SolarGeneral Proudly Presents...
...by Dr. Robert S. Griffin
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Pocahontas County, West Virginia, where William Pierce has lived since 1985, is a mountainous area in the southeast part of the state. There are trees everywhere in Pocahontas County : black walnut, hickory, oak, eastern poplar, apple, pear, red maple, sugar maple, and buckeye. Pocahontas County is shaped like a bowling pin tipped to the right and is about fifty miles from top to bottom and thirty miles across at its widest. Nine thousand people live in the county's nine hundred square miles. The county seat and largest town is Marlinton, with a population of eleven hundred. Pierce's land is at Mill Point (population fifty) in the center of the base of the “bowling pin.” His three hundred forty-six acres go up the side of Big Spruce Knob, which is between Black Mountain and Stony Center Mountain.
In a letter to me before I came to visit him that first time, Pierce had this to say about where he lived:
This area is off “the beaten path” in that it has no industry other than small farms, no transportation hubs, no transient population, and very little traffic, pollution, or crime. Although it is mountainous and very beautiful, the lack of tourist facilities other than a ski lodge in the northern part of the county leads to a blessedly small number of tourists and vacationers. With the exception of four or five non-Whites imported by criminally insane Christian groups, the population is entirely White and sparse. The early settlers were Scotch- Irish, German, Dutch, and English, and a handful of family names— McNeill, Sharp, Pritt— dominate the telephone directory. It is extremely conservative in resisting outside influences, although television and the churches (which, unfortunately, have great influence here) are doing their worst to bring the New World Order to Pocahontas County.1
In the fall of 1997, I went to meet Pierce and see where he lives. I flew into Roanoke, Virginia, rented a car, and set out on the two-and-one- half hour drive to Mill Point— a long way to drive, but Roanoke was the closest major airport. I got to Hillsboro, West Virginia (population one hundred eighty-eight) at about one p.m. Hillsboro is where Pierce picks up his mail and is about three miles from Mill Point. I was early— I had told Pierce I would be there at two— and hungry, so I stopped at the Country Roads Cafe in Hillsboro. Next to where I parked my car at the cafe was a weathered white metal sign with black lettering that said:
HILLSBORO
Here Gen. W. W. Averell camped before the Battle of Droop Mountain and after his raid to Salem, Virginia, in 1863. Settlements were made in the vicinity in the 1760s by John McNeel and the Kinnisons. Birthplace of Pearl Buck.
Pearl Buck is a Nobel Prize-winning author best known for her book set in China, The Good Earth.
The top price for an evening meal at the Country Roads Cafe was $5.45; I had a chicken salad sandwich for $2.85. After I finished eating, I drove the three miles up the road to Mill Point. I had the directions Pierce sent me, and I took the right turn off the state highway at the red brick house onto the dirt road as he had instructed me to do. I stopped the car for a moment and looked down the single lane dirt road that Pierce said I would take for about eight-tenths of a mile before I reached his property. On the sides of the road were unpainted wooden posts about four feet high and fifteen feet apart with barbed wire strung between them. On the right was tall grass for a hundred yards and then trees. On the left after about three hundred yards of grass the land rose into tree-covered knolls. About five hundred yards ahead, the dirt road turned to the right and I couldn't see where it went from there. There were no people or animals in sight.
“Well, here goes,” I said to myself, and set off down the road.
The dirt road was filled with bumps and ruts, and I probably wasn't going over three miles an hour as I navigated my rental car through what very quickly came to seem like an obstacle course. I tried to be careful, but I still scraped the bottom of the car a couple of times. Very soon, there wasn't any grass on my right; trees came up to the side of the road. To my relief, after about a quarter mile the road smoothed out. On my left I saw an old red barn, and next to it a silo, its white paint peeling. Around the barn and silo were twenty or so light brown miniature horses grazing. I thought back to when I was a kid and used to ride those kinds of ponies as I called them— I'm not sure what they are supposed to be called— at the carnivals that used to set up in a big vacant lot a block from where I lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota. I didn't see any people around, just the little horses.
As I drove along the dirt road, the trees began to close in on the left to match the trees on the right. Up ahead they were so close to the road on both sides that they joined together over the road and blocked out the sun. I felt as if I were driving into a dark tunnel. The canopy of trees lasted with a break now and then for about a quarter mile, and then the overhead trees receded and the sun shone again, and up ahead was the red gate Pierce told me would be there. The gate was about five feet tall and blocked the road. It had six pipes across and four up and down. Top center was a small black metal sign with white lettering that said NO TRESPASSING.
The gate was closed, but Pierce said it would be unlocked and that I should open it and drive onto the property. I stopped the car, got out, and opened the gate by swinging it back toward me. I wasn't familiar with the rental car I was driving, so after I got back into the car I looked down to see where the ignition key was and then turned on the engine. As I looked back up to see the road and go forward, a smiling, bearded, mountain-man face filled the open driver's side window. I was startled; I hadn't seen or heard anyone approach the car.
