Ch. 4: The Funnel Cloud

Summary

American Shrapnel: The Funnel Cloud – A Detailed Summary

Podcast Information:

• Title: American Shrapnel
• Host/Authors: John Archibald and Becca Andrews, produced by Alabama Media Group
• Episode: Chapter 4: The Funnel Cloud
• Release Date: August 6, 2025

Overview: In "The Funnel Cloud," the fourth episode of American Shrapnel, hosts John Archibald and Becca Andrews delve deep into the rise and actions of Eric Robert Rudolph, the perpetrator behind a series of bombings in the mid-1990s. This episode meticulously traces Rudolph's journey into extremism, exploring the broader white supremacist movements that influenced him and the lasting impact of his actions on contemporary violence.

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1. Identifying Eric Rudolph (00:43 - 05:23)

The episode begins with an exploration of how law enforcement initially zeroed in on Eric Rudolph as the prime suspect responsible for multiple bombings. John Archibald narrates:

“As soon as the cops identified Eric Rudolph as the prime suspect in four bombings in Georgia and Alabama, they started talking to his family and to old friends...” [00:43]

Mary Harris adds context from the federal task force's reports:

“Rudolph's family moved to Missouri to join a militant Christian Identity preacher named Dan Gaiman who preached a whites only gospel.” [00:59]

Through interviews and archival research, the hosts highlight Rudolph's extreme beliefs and behaviors, painting a picture of a man deeply entrenched in anti-government and white supremacist ideologies.

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2. Radicalization and Extremist Ideology (05:00 - 09:30)

The narrative delves into Rudolph's descent into extremism, influenced heavily by figures like Dan Gaiman. Mary Harris comments on Rudolph's transformation:

“He killed innocent people because he leapt with both feet into white supremacist ideology.” [05:00]

Travis McAdam from the Southern Poverty Law Center explains the metaphor of the "funnel cloud":

“People are getting pulled into these movements for a lot of reasons... and the farther you go, the more you adopt conspiracy theories and ideology.” [03:35]

Rudolph's involvement with the Church of Israel and his exposure to anti-Semitic and violent doctrines are examined, shedding light on his motivations and radical actions.

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3. The Order’s Armored Car Robbery and Funding Extremist Groups (10:19 - 13:24)

The episode recounts the infamous July 19, 1984, armored car robbery by the white supremacist militia known as the Order. John Archibald narrates the heist:

“Twelve members of the white supremacist militia called the Order... overtook an armored Brinks truck loaded with cash.” [10:32]

Mary Harris introduces the financial aftermath:

“The bandits themselves got only 40 grand each... The rest, more than $3 million, went to extremist groups across the country.” [12:38]

The distribution of funds to various white supremacist factions, including Christian Identity groups and neo-Nazis, underscores the organized support network fueling extremist activities.

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4. Leaderless Resistance and Its Impact (25:07 - 27:48)

The concept of "leaderless resistance," pioneered by Wilhelm Boehm, is thoroughly explored. Mary Harris defines it:

“It was a way of having people imagine themselves as enemies of the state... without laying out the plans to do it.” [25:14]

John Archibald explains its strategic advantage:

“Leaderless resistance provided plausible deniability... it puts all the disinformation in today's crazy world in a new light.” [26:35]

This strategy allowed extremist ideologies to spread widely without direct coordination, significantly influencing individuals like Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh to carry out lone-wolf attacks inspired by broader movements.

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5. Parallels with Timothy McVeigh and the Oklahoma City Bombing (28:18 - 31:22)

Drawing parallels between Rudolph and Timothy McVeigh, the episode highlights shared backgrounds and motivations. John Archibald notes:

“They were both soldiers in the army, both rejected by Special Forces, both loved to rant about government overreach...” [28:38]

Rudolph's admiration for McVeigh and their mutual references to events like the Waco Siege emphasize a common ideological foundation:

“In his manifesto, Rudolph expressed contempt for so-called professional patriots who are all talk and no action.” [31:05]

This section illustrates how individual grievances and extremist ideologies can culminate in catastrophic violence.

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6. Rudolph’s Legacy and Modern Extremism (33:39 - 35:28)

The episode transitions to Rudolph's enduring influence on today's extremist communities. Rachel Fugardi from the Southern Poverty Law Center observes:

“His name has become a code and an action word... often used as a verb to encourage and discuss violence.” [33:39]

Carol Mason, a professor at the University of Kentucky, remarks on Rudolph's impact:

“If there were more Erics Rudolphs and more orders, you know, the system would really have a hard time.” [35:28]

This segment underscores how Rudolph's actions and ideology continue to inspire and mobilize contemporary hate groups.

