At first this article didn't bother me too much, but the more I thought about it the more agitated I became. I don't like feeling this way, but it wasn't my call.

To begin with, I do not disagree entirely with Mr. Hollyoak's ideas about Leaderless Resistance. But I don't think it was necessary, fair, accurate or in the best interest of the freedom movement to have written or printed this article.

As a member of the Order I couldn't help but take offense from these careless words. It is true, at least in my opinion, that the main idea of the Order was to "do things." When we began our year of living dangerously the right wing was in pretty bad shape. The enemy was all over us with harassments and prosecutions. Many of the propaganda mills did not know where the money was going to come from to do their job‹put out the next edition. Aryan Nations had just had an arsonist walk onto their property in the middle of the night to plant and detonate a bomb that caused considerable damage, and then brag openly about doing it...with impunity.

It is true that we did not make a study of guerrilla warfare before we did our thing. We could have spent our first years and our best energy doing so and wasted our time formulating some new "theory" of insurrection. We could have waited until we were absolutely sure we were doing the right thing, but then we would probably never have done anything, because I'm still not sure today we did the best thing we could.

We thought that what was needed was a spark--to ignite the tinder. That is what Bob Mathews was and exactly what he considered himself--a spark plug. It's no coincidence that Bob perished in the very fire he started, but he spent his life in the interests of his people. It was a life pretty well spent.

Mr. Hollyoak says that we began our struggle with the aim of making the northwestern states an Aryan homeland. There were some of the original nine who adopted that stance but it was far from unanimous. And he says that we wanted to start a fire and hoped for a grassroots movement to join in putting wood on it. I confess that at least I hoped for such a foolish thing, but again, that was a minority point of view.

The truth is that we had no common goal or common methods to achieve one. We were overwhelmed by the complexity and difficulty of what we'd undertaken. You won't hear us speak with pride of our efficiency, expertise or range of accomplishments. But none of us who came through the experience like men will ever lose the sense of accomplishment that comes from remembering that we did not let the lack of those things stop us from trying.

Frankly, "leaderless resistance" never really struck me as a general theory of warfare. I was never that impressed with it, but neither was I impressed with the US Army or the Sons of Liberty or the Mafia. Life is too complicated and full of surprises for any theory of conflict to be executed with precision or consistency. In the context of our struggle I think there's room for variety and, in the right circumstances, LR is probably the way to go. But that doesn't mean that the entire freedom movement should suddenly shift gears.

I don't have a copy of Louis Beam's tract on LR. I don't know if any concrete dogma about its operation or claims of its effectiveness were ever made. I would think that whether or not it is a "fallacy" would be closely related to such. It's success can only be measured by its adherents¹ accomplishments, which creates a problem because, in the best conditions, LR operations will not only be carried out in secret, but will be designed not to attract attention. We can not verify the effects of the system which intentionally avoids verification.

At any rate, if the destruction of the powers-that-be is the objective, and who will say that it is not, then we are all pretty much in the same boat--failures. That is, so far. But it is too early to call us failures and it is too early to call LR a failure. As far as I can see, it has never had enough disciples to be given a fair test. Imagine what the system would do if it had to deal with a thousand Eric Rudolphs, or twenty-five Orders. Imagine that they could each carry out one mission per month. I think this could be a life-threatening situation for the system.

Mr. Hollyoak's tack on the proletarian/bourgeois issue is reasonable. You certainly have to be more careful as you go down the social scale in regards to recruiting personnel. People are not equal and it is important to get the best quality personnel available. I agree with the undercurrent of Mr. Hollyoak's idea here: that there has been a misguided attempt, in some areas of the right wing, to glorify what cannot be called other than the underclasses. But it is not necessary to write off a large segment of the people, fine examples of which can be found in our movement.

Jean-Paul Sartre wrote a clever play, "Being and Nothingness", the main idea of which was the difficulty of an intellectual being a true revolutionary. The two features rarely combine in the same person because they are produced by such diverse backgrounds. But that is ok; we need them both.

Mr. Hollyoak then makes an incredible statement; he says that "organizations that prefer to recruit from the bourgeoisie, like the National Alliance, have so far been spared the embarrassment of 'loose cannons' in their ranks." Well, I can say that they are very lucky to have done so. We were not so lucky in the Order, chiefly because we had so many NA members, a number of whom were the main reason we had such noteworthy personnel problems. The name Tom Martinez may ring a bell. I could name some other NA members who acted like men. And I could name some who did not. I will only name one more member of the National Alliance--Bob Mathews, and no proletarian here. This was a bourgeois loose cannon of the first magnitude. How on earth did the NA escape this "embarrassment." Actually, we in the Order weren't embarrassed by him at all. And frankly I don't want to think about what I think about someone in the right wing who is embarrassed by Bob Mathews.

I also recall that the NA had no problem accepting financial assistance from us loose cannons. No problems with embarrassment here.

I don't know why Mr. Hollyoak and, by virtue of "vicarious liability," Mr. Pierce, thought it desirable to offend so many people just to debunk a theory that so few took seriously. One possibility is that they would like to see those involved in LR efforts switch to public organizations. A more likely reason, and a darker one, would be that "loose cannons" bring the heat on them. This is an understandable objection. After all, in a way, it is not fair to prosecute a part of a conflict in such a way that the blame and punishments for your acts are inflicted on others involved in the same conflict, on the same side. But this is an unavoidable aspect of guerrilla warfare of any kind. A number of common aphorisms pop into my head:

1. This is war.
2. You can not make an omelet without breaking eggs.
3. If you can not take the heat, get out of the kitchen.

As far as fighting this war goes, I do favor LR. But that is not unusual for me, I favor leaderless everything, as long as "leadership" means organization, centralization, authoritarian systems, men having authority to compel other men in anything other than an actual military emergency.

The last thing we need is another government to oppress us and that's exactly what we get, without exception, every time we get "organized." It is my opinion that the most difficult lesson we have to learn is about how harmful "organization" is.

The reason why so many in the freedom movement are frustrated with failure and sometimes lash out at others is not because of some particular strategy or tactics we have adopted, as a whole or in part. Our enemy is simply too strong right now. Our day has not come.

When our day does come, and it will, I do not think our success will have nearly so much to do with how well we were organized or how straight we shot as it will with how well we learned the lesson that we have to refuse their baubles and bangles. This enemy will never be in as much danger of military conquest as it will from being ignored to death.