Motto: "Thou art my battle axe and weapons of war: for with thee will I break in pieces the nations, and with thee will I destroy kingdoms" (Jeremiah 51:20, KJV)
The Order, also known as Silent Brotherhood,[1] was a Neo-Nazi terrorist organization active in the United States between September 1983 and December 1984.[2][3][4] The group raised funds via armed robbery. Ten members were tried and convicted for racketeering, and two for their role in the 1984 murder of radio talk show host Alan Berg.[5]
The Order's main objective was to start a white supremacist revolution against the United States, after which blacks, Jews, "race mixers", and other perceived enemies would be exterminated. Inspired by The Turner Diaries, the organization declared war on the federal government, which they called the "Zionist occupied government".[6][7] The Order drew up a hit list of enemies, and on June 18, 1984, radio talk show host Alan Berg was murdered in front of his home by Bruce Pierce, assisted by other members of the Order.[8] Berg was number two on the Order's list.[9]
In December 1984, authorities were able to track down Robert Jay Mathews, the organization's leader, to a house on Whidbey Island where he refused to surrender.[10] Mathews was suspected of wounding an FBI agent in a previous shooting in Oregon.[11] During a shootout, the house was ignited by incendiary flares and became engulfed in flames, and Mathews was killed.[10] Mathews is considered a martyr by many white nationalists.[12][13]
A fundamental goal of the Order was revolution against the American government, which its members, and those of other white supremacist groups, believed to be controlled by a cabal of Jews with internationalist and Jewish-racial loyalties, rather than loyalty to the American nation. The Order was named after, and partly modeled on, a fictional terrorist group in William Luther Pierce's novel The Turner Diaries.[10] The Order's goals included the establishment of a homeland (now the Northwest Territorial Imperative) from which Jews and non-whites would be barred. They often referred to the United States federal government as ZOG, an acronym for Zionist Occupied Government. Members of the Order included Randy Evans, Gary Yarborough, Bruce Pierce, Denver Parmenter, Frank DeSilva (also known as Frank Silva), Richard Scutari, David Lane, Randy Duey, and David Tate.
Funding
Next, the group discussed how to fund actions of the Order, considering bidding on lumber-jacking and timber contracts, counterfeiting money, diaspora funding from overseas oil countries, and robberies. Though timber contracts were legal, counterfeiting money appealed to the ideals of the group in that it undermined the government by devaluing US currency. Robbery was first denied as an option due to its perceived sinful nature, until someone suggested they could rob pimps and drug dealers, which would raise money for the organization as well as set back street criminals in their businesses.[16]
The organization won a bid on a timber trimming contract for a trail in the Salmo-Priest Wilderness. After five hours of grueling work, Mathews decided to call off the work and head home. Headed back to the trucks, David Lane muttered, "Well, we're going to have to be better thinkers than our fathers were, because we're sure not the men they were,"[16] while Mathews mentions that the pay off from the job "would not fund the right wing for a week anyway."[16] The Order decided to try their hand at robberies, attempting to target pimps and drug dealers. After weeks of trailing black men in flashy cars, they realized they had no idea what a pimp or drug dealer looked like, [citation needed] and decided to switch to other crimes for funding.
The Order raised money through robbery. This began with the robbery of a pornographic video store, which netted them $369.10.[17] Their later robberies were more effective, including a bank robbery, followed by a series of three armored car robberies. In the armored car robberies, they took a total of $4.1 million, including their final armored car robbery near Ukiah, California that netted them $3.8 million. The Order detonated a timed firebomb in a movie theater in Seattle (causing no deaths or injuries), in order to occupy the police during their second planned armored car robbery that took place the next day. Proceeds from these robberies were distributed to leaders of sympathetic organizations such as William Pierce (National Alliance) and Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr. (White Patriot Party).[18][19][20]
The Order also ran a counterfeiting operation, but their bills were of poor quality, especially early on, and they led to Bruce Pierce being jailed early on, which later precipitated the group's downfall.