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7. Conclusion: The Ongoing Storm (35:28 - End)

Closing the episode, the hosts reflect on the cyclical nature of extremism:

“Eric Rudolph is no longer just a guy who popped out the end of a funnel cloud. He helped seed the larger storm we find ourselves in today.” [35:28]

Mary Harris emphasizes the ongoing relevance of understanding such narratives:

“The anger that fueled it has only grown stronger today.” [Podcast Description]

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Key Takeaways:

• Eric Rudolph's Radicalization: Influenced by white supremacist leaders and extremist literature, Rudolph's descent into violence was gradual yet deeply rooted in broader ideological movements.

• Organized Extremist Networks: The Order's financial support of various white supremacist groups highlights the interconnectedness of extremist organizations and their capacity to fund violent actions.

• Leaderless Resistance Strategy: This tactic enabled extremists to spread their ideologies without centralized coordination, making it harder for authorities to track and prevent lone-wolf attacks.

• Enduring Legacy: Rudolph's actions continue to resonate within extremist circles, serving as both inspiration and a blueprint for future acts of domestic terrorism.

Notable Quotes:

• John Archibald: “That's a hell of a storm. And so was Eric Rudolph.” [04:55]

• Travis McAdam: “What starts to happen is they start to adopt all of these conspiracy theories and the ideology...” [03:35]

• Hubie Dodd (Defense Attorney): “Do I personally believe that he acted alone? No, I do not.” [05:37]

• Carol Mason: “If there were more Erics Rudolphs and more orders... the system would really have a hard time.” [35:28]

Conclusion:

"The Funnel Cloud" provides an exhaustive examination of Eric Rudolph's path to extremism, contextualizing his actions within a larger framework of white supremacist movements and strategies like leaderless resistance. By interweaving firsthand accounts, expert analyses, and historical context, American Shrapnel offers listeners a comprehensive understanding of how individual grievances can escalate into widespread violence, a phenomenon that remains tragically relevant today.

Transcript

[Mary Harris]

The election has come and gone. Now we're in a new era. It can be easy to get discouraged, frustrated, but you can't afford not to pay attention. You need trustworthy, independent journalism to cut through the noise and hold power to account. I'm Mary Harris, host of What Next from Slate.com we are a daily news podcast with a kind of transparent, smart yet tongue in cheek analysis you can only find at Slate. Follow and listen to what Next wherever you get your podcasts. This podcast contains some gruesome descriptions of violence. Listener discretion is advised.

[John Archibald]

As soon as the cops identified Eric Rudolph as the prime suspect in four bombings in Georgia and Alabama, they started talking to his family and to old friends, to teachers and soldiers and others they identified only as confidential informants.

[Mary Harris]

We know this from the federal task force's exhaustive report tucked away in the Birmingham Public Library's archives and recently made public. These people told the FBI how Rudolph's mob moved the family from North Carolina to Missouri when Eric was 18. They moved there to join a militant Christian Identity preacher named Dan Gaiman who preached a whites only gospel.

[John Archibald]

A lot of what they told agents seemed extreme at the time, if not surprising that Rudolph was prone to outbursts and was convinced the government was coming for his guns and ammo. One woman described how he stole an army rifle, an M something, she said, while logging illegally in the woods near his top to North Carolina home. He buried it in the ground, presumably for later use.

[Mary Harris]

They said Rudolph was anti vax, anti government, anti media, anti everything, depending on the day. He hated black people, Jewish people, women, anyone who told him what to do.

[John Archibald]

They also just told him some weird stories. One guy told the feds Rudolph started having sex before most boys learned long division. Others said he grew pot like they'd never seen gold in color and so potent he could sell it for twice the going rate.

[Mary Harris]

Others said Rudolph demanded two things from women be subservient and be fruitful.

[John Archibald]

A special agent asked one of Rudolph's former girlfriends, Vicki Hawkins, if he was part of the Christian Identity movement, but Hawkins told the agent she couldn't describe his rants word for word, so the agent read her a brief description of what Christian identity means.

