The 1960s BNP, which had been formed by a merger of Colin Jordan's White Defence League and John Bean's National Labour Party, soon became defined by clashes between the two rival leaders. Impetus for the formation of the NSM had initially came from a 1961 letter to Jordan from George Lincoln Rockwell, leader of the American Nazi Party. Rockwell stated that he agreed with the BNP, except over their lack of openness about Nazism.[2]