Year of birth: 1938 Background: Former member of John Birch Society, Knights of the Ku Klux Klan Grand Dragon, Christian Identity minister White Aryan Resistance founded: 1983 Location: Fallbrook, California Publication: WAR - White Aryan Resistance Other media: Telephone hotline, radio, television, e-mail, videos, cartoons, stickers, Internet Outreach: Convicts, skinheads Ideology: Blend of white supremacy and Third Position Connections: Aryan Nations, Alex Curtis, The Order, World Church of the Creator Strategy: The "lone wolf" or "leaderless resistance" model of activism

When a visitor clicks on "Tom Metzger" on the White Aryan Resistance Web site, a rudimentary, intriguingly grandiose biographical sketch appears. Born in April 1938, he has six children (five of them girls) and nine grandchildren; his wife, Kathy, to whom he had been married for 28 years, died in 1992. He has worked for more than 30 years as an electronics technician. He was jailed for 45 days in 1982 for attending a cross lighting, and again 10 years later, this time with his son John, for violating hate speech laws in Canada. More broadly, the WAR site reports that Metzger has been involved in brawls, riots, negotiations with the Black Panthers and Louis Farrakhan, race discussions in Tokyo twice (1993 and 1999), half dozen assassination attempts [sic].…

Converted from minister to atheist, reborn from right-winger to racist, he has been subpoenaed to Grand Juries, IRS hearings, Treasury Department inquiries (racist message on back side of fake dollar bills), multiple F.B.I. interrogations ("I have nothing to say"), denounced by presidents, congressmen, politicians….

Above all he is 100% content with every battle he's engaged in.

In fact, Metzger's résumé spans the spectrum of right-wing extremism. An Indiana native and former army corporal, he moved to Southern California in 1961 to work in the electronics industry. During this time he joined the John Birch Society, but quickly became disillusioned with the organization because, as he later explained, "I soon found out you could not criticize the Jews."

By 1975, long after leaving the John Birch Society, Metzger found a better fit for his brand of anti-Semitism in the Knights of the Ku Klux Klan (KKK), founded by David Duke; he became Grand Dragon of the Klan for the state of California. During the same period, he was ordained as a minister in the Christian Identity movement by the New Christian Crusade Church's James K. Warner, who has also been associated with Duke.

While Grand Dragon, Metzger began to militarize his followers. In the summer of 1979, he organized a patrol of armed Klansmen to capture illegal Mexican immigrants along the United States-Mexican border south of Fallbrook, near San Diego. In response, then-Immigration Commissioner L.J. Castillo announced that citizens' arrests of this nature were impermissible and could be subject to criminal prosecution. Metzger's Klan also maintained an armed, uniformed "security" force - similar to that of Aryan Nations - which was repeatedly involved in violent clashes with police and anti-Klan demonstrators. Once such clash occurred in the spring of 1980, when Metzger led 30 armed Klansmen in a confrontation with anti-Klan demonstrators in Oceanside, California; seven people were injured in the street fighting that ensued.

That summer, Metzger's branch of the Knights of the KKK left Duke's organization to form the California Knights of the Ku Klux Klan. The move came at about the same time as David Duke's departure from the Knights of the KKK to form the ostensibly more respectable National Association for the Advancement of White People. Metzger and Duke had by this point become rivals, and each set his sights on political office. While Duke would enjoy nationwide publicity during his Louisiana campaigns at the end of the decade, Metzger attracted little public scrutiny in the fall of 1980 on his way to becoming the surprise winner, with 33,000 votes, in a California Democratic Congressional primary. The ex-Klan leader was disavowed by the Democratic party and lost the election to Representative Clair Burgener in the state's heavily Republican 45th Congressional District (Metzger received 35,107 votes to Burgener's 253,949). During his unsuccessful campaign, Metzger, who had recruited youngsters into the Klan, stated that he favored having marksmanship classes conducted in elementary and secondary schools to teach children how to use guns.

Even as Metzger bid for popular office, his California Klan also helped to promote Klan paramilitary activities by distributing handbooks of instruction in terrorism and guerrilla warfare, such as The Anarchist's Cookbook, published by his Klan's book service, the White Point Publishing Company.

Going Solo

Following the 1980 Congressional defeat, Metzger parted with the Klan and formed the White American Political Association to promote "prowhite" candidates for office. Regarding membership in the Association, its leader stated, "I wouldn't knowingly allow a Jew to belong. Judaism is a conspiracy against all races." The candidate most heavily supported by the new group was Metzger himself, who ran unsuccessfully in California's 1992 Democratic primary for U.S. Senate. He received 75,593 votes, or 2.8% of the total number of votes cast.

