Organizational History 

Pierce, the National Alliance group’s first leader, envisioned that the organization would ignite a worldwide race war and establish an Aryan utopia in North America that would be a fascist society free of Jews, blacks, and other racial minorities.

The National Alliance was originally founded by Willis Carto in 1968 as the “Youth for Wallace” campaign in support of the presidential bid for George Wallace, then governor of Alabama.  When Wallace lost the race, the organization was renamed to the National Youth Alliance.  The organization's first leader, William Pierce, appeared two years later.  Pierce, a former American Nazi Party (ANP) officer, left the National Socialist’s White People’s Party (NSWPP), the successor to the ANP.  Pierce led the National Alliance for almost 30 years until his death in 2002.

The prominent status of the organization has since decreased. Indeed, no single leader has taken Pierce’s place as a cohesive force to unite the various chapters. Disagreements centering on the leadership of Eriche Gliebe and Shaun Walker, former chairperson of the group, created dissention among the members.  As a result, one organization formed out of disaffected members and is known as National Vanguard. It is unclear whether other chapters will support programs of the new leadership. Accordingly, the National Alliance is in a precarious position.[1]

Structure

Hierarchical; Pierce actually argued in past speeches against the use of covert cells and lone wolves; any use of violence by terrorist cells and lone wolf extremists would be futile, in Pierce’s view, to the overall struggle; what Peirce envisioned was an elite vanguard of Aryans that could stand up to the “system” and trade bullet for bullet and ultimately come out victorious.[2]

Funding

Resistance Records is a major funding source for the National Alliance, bringing in an estimated 1.5 million in annual revenues. The group’s website also posts various hate-related publications and paraphernalia for sale. 

Recruitment

The internet is seen as the premier recruitment tool of the NA; to this end it is believed that the group employs “soft-core” supremacist sites, which serve as points of entry so that prospective members may be slowly inculcated into the extreme supremacist ideology of the NA[2]. The organization also uses radio broadcast material through their American Dissident Voices program as a recruitment tool.

Tactics

Using the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald, Pierce wrote the novel The Turner Diaries, which details a world revolution by an all-white army, and the systematic extermination of blacks, Jews, and other minorities. Many extremists regard The Turner Diaries as an explicit terrorism manual.[3]  The book was the blueprint for The Order, whose leader, Robert Mathews, was a National Alliance member and a Turner Diaries devotee who tried to bring the book’s race war scenario to life through a series of murders and robberies. In contrast to what is communicated in the book, the National Alliance, as well as many white supremacist groups, has taken a more cautious approach to their aims in recent years; this approach is anchored in the view that the community needs to be strengthened before any uprising and/or violence will produce measurable results. For this reason, much of the National Alliances overt activity is aptly described as group organizational activity aimed at expanding white unity and strength. The group’s “net strategy” is best characterized by the ideas of Milton Kleim, a former NA leader, who believes that the net is viewed as a weapon which must be used wisely in the movement’s current, vulnerable stage, so that the message can be delivered in its raw, unadulterated form.[4]

Publications  

• Free Speech
• Resistance, magazine
• National Vanguard, catalog

Website

• http://www.natall.com/

Gallery

References

1. Anti-Defamation League (ADL). (2005). Extremism in America. Retrieved September 8, 2005, from [1]
2. Durham, M. (2002). From Imperium to Internet: the National Alliance and the American extreme right. Patterns of Prejudice, 36(3), 50-61.
3. Michael, G. (2003). Confronting right-wing extremism and terrorism in the USA. New York: Routledge.
4. Whine, M. (1999). Cyberspace-A New Medium for Communication, Command, and Control by Extremists. Studies in Conflict and Terrorism, 22(3), 231-245.
5. Anti-Defamation League. (1997). Explosion of hate. Retrieved from [2]
6. Holocaust Believer Denied Membership in Neo Nazi Group, Sues. (2008, September 23). ScrapeTV News. Retrieved from [3]
7. Mirk, S. (2009, April 6). Hate group stickers Belmont. The Portland Mercury. Retrieved from [4]
8. Former White Supremacist Leader Shaun Walker Sentenced t o87 Months in Prison for "Civil Rights Violations" in Utah. (2007, August 14). Voice of Deseret. Retrieved from [5]