The Turner Diaries

The Turner Diaries

Author	William Luther Pierce (as Andrew Macdonald)
Country	United States
Language	English
Series	1978
Genre	Fiction
Published	1978 (National Vanguard Books)
Media type	Print

The Turner Diaries (1978), by Andrew Macdonald, is a political novel that depicts the right-wing revolution occurred in the United States when the federal government confiscated private firearms. The revolution that overthrows the Federal government of the United States is a racial war begun with ethnic cleansing and concluded with the genocides of American Jews, gays, and non-white people.

The Turner Diaries novel was pseudonymously written by William Luther Pierce III, a physicist, who was the founder of the National Alliance, a white nationalist, Neo-Nazi organization who oppose the presence of non-white and non–Christian people in American society. Since the initial publication of the book in 1978, The New York Times described The Turner Diaries as an “explicitly racist and anti-Semitic” novel of politics; and the Southern Poverty Law Center identified The Turner Diaries as the political “bible of the racist right”.

As a cultural artefact, The Turner Diaries is political fiction that presents the means by which White nationalism (white separatism, white supremacy, eugenics, etc.) can be established with a race war against the perceived non-white enemies of the nation.

The story

Background

The Turner Diaries (1978) novel begins with an anonymous Foreword, set in the year A.D. 2099, a century after the race war depicted in a guerrilla's two-year story (1991– 93) of reactionary revolution against the United States. Framed with an editor's foreword and prologue, the narrative of the novel is the wartime diary of a man named Earl Turner, who was an active member of the Organization, the white nationalist movement that caused the right-wing revolution; which began with ethnic cleansing and concluded with genocide. Turner's first-person narrative explains the racist ideology (white supremacy) and the political violence (terrorism) required for the revolution to overthrow the federal government System, which began when the Cohen Act voided the citizens' right to bear arms. To effect the revolution for white supremacy, Turner and his comrades-in-arms aggressively prosecuted the Organization's brutal race war against Jews, gays, and non-white people; first in the U.S., then in the world.

The war

The political story of Earl Turner, an electrical engineer, starts in the autumn of 1991, soon after the federal government confiscated civilian firearms in the U.S., under the guise of the Cohen Act. As a member of the Organization, Turner wages guerrilla war against the System, which is dominated by “The Jews”, as part of their worldwide Zionist conspiracy. The System legislated social equality among the races by making illegal most forms of racial hatred and sexual prejudice — and so repealed laws against rape (as racist in application); legally defined gender as biological fact, like sex; made a hate crime of white-self-defense against coloured criminals (despite the confiscation of firearms); and legalized police espionage on U.S. citizens — with an internal passport system that identifies, tracks, and locates a person anytime, anywhere in the country.

To destroy the computer system controlling the internal passports, the Organization formally begin their guerrilla war against the U.S. federal government by exploding a truck-bomb in the headquarters of the FBI; destroying that police building is the first attack of a campaign of continual, low-intensity warfare — terrorism, assassination, and sabotage — conducted throughout the continental U.S.

Afterwards, when thinking about killing civilians, Turner justifies himself with big-picture ideology: “All day yesterday, and most of today, we watched the TV coverage of rescue crews bringing the dead and injured out of the building. It is a heavy burden of responsibility for us to bear, since most of the victims of our bomb were only pawns who were no more committed to the sick philosophy, or the racially destructive goals, of the System, than we are. But there is no way we can destroy the System without hurting many thousands of innocent people — no way. It is a cancer too deeply rooted in our flesh. And if we don't destroy the System, before it destroys us — if we don't cut this cancer out of our living flesh — our whole race will die.”

The guerrilla

As a true believer in the cause, the guerrilla Earl Turner vigourosly prosecuted the Organization's urban warfare in metropolitan Washington, D.C. At the Capitol, the U.S. President requests special-power-laws with which to effectively combat racism and terrorism; in response, Turner's unit fire a mortar at the Capitol and the crowded streets nearby, and force the evacuation of the President and other people. The fortuitous, live-television broadcasting of the mortar-shell explosions — in the federal capital of the U.S. — proved excellent propaganda for the right-wing revolution; at the national level, American television viewers perceived the Organization on the offensive and the federal government on the defensive.

Turner's successful exploits as an urban terrorist earn him initiation to The Order, the secret, inner cadre of the Organization, who are the quasi-religious élite of masterminds responsible for the race war meant to re-establish white supremacy in the United States. Dressed in a monastic hooded-robe, his induction to The Order occurs in a solemn-oath ceremony illuminated with lighted candles, at the end of which he is awarded a necklace with a glass pendant containing poison; to protect the Organization and their racist revolution, Turner must choose death, before dishonor. Although they are the leaders of the Organization, the existence of The Order must remain unknown to the rank-and-file members of the Organization proper, until after the first phase of the revolution.