Metzger then abandoned mainstream politics altogether, and in 1983, WAPA became WAR, originally an acronym for White American Resistance, which soon came to stand for White Aryan Resistance, reflecting Metzger's increasingly explicit and violent rhetoric. His synthesis of totalitarian, revolutionary left- and right-wing ideas - often called the "Third Position" - resulted in some uncharacteristic opinions for an American white supremacist, including concern for the environment and an apparent contempt for capitalism. In the WAR platform, Metzger calls the right and left wings "the controlled arms on the same Frankenstein body. WAR is strictly racist. A house or a race divided cannot prosper. Healthy ideas of both left and right, along with totally new ideas, must form a growing united front." Metzger further explained in a 1998 interview with the Hammerskin Press that he sees Third Position as "very simple….We reject present international capitalism and international socialism and Marxism as evil threats to our European White race. Beyond that, Third Position adheres totally to the issue of race - all other issues, including economics, come after. There is also room for individual disagreement and dialogue within our associations on all issues except the race issue."

Waging Multi-Media War

During his years of activism, Metzger has been adept at using several kinds of media to spread his message, including the WAR - White Aryan Resistance monthly newspaper, radio and television shows and appearances, videos, books, stickers, cartoons, a telephone hotline, a Web site, and a weekly e-mail newsletter, Aryan Update.

WAR describes itself as "the most racist newspaper on earth." A typical issue consists of an editorial written by Metzger; letters to the editor; excerpts from Metzger's telephone and Internet messages; articles contributed by "associates" such as Sister Lisa Turner of the white supremacist World Church of the Creator and Albion Wolf of the White Dragon (many more contributions are printed anonymously); cartoons featuring grotesque caricatures of blacks, Jews, Hispanics and gays; and listings of audio and video tapes, books and racist stickers for sale. In each issue, Metzger publishes a full page of platform statements, delineating in brief WAR's stance on a host of issues, including race, environment, abortion, religion, international affairs, economics, women and gays.

The cartoons, however, most expressively represent Metzger's views. A sampling of captions conveys their tone:

On Jews: "Jews…they fret…they panic…they brood.…They feverishly examine their stool and look under the bed for Nazis.…They harbor perverse desires and foster chaos.…They fear and hate everything and everyone…even themselves. Avoid the neurotic, self-loathing Jew at all costs."

On blacks: : "Ever notice how niggers are always loaded down with tons of beepers and cell phones.…Why would a race that can't speak anything but unintelligible gibberish be so obsessed with communication devices?"

On the Holocaust: : "Who but the shameless, scurvy Jews could open a chain of exhibits coast to coast which showcase the misery and grisly death of 'beloved family members'…actually pimping the pain of their ancestors for a hefty admission fee!"

On the O. J. Simpson murder trial: : "Why was O.J. framed? It now seems obvious that O.J. Simpson's former wife, Nicole, was killed by Kosher butchers under rabbinical supervision making the traditional cut to the throat and chest so that they could reach in, grab her heart, and hand pump the blood out of her body….O.J. had served the international Jew conspiracy in a most powerful way, suggesting by phony example that racially mixed marriage and mongrelization could be a glamorous lifestyle for the elite….Could the Jews really have set the whole thing up, sacrificed one of their own Isaacs, framed their own boy O.J., and then sent their best shysters in to defend him? Why not? It sounds so Jewish."

In 1984, Metzger began supplementing WAR with a videotaped series he produced for cable television titled Race and Reason. : The program, centered around sympathetic interviews with hate group leaders and activists, has been aired on public-access channels in many cable markets across the country, including such major cities as Los Angeles, San Francisco, Atlanta, Memphis and Phoenix. Many of Metzger's followers placed the show on stations in their home communities; WAR claims it has been broadcast in as many as 49 markets in 13 states. Metzger even advocated that his associates voice protest against the show as a means of generating publicity. The collection of 150 half-hour episodes in circulation are available for purchase through WAR, as are other racist videos as well as audio tapes of Metzger's and other racists' radio appearances. Metzger has also appeared on nationally syndicated talk shows, often with his son John, as well as with neo- Nazi skinheads. His more notable appearances include a November 1988 episode of The Geraldo Rivera Show, during which the younger Metzger taunted an African-American activist with racial slurs, causing a brawl during which Rivera's nose was broken by a flying chair.