[Mary Harris]

He said Christian identity is a belief system that maintains that Aryans represent the true chosen people of Yahweh, or God, while Jews represent the biological spawn of Satan. Identity adherents believe that Satan's minions include the federal government, the mass media, US banks, and homosexuals. Reckon what she said I know what she said.

[John Archibald]

She said, yeah, that sounds just like it.

[Mary Harris]

Hi, I'm Becca Andrews. This episode of American Shrapnel tells how Eric Rudolph was drawn into a violent world of extremism.

[John Archibald]

I'm John Archibald. It's also a story of how a lot of other people are sucked into the same kind of storm. This is Travis McAdam, who has studied militia movements at the Southern Poverty Law center, describing the vortex of that tornado.

[Travis McAdam]

So if you think of one of those way up in the clouds as it's forming, that's the big end of the funnel. And if you think about extremist movements, people are getting pulled into these movements for a lot of reasons. You know, they're scared that immigrants are going to take their jobs. They're scared the government's going to take away their guns. They're really, you know, into gun rights, property rights, whatever it is. Like, people can kind of come into that top end of the sphere for a lot of different reasons. Now, a lot of people hang out there for a while and then kind of spin back into their daily lives and take some of these ideas with them. But for people who start to go down into the funnel cloud, what starts to happen is they start to adopt all of these conspiracy theories and the ideology, and that's how they view the world. The farther in you go and the farther emerged you get, in all of this, what happens is out the other end pops A Timothy McVeigh. Pops. And Eric Rudolph, somebody who has absorbed all of that ideology, everything that goes with it is into that worldview and is like, oh, oh, we're. We're already in a war. Like, most people just don't understand, but we're already in a war, and I'm going to go out and do something based on all of these ideas.

[John Archibald]

That's a hell of a storm. And so was Eric Rudolph.

[Mary Harris]

A lot of people have tried to describe Rudolph as some kind of mythical being, a folk hero, a Moses figure, if a hateful one, a lone wolf. But he's not particularly special. He killed innocent people because he leapt with both feet into white supremacist ideology.

[John Archibald]

He didn't just pop up in a vacuum. He popped out of that funnel.

[Mary Harris]

And one question that has remained unanswered over the years is whether or not Rudolph acted alone. There are some, like Rudolph's defense attorneys, who are adamant that he had help. This is Birmingham defense attorney Hubie Dodd.

[Hubie Dodd]

Do I personally believe that he acted alone? No, I do not. There were influences around Eric, who certainly had the opportunity to offer him praise and acceptance for carrying out actions that they were unwilling or unable to do themselves. Was Eric capable of the logistics of the bombings alone? I believe so. But the choice of the Olympics seems odd to me because if a globalist agenda has never seemed to me to be his primary focus. But there are others, maybe in his life, who have spoken in the past more about a globalist agenda. So I've often wondered, and again, this is speculation on my part because he has been consistent, to my knowledge, at all times in saying that he acted alone. But I've often wondered if the choice of the first location of the bombing and the timing of the bombing, was it influenced by either a direct request or a desire to please someone else?

[John Archibald]

And Rudolph's prosecutors disagree. This is Atlanta prosecutor David Namius.

[Hubie Dodd]

Rudolph was clearly paranoid even of his very close family, people he'd known.

[John Archibald]

So the idea that he was out.

[Hubie Dodd]

You know, finding other people, I. I.

[John Archibald]

Think that's very far fetched.

[Mary Harris]

And after three years and dozens of interviews, we can't be sure whether he acted alone either. We know Rudolph stole 250 pounds of dynamite in North Carolina. We know he bombed the Olympics, bombed an abortion clinic, and bombed a lesbian nightclub in Atlanta, and then bombed an abortion clinic in Birmingham. For someone who grew up in the Nantahala Forest, he had a surprisingly thorough tactical knowledge of targets around the Southeast.

[John Archibald]

Did he pick those targets at random? Was he directed? How much help did he have? Diane Durgis swears he must have had some local help when he bombed her clinic in Birmingham.

[Mary Harris]

Of course he had help. No one wants to talk about all those people. And someone should have gone after those people. No one really knows but Rudolph, and he's not telling.

[Hubie Dodd]

It would be entirely consistent with Eric's view of the world for him to believe that as a marvel and a hero, it was his duty to take sole responsibility for this, whether or not he acted alone.

