The
Silent Brotherhood was a splinter off of the
Aryan Nations, the
National Alliance[?] and the
Ku Klux Klan. During the
1980s radical members of these groups joined under the leadership of
Robert J. Matthews[?] to form a new organization, which planned to overthrow the
United States government. To raise money the group committed a range of crimes including counterfeiting and bank robberies. The group's activities ended with the death of Matthews, in a shootout with American federal agents in December
1984 and the arrest of most of its members.