Louis Beam was a door gunner in Vietnam, and when he returned home to the States, he joined the Ku Klux Klan, eventually becoming the Grand Dragon of the Texas Klan. In 1982, he was arrested for kidnapping his daughter from his estranged wife, who ended up dropping the charges after receiving targeted harassment and threats from Louis' Klan buddies. He was known for not being at all not into violence, saying, quote, where ballots fail, bullets will prevail. In 1981, Beam went to pay a visit to the Aryan Nations compound in Idaho, which led to Richard Butler, then the head of the Aryan Nations, visiting with Beam's KKK chapter in Galveston Bay. This resulted in Butler declaring Beam a, quote, ambassador-at-large of the Aryan Nations and served to bring the two hate groups closer together.