Just A Little Circle of Friends...
(Forty Years of Deception Still Alive and Well)
By Nicole Nichols
March 25, 2009
Old adages such as "Birds of a feather flock together, " or "You are judged by the company you keep" often have been proven to have exceptions, yet they still hold true in many situations and maybe more so in the White Supremacy Movement.
I have written countless articles chronicling the sleazy side of the neo-Nazi's in the United States and have often noted what appears to be a disproportionate propensity toward domestic violence, child abuse or neglect, adultery, promiscuity, and pornography. Additionally, I have frequently pointed out the lack of loyalty to each other among members of this group.
A few years ago, I started asking questions and pointing out what I believed to be some rather interesting relationships among a certain group of people, all operating together, to further an agenda of hate, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and genocide. As the years have passed, those relationships have become even more suspect in the mind of this writer. As is evidenced and well chronicled, the White Supremacy Movement has largely been factionalized for the last forty years. Yet there are many commonalities between the factions. Indeed, the ties often cross ideological lines and move into the realms of religion, revisionism, and politics. Because these groups pose a danger to the very fabric of American society, it behooves us to know where their support base is and who really finances racism, anti-Semitism, and bigotry in the United States and abroad. It is also important that the hypocrisy and deception of those leading the movement be explored and exposed to all who hold an interest in knowing the truth. In order to bring this all into perspective, a little history of these people must be told. As we move through the tawdry and violent world of hate we will demonstrate the true nature of those leaders from the past as well as those attempting to weave their way into the mainstream today.
In 1974, twenty-four-year old David Duke formed the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan and was running roughshod in Louisiana. Needing money for many of his white power endeavors, Duke published a book under the name of Dorothy Vanderbilt entitled "Finders Keepers." It was a women's self-help book giving advice on vaginal exercises, fellatio, and anal sex.
Also in 1974, he had married Chloe Hardin with whom he had two children. Chloe was active in Duke's Klan group but after ten years together, Hardin divorced Duke and moved to Florida where she met and married one of David's Klan buddies, Don Black who is now the Stormfront guru.
As a teen, Duke began communicating with Dr. William Luther Pierce, founder of the infamous National Alliance and author of the "Turner Diaries." For many years the Alliance was considered the largest and most formidable hate group in America. It spawned numerous future leaders of racist and anti-Semitic groups nationwide.
David Duke was somewhat of an anomaly within the movement at that time. With his proclamation that he was going to change the face of the Klan, he was able to recruit others such as Louis Beam, Don Black, and Tom Metzger into this radicalization from sheets to suits.
While Duke believed in the rhetoric he was spewing, he was unable to control his own ego and appetites. He had found a way to appease his own need for recognition and his penchant for a lavish lifestyle - he became a professional racist - a con man.
Membership lists are the lifeblood of white supremacist organizations. These rosters are necessary to building, maintaining and financing their groups and their activities. Because of the unsavory nature of the beliefs and the endeavors of such groups, members generally prefer to remain anonymous and they rely upon the leaders to maintain their privacy.
Duke knew the importance of these lists and he set out to build his own database of like-minded people and potential contributors - by any means necessary.
Now, Duke wasn't above unscrupulous behaviors. After all, he had expenses to meet and an agenda. In 1972, he was arrested for pocketing $500 in contributions that were meant for the campaign coffers of George Wallace so stealing and selling membership lists was no big deal. Stealing the membership from the National Alliance was easy.
By the latter half of the 1970's, his womanizing had become legendary. The Rev. Johnny Lee Clary, former Kluxer and bodyguard to Duke turned anti-racist, related to one reporter how Duke would wave the Bible around preaching Christian values and then take a members' wife to bed.
Never mind that Duke was the married father of two, Tom Metzger, a long-time racist leader, spoke of how Duke would arrive at various events and begin hitting on women. "We used to tell people, 'When Duke comes to town make sure your wife is safely locked up and don't let him near your daughter,'" said Metzger.