In pursuit of the FBI building bombers, the police and the army raid the hideout of Turner's unit. During the gun fight, the guerillas escape the hideout, except for Turner, who is captured. At bomb-damaged FBI HQ, in Washington, D.C., under FBI supervision, an Israeli intelligence torturer interrogates Turner, who stoically resists, yet succumbs; afterwards, the federal government imprison Turner at Fort Belvoir, Virginia, along with other captured guerrillas from the Organization. The narrative of Turner's diary resumes after his captivity of 470 days; the Organization raided the military base to free their prisoners of war, including Earl Turner.

Demographic warfare

Successful strategy and tactics (political and military) won the Organization physical control of southern California, including the nuclear weapons at the Vandenberg Air Force Base; their threat to incinerate the cities of New York and Tel Aviv deters the U.S. military from attacking California. Having established their control of the land, the Organization then effect the ethnic cleansing of southern California by compelling the emigration of all coloured people to the states east of California, where those dispossessed Americans ventilate their anger against the white people they encounter. The resultant racist warfare, in the states east of California, politically awakens many white people to the anti-white racism legislated by the Jewish-controlled U.S. government; the racial imbalances caused by the ethnic cleansing prompt white people to run away west, to the sanctuary of Organization-controlled south California.

As a white nationalist, ideologically toughened for ethnic conflict, Turner, nonetheless, speaks euphemism demographic warfare to blandly describe the Organization's fomentation of racial warfare among Americans, usually featuring the summary execution of every Jewish and “mixed-race” man and woman in the land; word-of-mouth about the genocides attracted and recruited many racist men and women to the armed struggle of the Organization and to the Order.

Societal degeneration

In the course of their race war, the Organization raid a sanctuary of black Americans, and discover their practice of cannibalism. Moreover, in the “Day of the Rope”, the Organization raid the houses of race traitors — judges, professors, lawyers, politicians, journalists, entertainers, race-mixers, et al. — drag them to the street for immediate hanging in public view. The summary executions are filmed as propaganda broadcasts meant to recruit more racist white people to the Organization.

The white-supremacy philosophy of the Organization has no use for the mainstream white folk of American society; and so dismisses left-wing white people as either political dupes or as willing agents of the Jews; dismisses white Conservatives and Libertarians as selfish businessmen and political fools. Nonetheless, as ideologues, the Organization-controlled states did admire the cultural politics with which The Jews “took over, according to the Constitution, fair and square.”

As such, Turner has especial contempt for ordinary people, for Americans whose philosophy of life is concerned only with the consumerism that keeps them fed, entertained, and indifferent to politics: “What is really precious to the average American is not his freedom or his honor or the future of his race, but his pay check. He complained when the System began busing his kids to Black schools 20 years ago, but he was allowed to keep his station wagon and his fiberglass speedboat, so he didn't fight. He complained when they took away his guns five years ago, but he still had his color TV and his backyard barbeque, so he didn't fight. And he complains today when the Blacks rape his women at will and the System makes him show an identity pass to buy groceries or pick up his laundry, but he still has a full belly most of the time, so he won't fight.”

The big picture

To expand their race war throughout the continental U.S., the Organization launch nuclear rockets against New York City and Tel Aviv, the Jewish control centers; initiate nuclear war between the U.S. and the U.S.S.R.; install new terrorist cells and plant nuclear weapons throughout North America. In the course of expanding the war for white supremacy, the Organization destroy the predominantly non-white cities of Baltimore, Maryland, and Detroit, Michigan, and other cities so populated.

Moreover, throughout the world, white-nationalist networks, established by the Organization, provoke the collapse of liberal governments with locally-fomented anti-Semitic riots meant to forcefully evict Jews from government. In the Middle East, the Organization's nuclear attack against Tel Aviv allows the Arabs to invade Israel proper; although poorly armed, with more clubs and knives than firearms, the invading Arabs try to kill every Israeli. In Europe, the Christian populations attack and kill the local Jewish populations; the pogroms collapse the liberal governments of France and of the Netherlands — and especially the Judeo–Bolshevik government of the U.S.S.R.

In North America, the federal government's establishment of martial law transformed the U.S. into a military dictatorship; a circumstance that Turner considers insufficient: “Our attack on the telephone exchange would only make real sense, as a blow against the System, if it had been coordinated with an all-out assault, on a number of other fronts. The System has figured that out, for itself, of course, and, not having any way of knowing that yesterday's operation was only a training exercise, it is bracing itself for the worst. There are tanks at nearly every downtown intersection, and troops and police have set up so many vehicle checkpoints, on all the main roads and freeways, that automobile traffic is at a virtual standstill, throughout the city. If it weren't for that, I'd be leaving for Denver tonight instead of tomorrow.”

In the event, the military course of the war for white supremacy did not favor the Organization, which allowed the U.S. military to prepare a successful invasion of the Organization’s base in southern California. Earl Turner is ordered on a suicide-bomber mission to destroy the the Pentagon and abort the invasion; for his moment of glory, the die-hard Turner flies a Boeing-Stearman Model 75 aeroplane equipped with a nuclear bomb in the front seat.