[John Archibald]

But there are a lot of threads that suggest Rudolph was part of something bigger, that he wasn't just acting alone. His brother Daniel told the FBI that Rudolph had gone to Idaho and Montana for six months in early 1996 to meet with white supremacist groups in like the Aryan nations, the Order, and Christian Identity leaders. Those meetings would have occurred just before Rudolph set off a bomb at the Atlanta Olympics.

[Mary Harris]

In his manifesto, Rudolph claimed that he had lied to his family. He'd never actually gone to the Pacific Northwest, and he camped out in the Appalachian mountains instead. So either he lied to his family or to the public.

[John Archibald]

Rudolf was a nomad. It started when he was Young, his mom moved them from Florida to North Carolina to Missouri and back to North Carolina. Rudolph lived in Kentucky during his time in the Army. He spent time in Nashville and Amsterdam and East Tennessee and western North Carolina.

[Mary Harris]

He claimed to represent an anti abortion extremist group called the army of God in a series of letters he wrote taking credit for the bombings. And he interacted with various hate groups and militias in North Carolina, Missouri, and beyond. But everyone who knows him says he hated authority and wasn't much of a joiner. But whether he made it official or not, Rudolph was part of a growing network of angry, disconnected men. Angry at the government, at their perceived place in the world, and at what Rudolph called the New World Order.

[John Archibald]

The truth, and the feds knew it at the time, is that to understand how somebody like Rudolph gets sucked into that funnel cloud of violence, you have to go all the way back to the early 1980s to a brazen armored car robbery on the other side of the country.

[Mary Harris]

You could go further than that, really. But why not start with the heist?

[John Archibald]

Now, in every revolution, someone has to.

[Mary Harris]

Fire the first shot.

[John Archibald]

Open the safe.

[Mary Harris]

Now.

[John Archibald]

Now. Let's go. It was July 19, 1984.

[Mary Harris]

Twelve members of the white supremacist militia called the Order, aka the Silent Brotherhood, drove two Ford trucks up a rise on Highway 20 in Northern California. North of the city of 10,000 Buddhas, a massive monastery.

[John Archibald]

You have to have somebody to blame for your life. The Brotherhood was an offshoot of the Aryan nations that had turned to bank robberies and heists as a way to change the fortunes of the growing white nationalist movement. On this California day, it was a little after noon when, according to the global terrorism database, 11 masked men with bandanas and a 12th dressed as a woman overtook an armored Brinks truck loaded with cash.

[Mary Harris]

There's a movie about it from 2024, aptly named the Order, starring Dude Law.

[John Archibald]

For six steps in that book, the heist itself was true Hollywood stuff. Tires screeching in broad daylight. An arsenal that included an uzi and a Mac 10 machine pistol, an AR15, and a bunch more. They shot out the tires on the armored car and held up a note. Get out or die.

[Mary Harris]

War has begun. They're drawing too much attention. The driver got out. Nobody died. Not there. The bandits tossed roofing nails on the road behind them to thwart any Busybodies. They grabbed $3.6 million. That's more than 8 million in today's money. And they got away.

[John Archibald]

I'm sure you get. Let's go.

[Mary Harris]

3.6 million. What is that by bys? An army?

[John Archibald]

It's happening. 10 of those robbers would be caught and convicted. The leader, Bob Matthews, would die in a fire after a shootout with cops. The 12th, William Soderquist, rolled over on his pals and disappeared into witness protection.

[Mary Harris]

But not before the Order started spreading that money around. The bandits themselves got only 40 grand each in wages. The rest, more than $3 million, went to extremist groups across the country.

[John Archibald]

The amounts came out in court testimony and author Kathleen Belew broke down the distribution of the money. Well, in her book Bring the War.

[Mary Harris]

Home, huge sums went to Christian identity groups with beliefs like Rudolph's. Hundreds of thousands went to Robert Miles, a Grand dragon in the Michigan KKK, who liked to be called Pastor Bob.

[John Archibald]

Money also went to neo Nazis in California. It went to the csa, not the Confederate States of America exactly, but the Covenant, the sword and the arm of the Lord. That's a white supremacist group in Arkansas that call for violent overthrow of the government.

[Mary Harris]

Government.

[John Archibald]

They got 100 grand. Other sums went to white power groups in Idaho, Virginia, Missouri and North Carolina.

