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The Turner Diaries

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The Turner Diaries
Cover of The Turner Diaries (1st ed.)
Cover of the first edition
AuthorWilliam Luther Pierce (as Andrew Macdonald)
IllustratorDennis Nix
LanguageEnglish
Genre
PublisherNational Vanguard Books
Publication date
1978
Publication placeUnited States
Media typePrint
Pages211 (2nd ed.)
ISBN0-937-94402-5 2nd edition, paperback
OCLC24857522
LC ClassPS3563.A2747
Followed byHunter 

The Turner Diaries is a 1978 novel by William Luther Pierce, the founder and chairman of National Alliance, a white nationalist group, published under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It was initially syndicated in the National Alliance publication Attack! from 1975–1978 before being published in paperback form by the National Alliance in 1978. As of 2001, the book had sold an estimated 300,000 copies, only available through mail order from the National Alliance. The Turner Diaries was described as being "explicitly racist and anti-Semitic" by The New York Times and has been labeled the "bible of the racist right" by the FBI.[1][2]

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 the federal government, a nuclear war, and ultimately a race war which leads to the systematic extermination of non-whites and Jews worldwide. Whites viewed as "race traitors" are ultimately hanged in a mass execution called the "Day of the Rope". The novel utilizes a framing 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 book has been influential in shaping white nationalism and the later development of the white genocide conspiracy theory. It has also inspired numerous hate crimes and acts of terrorism, including the 1984 assassination of Alan Berg, the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, and the 1999 London nail bombings. It is estimated to have influenced perpetrators in over 200 killings. The phrase the "Day of the Rope" has also become popular in far-right and white nationalist circles.

Plot

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A framing device which takes place in 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 not high-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 a guerrilla 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 being led by Jews.[3] In response to the Organization's actions, the System begins by implementing numerous repressive laws, by pushing for new surveillance measures, such as requiring citizens to possess a special passport at all times to permanently monitor where individuals are.

Turner plays a large part in activities in the Washington, D.C. area; a former electrical engineer, he is skilled with technology and plays a large part in the Organization's communications and in setting up weaponry for their terrorist attacks. He plays an important part in the first large scale attack by the Organization, in which they attack an FBI 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. Its existence remains unknown both to ordinary Organization members and the System; inductees are given a poisonous capsule to kill themselves with in the event of capture. Later, Turner's hideout is raided by law enforcement after he fails to maintain security practices. During an ensuing gun battle with authorities, everyone in the unit manages to escape but Turner is captured and nearly killed. He is arrested and sent to a military base for interrogation by the FBI and an Israeli intelligence officer. He is tortured in an effort to coerce the release of information on the Organization.

Months later, other members of the Order rescue him, and inform him of his punishment for breaking his oath to the Order by failing to kill himself when captured: at some point in the future he will be given a suicide mission. If he completes the mission successfully, he will be forgiven by the Order; Turner accepts this. Eventually, the Organization seizes the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base in Southern California and targets missiles at New York City and Tel Aviv. While in control of California, the Organization ethnically cleanses the area of all non-whites by forcing them into the Eastern United States, which is still controlled by the System. Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of African Americans are forced into the desert to cause an economic 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 a white 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 be race traitors in some way (such as lawyers, politicians, clergy, journalists, entertainers, etc.), and white people who "defiled" their race by living with or marrying non-whites. These individuals are dragged from their homes and publicly hanged in the streets in Los Angeles in an event which comes to be known as the "Day of the Rope" (August 1, 1993). Most of these public executions are filmed for propaganda purposes. The Organization then uses both 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 and Israel, initiates a nuclear exchange between the United States and Soviet Union, and plants nuclear weapons and new combat units throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. Governments all over the world fall one by one, and violent anti-Jewish riots break out in the streets. After the nuclear weapons are launched against Israel and Tel Aviv is destroyed, the Arabs take advantage of the opportunity and proceed to swarm into Israel and kill all Israelis. Meanwhile, the United States is put in a state of absolute martial law and transformed into a military dictatorship. The United States government decides to launch an invasion of the Organization's stronghold in southern California.