The white planet

The Turner Diaries (1978) novel concludes with an epilogue, dated A.D. 2099, which reports how the Organization conquered the world, by killing the non-white peoples of planet Earth. In collaboration with other white-nationalist groups of the world, the Organization invaded Africa and killed every black person; in North America, the Puerto Ricans, whom Turner described as a “repulsive mongrel race”, were exterminated off-shore and in the mainland, and the island of Puerto Rico proper was colonized with white people from the south-eastern states.

Despite having conquered Asiatic Russia, Communist China invaded European Russia, and the Organization's counter-attack from Europe featured a trinity of nuclear, chemical, and biological weapons that exterminated the non-white populations of the Asian countries that once existed between the Ural Mountains and the Pacific Ocean (East to West) and between the Arctic Ocean and the Indian Ocean (North to South). The Organization's depopulation of the Asian surface of the Earth created the Great Eastern Waste, 16 million square miles of radioactive land habitable only by mutant humans.

In their territories, the Organization hunted to extermination every remaining coloured American and all civil criminals, such as the Mafia. To end the nuclear stalemate, between racist rebel and federal government, the Organization entered the Truce of Omaha, the surrender of the remaining general officers of the U.S. military, for safe conduct for themselves and their families; the Organization exiled the surrendered generals (and families) to a Californian island.

Regarding the establishment of white supremacy throughout planet Earth, the anonymous Epilog of The Turner Diaries conclusively reports that:

. . . it was in the year 1999, according to the chronology of the Old Era — just 110 years after the birth of the Great One [Adolf Hitler] — that the dream of a White world finally became a certainty. And it was the sacrifice of the lives of uncounted thousands of brave men and women of the Organization, during the preceding years, which had kept that dream alive until its realization could no longer be denied. Among those uncounted thousands Earl Turner played no small part. He gained immortality for himself, on that dark November day, 106 years ago, when he faithfully fulfilled his obligation to his race, to the Organization, and to the holy Order which had accepted him into its ranks. And, in so doing, he helped greatly to assure that his race would survive and prosper, that the Organization would achieve its worldwide political and military goals, and that the Order would spread its wise and benevolent rule over the Earth for all time to come.

Political influence

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 activity.” Moreover, the Simon Wiesenthal Center calls it a "hate book".

Initially, The Turner Diaries was exclusively sold by mail order, and published in serial-chapter format in National Alliance publications. As of the year 2000, more than 500,000 copies of The Turner Diaries (1978) have been sold. Politically, the Policy on the Classification of Hate Propaganda, Sedition and Treason of the Canada Border Services Agency has classified The Turner Diaries as hate-propaganda literature that cannot be imported to Canada.

• The Order (1983–84) was a white supremacist, terrorist organization who took their name from the political organizations discussed in The Turner Diaries (1978). Criminally, The Order committed a great highway robbery, murdered three people, including the talk-radio host Alan Berg, and acts of violence in effort to provoke a race war in the United States.
• Timothy McVeigh, convicted for the Oklahoma City bombing in 1995, was found after the attack with pages from The Turner Diaries. His attack closely resembled the bombing of FBI headquarters in the novel.
• 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."
• David Copeland, a British Neo-Nazi who killed three people in a bombing campaign against London's black, Asian and gay communities in April 1999, quoted from The Turner Diaries while being interviewed by police.
• A copy of The Turner Diaries and other Neo-Nazi propaganda were found in the home of Jacob D. Robida, who attacked three men at a gay bar in New Bedford, Massachusetts. Robida fled, killing a hostage and a police officer before committing suicide.
• A copy of the The Turner Diaries (1978) and Neo-Nazi propaganda and items associated with white supremacy and Nazism were found in the house of Zack Davies, who was convicted of a racist murder-attempt in Mold, Flintshire, U.K., in September 2015.

Editions

In the mid 1970s, The Turner Diaries was published in serial-chapter form in Attack! the tabloid-format newspaper of the National Alliance. The first book-edition of the novel The Turner Diaries was published in paperback format in May 1978, and featured illustrations by Dennis Nix.

Originally, the novelist Pierce set the story of Earl Turner in the 1980s, so, for the story to remain thematically relevant for the contemporary reader, the second edition of The Turner Diaries (September 1980) featured a corrected time-frame and time-line, which occur in the 1990s. Subsequent printings of The Turner Diaries contain the text of the second edition, set in a smaller point-size typeface, and the use of italic text for emphasis, rather than the bold-text-emphasis usage of the first edition text.

See also

• Hunter (1989), by Andrew Macdonald
• The Iron Heel (1908) by Jack London
• Judeo-Masonic conspiracy theory
• Talk Radio (1988), directed by Oliver Stone