Finished Su 2/25/18
This is one of my old trade paperbacks that I originally finished Fr 11/17/00 on my day off. There's nothing on the flyleaf as to my thoughts or impressions. I don't know how I got the book or if I was aware of what it was.
THE TURNER DIARIES was actually written by Dr. William Luther Pierce. He was a physicist by profession, but is mostly known for his work with the American white supremacists. Early in his life he was a member of the John Birch Society, then a colleague of George Lincoln Rockwell (American Nazi Party), and co-founded The National Youth Alliance- later called The National Alliance. He died in 2002.
The book is the memoir of Earl Turner who became a member of The Organization. He has an engineering background and as an initiate of the group is captured by The System. He fails to take the poison pill, and although allowed to continue to work with the group, at sometime in the future he will be used on a suicide mission. He agrees, and at the end of the novel he flies a plane armed with a nuclear warhead to the Pentagon. This action ushers in an era of worldwide white supremacy, and Earl Turner is regarded as a martyr to this new society.
He meets Katherine during his membership with The Organization and they are a couple, yet do not spend a lot of time together because they are usually on separate missions for the group. However, both have pledged their undying allegiance to The Organization.
In the book nuclear strikes are initiated by The Organization and then The System strikes back with nuclear force. Russia and China join in later, but its odd that the first use of nuclear weapons is by Americans on Americans.
The writing style is straight forward and the plot is linear, although the action takes place in a 'not too distant future'. I'd say it's an easy read, but the hate speech might be offensive to some. Although I realize that some people have used this novel as a kind of bible, I don't think that a normal person could be changed into a white supremacist from simply reading the book.
Plot summary from wikipedia-
"The narrative starts with a foreword set in 2099, one hundred years after the events depicted. The bulk of the book quotes the recently discovered diary of a man named Earl Turner, an active member of the white revolutionary movement that caused these events. The book details a violent, apocalyptic overthrow of the United States federal government (referred to throughout the book as "the System") by Turner and his militant comrades in a brutal race war that takes place first in North America, and then the rest of the world.
The story starts soon after the federal government has confiscated all civilian firearms in the country under the fictional Cohen Act. Turner and his cohorts take their organization underground to engage in a guerrilla war against the System, depicted as dominated by Jewish control. The "System" begins by implementing numerous repressive laws on various forms of hate by repealing laws against rape (as rape laws are often viewed as "racist"), by implying that gender exists on a biological level, by making it a "hate crime" for white people to defend themselves from crime by non-whites even after all weapons are confiscated, and by pushing for new surveillance measures in order to monitor its citizens, such as a special passport required at all times and in all places to permanently monitor where individuals are. The "Organization" starts its campaigns by committing acts such as the bombing of FBI headquarters, then executing an ongoing, low-level campaign of terrorism, assassination, and economic sabotage throughout the United States.
Turner plays a major role in all activities within the Washington, D.C. area. When the President of the United States delivers a speech denouncing racists and demanding that all members of the Organization be brought to justice, Turner and other Organization members launch mortars into the streets of Washington from far away, forcing the president and other government officials to be evacuated. In another scene, Turner witnesses an anti-racism parade in which whites who are not part of the parade are pulled aside and beaten (sometimes to death) by non-white marchers; the march eventually turns into a full-scale riot. Turner's exploits lead to his initiation into the "Order", a secret quasi-religious inner cadre consisting of an "elite" group of masterminds of the revolution, who secretly are leading the Organization and whose existence remains unknown to both ordinary Organization members and the System. Later, Turner's hideout is raided by law enforcement. During an ensuing gun battle with authorities, everyone in the unit manages to escape but Turner is captured after nearly being killed. He is arrested and sent to a military base for interrogation by the FBI and an Israeli intelligence officer. He is tortured to force the release of information, but resists. The interrogators fail to extract the most valuable information. The diaries pick up two years after, when the military prison is raided by other Organization members and Turner is set free.
