Peter Boyles and Alan Berg in an undated photo. June 18, 2024 marks the 40th anniversary of the assassination of Berg, an outspoken Jewish radio host, by a white supremacist. (Photo by Peter Boyles)
Forty years ago this week, I was woken up by the phone ringing. It was Denver rock promoter Barry Fay. “Wake up! Turn on Channel 4. Alan’s dead!”
It was the night of June 18, 1984, when Alan Berg, an outspoken Jewish radio talk show host, was shot and killed in Congress Park by members of a white supremacist neo-Nazi group calling itself “The Order,” or in German “Brüders Schweigen” (Brothers of Silence).
At the time Alan was murdered, his killer’s anti-Semitic hatred was considered so far removed from mainstream political thought that it was shocking to most of us. Forty years later, Alan is gone, but the anti-Semitism he despised and fought against remains all around us.
Although Alan was the first legitimate hate crime victim in Denver, Colorado, the city has not recognized him with a street name, sign or plaque commemorating the murder of this incredible man. It was only last year that Alan was inducted into the Denver Press Club Hall of Fame.
How did Alan’s murder happen, and what were the events leading up to that horrific night on Denver’s Adams Street?
Alan and I worked at KOA Radio. I was on the air from 9am to noon and Alan worked from 1pm to 4pm. The hour between shows was news talk. I hosted with Evan Slack, the agriculture reporter, Kent Gershon, the sports guy, and Chris Olinger, who read the news. I brought on guests and Alan joined us each day around 12:45pm for what we called “the pass.” Alan wrote on a sign what he would talk about that day on the show.
We had been best friends for nine years at a company where our coworkers were like family, “the in-laws and the outlaws,” as Alan used to say, meeting for dinner every Friday night.
As the “King of Agriculture,” KOA received many small town newspapers and farm and ranch reports from all over Colorado. I loved reading them. One day after a show, I came across Primrose and Cattleman’s Gazette. The newspaper was published in Fort Lupton by a man named Rick Elliott.
Eliot published in the Gazette an article entitled “The Protocols of the Elders of Zion,” which alleged a Jewish conspiracy to take over the world, “written” by Colonel Francis Farrell.
Anyone who has studied European history knows that the Protocols were a kind of hoax, concocted by the secret police of Tsarist Russia shortly before the turn of the century. At first, I thought this was rubbish. Digging a little deeper, I read another version of Elliott’s paper. Anti-Semitism has been a running theme for Rick Elliott, so I asked our producer, Larry Crandall, to invite Elliott on the air during his news period, and he agreed.
The on-air segment quickly became heated. I asked Elliot if he paid Colonel Farrell for the article, and he said, “Yes.” I remember saying, “If he could read it, he’d know what a sham the Protocols are, and he’d get it all for free.” Elliot was very angry with me. At that moment, Alan came into the studio, tapped me on the shoulder, pointed to the phone and said, “You can have him next.” I asked Elliot if he wanted to continue with Alan Berg for the next hour, and he said, “Yes.”
I believe this was the first event that led to the assassination of Alan Berg. Elliot kept Alan on the air. Berg lashed out at Elliot in a way that only Alan could.
What we didn’t know was that a man named David Lane had been sitting in another room with Elliott listening to Berg and me criticize Elliott for his anti-Semitism. David Lane had been Rick Elliott’s part-time printer and part-time bodyguard. Eventually, Lane became the driver for the hit team on the night of June 18, 1984.
I read further into Elliot’s papers and noticed a continuing theme that the Jews were a problem. I was also surprised at the number of recruitment ads for all branches of the military that appeared in the Gazette.
I contacted Congressman Pat Schroeder, who was on the House Armed Services Committee at the time, and he cancelled all military advertising in the Gazette. Having lost much of his income, Elliott sued Alan, KOA Radio, and me. The judge dismissed the case.
