Other Worlds: The Turner Diaries, Chapter 3

Chapter Three.Show more

September 21, 1991. Every muscle in my body aches. Yesterday
we spent 10 hours hiking, digging, and carrying loads of weapons
through the woods. This evening we moved all our supplies from
the old apartment to our new hideout.
It was a little before noon yesterday when we reached the turnoff
near Bellefonte and left the highway. We drove as close to our
cache as we could, but the old mining road we had used three years
earlier was blocked and impassable more than a mile short of the
point where we intended to park. The bank above the road
had collapsed, and it would have taken a bulldozer to clear the
way. (Note to the reader: Throughout his diaries Turner used so-
called "English units" of measurement, which were still in
common use in North America during the last years of the Old Era.
For the reader not familiar with these units, a "mile" was
1.6 kilometers, a "gallon" was 3.8 liters, a "foot" was .30 meter, a
"yard" was .91 meter, an "inch" was 2.5 centimeters, and a "pound"
was the weight of .4 kilograms-approximately.)
The consequence was that we had nearly a two-mile hike each
way instead of less than half a mile. And it took three round trips
to get everything to the car. We brought shovels, a rope, and a
couple of large canvas mail sacks (courtesy of the U.S. Postal
Service), but, as it turned out, these tools were woefully
inadequate for the task.
Hiking from the car to the cache with our shovels on our
shoulders was actually refreshing, after the long drive up from
Washington. The day was pleasantly cool, the autumn woods were
beautiful, and the old dirt road, though heavily overgrown,
provided easy walking most of the way.
Even digging down to the top of the oil drum (actually a 50-
gallon chemical drum with a removable lid) in which we had
sealed our weapons wasn't too bad.

The ground was fairly soft, and it took us less than an hour to excavate a five-foot-deep pit and tie
our rope to the handles which had been welded to the lid of the
drum.
Then our trouble began. The two of us tugged on the rope as hard
as we could, but the drum wouldn't budge an inch. It was as if it
had been set in concrete.
Although the full drum weighed nearly 400 pounds, two of us had
been able to lower it into the pit without undue difficulty three
years ago. At that time, of course, there had been several inches of
clearance all around it. Now the earth had settled and was packed
tightly against the metal.
We gave up trying to get the drum out of the hole and decided to
open it where it was. To do that we had to dig for nearly another
hour, enlarging the hole and clearing a few inches all around the
top of the drum so we could get our hands on the locking band
which secured the lid. Even so, l had to go into the hole headfirst,
with Henry holding my legs.
Although the outside of the drum had been painted with asphalt to
prevent corrosion, the locking lever itself was thoroughly rusted,
and I broke the only screwdriver we had trying to pry it loose.
Finally, after much pounding, I was able to pry the lever out from
the drum with the end of a shovel. With the locking band loosened,
however, the lid remained as tightly in place as ever, apparently
stuck to the drum by the asphalt coating we had applied.
Working upside down in the narrow hole was difficult and
exhausting. We had no tool satisfactory for wedging under the lip
of the lid and prying it up. Finally, almost in desperation, I once
again tied the rope to one of the handles on the lid. Henry and I
gave a hard tug, and the lid popped off!
Then it was just a matter of my going headfirst into the hole
again, supporting myself with one arm on the edge of the drum,
and passing the carefully wrapped bundles of weapons up past my
body so that Henry could reach them. Some of the larger bundles-
and that included six sealed tins of ammunition
were both too heavy and too bulky for this method and had to be hauled up by rope.

