xviii INTRODUCTION

the outcome of that year’s presidential election, an outcome leading inexorably

to U.S. military escalation, then defeat, in Southeast Asia, climaxed by the na-
tional shame of Watergate.
Speculation and debate persist, surrounding other assassinations and bun-
gled attempts. Few deny that killing Adolf Hitler in 1944 might have saved
lives in the hundreds of thousands, at least. Recorded statements from Presi-
dent John F. Kennedy ( JFK) suggest that, had he lived beyond November 22,
1963, the long nightmare of Vietnam may not have devoured 58,000 U.S.
lives. What might have transpired, had would-be assassins been successful in
their attempts on the lives of Presidents Gerald Ford, Bill Clinton, George W.
Bush, or Barack Obama?
Selection of main entries for Famous Assassinations in World History was, ad-
mittedly, subjective. Why does the murder of American Nazi Party founder
George Lincoln Rockwell rate inclusion, while antiapartheid activist Stephen
Biko is relegated to the concluding appendix/timeline? Such choices were de-
termined by multiple factors.
First, no comprehensive, detailed accounting of every known assassination
or attempt throughout history could ever be contained within the covers of
one volume—or, in this case, two. Decisions based on word count and econ-
omy determine the final scope of every published reference work.
Second, some entries were selected (or omitted) based on the author’s per-
sonal interest, and/or preexisting coverage in other published works. Although
hundreds of books and thousands of articles have been published describing
the JFK assassination, for instance, its exclusion here would have been a griev-
ous oversight. In Rockwell’s case, mentioned earlier, although he was primarily
a nuisance on the fringes of society, largely forgotten and ignored by readers
born since 1967, he remains a central touchstone for the far-right, neo-Nazi/
white nationalist movement (with 29 competing factions active in 44 states
during 2012).
The United States’ most famous assassinations, aside from those of Presi-
dent Lincoln and Malcolm X, stand officially solved with assignment of blame
to lone gunmen. Nonetheless, conspiracy theories persist in those cases, with
proffered evidence ranging from persuasive to the bizarre. Even in the cases of
Lincoln and Malcolm X, where multiple plotters were tried and convicted,
broader conspiracy claims suggest the involvement of powerful, shadowy forces.
Some researchers still blame the Roman Catholic Church, or its Society of Jesus,
for Lincoln’s murder in 1865. A century later, citing statements from Malcolm X
and government files released under the Freedom of Information Act, other stu-
dents point accusing fingers at the Federal Bureau of Investigation, the Central
Intelligence Agency, or “rogue” agents of both acting in collaboration.
Famous Assassinations in World History explores those conspiracy claims, with
the evidence presented to support them, while permitting readers to determine
INTRODUCTION xix

whether they have any credence. In cases where facts are disputed, witnesses
contradicted, or evidence has vanished, further detailed information may be
found within the sources suggested for further reading—and, in turn, through
their bibliographies. Although the author has opinions in most cases, they are
not presented here. Critics of the official verdicts—and their detractors, in
turn—are permitted to speak for themselves.
There can be no “last word” on assassinations, as long as discontent and vio-
lence persist on Earth. If anything, our world appears to be a more chaotic, vi-
olent place today than during many eras of the past. Between 2006 and 2012,
Mexico’s “drug war” claimed at least 54,927 lives, with another 10,000 victims
“disappeared”; some estimates of the seven-year death toll top 99,000. Narco-
terrorism in Central America is equally lethal: Honduras, El Salvador, Belize,
Guatemala, and Panama all had higher per-capita murder rates than Mexico in
2010. La Violencia (“The Violence”) engulfed Colombia in 1946, resulting in
300,000 homicides by 1958. Today, that nation’s plague of narcoterrorism pro-
duced 13,520 murders in 2011—hailed by Colombia’s National Police as the
lowest violent death toll since 1984. Reports from Iraq, Afghanistan, and parts
of Africa are equally dismal.
Famous Assassinations in World History presents a chronicle of malice and
mistakes, in hope that something may be learned, at least, from the mistakes.
Whether those lessons are absorbed depends in equal part on public leaders,
law enforcement, and an educated populace.
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Q
QADIR, HAJI ABDUL (1951–2002)
Shortly after noon on July 6, 2002, Haji Abdul Qadir completed his day’s duties
as Afghanistan’s minister of public works and one of five vice presidents. Leav-
ing his office in downtown Kabul, he started for home in a Toyota Land Cruiser
driven by his son-in-law. At 12:30, two men armed with automatic weapons
ambushed Qadir’s vehicle, riddling it with bullets and killing both occupants,
before escaping in a taxi that waited nearby. A report from the United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees, published in September 2005, asserts that
one man was condemned to die for the murders in June 2004, with two accom-
plices sentenced to prison, but no further details were available as this volume
went to press.
Haji Abdul Qadir was born in Jalalabad, the capital of eastern Afghanistan’s
Nangarhar Province, sometime in 1951. He was a member of the Pashtun
people, Afghanistan’s largest ethnic group, which has produced nearly all the
country’s native leaders for the past 250 years. Involved in politics before the
December 1979 Soviet invasion of his homeland, Qadir joined a mujahideen
resistance faction led by Mohammad Yunus Khalis. That nine-year struggle
ended with Russia’s withdrawal from Afghanistan in February 1989, and the
pro-Soviet People’s Democratic Party of Afghanistan dissolved in March 1992,
whereupon Qadir was named to serve as governor of Nangarhar Province.
He held that post until September 1996, when Taliban forces—supported
from Pakistan and Saudi Arabia—seized control of Afghanistan. Qadir fled into
Pakistan, but found exile there untenable when leaders of the Islamic Republic
recognized his opposition to the Taliban. Over the next three years, Qadir di-
vided his time between Germany and Dubai, where he prospered as the leader
of a successful trading company. In 1999, Qadir returned home to join Ahmad
Shah Massoud’s United Islamic Front for the Salvation of Afghanistan, an anti-
Taliban movement better known in the West as the Northern Alliance. The
group joined Pashtuns with ethnic Hazaras, Tajiks, and Uzbeks in opposition
to the Taliban’s ultra-fundamentalist version of Islam, waging armed resistance
against the ruling regime, and the Taliban received assistance from Pakistan
and Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda terrorist network.
The terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, brought the United States into
Afghanistan’s chaotic civil war. Qadir’s younger brother, Abdul Haq—himself a
442 QADIR, HAJI ABDUL

veteran of the anti-Soviet resis-

tance, lately returned from Pak-
istan to fight the Taliban—was
captured and executed by Tal-
iban members on October 26,
2001, shortly after meeting
with agents of the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA) to co-
ordinate strikes on the enemy.
(An alternate version blames
the CIA for his death, citing an
interview in which Haq report-
edly said, “We cannot be Amer-
ica’s puppets.”) Soon afterward,
on November 13, Haji Qadir
emerged as a leader of the
Eastern Shura, a regional anti-
Taliban unit operating in Nan-
garhar and Khost Provinces. In
December 2001, Qadir traveled
Afghani politician Haji Abdul Qadir, killed in an
to Bonn, Germany, as a delegate
ambush in July 2002. (Reuters/Corbis) to the International Conference
on Afghanistan, where he en-
dorsed selection of Hamid Kar-
zai as president of the Afghan Transitional Administration (still in power as this
volume went to press). Karzai, in turn, rewarded Qadir for his support with ap-
pointment to serve as a vice president and minister of public works, the post he
held until his murder.
Upon learning of Qadir’s assassination, U.S. president George W. Bush told
reporters, “There’s all kinds of scenarios as to who killed him. It could be drug
lords. It could be rivals. Who knows? All we know is that a good man is dead,
and we mourn his loss.” Some observers questioned his designation of Qadir
as “a good man,” citing persistent allegations of his ties to Afghanistan’s bur-
geoning opium trade. Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar had collabo-
rated with the United Nations to eradicate heroin production in Afghanistan,
slashing production by 91 percent in 2000. No opium production was found
the following year, a circumstance that earned the Taliban a $43 million re-
ward payment prior to 9/11, but U.S. “liberation” of Afghanistan reversed that
trend dramatically. By November 2001, the United Nations Office on Drugs
and Crime found 1,300 square kilometers under opium cultivation, with the
illicit trade expanding until Afghanistan produced 92 percent of the world’s
nonpharmaceutical-grade opiates by November 2007.
QADIR, HAJI ABDUL 443

Peter Symonds, writing for the World Socialist Web Site in July 2002,
branded Qadi a “thug and smuggler,” calling him “notorious for his asso-
ciation with the region’s lucrative smuggling operations and opium trade,”
further contending that “Qadir’s sordid past is well known in Washington.”
His trading company during the latter part of the 1990s, Symonds wrote,
was actually a “large-scale smuggling racket that operated from Afghani-
stan into Pakistan.” Symonds further claimed that Qadir stood “accused of
manipulating the country’s Western-financed drug eradication program to
siphon off money and narcotics for his private benefit.” Although Symonds
cited no specific evidence, the CIA’s collaboration with narcotics traffickers
worldwide is well established, dating from the first year of the agency’s cre-
ation in France, extending through the Vietnam War and the Iran-Contra
scandal under President Ronald Reagan.
Qadir received a full state funeral in Kabul, attended by some 10,000
mourners, and government spokesman Sayed Fazl Akbar told reporters that
President Karzai had asked the NATO-led International Security Assistance
Force (ISAF) to help ensure “a completely neutral, fair, quick and profes-
sional investigation” into Qadir’s assassination. Turkish major general Hilmi
Akin Zorlu, in charge of that force, readily agreed, declaring, “It is vital to
bring the perpetrators of this crime to justice as soon as possible and ISAF
will donate every resource required to achieve it.” Even so, two years elapsed
before a trial was held, and details of its result remain elusive.
A month after the conviction of three alleged conspirators in Qadir’s slaying,
on July 29, 2004, a crowd gathered to commemorate his death at the Kabul
site where he was slain. Authorities averted a catastrophe with the discovery of
an explosive charge, concealed inside a cart near the memorial gathering. De-
fused before it detonated, the bomb was clearly meant to kill attending cabi-
net ministers and other prominent public figures still loyal to Qadir’s memory.
Qadir’s son, Zahir Qadir—formerly a Taliban prisoner, then a general in Af-
ghanistan’s Border Guard, serves today in the nation’s parliament.

Further Reading
Dorronsoro, Gilles. Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2005.
“Refugee Review Tribunal Report on Afghanistan.” September 16, 2005. United Nations
High Commissioner for Refugees. http://www.unhcr.org/refworld/pdfid/4b6fe117d.pdf.
Rubin, Barnett. The Fragmentation of Afghanistan: State Formation and Collapse in the In-
ternational System. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2002.
Saikal, Amin. Modern Afghanistan: A History of Struggle and Survival. London: I.B. Tau-
ris, 2012.
Symonds, Peter. “Afghan Vice-President Murdered in Broad Daylight.” World Social-
ist Web Site. July 9, 2002. http://www.wsws.org/en/articles/2002/07/afgh-j09.html.
444 QUTUZ, SAIF AD -DIN

Tanner, Stephen. Afghanistan: A Military History from Alexander the Great to the War
against the Taliban. Philadelphia: Da Capo Press, 2009.
Tomsen, Peter. The Wars of Afghanistan: Messianic Terrorism, Tribal Conflicts, and the
Failures of Great Powers. New York: Public Affairs, 2011.

QUTUZ, SAIF AD-DIN (?–1260)

On October 24, 1260, seven weeks after defeating a Mongol army at the Bat-
tle of Ain Jalut, Mamluk sultan Saif ad-Din Qutuz was assassinated during a
hunting expedition at Al-Salihiyya, in northern Palestine. Most historians today
blame one of Qutuz’s commanders in that pivotal battle, Baibars—full name
al-Malik al-Zahir Rukn al-Din Baibars al-Bunduqdari—for plotting the murder,
although Egyptian historian Al-Maqrizi (1364–1442) named the actual assas-
sins as Emir Badr ad-Din Baktut, Emir Ons, and Emir Bahadir al-Mu’izzi. One
motive suggested for the plot against Qutuz is that the sultan promised Baibars
authority over Aleppo, in northwestern Syria, then gave control of the city
instead to al-Malik al-Said Ala’a ad-Din, the emir of Mosul. Another version
claims that Baibars sought revenge for the death of a friend, Emir Faris ad-Din
Aktai al-Jemdar, killed under Sultan Izz al-Din Aybak in 1254, allegedly with
Qutuz’s complicity. Whatever the truth of those claims, Baibars did succeed
Qutuz as sultan of Egypt and held that post until his death, from drinking
poison, in July 1277.
Little is known of Saif ad-Din Qutuz’s early life. Some accounts peg his
birth date as November 2, but provide no year. In later year, he claimed de-
scent from Ala ad-Din Muhammad II, shah of the Khwarazmian Empire from
1200 to 1220, but that tie to Persian royalty remains unproven. Captured by
Mongols as a youth, Qutuz was sold into slavery, first in Syria, then in Egypt,
where slave trader sold him to Sultan Aybak in Cairo. By 1253, Qutuz had
risen on his merits from a servant’s rank to stand beside Ayak as vice sultan,
a post he retained under Ayak’s son Al-Mansur Ali, aged 11 when Aybak was
assassinated in 1257.
While serving Sultan Al-Mansur Ali—now styled al-Malik al-Mansur Nour
ad-Din Ali—Qutuz faced military threats from rival Bahriyya Mamluks, Shahr-
zuri Kurds, and Mongols. In November 1257, Qutuz defeated a Mamluk army
led by King al-Malik al-Mughith of Al Karak, in Jordan. Three months later, a
Mongol horde sacked Baghdad, killing Caliph Al-Musta’sim and thousands of
his subjects (some accounts claim two million), before advancing into Syria
and threatening King an-Nasir Yusuf. After crushing another Mamluk invasion
in April 1258, Qutuz turned his full attention to Syria. Deposing Al-Mansur
Ali on November 12, 1259, Qutuz proclaimed himself sultan with a promise
to local emirs that they could choose a ruler of their own after he halted the
Mongol incursion.
QUTUZ, SAIF AD-DIN 445

He accomplished that at the Battle of Ain Jalut, on September 3, 1260. Field-

ing 20,000 troops against a Mongol force of equal size, led by Kitbuqa Noyan,
Qutuz suffered heavy losses but succeeded in annihilating his opponents. His
determination, doubtless, was encouraged by a warning sent to him before the
battle from Hulagu Khan, a grandson of Genghis Khan who ruled the Mongol
Empire from 1256 to 1265. That message read:

From the King of Kings of the East and West, the Great Khan. To Qutuz the
Mamluk, who fled to escape our swords. You should think of what happened to
other countries and submit to us. You have heard how we have conquered a vast
empire and have purified the earth of the disorders that tainted it. We have con-
quered vast areas, massacring all the people. You cannot escape from the terror of
our armies. Where can you flee? What road will you use to escape us? Our horses
are swift, our arrows sharp, our swords like thunderbolts, our hearts as hard as
the mountains, our soldiers as numerous as the sand. Fortresses will not detain
us, nor armies stop us. Your prayers to God will not avail against us. We are not
moved by tears nor touched by lamentations. Only those who beg our protection
will be safe. Hasten your reply before the fire of war is kindled. Resist and you
will suffer the most terrible catastrophes. We will shatter your mosques and reveal
the weakness of your God and then will kill your children and your old men to-
gether. At present you are the only enemy against whom we have to march.