Metzger's use of media has been notable for its far-right ecumenicism. Race and Reason devoted broadcasts to the merits of a panoply of extremists, including Holocaust deniers, Aryan women's groups, the American Nazi Party, Christian Identity and the World Church of the Creator. He also joined forces with other white supremacists in 1984 to set up a computerized "bulletin board": although primitive by today's standards, the network provided announcements of upcoming Klan and neo-Nazi meetings and served as a sort of "electronic village square," as Metzger put it.

Moreover, he has often appeared personally on behalf of other extreme-right causes. After the 1985 conviction in Seattle of ten members of The Order on criminal racketeering charges - the white supremacist gang had engaged in murder and bombings - he seized the moment to declare, on the courthouse steps, that "They have given us ten martyrs. A new day is dawning for white people in this country." More recently, in June 1993, Metzger reportedly addressed a rally of 200 members of the New Black Panther Party in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, in an effort to make common cause over racial separatism and anti-Semitism (he had previously stated he would be willing to form an alliance with the Nation of Islam to promote separatism and share intelligence, mostly about "Jewish extremist organizations"). In January 1994, Metzger and his son also promoted their separatist agenda to followers in Japan. Finally, he has appeared in court in support of Aryan Nations leader Richard Butler and white supremacist Alex Curtis.

Enlisting the Skinheads

Metzger has been closely involved with the neo-Nazi skinhead movement since this racist subculture first filtered into the United States from Great Britain in the mid-1980s. The skinhead gangs of racist youths, sporting shaved heads and neo-Nazi insignia and preaching violence, were a natural match for WAR's agenda. In turn, WAR provided established racist networks for these young white power enthusiasts. As Metzger quickly recognized, "Skinheads are becoming part of our overall movement….We're talking about survival now. If blacks or anyone else gives them trouble, they will smash them."

Metzger's outreach to skinheads has largely been orchestrated by WAR Youth, also known as the Aryan Youth Movement. Because skinheads are generally young men, contacts have been made primarily by Metzger's son, John (b. 1967), though the father continues to make all significant decisions. The younger Metzger has also tried, with limited success, to establish White Student Unions on high school and college campuses to serve as forums for WAR's views and as recruiting grounds. In January 1985, the organization distributed several hundred thousand flyers through student mailboxes and lockers in California declaring the Nazi extermination of Jews to be a hoax.

Legal Troubles

On November 12, 1988, skinheads from the Portland Oregon group, East Side White Pride, attacked three Ethiopian immigrants with a baseball bat and steel-toed boots. One of the immigrants - Mulugeta Seraw - was killed. Investigation into the murder resulted in three convictions and revealed close connections between the skinhead gang and White Aryan Resistance.

Among the most critical of these links was a letter to the skinheads signed by Metzger, stating in part: "Soon you will meet Dave Mazzella, our national vice-president, who will be in Portland to teach you how we operate and to help you understand more about WAR…." In fact, Mazzella did instruct the gang - including how to attack people of color. He would later explain that "Tom Metzger said the only way to get respect from skinheads is to teach them how to commit violence against blacks, against Jews, Hispanics, any minority. The word will spread, and they'll know our group is one you can respect."

In the end, Mazzella was not charged in connection with the murder, and he later became a key witness in the lawsuit against Metzger brought by the Southern Poverty Law Center, along with the Anti-Defamation League, on behalf of the Seraw family. (Mazzella also contacted the Anti-Defamation League in an effort to formally renounce his racist beliefs along with his ties to the Metzgers). Mazzella revealed that while he had been a WAR member, he had cased ADL's Los Angeles regional office several times, planning to blow it up.

The jury ultimately awarded $12.5 million in damages to the Seraw family ($5 million from WAR; $3 million from Tom Metzger; $4 million from John Metzger; $500,000 from two of the murderers). Upheld on appeal in April 1993, the judgment was one of the largest civil verdicts of its kind in United States history. Metzger's assets - including his home - were seized to help compensate the Seraw family. (The damages may never be paid in full, but WAR's subsequent revenues have been accounted through the court, and a high percentage of its profits have gone toward paying the penalty.)

Additional legal troubles befell Metzger in late 1991, when he was accused and found guilty of misdemeanor charges of unlawful assembly for his role in a 1983 cross-burning incident in Los Angeles. Metzger's sentence was commuted after he served 46 days so that he could attend to his ailing wife, Kathleen, who died in March 1992. As a result of the conviction, Metzger was ordered not to leave the United States without permission. He left anyway and was deported from Canada in July 1992 after attempting to attend a rally of the right-wing Heritage Front organization in Toronto.