Downfall
The Order was ultimately brought down when a member, Tom Martinez, approached the FBI and offered to turn informant. His role in the organisation had been to pass counterfeit money and he had been arrested on June 29, 1984, for passing counterfeit ten dollar bills to buy liquor. After he was released on his own recognizance Mathews convinced him to go underground and during this period Martinez learned that Mathews intended to kill the liquor store owner in order to prevent him from testifying. When he learned of Mathews' plan, Martinez approached the FBI and offered to turn informant.[21][22] On December 8, 1984, Mathews was cornered in a house at Whidbey Island, Washington. After a two-hour shoot-out, which involved the use of machine-guns, tear gas and a helicopter used to illuminate the target with flares, Mathews house was engulfed by flames and, according to FBI officials, exploded in "a huge fireball". Mathews had been wanted for the shooting of an FBI agent in Oregon two weeks before.[11]
Convictions
Ten members of the Order were tried and convicted under Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations Act (RICO) statutes with the help of the testimony of Frazier Glenn Miller, Jr., who testified against Order members in order to have his own sentence reduced. In a separate trial, three other members of the Order were tried and convicted of violating the civil rights of Alan Berg.[23] No one has been charged in the murder of Berg. David Lane, the getaway driver for Berg's assailants, was sentenced to 190 consecutive years on the charges of racketeering, conspiracy, and violating Berg's civil rights. He died in prison in 2007.[24] Order member Bruce Pierce was sentenced to 252 years in prison for his involvement in the Berg murder, and died of natural causes at the Allenwood Federal Correctional Complex on August 16, 2010 at the age of 56.[25] Like Mathews, Lane and Pierce are regarded by many white-supremacists as heroes, political prisoners, and martyrs.[citation needed] In another trial, 14 men were charged with sedition, conspiracy, and civil rights violations.[24] Thirteen of them were acquitted, and the judge dismissed the charges against the fourteenth man for lack of evidence.[24]
A 2011 NPR report claimed that some of the people associated with this group were imprisoned in a highly restrictive Communication Management Unit.[26] Richard Scutari, a member of the Order, was sentenced to a 60-year prison term in 1986,[27] and was transferred to USP Marion CMU in July 2008.
The Order II, which is also known as the Bruder Schweigen Strike Force II, was an attempt to perpetuate the activities of the first Order by David and Deborah Dorr, both of whom were previously members of the Aryan Nations, but their activities were confined to the state of Idaho.[39] The group launched its first attack on March 6, 1986, when it sent a packaged bomb to Gary Solomon, a local Jewish businessman who owned the Solomon Trucking company in Hayden Lake, Idaho.[40] No casualties resulted from the incident and it is unknown whether or not the explosion caused any property damage. The bomb was sent by David Dorr, the leader of Order II, a group that grew out of the original Order, which had previously collapsed. Order II (Bruder Schweigen Strike Force II) was also anti-government and antisemitic.[41][42]
On August 7 of the same year, a 12-inch tube bomb exploded at Fred Bower's auto repair shop in Hayden, Idaho, causing about $2,000 in damage.[40] No casualties resulted from the incident. The two perpetrators, David and Deborah Dorr, and an alleged third perpetrator, Edward W. Hawley, were members of the Bruder Schweigen Strike Force II.[43]
On September 16, 1986, an explosion was reported in front of the house of a Catholic priest who lived in the city of Coeur d'Alene, in Idaho. The explosion caused no injuries. It only caused property damage.[44][45] On September 29, 1986, his latest attack targeted a federal building, a telephone and luggage store, and a restaurant parking lot in Coeur d'Alene, without causing any injuries.[40]
The ATF and local, state and federal security forces collected evidence from the scene of the blast and executed a federal search warrant at Dorr's residence three days later. Special agents discovered a shelter that housed AR-15s converted to select-fire assault rifles in violation of federal firearms laws. 30 other firearms, large amounts of ammunition, and counterfeit money were also found.[46][47] They also discovered bomb-making components that were used in the September 29 explosion, as well as in previous bombings. The militants received federal sentences which ranged from 6 to 30 years and state sentences which ranged from 5 years to life in prison.[48][49][50]
See also
Atomwaffen Division, another far-right American neo-Nazi terrorist militia group
↑ The Denver PostArchived August 22, 2010, at the Wayback Machine , "Neo-Nazi gunman in Alan Berg's murder dies in prison," by Howard Pankratz (August 17, 2010 - retrieved on August 17, 2010).