In the midst of battle, Qutuz was heard to shout, “Oh, Islam! Oh God, grant
your servant Qutuz a victory against the Mongols!” Kitbuqa died at the head of
his troops and was decapitated, his head shipped back to Cairo as a trophy. At
the battle’s end, Qutuz reportedly kissed the earth and prayed, and his surviv-
ing troops engaged in looting of the Mongol dead.
As a result of their loss at Ain Jalut, Mongol forces abandoned Damascus,
occupied in March 1560, and soon withdrew from the northern Levant en-
tirely. Meanwhile, Baibars—one of Qutuz’s leading field commanders in the
climactic battle—brooded over his perceived mistreatment by the sultan and
schemed for revenge, resulting in Qutuz’s murder on October 24.
Qutuz was buried first at Al-Qusair, later exhumed and reburied in Cairo,
where a mosque in the Heliopolis today commemorates his name. Baibars
succeeded him as sultan, defeated another Mongol invasion of Syria at the
First Battle of Homs (December 10, 1260), and enjoyed repeated victories
over Christian Crusaders. He invaded Cicilian Armenia in 1266, captured An-
tioch and enslaved its population in May 1268, and lay siege to Tripoli in
May 1271. In that same year, during the Ninth Crusade, Baibars failed in an
attempt to poison Prince Edward I of England. In 1277, Baibars invaded the
Mongol-occupied Seljuk Sultanate of Rum, but failed to conquer the terri-
tory despite several significant victories. Historians report that Baibars died in
Damascus on July 1, 1277, from drinking poisoned kumis (fermented mare’s
446 QUTUZ, SAIF AD -DIN

milk), but they disagree as to whether his poisoning was murder or a clumsy
accident.

Further Reading
Amitai-Preiss, Reuven. Mongols and Mamluks: The Mamluk-Ilkhanid War, 1260–1281.
Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
Armstrong, Karen. Holy War: The Crusades and Their Impact on Today’s World. New York:
Anchor Books, 2001.
Asbridge, Thomas. The Crusades: The Authoritative History of the War for the Holy Land.
New York: HarperCollins, 2010.
Riley-Smith, Jonathan. The Oxford History of the Crusades. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2002.
Tyerman, Christopher. God’s War: A New History of the Crusades. Cambridge, MA:
Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2009.
R
RABIN, YITZHAK (1922–1995)
On November 4, 1995, a rally heralding ratification of the Oslo I Accord be-
tween Israel and the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) was staged in
Tel Aviv’s Kings of Israel Square. The rally began to break up, at 9:30 P.M., and
Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin was leaving for home when he was approached
by Yigal Amir, a right-wing law student at Tel Aviv’s Bar-Ilan University who
bitterly opposed the Oslo Accord’s concessions to Palestinian Arabs. Acting
on a personal interpretation of din rodef—a traditional Jewish “law of the
pursuer”—fired three pistol shots at Rabin, striking the prime minister twice.
His third shot wounded a security guard, Yoram Rubin, before others subdued
and disarmed him. Rabin survived to reach Tel Aviv Sourasky Medical Center,
but he died during surgery, 40 minutes after the shooting. Investigators learned
that Yigal Amir had been under surveillance by Shin Bet, Israel’s internal secu-
rity service, but the agent in charge of his case had declared that Amir posed
no threat to Rabin. Convicted at trial in March 1996, Amir received a life sen-
tence plus six years for wounding Yoram Rubin. Although such sentences are
normally commuted to a 30-year maximum, President Moshe Katsav refused
clemency, stating that Amir deserved “no forgiveness, no absolution and no
pardon.”
Yitzhak Rabin was born in Jerusalem, to European immigrant parents, on
March 1, 1922. His father, Nehemiah Rubitzov, had come to the British Man-
date of Palestine from Ukraine, as a member of the British army’s Jewish Legion,
in 1917. Rabin’s parents moved to Tel Aviv in 1923, where he graduated with
honors from Kadoorie Agricultural High School, hoping to become an irriga-
tion engineer. He abandoned that goal at age 19, in May 1941, joining the Pal-
mach (“strike force”) of the paramilitary Haganah (“The Defense,” in Hebrew).
British military officers initially trained the Palmach in guerrilla tactics, but in
1943 attempted to disarm them. Operating as terrorists or freedom fighters,
depending on one’s point of view, members of the Haganah carried out nu-
merous assassinations and bombings directed at British diplomats and military
personnel in Palestine. Wholesale civil war erupted in November 1947, ending
in May 1948 when the independent State of Israel was established.
That move brought no peace to the region, as the first Arab-Israeli War began
one day later, on May 15. By that time, Rabin had risen through the Palmach
448 R ABIN, YITZHAK

A right-wing Israeli killed Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin in November 1995. (Bettmann/
Corbis)

ranks to serve as its chief operations officer. The Haganah, meanwhile, emerged
as the core of the new Israel Defense Forces (IDF). During a truce, in June 1948,
Rabin was involved in the Altalena Affair, in which IDF forces seized a cargo
ship loaded with weapons earmarked for the Irgun, self-styled “National Mili-
tary Organization in the Land of Israel,” which had split off from the Haganah
in 1937. When the Arab War resumed, Rabin served as deputy commander of
“Operation Danny,” seizing territory east of Tel Aviv in July 1948. Another pro-
motion established him as chief of operations for the Southern Front during
“Operation Yoav” (October 1948) and “Operation Horev” (December 1948 to
January 1949). In January 1949, on the island of Rhodes, Rabin participated in
negotiations that produced an armistice between Israel, Egypt, Lebanon, Jor-
dan, and Syria.
At war’s end, Rabin was the oldest Palmach veteran remaining in the IDF.
In 1964, Prime Minister Levi Eshkol named Rabin to serve as the IDF’s chief of
staff, and Rabin reached the pinnacle of his martial career in June 1967, defeat-
ing Egypt, Jordan, and Syria in the Six-Day War. He then retired from military
service to become Israel’s ambassador to the United States (1968–1973). Prime
RABIN, YITZHAK 449

Minister Golda Meir appointed Rabin as minister of labor in March 1974, but
her resignation on April 11 of that year left him briefly unemployed. Before the
month was out, Rabin defeated rival Shimon Peres in a bid for leadership of the
Alignment Party, which named him to succeed Golda Meir as prime minister
on June 3, 1974.
Rabin’s first term as prime minister was distinguished by the Sinai Interim
Agreement on September 1975, in which Israel and Egypt vowed to resolve
disputes between them without resorting to military force, and by “Operation
Entebbe” (October 1976), wherein IDF commandos liberated 102 passengers
from an Air France flight hijacked by members of the Popular Front for the Lib-
eration of Palestine, parked at Uganda’s Entebbe Airport under the protection
of dictator Idi Amin. The raiders killed seven hijackers and 45 Ugandan sol-
diers, also destroying 31 Soviet-built warplanes, against one IDF soldier killed
and five wounded. Three hostages also died in the raid, and one—separated
from the others for hospitalization—was subsequently executed on Amin’s or-
ders. Amin also ordered the slayings of several doctors and nurses who tried to
prevent that execution, and hundreds of Kenyans living in Uganda, whom he
blamed for their homeland supporting the IDF strike.
Later in 1976, Rabin’s political alliance faced a vote of no confidence from
the Agudat Yisrael party, alleging violation of the Sabbath when four fighter
planes were delivered to an Israeli air force on Saturday. Further trouble arose
in March 1977, when Rabin and U.S. president Jimmy Carter publicly dis-
agreed on the extent of Israel’s legitimate “defensible borders.” Rabin dissolved
his government on April 22, 1977, with new elections scheduled for May 17.
Menachem Begin, representing the Likud (“Consolidation”) Party, carried that
vote by a landslide and succeeded Rabin on June 21.
Rabin did not leave politics upon resigning as prime minister. Rather, he
filled a seat in the Knesset, Israel’s unicameral national legislature, until Sep-
tember 13, 1984, when he replaced Moshe Arens as minister of defense under
Prime Minister Shimon Peres. He retained that cabinet post under Prime Min-
ister Yitzhak Shamir until March 1990, when Moshe Arens resumed the office
and Rabin returned to his Knesset seat, as a member of Israel’s Foreign Affairs
and Defense Committee. In 1992, Rabin was elected as chairman of the Labor
Party, replacing Yitzhak Shamir as prime minister on July 13.
After a lifetime as a leader in Israel’s wars, Rabin spent his second term as
prime minister pursuing peace. The Oslo Accords created a Palestinian Na-
tional Authority with partial control over the Israeli-occupied Gaza Strip and
West Bank of the Jordan River, followed on September 9, 1993, by Israel’s for-
mal recognition of PLO leader Yasser Arafat as the Palestinian National Au-
thority’s president. In October 1994, Rabin joined King Hussein of Jordan in
signing the Israel–Jordan Treaty of Peace, which made Jordan the second Arab
country (after Egypt) to normalize relations with Israel. In 1994, with Arafat
450 R ABIN, YITZHAK

and Shimon Peres, Rabin was awarded a Nobel Peace Prize. During the same
year, Rabin also received the Ronald Reagan Freedom Award, reserved for
“those who have made monumental and lasting contributions to the cause of
freedom worldwide.”
Right-wing Israelis—and many U.S. Jews—bitterly protested Rabin’s peace
overtures toward nations they regarded as mortal enemies. Likud party leader
(and current prime minister) Benjamin Netanyahu condemned Rabin’s admin-
istration as being “removed from Jewish tradition . . . and Jewish values.” More
extreme critics marched with posters depicting Rabin in a Nazi uniform and
with the cross-hairs of a sniper’s telescopic sight superimposed on his face.
Rabin either ignored those protests or publicly condemned them as chutzpah
(“insolence” or “audacity”). Although Netanyahu denied any intent to provoke
violence, Yigal Amir’s post-assassination statements clearly demonstrate that he
viewed Rabin as a danger to Israel.
Despite the seemingly open-and-shut case against Amir, buttressed by the
gunman’s public statements, conspiracy theories flourished in the wake of
Rabin’s assassination. An official commission of inquiry, convened in November
1995, published its report on the crime in March 1996. That document named
Amir as the lone assassin, but criticized Shin Bet for putting Rabin at risk and
ignoring extremist threats to his life. Shin Bet director Carmi Gillon resigned
in the wake of that accusation, subsequently facing allegations (but no formal
charges) of human rights violations during his tenure. Nonetheless, he was later
named as Israel’s ambassador to Denmark, serving from 2001 to 2003.
Suggestions of conspiracy arose from the forensic evidence in Rabin’s case,
including a police report of gunpowder found on his body and clothing (Amir
fired from a distance that precluded powder stippling). Surgical reports also
described an entry wound in Rabin’s chest, inconsistent with eyewitness ac-
counts and a video recording of the murder indicating that Amir fired at the
prime minister’s back. Three police escorts testified that Rabin displayed “no
visible wounds” when then prepared to move him from the shooting scene.
Stranger still, Dr. Mordechai Gutman, one of the surgeons who worked on
Rabin, declared that “the first two wounds, to the chest and abdomen occurred
before Rabin’s arrival. The third, frontal chest wound, had to have been in-
flicted after he entered the hospital.” Concerning Amir, reports circulated that
cartridge cases found at the shooting scene failed to match his semiautomatic
pistol, and that no gunshot residue was found on his hands or clothing—a cir-
cumstance which, if true, suggests that he fired blank cartridges. Several police
officers and Shin Bet agents at the scene were also overheard suggesting that
the shots were blanks.
The implication of those claims—a second gunman, possibly one of Rabin’s
bodyguards—follow a trend of conspiracy theories from various high-profile
assassinations in the United States and elsewhere. Lone-gunman proponents
RADAMA II 451

regard any implication of a government conspiracy as a bid to offload guilt

from Israel’s far-right. Yigal Amir officially remains the one and only slayer, re-
viled by some Israelis, hailed by others as a national hero. Curiously, however,
an eight-year sentence for conspiracy to kill Rabin was later added to his term
of life plus six years for the actual shootings. Still incarcerated at the time of
this writing, Amir married Larisa Trembovler, a Russian-born holder of a PhD
in philosophy, in July 2005. In March 2006, the Israeli Prison Service approved
the couple’s petition to produce a child via in vitro fertilization. Their son was
born on October 28, 2007.

Further Reading
Chamish, Barry. Who Murdered Yitzhak Rabin? Northampton, MA: Brookline Books,
2000.
Karpin, Michael, and Ina Friedman. Murder in the Name of God: The Plot to Kill Yitzhak
Rabin. New York: Metropolitan Books, 1998.
Milstein, Uri. The Rabin File: An Unauthorized Expose. Jerusalem: Gefen Books, 1999.
Morrison, David. Lies: The Israeli Secret Service and the Rabin Assassination. Jerusalem:
Gefen Books, 2000.
Peri, Yoram. The Assassination of Yitzhak Rabin. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University
Press, 2000.

RADAMA II (1829–1863)
On May 7, 1863, over objections from his key advisors, King Radama II of
Madagascar—then known as the Merina Kingdom—announced a plan to legal-
ize dueling. Fearing that the king’s scheme would result in anarchy, Prime Min-
ister Rainivoninahitriniony blocked traditional announcement of the new law at
the Zoma (Friday) market gathering on May 8. On Saturday, May 9, the prime
minister’s younger brother—Rainilaiarivony, commander of the royal army—
led troops to arrest members of Radama’s menamaso (“red-eyes”) personal en-
tourage. Eleven were caught and executed before soldiers laid siege to Radama’s
royal palace, the Rova of Antananarivo. On May 10, Radama surrendered the
remaining menamaso, based on Rainivoninahitriniony’s promise that their lives
would be spared, but they were speared to death en masse on May 11. Finally,
on May 12, a band of soldiers stormed the palace and strangled Radama with
a silk sash, to avoid the taboo of spilling royal blood. His wife, Rabodo, was
spared and permitted to rule as Queen Rasoherina on condition that she grant
certain reforms, including freedom of religion and abolition of capital punish-
ment based on royal decrees alone. A public announcement declared that Rad-
ama had committed suicide, whereupon his name was stricken from the list of
Madagascar’s kings, and mourning of his death was banned by law.
Radama was born Prince Rakotosehenondradama on September 23, 1829,
the only son and heir of widowed Queen Ranavalona I, who ruled Madagascar
452 R ADA M A II

autocratically from August

1828 until her death in August
1861. Officially, he was the son
of King Radama I, but because
that monarch died 14 months
before his birth (on July 27,
1828), historians today traced
the prince’s lineage to the
queen’s lover, an army officer
named Andriamihaja, who was
later executed by her order.
Prior to Queen Ranavalona’s
death, contending factions at
court favored different suc-
cessors. Conservatives backed
Ranavalona’s nephew, Ram-
boasalama, and progressives
led by Prime Minister Raini-
laiarivony supported Radama.
The latter faction triumphed,
compelling Ramboasalama to
swear an oath of allegiance to
his cousin before he was ban-
King Radama II of Madagascar, strangled by rebel-
lious soldiers in 1863. (Chris Hellier/Corbis) ished to exile in the highland
village of Ambohimirimo.
Whereas his mother had
pursued a strict regime of isolationism, fending off incursions from Britain and
France, Radama II opened his island nation to European traders. In fact, he
had begun that process half a dozen years before her death, signing a charter in
June 1855 that granted French adventurer Joseph-François Lambert the exclu-
sive right to exploit all minerals, forests, and unoccupied land in Madagascar
in exchange for a 10-percent royalty payment to the monarchy. Bridling even
at that paltry payoff, Lambert tried to foment a coup d’état in 1857, deposing
Ranavalona in favor of Radama, but the effort failed and Ranavalona executed
the natives involved, while deporting Lambert and his cohorts, Jean Laborde
and Ida Laura Pfeiffer.
As king, Radama’s radical changes in traditional policies alienated many
citizens of Madagascar. The threat of losing land and natural resources to
European intruders was particularly troublesome, and the proposed legaliza-
tion of dueling offered an excuse for the coup that deposed him. The move
came too late to save Madagascar, however. Prime Minister Rainilaiarivony
abrogated the Lambert Charter in 1863, taking steps thereafter to end slavery
RAHMAN, ZIAUR 453

(1877), establish a new legal system (1878), and promulgate a new consti-
tution (1881). Napoleon III belatedly used the Lambert Charter’s revocation
as a pretext for invading Madagascar in May 1883, compelling recognition
of French property principles and an indemnity of 1,500,000 francs in May
1885. A second invasion, in December 1894, reduced Madagascar to the sta-
tus of a French protectorate (called Malagasy) by September 1895. A wave of
antiforeign, anti-Christian rioting ensued, prompting France to annex Mada-
gascar as a colony in 1896.
Despite the muddled circumstances of his death, murder described as sui-
cide, rumors circulated that his strangling in May 1863 had only rendered
him unconscious, reviving unexpectedly as his “corpse” was carried toward
Ilafy for burial. In that scenario, the frightened bearers fled and Radama es-
caped, living to a ripe old age in anonymity near Lake Kinkony, in north-
western Madagascar. That story was apparently believed by certain prominent
foreigners including Jean Laborde and William Ellis, a representative of the
London Missionary Society, but no evidence of Radama’s survival was ever
produced.