The mountain man, still smiling, asked me my name.
“Robert Griff—, Bob Griffin,” I answered. I have had this long-standing dilemma when introducing myself. Am I Robert or am I Bob?
“Dr. Pierce is expecting you. Go right up to the top of the hill and you'll see a place to park on the right.” I learned later that that had been Fred Streed.
I drove up a fairly steep incline on the dirt road for a couple hundred feet. As I neared the top, I saw a large building to my right. Straight ahead above me was a tall, slim figure standing alone in the parking area in front of the building. He waved his arm indicating that I should turn to the right and park facing the building. I did and got out of the car and stood next to the open driver's side door. The man, with a broad smile on his face, stepped forward and held out his hand and said, “I'm William Pierce. I've been waiting for you.”
Pierce looked to me to be around sixty years old. He is a couple inches taller than I am, which would make him about 6'3'' or so. He has a large head and graying and thinning conventionally cut hair parted on the left side. His hair was long enough so that it curled up in the back. He is a bit hunched, and his head nestles down into his shoulders and thrusts forward. What stood out to me about his face were his large forehead and mouth. His face is unlined, his nose is straight and unremarkable, and his small ears protrude some. His eyes were blue behind the thick lenses of the conservative plastic-framed glasses he had on.
That day, Pierce had on a jeans jacket over a dark blue T-shirt with a pocket in which he had what appeared to be a white index card. His faded blue jeans hung straight down in the back in the way they do with older men. He had on brown workboots. Around his waist was a pistol belt. A holstered weapon was on his right and more to the back than to the side. The weapon wasn't visible because he had pulled his T-shirt over it.
Pierce's basic appearance is long and lean, but when I shook hands with him I was taken by the size and strength of his hands and forearms which showed beneath his rolled-up jacket sleeves. His handshake was firm and confident. I had read that Pierce, as it was phrased, "doesn't have a very dynamic presence." That certainly wasn't the impression I was getting. He had the air of somebody important and as being the kind of person who very much fills up the space they are in.
“Come on in,” Pierce said, motioning with his left hand toward the building to my right. I turned and for the first time got a good look at the National Alliance headquarters building. It is two stories tall and perhaps sixty feet wide. It is covered by a beige-colored shell of steel with vertical grooves. In the center of the building are double doors of dark brown decorated with small yellow squares. There is a window on each side of the doors on the first floor which is matched by a similar window on the second floor. The first and second floor windows on each side are tied together by a window-wide darker brown band that runs from the top of the building to the ground. The roof is edged in dark brown and slightly sloped to handle precipitation.
The most prominent feature of the building is a ten-foot-high dark brown symbol attached to the building above the door. I couldn't tell whether it was made of metal or wood. It looks something like a Christian cross except that the crossbar is longer and instead of going straight across from nine o'clock to three o'clock, it is as if it were cut at the mid-point and the two pieces, still attached to the vertical bar, are pointed upward toward ten-thirty and one-thirty. I later learned that this is called a Life Rune and that it is the symbol for the National Alliance. I remember having an emotional charge that first time I took in this Life Rune image, so large and dominating. Especially in this setting, so removed from everywhere, it seemed alien, something out of Brave New World or 1984.
From where Pierce and I were standing, the headquarters building was about forty-five feet away at the end of a six-foot-wide pathway made of what appeared to be very carefully smoothed-down rocks set in cement. On either side of the walkway was neatly cut lawn. Trees encircled the sides and back of the building. The building and the greenery presented an attractive postcard-like picture on this cloudless fall day.
Pierce and I walked the pathway side-by-side and went through the double doors and entered a small vestibule. Just ahead to the left and right were offices, their doors open. Pierce pointed to the one on the left and said, “That's where Bob DeMarais works.” (He pronounced it De-Mars.) A middle-aged man with a mustache, evidently Bob DeMarais, looked up from his computer and waved hello. “Bob handles all the business affairs for the Alliance,” Pierce said. “I'll introduce him to you later.” I noticed that Pierce has a slight southern accent.
There was no one in the office on the right, and Pierce didn't say anything about it or its occupant. I learned later it was Ron McCosky's office. Ron works in the book distribution side of Pierce's operation, National Vanguard Books. Ron is from California and has worked in the past as a professional magician. He still performs magic at kids' birthday parties.
Straight ahead of us was a meeting room that looked as if it could accommodate seventy-five to one hundred people. It was quite dark in the room, as there were rooms on either side of it— Pierce's large library to the left and restrooms and storage rooms to the right— and thus no sunlight comes in. Scattered about the meeting room were six or eight folding chairs. About midway into the room next to the wall on the left was a piano. At the far end of the room was an eight- or ten-inch-high wood riser about eight feet square, and on it was a lectern. The Life Rune symbol is affixed to the lectern.