[Mary Harris]

On WhatsApp, no one can see or hear your personal messages. Whether it's a voice call message or sending a password to WhatsApp, it's all just this. So whether you're sharing the streaming password in the family chat or trading those late night voice messages that could basically become a podcast, your personal messages stay between you, your friends and your family. No one else, not even us. WhatsApp message privately with everyone. It's Wednesday. Adams, I see you're trying to distract yourself from your own banal thoughts. Let me help. Here's a recording thing made of my latest root Canal Wednesday Season 2 is now playing only on Netflix.

[John Archibald]

Let's go back to a time before the Order stole all that money to the North Carolina Rudolph knew as a teenager.

[Mary Harris]

Something happened in North Carolina just before Rudolph's family moved there in 1981 that was central to the right wing militia movement and to the region's role in it.

[John Archibald]

The Greensboro Communist Workers Party held a Death to the Klan march and clashed with local militia and the KKK. Klansmen killed five people and injured 12. And an all white jury acquitted them all twice.

[Mary Harris]

The acquittal sent a message to people like Eric Rudolph. If you kill the right sorts of people for the right sorts of causes, your neighbors may not convict you. They might even consider you a hero.

[John Archibald]

Militias, constitutionally protected and held in the American psyche like Bunker Hill, took extremist views and recast them as the American way.

[Mary Harris]

White supremacists saw their path to the future. It wouldn't be about robes and hoods anymore, but patriotism, camo and khakis. They rebranded white supremacy.

[John Archibald]

These militias were just coming together and a lot of them were based in North Carolina when Rudolph's family came there.

[Mary Harris]

Rudolph's next door neighbor was Tom Branham, an anti government prepper who loved conspiracy theories.

[John Archibald]

Branham would introduce Rudolph to the local militia movement led by Nord Davis, a former IBM executive who became a leading figure in Christian identity. Davis moved to North Carolina in the 70s and started preaching a gospel of sleeper cells and guerrilla warfare.

[Mary Harris]

Davis and his followers stockpiled weapons and called for the deaths of abortion providers, gay people and so called race mixers.

[John Archibald]

Branham also gave Rudolph books like Imperium, a 1948 anti Semitic history that denied the existence of the Holocaust. The it was dedicated to Adolf Hitler.

[Mary Harris]

Rudolf, before he dropped out of school, wrote a paper in an American history class that denied the Holocaust ever existed.

[John Archibald]

Later he would handwrite letters to friends calling himself Adolf, Rudolph, King of the Mountains and Derfuhrer.

[Mary Harris]

Brandham also turned Rudolf on to the Turner Diaries, a dystopian novel published in 1978 by a Neo Nazi named William Luther Pierce. Pierce imagined a future where America had fallen into a race war. He wrote that patriots would take up arms against the feds in a decentralized bombing campaign.

[John Archibald]

The Turner Diaries described and inspired the kind of crimes committed by the Order. That group used the book as a model. It also inspired Timothy McVeigh to blow up the Murrah building and kill 168 people in Oklahoma City.

[Mary Harris]

As Kathleen Belew pointed out, members of the Order visited Pierce in Virginia as they began to spread their stolen cash to so called patriots in North Carolina and to people like Dan Gaiman in Missouri.

[John Archibald]

Shell City, Missouri to be precise. To Gaiman and his Church of Israel, Gaiman was a big name in Christian identity and other white power movements. He would play a significant role in Rudolph's life.

[Mary Harris]

The order sent $10,000 to Gaiman's church about the same time Rudolph and his family moved there. That may not seem like a lot. It's 30 grand in today's money. But there was more coming. Ballou wrote that the Order planned to pass 50 times that much to Gaiman, Pastor Bob Miles and Lewis Boehm. But they got caught.

[John Archibald]

We'll get back to B. When you hear words like Christian and church and Israel, don't think we're talking about Sunday school or Shabbat let's get that straight.

[Mary Harris]

The term Christian identity does not mean people who identify as Christian. It is an anti Semitic, angry, apocalyptic offshoot of mainline Christianity. Dr. Alon Wolwicki has followed it from its roots.

[John Archibald]

The Christian identity movement is essentially its own. It's like a combination theology, demonology, sort of sect of Christianity. The basic tenets of it is that the people who we know of as Jewish people are not really the true Israelites, are not really the true descendants of the inhabitants of God's promise. It is the quote unquote lost tribes of Israel. The ten lost tribes of Israel migrated across Europe into and settled into the British Isles and then eventually made their way to America. And those true people, those people are the true Israelites. The true inhabitors of God's promise is the white Protestant male specifically. And Gaiman called his racket the Church of Israel because he preached that white Christians, not Jews, are the true chosen children of God. The whole Christian identity movement had one core belief about Jews and that premise is that Jews are the literal children of Satan.