Further Reading
Diouf, Sylvianne. Kings and Queens of East Africa. New York: Grolier Publishing, 2000.
Laidler, Keith. Female Caligula: Ranavalona, the Mad Queen of Madagascar. Chichester,
West Sussex, United Kingdom: John Wiley & Sons, 2005.
Oliver, Samuel. Madagascar: An Historical Descriptive Account of the Island and Its For-
mer Dependencies, Volume 1. New York: Macmillan and Co., 1886.
Prout, Ebenezer. Madagascar: Its Mission and Its Martyrs. London: London Missionary
Society, 1863.

RAHMAN, ZIAUR (1936–1981)

On May 29, 1981, President Ziaur Rahman of Bangladesh traveled from Dhaka
to the southeastern seaport of Chittagong, to arbitrate a feud between local
leaders of the far-right Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP). Arriving at the lo-
cal seat of government, Chittagong Circuit House, Rahman and his entourage
settled in to rest before a long day of negotiations. At 4:00 A.M. on May 30, a
group of 14 commissioned offices from the Bangladesh army stormed Circuit
House, firing rocket launchers and automatic weapons. Several members of
Rahman’s party were killed before the invaders found him, whereupon Colo-
nel Matiur Rahman (no relation) shot the president with a submachine gun.
Colonel Rahman and two other raiders were killed by guards while fleeing the
scene. Two more escaped to India and were never apprehended. Authorities
arrested 18 more alleged conspirators in June 1981, executing 13 and sentenc-
ing 5 to varying prison terms. An additional 20 officers were dismissed from
service for failing to detect and avert the conspiracy.
454 R AHM AN, ZIAUR

Ziaur Rahman—commonly
known as “Zia”—was born at
Bagbari, in the Bogra district
of Bengal, British-ruled India,
on January 19, 1936. His fa-
ther, a chemist, worked for the
government in Calcutta (now
Kolkata) when Rahman was
a child. In July 1947, passage
of the Indian Independence
Act sparked sectarian violence
between Hindus and Mus-
lims, both of whom wanted to
rule the new nation. Instead,
a month later, the Muslim-
controlled Dominion of Paki-
stan was created in two seg-
ments, widely divided by the
bulk of northern India. East
Pakistan achieved its own
quasi-independence in 1955,
with its capital at Dhaka, and
West Pakistan (today simply
Rebel soldiers assassinated President Ziaur Rah- Pakistan) formally ruled both
man of Bangladesh, in May 1981. (Associated
Press)
regions from Islamabad.
While those changes altered
his homeland’s geography and
politics, Ziaur Rahman pursued a military career. While rising through the army’s
ranks to serve as a major with the 8th East Bengal Regiment in Chittagong, he
bridled at institutional discrimination practiced against Bengali-born officers by
their superiors from West Pakistan. Diplomatic tension reached a head in 1970,
when East Pakistan’s dominant political party—the Awami League, led by Sheikh
Mujibur Rahman (known as “Mujib,” again, no relation to Ziaur Rahman)—won
all but two of 169 seats allotted to East Pakistan in the Majlis-e-Shoora (Parlia-
ment of Pakistan). Alarmed by the growing trend toward independence for East
Pakistan, President General Yahya Khan attempted to forge a coalition of the
Awami League and the Pakistan Peoples Party, dominated by Prime Minister Zul-
fikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto first threatened to “break the legs” of any party member
who participated in negotiations, then struck a secret deal with Mujib, agreeing
to create a coalition with himself as president and Mujib as prime minister.
At that point, Yahya Khan’s military police arrested Bhutto and Mujib, and
Khan launched “Operation Searchlight,” invading East Pakistan on March 26,
RAHMAN, ZIAUR 455

1971. A parallel naval assault, “Operation Barisal,” began on April 25. Major
Zia read Mujib’s Declaration of Independence for East Pakistan—henceforth
known as Bangladesh—then plunged into action as war enveloped his home-
land. The resultant conflict, including Indian intervention against West Pak-
istan in December 1971, ultimately claimed at least 200,000 lives (some
published estimates exceed 3 million). Bangladesh secured its independence
via the Simla Agreement, signed by India and Pakistan in July 1972, and joined
the United Nations in 1974.
Ziaur Rahman was recognized as a hero of the war for independence, his
brigade dubbed “Z Force,” after his first initial. He retired from military ser-
vice as a lieutenant general with a Bir Uttom (“Better among Braves” in Bengali),
the nation’s second-highest award for valor. Sadly, peace was not forthcom-
ing for the war-torn fledgling nation. Sheikh Mujib sought financial aid from
the Soviet Union in 1972, which prompted U.S. president Richard Nixon to
ban grain imports to Bangladesh. The ensuing famine claimed 70,000 lives,
and leftist elements began agitation against Mujib’s Awami League regime. In
January 1975, Mujib declared a state of emergency, renamed his party the Ban-
gladesh Farmers and Workers Awami League, and banned all other parties.
Dissident army officers slaughtered Mujib and his family on August 15, 1975,
installing conspirator Khondaker Mostaq Ahmad as president. He, in turn, ap-
pointed Ziaur Rahman as a major general and the army’s new chief of staff.
Unhappy with that result, Brigadier Khaled Mosharraf and Colonel Shafat
Jamil staged a countercoup on November 3, 1975, arresting Ziaur and compel-
ling him to resign. Four days later, Lieutenant Colonel Abu Taher and a group
of leftist officers from the Jatiyo Samajtantrik Dal (National Socialist Party, unre-
lated to Adolf Hitler’s Nazis), killed Mosharraf and imprisoned Jamil, while lib-
erating Ziaur Rahman and reinstating him as chief of staff. The rebels formed
an interim government led by Chief Justice Abu Sadat Mohammad Sayem, with
Zia, Air Vice Marshal Muhammad Ghulam Tawab, and Rear Admiral Mush-
arraf Hussain Khan as his chief deputies. In addition to his role as army chief of
staff, Zia also served the new government as minister of home affairs, finance,
industry, and information. Fearing future coups against the new regime, Ziaur
convened a secret court-martial for his savior, Abu Taher, and had Taher ex-
ecuted on July 21, 1976. Officers who protested that action soon found them-
selves dispatched to diplomatic missions abroad.
President Sayem resigned on April 21, 1977, citing poor health as he passed
his office to Ziaur Rahman. Whether Sayem was truly ill—he lived another
20 years—or he was pushed aside in what amounted to a bloodless coup, re-
mains a matter of continuing debate. In either case, Ziaur proceeded to rule
as a dictator, restoring martial law and banning political parties, censoring the
media and jailing dissidents, ruthlessly crushing grassroots insurrections such
as the Bogra mutiny of September 30–October 2, 1977. His “19-point program”
456 R ASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH

for curing Bangladesh’s domestic ills sidestepped socialism, emphasizing self-

reliance, population control, and decentralization of government, buoyed by
lectures on the “politics of hope.” In foreign policy, he retreated from ties to the
Soviet Union, seeking closer bonds with the United States and Western Europe.
In 1978, he founded the BNP, an ultraconservative bloc based on Islamic fun-
damentalism and militant nationalism. After the BNP swept national elections
in 1979, it passed the Indemnity Act, retroactively immunizing Sheikh Mujib’s
assassins against future prosecution.
That legitimization of military coups, subsequently enshrined as the Fifth
Amendment to the Bangladesh Constitution, rebounded against President
Ziaur with his own assassination. The coup that killed him ultimately failed,
thanks to Army Chief of Staff (later president) Hussain Muhammad Ershad.
Justice Abdus Sattar succeeded Ziaur as president, winning popular election to
the office in December 1981, then was deposed by Hussain Ershad in another
coup, on March 24, 1982.
Following Ziaur’s assassination, an 18-day court-martial delivered death
sentences to 12 alleged conspirators; a 13th, wounded during the attack on
Ziaur, was hanged on September 30, 1983, after recovering from his injuries.
Some observers suspected that Major General Abul Manzoor—once an ally of
Ziaur’s in the war for independence, later a jealous rival—may have been the
assassination’s ringleader, but he was never charged. For all his faults, Ziaur
Rahman is widely known today in Bangladesh as Shaheed (“Martyred”) Zia.

Further Reading
Choudhury, Ziaudddin. Assassination of Ziaur Rahman and the Aftermath. Dhaka, Ban-
gladesh: The University Press Ltd., 2009.
Franda, Marcus. Ziaur Rahman’s Bangladesh. Hanover, NH: AUFS, 1979.
Hossain, Golam. General Ziaur Rahman and the BNP: Political Transformation of a Mili-
tary Regime. Dhaka, Bangladesh: Mohiuddin Ahmed University Press, 1988.
Lifschultz, Lawrence. Bangladesh: The Unfinished Revolution. London: Zed Books, 1979.
Mascarenhas, Anthony. Bangladesh: A Legacy of Blood. London: Hodder and Stoughton,
1986.

RASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH

(1869–1916)
On December 16, 1916, Grigori Rasputin—a self-styled Russian Orthodox
mystic, seer, and healer—received an invitation to dine with Prince Felix Yu-
supov at Moika Palace in Saint Petersburg. He accepted after being told that
Yusupov’s wife, Princess Irina, would be present, entertaining wealthy friends.
In fact, however, she was traveling in Ukraine. Prince Yusupov, with accom-
plices Grand Duke Dmitri Pavlovich and Black Hundreds’ militia leader Vladi-
mir Purishkevich, planned to kill Rasputin for exerting a corrupting influence
RASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH 457

over Russia’s royal family. Meeting in the castle’s basement, the trio reportedly
fed Rasputin cakes and wine spiked with cyanide, but he showed no reaction
to the poison. Frustrated, Yusupov then shot Rasputin with a pistol, leaving
him to die, but when the plotters returned some time later, the monk lunged
at Yusupov, trying to strangle him. Shot three more times by Pavlovich and
Purishkevich, Rasputin still survived, struggling to rise and fight. The would-
be killers bludgeoned him next, then wrapped his presumed corpse in a carpet
and dumped it into the Neva River. Found three days later, minus the carpet,
Rasputin was finally dead—from drowning, according to his autopsy.
Grigori Yefimovich Rasputin was born in the Siberian village of Pokrovs-
koye, Tyumen Oblast, on January 22, 1869. A son of peasants, his siblings in-
cluded an epileptic sister, Maria, who drowned in a local river. Brother Dmitri
nearly suffered the same fate, but Grigori rescued him, only to see Dmitri die
from pneumonia. Legends credit Rasputin with quasi-psychic powers from an
early age, though none of the purported events can be substantiated. At age
18, he was consigned for three months to a monastery at Verkhoturye, on Tura
River, as punishment for theft. While there, Rasputin claimed a vision of the
Virgin Mary that diverted him to the life of a strannik (wandering pilgrim). De-
tractors later linked him to a banned Christian sect, the Khlysty (flagellants),
who flogged themselves into fits of orgiastic ecstasy, though Rasputin denied
the association.
Although generally labeled a monk, Rasputin rarely denied himself plea-
sures of the flesh. He married Praskovia Dubrovina in 1889, siring three chil-
dren with her, and later fathered at least one more child with a second partner,
out of wedlock. In 1901, he deserted his family, traveling for two years through
Greece and the Middle East, including a stop in Jerusalem. Rasputin reached
Saint Petersburg in 1903, building a reputation as a prophet and faith healer
that subsequently reached the ears of Empress Alexandra Feodorovna. Her
son, Tsarevich Alexei Nikolaevich, suffered from hemophilia that frustrated
royal physicians. Hearing of Rasputin from her best friend and lady-in-waiting,
Anna Vyrubova, the empress arranged for Rasputin to heal her son in 1905.
Accounts of Alexei’s treatment by Rasputin vary radically, though most agree
that the royal heir’s health seemed to improve. Some historians credit the calm-
ing effects of hypnosis, Rasputin’s interdiction of Alexei’s treatment with aspirin
(itself an anticoagulant), or application of leeches (unlikely, because their saliva
facilitates bleeding). Whatever the actual method, Alexei’s apparent recovery
earned Rasputin the eternal gratitude of Empress Alexandra and her husband,
Tsar Nicholas II. Nicholas described Rasputin to acquaintances as a “holy man”
and “our friend,” thereby ensuring his welcome at the royal court in Saint Pe-
tersburg. Despite that endorsement, however, the Holy Synod of the Eastern
Orthodox Church shunned Rasputin, accusing him of various corrupt and im-
moral actions.
458 R ASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH

Rasputin’s new status placed him under round-the-clock surveillance by

Russia’s secret police, the Okhrana, whose agents kept Tsar Nicholas informed
of the monk’s eccentric behavior—and also leaked details to Russian newspa-
pers. Rumors of his ties to the outlawed Khlysty were revived, but Nicholas
ignored them, dismissing his minister of the interior for “lack of control over
the press.” Other reports described Rasputin’s heavy drinking, sexual promis-
cuity, even allegations that he had raped a nun. Rather than deny those charges,
Rasputin maintained that sin and subsequent repentance were both mandatory
for salvation, thus his lapses into drunken fornication were truly steps closer to
God. To critics of Rasputin, it was no coincidence that he preached that gospel
chiefly to young, wealthy women.
At the outbreak of World War I, new accusations focused on Rasputin, these
accusing him hampering the war effort. He initially opposed the war on moral
grounds, and as a threat to the Russian monarchy, then expressed a desire to
bless royal troops. Grand Duke Nicholas Nikolaevich, commander in chief of
Russia’s armed forces, threatened to hang Rasputin if he approached the front
lines, whereupon Rasputin announced his “vision” that Russia would lose the
war unless Tsar Nicholas assumed personal command of the army. The tsar
obliged—and in his absence, Empress Alexandra fell increasingly under Ras-
putin’s influence.
Author Greg King reports an attempt to kill Rasputin one month before the
war officially began, on June 29, 1914, while Rasputin was visiting his wife and
children in Pokrovskoye. According to King, Rasputin was attacked and stabbed
on the street by Khionia Guzeva, a prostitute turned acolyte of Sergei Trufanov,
a sometime monk and former friend of Rasputin who had turned against him.
Nearly disemboweled in the attack, Rasputin survived extensive surgery, but lost
much of his former energy and developed opium addiction due to chronic pain.
The prelude to Rasputin’s murder came from Vladimir Purishkevich. Ad-
dressing the State Duma (an advisory council to Tsar Nicholas) on November
19, 1916, he said, “The tsar’s ministers who have been turned into marionettes,
marionettes whose threads have been taken firmly in hand by Rasputin and
the Empress Alexandra Fyodorovna—the evil genius of Russia and the Tsarina,
who has remained a German on the Russian throne and alien to the country
and its people.” After witnessing that speech, Felix Yusupov met with Purish-
kevich and hatched the plot to kill Rasputin, ostensibly in a bid to save the
Russian monarchy from ruin.
Following Rasputin’s autopsy, Empress Alexandra had his body interred at
Tsarskoye Selo (the “tsar’s village”), 15 miles south of Saint Petersburg. During
the February Revolution of 1917, local peasants exhumed Rasputin’s body and
burned it in the woods nearby, reportedly frightened when the lifeless body
appeared to lurch upright. Modern pathologists attribute that reaction—if, in
fact, it happened—to contraction of his body’s tendons as they burned.
RASPUTIN, GRIGORI YEFIMOVICH 459