Aryan Nations is a North American antisemitic, neo-Nazi and white supremacist hate group that was originally based in Kootenai County, Idaho, about 2+3⁄4 miles (4.4 km) north of the city of Hayden Lake. Richard Girnt Butler founded Aryan Nations in the 1970s.
William Luther Pierce III was an American neo-Nazi, white supremacist, and far-right political activist. For more than 30 years, he was one of the highest-profile individuals of the white nationalist movement. A physicist by profession, he was author of the novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter under the pen name Andrew Macdonald. The former has inspired multiple hate crimes including the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing. Pierce founded the white nationalist National Alliance, an organization which he led for almost 30 years.
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 depicts a violent revolution in the United States which leads 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. All groups opposed by the novel's protagonist, Earl Turner—including Jews, non-white people, "liberal actors," and politicians—are murdered en masse.
The National Alliance is a white supremacist, neo-Nazi political organization founded by William Luther Pierce in 1974 and based in Mill Point, West Virginia. Membership in 2002 was estimated at 2,500 with an annual income of $1 million. Membership declined after Pierce's death in 2002, and after a split in its ranks in 2005, became largely defunct.
The Fuerzas Armadas de Liberación Nacional was a Puerto Rican clandestine paramilitary organization that, through direct action, advocated independence for Puerto Rico. It carried out more than 130 bomb attacks in the United States between 1974 and 1983, including a 1975 bombing of the Fraunces Tavern in New York City that killed four people.
Robert Jay Mathews was an American neo-Nazi activist and the leader of The Order, an American white supremacist militant group. He was burned alive during a shootout with approximately 75 federal law enforcement agents who surrounded his house on Whidbey Island, near Freeland, Washington.
The Aryan Republican Army (ARA), also dubbed "The Midwest Bank bandits" by the FBI and law-enforcement, was a white nationalist terrorist gang which robbed 22 banks in the Midwest from 1994 to 1996. The bank robberies were spearheaded by Donna Langan. The gang, who had links to Neo-Nazism and white supremacism, were alleged to have conspired with convicted terrorist Timothy McVeigh in the months before the Oklahoma City bombing terrorist attack. Although it has never been proven, many theorists believe the ARA funneled robbery money to help fund the bombing as a direct response to the Waco and Ruby Ridge sieges.
Alan Harrison Berg was an American talk radio show host in Denver, Colorado. Born to a Jewish family, he had outspoken atheistic and liberal views and a confrontational interview style. Berg was assassinated by members of the white supremacist group The Order, which believed in killing all Jews and sending all black people back to Africa. Those involved in the killing were part of a group planning to kill prominent Jews such as Berg. Two of Berg's killers, David Lane and Bruce Pierce, were convicted on charges of federal civil rights violations for killing him. They were sentenced to 190 years and 252 years in prison, respectively.
The May 19th Communist Organization was a US-based far-left revolutionary group formed by members of the Weather Underground Organization. The group was originally known as the New York chapter of the Prairie Fire Organizing Committee (PFOC), an organization devoted to promoting the causes of the Weather Underground legally, as part of the Prairie Fire Manifesto's change in Weather Underground Organization strategy, which demanded both aboveground mass movements and clandestine organizations. The role of the clandestine organization would be to build the "consciousness of action" and prepare the way for the development of a people's militia. Concurrently, the role of the mass movement, the above-ground Prairie Fire Collective, would include the support for and the encouragement of armed action. Such an alliance would, according to Weather, "help create the 'sea' for the guerrillas to swim in." The M19CO name was derived from the birthdays of Ho Chi Minh and Malcolm X. The May 19 Communist Organization was active from 1978 to 1985. M19CO was a combination of the Black Liberation Army and the Weather Underground. It also included members of the Black Panthers, White Panthers, and the Republic of New Afrika (RNA).