John Maginnis, author of "Cross to Bear," a profile of David Duke, recounted the story of a legislative aide who had lunch with Duke. "He started explaining to me that blonde, blue-eyed, Scandinavian looking people were God's chosen people, that they were made in his image. He said that God didn't want to dilute this perfection so we should only mate with others of our kind. He then asked me if I wanted to mate with him. It was the weirdest come-on line I've ever heard."
One of Duke's former girlfriends, Lori Eden, a swimsuit and lingerie model who owned and operated her own adult website, claimed that at one point in their relationship she believed herself to be pregnant. Duke, who is a strong pro-life advocate, offered to take her to Paris where they could get the "abortion pill" which was not legal in this country. According to Eden, Duke said he had been through this kind of thing before and feared that the publicity would ruin him politically.
David Duke didn't work. He ran his political campaigns, the proceeds of which he lived off of. He duped his supporters into believing that their contributions were helping him save the white race. And he lived large - nose job, chin implant, houses, babe on each arm, limos to the casinos and money to burn - other people's money. According to those close enough to know, a typical day for Duke would find him sleeping late, checking the mail for money, playing golf, going to the gym, and then heading for the casino at night.
Eventually, it all caught up with him, however. In 2003, Duke was sentenced to a short stint in federal prison for raising funds under false pretenses (mail fraud) and lying on his tax forms.
Vince Breeding - real name, Bruce Alan Breeding - was Duke's right hand man for a number of years. To those who knew of his background this should have seemed like a strange union - at least on the surface. While Duke favored the clean-cut image with impeccable dress and spouted Christian values, Breeding was playing guitar in a black metal band called Acheron that was Satanic to the core. The leader of the group was Vincent Crowley, reported an ordained "priest" in Anton LaVey's Church of Satan. He moonlighted in a striptease club in the Tampa Bay area.
In 1994, Breeding joined Dr. Pierce's National Alliance and became very active in promulgating their message of racism and anti-Semitism. He produced an underground radio show out of Tampa on which he broadcast Dr. Pierce's American Dissident Voices 24/7. When his radio signal began to interfere with the broadcasts of other local radio stations, citizens in the area started to complain to which he often responded with threats of violence and promises to never cease. Eventually, he was shut down.
Vince Breeding was certainly no Mr. Nice Guy. His associations alone were cause for many to raise their eyebrows and keep him at arms length. The Southern Poverty Law Center reports that during 1997, while Breeding was organizing events featuring Holocaust denier David Irving and the chameleonic David Duke he was sharing an apartment with Todd Vanbiber, another member of Pierce's National Alliance.
In January of 1996, Vanbiber and friend, Brian Pickett, robbed the Barnett Bank in Tampa. A month later they robbed the New Milford Savings and Loan in Danbury, Conn. After the Danbury robbery they paid Dr. Pierce a visit where they donated $1000.00 of their booty to the cause and purchased $700.00 in books from the Alliance.
In April of 1997, as he was assembling an 8-inch pipe bomb, capped at both ends, it blew up in Vanbiber's face causing serious injury. When the ATF searched his storage unit, they found several weapons, ammunition, and munitions manufacturing guides.
According to the authorities, "fourteen bombs were to be placed along two major routes in the Florida tourist capital: Interstate 4, the major access highway to Walt Disney World, and U.S. Highway 441."
Several of the bombs had already been fully assembled. Some had been prepared with timing devices, batteries, timers, and clocks. They had initially planned the bombing for April 19, the second anniversary of the Oklahoma City Bombing before a change in plans.
While Breeding was not officially implicated in his roommate's bombing escapade, he was busily setting up websites to further the National Alliance's bid for new recruits.
As Breeding maintained his membership in the National Alliance and worked dilligently to bolster their rank and file, his relationship with David Duke began to blossom. In 1999, Breeding launched the Nationalist News Service which operated out of Don Black's internet group, Stormfront.