Much remains mysterious about Rasputin’s death. His autopsy report van-
ished during the Stalin era (though some photographs survived), as did those
attendants who had witnessed the postmortem. Details of the slaying offered
publicly by Felix Yusupov on various occasions between 1917 and 1965 cast
doubt on now-legendary portrayals of the assassination. Some reports now
claim that pathologists found no poison in Rasputin’s corpse, and Professor
Derrick Pounder, head of the Department of Forensic Medicine at the Univer-
sity of Dundee (Scotland), claimed in 2006 that Rasputin died from a gunshot
to the forehead, rather than from drowning. Naming the murder weapon as a
British-made Webley .455-caliber revolver, Pounder suggested that Rasputin
may have received his coup de grâce from a British Secret Intelligence Service
(SIS) agent, one Lieutenant Oswald Rayner, identified as a longtime friend of
Yusupov from their days as classmates at Oxford University. Michael Smith, hi
his history of the SIS, claims that agency boss Mansfield Cumming personally
ordered Rasputin’s elimination.
Today, even the “mad monk’s” notorious sexual escapades have been called
into doubt. Rasputin biographer Edvard Radzinsky, working from Russian ar-
chives, suggests that the cleric’s pursuit of women was, if not entirely fabri-
cated, at least grossly exaggerated. True or not, film portrayals of Rasputin
general hew to the traditional form. Two silent films depicting Rasputin, The
Fall of the Romanovs and Rasputin, the Black Monk, were released in September
1917. Conrad Veidt took the title role in Rasputin, Demon with Women (1932),
and the same year saw Lionel Barrymore case at the libidinous pilgrim in
Rasputin and the Empress. Christopher Lee played Rasputin: The Mad Monkom
(1966), followed by Gert Fröbe (of Goldfinger fame) a year later, in I Killed
Rasputin. Tom Baker kept Rasputin in the classic mold for Nicholas and Alex-
andra (1971). Alan Rickman was suitably sinister in HBO’s Rasputin, first aired
in 1996. The following year, Rasputin sold his soul for magical powers in
the animated film Anastasia. In Hellboy (2004), Karl Roden played the resur-
rected fiend, invoking Lovecraftian demons to conquer Earth. Most recently,
in 2011, French actor Gérard Depardieu portrayed Rasputin in the epony-
mous film Rasputin.
See also: Nicholas II (1868–1918).

Further Reading
Colin Wilson. Rasputin and the Fall of the Romanovs. London: Arthur Baker Limited,
1964.
Cook, Andrew. To Kill Rasputin: The Life and Death of Grigori Rasputin. Stroud, Glouces-
tershire, United Kingdom: Tempus Publishing, 2006.
Fuhrmann, Joseph. Rasputin: The Untold Story. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2013.
King, Greg. The Man Who Killed Rasputin: Prince Felix Youssoupov and the Murder That
Helped Bring Down the Russian Empire. New York: Carol Publishing, 1995.
460 R AT H E N AU, WA LT H E R

Moe, Richard. Prelude to the Revolution: The Murder of Rasputin. Chula Vista, CA: Aven-
tine Press, 2011.
Moynahan, Brian. Rasputin: The Saint Who Sinned. New York: Random House, 1997.
Radzinsky, Edvard. The Rasputin File. New York: Anchor Books, 2000.
Smith, Michael. Six: A History of Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service. London: Biteback,
2010.

RATHENAU, WALTHER (1867–1922)

On June 24, 1922, German foreign minister Walther Rathenau left his home
in the Berlin district of Grunewald, bound for his office on Wilhelmstrasse in
a chauffeured convertible car. Midway through the drive, his vehicle was over-
taken by another, occupied by three members of the Organisation Consul (OC),
an ultranationalist group formed in 1921 by remnants of the Marinebrigade Eh-
rhardt, after that organization’s abortive coup failed to topple the Weimar Repub-
lic. OC radicals had murdered Minister of Finance Matthias Erzberger on August
26, 1921, and Rathenau was their next target, marked for signing the Treaty of
Rapallo in April 1922, thereby renouncing all of Germany’s territorial and finan-
cial claims against Russia from World War I. Ernst Werner Techow drove the
pursuing car, with Erwin Kern and Hermann Fischer in the backseat. As they
passed Rathenau’s vehicle, Kern fired a submachine gun, and Fischer lobbed a
hand grenade. Rathenau died instantly, and his killers fled the scene. Relatives
betrayed Techow to police on June 29, and officers tracked his accomplices to
Thuringia on July 17, killing Kern in a shootout, and Fischer committed suicide.
Convicted as an accessory to murder in October 1922, Techow served six years
of a 15-year sentence and was released in 1928, promptly joining the Nazi Party.
A friend of Techow’s brother, Ernst von Salomon, received a five-year term for
providing the vehicle that was used during the murder.
Walther Rathenau was born in Berlin on September 29, 1867, into a wealthy
German-Jewish family. His father, Emil Rathenau, was a pioneer in early Euro-
pean electrification, founder of the Allgemeine Elektricitäts-Gesellschaft (General
Electricity Company, or AEG) in 1883. Walther’s maternal grandfather was Ben-
jamin Liebermann, a prominent Berlin textile manufacturer. Trained as an engi-
neer, Rathenau joined AEG’s board of directors at age 32 and became a leading
industrialist during the late German Empire and early Weimar Republic eras.
Austrian modernist author Robert Musil reportedly used Rathenau as the model
for Count Paul Arnheim, a rapacious German entrepreneur in his novel Der
Mann ohne Eigenschaften (The Man without Qualities).
That work would not be published until eight years after Rathenau’s assassi-
nation. Meanwhile, his success and Jewish heritage made him an easy target for
German extremists of the proto-Nazi movement. Perhaps ironically, Rathenau
was himself an ardent German nationalist, urging his fellow Jews to shun both
socialism and Zionism, seeking instead seamless assimilation into mainstream
R AT H E N A U , WA L T H E R 461

society. He viewed that course

as the best means of eliminat-
ing anti-Semitism, but in that
he underestimated the abiding
hatred of far-right factions such
as the Pan-German League and
the German Fatherland Party.
During World War I, Ra-
thenau succeeded his father
as chairman of AEG and held
a senior position in the war
ministry’s raw materials depart-
ment, attempting to maintain
war industries despite a naval
blockade that starved German
factories of raw materials. In
1921, with Germany’s imperial
ambitions shattered for the mo-
ment, Rathenau was named to
serve as minister of reconstruc-
tion for the Weimar Repub- Nazis murdered German foreign minister Walther
Rathenau in 1922. (Associated Press)
lic, under President Friedrich
Ebert. On February 1, 1922,
Ebert promoted him to foreign minister, a post from which Rathenau insisted
that Germany should fulfill its obligations under the Treaty of Versailles, in-
cluding payment of war reparations, surrender of foreign colonies, and reduc-
tion of military forces. That alone was enough to infuriate proto-Nazis of the
OC, but Rathenau sealed his own fate in April, when he signed the Treaty of
Rapallo with the Soviet Union.
The OC was organized specifically to topple the Weimar Republic by fo-
menting violence, hoping to provoke a civil war in which the newly formed
the Vorläufige Reichswehr (“Provisional National Defense”) would theoretically
seek reinforcements from the ranks of far-right vigilantes. According to a De-
cember 27, 1922, article in the Münchener Post, the OC’s secret handbook in-
cluded the following mission statement:

Spiritual aims: The cultivation and dissemination of nationalist thinking; warfare

against all anti-nationalists and internationalists; warfare against Jewry, Social
Democracy and Leftist-radicalism; fomentation of internal unrest in order to at-
tain the overthrow of the anti-nationalist Weimar constitution.
Material aims: The organization of determined, nationalist-minded
men . . . local shock troops for breaking up meetings of an anti-nationalist
462 R A T S I M A N D R AVA , R I C H A R D

nature; maintenance of arms and the preservation of military ability; the educa-
tion of youth in the use of arms.
Notice: Only those men who have determination, who obey unconditionally
and who are without scruples . . . will be accepted. . . . The organization is a se-
cret organization.

To those ends, OC terrorists murdered dozens of victims during

1921–1922. After Rathenau’s assassination, the group morphed into a new
formation, the Viking Bund, still led by OC founder Hermann Ehrhardt,
loosely affiliated with the Nazi Party’s Sturmabteilung (SA) “storm troopers.”
Ehrhardt, however, resented Adolf Hitler’s rise to power and, with deputy
commander Eberhard Kautter, declined to aid Hitler in the abortive Munich
Beer Hall Putsch of November 1923, which sent Hitler to prison. That year,
prominent Nazi Hermann Göring wrote that Ehrhardt and the Viking Bund
had “declared war against the party and the SA,” but no direct action re-
sulted. Despite that rift, most Viking Bund members later joined the Nazi
Party. Once Hitler was released from custody and rose to power as Germany’s
chancellor, he erected a monument to Rathenau assassin Hermann Fischer,
in October 1933, but tension with Ehrhardt continued. Ehrhardt was one
of those marked for extermination during Hitler’s 1934 “Night of the Long
Knives,” but he escaped the purge and was later forgiven. Invited back to
Germany from exile in Austria, Ehrhardt survived World War II and died at
age 89, in September 1971.

Further Reading
Felix, David. Walther Rathenau and the Weimar Republic: The Politics of Reparations. Bal-
timore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1971.
Kessler, Henry. Walter Rathenau: His Life and Work. New York: Harcourt, Brace & Com-
pany, 1930.
Smith, Gene. The Ends of Greatness: Haig, Petain, Rathenau, and Eden: Victims of History.
New York: Crown Publishing, 1990.
Volkov, Shulamit. Walter Rathenau: Weimar’s Fallen Statesman. New Haven, CT: Yale
University Press, 2012.

RATSIMANDRAVA, RICHARD (1931–1975)

At 8:00 P.M. on February 11, 1975, President Richard Ratsimandrava left his
presidential palace in Antananarivo, capital of Madagascar, proceeding toward
his private residence. It was his sixth day in office—and his last. While en
route, his car was ambushed by ex-members of the Groupe Mobile de Police (Mo-
bile Police Group), a counterinsurgency unit earlier disbanded by President/
Prime Minister Gabriel Ramanantsoa. The gunmen riddled Ratsimandrava’s
car with bullets and escaped, leaving him dead in the wreckage. Vice Admiral
Didier Ratsiraka, head of Madagascar’s navy, succeeded Ratsimandrava, first as
R AT S I M A N D R AVA , R I C H A R D 463

chairman of a Supreme Military Council, then as president, ruling the nation

until March of 1993.
Richard Ratsimandrava was born in Antananarivo on March 21, 1931, when
Madagascar was still a French colony. He graduated from the Ecole Spéci-
ale Militaire de Saint-Cyr in Brittany, and served in various posts throughout
French Africa before his homeland won independence in 1960. Thereafter, he
remained in uniform, advancing to the rank of lieutenant colonel. Madagas-
car’s first president, Philibert Tsiranana, although hailed as the “Father of In-
dependence,” sparked protests from his people by maintaining many aspects
of French culture and failing to cure the island’s economic woes. After brutally
crushing popular demonstrations, Tsiranana ceded power to Prime Minister
Ramanantsoa in October 1972. Keeping his current title while doubling as
president, Ramanantsoa named Richard Ratsimandrava as minister of the inte-
rior, then imposed military rule so harsh that he regime was nearly overthrown
by rebels in December 1974. He resigned on February 5, 1975, and was
succeeded—albeit briefly—by Ratsimandrava.
President Ratsiraka steered Madagascar toward socialism, endorsed by a ref-
erendum that established a Second Republic in December 1975. Confirmed
in office that month for a seven-year term, Ratsiraka founded a new party, the
Vanguard of the Malagasy Revolution, renamed in 1989 as the Association for
the Rebirth of Madagascar. He faced his own waves of violent demonstrations
from 1989 through 1991, when dissent forced his resignation in favor of suc-
cessor Albert Zafy. Two more decades of disturbances climaxed with a coup
that forced President Marc Ravalomanana to flee the country in March 2009.
Thereafter, government fell to a “High Transitional Authority,” led since Octo-
ber 2011 by Prime Minister Jean Omer Beriziky.
Meanwhile, yearly gatherings were held in Antananarivo, on the anniversary
of Ratsimandrava’s assassination. In February 2006, a conference was held,
calling for renewed investigation of the still-unsolved crime. That dragged on
for six years later, until February 12, 2012, when General Randrianazary, secre-
tary of state at the National Gendarmerie, declared, “We are going to abandon
the investigation from now on.” He offered no explanation for that unpopular
decision, but international press reports noted that persons prone to discuss-
ing the case have died “in mysterious circumstances.” There seems to be no
further prospect for solution of the case.

Further Reading
Jackson, Jennifer. Political Oratory and Cartooning: An Ethnography of Democratic Process
in Madagascar. Malden, MA: Wiley-Blackwell, 2013.
Jolly, Alison. Lords and Lemurs: Mad Scientists, Kings with Spears, and the Survival of
Diversity in Madagascar. New York: Houghton Mifflin, 2004.
Randrianja, Solofo, and Stephanie Ellis. Madagascar: A Short History. London: Hurst
Publishers, 2009.
464 R A Z M A R A , S E PA H B O D H A J A L I

RAZMARA, SEPAHBOD HAJ ALI (1901–1951)

On March 7, 1951, Prime Minister Haj Ali Razmara attended a memorial ser-
vice at a mosque in Tehran, Iran. As police cleared a path for Razmara through
the mosque’s inner courtyard, 26-year-old carpenter Khalil Tahmasebi fired
three close-range pistol shots, fatally wounding the prime minister. Arrested
at the scene, Tahmasebi was identified as a member of the militant Fada’iyan-e
Islam (“Crusaders of Islam”) organization. Despite his red-handed capture and
free admission of guilt, Tahmasebi was pardoned and released from custody,
welcomed home as “a brave son of Islam” by Dr. Mohammed Mossadegh,
leader of the ultra-fundamentalist National Front, who had succeeded Razmara
as Iran’s prime minister.
Sepahbod Haj Ali Razmara was born in Tehran, sometime during 1901,
under the reign of Mozaffar ad-Din Shah Qajar. He studied at the Lycéemilitaire
de Saint-Cyr, in France, then returned to Iran and began his rise through the
royal army’s ranks. On June 26, 1950, Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavı̄ named
Razmara to serve as prime minister, succeeding Ali Mansur. He maintained and
expanded Mansur’s close ties to Great Britain, more specifically to the Anglo-
Iranian Oil Company (today British Petroleum, or BP). He supported ratification
of a Supplemental Oil Agreement between that firm and Iran, despite strong op-
position from members of the National Consultative Assembly and a majority of
grassroots Iranians, including complaints that the agreement denied Iranian of-
ficials any right to audit the British company’s books. Mohammed Mossadegh’s
National Front called for nationalization of Iran’s oil fields, and author Stephen
Kinzer writes that the British Foreign Office agreed with Razmara’s elevation to
prime minister, noting that “Only a man with his fierce determination, they be-
lieved, would be strong enough to face down Mossadegh and the National Front.”
During his brief term in office, Razmara promoted a scheme for decentral-
izing government, establishing local councils in Iran’s 84 districts to deal with
matters such as education, health care, and agricultural improvements. At the
same time, he slashed government payrolls, dismissing some 400 top-ranking
officials and proceeding from there to weed out employees in lower positions.
His working alliance with the Tudeh Party (Party of the Masses of Iran) trou-
bled wealthy land owners, even as his opposition to expropriation of Anglo-
Iranian Oil Company property angered Muslim nationalists. The Fada’iyan-e
Islam, organized four years before Razmara’s elevation to prime minister, had
already claimed their first victim with the murder of anti-clerical author Ahmad
Kasravi in March 1946. Three years later, its gunmen assassinated Court Min-
ister Abdul-Hussein Hazhir. At a public demonstration the day after Razmara’s
murder, Fada’iyan-e Islam distributed leaflets threatening death to the shah if
Khalil Tahmasebi was not liberated. Three weeks later, they made good on that
vow, killing Minister of Education and Culture Abdul Ahmad Zangeneh, Dean
of Law at Tehran University.
REAGAN, RONALD WILSON 465

Razmara’s murder achieved the goal desired by his assassin. On March 12,
1951 the National Consultative Assembly voted to nationalize Iran’s oil fields,
followed by another vote to expropriate Anglo-Iranian Oil’s property on March
28. A month later, on April 28, Mohammad Mossadegh was confirmed as prime
minister. In August 1953, British and U.S. troops staged “Operation Ajax,”
forcibly deposing Mossadegh and placing Mohammad Rezā Shāh Pahlavı̄ in
charge of a military junta with General Fazlollah Zahedi as his chief enforcer.
The brutal tactics of that dictatorship eventually spawned the Iranian Revolu-
tion of 1979, deposing the shah and establishing extreme fundamentalist Aya-
tollah Ruhollah Khomeini as the nation’s new ruler.
Conspiracy theories persist in Razmara’s assassination. Although Khalil Tah-
masebi supported and publicly praised the National Front, no member of that
group was ever linked to the prime minister’s slaying. An alternative theory,
raised by several Iranian authors, claims that the shah and one of his top aides,
Assadullah Alam, sought to eliminate Razmara for murky reasons of their own.
In that scenario, Tahmasebi tried to kill Razmara but missed his target, where-
upon an army sergeant fired the fatal shots.