The White Order of Thule was a loosely organized American society formed in the mid-1990s by federal prisoner Peter Georgacarakos, art school graduate Michael Lujan and New Age occultist Joseph Kerrick. It described itself as an "esoteric brotherhood working toward the revitalization of the Culture-Soul of the European people". The Southern Poverty Law Center has described it as a racist hate group based in Deer Park, Washington. The group ceased publication of their newsletter Crossing the Abyss and announced that they were disbanding in 2000.
In the United States, domestic terrorism is defined as terrorist acts that were carried out within the United States by U.S. citizens and/or U.S. permanent residents. As of 2021, the United States government considers white supremacists to be the top domestic terrorism threat.
Right-wing terrorism, hard right terrorism, extreme right terrorism or far-right terrorism is terrorism that is motivated by a variety of different right-wing and far-right ideologies. It can be motivated by Ultranationalism, neo-Nazism, anti-communism, neo-fascism, ecofascism, ethnonationalism, religious nationalism, anti-immigration, anti-semitism, anti-government sentiment, patriot movements, sovereign citizen beliefs, and occasionally, it can be motivated by opposition to abortion, and homophobia. Modern right-wing terrorism largely emerged in Western Europe in the 1970s, and after the Revolutions of 1989 and the dissolution of the Soviet Union in 1991, it emerged in Eastern Europe and Russia.
Betrayed is a 1988 American spy thriller film directed by Costa-Gavras, written by Joe Eszterhas, and starring Debra Winger and Tom Berenger. The plot is roughly based upon the terrorist activities of American neo-Nazi and white supremacist Robert Mathews and his group The Order.
In the United States, a common definition of terrorism is the systematic or threatened use of violence in order to create a general climate of fear to intimidate a population or government and thereby effect political, religious, or ideological change. This article serves as a list and a compilation of acts of terrorism, attempts to commit acts of terrorism, and other such items which pertain to terrorist activities which are engaged in by non-state actors or spies who are acting in the interests of state actors or persons who are acting without the approval of foreign governments within the domestic borders of the United States.
The Atomwaffen Division, also known as the National Socialist Resistance Front, was an international far-right extremist and neo-Nazi terrorist network. Formed in 2013 and based in the Southern United States, it expanded across the United States and it had also expanded into the United Kingdom, Argentina, Canada, Germany, the Baltic states, and other European countries. The group was described as a part of the alt-right by some journalists, but it rejected the label and it was considered extreme even within that movement. Atomwaffen was described as "one of the most violent neo-Nazi movements in the 21st century". It was listed as a hate group by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC), and it was also designated as a terrorist group by multiple governments, including the United Kingdom and Canada.
The Fort Smith sedition trial was a 1988 trial of fourteen white supremacists accused of plotting to overthrow the United States federal government and conspiring to assassinate federal officials. The fourteen defendants were acquitted after a two-month trial. One of the jurors later married one of the defendants, while another said they agreed with many of their views.
The Base is a white supremacist and neo-Nazi accelerationist paramilitary group and training network, formed in 2018 by Rinaldo Nazzaro. It is active in the United States, Canada, Australia, South Africa, and Europe, and designated as a terrorist organization in Canada, the United Kingdom, Australia, New Zealand, and the European Union.
The Order is a 2024 Canadian historical action crime thriller film directed by Justin Kurzel and written by Zach Baylin, based on the 1989 non-fiction book The Silent Brotherhood by Kevin Flynn and Gary Gerhardt. The film revolves around an FBI agent who goes after a white supremacist terrorist group known as the Order that was active in the United States in the 1980s. It stars Jude Law, Nicholas Hoult, Tye Sheridan, Jurnee Smollett, Alison Oliver, and Marc Maron.
Brotherhood of Murder is a 1999 television film based on the white supremacist group The Order, its founder Robert Jay Mathews, and the largest cash robbery in US history. The film centers around group member-turned-FBI-informant Tom Martinez and his involvement in the group.
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