Harold Covington

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Harold Armstead Covington (born Burlington, North Carolina, 14 September 1953, is an American neo-nazi and novelist. Covington joined a neo-Nazi group while in the U.S. Army in 1972, then moved to South Africa, and later joined the white-led Rhodesian Army for 18 months. Covington was a founding member of the Rhodesian White People's Party. He was deported from Rhodesia (later renamed Zimbabwe) in 1976, after sending threatening letters to a Jewish congregation there. He ran in the May 1980 North Carolina Republican Party primary election, as a candidate for nomination to the office of Attorney General of the State of North Carolina. He received 43,000 votes, and carried 46 of North Carolina's 100 counties.

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[edit] Affiliations

[edit] National Socialist Party of America

Covington first emerged on the neo-nazi scene as a member of the National Socialist Party of America (NSPA) under Frank Collin in 1979 when, along with Glenn Miller's White Patriot Party and the Ku Klux Klan, it was involved in the Greensboro massacre, in which five communist party members taking part in a demonstration against the Klan were shot and killed, in an act of self defense. Covington was not among the four Klansmen and two neo-nazis who were later indicted and tried for the Greensboro killings and found not guilty of murder.[1] Three years after his involvement in a North Carolina shootout that left five Klan opponents dead, Covington moved abroad, spending the next five years in South Africa, Great Britain and Ireland, according to the Anti-Defamation League.

In 1979, Covington claims to have found, at the NSPA offices, "films, pictures and addresses of some little boys", as a result of which "we handed Frank Collin to the cops on a silver platter," and by the time of the trial Covington had replaced Collin as the head of the NSPA.[2] In March 1981 he went underground, appointing the St Louis NSPA leader Michael Allen as leader in his place. Allen subsequently turned out to be an informer for the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms.[3]

[edit] Combat 18

Covington spent time in South Africa before settling in the United Kingdom for several years, where he made contact with far-right groups and was involved in setting up the neo-nazi terror group Combat 18 (C18) with his National Socialist White People's Party. C18 openly promotes violence and antisemitism, and has adopted some of the features of the US far right.[4] His Dixie Press was the given address on the first issues of C18's hitlist publication Redwatch.[5]. In June 1992 Searchlight exposed his presence in Britain as a double agent, after which he returned to the United States.

[edit] National Socialist White People's Party

Upon his return to the US, Covington set up his own National Socialist White People's Party (NSWPP), which he ran from various locations until settling in Chapel Hill, North Carolina. He launched its website in 1996 and for some time the NSWPP was one of the more active neo-nazi presences on the web; it now appears to be defunct. Covington has sometimes gone by the alias Winston Smith, particularly in his role as head of the NSWPP. [6]

[edit] Internet

Harold Covington was one of the first neo-Nazis on the Web, establishing a site as early as 1996. Covington's original site defined National Socialism as "a world view for White People" and listed guiding principles such as "Racial Idealism" and "The Upward Development of the White Race." The site listed "Ten Basic Principles of National Socialism,". Covington also lauded Rockwell at length.[7]

Covington's activities got him involved with a legal struggle with Will Williams, also from North Carolina. Williams sued Covington for libel and was awarded a large settlement, although he never collected any of the amount.

[edit] Holocaust denial

One example of Covington's view is a letter sent on July 24, 1996 via email to a number of neo-Nazi supporters (many of whom were Holocaust deniers). In this message, Covington explained Holocaust denial in a manner that has been used by its opponents and critics as a definitive answer to the question of why:

"Take away the Holocaust and what do you have left? Without their precious Holocaust, what are the Jews? Just a grubby little bunch of international bandits and assassins and squatters who have perpetrated the most massive, cynical fraud in human history...I recall seeing a television program on revisionism a few years ago which closed with Deborah Lipstadt making some statement to the effect that: the real purpose of Holocaust revisionism is to make National Socialism an acceptable political alternative again. I normally don't agree with anything a Jew says, but I recall exclaiming, 'Bingo! Got it in one! Give that lady a cigar!'" -- "On Revisionism" by Harold Covington (writing under the pseudonym Winston Smith), NSNet Bulletin #5, July 24, 1996

[edit] Northwest Migration

Northwest Migration is a project Covington launched among American white nationalists to set up a white separatist "Aryan Homeland" in the states of Idaho, Oregon and Washington.[3]

[edit] Novels

Covington is the author of a number of novels [4] and maintains at least two blogs, one of which is devoted to the "Northwest Migration". In particular his book The March up Country published in 1987 is being promoted on the forum of the Dutch political party Nationale Alliantie.[8]

  • The March up Country
  • The Stars in Their Path: A Novel of Reincarnation
  • Dreaming The Iron Dream
  • A Mighty Fortress
  • A Distant Thunder
  • The Hill Of The Ravens
  • The Brigade
  • Fire and Rain
  • A Slow Coming Dark

[edit] References

  1. ^ "A Litany of 'Not Guilty'", Time, 1 December 1980
  2. ^ Myrna Erstep, "Nazis in America", Feminista vol 3 no 10
  3. ^ O'Hara 1994 p69
  4. ^ Institute for Jewish Policy Research, "[1]", 1999
  5. ^ Searchlight, July 1993
  6. ^ Nicholas Goodrick-Clarke, Black Sun: Aryan Cults, Esoteric Nazism and the Politics of Identity, New York University Press 2001, p28. ISBN 0-8147-3124-4
  7. ^ Hatemonitor, "[2]", 14 September 1999
  8. ^ "Forum Nationale Alliantie

[edit] Online Works

[edit] External links