Further Reading
Abrahamian, Ervand. The Coup: 1953, the CIA, and the Roots of Modern U.S.-Iranian Re-
lations. New York: The New Press, 2013.
De Ballaique, Christopher. Patriot of Persia: Muhammad Mossadegh and a Tragic Anglo-
American Coup. New York: HarperCollins, 2012.
Heiss, Mary. Empire and Nationhood: The United States, Great Britain, and Iranian Oil,
1950–1954. New York: Columbia University Press, 1997.
Kinzer, Stephen. All the Shah’s Men: An American Coup and the Roots of Middle East Ter-
ror. Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003.

REAGAN, RONALD WILSON

(1911–2004)—ATTEMPTED
On March 21, 1981, newly inaugurated President Ronald Reagan visited Ford’s
Theatre in Washington, D.C., for a fundraising event. Later, he recalled “a cu-
rious sensation” as he viewed the box where President Abraham Lincoln was
shot in April 1865, musing that “even with all the Secret Service protection we
now had, it was probably still possible for someone who had enough determi-
nation to get close enough to a president to shoot him.” Nine days later, after
addressing labor union representatives at the Washington Hilton Hotel, Reagan
was shot by 25-year-old John Warnock Hinckley Jr. Hinckley fired six shots
from a .22-caliber revolver, striking Reagan with one bullet, also wounding a
Secret Service agent, a policeman, and White House Press Secretary James
Brady. While police and bystanders disarmed Hinckley, Reagan was transported
to George Washington University Hospital, where surgeon’s removed the bullet
466 REAGAN, RONALD WIL SON

from his chest. Luckily, although Hinckley had loaded his pistol with “Devasta-
tor” rounds designed to explode on impact, the round that penetrated Reagan’s
body proved to be a “dud.” James Brady was less fortunate, left paralyzed and
permanently disabled after his slug shattered inside his skull.
Ronald Reagan was born in Tampico, Illinois, on February 6, 1911. He
earned a BA in economics and sociology from Eureka College, a private insti-
tution affiliated with the Disciples of Christ, then moved to Iowa and entered
show business as a radio broadcaster in 1937. Later that year, he moved again,
this time to Hollywood, for his first role in a feature film, Love is on the Air. An-
other 33 films followed before the United States entered into World War II,
with titles ranging from the obscure (Swing Your Lady, Cowboys over Brooklyn,
Girls on Probation) to acknowledged cinema classics (Dark Victory and Knute
Rockne, All American).
Reagan joined the U.S. Army Reserve in 1937 and was ordered up for ac-
tive duty in April 1942, but nearsightedness barred him from combat and he
spent most of the war in Culver City, California, as a member of First Motion
Picture Unit (officially, the “18th Army Air Force Base Unit”), composed entirely
of film-making professionals. Before war’s end, Reagan worked on 13 more fea-
tures and short films, including five where he provided voice-overs for army pro-
ductions. Even so, he found time to appear in King’s Row (nominated for three
Academy Awards in 1942), along with the forgettable Juke Girl (also 1942).
Reagan’s career in Hollywood continued after V-J Day, with another 19 films
between 1947 and 1954. His star seemed to be waning through the latter part
of the 1950s and early 1960s—a total of three big-screen appearances between
1955 and 1964, the last as a decidedly unsympathetic felon in The Killers. At
the same time Reagan switched to television, appearing in a dozen episodes of
programs such as Lux Video Theatre and Schlitz Playhouse of Stars between 1950
and 1954. In the latter year, he landed an eight-year stint as host of General
Electric Theater, introducing 235 teleplays and acting in 35. Occasional appear-
ances on Dick Powell’s Zane Grey Theater, Wagon Train, and similar TV shows
kept Reagan in the public eye through 1964, but many critics were ready to
write him off when politics intervened.
Originally a self-styled “liberal” Democrat, Reagan had been drifting toward
the political right since becoming disillusioned with President Franklin Roo-
sevelt’s New Deal. Elected to his first term as president of the Screen Actors
Guild in 1941 (with later terms following in 1946–1952 and 1959), Reagan
collaborated with the U.S. House Committee on Un-American Activities in
striving to rid Hollywood of alleged communists. He participated in compiling
blacklists of “subversive” actors and writers, purging “radical” union members
while collaborating in some cases with underworld infiltration of the film in-
dustry. For a time, he also served the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) as
REAGAN, RONALD WILSON 467

secret informer “T-10,” reporting on perceived un-American behavior by his

colleagues and competitors in Hollywood.
Reagan was thus well placed in 1964, when ultraconservative Arizona sena-
tor Barry Goldwater launched his presidential race with a proclamation that “ex-
tremism in the defense of liberty is no vice, and . . . moderation in the pursuit of
justice is no virtue.” That philosophy drew support from groups including the
John Birch Society and the Ku Klux Klan (the latter rejected by Goldwater, a Jew
whose running mate was Catholic). Incumbent Lyndon Johnson crushed Gold-
water in November, carrying 43 states to Goldwater’s six, but Reagan emerged
as a star of the disastrous campaign, delivering a half-hour televised endorse-
ment of Goldwater, titled “A Time for Choosing,” on October 27, 1964. It failed
to turn the tide, but that address raised $1 million for Goldwater on election eve
and marked Reagan as a political force to be reckoned with.
In 1966, California Republicans chose Reagan as their gubernatorial candi-
date. He defeated two-term incumbent Edmund “Pat” Brown, and was subse-
quently reelected to a second term in 1970. Between those campaigns, Reagan
tested presidential waters for the first time with a short-lived “Stop Nixon”
in 1968, but he failed to garner significant backing at that year’s Republican
National Convention. Back in California, his eight years as governor featured
constant conflict with campus protesters and militant minorities, opposition
to the state’s proposed “Therapeutic Abortion Act,” and various environmental
gaffes, as when he appointed the head of a logging company to supervise state
conservation efforts, telling reporters, “If you’ve seen one redwood you’ve seen
them all.”
In 1976, Reagan made a stronger presidential showing, but incumbent Ger-
ald Ford secured the nomination with 1,187 convention delegates to Reagan’s
1,070. By 1980, Reagan was finally ready, combining the “October surprise” of
freedom for U.S. hostages held in Iran with a “Southern strategy” that finished
the conversion of white Dixie voters from their traditional Democratic Party
alliance, begun under “Dixiecrat” Strom Thurmond in 1948 and furthered by
predecessor Richard Nixon in his two successful White House campaigns.
Today, the Reagan presidential years are fondly remembered by many U.S.
citizens—and ostensibly revered by conservative Republicans—despite his
many shortcomings: the Iran-Contra scandal, widespread looting of savings
and loan institutions, illegal wars in Central America, and the evident failure
of “trickle-down” economics. All that still lay ahead when Reagan faced John
Hinckley in March 1981 and nearly lost his life.
Two hours before the shooting in Washington, Hinckley wrote but did not
mail a letter to his idol, Jodie Foster, saying, among other things, that he would
“abandon the idea of getting Reagan in a second if I could only win your heart
and live out the rest of my life with you.” The futility of that 11th-hour plea,
468 REAGAN, RONALD WIL SON

never communicated, left him no alternative but to proceed, and in the final
act he failed. At trial, Hinckley faced 13 felony charges, but jurors found him
not guilty by reason of insanity on June 21, 1982. That verdict prompted
near-universal dismay and outrage. As a result, four states—Idaho, Kansas,
Montana, and Utah—abolished the insanity defense entirely, and other states
revised their statutes and Congress ultimately passed the Insanity Defense Re-
form Act of 1984, restricting psychiatric expert testimony on “ultimate legal is-
sues” and placing the burden of proof on a defendant to establish insanity “by
clear and convincing evidence.”
John Hinckley apparently suffered from erotomania, the delusional that a total
stranger—commonly a public figure or celebrity—shared his one-sided obses-
sive love. Fueled by 15 viewings of the Taxi Driver (see sidebar), he became con-
vinced that only murder of a president could seal their illusory romantic bargain.
First, he stalked Reagan predecessor Jimmy Carter, and was arrested in Octo-
ber 1980 with a gun at Nashville International Airport, but FBI agents made no
connection to Carter’s simultaneous visit and thus failed to notify Secret Service
agents of Hinckley’s behavior. Briefly consigned to psychiatric treatment by his
parents after that arrest, Hinckley shifted his attention to the president-elect after
November’s election, and carried on with his plan. In custody, Hinckley wrote
that shooting Reagan “the greatest love offering in the history of the world.”

TAXI DRIVER
Written by Paul Schrader and directed by Martin Scorsese, Taxi Driver is a
psychological thriller starring Robert De Niro as mentally unstable Manhat-
tan cabbie Travis Bickle. Suffering from depression and insomnia, disgusted
with the city’s corruption, Bickle becomes infatuated with an adolescent
prostitute portrayed by Jodie Foster. After botching an attempt to kill a
U.S. presidential candidate, Bickle redirects his rage at Foster’s pimp for a
climactic massacre of underworld lowlifes, which, ironically, makes him
a hero with the media. Nominated for four Academy Awards, including
Best Picture, the film lost out on those but won a Palme d’Or, the highest
prize awarded at the 1976 Cannes Film Festival. John Hinckley Jr. cited
his obsession with Jodie Foster as his motive for shooting President Rea-
gan in 1981, claiming that he hoped it would impress the actress. In 1994,
the U.S. Library of Congress selected Taxi Driver as a film worthy of pres-
ervation in the National Film Registry as being “culturally, historically, or
aesthetically” significant. In 1998, the American Film Institute listed Taxi
Driver at No. 47 in its AFI’s 100 Years . . . 100 Movies. Ten years later, in the
10th-anniversary edition, the film was demoted to No. 52 on the list.
REAGAN, RONALD WILSON 469

After trial, from his hospital room, Hinckley sent letters to condemned
Florida serial killer Theodore Bundy and tried to obtain an address for Cali-
fornia killer-cult leader Charles Manson, but was blocked from further cor-
respondence with notorious slayers. On December 30, 2005, a federal judge
approved visits to Hinckley’s family home in Virginia, “supervised” by his par-
ents, after various psychologists deemed his depression and psychotic disor-
der to be in “full remission.” Month-long visits to his parents were denied in
June 2007, then a series of 10-day visits were approved in June 2009. Legal
debates over his ultimate release from custody continued as this volume went
to press.
Predictably, conspiracy theories arose from the shooting of President
Reagan. Reporters discovered that Hinckley’s father had contributed money
to the 1980 Republican primary campaigns of George H. W. Bush, Reagan’s
top competitor and later running mate. Furthermore, brother Scott Hinck-
ley had a dinner date scheduled at the home of Bush’s son, Silverado Sav-
ings & Loan board member Neil Bush, on the very day Reagan was shot.
Neil’s wife at the time, Sharon Bush, told journalists that Scott Hinckley
was invited to her home as a date for one of her friends, describing the
Hinckley clan as “a very nice family,” whose members had “given a lot of
money to the Bush campaign.” She denied ever meeting John, but knew
him vaguely as “the renegade brother in the family.” From those connec-
tions, some theorists contrived a Bush family plot to eliminate Reagan and
propel the senior Bush into the presidency, but no supporting evidence has
been forthcoming.

Further Reading
Allen, Richard. “The Day Reagan Was Shot.” Hoover Institution. http://www.hoover
.org/publications/hoover-digest/article/6281.
“Assassination Attempt of Ronald Reagan.” Video. Maniac World. http://www.maniac
world.com/Assassination-Attempt-President-Ronald-Reagan.html.
Bonnie, Richard, John Jeffries, and Peter Low. A Case Study in the Insanity Defense: The
Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr. New York: Foundation Press, 2008.
Cannon, Lou. President Reagan: The Role of a Lifetime. New York: Public Affairs Books,
2000.
Caplan, Lincoln. The Insanity Defense and the Trial of John W. Hinckley, Jr. New York:
Laurel Publishing, 1987.
Clarke, James. On Being Mad or Merely Angry: John W. Hinckley, Jr., and Other Dangerous
People. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1990.
Moldea, Dan. Dark Victory: Ronald Reagan, MCA and the Mob. New York: Viking Pen-
guin, 1987.
Wilbur, Del. Rawhide Down: The Near Assassination of Ronald Reagan. New York: Henry
Holt, 2011.
470 REINA BARRIOS, JOSÉ M ARÍA

REINA BARRIOS, JOSÉ MARÍA (1854–1898)

On February 8, 1898, while walking near his palace in Guatemala City with
two army officers, President José Reina Barrios was shot and killed instantly
by Edgar Zollinger, a British subject. Reina’s companions shot Zollinger as he
attempted to flee from the scene. First Vice President Manuel Estrada Cabrera
succeeded Reina in an otherwise peaceful transition of power. Zollinger, also
known on occasion as James Edgar August, had been employed as a prop-
erty manager for Juan Aparicio Merida, a rebel leader executed with others
on September 13, 1897, for joining in an abortive coup d’état against Reina’s
regime. Although the slain gunman could not speak for himself, report-
ers suggested that his motive for killing the president “seems to have been
personal.”
José Reina Barrios was born in San Marcos, Guatemala, on December 24,
1854. Weeks shy of his 14th birthday, in 1867, Reina joined a group of “pa-
triotic volunteers” led by his uncle, Justo Rufino Barrios, in an abortive coup
against President Vicente Cerna Sandoval. Defeated in that attempt to seize
power, the rebels scattered, with Reina landing in Mexico. While still a teen-
ager, he made several more forays into Guatemala, returning for good after his
uncle and other officers finally deposed Cerna in June 1871. Miguel García
Granados served as president for the next two years, with Justo Rufino Bar-
rios as his commander of armed forces, then ceded his office to Rufino in June
1873. A new constitution, ratified in 1879, permitted Rufino’s reelection for a
seven-year term in 1880.
While declaring his intent to revive the defunct United Provinces of Cen-
tral America, presumably under his own leadership, Rufino sent his nephew
to Guatemala’s military academy, then off for further tactical studies in
Europe. Upon returning home, Reina was elevated to the rank of general
commanding artillery. With his uncle’s death in April 1885, the National
Assembly elevated him to division general, followed shortly by promotion
to vice president under Manuel Lisandro Barillas Bercián. Reina’s popularity
soon sparked jealousy within President Barillas, and he briefly imprisoned
Reina, then released him into exile under pressure from his own Supreme
Council of War.
Fleeing his homeland for the second time, Reina wound up in New Or-
leans, Louisiana, where he met and married a U.S. citizen, Algerie Benton.
Soon afterward, a seemingly conciliatory President Barillas named Reina as
his consul to Hamburg, Germany. Reina arrived to find that no such post
existed, leaving him embarrassed and enraged. He soon returned to Gua-
temala, where he found Barillas under fire for economic problems and a
recent unpopular war. Reina challenged Barillas in the next national elec-
tion and defeated him, assuming the presidency for a six-year term on
March 15, 1892.
REMELIIK, HARUO IGNACIO 471

Reina’s tenure in the presidential palace was as troubled as his pre-

decessor’s. While attempting to solidify some modest reforms instituted
by his uncle’s regime, Reina increased the power of the landowners over
rural peasants, thereby making enemies. While promoting the first Cen-
tral American Exposition in 1897, he printed money to cover its cost, thus
causing runaway inflation. In the process, Reina banked a personal fortune
of some $8 million, while asking the National Assembly for permission to
seek a loan of £3 million from Great Britain. Threats from various enemies
drove Reina to a series of mass arrests, and 200 soldiers guarded his pal-
ace around the clock. After his murder, the New York Times reported that
“two or three attempts were made to kill him more than a year ago.” In fact,
the Times editorialized, “the fate of Barrios, who has of late been sending
a good many of his enemies to the executioner, can excite neither surprise
nor very much pity.”
Successor Manuel Estrada Cabrera would rule Guatemala until public an-
tipathy and rumors of senility drove him from office at age 67, in April 1920.
During his tenure, he laid the groundwork for more tragic history by opening
Guatemala to wholesale exploitation by the U.S.-based United Fruit Company.
Estrada was also strongly suspected of ordering predecessor Manuel Barillas’s
assassination in Mexico City, during 1907. The quirkiest aspect of Estrada’s
tenure was his institution of a cult dedicated to Minerva, the ancient Roman
goddess of wisdom, music, and poetry, with temples erected to her glory in cit-
ies throughout Guatemala.