As Pierce and I left the meeting room and continued toward the back of the building, we passed stairs on the left that went to the second floor. I learned later that the second floor is the storage area for the books Pierce sells by mail order. Also on the second floor is a recording studio where he tapes his weekly radio program. As well, there is a small room where he has electronic gadgetry— his toys, as he calls them. Pierce has a Ph.D in physics, and this room is where he goes to get away from it all. One other thing on the second floor: a television set next to the back wall amid boxes of books. I believe it is the only one on the property. It turns out that Pierce and those around him are down on television, seeing it as a reality-distorting and mind-warping force in the hands of their adversaries. Pierce isn't about to get the cable, and the only station that reaches this remote area is an NBC affiliate— barely reaches, the picture is snowy and doesn't qualify as being in color. Pierce is a faithful watcher of the NBC evening news. As far as I know, that is the extent of his television viewing other than tapes friends and followers send him, and I don't believe anyone around him watches television at all.
After Pierce and I passed by the stairs leading to the second floor, we reached the back of the building. To the right was an office occupied by a woman seated at a desk in front of a computer. I didn't get a good look at her, and Pierce didn't introduce me. She wore glasses and appeared to be around forty, somewhere in that not young and not old middle part of life. I caught a glimpse of a large overhanging plant before I turned away.
To the left is Pierce's office. I went in first, and he went by me on the left on his way to taking a seat at his wooden desk which faces to the right. The first thing I noticed in the office was a cat sitting on the upright case of a computer on Pierce's desk. I assume the cat was there because it was warm. This arrangement propped the cat up high, so for me it was suddenly being eye-to-eye with an exotic-looking, smallish, very short- haired cat— a bluepoint Siamese, a breed I had never seen before. I had just met Hadley, Pierce's constant companion. Hadley rides on Pierce's shoulder when Pierce comes to the headquarters in the morning, usually around 8:30, stays with him all day, and rides on Pierce's shoulder when Pierce returns to his trailer at 9:00 or 9:30 at night.
Pierce's small office is packed to overflowing. Besides the computer, there is a copier and fax machine. Behind his desk is a bookcase stuffed with books. A row of chairs facing the desk stand against the wall, leaving a very narrow path to navigate between the chairs and the desk. Since Pierce was taking a seat behind his desk, I decided I should sit on one of the chairs, but they were piled high with boxes, books, magazines, papers, and videotapes. The same sort of pile was on a table on the wall opposite the door, shelves to Pierce's right as he sits at the desk, the desk itself, and the floor. Pierce may have sensed that I was somewhat taken aback by the disarray in his office, because right after he sat down and I pushed things aside on one of the chairs so I could sit down, he said, “I've got to do something about this office, clean it up. This has gotten out of hand.”
I didn't feel it was my place to say anything, so I didn't reply.
Pierce was settled in his desk, and I was in a chair in the corner to his left. We looked at each other and smiled.
“Can I get you a cup of tea?” he asked.
“That would be fine,” I replied.
Pierce rummaged around for a second and then said, “I have to go into the other room and get a tea bag,” and got up. As he walked around the desk to go out, the woman whom I had seen working in the office across the hall came in and told him an e-mail message had just come in. She talked about it briefly— I didn't pick up what she said— and handed it to him. At this point Pierce looked back at me and said, “This is Lynn Hill.” Then he said, “ Lynn, this is Bob Griffin. He's a professor from Vermont.”
Lynn shot the quickest of glances in my direction— I don't think she actually saw me— and offered a curt hello and went back to her business, which was standing beside Pierce, overseeing him it seemed, while he read the message she'd just given him.
Evelyn Hill— I never got to know her well enough to call her Lynn— is about 5'7'', has brown hair pulled back in a bun, wears business-like, dark-framed glasses, and may be about twenty pounds heavier than she would like to be. In contrast to Pierce in his T-shirt and jeans, Evelyn was dressed up that day in earrings, a white buttoned cotton blouse, and a blue skirt, which, I learned, is typical attire for her. Evelyn speaks loudly and has a forceful, no-nonsense, get-it-done manner. She reminds me of a strict, “old maid”— that was the term we used back then, it meant unmarried— teacher I had in elementary school who intimidated the heck out of me but whom I remember fondly because she taught me something. Evelyn has a doctorate in pharmacy and worked as a pharmacist— I believe in Washington state— before coming to work with Pierce in 1996.
In order to read the message Evelyn had given him, Pierce brought the paper up to about five inches from his eyes. He tipped his head back so that he was looking down at the paper, and his mouth dropped open as he read. It turns out that Pierce has very bad eyes.