Needless to say, by the time we had the drum empty I was
completely pooped. My arms ached, my legs were unsteady, and
my clothing was drenched with perspiration. But we still had to
carry more than 300 pounds of munitions half a mile through dense
woods, uphill to the road, and then more than a mile back to the
car.
With proper pack frames to distribute the loads on our backs we
might have carried everything out in one trip. It could have been
done easily in two trips. But with only the awkward mail sacks,
which we had to carry in our arms, it took three excruciatingly
painful trips.
We had to stop every hundred yards or so and put our loads down
for a minute, and the last two trips were made in total darkness.
Anticipating a daylight operation, we hadn't even brought a
flashlight. If we don't do a better job of planning our operations in
the future, we have some rough times ahead!
On the way back to Washington we stopped at a small roadside
cafe near Hagerstown for sandwiches and coffee. There were about
a dozen people in the place, and the 11 o'clock news was just
beginning on the TV set behind the counter when we walked in. It
was a news broadcast I'll never forget.
The big story of the day was what the Organization had been up
to in Chicago. The System, it seems, had killed one of our people,
and in turn we had killed three of theirs and then engaged in a
spectacular - and successful - gunfight with the authorities. Nearly
the whole newscast was occupied in recounting these events.
We already knew from the papers that nine of our members had
been arrested in Chicago last week, and apparently they had had a
rough time in the Cook County Jail, where one of them had died. It
was impossible to be sure exactly what had happened from what
the TV announcer said, but if the System had behaved true to form
the authorities had stuck our people individually into cells full of
Blacks and then shut their eyes and ears to what ensued.

That has long been the System's extra-legal way of punishing our
people when they can't pin anything on them that will "stick" in the
courts. It's a more ghastly and dreadful punishment than anything
which ever took place in a medieval torture chamber or in the
cellars of the KGB. And they can get away with it because the
news media usually won't even admit that it happens. After all, if
you're trying to convince the public that the races are really equal,
how can you admit that it's worse to be locked in a cell full of
Black criminals than in a cell full of White ones?
Anyway, the day after our man-the newscaster said his name was
Carl Hodges, someone I've not heard of before-was killed, the
Chicago Organization fulfilled a promise they'd made more than a
year ago, in the event one of our people was ever seriously hurt in
a Chicago jail. They ambushed the Cook County sheriff outside his
home and blew his head off with a shotgun. They left a note pinned
to his body which read: "This is for Carl Hodges."
That was last Saturday night. On Sunday the System was up in
arms. The sheriff of Cook County had been a political bigwig, a
front-rank shabbos goy, and they were really raising hell.
Although they broadcast the news only to the Chicago area on
Sunday, they trotted out several pillars of the community there to
denounce the assassination and the Organization in special TV
appearances. One of the spokesmen was a "responsible
conservative," and another was the head of the Chicago Jewish
community. All of them described the Organization as a "gang of
racist bigots" and called on "all right-thinking Chicagoans" to
cooperate with the political police in apprehending the "racists"
who had killed the sheriff.
Well, early this morning the responsible conservative lost both his
legs and suffered severe internal injuries when a bomb wired to the
ignition of his car exploded. The Jewish spokesman was even less
fortunate. Someone walked up to him while he was waiting for an
elevator in the lobby of his office building, pulled a hatchet from
under his coat, cleaved the good Jew's head from crown to
shoulder blades, then disappeared in the rush-hour crowd.

The Organization immediately claimed responsibility for both acts.
After that, it really hit the fan. The governor of Illinois ordered
National Guard troops into Chicago to help local police and FBI
agents hunt for Organization members. Thousands of persons were
being stopped on Chicago streets today and asked to prove their
identity. The System's paranoia is really showing.
This afternoon three men were cornered in a small apartment
building in Cicero. The whole block was surrounded by troops,
while the trapped men shot it out with the police. TV crews were
all over the place, anxious not to miss the kill.
One of the men in the apartment apparently had a sniper's rifle,
because two Black cops more than a block away were picked off
before it was realized that Blacks were being singled out as targets
and uniformed White cops were not being shot at. This White
immunity apparently was not extended to the plainclothes political
police, however, because an FBI agent was killed by a burst of
sub-machine-gun fire from the apartment when he momentarily
exposed himself to hurl a teargas grenade through a window.
We watched breathlessly as this action was shown on the TV
screen, but the real climax came for us when the apartment was
stormed and found empty. A quick room-by-room search of the
building also failed to turn up the gunmen.
Disappointment at this outcome was evident in the TV newsman's
voice, but a man sitting at the other end of the counter from us
whistled and clapped when it was announced that the "racists" had
apparently slipped away. The waitress smiled at this, and it seemed
clear to us that, while there certainly was no unanimous approval
for the Organization's actions in Chicago, neither was there
unanimous disapproval.
Almost as if the System anticipated this reaction to the
afternoon's events, the news scene switched to Washington, where
the attorney general of the United States had called a special news
conference. The attorney general announced to the nation that the
Federal government was throwing all its police agencies into the
effort to root out the Organization.