[Mary Harris]

This belief is shockingly widespread among far right hate groups. If you can convince people that any single group is literally the spawn of Satan, you can convince them to do just about anything.

[John Archibald]

Rob banks and armored trucks, blow up federal buildings, kill politicians and reporters. You can make them feel called to do it in the same way some people feel called to preach all on its face.

[Mary Harris]

The Church of Israel seemed like the perfect fit for Rudolph when his mother moved the family to Missouri in 1984, when the compound was more boot camp than Bible camp.

[John Archibald]

Paramilitary training was like Bible study at the Church of Israel. And Gaiman hammered that loathing for the so called mixing of races.

[Mary Harris]

We also are charged with being a racially devoted congregation devoted to the purity of racial integrity. We dare not, dare not betray the blood of our ancestors on the altar of miscegenation. Eric apparently really impressed Gaiman there and Gaiman hoped he would take a bigger role in the so called church.

[John Archibald]

It seemed like a match made in Gaiman's version of heaven. Rudolph even met the woman his lawyer describes as the love of his life.

[Mary Harris]

Her name was Joy and she was a Christian identity follower. Here's Rudolph's Birmingham lawyer, Richard Jaffe.

[John Archibald]

They were in love for several years. She wanted Eric to commit to that life together. He was not willing to commit to something that he didn't believe in. And when he wouldn't and he refused, she broke up with him. Rudolph had some problems with the Church of Israel. He refused to Refer to God as Yahweh. And Gaiman considered that blasphemy. Gaiman kicked the family out after Eric broke that rule in front of the congregation. So they returned to North Carolina.

[Mary Harris]

Joy ended up marrying another Christian identity follower. She would die by suicide in her car along with her two children. Rudolph kept a sweater Joy made him. For a long time he had it in those woods, the years he was on the lam.

[John Archibald]

Gaiman's church affected the Rudolph family for years. It sent cassette tapes of his sermons to family members, including Eric's brother Joel. Eric's former sister in law, Deborah Rudolph, said those tapes helped break up her marriage.

[Mary Harris]

Dan Gaiman, he was teaching this. The Bible is the history of the white race. You know, be a survivalist, carry weapons, be anti government, you know what I'm saying? It was just. And they were sending all this propaganda in cassette tapes to my house and Joel would play all this stuff and I'd go, you gotta get some headphones or something because I don't want to hear. The shit I don't want to hear. Just gets drilled in your head and it's just over. It's brainwashing, you know, that's exactly what it is. I said, I don't want to hear that.

[John Archibald]

Gaiman still pours that stuff out in Missouri, only now he uses the Internet. This is from summer 2024.

[Mary Harris]

We have mocked God and we have indulged, become intoxicated, inebriated if you will, with mixing and diluting the blood of Anglo Saxon America with every non white race under heaven. We are inebriated and drunk with the idea of wrapping our arms around Pride week, Pride month, Pride year, homosexuality, transgenderism, same sex marriage and every evil abomination under heaven. I think we should talk more about Gaiman and Missouri and Rudolph's experiences there. But if you want to know how all these groups fit together, the Klan, the Aryans, the Nazis, the patriots, the militias, these so called churches of this or that. We need to talk about that guy, Lewis Boehm.

[John Archibald]

A lot of Americans have probably never heard of this guy. But he was an angry Vietnam vet who became a hero and a spirit guide to hate groups and violent revolutionaries. They claim we are enemies of progress and of the state. We claim their new world order is anti Christian, antichrist and Satanic. They claim we are religious fanatics and enemies of the state. We claim that their world order means an end to the Constitution and freedom. They say we are radicals and enemies of the state. Let there be no mistake about it.

[Mary Harris]

No doubt in anyone's mind.

[John Archibald]

Both sides are right in their claims and both sides will be required to act upon their beliefs. He's important here because of an idea.

[Mary Harris]

An idea that changed everything in the white power world. An idea called leaderless resistance.

[John Archibald]

Boehm came up with the strategy after his own run ins with the law a few years before, after lawsuits bankrupted most of the Klan. The idea was to protect organizations like the Aryan nations, to guard them from FBI infiltration and inoculate them from criminal charges or civil fines. Here's Carol Mason, a professor at the University of Kentucky who has documented the rise of right wing rhetoric and violence.

