The John Franklin Letters

Description

The John Franklin Letters was one of the first major works distributed by the John Birch Society. National Alliance leader William Pierce told his biographer that he was inspired to write The Turner Diaries by an earlier novel, The John Franklin Letters, published in 1959, which describes America's apocalyptic fall to Communist infiltration due to the influence of the New Deal, and its response through a violent revolution staged by an underground army known as the Rangers. It has long been suspected that Revilo P. Oliver had a part in creating The John Franklin Letters. Judging by themes, details which correspond to Oliver’s personal history, and certain sections of the book.In 1960, just one year after Franklin was released, a former John Birch Society member named William P. Gale formed a group called the Rangers, joined by several other breakaway Birchers and military veterans. Members of the real-world Rangers explicitly cited The John Franklin Letters as a “tactical guide, or manual of arms for the future.”[i] The California attorney general determined that the Rangers was a “secret underground guerilla force” advancing an explicitly racist agenda.[ii] For more on Gale's background: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Potter_Gale