He described us as "depraved, racist criminals" who were motivated solely by hatred and who
wanted to "undo all the progress toward true equality" which had
been made by the System in recent years.
All citizens were warned to be alert and to assist the government
in breaking up the "racist conspiracy." Anyone observing any
suspicious action, especially on the part of a stranger, was to report
it immediately to the nearest FBI office or Human Relations
Council.
And then he said something very indiscreet, which really betrayed
how worried the System is. He stated that any citizen found to be
concealing information about us or offering us any comfort or
assistance "would be dealt with severely." Those were his very
words-the sort of thing one might expect to hear in the Soviet
Union, but which would ring harshly on most American ears,
despite the best propaganda efforts of the media to justify it.
All the risks taken by our people in Chicago were more than
rewarded by provoking the attorney general into such a
psychological blunder. This incident also proves the value of
keeping the System off balance with surprise attacks. If the System
had kept its cool and thought more carefully about a response to
our Chicago actions, it not only would have avoided a blunder
which will bring us hundreds of new recruits, but it would
probably have figured a way to win much wider public support for
its fight against us.
The news program concluded with an announcement that an
hour-long "special" on the "racist conspiracy" would be broadcast
Tuesday night (i.e., tonight). We've just finished watching that
"special," and it was a real hatchet job, full of errors and outright
invention and not very convincing, we all felt. But one thing is
certain: the media blackout is over. Chicago has given the
Organization instant celebrity status, and we must certainly be the
number-one topic of conversation everywhere in the nation.

As last night's TV news ended, Henry and I choked down the last
of our meal and stumbled outside. I was filled with emotions:
excitement, elation over the success of our people in Chicago,
nervousness about being one of the targets of a nationwide
manhunt, and chagrin that none of our units in the Washington area
had shown the initiative of our Chicago units.
I was itching to do something, and the first thing that occurred to
me was to try to make some sort of contact with the fellow in the
cafe who had seemed sympathetic to us. I wanted to take some
leaflets from our car and put one under the windshield wiper of
every vehicle in the parking lot.
Henry, who always keeps a cool head, emphatically vetoed the
idea. As we sat in the car he explained that it was sheer folly to risk
calling any attention whatever to ourselves until we had completed
our present mission of safely delivering our load of weapons to our
unit. Furthermore, he reminded me, it would be a breach of
Organization discipline for a member of an underground unit to
engage in any direct recruiting activity, however minimal. That
function has been relegated to the "legal" units.
The underground units consist of members who are known to the
authorities and have been marked for arrest. Their function is to
destroy the System through direct action.
The "legal" units consist of members not presently known to the
System. (Indeed, it would be impossible to prove that most of them
are members. In this we have taken a page from the communists'
book.) Their role is to provide us with intelligence, funding, legal
defense, and other support.
Whenever an "illegal" spots a potential recruit, he is supposed to
turn the information over to a "legal," who will approach the
prospect and sound him out. The "legals" are also supposed to
handle all the low-risk propaganda activity, such as leafleting.
Strictly speaking, we should not even have had any Organization
leaflets with us.