WAR was again sued in 1995, this time by the California Grocers Association, which won a restraining order against Metzger and his associates after more than 800 racist fliers were planted inside supermarket promotions and products throughout Southern California. As recently as February 2001, however, Metzger proposed that WAR subscribers conduct an overnight "global mass distribution," dropping copies of WAR on neighborhood doorsteps at 4 a.m. on April 20, Hitler's birthday. (Extremist groups such as the National Alliance and World Church of the Creator employ both the flier-stuffing and night-dropping tactics of propaganda distribution.)

Lone Wolf Theory

One of the most influential aspects of Metzger's right-wing activism has been his advocacy of the "lone wolf " or "leaderless resistance" model of extremism, which favors individual or small-cell underground activity, as opposed to above-ground membership organizations. The ongoing debate over which model is superior often makes its way onto the pages of extremist publications. In a September 1999 edition of his weekly Aryan Update e-mail newsletter, for example, Metzger printed a piece, allegedly contributed by an unknown e-mail source, titled "Advice for Lone Wolves." Its basic premise was the idea that since the "White mass movement" had completely failed for the past 30 years to produce any results, "it would appear that our only hope lies in large numbers of people acting individually or in very small groups" - an idea formulated by past neo-Nazi and Klan leader Louis Beam.

According to the lone wolf model, individual and cellular resistance leaves behind the fewest clues for law enforcement authorities, decreasing the chances that activists will end up getting caught. The Aryan Update article elaborates on specific guidelines to which lone wolves are urged to adhere: act alone and leave no evidence; do not commit robbery to obtain operating funds; act silently and anonymously; do not deface your body with identifiable tattoos; understand that you are expendable; and whatever happens, do not grovel. "If our race is going to die, at least let us die with dignity!" the writer concludes.

Metzger has commented that litigation intended to cripple fringe groups is actually driving them underground, where he believes activists can be more effective. "If you take away his gathering place, you won't know where they are going to be," he said, referring to Aryan Nations' Richard Butler, who lost his Idaho compound after being bankrupted by a $6.3 million civil judgment stemming from an attack by his security guards on two passers-by. Metzger notes also that he and Butler, both in substantial debt resulting from unfavorable verdicts, remain vocal as ever.

Leaderless resistance dovetails with Metzger's oft-expressed advice never to answer questions posed by law enforcement. The importance of silence under interrogation has been most forcefully expressed by Metzger's fellow Californian and lone wolf activist Alex Curtis, who also purveyed a monthly newsletter, Web site and e-mail updates until he was arrested in November 2000 on charges of conspiracy to violate civil rights by encouraging violence and attempting to intimidate three public figures.

In the summer of 2000, Curtis devoted a special edition of his Nationalist Observer to what are dubbed the "5 Words" - the racial revolutionary's recommended response to law enforcement questioning: "I Have Nothing To Say." Metzger contributed a column to the bulletin titled "Never Testify Before a Grand Jury," making his position emphatically clear: "The cardinal rule must be ruthlessly applied: ANY ONE WHO STAYS IN A GRAND JURY ROOM OVER 10 MINUTES MAXIMUM MUST BE DROPPED FROM YOUR ASSOCIATION. A few years ago, around seven of my associates were ordered to a federal grand jury in San Diego. Six took the 5th, one did not. That person was immediately blackballed and will never be allowed fellowship in our struggle again." Metzger has also posted a message on his Web site to this effect under the headline "Don't Talk to Cops" and often comments on the topic.

Although Metzger appeared in the courtroom, out of solidarity, during Curtis's plea hearing, he has criticized the younger man for not adhering strictly to the lone wolf standard - especially since Curtis ignored his own rule and cut a deal with prosecutors in March 2001, agreeing to plead guilty in exchange for a recommended three-year sentence. (Curtis, who could have been sentenced to 10 years, also agreed to apologize publicly to those he had harassed and to desist from extremist contact and activity during his sentence.) In a March 18, 2001, posting to an Internet forum, Metzger wrote, "There are those in the right wing and even the revolutionary struggle that will seize on the recent Curtis deal as proof Lone Wolf does not work. The opposite is true. If Alex Curtis had adhered to strict Lone Wolf methods he would never have been caught up in this web." Metzger believes Curtis caused his own problems by deviating from the lone wolf model the first time he was arrested a few years earlier, when he chose to plead guilty and receive probation. Metzger argued, "I told him at the time that he had made a big mistake, and that deal would give them the legal excuse to dog him in the future. From then on, he was being followed on a regular basis."