SolarGeneral Proudly Presents...
...by Dr. Robert S. Griffin
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My month in West Virginia was up. I packed my car and said good-bye to Bob and then drove over to the headquarters building to say good-bye to Pierce. It was ten o'clock in the morning on a beautiful, mild summer day. Pierce was in his office, and I told him that I was about to leave and said that there is one last thing I wanted to talk to him about. The previous night I had thought about something he had said when he and I were discussing The Turner Diaries. "I remember asking you what you thought the first line of your obituary would be,” I said to Pierce. “I was trying to get at how tightly linked you are to the book in the public's mind, my point being that reference to The Turner Diaries would surely be in that first sentence of your obituary. Before answering my question you asked me whether I was referring to an obituary before or after the revolution. That's an interesting distinction. Let's say you do live beyond the revolution. What would you like the thrust of your obituary to be? I'm trying to get at how you would like to be remembered."
"I speculated some on that in The Turner Diaries," Pierce replied. “If you'll recall, the book takes place long after Turner's death. In the foreword of the book he is referred to as a martyr and hero of the revolution, as someone who's owed a great debt by the generation then alive. Turner and other members of the Organization made it possible for this generation to have a healthy world again. That's why I had it in there that Turner's name is inscribed on a Record of Martyrs, and that school children memorize the names on the Record. But that was all just daydreaming. I haven't thought about how my own obituary would read."
"But that does,” I said, “give me an idea of what you would like your legacy to be.”
"I think that everybody wants his life to have accomplished something of value,” Pierce continued. “Well, not everybody— a lot of people, I suppose, never think about it. But it does seem to me that a thoughtful man would want his life to have accomplished something of lasting value. If nothing else, most of us have enough vanity that we would like others to recognize that we have done something worthwhile with our lives.
"I have looked at my own motives for what I have done with my life some. One thing that has motivated me, I realize, is the fear of death, at least in a certain sense. It really depresses me to think of living for sixty- five, seventy, or eighty years and then— poof!— gone without a trace, nothing left, forever. The only way out of that situation I can think of is that something I was a part of while I was alive goes on after my death. I am talking about the race. And by race I mean more than a biological entity. There is also a spiritual, cultural, and historical entity that I feel a sense of identity with. I want that to continue. I think about all the great people in our history, and I don't want what they did to be wasted, lost. I feel a responsibility to them. I want our race memory— and our race itself— to exist a thousand years from now. I want people to know what Shakespeare and Plato wrote, and to admire the Greek sculptors, and to marvel at the music of Beethoven and Wagner, and to think about the people who maintained our racial continuity.
"It may seem subtle, intangible, but I think a sense of connection and responsibility to something bigger than yourself is the single most important thing in the development of a civilization. I think of the people who worked on the cathedrals in the thirteenth century. They knew these buildings were not going to be completed in their lifetimes, but they wanted to contribute to this great creation. It was more than a job for them, I believe. I believe this kind of motivation was more common in the past that it is now in our atomized society where people are interested in looking out for themselves, making money, being accepted, getting ahead in business, demonstrating to their father that they are worthwhile, or something like that. When this feeling of responsibility to a larger biological and cultural entity goes, I think the civilization, any civilization, is on the way out.
"I truly believe that my race, the white race, is in jeopardy. I'm not saying tomorrow or next year, but if you think in terms of a century or two (a blip in history, really— Shakespeare wrote four centuries ago) we are threatened. Especially in this country. I believe we need to re- establish a place for ourselves again, on this land, where we can breed true once again, and live our way once again. I want to contribute to that. I don't want to be a man who marches in step and can't face being accused of being a racist or harboring racist or anti-Semitic attitudes, or being unwilling to pay a personal price for doing what I think is right. I want to be more independent than that and more courageous than that.
"I would love to be around a thousand years from now but I won't be, so I accept the next best thing: that is the possibility that my people will remember the little bit that I contributed to their salvation during a critical period in our history. Whatever anybody thinks about me now, I hope that future generations of my people will conclude that in my life's work I had them in mind.”
Pierce and I walked out to where my car was parked in front of the headquarters building. I thought about how this was the exact same spot where I had first met him a few months before. I thanked him for his hospitality and asked him to pass on my gratitude to Irena. He wished me a safe trip back to Vermont. We shook hands.
As I opened my car door and was getting into the car, Pierce called out, “I have to drive all the way to Lewisburg this afternoon to take my television set in to get it fixed.”
“It's beautiful up here," I responded, "but it sure is a problem if something goes wrong and you have to get something repaired or replaced.”
“That's for sure,” Pierce said.
I finished getting into the car, closed the door, put on the seatbelt, turned on the engine, and began to drive away. I waved good-bye to Pierce and he waved back.
After seventy or eighty feet down the dirt road, I stopped the car, paused a second, and then looked back up the hill, I guess to wave good- bye one last time— but Pierce had started back inside and was out of view.
When you move forward with all you have in you to accomplish something that truly matters to you— including the creation of a book of non- fiction—people are there to help; it is so gratifying and enriching the way that happens. Of the many people who supported this book, these deserve special mention: William Pierce, the subject of the book, cooperated fully and never once asked me to delete or change a thing. Bob DeMarais was a gracious and considerate host during my stay in West Virginia, as well as a superb resource for ideas and materials. “Irena” Pierce was so kind to me, even though her warning came too late to prevent the worst case of sunburn of my life. The University of Vermont reference and interlibrary loan personnel answered absolutely every question and tracked down absolutely every book and article. Ken Campbell provided insightful criticism of the manuscript. Keith Fulton gave me sound advice. Denis Ruiz edited the book with remarkable skill, and his insightful page-by-page commentary proved to be invaluable. Jacques de Spoelberch, my literary agent, believed in the book and me, which really meant a lot given a project that rang of so much controversy as this one did. And then there is Maxine Lee, who one day said, “I think you ought to write a book on William Pierce— have you thought of that?” No, up to that time, I hadn't thought of that. From the point of my decision to commit to this book through to its conclusion, Maxine was there rooting me on every step of the way.
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