[Mary Harris]

It's more about promoting and encouraging people who are not connected to anybody to do damage to the system. It was a way of having people imagine themselves as enemies of the state, as enemies of the federal government, as enemies of the system. The Aryan World Congress, a national summit of hate that featured folks like Bame and Gaiman, started meeting in the 80s and officially declared war on the federal government.

[John Archibald]

When you convince people they're at war, you don't have to tell them what to do. You don't have to tell them to shoot somebody or bomb something. And you sure don't lay out the plans to do it. You simply make them believe it's their duty to act on behalf of this angry God or their race or to defy an overbearing government. It's a pretty simple concept.

[Mary Harris]

Here's Travis McAdam again painting this picture.

[Travis McAdam]

Of the world where white people are under attack and we need to, we need to be willing to fight back and fight for our race and sort of all of that message. And then when one of their members would go out and do something, the first thing that, you know, they would always say is, oh, well, no, you know, we don't, we don't preach violence.

[John Archibald]

Leaderless resistance provided plausible deniability so people like Bame and Gaiman could spew their ideas into the world like shrapnel to splinter whatever they connect with. It sort of puts all the disinformation in today's crazy world in a new light.

[Mary Harris]

Nord Davis also preached leaderless resistance to Rudolph's community in North Carolina. He organized and trained hundreds of so called lone wolves in Appalachia in 1990.

[John Archibald]

Davis called for small groups to meet and work in secrecy and high security and quietly eliminate the problem. There will be no unified command structure, he said.

[Mary Harris]

Leaderless resistance would be used by all sorts of people, like those armored car robbers, like Oklahoma city bomber Timothy McVeigh, like Eric Robert Rudolph this podcast has.

[John Archibald]

A lot of talk about crazy stuff done in the name of religion. Two non preachy preachers I know, Clay Farrington and Ross Furio might explode at the thought. They talk about hard issues in an easy way, with understanding and without judgment on their podcast Armchair Theology. So if you want an alternative view to those who use the Bible as an excuse to kill, give them a listen. Find [e-mail] and wherever podcasts are found.

[Mary Harris]

A massive car bomb exploded outside of a large federal building in downtown Oklahoma City, shattering that building, killing children, killing federal employees, military men and civilians.

[John Archibald]

There are plenty of similarities between Rudolph and the Oklahoma city bomber Timothy McVeigh. They came out of the same funnel.

[Mary Harris]

They've read the same stuff. The Turner Diaries, which was the bible for those longing for a race war. Soldier of Fortune magazine, the Anarchist Cookbook.

[John Archibald]

They were both soldiers in the army, both rejected by Special Forces, both loved to rant about government overreach to anyone.

[Mary Harris]

Who would listen to they were both influenced by Boehm and were both written off as lone wolves despite their connections to broader movements. Nor Davis praised McVeigh's strategy, saying one man is always the most effective. Though McVeigh did have at least two known accomplices.

[John Archibald]

Rudolph had a biography of Timothy McVeigh on his nightstand when the feds raided his North Carolina cabin after the Birmingham bombing, and Rudolph invoked McVeigh in his writings.

[Mary Harris]

Rudolph and McVeigh each referenced Waco, Texas as a call to action for them. When Rudolph sent his army of God letters taking credit for the Atlanta bombings, he included the coded number 4 1993. That's the last day of the 51 day Waco Siege, April 19, 1993.

[John Archibald]

For right wing extremists who are deeply anti government, this date is iconic.

[Mary Harris]

Bob what we have at this time are four dead federal agents, one dead cult member, and at least 14 people wounded. Probably the number of wounded will be higher than that. The cult is something called the Branch Davidians. They're an offshoot of the Seven Day Adventists and their compound is east of Waco, about 15 miles. There's about 75 members. Their leader is someone called Vernon Howell. He claims to be Christ. And the cult, we are told, is in possession of a virtual arsenal of weapons, including many AK47s and AR14 assault rifles.

[John Archibald]

It would end up being four federal agents and 82 Branch Davidians dead that day, 24 of them children. After the feds launched tear gas, a fire started in the compound, which was why the death Toll was so high, no one seems to really know how the fire started. But for people like McVeigh and Rudolph, it doesn't matter. They believe the government did it.

[Mary Harris]

Waco further galvanized the militia movement. In a prison interview with 60 Minutes, McVeigh talked about how Waco prompted in part his attack on the Murrah building.

