Word: neos
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Until his change of heart, Leyden had given 15 years of his life to brawling and recruiting for neo-Nazi causes. His activities had even landed him on the Klanwatch list compiled by the Southern Poverty Law Center. But in June, Leyden walked into the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles and renounced his former life. It was not an easy thing to do: Klanwatch analyst Laurie Wood says Leyden is "asking for trouble" from his former associates...
Those engaged in the fight against bigotry cannot believe their good fortune in finding someone who can shed some light on the shadowy world of neo-Nazis. Wiesenthal staff members, who have held several long debriefing sessions with Leyden, have big plans for him: they have made arrangements for a laser surgeon to remove his tattoos, and this fall they hope to take him on a lecture tour at U.S. military bases, where Defense Department rules permit local commanders to decide whether to tolerate "passive" extremists in uniform. He has also offered to counsel troubled teenagers. "No one like this...
...soon followed. "These were good guys, I thought," he says now. "I thought I was being patriotic. We would drink and fight, try to clean up America that way." At one party he attacked a white youth who was dating a black girl and who had objected to his neo-Nazi ranting. "I kicked him bloody until somebody pulled me off, then grabbed a beer and joked about it," Leyden recalls. Over the years, he says, hundreds of such fights followed...
...Leyden was doing more than just collecting paraphernalia; he was developing into a sophisticated neo-Nazi activist. Through a fellow skinhead he came to the attention of Tom Metzger, founder of the White Aryan Resistance, based in California. "Tom wanted more military recruiters," Leyden recalls. "They started sending me literature." And he worked hard for his cause, recruiting at least four fellow travelers, who then went off to other bases. The Marines finally reacted when he had Nazi storm-trooper lightning bolts tattooed on his neck. In a 1990 evaluation his superior officer wrote, "Loyalty is questionable, as he willingly...
...Leyden worked as a telephone installer. By night, he claims, Nicole was pulling him deeper into the skinhead world. She introduced him to such key characters as Metzger, his son John and skinhead martyr Geremi Rineman, who was paralyzed during a racial gunfight. Neo-Nazis generally agree that the Metzgers set the standard for inventive recruiting when John insulted Roy Innis of the Congress of Racial Equality during a 1988 Geraldo Rivera show and started a slugfest. Rivera got a broken nose in the ensuing brawl, and White Aryan Resistance's telephone lines lit up with new members. "After that...