The founder of the National Alliance was William Pierce, a former employee of the American Nazi Party, and author of the racial seperatist revolutionary fictional novel The Turner Diaries. The National Alliance was connected with the criminal group The Order in the 1980s, through members that both groups briefly shared, and because of the fact that "The Order" was modelled and named after the fictional group of the same name depicted in The Turner Diaries.
White Nationalist Seperatism is the core position of the National Alliance. But, after the September 11, 2001 Terrorist Attack, William Pierce declared that "The enemy of our enemy is, for now at least, our friends... we may not want them marrying our daughters... but anyone who is willing to drive a plane into a building to kill Jews is alright by me. I wish our members had half as much testicular fortitude.".