Further Reading
Adams, Richard. “Accustomed to Be Obedient.” In The Guatemala Reader: History, Cul-
ture, Politics. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
Grandin, Greg. The Blood of Guatemala: A History of Race and Nation. Durham, NC:
Duke University Press, 2000.

REMELIIK, HARUO IGNACIO (1933–1985)

In the early morning hours of June 30, 1985, President Haruo Remeliik of Pa-
lau returned from a social engagement to his home in Ngerulmud, the island
nation’s capital. As he stepped from his car, a sniper tried to shoot him from
a pickup truck parked across the street, but the weapon jammed. Remeliik
ran to confront his assailant, scuffling with the gunman before three bullets
struck Remeliik in the head and neck, killing him instantly. The killer (or kill-
ers) escaped, leaving behind an unfired .30-caliber cartridge that had briefly
jammed the murder weapon. Three defendants were subsequently arrested and
convicted of Remeliik’s murder, but that verdict was overturned on appeal in
July 1987, leaving the crime officially unsolved.
472 REMELIIK, HARUO IGNACIO

President Haruo Remeliik of Palau, slain by unknown gunmen in June 1985. (Corbis)

Haruo Remeliik was born at Kloulklubed, on the island of Peleliu, on June 1,

1933. A Pacific archipelago also known as the “Black Islands,” for its short-
statured Negrito natives, Palau was claimed by Spain in the 19th century, ceded
to Japan in 1914, and finally occupied by U.S. troops after bitter fighting in
World War II. From 1947, it was administered by the United States as a United
Nations Trust Territory of the Pacific Islands, finally liberated under a Compact
of Free Association with the United States in 1982. Before that agreement was
ratified, Haruo Remeliik—a native of mixed Japanese and Palauan descent—
was elected as Palau’s first president, assuming office on March 2, 1981.
Theories abounded in the wake of Remeliik’s assassination. Newsweek maga-
zine noted the victim’s reputation as a “high-living womanizer,” suggesting that
the husband of an unnamed presidential mistress might have hired killers to
settle “a personal vendetta” unrelated to politics. When that notion failed to
pan out, suspicion focused on Masanori Sugiyama, a convicted two-time mur-
derer from Guam who allegedly had threatened Remeliik. A manhunt ensued,
but Masanori eluded police—who then admitted that they had no evidence
against him, after all.
In December 1985, prosecutors filed murder and conspiracy charges
against three new suspects. Those accused were Melwert Tmetuchl, son of
REMÓN CANTERA, JOSÉ ANTONIO 473

former governor and wartime Japanese collaborator Roman Tmetuchl; Leslie

Tewid, the governor’s nephew; and Anghenio Sabino, an employee of Melwert
Tmetuchl. Francisco Gibbons, said to be the actual triggerman, was listed as an
unindicted coconspirator. A panel of three judges heard the case in February
1986 (Palau permits no jury trials), including testimony from former suspect
Masanori Sugiyama that he sold Melwert Tmetuchl a .30-caliber carbine and
ammunition several weeks before Remeliik’s murder. Another witness, who
later recanted her testimony, told the court that she had seen Sabino and Mel-
wert Tmetuchl parked near Remeliik’s home, in a pickup owned by Melwert’s
brother, on the night of the shooting. All three defendants were convicted. By
November 1986, as their appeal wound its way through the courts, spokesmen
for the American Civil Liberties Union and other groups had lodged protests
against the verdict, citing dubious evidence admitted by the trial court. The
verdicts were reversed on July 20, 1987.
An alternative theory of Remeliik’s assassination, presented on ABC televi-
sion’s 20/20 news program, suggested involvement by the U.S. Central Intel-
ligence Agency as part of a scheme to keep Palau militarily dependent on the
United States. No evidence supporting that allegation was ever produced.
Vice President Alfonso Oiterong briefly succeeded Remeliik, and was in turn
replaced by Palau’s second elected president, Lazarus Salii, on October 25,
1985. Salii held the office until August 20, 1988, when he shot himself in the
midst of a bribery scandal.

Further Reading
Leibowitz, Arnold. Embattled Island: Palau’s Struggle for Independence. Westport, CT:
Praeger, 1996.
Robie, David. Blood on Their Banner: Nationalist Struggles in the South Pacific. London:
Zed Books, 1989.
Shuster, Donald. “Palau.” In Elections in Asia and the Pacific: A Data Handbook: South
East Asia, East Asia, and the Pacific. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001.
Smith, Roy. The Nuclear Free and Independent Pacific Movement: After Mururoa. London:
Tauris Academic Studies, 1997.

REMÓN CANTERA, JOSÉ ANTONIO

(1908–1955)
On January 2, 1955, an assassin armed with a submachine gun shot and killed
President José Remón Cantera at the Hipódromo Juan Franco, a racetrack in
Panama City (now Hipódromo Presidente Remóon). The gunman escaped,
and Vice President José Valdés Guizador requested international aid with the
murder investigation. U.S. suspect Martin Irving Lipstein was arrested, then
released upon providing an iron-clad alibi. On January 12, Panamanian attor-
ney Rubén O. Miró confessed to shooting Remón and named then-president
474 REMÓN CANTER A, JOSÉ ANTONIO

Guizado as the plot’s master-

mind. Miró recanted his state-
ment at trial, claiming coercion,
and was subsequently acquit-
ted. Guizado remained in
custody, pending a trial that
never materialized, until his fi-
nal release in December 1957.
Remón’s murder remains offi-
cially unsolved today.
José Remón Cantera was
born in Panama City, to a po-
litically prominent family, on
April 11, 1908. He graduated
from the Military Academy
in 1931, then joined the Na-
tional Police, rising to serve as
Panamanian president José Antonio Remón died its chief by 1947. Two years
on January 2, 1955 shortly after he was shot with later, Panama entered a period
a machine gun at a racetrack in Panama. (Associ- of political turmoil, with four
ated Press)
presidents holding office be-
tween July 1949 and October
1952. Some historians regard Remón as a prime mover in the coup d’état
that deposed President Arnulfo Arias Madrid in May 1951, although Remón
would not claim the presidency—from Alcibíades Arosemena Quinzada—
until October 1, 1952.
He brought a measure of stability to Panama at last, as leader of a con-
servative National Patriotic Coalition. His pro-U.S. stance, including suppres-
sion of various communist groups, pleased Washington, and in 1953 Remón
began negotiation of the Remón–Eisenhower Treaty (formally ratified after his
death) that raised Panama’s annual annuity for the international canal from
$430,000 to $1.9 million, while transferring $20 million in property from the
U.S.-owned Panama Canal Company to Panama. Although an authoritarian
figure, Remón is perhaps best remembered for his motto “Neither millions nor
alms—we want justice.”
Documents from the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), declassified
in the early 21st century, suggest that Remón may have been killed on orders
from exiled U.S. mafioso Salvatore Lucania, alias Charles “Lucky” Luciano,
after Remón’s police seized a shipment of heroin passing though Panama on
its way to the United States. Spanish author Gloria Guardia elaborates on that
theme in her novel Lobos al Anochecer (Wolves at Dusk), published in 2006 and
currently offered only in Spanish. That tale implicates both the Mafia and the
R I TAV U O R I , H E I K K I 475

CIA—well-documented partners in drug trafficking from Europe, later from

Southeast Asia and Central America—in Remón’s assassination. A subplot in-
volves conspiracy by Remón’s political opponents in Panama City, jealous of
the president’s power and resentful of certain terms in the treaty he negotiated
with President Dwight Eisenhower’s State Department.

Further Reading
Guardia, Gloria. Lobos al anochecer. Madrid: Alfaguara, 2010.
Koster, R. M., and Guillermo Sánchez. In the Time of Tyrants: Panama, 1968–1990. New
York: W. W. Norton, 1990.
Maurer, Noel, and Carlos Yu. The Big Ditch: How America Took, Built, Ran, and Ultimately
Gave Away the Panama Canal. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2011.
Murillo, Luis. The Noriega Mess: The Drugs, the Canal, and Why America Invaded. Berke-
ley, CA: Video Books, 1995.
Pearcy, Thomas. The History of Central America. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2005.

RITAVUORI, HEIKKI (1880–1922)

On February 14, 1922, Finnish nobleman Knut Ernst Robert Tandefelt shot
Minister of the Interior Heikki Ritavuori at Ritavuori’s home in the Etu-Töölö
district of Helsinki. In custody, Tandefelt declared that he was influenced by
articles in the right-wing press, particularly the Swedish-language newspa-
per Hufvudstadsbladet, condemning Ritavuori as a danger to the country who
must be eliminated. That belief focused primarily on Finland’s latest heimosodat
(“kinship war”) with the Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Republic, sparked
by a separatist rebellion in East Karelia. Initially sentenced to life imprison-
ment, Tandefelt was later judged “partially insane” and won reduction of his
sentence to 12 years at hard labor. He died in an asylum at Nikkilä on May 3,
1948. Ritavuori’s murder remains the only political assassination in indepen-
dent Finland’s history to date.
Heikki Ritavuori, né Rydman, was born in Turku, Finland, on March 23,
1880. He studied law and changed his surname from its Swedish form to the
Finnish equivalent—a process known as fennicization—in 1906, one year
his appointment as secretary of the Foundation Board of the Parliament of
Finland. (He was not alone: some 70,000 Finns changed their names dur-
ing 1906–1907.) In his private legal practice, Ritavuori favored clients from
the poorer classes, often working on behalf of peasants found in conflict with
their landlords. Voters in Turku Province sent him to parliament in 1914, and
reelected him in 1919, after the Finnish Civil War of 1918 had claimed more
than 36,000 lives. During that five-month war between Red Guards and White
Guards, the latter finally victorious, Ritavuori defended “Red” prisoners of war
and worked to see them pardoned at war’s end.
476 ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN

An early member of the National Progressive Party, founded in Decem-

ber 1918, Ritavuori served briefly as deputy minister of justice under Fin-
land’s first president, Kaarlo Juho Ståhlberg, then returned as minister of
defense under Prime Minister Juho Heikki Vennolain August 1919, holding
that post until his murder 526 days later. Right-wing extremists labeled him
a “red minister” for his legal defense work during the late civil war, and they
were further angered by his support for the liberal Ståhlberg over Baron Carl
Gustaf Emil Mannerheim in the 1919 presidential campaign. The crowning
insult, to proto-fascist circles, came when Ritavuori blocked independent ac-
tion by their paramilitary “protection guard” units during the East Karelia
uprising of 1921–1922.
With so much agitation against him, some observers suspected that Rita-
vuori was slain by members of a right-wing conspiracy. Knut Tandefelt initially
said that he acted alone, but later implicated several accomplices, including
Helsinki mayor General Paul von Gerich and a local pharmacist, Oskar Jans-
son. A belated investigation, undertaken from 1927 to 1930, failed to produce
any evidence against those named by Tandefelt as plotters. Baron Mannerheim
served as commander in chief of Finland’s defense forces during World War II,
and as president from August 1944 to June 1946. In June 1942, he welcomed
Adolf Hitler to Finland, ostensibly to celebrate Mannerheim’s 75th birthday,
but in fact to discuss German defense of Finland in the event of a Russian
invasion.
Heikki Ritavuori’s younger brother, Eero Rydman, kept the original fam-
ily name as a member of the Progressive Party, serving as Helsinki’s mayor
for 12 years (1944–1956), and running unsuccessfully for president in 1956,
Ritavuori’s grandson, Pekka Tarjanne, also entered politics, serving in parlia-
ment, as chairman of the Liberal People’s Party, as a government minister, as
chairman of the board of the Post and Telephone Bureau, and as chairman
of the board of the United Nations’ International Telecommunication Union.

Further Reading
Bidwell, Robin. Bidwell’s Guide to Government Ministers: The Major Powers and Western
Europe 1900–1971. New York: Routledge, 1973.
Kirby, David. A Concise History of Finland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2006.
Singleton, Fred. A Short History of Finland. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
1998.

ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN (1918–1967)

On August 25, 1967, George Lincoln Rockwell—founder and leader of the
American Nazi Party—drove his dirty clothes to a strip-mall laundromat near
party headquarters in Arlington, Virginia. He loaded two machines, then went
ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN 477

back to his car, telling a laun-

dromat attendant, “I forgot
something.” He started the car,
then recoiled as two bullets
slammed through the wind-
shield. One slug penetrated
Rockwell’s chest; the other
missed and pierced the seat
beside him. Rockwell lurched
out of the car, then collapsed,
bleeding internally. The opera-
tors of a nearby barbershop re-
sponded to the shots and saw
a man running across the strip
mall’s roof, leaping down, then
scaling a wall to vanish in a
wooded park next door. Ambu-
lance attendants found Rock-
well dead on the scene, while
police swarmed the neighbor-
hood. They found the sniper’s An American Nazi Party defector shot party
gun—a “broomhandle” Mauser founder George Lincoln Rockwell in 1967. (Asso-
pistol, last manufactured in ciated Press)
1937—and then caught sus-
pect John Patler, expelled from the party by Rockwell five months earlier, a
half-mile from the murder site. Jurors convicted Patler of murder in December
1967, resulting in a 20-year prison term.
George Rockwell was born in Bloomington, Illinois, on March 9, 1918. His
parents, vaudeville comedians with many celebrity friends, divorced in 1924,
sharing custody of George between the father’s home in Maine and his moth-
er’s residence in Atlantic City, New Jersey. Rockwell completed high school in
Atlantic City and applied to Harvard University at 17, but was rejected. His
second choice was Rhode Island’s Brown University, where he enrolled in Au-
gust 1938. Notorious on campus for criticizing the concept of human equality,
Rockwell left Brown without graduating, in March 1941, to join the U.S. Navy
as an aviation cadet.
In World War II, Rockwell flew combat missions in the Pacific Theater, then
was transferred to Brazil, where the sight of mixed-race natives aggravated his in-
creasing bigotry. Discharged from service as a lieutenant commander in Septem-
ber 1945, he enrolled in art courses at Brooklyn’s Pratt Institute and supported
himself as a commercial artist until September 1950, when he was recalled to ac-
tive naval duty during the Korean War, rising to the rank of commander. Upon
478 ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN

his second discharge from active service, in October 1954, Rockwell remained
in the U.S. Navy Reserve, but his political extremism soon marked him as “not
deployable” in the eyes of his superiors. He was discharged for good in February
1960, later writing that he “had basically been thrown out of the Navy.”
For that, he blamed the Jews.
Rockwell’s progression to the far-right fringe was aided by the onset of the
Cold War, personified in Red-hunting senator Joseph McCarthy and ex-general
Douglas MacArthur, who impressed Rockwell so much that Rockwell bought
a corncob pipe to match MacArthur’s. Other influences included Gerald L. K.
Smith, founder of the anti-Semitic Christian Nationalist Crusade, and Conde
McGinley, founder of the equally racist Christian Educational Association.
Rockwell’s “enlightenment” was finally completed via study of Adolf Hitler’s
Mein Kampf and The Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The latter publication, pos-
ing as a blueprint for Jewish world domination, had been exposed as a forgery
by Russia’s secret police soon after its initial publication in 1903, but Rockwell
appeared to accept it as genuine.
Rockwell’s odyssey through the radical right included flirtation with vari-
ous groups, ranging from the “respectable” John Birch Society to the notori-
ously violent National States Rights Party. In March 1959, he created his own
World Union of Free Enterprise National Socialists, renamed the American
Nazi Party in December of that year, with ramshackle headquarters in Ar-
lington, five miles from downtown Washington, D.C. The party’s first public
outing occurred at the National Mall in Washington, where Rockwell regaled
spectators with a two-hour speech on April 3, 1960. At the next, at Manhat-
tan’s Union Square on June 22, Rockwell faced a crowd of Holocaust survi-
vors and Jewish war veterans. Asked how he would deal with Jews if given
power in the United States, Rockwell replied that traitors of all races and re-
ligious should be executed. Press to estimate how many Jews that might in-
volve, he said, “Eighty percent.”
The party’s third rally, back at the National Mall on July 4, 1960, sparked a
riot that resulted in Rockwell’s detention for court-ordered psychiatric evalua-
tion. Released after two weeks, he promptly wrote and published a pamphlet
titled How to Get Out or Stay Out of the Insane Asylum. Already well attuned to
the value of publicity—whether negative or otherwise—Rockwell set out to
capitalize on the growing black civil rights movement. In 1961, he procured a
Volkswagen van and sent it through the South as his “Hate Bus,” trailing teams
of integrated freedom riders. Two years later, he led counterprotests against
Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s historic March on Washington for Jobs and Free-
dom. In 1964, he sought the U.S. presidency as a write-in candidate, receiv-
ing 212 popular votes (and none in the Electoral College). A year later, he did
slightly better in Virginia’s gubernatorial contest, polling 5,730 votes to place
fourth in a field of four candidates.
ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN 479

Throughout the troubled 1960s, Rockwell searched for allies in the murky
world of extremism. Dominant Ku Klux Klan leader Robert Shelton denounced
Rockwell’s party, but several of Shelton’s “grand dragons” in Northern states
were active members—including Daniel Burros of New York, who killed him-
self in 1965, after the New York Times revealed his Jewish ancestry. Rockwell
joined Klansmen to protest Dr. King’s open-housing marches in Cicero, Illi-
nois, in 1966, but also sought alliances among black nationalists. As early as
1962, Rockwell met with Elijah Muhammad, leader of the Black Muslims, and
emerged to praise Muhammad as the “Black people’s Hitler.” In 1966, after de-
bating Black Panther Party spokesman Stokely Carmichael, Rockwell adopted
Carmichael’s “black power” slogan and used its opposite—White Power—as the
title of his final manifesto, published in 1967.
Aside from overt racism and anti-Semitism, Rockwell ranked among the
earliest proponents of historical “revisionism” on the Holocaust, essentially
denying Adolf Hitler’s genocide of Jews and other so-called “undesirables.”
Interviewed for Playboy magazine in April 1966, he said, “I don’t believe for
one minute that any 6,000,000 Jews were exterminated by Hitler. It never
happened.” Meanwhile, during a covert visit to England and Ireland, he
joined in founding a World Union of National Socialists, publishing a news-
letter, National Socialist World, edited by ex-physics professor William Luther
Pierce. On January 1, 1967, Rockwell changed his party’s name one more,
this time calling it the National Socialist White People’s Party (NSWPP).
The first attempt on Rockwell’s life came six months later, on June 28, 1967.
As he returned to party headquarters from shopping, he found the driveway
blocked by a fallen tree and piles of brush. While Rockwell attempted to clear
it, two shots rang out, one narrowly missing his head before striking his car.
Rockwell pursued the gunman, but failed to catch or identify him. His appli-
cation for a gun permit, filed two days later, was still pending in August, when
he was assassinated.
Even in death, Rockwell continued to incite controversy. Matthias Koehl
Jr., second in command at NSWPP headquarters, assumed control of the
party and its estimated 300 members, claiming legal control over Rockwell’s
corpse and the group’s meager assets. On August 27, 1967, Koehl announced
that federal officials had approved Rockwell’s burial as an honorably dis-
charged military veteran, at Virginia’s Culpeper National Cemetery, but mili-
tary and civilian police barred mourners dressed in Nazi uniforms from the
graveyard on August 29. A day-long standoff ensued, before Koehl withdrew
and had Rockwell cremated on August 30. His remains were still in limbo
when Koehl filed litigation, in February 1968, to secure internment in any
national cemetery. The following month, a federal court supported the army’s
refusal to bury Rockwell with military honors. Today his ashes rest at party
headquarters in Wisconsin.
480 ROCKWELL, GEORGE LINCOLN

MODERN NEO-NAZI GROUPS

Neo-Nazi groups in the United States and worldwide generally combine
adoration for Adolf Hitler’s Third Reich with hatred of Jews and other mi-
norities. Beyond that, they are frequently at odds with one another, quar-
reling over points of fascist doctrine and competing for members on the
far right. In 2012, the Southern Poverty Law Center identified 29 active
neo-Nazi groups across the United States, with 171 chapters operating in
44 states. The National Alliance has lost ground since leader William Pierce
died in 2002, replaced as the country’s dominant faction by the Detroit-
based National Socialist Movement, founded in 1974. At press time for this
book, the National Socialist Movement claimed 55 chapters in 39 states.
Despite his death and the subsequent decline of his National Alliance (with
nine chapters surviving in 2012), William Pierce remains notorious for his
novel The Turner Diaries, penned under the pseudonym “Andrew Mac-
donald.” Critics credit The Turner Diaries with inspiring the creation of the
Order, a neo-Nazi group that declared war on the federal government in
1983, and for prompting Timothy McVeigh to bomb Oklahoma City’s Al-
fred P. Murrah Federal Building in April 1995. Another novel, Hunter, ex-
tolled the crimes of racist serial killer Joseph Paul Franklin.

Koehl’s ascension to leadership of the NSWPP split the party, which he re-
named the New Order, cast as a quasi-religious group merging “esoteric Na-
zism” with elements of Hinduism. More traditional neo-fascists followed
William Pierce into a new National Alliance, subsequently regarded as the
dominant neo-Nazi group of the 1980s and 1990s. Dissension on the fringe
continues today, with new groups forming and dissolving constantly.
Virginia’s Supreme Court upheld John Patler’s murder conviction in November
1970 and ordered him to begin serving his 20-year sentence. After a failed appeal
to the U.S. Supreme Court, rejected unanimously in May 1972, Patler was paroled
with support from his trial judge in August 1975. A year later, he violated terms
of his release and was returned to prison for another six years. In December 1977,
Patler—a son of Greek immigrants—petitioned a Virginia court to restore his birth
surname of “Patsalos.” The court agreed, and Patsalos was released once more
upon completion of his sentence, reportedly settling somewhere in New York City.

Further Reading
Federal Bureau of Investigation. “The American Nazi Party.” FBI Records: The Vault.
http://vault.fbi.gov/American%20Nazi%20Party%20/American%20Nazi%20
Party%20Part%201%20of%202/view.
Rockwell, George. White Power. Dallas: Ragnarok Press, 1967.
RÖHM, ERNST JULIUS GÜNTHER 481

Rosenthal, A. M., and Arthur Gelb. One More Victim. New York: New American Li-
brary, 1967.
Schmaltz, William. Hate: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi Party. Wash-
ington, DC: Brassey’s, 2001.
Simonelli, Frederick. American Fuehrer: George Lincoln Rockwell and the American Nazi
Party. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1999.

RÖHM, ERNST JULIUS GÜNTHER (1887–1934)

In April 1934, Adolf Hitler and other leaders of his German Nazi Party became
convinced that longtime ally Ernst Röhm—commander of the party’s brown-
shirted militia, the Sturmabteilung (“Storm Battalion,” or SA)—was plotting to
seize control of the party and Germany. Whether this idea derived from Röhm’s
public criticism of Hitler or private jealousy within the movement still remains
unclear. By June 24, Gestapo chief Heinrich Himmler and Schutzstaffel (SS)
Security Service Reinhard Heydrich had prepared a dossier of false evidence in-
dicating that French agents had bribed Röhm to overthrow Hitler, including a
fabricated “SA death list” of top Nazi leaders. On June 28, Hitler phoned Röhm
with an order to assemble all SA leaders at a resort in Bad Wiessee, Bavaria, two
days later. They were arrested there on June 30, with other SA officers swept
up in dragnets continuing through July 2, and confined together at Stadelheim
Prison in Munich. On July 2, SS-Brigadeführer Theodor Eicke offered Röhm
a pistol and a chance to kill himself, but Röhm refused, saying, “If I am to be
killed, let Adolf do it himself.” Eicke returned 10 minutes later and shot Röhm.
Estimates of other SA members killed during that “Night of the Long Knives”
range from 77 to 1,000 or more. In a speech on July 13, Hitler branded the
dead as traitors and alluded to claims that Röhm was a homosexual.
Ernst Röhm was born in Munich on November 28, 1887, the youngest child
of a railroad worker known for his domestic violence. At age 18, in July 1906,
Röhm chose a military career for himself, joining the Royal Bavarian 10th In-
fantry Regiment as a cadet. Commissioned in March 1908, he had risen to
command the 10th Regiment’s 1st Battalion by the time World War I began
in August 1914. Barely one month later, he suffered a serious face wound in
France, emerging scarred for life. Promoted to second lieutenant in April 1915,
Röhm was wounded again—this time in the chest—at Verdun, in June 1916.
Another promotion, to captain, followed in April 1917, but Röhm’s latest in-
jury kept him out of battle, serving as a staff officer. Spanish influenza nearly
claimed his life in October 1918, but he survived once more, to serve as an ad-
jutant in the postwar Reichswehr after Germany’s humiliating defeat.
Like many other German veterans, Röhm loathed the terms imposed on
Germany by the Treaty of Versailles, seeking scapegoats to blame for his Fa-
therland’s loss of the war. In April 1919, he joined a newly formed paramilitary
group, the Bayerisches Freikorpsfür den Grenzschutz Ost (Bavarian Free Corps
of the Eastern Border), led by Colonel Franz Ritter von Epp, which toppled
482 RÖHM, ERNST JULIUS GÜNTHER

Munich’s short-lived “Red Republic” on May 3, 1919. Soon afterward, Röhm

shifted his allegiance to the German Workers’ Party, which dissolved in Febru-
ary 1920 to become National Socialist German Workers’ Party (shortened to
Nazis). Röhm soon became a close friend and ally of Adolf Hitler, joining in
the abortive Munich “Beer Hall Putsch” of November 9, 1923, and was con-
victed of treason three months later, though his 15-month prison term was
suspended.
In April 1924, Röhm was elected to the Reichstag as a Nazi representative,
but voters declined to grant him a second term the following year. Mean-
while, with the SA banned by law, he organized the Frontbann as a thinly
veiled replacement, claiming 30,000 members by April 1925. A quarrel with
Hitler over the Frontbann’s future prompted Röhm to resign from the party
on May 1, 1925, and he lived in seclusion until 1928, when he accepted a
commission as lieutenant colonel in the Bolivian army, under President Her-
nando Siles Reyes. That position lasted until May 1930, when rebels deposed
Siles and Röhm sought sanctuary in the German embassy. Hitler reached him
there, by telephone, in September 1930, reporting Nazi victories in the lat-
est federal election, and persuaded Röhm to rejoin the party as leader of the
newly revived SA.
When Röhm assumed that office in January 1931, the SA had more the
a million members nationwide, serving as escorts for Nazi leaders, harass-
ing Jews, and engaging in street fights with leftist opponents. Under Röhm,
the group expanded its activities to include intimidation of unfriendly politi-
cians, journalists, civic leaders, and entrepreneurs. Curiously, despite growing
Nazi alliances with industry, Röhm often sent his Brownshirts to defend strik-
ing workers and assault nonunion “scabs.” During that same hectic period, an
anti-Nazi newspaper, the Munich Post, obtained and published a letter from
Röhm to a friend, in which he admitted multiple homosexual affairs. Hitler, al-
though despising gays nearly as much as he hated Jews, ignored those indiscre-
tions for the moment, but began compiling secret files on Röhm and other gay
SA officers, including Röhm’s chief deputy, Edmund Heines.
When Hitler became Germany’s chancellor in January 1933, the SA assumed
a new role auxiliary police, ousting anti-Nazi officials from power in various
cities. By that time, however, Hitler had begun deemphasizing the “socialist”
aspect of National Socialism, cementing alliances with major German industri-
alists at the expense of Röhm’s desire for radical change in the country’s social
structure. Working-class SA members disdained capitalism as a Jewish system,
calling for nationalization of industry, and Röhm predicted a “second revolu-
tion” against conservative entrepreneurs. Critics within the Nazi Party began
comparing the SA to beefsteak, “brown on the outside and red on the inside,”
thereby linking them implicitly to communism. Seemingly deaf to those rum-
blings, in February 1934 Röhm called for a merger of the Reichswehr (restricted
ROMERO Y GALDÁMEZ, ÓSCAR ARNULFO 483

to 100,000 men under the Treaty of Versailles) with the SA, which he would
command as minister of defense. Days later, Hitler told Anthony Eden—soon
to be Britain’s foreign secretary, later prime minister—that he planned to re-
duce the SA’s ranks by two-thirds.
Further impetus for the SA purge came in April 1934, when Hitler learned
that Paul von Hindenburg, president of the Weimar Republic, was terminally
ill and not expected to live out the year. While still in power, though, Hinden-
burg remained determined to suppress political mayhem in Germany. Early
June brought a warning from Defense Minister Werner von Blomberg, advis-
ing Hitler that failure to curb SA violence would result in martial law, hand-
ing the reins of government to the Reichswehr. Hitler then struck a bargain
with army leaders to eliminate the SA via “Operation Hummingbird.” Oth-
ers killed with Röhm in the ensuing purge included ex-chancellor Kurt von
Schleicher, former Bavarian minister president Gustav Ritter von Kahr (who
suppressed the Munich putsch in 1923), and Gregor Strasser (leader of a rela-
tively left-wing faction of the Nazi Party). With President Hindenburg’s death
in August 1934, Adolf Hitler effectively seized absolute control of the German
government.
See also: Heydrich, Reinhard Tristan Eugen (1904–1942); Hitler, Adolf (1889–1945)—
Attempted.

Further Reading
Atcherly, Tony, and Mark Carey. Hitler’s Gay Traitor: The Story of Ernst Röhm, Chief of
Staff of the S.A. Bloomington, IN: Trafford Publishing, 2007.
Gallo, Max. The Night of the Long Knives: June 29–30, 1934. New York: Da Capo Press,
1997.
Hancock, Eleanor. Ernst Röhm: Hitler’s SA Chief of Staff. New York: Palgrave Macmil-
lan, 2008.
Hatch, Nicholas. The Brown Battalions: Hitler’s SA in Word and Deed. Nashville, TN:
Turner Publishing, 2000.
Jablonsky, David. “Rohm and Hitler: The Continuity of Political-Military Discord.”
Journal of Contemporary History 23 (July 1988): 367–86.
Maracin, Paul. The Night of the Long Knives: Forty-eight Hours that Changed the History of
the World. New York: The Lyons Press, 2004.