The National Alliance was big and becoming bigger. Their Resistance Records enterprise was becoming a cash cow for the N.A. and Dr. Pierce, and the envy of other hate groups around the world. When Vince Breeding stole the mailing list of the white power music organization, his relationship with Dr. Pierce was severed instantly. We can only speculate as to who enticed Breeding into such an act.
Once he had burned that bridge he and the membership list traveled to Louisiana where he moved in with Duke and became his lackey. Actually, they suited each other quite well. Both had a penchant for money and life in the fast lane. Both were unprincipled. And both had honed their ability to con and scam their way through life.
After numerous name changes, Duke's organization settled on being known as the European American Unity and Rights Organization or EURO. Breeding, using the name of Vince Edwards, ran Duke's website and enhanced Duke's presence on the web. Both maintained their ties with Duke's other acolyte, Don Black, who had already built an amazing white power base on the internet.
Shortly after David Duke was sentenced to 15 months in prison, in 2003, a bombshell was dropped on the white nationalist community when it was revealed that Vince Breeding, a.k.a. Vince Edwards, a.k.a. Bruce Allen Breeding, was also "Vince the Munkay" who was anything but a white supremacist.
Vince the "Munkay" traipsed around at a party in sunglasses and a furry, floor length coat proclaiming, "You will learn to respect the dark powers of the Munkay," while promoting his "Xsite" magazine and website.
Both the rag and the site advertised "Ebony Escorts" as well as mother-daughter sex acts, and gay, lesbian and bisexual dating services.
As Breeding's alter-ego, "The Munkay" came to light one could only wonder how much about all of this was known to Pierce, Duke, Black, et.al. They knew. To think otherwise is inconceivable denial.
During Duke's incarceration, Don Black managed to keep him at the forefront with his Stormfront website. Periodic updates were always available as well as nauseating lamentations about the unjust system that kept him from his followers.
Black grew up during a time of civil unrest and turmoil in this country and he chose to become a movement in his own right. During his high school years he decided that his high school was the perfect place to recruit others into his efforts to save the white race from what was surely to be its extinction. He began by handing out flyers and newspapers containing information on the dire straits of his people. Of course, school administrators determined that this was unacceptable and banned all political propaganda from school grounds.
This was a challenge to Black. He knew he had to get creative so he garnered a mailing list of students and began sending his message through the mail. By the time he was a Junior, he had set his eye on the political machine. He knew where he was going. Politics - that's where he could do the most good to keep his beloved South and his country to stay segregated along racial lines.
J.D. Stoner, a staunch segregationist and leader of the National States' Rights Party was running for Governor of Georgia and Don Black decided to help in his campaign.
Now, Black was in training in the National Socialist Youth Movement which was a branch of the National Socialist White People's Party. For those unfamiliar, the NSWPP had been formerly called the American Nazi Party until George Lincoln Rockwell changed the name shortly before his assassination.
Robert Lloyd was the second in command of the NSWPP and, by many accounts, he had been Rockwell's pick as his successor over the current leader at the time, Matt Koehl. (Koehl now heads up a neo-Nazi outfit known as "The New Order." He was also a member of Stoner's National States' Rights Party). It's important to note that Robert Lloyd and William Luther Pierce were tight and rumor has it that Lloyd and Pierce broke into the safe of Rockwell and destroyed his political testament.
Knowing that they had a young, eager-beaver in the Stoner campaign, Robert Lloyd instructed Don Black to steal the membership list of the National States' Rights Party from Stoners' office, no doubt assuring him that such a deed would ingratiate him to the powers that be. Black was only too happy to accommodate.
