William Pierce
William L. Pierce (September 11, 1933 - July 23, 2002) was an associate of the American Nazi Party (ANP) and one of the most prominent ideologues of the white separatist movement. Trained as a physicist (Pierce held a Ph.D. in Physics), he rose to prominence in the white separatist movement following the assassination of George Lincoln Rockwell, the original founder of the ANP.
Pierce was born in Atlanta, Georgia and graduated with a bachelor's degree in physics in 1951. He worked at Los Alamos Scientific Laboratory before attending graduate school, first at Caltech and then the University of Colorado, at Boulder, where he earned his Ph.D in 1962. He soon lost interest in physics and joined various white separatist groups, forming his own group, the National Alliance in 1974. He also adopted the religion of Cosmotheism at about the same time. (See The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds)
Pierce came to public attention following the Oklahoma City bombing. It had been suggested by the Mass Media that the perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, was influenced by The Turner Diaries (1978), a novel written by Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. The book is a graphically violent depiction of a future race war in the United States as told through the perspective of Earl Turner, an active member of the white separatist underground. The book opens with the bombing of FBI headquarters, which, some critics say, could have served as a model for the bombing of the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building. Although The Turner Diaries was originally only available by mail order and at special events (such as gun shows), it is believed to have sold half a million copies, and to have had many more readers, because it was handed from one person to another.
The Turner Diaries is also believed to have been the inspiration behind a small group of militant white racialists in the early 80's who called themselves the Brüder Schweigen or sometimes simply "the Order." The Order was connected to numerous crimes, including counterfeiting and bank robbery. The Order's leader, Robert Jay Matthews, died in a shoot out with police and federal agents on Whidbey Island in Washington. Other Order members, most notably David Lane, were captured and sent to federal prisons, where they continued to voice their support for white separatism.
Other titles by Pierce include Hunter (1984), which reads more like a survival manual for individual militants than a blueprint for revolution, and New World Order Comix # 1:The Saga of White Will!! (1993), which is openly directed at white youth.
Pierce spent his final years in relative seclusion in West Virginia, where he hosted his own weekly radio show, American Dissident Voices, and oversaw his publishing and record companies devoted to the promotion of his racialist White Separatist ideology.
See also: Civil rights movement, Racism, Race
External links
Books
- The Fame of a Dead Man's Deeds: An Up-Close Portrait of White Nationalist William Pierce, 2001 (ISBN 0759609330)
Referenced By
2002 in memoriam | British National Party | Cosmotheism | Deaths in 2002 | Famous people from the State of Georgia | List of Continental Congress Delegates | List of people from the State of Georgia | National Alliance | Pantheism | Scientific pantheism | The Turner Diaries | White supremacy
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