[John Archibald]

What do you think is the appropriate.

[Mary Harris]

Way for a citizen of this country to express his or her displeasure with the government?

[John Archibald]

There are many options. Is violence an acceptable option? If government is the teacher, violence would be an acceptable option.

[Mary Harris]

Both McVeigh and Rudolph really seem to like this idea of being men of action, of doing something about their anger. In his manifesto, Rudolph expressed contempt for so called professional patriots who are all talk and no action.

[John Archibald]

Rudolph wrote this. By the late 1980s, I saw the handwriting on the wall. America was doomed unless some radical solution was found very soon, constitutional methods wouldn't work. No election or court decision would turn back the tide. Why? Because the problem that liberalism or socialism poses to any society is fundamental. Unlike the majority of patriots and conservatives who were content to see America gradually collapse, I gravitated toward that militant minority who wanted to confront the liberal regime with force. At the time, it was irrelevant to me which particular issue. Taxes, abortion, gun rights ended up being the spark that ignited this revolution. This was a war between two entirely different worldviews, not just a policy dispute over one or two issues. And the explosions followed.

[Mary Harris]

Part of Rachel Fugardi's job with the SPLC is to dive into ugly parts of the Web where incels and agents of chaos celebrate people like Rudolph. She says his name has become a code and an action word in those places. He's become a sort of influencer in the extremist world. She noticed something alarming in the lead up to the 2024 Olympics today. Eric Rudolph. His name continues to appear on darker online forums and communities where racism and misogyny and extremism kind of run rampant and unchecked. And his name is often used as a verb. For example, do a Rudolph as a way to encourage and discuss violence. And with the Olympics this summer, I saw a number of misogynist incels reflecting on his attack and expressing their hope that someone else would target this year's Olympics. And some users putting together propaganda videos celebrating him.

[John Archibald]

His attorney, Hubie Dodd, says that's what Rudolph would have wanted.

[Hubie Dodd]

I believe Eric wanted to be an inspiration. I believe that Eric, in his mind, wanted to inspire further acts of rebellion ultimately leading to. And I think he would have preferred bloodless but if necessary, bloody overthrow of the current government so that one that was more righteous could be put in its place. And he believed that warfare was the was the best way. It was certainly the way that he could be most effective.

[John Archibald]

Radicalization is easier now, faster. Back in Rudolph's day, before we all knew each other's every move with a few taps on a screen, propaganda was distributed through the mail. Rudolph described secret newsletters which arrived in plain brown envelopes from places like Arkansas and Arizona.

[Mary Harris]

They don't need those anymore. They have social media and the dark web and stuff that passes for news on cable. It's easier to get caught up in the funnel cloud. Here's Carol Mason again. I think it's remarkable that Rudolph is often not spoken about in the history of the White power movement or in the history of the militia movement. I found one quotation from a member of the Order who was imprisoned and he said if there were more Erics Rudolphs and more orders, you know, the system would really have a hard time.

[John Archibald]

It's been more than four decades since the Order robbed that armored truck and three since Rudolph bombed the Olympic Games. Eric Rudolph is no longer just a guy who popped out the end of a funnel cloud. He helped seed the larger storm we find ourselves in today.

[Mary Harris]

American Shrapnel is a production of Alabama Media Group. It was written and hosted by me.

[John Archibald]

Becca Andrews and me, John Archibald. Our co creator and executive producer is John Hammondree.

[Mary Harris]

This episode was edited by Chris Hoff.

[John Archibald]

Our field producer is Sarah Weitz Kodachek and our social media producers are Caroline Vincent and Mila Oliveira. Our logo and cover art were designed by Jack Browning. The song you're hearing right now is Birmingham by Beth Thornley and Rob Cairns.

[Mary Harris]

Challen Stevens is our Editor in Chief.

[John Archibald]

Special thanks to Travis McAdam, Hubie Dodd, Diane Derzis, David Namias, Alon Wilwicki, Richard Jaffe, Carol Mason and Rachel Fogardi. Thanks also to Katherine Osay as champion in the Birmingham Public Library. Thanks also to Rachel, Carol Rivas and the Southern Poverty Law Center. And thank you to Riffraff Entertainment for use of the Order trailer.

[Mary Harris]

If you like our show, please leave us a rate at your number. Review. Follow us on Apple Podcasts, YouTube or your favorite podcast app.

[John Archibald]

Thanks for listening.