February 1992: White Supremacist Calls for ‘Leaderless Resistance,’ Concept Employed by ‘Patriot Movement’

A young Louis Beam, dressed in his Ku Klux Klan regalia. [Source: Edit International (.com)]In a number of venues, including “The Seditionist” magazine and an Illinois publication called “The War Eagle: A Voice and Forum for Revolutionary Pan-Aryanism,” white supremacist Louis Beam calls for “leaderless resistance,” or cells of fighters who report to no one. Beam writes that the idea originated in the early 1960s as part of preparations for a Communist takeover of the United States; he has adapted it to the idea of resisting what he calls the threat of “federal tyranny” and the federal government’s “ever increasing persecution and oppression.” Beam writes that the usual “pyramidal” scheme of organization, “with the mass at the bottom and the leader at the top,” is “not only useless, but extremely dangerous for the participants when it is utilized in a resistance movement against state tyranny.… In the pyramid type of organization, an infiltrator can destroy anything which is beneath his level of infiltration and often those above him as well. If the traitor has infiltrated at the top, then the entire organization from the top down is compromised and may be traduced at will.” Beam recommends the independent “cell system” of organization, and cites two examples: the Revolutionary War-era “Sons of Liberty” and the more recent use of “cells” by Communist infiltrators in the US. Beam writes that if the cell system is adopted without the top layer of leadership—leaderless “phantom cells”—this can thwart government efforts to infiltrate and monitor the groups. Every cell must have the same fundamental ideology and agenda, Beam writes, and then can be trusted to operate independently, taking actions that further the cause of the larger group without top-down direction. He concludes: “America is quickly moving into a long dark night of police state tyranny, where the rights now accepted by most as being inalienable will disappear. Let the coming night be filled with a thousand points of resistance. Like the fog which forms when conditions are right and disappears when they are not, so must the resistance to tyranny be.” Beam’s idea will be used by many in the so-called “Patriot Movement.” The “Patriot Movement” is later defined by founder John Wallace and by the Southern Poverty Law Center (SPLC) as a loose confederation of anti-government organizations, groups, and individuals who believe that the US government is illegally infringing on citizens’ liberties. The “Patriot Movement” is largely comprised of right-wing, separatist, and white supremacist organizations, groups, and individuals. [The Seditionist, 2/1992; New York Times, 7/5/1995; Southern Poverty Law Center, 6/2001; John Wallace, 2007]