The leaders of the Order now inform Earl Turner of his punishment for having failed to resist his interrogators during his captivity: he must pilot a crop duster equipped with a nuclear warhead and destroy the Pentagon in a kamikaze style suicide strike, before the invasion can be ordered. The 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. The epilogue concludes with the statement that "just 110 years after the birth of the Great One, the dream of a white world finally became a certainty... and the Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the earth for all time to come."[3]

Publication history

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Refer to caption
Pierce, pictured 2001

The Turner Diaries was published by Pierce under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald.[4] It was originally published in a serial form in the National Alliance publication Attack! between 1975 and 1978,[5][6] with one chapter released per issue during this period.[7] Enthusiastic reactions among racist sympathizers led Pierce to self-publish the story as a paperback in 1978.[8] Artist Dennis Nix contributed to the illustrations.[9] 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 in 1978.[7] Pierce stated in a 1997 interview that at the time he had written the book he had wanted 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 also added that he still wanted to do that.[5]

The Turner Diaries was initially only sold via mail order from the National Alliance headquarters in West Virginia.[10] It had sold 200,000 copies by the late 1990s according to self-estimates generally considered reliable by scholars.[11][12] By the end of 1999 estimates were at 250,000 copies,[5] and 2001 estimates were at 300,000 copies.[13] The book was widely spread at gun shows in the United States.[13] According to the Southern Poverty Law Center, Pierce was "incredulous" but also pleased that the book, written in haste, attracted as much attention as it did.[2] Following the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, whose perpetrator, Timothy McVeigh, was fixated on the novel, the book was brought to greater public attention.[13] Mark Potok of the SPLC said in the aftermath that "William Pierce doesn’t build bombs. He builds bombers".[14] Pierce's stated opinion on the bombing varied;[15] 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.[14][15] At other times, he said he did approve of the bombing.[15]

A Finnish translation of the Turner Diaries was published in 1993 and sold by the National Democratic Party of Pekka Siitoin.[16] A decade after the publication of The Turner Diaries, Pierce wrote another novel, Hunter, also under the pseudonym Andrew Macdonald. It was called by historian George Michael "in some ways the sequel to" the book.[17][18] One interpretation of Hunter is that it is a prequel to the Turner Diaries, with the organization shown there becoming the Organization in Turner.[19] In 1991, the National Alliance published another pseudonymous novel, Serpent's Walk, which for some time was thought to have been written by Pierce, though it was published under a different pseudonym and was not listed in Pierce's official biography.[19]

Censorship

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The book is prohibited in Canada as "obscene" and "hate propaganda" literature.[20] The book was made illegal in France in 1999 because of its advocacy of racism, anti-semitism and the use of violence.[21][22] It has been banned in Germany since April 2006.[23]

In late 2020, online bookstore Amazon removed all new and used print and digital copies of The 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 with QAnon from its platform.[24][25] The book had previously been on Amazon with a disclaimer noting its history of being associated with terrorist acts.[25]

Legacy and analysis

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The Turner Diaries was described as being "explicitly racist and anti-Semitic" by The New York Times,[1] and has been labeled the "bible of the racist right" by the FBI.[2] The book was greatly influential in shaping white nationalism and the later development of the white genocide conspiracy theory.[26][27][28][29] The phrase "day of the rope" has also become common in white nationalist and alt-right Internet circles, referring to an event in the novel where all "race traitors" are publicly hanged.[30][31][32]

John Sutherland, in a 1996 essay for the London Review of Books, wrote: "The Turner Diaries is not the work of a Holocaust-denier (although Pierce gives us plenty of that) so much as a would-be Holocaust-repeater."[33] The Simon Wiesenthal Center calls it a "hate book".[34] The New York Times noted its influence on white supremacists, describing some of its appeal as stemming from the book's "far-fetched" plot.[25] The Anti-Defamation League identified The Turner Diaries as "probably the most widely-read book among far-right extremists; many [of them] have cited it as the inspiration behind their terrorist organizing and activities."[3] 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".[35]

Historian Kathleen Belew described the book as a valuable lens through which to understand white nationalists, though she argued that it must be understood in context when studied, as "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."[25] She additionally wrote that some actions in the 2021 United States Capitol 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".[36]

Renee Brodie, writing for the Journal of American Culture, viewed the novel as having a premillennialist Christian ideology, with a "primarily apocalyptic" worldview as a whole, with the ethnically cleansed world at the end of the novel being paralleled by Macdonald with the Kingdom of God.[37] 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 in The Turner Diaries".[38]

