HISTORY OF THE NATIONAL ALLIANCE

The National Alliance was organized in February 1974. Many of its first members came from another organization, the National Youth Alliance, which had been founded in 1970 in Virginia by Dr. William Pierce, a young physics professor who left a career of teaching and research at Oregon State University to devote himself to the service of his people.

Although the ideologies of the two organizations were identical, membership in the National Youth Alliance had been restricted to persons under 30 years of age, and that group focused its activities on college and university campuses. Thus, the formation of the National Alliance effected a broadening of the appeal of the National Youth Alliance to include White persons of all ages and occupations.

Because the early l970's were a politically and socially turbulent period, during which Jews and others -- sometimes under the guise of opposition to the Vietnam war -- were organizing violent demonstrations in the streets of America's cities and calling for the destruction of White society, the National Youth Alliance took a militant, confrontational stance in opposition to this destructive activity. The name of the group's first periodical, the tabloid ATTACK!, reflected this stance. During this early period the National Youth Alliance organized many public activities, including street demonstrations with placards and banners denouncing not only the communists, Jews, and other avowed enemies of White America but also the government which tolerated and even encouraged them.

Unfortunately, the scale of the National Youth Alliance's public activities was too small to make a significant impact on current events, government policies, or the public's consciousness. These activities also did not lead to much increase in organizational strength: many of the people who were attracted to the National Youth Alliance by the publicity its activities generated had only shallow, short-term motivations.

As Dr. Pierce and his co-workers came to appreciate more fully the magnitude and the time scale of the task facing them, their approach became more fundamental. By the time the National Alliance was formed in 1974 the programmatic emphasis had shifted from a superficial confrontation with the enemies of our people to the building of the necessary organizational foundation for a final victory over those enemies. Simultaneously the emphasis in recruiting shifted from quantity to quality. In April 1978 the name of the National Alliance's periodical changed from ATTACK! to National Vanguard. The red headlines and exhortations to action in the publication were replaced by sober analyses of the political, social, and racial situation and of the task facing our people.

This is not to say that the National Alliance softened or moderated its approach to the struggle; indeed, May 1978 saw the publication of the first edition of Dr. Pierce's first novel, The Turner Diaries, which had earlier been serialized in ATTACK! and which provoked a storm of reaction from the government and the controlled media. The more fundamental and longer-range program after this time nevertheless brought with it a more mature and serious public image for the National Alliance.

In 1978 a group of members who were especially interested in the religious or spiritual aspects of the National Alliance's work organized the Cosmotheist Community Church.

From 1978 the rate of membership growth also increased substantially for several years. By 1983, however, the stasis of the Reagan era had set in, and recruitment slowed. Throughout the remainder of the l980's there was a gradual decline in membership, and the National Office experienced great difficulty in recruiting staff members of the caliber needed to carry its work forward. In August 1985 the National Office moved from the Washington, DC, area to a rural, mountainous area in West Virginia.

The National Alliance published its second book in 1980, member William Simpson's Which Way Western Man?In the same year it issued the second edition of The Turner Diaries. In 1984 it published the reprint volume, The Best of ATTACK! and National Vanguard Tabloid.

In 1987 the National Alliance's publishing arm, National Vanguard Books, was reorganized as a separate entity. In 1989 Dr. Pierce's second novel, Hunter, was published. In 1991 member Randolph Calverhall's novel, Serpent's Walk, was published.

In 1991 National Vanguard Books began publishing audio cassettes. In December 1991 the National Alliance began broadcasting its message worldwide via shortwave radio with the weekly program American Dissident Voices. In 1992 a number of AM radio stations in the United States also began carrying American Dissident Voices.

In 1993 National Vanguard Books began using full-color comic books as a medium for reaching high school students with the National Alliance message. In the same year work began on a video studio in order to use the video medium for that message.

By 1989 the climate for recruitment began changing. In much larger numbers than before, White Americans began realizing that their country was headed over the brink to dissolution and ruin and that the politicians in Washington were unwilling and unable to avert disaster. People became much more responsive to the National Alliance's message. The membership stopped declining in mid-1989 and began increasing again. Membership doubled in 1990- 1991 and again in l992. Recruitment rates at the end of l992 were 30 times what they had been in early 1989.