We waited until the man who had applauded the escape of our
members in Chicago came out and got in a pickup truck. We drove
by him and noted his license number as we pulled out of the lot.
When the network is established, the information will go to the
proper person for a follow-up.
When we arrived back at the apartment, George and Katherine
were as excited as Henry and 1. They had also seen the TV
newscast. Despite the exertions of the day, I could no more sleep
than they, and we all piled back in the car, George and Katherine
sharing the back seat with part of our greasy cargo, and went to an
all-night drive-in. We could stay in the car and talk safely there
without arousing suspicion, and that's what we did-until the early-
morning hours.
One thing we decided was that we would move immediately to
new quarters George and Katherine located yesterday. The old
apartment just wasn't satisfactory. The walls were so thin that we
had to whisper to one another to avoid being overheard by our
neighbors. And I'm sure that our irregular hours had already caused
the neighbors to speculate on just what we do for a living. With the
System warning everyone to report suspicious-looking strangers, it
had become downright dangerous to us to remain in a place with so
little privacy.
The new place is much better in every way except the rent. We
have a whole building to ourselves. It is actually a cement-block
commercial building which once housed a small machine shop in a
single, garage-like room downstairs, with offices and a storeroom
upstairs.
The place has been condemned, because it lies on the right-of-
way for a new access road to the highway which has been in the
planning stages for the last four years. Like all government
projects these days, this one is also bogged down-probably
permanently. Although hundreds of thousands of men are being
paid to build new highways, none are actually being built.

In the last five years most of the roads in the country have deteriorated
badly, and, although one always sees repair crews standing around,
nothing ever seems to get fixed.
The government hasn't even gotten around to actually purchasing
the land it has condemned for the new highway, leaving the
property owners holding the bag. Legally, the owner of this
building isn't supposed to rent it, but he evidently has an
arrangement with someone in city hall. The advantage for us is that
there is no official record of the occupancy of the building- no
social security numbers for the police, no county building
inspectors or fire marshals coming around to check. George just
has to take $600-in cash-to the owner once a month.
George thinks the owner, a wrinkled old Armenian with a heavy
accent, is convinced we intend to use the place for manufacturing
illegal drugs or storing stolen goods and doesn't want to know the
details. I suppose that's good, because it means he won't be
snooping around.
The place really looks like hell on the outside. It's surrounded on
three sides by a sagging, rusty chain-link fence. The grounds are
littered with discarded water heaters, stripped-down engine blocks,
and rusting junk of every description. The concrete parking area in
front is broken and black with old crankcase oil.
There is a huge sign across the front of the building which has
come loose at one end. It says: "Welding and Machining, J.T.
Smith & Sons." Half the window panes on the ground floor are
missing, but all the ground-floor windows are boarded up on the
inside anyway.
The neighborhood is a thoroughly grubby light manufacturing
area. Next door to us is a small trucking company garage and
warehouse. Trucks are coming and going at all hours of the night,
which means the cops will not have their suspicions aroused if they
see us driving in this area at odd hours.
So, having decided to make the move, we did it today. Since there
was no electricity, water, or gas in the new place, it was my job to
solve the heating, lighting, and plumbing problems while the
others moved our things.

Restoring the water was easy, as soon as I had located the water
meter and gotten the lid off. After turning the water on I dragged
some heavy junk over the meter lid so no one from the water
company would be likely to find it, in case anyone ever came
looking.
The electric problem was a good deal more difficult. There were
still lines up from the building to a power pole, but the current had
been shut off at the meter, which was on an outside wall. I had to
carefully knock a hole through the wall behind the meter, from the
inside, and then wire jumpers across the terminals. That took me
the better part of the day.
The rest of my day was occupied in carefully covering all the
chinks in the boards over the downstairs windows and in tacking
heavy cardboard over the upstairs windows, so no ray of light can
be seen from the building at night.
We still have no heat and no kitchen facilities beyond the hot-
plate we brought over from the other place. But at least the john
works now, and our living quarters are tolerably clean, if rather
bare. We can continue sleeping on the floor in our sleeping bags
for a while, and we'll buy a couple of electric heaters and some
other amenities in the next few days.