Radio station management moved Alan to the nighttime. Remember, with 50,000 watts of power, KOA could be heard throughout the western U.S. We used to joke that “at night, KOA gets stuck in your teeth.”
In January 1984, Alan had Pastor Pete Peters of the Identity Church in LaPorte as a “guest” on the phone, as well as the return of white supremacists Gordon “Jack” Moore and Rick Elliott. Berg went all out and gave them crazy radio, the kind of hard-hitting talk radio that only he could do. I didn’t know it at the time, but Order founder Robert J. Matthews was listening to KOA at Richard Butler’s white supremacist crazy Christian colony in Hayden Lake, Idaho. I think that was the moment they really began plotting to assassinate Alan Berg.
I sometimes wish Alan were alive and could do the show today and address the rise of anti-Semitism in America and Europe. Would there have been no lessons learned?
The rise of Nazism took place in German universities in the 1920s, which became hotbeds of modern anti-Semitism: Columbia University became today’s Heidelberg University. Many students not only protested the existence of the State of Israel, but also attacked Judaism. The Protocols are still widely published and read throughout the Middle East, and Hamas holds them up as a legitimate historical document, despite mounting evidence to the contrary.
Alan and I both knew that the Protocol believers, the David Dukes of the world, the Holocaust deniers, and the Lakewood paramedic KKK guy were ratings draws. When a Lakewood KKK guy called in, Alan made him laugh. Having a joker like that on a show would derail the rest of the week. We never dreamed it would turn out like this, even after a KKK guy threatened Alan directly at the station on air.
Someone once said that history doesn’t repeat itself, but it does rhyme. Can you hear the sounds reverberating across America and the world from the time of Alan’s murder?
Echoes can be heard from both the left and the right in squatter camps on college campuses, on talk radio, online chat rooms and on social media platforms. If Alan were alive and on the air today, he would be making a living from it.
Richard Butler and his followers at the Idaho facility believed in the ZOG (Zionist Occupation Government). They believed in the Protocols conspiracy and Butler’s bizarre version of Christianity that made Jesus a gentile. How much of that nonsense do you see, hear or read today? At universities, demonstrations, camps and sadly many politicians on both the left and right share the same beliefs. The Order kept lists calling Jews, blacks, federal officials, judges and whites “race traitors”.
On that June night in 1984, Alan was living on Adams Street, and these men knew his address because cult leader Gene Craig had been stalking him home. When Alan got out of his car, Bruce Pierce pulled the trigger and shot him 13 times. Alan received 34 wounds from an Ingram Mack 10 machine gun. With David Lane at the wheel and Robert J. Matthews and Richard Scutari in the getaway car, the gang was pursued by police forces across the country.
So what happened? Robert Matthews died after a 36-hour siege at his home on an island off the coast of Washington state. David Lane died in prison. Bruce Pierce died at Allenwood Federal Penitentiary, and Gene Craig also died in prison in 2001. Gary Lee Yarbrough, the killer’s most ardent defense lawyer, died in Florence, Colorado, in 2018.
Ultimately, Rick Elliott went to prison for perjury and bad checks, with authorities saying, “He was just a con man.”
Nothing connected the killer to the crime scene. When Matthews died on the island, he was the only link to Alan Berg’s murder. There was no direct evidence, no witnesses, and the brothers remained silent. The killer was tried in Denver and found guilty of violating Alan’s civil rights.
So what is Alan Berg’s legacy? Talk radio is far worse now. Ratings and revenues are down, and the talent behind the mic remains the same: angry white guy followed by angry white guy.
But the men who were on Adams Street that night nearly 40 years ago, the members of the Order and the members of the hit team, were never tried or convicted for the murder of Alan Berg.
Peter Boyles is a longtime talk radio personality and former host for Guglielmo Marconi. He is infamous for his work on the Ramsey murders, the founding of the DIA, “Players and Sugar,” and disgraced pastor Ted Haggard. Despite being on the air for almost 50 years, he still has his own Saturday show and podcast on 710 KNUS.
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