, but she argued that it must be understood in context when it is studied, because "It’s a book that has been used to kill a lot of people, over and over and over. [...] People should understand that’s what it is."[47] Renee Brodie, writing for theJournal of American Culture, viewed the novel as having apremillennialist Christian ideology, with a "primarily apocalyptic" worldview as a whole, with theethnically cleansed world at the end of the novel being paralleled by Macdonald with theKingdom of God.[54] Brodie wrote that by correlating Christian views with the Organization, the narrative shows the members of the group as having a "single-mindedness of purpose" that is "one of the main attractions found inThe Turner Diaries".[55] The System in the book is basically analogous to theZionist Occupation Government (ZOG) conspiracy narrative.[20][52]
The book was greatly influential in shapingwhite nationalism,[56][57] and the later idea of thewhite genocide conspiracy theory.[58] Terrorism analystsBruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware said in their bookGod, Guns, and Sedition that "no other book has had so pervasive or sustained an influence over violent far-right extremism in the United States asThe Turner Diaries."[33]The New York Times noted its influence on white supremacists, describing some of its appeal as stemming from the book's "far-fetched" plot.[47] Researcher Martin Durham argued that despite the instances of terrorism inspired by the book, Pierce's intention in writing it had probably not been to inspire such isolated cases earlier than he had wanted, with his aim instead having been to inspire "real, organized terrorism done according to plan, aimed at bringing down the government".[59][60]
It was allegedly labeled the "bible of the racist right" by theFBI. While it is widely quoted, that statement isapocryphal and was likely authored by Pierce, not the FBI, for the purpose of publicity.[33] The label was included on the back of the book in its 1985 edition.[33] An actual 1991 memorandum from the FBI described it as "a significant work and foundation document closely embraced by the leadership as well as rank and file members of the Right-wing, White Supremist [sic] Movement".[33]
The concept of the "Day of the Rope", in reference to the mass execution of "race traitors" in the novel, has also become common in white supremacist circles. The "Day of the Rope" concept is classified as a hate symbol in theHate on Display hate symbols database of theAnti-Defamation League. TheWhite Power bandBound for Glory referred to the phrase in their 1994 song "The Hammer Falls Again (Ragnarok)", with the lyrics saying:[61][62]
Politicians to Pope, there'll be no hope / There is no escaping the Day of the Rope
The book has inspired numeroushate crimes and acts ofterrorism. It is estimated to have influenced the perpetrators of over 200 murders.[63][64]
In 1983, inspired byThe Turner Diaries, three members ofThe Covenant, the Sword, and the Arm of the Lord plotted to bomb theAlfred P. Murrah Federal Building using a truck bomb; this plan did not go into action.[65] Over a decade later in 1995,Timothy McVeigh perpetrated theOklahoma City bombing killing 168 people, targeting the same Alfred P. Murrah building.[4][65] He was found with a copy of the book with several phrases highlighted, including "But the real value of all of our attacks today lies in the psychological impact, not in the immediate casualties" and "We can still find them and kill them."[66]
J.M. Berger noted there was "no clear indication that [McVeigh] subscribed to any specific white nationalist ideology, despite his fixation on the text."[67] The book was the first piece of evidence introduced during his trial; witnesses testified that he was "obsessed" with the book, and sold it at gun shows.[48] His attack was very similar to the truck bombing of the FBI headquarters in the book.[68] After the bombing the book was brought to greater public attention.[48] Mark Potok of the SPLC said in the aftermath that "William Pierce doesn’t build bombs. He builds bombers".[69] Pierce's stated opinion on the bombing varied;[70] at one time Pierce denounced the bombing as a "desperate and foolish" action, as it was not part of a sustained campaign of terror designed to overthrow the government and it had not been at the right time.[69][70] At other times, he said he did approve of the bombing.[70]
The book also inspired the formation of several violent groups.The Order (1983–1984) was awhite supremacist, terrorist organization which named itself after the organization in the book. It formerly called itself The Organization. The Order murdered three people, including the talk radio hostAlan Berg, and committed numerous robberies, counterfeiting operations, and acts of violence in an effort to provoke arace war in the United States.[71] In 1994, theAryan Republican Army committed a string of armed bank robberies, at least 22; they were inspired both by the fictional The Order within the book and The Order organization that had itself been inspired byThe Turner Diaries. One statement they recorded encouraged watchers to read the book. Members were also linked to the Oklahoma City bombing.[72]Chevie Kehoe formed the white supremacist group the Aryan People's Republic after he readThe Turner Diaries, and eventually began a murder spree in which he killed five people before he was captured in an armed shootout with police in 1997.[73] The German terrorist groupNational Socialist Underground used a German translation ofThe Turner Diaries (Turner Tagebücher) in forming at least part of their ideological basis. Several members murderedat least ten people in a decade long murder spree. A copy of theTurner Tagebücher was found on a computer used by the group, and most members had read it.[4][74][75]
In 1996 Larry Wayne Shoemake committed a mass shooting against black people in Jackson, Mississippi, killing one and injuring seven. He had read bothThe Turner Diaries andHunter.[70][76][77] His wife stated that after Shoemake had readThe Turner Diaries, he had never been the same.[77] This resulted in Pierce being sued by the victims' families for inciting the attack (among other defendants in the suit),[76] but Pierce was eventually dropped from the suit after the judge ruled the plaintiffs had failed to tie Pierce to the shooting.[78]
In the wake of theJanuary 6 United States Capitol attack, historianKathleen Belew argued that the book was an inspiration to the rioters. She wrote that some actions in the attack appeared to be inspired by the book's "Day of the Rope" and an attack on Congress in the book. She wrote that the book "really becomes a clear point of reference if you look at the photographs of the action".[79] Terrorism analystsBruce Hoffman and Jacob Ware noted it as evoking the image of the "Day of the Rope".[17]
Other individual acts tied to the book include:
