TODAY WE begin one of the most important audio book series of our new century — one which we believe will become more and more relevant as the century matures: Vanessa Neubauer’s reading of Professor Robert S. Griffin’s masterful biography of Dr. William Luther Pierce, The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds. This audio book will be published in weekly chapter installments on The American Mercury and will be available from the Mercury as a full-length audio book when the series is completed. (ILLUSTRATION: Dr. William L. Pierce and his wife in the 1990s)

On July 23, it will have been fifteen years ago that William Pierce died at the age of 68. A physicist by training, he was known as a White nationalist (founder of the National Alliance), novelist (author of the radical revolutionary novels The Turner Diaries and Hunter), editor and writer (the founder and first editor of National Vanguard magazine and author of Who We Are, a comprehensive history of European Man), and, perhaps most importantly, founder of a new religion which he called Cosmotheism.

In his final year of life, Dr. Pierce allowed Professor Robert S. Griffin of the University of Vermont — a man who was at the time in no way associated with Dr. Pierce’s activism, views, or philosophy — to live with him for an entire month, allowing Mr. Griffin to interview him at length, experience his daily tasks running the affairs of the National Alliance and producing his weekly radio show, meeting his co-workers, and giving him unprecedented access to almost every aspect of his life, something never done by any other journalist before.

The result was Professor Griffin’s book The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds, which was published in 2001. The book’s title was taken from Dr. Pierce’s favorite quote, an ancient Norse proverb that runs as follows: “Cattle die and kinsmen die, and so must one die oneself. But I know one thing that never dies: the fame of a dead man’s deeds.” Fame, as I and many others called the book for short, was perhaps the first Internet-published book to “go viral” and hit the bestseller lists. It’s an extraordinary portrait of an extraordinary man. Robert Griffin is also an extraordinary man; gifted and sensitive, insightful and observant, an interviewer with the talent of asking the most pointed and germane questions — and a writer with the rare skill of capturing the true essence, personality, and even soul of his subject.

Beginning as a skeptic toward Dr. Pierce’s views, Professor Griffin said “Pierce cooperated fully and never once asked me to delete or change a thing.” By the time his sojourn had ended on the wooded, mountainous Whites-only retreat in West Virginia that Pierce called “The Land,” Griffin was able to say “I found him the most fascinating human being I’ve ever been around my life. . . . He is a very honorable man of the highest character.”

This audio book is the only one authorized by the author, and incorporates Professor Griffin’s very latest revisions, which have not yet appeared in any print edition.

How did a teacher, a professor, a research physicist like William Pierce come to conclude that there is no more important — and no more moral — thing than ensuring the survival of the European race? Why did he reject the equalizing, leveling, democratic trends that have dominated the West for a hundred years or more? Why did he ultimately decide that Christianity was an aberration and a spiritual sickness, unworthy of  being the dominant religion of the West? Well, hit the play button and you’re about to find out, as you embark upon a journey of the mind and soul, and learn what Professor Griffin learned during William Pierce’s last year on Earth. Your life will never be the same.

This week we begin with the Introduction to The Fame of a Dead Man’s Deeds.

AS EVER, BUT ESPECIALLY in our present state of civilizational malaise, there is a need for figures with the power to inspire — men who in less confused and cynical times would have been unabashedly described as heroic. One such figure is Corporal John Alan Coey, a young soldier who has perhaps not yet fully received the tribute he deserves though he has been dead these past 37 years.

In March of 1972 Coey, a young American from Ohio, boarded a flight to white-ruled Rhodesia, a country then facing United Nations sanctions and very soon to find itself beleaguered by the forces of communist-backed black nationalism. Only a day prior to his departure Coey had graduated from Ohio State University with a degree in Forestry. He had also recently been released, at his own request, from the Marine Corps NROTC program he had nearly completed, thereby declining a hard-earned commission as an officer.

Coey’s motives for seeking to enlist in the Rhodesian Army rather than continue his service in the U.S. Marine Corps are probably more readily understandable in retrospect than they were at the time. Like many, he was repulsed by the emergence of the New Left on college campuses and saw nihilism clearly lurking behind its messages of free love and pacifism. Coey also concluded that the newly ascendant radical Left represented neither an authentic grassroots movement nor a bona fide countercultural alternative to the old liberal order. “The left wing has recognized the dehumanizing trends of industrial society,” he wrote, “but its activism to change society has been channeled by the real revolutionaries of Internationalism.”

Though a confirmed Cold Warrior, Coey was not a reflexive supporter of the Vietnam War. He discerned in the handling of that conflict, as well as that of the Korean War before it, the seeds of American overreach and eventual dissolution, a trend that seems to continue unabated today. As Coey’s older brother, Edward, would later write of American involvement in Vietnam, the American people had been given “The Choice Between False Alternatives,” made to choose “between a protracted no-win slaughter and a humiliating surrender.” The younger Coey did not believe this state of affairs could be attributed merely to incompetence or negligence on the part of those prosecuting the war either. The primary threat to the West, Coey concluded, was not Soviet or Chinese Communism but malevolent forces that emanated from within. Coey somewhat quaintly referred to these forces, which he considered more or less amenable to communism, simply as “the Conspiracy.”

While he was an apparent reader of Oswald Spengler and keenly aware of the depth of the civilizational crisis facing the West, Coey was not given to despair. He insisted those of European descent must struggle to the bitter end to save their inheritance, a deeply held conviction that determined his own choices. Coey well understood that “the fight for Western Civilization is not in the battlefield, but in the realm of the intellectual, spiritual, and psychological.” He lamented also “that under present conditions one cannot be a soldier without furthering the aims of the Internationalists, the liberals, the Council on Foreign Relations (CFR), the Zionists, or other alien groups.” Still, Coey longed above all else to do his part as a warrior in defense of what remained of his beloved civilization. Rhodesia, he believed, provided him the best and perhaps only opportunity to be of service in a worthy cause. Again, this is in spite of the fact that Coey already new the likely outcome:

“In the eyes of the mass media the black man can do nothing wrong and the white man can do nothing right, for even his sacrifices and help are discredited. The world cares nothing for Rhodesia, not even America, England, or the sister colonies. Rhodesia is to be sacrificed; they will not help Rhodesia. It has already been written off.”

Coey in Africa

Having successfully gained a position with the Rhodesian Special Air Service or SAS (an elite unit approximately equivalent to U.S. Army Special Forces), Coey attempted to communicate — perhaps imprudently — his concerns to the general public in a series of magazine articles and letters to newspapers in Rhodesia and South Africa. One article in particular, provocatively titled “The Myth of American Anti-Communism” and published in the Rhodesian Army journal Assegai, would land him in trouble with Rhodesian authorities despite, or perhaps because of, its appearance in an official publication. As a result, Coey was kicked out of the Rhodesian Army’s officer training program and eventually the SAS, placements he had received only after excelling at a grueling selection and training process. As Coey himself reflected:

“It was brought to my attention today that the article I submitted to Assegai magazine is considered ‘subversive,’ not because it is anti- Rhodesian or criticizes the State here, but because it ‘destroys misconceptions about America being pro-Western, and may lower morale if read by the general public.’ Although what I have written is true, it is feared that the public may not be able to stand the truth. The facts I have presented may make the article appear anti-American to those who do not yet understand how America is ruled by the CFR [Council on Foreign Relations] oligarchy, whose interest is total world power.”

Despite this and other setbacks, Coey would persist in his writing. Throughout his time in southern Africa he kept up an extensive correspondence as well as a journal which would eventually be published posthumously as a book. This book, A Martyr Speaks, would have undoubtedly proven an even more interesting historical document had not vast segments of Coey’s original journals been redacted by Rhodesian authorities following his death. Despite this censorship, Coey and what was left of his writings remained controversial enough that it would take his mother 13 years to find a willing publisher.

Though no longer being considered for a commission and forced to choose another unit to serve with, Coey would also persist in attempting to make a contribution militarily to Rhodesia. Even as he experienced moments of serious doubt and self-recrimination following his unceremonious expulsion from the SAS, Coey completed a medic course and transferred to the Rhodesian Light Infantry. There, despite resistance from some of his superiors, time and again he insisted on accompanying infantrymen into combat at great personal risk to himself, effectively introducing the role of combat medic into the Rhodesian Army:

“When I finish this tour of duty, I think that at least in this battalion [1st Battalion, The Rhodesian Light Infantry], which does the bulk of the fighting, that the medics will become like the Medical Corpsmen in the U.S. forces. I am the first of what are now called ‘Combat Medics’ here. There will be others; so I have accomplished something.”

Again though, Coey’s efforts were not always understood or appreciated. Some — though certainly not all — of his fellow foreign volunteers seem to have been merely adventurers or opportunists who did not share in his motivations or commitment. Among the Rhodesians, Coey’s older brother later wrote that the younger Coey “found some few Rhodesians awake, but generally…found a people too narrowly provincial to fully appreciate the worldwide implications of the savage attack being unleashed against their small country.” Coey himself wrote of the Rhodesians, for whom he came to have a special affection (indeed, he sought and was granted dual citizenship): “Most white Rhodesian families have been here for several generations and have nowhere else they can call home. They will stay and fight, I’m pleased to say. They understand their position racially and historically, but come short politically.”

An additional source of conflict for Coey — even with fellow believers — were his religious convictions. From a reading of his journals, it is evident that Coey’s faith was the primary source of his strength and allowed him to persevere where others often gave up. It also provided a source of comfort to him in his darkest moments — moments which were plentiful in combat in the African Bush. Many on the true Right have abandoned Christianity for a multitude of reasons, citing among other things its universalist pretensions and the tendency toward a dangerous and unhealthy cultural and racial self-effacement prevalent among contemporary Christians. Still, Coey possessed a vital and muscular understanding of the Faith similar to that which must have underlain much past Western dynamism. Coey, a Lutheran, attempted to share his belief with others through quiet example rather than a boorish evangelism and was dismayed at the errors into which many of his fellow Christians had fallen:

“I’ve been going to Baptist church services. The Gospel is preached there, but I have decided to go elsewhere because these Baptists are convinced that the Zionist takeover of Palestine is the fulfillment of Biblical prophecy. They believe that the Second Coming of Christ is near, and think that they have the Revelation figured out completely. They expect to be ‘raptured’ away from the coming terror to help Christ rule in the Millennium. I remind them of Christ’s words, ‘My kingdom is not of this world,’ and ”No man knoweth the hour when the Son of God shall come again.’ But they choose to ignore that. . . .”

Neither, of course, did Coey abide the paralytic sentimentality of liberal Christians:

“Last night I talked with a Christian man who is convinced that he must never resort to violence to defend himself or fight in any way, even for his life and liberty. He feels that communism should not be opposed by arms, and that the Second Coming of Christ will occur before they could take over the world. He believes that all governments, no matter how evil or corrupt, are ordained by God. Christianity for this man has destroyed his instinct for survival, his will to resist evil. If every Christian were to think this, we would be doomed.”

The Significance of Coey

Coey was only one of a number of foreign volunteers who came from a variety of countries to fight for the lost cause of Rhodesia. Likewise, he was only the first of a total of seven Americans who would eventually die there. Of these foreigners, however, Coey was probably the most driven by principle, as well as the one most successful at communicating to the general public his motives for joining the Rhodesian forces.

Admittedly, at times in his journals Coey comes across as a somewhat fanatical figure — albeit one who is never truly unlikable. Though he presents a fairly consistent worldview in his writings, it is also helpful to remember that Coey did not style himself as an intellectual but instead a man of action. He considered it necessary to complement his words with deeds, and his short life was lived as one of selfless sacrifice in defense of not only a country that he considered to be at the very frontier of the West — but of all peoples of European descent and their shared civilization. Coey, importantly, always sought to lead by example and never played the sectarian:

“…I am helping to unify the Europeans, simply by my presence and association with these people. For they are coming to realize that there is no important difference between Americans, White Africans, or Europeans. The accents, dialects, and languages are superficial; the customs, religion, styles of government, and thinking are the same. I believe that only when all European peoples are unified, can communism and the alien conspiracy be smashed.”

There would be no such triumph of course, either in Rhodesia or elsewhere. Perhaps it was for the best that Coey didn’t live to experience the heartbreak of witnessing his adopted homeland fade into history.

In the final analysis, it was the very things that drove Coey to excel as a soldier that led to his early demise. He was possessed of that fatal combination of youthful idealism and, what is rarer, the will and strength of character to actually put that idealism into practice. As his older brother Edward recalled, Revilo P. Oliver of the University of Illinois had written Coey a letter prior to his death in which Professor Oliver had lauded him for having made “‘…the Choice of Achilles.'” That is, Coey had opted to die with glory in combat rather than to live a long but unremarkable life. Then again, Coey may have simply been following the dictates of fate. “I feel that I have found my historical role here,” he wrote, “and, once that is finished, I don’t know what I will do. . . .”

The anticipated moment came swiftly and unexpectedly. On July 19, 1975, as he was descending into a dry river bed in an attempt to aid two fallen Rhodesian Light Infantry troopers, Coey was struck and killed by terrorist bullets. One wonders if it can really be only a strange coincidence that he was hit in the head and in the heel? Whatever the case may be, his shining example of total selflessness stands in marked contrast to the widespread moral corruption of the modern military of his native United States, a military whose senior leaders obediently serve the alien and transnational forces that Coey believed he was fighting.

Though he is decades gone now, Coey’s timeless words continue to resonate. Yet it is fearful to think that they might outlast the civilization to which they immediately pertain, and perhaps might only serve as a warning to some future people:

“The basis of race, culture, and nation is vital for the survival of Western Civilization. Blood and soil, conservation and nationalism are what make a country and civilization sound, strong, and healthy. But faith is needed, faith in our way of life, our civilization, and faith in a Higher Destiny and the Divine Sanction of God….

“This generation of the West must believe when there is apparently no hope; it must obey, even if it means death; and it must fight to the end, rather than submit. Against the Spirit of Heroism no material force can prevail. Nothing can defeat that except inner decadence.”

Ultmately, Coey’s significance probably resides in whatever ability his memory has to inspire. As Dr. Anthony P. DiPerna, a professor of African history, observed in a letter to the Coey family: “I do not think John’s sacrifice was in vain. There are many episodes in history where those who gave their lives in a losing cause served as an inspiration to others who eventually carried the banner to victory.”

If Coey could join us today, he would not lose hope over the rapid deterioration of Western societies that has occurred in the decades since his death. He would doubtlessly implore us to redouble our efforts at self-preservation, however modest or even futile we may believe our individual contributions to be.

* * *

Reference:

Coey, John Alan. (1988). A Martyr Speaks: Journal of the late John Alan Coey.
CPA Books.

Alan Sabrosky considers the characteristics that differentiate Jewish nationalism from other nationalisms, highlighting in particular its intrinsic extremism, its xenophobia, racism and militarism, its undermining of civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries and its propensity to hatred and racial exclusivity.

ISRAELI PRIME Minister Binyamin Netanyahu once remarked to a Likud gathering that “Israel is not like other countries”. Oddly enough for him, that time he was telling the truth, and nowhere is that more evident than with Jewish nationalism, whether or not one pins the “Zionist” label on it.

Nationalism in most countries and cultures can have both positive and negative aspects, unifying a people and sometimes leading them against their neighbours. Extremism can emerge, and often has, at least in part in almost every nationalist/independence movement I can recall (e.g. the French nationalist movement had The Terror, Kenya’s had the Mau Mau, etc.).

But whereas extremism in other nationalist movements is an aberration, extremism in Jewish nationalism is the norm, pitting Zionist Jews (secular or observant) against the goyim (everyone else), who are either possible predator or certain prey, if not both sequentially. This does not mean that all Jews or all Israelis feel and act this way, by any means. But it does mean that Israel today is what it cannot avoid being, and what it would be under any electable government (a point I’ll develop in another article).

The differences between Jewish nationalism (Zionism) and that of other countries and cultures here I think are fourfold:

1. Zionism is a real witches’ brew of xenophobia, racism, ultra-nationalism and militarism that places it way outside of a “mere” nationalist context – for example, when I was in Ireland (both parts) I saw no indication whatsoever that the Provisional Irish Republican Army or anyone else pressing for a united Ireland had a shred of design on shoving Protestants into camps or out of the country, although there may well have been a handful who thought that way – and goes far beyond the misery for others professed by the Nazis;

2. Zionism undermines civic loyalty among its adherents in other countries in a way that other nationalist movements (and even ultra-nationalist movements like Nazism) did not – e.g. a large majority of American Jews, including those who are not openly dual citizens, espouse a form of political bigamy called “dual loyalty” (to Israel and the US) that is every bit as dishonest as marital bigamy, attempts to finesse the precedence they give to Israel over the US (lots of Rahm Emanuels out there who served in the Israeli army but NOT in the US armed forces), and has absolutely no parallel in the sense of national or cultural identity espoused by any other definable ethnic or racial group in America – even the Nazi Bund in the US disappeared once Germany and the US went to war, with almost all of its members volunteering for the US armed forces;

3. The “enemy” of normal nationalist movements is the occupying power and perhaps its allies, and once independence is achieved, normal relations with the occupying power are truly the norm, but for Zionism almost everyone out there is an actual or potential enemy, differing only in proximity and placement on its very long list of enemies (which is now America’s target list); and

4. Almost all nationalist movements (including the irredentist and secessionist variants) intend to create an independent state from a population in place or to reunite a separated people (like the Sudeten Germans in the 1930s) – it is very rare for it to include the wholesale displacement of another indigenous population, which is far more common of successful colonialist movements as in the US – and perhaps a reason why most Americans wouldn’t care too much about what the Israelis are doing to the Palestinians even if they DID know about it, is because that is no different than what Europeans in North America did to the Indians/Native Americans here in a longer and more low-tech fashion.

The implications of this for Middle East peace prospects, and for other countries in thrall to their domestic Jewish lobbies or not, are chilling. The Book of Deuteronomy come to life in a state with a nuclear arsenal would be enough to give pause to anyone not bought or bribed into submission – which these days encompasses the US government, given Israel’s affinity for throwing crap into the face of the Obama administration and Obama’s visible affinity for accepting it with a smile, Bibi Netanyahu’s own “Uncle Tom” come to Washington.

The late General Moshe Dayan, who – Zionist or not – remains an honoured part of my own Pantheon of military heroes, allegedly observed that Israel’s security depended on its being viewed by others as a mad dog. He may have been correct. But he neglected to note that the preferred response of everyone else is to kill that mad dog before it can decide to go berserk and bite. It is an option worth considering.

Alan Sabrosky (PhD, University of Michigan) is a 10-year US Marine Corps veteran and a graduate of the US Army War College.