Terrorism

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The book has inspired numerous hate crimes and acts of terrorism. It is estimated to have influenced perpetrators in over 200 murders.[39][40] The following terrorist attacks or hate crimes have been inspired or linked to The Turner Diaries:

  • The Order (1983–1984) was a white supremacist, terrorist organization which named itself after the political organization which is discussed in The Turner Diaries. It formerly called itself "The Organization". The Order murdered three people, including the talk radio host Alan Berg, and committed numerous robberies, counterfeiting operations, and acts of violence in an effort to provoke a race war in the United States.[41]
  • In 1994, the Aryan 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 by The Turner Diaries. One statement they recorded encouraged watchers to read the book. Members were also linked to the Oklahoma City bombing[42]
  • Timothy McVeigh, the perpetrator of the Oklahoma City bombing which killed 168 people in 1995,[4] was found with pages from The Turner Diaries in a plastic bag in his car after the attack.[2] McVeigh stated while that he didn't agree with the book's racism, he agreed with its message on gun rights;[2] J.M. Berger noted there was "no clear indication that [McVeigh] subscribed to any specific white nationalist ideology, despite his fixation on the text."[43] 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.[13]
  • Larry Wayne Shoemake, who committed a mass shooting against black people in Mississippi in 1996, had read both The Turner Diaries and Hunter[15]
  • Chevie Kehoe, who formed the white supremacist group the Aryan People's Republic after reading The Turner Diaries, started a murder spree that left five dead before being captured in an armed shootout with police in 1997.[44]
  • John William King, was convicted of dragging James Byrd, an African American, to his death in Jasper, Texas, in 1998. As King shackled Byrd's legs to his truck, he was reported to have said, "We're going to start The Turner Diaries early."[45][13]
  • David Copeland, a British neo-Nazi who killed three people in a bombing campaign against London's black and gay communities in 1999, quoted from The Turner Diaries while being interviewed by police.[15]
  • Jacob D. Robida, who attacked a gay bar in Massachusetts in 2006, before fleeing and killing his ex-girlfriend and a police officer before committing suicide, was found to have a copy of The Turner Diaries and other Nazi propaganda in his home.[46]
  • Paul Ross Evans, who attempted to bomb an abortion clinic in 2006, was found to have the book in his apartment.[47]
  • The National Socialist Underground used a German translation of The Turner Diaries (Turner Tagebücher) in forming at least part of their ideological basis. Several members murdered at least ten people in a decade long murder spree. A copy of the Turner Tagebücher was found on a computer used by the group, and most members had read it.[4][48][49]
  • Peter Mangs, a serial killer targeting immigrants in Sweden from 2009–2010, had read both The Turner Diaries and Hunter.[48]
  • Pavlo Lapshyn, a Ukrainian who committed a racist murder in Britain in 2013, had an audiobook of The Turner Diaries and a Russian translation of Hunter in his possession.[48]
  • Frazier Glenn Miller Jr., who shot and killed three people at a Jewish center in 2014, had praised the book.[48]
  • Zack Davies, who attempted to murder a Sikh man in a racist attack in Wales in 2015, was found to have a copy of The Turner Diaries and Hunter in his house.[48]