Eventually, the Organization seizes physical control of Southern California, including the nuclear weapons at Vandenberg Air Force Base which serve as a deterrent. While in control of California, the Organization ethnically cleanses the area of all non-whites by forcing them to leave the immediate area and flee to the Eastern states, where they begin to take out their anger against ordinary whites. The resulting racial conflict in the east causes many whites to "wake up" and begin fleeing to California which now becomes a white sanctuary. Deliberately fomenting racial conflict is referred to as "demographic warfare" which begins bringing in new recruits to both the Organization and the Order. All Jews and mixed-race individuals are summarily executed. During this time, the Organization raids a black sanctuary and discovers a cannibalism operation where blacks kidnap whites, butcher them, and then eat them. The Organization raids the houses of all individuals reported to be "race traitors" in some way (such as judges, professors, lawyers, politicians, journalists, entertainers, race-mixers, etc.), drags them from their homes, and publicly hangs them in the streets in an event which comes to be known as the "Day of the Rope". Most of these public executions are filmed for propaganda purposes. The Organization has little use for most white "mainstream" Americans. Those on the left are seen as dupes or willing agents of the Jews, while conservatives and libertarians are regarded as mere businessmen out for themselves or misguided fools, because, the Organization states, the Jews "took over according to the Constitution, fair and square." Turner and his comrades save their special contempt for the ordinary people, who are seen to care about nothing beyond being kept comfortable and entertained.
The Organization then uses both their southern Californian base of operations and their nuclear weapons to open a wider war in which they launch nuclear strikes against New York City and Israel, initiate a nuclear exchange between the US and the Soviet Union, and plant nuclear weapons and new terrorist cells throughout North America. Many major U.S. cities are destroyed, including Baltimore and Detroit. As the United States undergoes a nuclear civil war, governments all over the world begin to fall one after the other, and violent anti-Jewish riots break out in the streets. After the nuclear launches against Israel, the Arabs take the advantage of the opportunity and proceed to swarm into Israel, mostly armed with clubs and knives, and kill all of the Israelis. The governments of France and the Netherlands collapse, and the Soviet Union falls apart while seeing a surge in anti-Semitic violence. Meanwhile, the United States is put in a state of absolute martial law and transformed into a military dictatorship. When the United States government decides to launch an invasion against the Organization's stronghold in Southern California, Earl Turner is ordered on a suicide mission; he flies a crop duster equipped with a nuclear warhead and destroys the Pentagon before the invasion can be ordered.
The novel ends with an epilogue from the year 2099, summarizing how the Organization went on to conquer the rest of the world and how all non-white races were eliminated. Africa was invaded and all of its black inhabitants were killed. The Puerto Ricans (described as a "repulsive mongrel race") were exterminated and Puerto Rico was re-colonized by whites. When China begins an attempt to invade European Russia, the Organization launches a full-scale assault with nuclear, chemical, radiological and biological weapons which render the entire continent of Asia uninhabitable and rife with "mutants". And in America, the last remaining non-white elements are hunted down, along with all the individuals involved in organized crime (such as the Mafia). One of the last steps in the Organization's victory is the truce with the remainder of the American military generals, who agree to surrender if the Organization swears not to harm them or their immediate families, an agreement which the Organization gladly accepts. Thus the epilogue concludes that "just 110 years after the birth of the 'Great One', the dream of a white world finally became a certainty... and that the Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the earth for all time to come."
From wikipedia concerning Timothy McVeigh's use of the novel-
"Pierce gained national public attention following the Oklahoma City bombing, as Timothy McVeigh was alleged to have been influenced by The Turner Diaries (1978), the 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, which includes a detailed description of the mass hangings- "the Day of the Rope"- of many "race traitors" (especially Jews, gay people, and those in interracial marriages or relationships) in the public streets of Los Angeles, followed by the systematic ethnic cleansing of the entire city. This violence and killing is called "Terrible yet Absolutely Necessary". The story is told through the perspective of Earl Turner, an active member of the white revolutionary underground The Organization.
The part most relevant to the McVeigh case is in an early chapter, when the book's main character is placed in charge of bombing the FBI headquarters. Some have pointed out similarities between the bombing in the book and the actual bombing in Oklahoma City that damaged the Alfred P. Murrah Federal Building and killed 168 people on April 19, 1995. When McVeigh was arrested later that day, pages from the book were found in his car, 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."
The Turner Diaries also inspired a group of white revolutionary nationalists in the early 1980s who called themselves the Silent Brotherhood, or sometimes simply The Order. The Order were an offshoot of the Aryan Nations. They were tired of being merely "armchair revolutionaries". The Order was connected to numerous crimes, including counterfeiting and bank robbery, and supposedly gave money to the Alliance. The Order's leader, Robert Jay Mathews, died in a stand-off with police and federal agents on Whidbey Island, Washington, when police fired flares into his hideout, igniting a fire. Other Order members, most notably the late David Lane, were all captured and sent to federal prisons, where they still continue to voice their support for white nationalist ideals.
In 1996 Pierce sold the rights to The Turner Diaries to the Jewish publisher Lyle Stuart."
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