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While the National Alliance is now basically defunct, there are concerns the estate of Robert McCorkill, aka McCorkell, could be used to revive what at one point was the dominant force of the American neo-Nazi movement.

“They’re a very nasty group,” said Anita Bromberg, B’nai Brith’s national legal affairs director. “Who knows what they could do with this money? So we think it’s very important on public policy grounds that this be stopped.”

Richard Marceau, General Counsel for the Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs, which is also intervening in the case, said the National Alliance was at one time the leading U.S. white supremacist group.

“Although the passage of time has diminished this hate-driven organization, it would be shameful to allow this ill-conceived bequest to give it new force,” he said.

Mr. McCorkill was a retired professor from Saint John, N.B. who was recruited into the National Alliance in 1998. He later lived at the group’s hilltop compound in West Virginia, where he edited the final book written by its founder William Pierce.

The author of “The Turner Diaries,” a fictional account of a U.S. race war and the apparent inspiration for the 1995 Oklahoma City bombing, Mr. Pierce advocated the creation of a whites-only homeland through the eradication of Jews and other races.

Who knows what they could do with this money? So we think it’s very important on public policy grounds that this be stopped

Following the death of Mr. Pierce in 2002, the National Alliance fell apart but the Southern Poverty Law Centre said while the group’s membership had dwindled, it continued to sell manuals on explosives, booby-traps, incendiary devices and guerrilla warfare.

Before he died in Saint John in 2004, Mr. McCorkill bequeathed his assets to the National Alliance. Among his possessions are Greek and Roman coins that have been displayed at museums, as well as Nazi memorabilia and a human skull.

The estate was initially thought to be worth up to $1-million but it is now valued at just over a quarter of that figure. “That’s the assessment of it. This could be higher if they obtained a higher price at auction,” Mr. Chiasson said. “I’ll just say that ultimately the open market decides.”

National Post

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