Pierce finished reading the message and talked to Evelyn as he left the office on his way to getting the tea bag. I had the sense that it was a communication among equals, and that Pierce takes Evelyn seriously. My first impression of Evelyn, and it didn't change during the time I spent with Pierce, is that she will not lead the league in sociability, nor will she bother to try, but that she is highly capable and productive.
While Pierce was gone, it was just Hadley and me in Pierce's office. Hadley was lying stock still on his side with his head up and paying absolutely no attention to me. I glanced around the office. On the chair next to me was a copy of the magazine Criminal Politics. In the bookcase behind Pierce's desk were a lot of old books. There was one on the ancient Spartans, and I saw a couple by the nineteenth century German philosopher Friedrich Nietzsche, and there was Bartlett's Familiar Quotations and Black's Law Dictionary. On the wall was a traditional-style print, “The Old Mill” by John Constable. There was also a framed surveyor's map of the property. I noticed the land is in the name of the Cosmotheist Church, not Pierce's or the National Alliance's. I made a mental note to ask Pierce about this Cosmotheist Church. One other thing on the wall was a limited edition print of a drawing of a man and woman intertwined in a neo-classical pose. It was signed by the artist, Arno Breker. Breker was primarily known as a sculptor and was one of Adolf Hitler's favorites during the years of the Third Reich. Breker received a number of commissions during that time to sculpt human figures, some of them of massive size, to decorate German buildings and public places. Breker lived on into the early 1990s.
Pierce came back with the tea bag and brewed the tea, and we chatted for a couple of hours. Pierce is not given to small talk (“How was your flight down?” etc.). He gets right to it. He knew I am in the field of education and on a university faculty, and he wanted to talk about those areas. During the course of our conversation he made the point that it seemed to him that education at both the university level and at the elementary and secondary levels has been pretty much taken over by the multiculturalists and the feminists. He said that it was his impression that some of the most timid people anywhere were on university faculties. They might not like what is happening, Pierce said, but they don't have the courage to stand up to the gang that has gotten control of the place. They are cowed by the atmosphere of intimidation that exists in universities, he asserted.
As Pierce shared his views with me, his superior intelligence revealed itself. Working in a university, I have been around some very bright people. I think I know a good mind when I come into contact with one. It struck me that first day that they don't come any sharper mentally than Pierce is. Whether he is wise and decent is certainly open to question, and what he has done with the exceedingly fine mind he possesses is questionable. But whether Pierce has a top-of-the-line intellect is not open to question, at least as far as I am concerned.
Beyond Pierce's intelligence, three, in some ways contrasting, personal characteristics began to come through to me.
First, there is Pierce the Southern patrician. There is a gentility about Pierce. He is gracious, polite, formal, and reserved. He radiates a distinct hint of understated superiority. Pierce is not pushy about it— patricians aren't pushy— but he is a bit better than you are. As part of this patrician bearing, there is a 1940s quality to Pierce. I can imagine university professors in those years being as he is. In appearance and manner he reminds me a bit of newsreel footage I have seen of General George Marshall, the Chief of Staff of the United States Army during World War II and later Secretary of State. Pierce grew up in Virginia, and Marshall, although born in Pennsylvania, went to college in Virginia and lived there as an adult.
So there is this patrician quality about Pierce. But then again, in some ways he doesn't fit that category. For one thing, when I think of a patrician type, I imagine someone who is detached and rather grand, and someone who is overly considered and careful about everything. That isn't Pierce. Pierce tends to be down-to-earth and animated and very invested in what he is saying and doing. Also, he is often self-effacing, and I don't associate that with the Southern patrician persona. Plus there is a beer-commercial, one-of-the-guys quality about Pierce that co-exists with his reserved and somewhat removed manner. Pierce loves to tell stories, and he is light and humorous and whimsical as well as serious. And too, there is the tough, rough-edged side to Pierce that exists concurrently with the polite gentleman-farmer side of him. There is the Pierce whose family hit hard times after his father died and moved in with relatives in another state. There is the Pierce who had to fend for himself in a Lord of the Flies military school environment. There is the Pierce who had to learn from early-on to take care of himself in an indifferent and hostile world. There is the Pierce who once told me about being in the midst of a confrontation and just about to push someone through a fifth-floor window when the other person backed down. (This was in Washington, D.C. Pierce was distributing some of his political material, and a black man took objection and threatened him physically.)
And then there's the third thing about Pierce that I pick up when I am around him: a menacing quality. There is something unsettling about Pierce for me. There seems to be a pressure inside him, something brewing just beneath the surface, an anger perhaps. There is a hardness, a coldness, a potential for violence that I feel in him, and it makes me uneasy and uncomfortable. I can't be sure how much of this I am projecting onto him based on what I know of his writings and have come to learn about his life and how much of it is really there. But wherever it comes from, I experienced it from that first day on, and it is strong enough to prompt me to think when I am around him, “I wouldn't put anything past this guy.”
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