What the 16-year-old didn't plan on was the vehemence with which Stoners' followers protected his files. As Don was lifting the roster out of the office, he was met with a .38- caliber hollow point to the chest. The gun was fired by Jerry Ray, brother of James Earl Ray. Jerry Ray beat the charges by claiming that he believed Black to be reaching for a weapon and fired in self-defense. Of course, it didn't help that Black was is in the process of committing a serious crime.
After college, Don Black hooked up with David Duke and began helping in the recruitment process as well as in Duke's political campaigns. The charlatanistic Duke schooled the young man in his beliefs that supremacy should be promoted as nationalism and that sheets should be traded for suits. The public persona was, of course, to always be quite different than the private.
In 1981, Don Black, along with nine other white supremacists tried their hands at becoming mercenaries. They were caught in the middle of trying to execute a planned coup that they dubbed "Operation Red Dog." The men were to leave out of a New Orleans marina and stage an offensive take-over of the small island of Dominica. They would do this with eight machine guns, ten shotguns, five rifles, ten handguns, ten pounds of dynamite, 5,496 rounds of ammunition, and a large Nazi flag.
When arrested, they were charged with "seeking to create a drug, gambling, and offshore banking empire on the island republic." Black made the following statement before being sentenced to three years in prison for violation of the U.S. Neutrality Act:
"What we were doing was in the best interest of the United States and its security in the hemisphere and we feel betrayed by our government."
Our federal prisons' rehabilitation services were made available to Mr. Black during his time there and he certainly put them to use. In some ways, you could say that that those services created a monster. Black immersed himself in computer programming classes and upon his release he knew he had a future.
First, he ran for a U.S. Senate seat - quite unsuccessfully. He also married the former Chole Duke - David Duke's ex-wife.
Black started experimenting with the internet. He quickly realized the potential the World Wide Web held for recruiting and networking with like-minded people the world over. The sheer anonymity that the net offered was compelling. His experimentation led to his creation of Stormfront in 1995. Stormfront has served as an umbrella and clearing house under which people from various hate groups and supremacy persuasions have been able to congregate, share information, and publish ideas for the last fourteen years. It has also served as a money-making enterprise for Don Black.
While Black left the Klan, he did not leave Duke or his organization. Quite the contrary. Through Stormfront, Black has provided a venue and a forum from which Duke can mentor and influence others in his endeavors.
It is important for the reader that we pause at this juncture and reflect upon a few pertinent truisms that might not be evident at this point. The three individuals profiled so far have some obvious commonalities.
All three have been extremely influential in the movement for decades. All three became involved in racist and anti-Semitic activities at a very young age. All three have made their livelihoods from the movement and illicit exploits. All three possess many of the same character flaws - amorality, criminal minds, and disloyalty. What may not be as evident is their recruitment and the influence of others sharing membership in certain groups.
Throughout the discussion thus far one name emerges time and time again - that of Dr. William Luther Pierce and his organization, the National Alliance. Accordingly, as is still the case today, cross-participation in various groups was not unheard of. As we progress through this look at our little circle of friends the reader is asked to keep in mind the names of certain individuals and organizations so as to be able to make the connections between them.
While names and acronyms such as the National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP) or the National States' Rights Party (NSRP) may be confusing or even alien to the reader, it is important to grasp the scope of the ties that one has to the other.
Regardless of how baseless or unfounded the beliefs of the racist right seem to mainstream Americans, the truth is that many of the followers deeply buy into the rhetoric spewed by the leaders of these organizations. As you have seen, so far, membership lists are among the coveted assets of these groups largely because of the financial benefits. But, hate, to people like Pierce and Duke and Black is also a business. It is their job - their way of making a living.
Book sales, white-power music sales, speaking engagements, and member donations all help them to line the pockets of their organizations and themselves. But, there's more...much more. Political ties and palm-greasings are important and very necessary as well as friends in very high places.
As we move on to a few other note-worthy individuals, please note the not-so-complex web of companions that has suckered in the unsuspecting and the implications for the future that such pernicious bedfellows holds for all of us.
To Be Continued...
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