See also

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References

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Citations

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  1. ^ a b Applebome, Peter (April 26, 1995). "Terror in Oklahoma: The Background; A Bombing Foretold, In Extreme-Right 'Bible'". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved November 18, 2008.
  2. ^ a b c d e Jackson, Camille (October 14, 2004). "Turner Diaries, Other Racist Novels Inspire Extremist Violence". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  3. ^ a b c "Extremism in America: The Turner Diaries". Anti-Defamation League. February 5, 2017. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  4. ^ a b c Schultz 2023, p. 1476.
  5. ^ a b c Durham 2002, p. 57.
  6. ^ Barkun 2014, p. 226.
  7. ^ a b Berger 2016, p. 6.
  8. ^ Goehring & Dionisopoulos 2013, p. 369.
  9. ^ Zeskind 2009, p. 41.
  10. ^ Sutherland, John (April 3, 2000). "Gospels of hate that slip through the net". The Guardian. London. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved September 5, 2007.
  11. ^ Whitsel 1998, p. 184.
  12. ^ Cullick 2002, p. 88.
  13. ^ a b c d e McAlear 2009, p. 192.
  14. ^ a b Durham 2002, p. 51.
  15. ^ a b c d e Berger 2016, p. 30.
  16. ^ Kotonen 2017, p. 321.
  17. ^ Michael 2010, p. 157.
  18. ^ Michael 2003, p. 62.
  19. ^ a b Berger 2016, p. 23.
  20. ^ Gaffney, Blaine (February 19, 2013). "Exclusive: Disturbing firearm seizures in Kelowna". Global News. Archived from the original on February 24, 2013. Retrieved March 15, 2013.
  21. ^ Arrêté du 21 octobre 1999 portant interdiction de circulation, de distribution et de mise en vente d'une publication, retrieved December 7, 2024
  22. ^ Lalonde, Catherine (July 30, 2011). "The Turner Diaries - Un livre venimeux?" [The Turner Diaries - A venomous book?]. Le Devoir (in Canadian French). Montreal. ISSN 0319-0722. Retrieved December 7, 2024.
  23. ^ Friedrichson, Gisela (November 6, 2014). "NSU-Prozess: Die Rolle der "Combat-18"-Zelle" [NSU trial: The role of the "Combat-18" cell]. Der Spiegel (in German). Hamburg. ISSN 0038-7452. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  24. ^ Statt, Nick (January 12, 2021). "Amazon pulls white supremacist novel The Turner Diaries alongside QAnon purge". The Verge. New York City. Retrieved November 24, 2021.
  25. ^ a b c d Alter, Alexandra (January 12, 2021). "How 'The Turner Diaries' Incites White Supremacists". The New York Times. ISSN 0362-4331. Retrieved October 19, 2021.
  26. ^ Berger 2016, p. 40.
  27. ^ Barkun 2014, p. 228.
  28. ^ Ross, Kaz (March 16, 2019). "How believers in 'white genocide' spread their hate campaign in Australia". Business Standard. New Delhi. Retrieved March 19, 2019.
  29. ^ Evans, Robert (August 4, 2019). "The El Paso Shooting and the Gamification of Terror". Bellingcat. Retrieved August 3, 2022.
  30. ^ Ward, Justin (April 19, 2018). "Day of the trope: White nationalist memes thrive on Reddit's r/The_Donald". Southern Poverty Law Center. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  31. ^ Wilson, Jason (June 15, 2018). "Doxxing, assault, death threats: the new dangers facing US journalists covering extremism". The Guardian. London. ISSN 0261-3077. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  32. ^ Tenold, Vegas (July 26, 2018). "To Doxx a Racist". The New Republic. New York City. ISSN 0028-6583. Retrieved December 26, 2018.
  33. ^ Sutherland, John (May 22, 1997). "Higher Man". London Review of Books. Vol. 19, no. 10. ISSN 0260-9592. Retrieved December 24, 2018.
  34. ^ "Jewish group complains over sale of hate books online". CNN. August 10, 1999. Archived from the original on August 16, 2000. Retrieved October 16, 2009.
  35. ^ Durham 2002, pp. 51, 57.
  36. ^ Pineda, Dorany (January 8, 2021). "'The Turner Diaries' didn't just inspire the Capitol attack. It warns us what might be next". Los Angeles Times. ISSN 0458-3035. Retrieved August 23, 2021.
  37. ^ Brodie 2008, pp. 13–14.
  38. ^ Brodie 2008, p. 17.
  39. ^ Ware 2020, p. 4.
  40. ^ Berger 2016, p. 1.
  41. ^ Berger 2016, pp. 25–26.
  42. ^ Berger 2016, p. 26.
  43. ^ Berger 2016, p. 35.
  44. ^ Berger 2016, p. 27.
  45. ^ Cullick 2002, p. 87.
  46. ^ Berger 2016, p. 31.
  47. ^ Berger 2016, pp. 31–32.
  48. ^ a b c d e Berger 2016, p. 32.
  49. ^ Huesmann, Felix (November 26, 2014). "Der NSU war nur die Spitze des rechten Terror-Netzwerks" [The NSU was only the tip of the right-wing terror network]. Vice News (in German). New York City. Retrieved February 12, 2017.

Bibliography

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Further reading

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