ROMERO Y GALDÁMEZ, ÓSCAR ARNULFO

(1917–1980)
On March 24, 1980, moments after performing a requiem mass at a hospital
in San Salvador, Archbishop Óscar Romero was shot at close range by a gun-
man posing as a newspaper photographer. A declassified memo from the U.S.
Department of Defense reports that a single .22-caliber bullet struck Romero in
the chest, killing him instantly. The gunman escaped and remains unidentified
484 ROMERO Y GALDÁ MEZ, ÓSCAR ARNULFO

today. Romero’s murder came one day after he delivered a sermon calling upon
El Salvador’s soldiers, as Christians, to obey God’s law and cease brutal re-
pression of their fellow Salvadorans. Romero was the seventh Roman Catholic
priest to be slain by death squads since March 1977.
Óscar Romero y Galdámez was born on August 15, 1917, at Ciudad Bar-
rios in El Salvador’s San Miguel Department. At that time, the country was
run by the Melendez-Quinonez dynasty, with 13 wealthy families controlling
40 percent of El Salvador’s land. Despite parental training as a carpenter,
Romero was drawn to the Catholic Church, being ordained in Rome on April 4,
1942. His plans to remain in Italy and earn a doctorate in theology were inter-
rupted by Allied invaders a year later, prompting Romero to return home by
way of Spain and Cuba. At the latter stop, he was detained for several months
as a suspected fascist fugitive, the finally released to Mexico, and one from
there toward home.
Upon returning to El Salvador, Romero served as a parish priest in Anamorós
and San Miguel, remaining in the latter post until 1966, when he was named
as secretary of the Bishop Conference for El Salvador, doubling as director of
the archdiocesan newspaper Orientación. His relatively conservative outlook
irritated more progressive priests, committed to liberation theology’s quasi-
Marxist focus on helping the poor, but it pleased Romero’s superiors. In 1970,
he was named auxiliary bishop to San Salvador archbishop Luis Chávez y
González, then promoted to bishop of the Diocese of Santiago de María in De-
cember 1975. On February 23, 1977, Romero reached the pinnacle of his ca-
reer with appointment as archbishop of San Salvador.
Seventeen days after Romero’s last promotion, death squad gunmen mur-
dered a personal friend, progressive Jesuit Father Rutilio Grande García,
and two companions near El Paisnal, in the parish of Aguilares. The triple
murder radically changed Romero’s outlook, prompting him to say, “When
I looked at Rutilio lying there dead I thought, ‘If they have killed him for
doing what he did, then I too have to walk the same path.” After newspa-
pers blamed the murders on common criminal activity, Romero published
a rebuttal reading:
The true reason for [Grande’s] death was his prophetic and pastoral efforts to
raise the consciousness of the people throughout his parish. Father Grande,
without offending and forcing himself upon his flock in the practice of their re-
ligion, was only slowly forming a genuine community of faith, hope and love
among them, he was making them aware of their dignity as individuals, of their
basic rights as words, his was an effort toward comprehensive human develop-
ment. This post-Vatican Council ecclesiastical effort is certainly not agreeable to
everyone, because it awakens the consciousness of the people. It is work that
disturbs many; and to end it, it was necessary to liquidate its proponent.
ROMERO Y GALDÁMEZ, ÓSCAR ARNULFO 485

President Arturo Armando Molina ignored Romero’s demand for a full in-
vestigation, and the slaughter of clergy continued. On May 11, 1977, Father
Alfonso Navarro Oviedo was gunned down on the outskirts of San Salvador.
Father Ernesto Barrera died in an ambush at Mejicanos, on November 28,
1978. On January 20, 1979, government troops stormed a Catholic retreat
for young workers, killing Father Octavio Ortiz Luna and four other victims,
crushing the priest’s head beneath a military vehicle to prevent an open-casket
funeral. Six months later to the day, on June 20, gunmen killed Father Rafael
Palacios at Suchitoto. Father Alirio Napoleón Macías was the last to die before
Romero, murdered on August 4, 1979.
Two months later, a five-man revolutionary junta deposed Salvadoran pres-
ident Carlos Humberto Romero, initiating a program of land reform coupled
with nationalization of El Salvador’s the banking, coffee, and sugar indus-
tries. Dissension within the junta frustrated further progress, however, and
violence against the church persisted, culminating with Archbishop Rome-
ro’s assassination in March 1980. On January 10, 1981, the leftist Farabundo
Martí National Liberation Front launched a guerrilla war against the govern-
ment, prompting U.S. support for the ruling junta in the civil war continuing
until January 1992. In the midst of that mayhem, government troops mas-
sacred six more Jesuit priests at San Salvador’s Central American University
on November 16, 1989. Victims included Fathers Ignacio Ellacuría, Amando
López, Joaquín López y López, Ignacio Martín-Baro, Segundo Montes, and
Juan Ramón Moreno.
Archbishop Romero was buried in San Salvador, following a mass attended
by 250,000 mourners. At that ceremony, Cardinal Corripio Ahumada declared
Romero a “beloved, peacemaking man of God,” predicting that “his blood will
give fruit to brotherhood, love and peace.” That did not prove to be the case,
in fact, as gunfire and explosions rocked the capital, leaving an estimated 30 to
50 persons dead by day’s end.
Romero’s assassination remains officially unsolved today, despite a 1986 state-
ment from former U.S. ambassador Robert White that “there was sufficient evi-
dence” to convict Roberto D’Aubuisson, ex-mayor of San Salvador, on charges
of ordering the murder. D’Aubuisson’s chief of security, Salvadoran air force
captain Álvaro Rafael Saravia, allegedly directed the assassination. In 2003, the
U.S.-based Center for Justice and Accountability filed a federal lawsuit against
Saravia under the Alien Tort Claims Act, on charges of aiding, conspiring, and
participating in Romero’s murder. The court found him responsible and im-
posed a $10 million fine on Saravia, then a resident of California. On the 30th
anniversary of Romero’s death, President Mauricio Funes officially apologized
for the crime, noting admitting that those responsible “unfortunately acted with
the protection, collaboration or participation of state agents.”
486 R O O S E V E L T, T H E O D O R E

In 1997, Romero was named as a candidate for beatification and canoniza-

tion as a saint. Pope John Paul II graced him that year, with the title “Servant
of God,” but progress toward sainthood has been held in abeyance pending
further investigation of Romero’s heroism and martyrdom. Under canonical
law, if he is found to be a hero without martyrdom, he must then be attributed
with performing a verified miracle. The Church of England, meanwhile, rec-
ognizes Romero as one of ten 20th-century martyrs depicted in statuary above
the Great West Door of London’s Westminster Abbey. In 2008, the European
magazine A Different View listed Romero among its 15 Champions of World
Democracy. On December 21, 2010, the United Nations General Assembly
cited Romero by name in proclaiming March 24 as the International Day for
the Right to the Truth concerning Gross Human Rights Violations and for the
Dignity of Victims.
Romero’s life and death have also inspired multiple Hollywood productions.
René Enríquez portrayed Romero in a 1983 made-for-television film, Choices
of the Heart, focused on the rape-murders of four U.S. nuns in El Salvador.
Director Oliver Stone cast José Carlos Ruiz as Romero in Salvador (1986), and
Raul Julia claimed the title role in Romero (1989). Another made-for-TV movie,
Have No Fear: The Life of Pope John Paul II (2005), cast Joaquim de Almeida as
Romero. A year later, Carlos Kaniowsky tackled the part in the Italian biopic
Karol, una papa rimastouomo (also charting the life of John Paul II). Most re-
cently, in 2010, file footage of Romero in life was compiled for Monseñor, the
Last Journey of Óscar Romero.

Further Reading
Americas Watch. El Salvador’s Decade of Terror: Human Rights Since the Assassination of
Archbishop Romero. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 1991.
Dada, Carlos. “How we killed Archbishop Romero.” El Faro. http://www.elfaro.net/
es/201003/noticias/1416.
Doyle, Kate, and Emily Willard. “Learn from History: 31st Anniversary of the Assas-
sination of Archbishop Oscar Romero.” The National Security Archive. http://www
.gwu.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB339/index.htm.
Erdozain, Placido. Archbishop Romero: Martyr of Salvador. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books,
1981.
Wright, Scott. Oscar Romero and the Communion of the Saints. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis
Books, 2010.

ROOSEVELT, THEODORE (1858–1919)—

ATTEMPTED
On October 14, 1912, while campaigning for a third term as president of the
United States, Theodore Roosevelt attended a banquet at the Gilpatrick Hotel
in Milwaukee, Wisconsin. After the meal, while departing for a speech at the
R O O S E V E L T, T H E O D O R E 487

Milwaukee Auditorium, Roosevelt was accosted by John Flammang Schrank,

a German-born saloon keeper from New York City, who shot him with a .38
caliber revolver. The bullet passed through Roosevelt’s metal eyeglass case and
his 50-page speech, folded in his coat’s breast pocket, before penetrating his
chest. Bystanders seized Schrank at the scene, and Roosevelt went on to deliver
his speech as scheduled, before proceeding to a hospital. Police found a diary
in Schrank’s pocket, with entries claiming the ghost of murdered President Wil-
liam McKinley told him to kill Roosevelt as an act of revenge. Judged legally
insane by court-appointed psychiatrists, Schrank was committed to Waupun,
Wisconsin’s Central State Mental Hospital, where he remained until bronchial
pneumonia claimed his life in September 1943.
Theodore “Teddy” Roosevelt was born to a wealthy New York City family
on October 27, 1858. Plagued with asthma and other ailments during child-
hood, he was home-schooled by tutors, developing a lifelong fascination with
zoology and taxidermy. Aided by an eidetic memory, he matriculated to Har-
vard University in 1876, with a major in biology. He also compensated for his
early childhood weakness by boxing and rowing at Harvard, graduating magna
cum laude in 1880. He then enrolled at Columbia Law School, but showed no
real interest in litigation, and
dropped out in 1881 to cam-
paign for a seat in New York’s
State Assembly, declaring his
new life’s goal “to be one of the
governing class.” Victory in that
campaign launched Roosevelt’s
long political career, inter-
rupted periodically by wide-
ranging travels, establishment
of ranches on the West, and
publication of several memoirs
on big-game hunting.
Roosevelt married Alice Ha-
thaway Lee in October 1880,
then lost her to kidney disease
in February 1884, on the fourth
anniversary of their engage-
ment. Typhoid fever killed his
mother that same day, where-
upon Roosevelt scrawled an
“X” in his diary and wrote, “The President Roosevelt was shot by John Flammang
light has gone out of my life.” Schrank while leaving a banquet at Gilpatrick Ho-
Losing himself for two years as tel in Milwaukee, in 1912. (Library of Congress)
488 R O O S E V E L T, T H E O D O R E

a rancher in the Dakota Badlands, he returned to run for mayor of New York
City in 1886, placing third in a field of three candidates.
Roosevelt revived his political career in 1888, campaigning for victorious
presidential hopeful William Henry Harrison. Rewarded with an appoint-
ment to the U.S. Civil Service Commission, he served there until 1895, then
accepted appointment as New York City’s police commissioner. The depart-
ment’s official history describes Roosevelt as “an iron-willed leader of un-
impeachable honesty,” possessed “a reforming zeal.” As commissioner, he
established new disciplinary rules, created a bicycle squad to enforce traf-
fic ordinances, issued standardized firearms to all officers, mandated annual
physical examinations for his officers, punished corruption, and shunned
political cronyism, appointing 1,600 recruits based solely on physical and
mental qualifications.
Roosevelt left the police force in April 1897, when President William McKin-
ley appointed him to serve as assistant secretary of the navy. That job proved
short-lived, as the outbreak of war with Spain led Roosevelt to form the 1st
United States Volunteer Cavalry, commonly nicknamed “Rough Riders.” Lead-
ing that unit as a lieutenant colonel, Roosevelt engaged in several battles, most
famously at San Juan Hill on July 1, 1898 (where his cavalry fought as dis-
mounted infantry). Roosevelt dubbed the four-month conflict with Spain a
“splendid little war,” emerging with his political future assured.
Elected as New York’s governor in November 1898, Roosevelt brought
the same reforming zeal to that office as he had to the New York Police De-
partment. In fact, he proved such an ardent foe of political corruption that
Republican Party boss Thomas Collier Platt persuaded President McKinley
to draft Roosevelt as his second-term running mate, thereby removing Roos-
evelt from the governor’s mansion two years ahead of schedule. Other party
bosses, including Senator Mark Hanna of Ohio, opposed Roosevelt’s vice-
presidential nomination, regarding him as a “loose cannon” beyond their
control. Those fears proved accurate in September 1901, when McKinley’s
assassination elevated Roosevelt to the White House. Hanna, enraged, told
colleagues, “Now look! That damned cowboy is president of the United
States!”
It was worse than that for Roosevelt’s political enemies, as he inaugurated
the United States’ Progressive Era, establishing himself as an ardent conserva-
tionist and zealous—if selective—“trust buster,” curbing the power of monop-
olistic corporations. (U.S. Steel was exempt under Roosevelt’s tenure, labeled
a “good trust.”) He also violated precedent by negotiating with labor unions,
as when he intervened in a May 1902 strike to obtain higher pay and shorter
hours for members of the United Mine Workers. Influenced by the work of
“muckraking” journalists, in 1906, Roosevelt promoted the Federal Meat In-
spection Act and the Pure Food and Drug Act to protect U.S. consumers. From
1907 to 1908, Roosevelt served as president of the American School Hygiene
R O O S E V E L T, T H E O D O R E 489

Association, and in 1909 he convened the first White House Conference on

the Care of Dependent Children.
In foreign policy, Roosevelt proved more conservative. His corollary to the
Monroe Doctrine, issued in 1905, proclaimed the United States’ right to “ex-
ercise international policy power” through armed intervention, ostensibly to
keep small countries independent from their larger neighbors or European
imperialists (while asserting U.S. primacy over their natural resources). Two
years later, a “Gentleman’s Agreement” with Japan banned segregation of Japa-
nese students in U.S. schools, and essentially eliminated emigration from Japan
to California. In December 1907, Roosevelt dispatched the U.S. “Great White
Fleet”—16 battleships and various escort vessels—a 14-month world cruise,
stopping at 20 ports of call on every continent except Antarctica. Although
ostensibly a training exercise, this flaunting of U.S. naval power was widely
regarded as an extension of Roosevelt’s “big stick” diplomacy, and more specifi-
cally designed to teach Japan “a lesson in polite behavior.”
Roosevelt’s crowning diplomatic achievement occurred on September 5,
1905, when representatives from Japan and Russia met at the Portsmouth Naval
Shipyard in Kittery, Maine, to sign a treaty ending the 19-month Russo-Japanese
War for control over Korea and Manchuria. Roosevelt was a prime mover
in those negotiations, and for his efforts received a Nobel Peace Prize in 1906.
Roosevelt declined to seek another term in 1908, bypassing Vice Presi-
dent Charles Fairbanks to endorse Secretary of War William Taft as his pre-
ferred successor. Buoyed by Roosevelt’s popularity, Taft defeated Democratic
rival William Jennings Bryan by a margin of 1.2 million votes that November.
Ironically, Taft soon proved more progressive in some respects than his men-
tor, filing 90 antitrust lawsuits in four years, compared to 54 filed by “trust-
busting” Roosevelt’s Justice Department in eight. His final break with Roosevelt
occurred when Taft filed suit against U.S. Steel—Roosevelt’s “good trust”—
for a Tennessee company during Roosevelt’s White House tenure. Meanwhile,
though he supported labor unions publicly, Taft also created the conservative
U.S. Chamber of Commerce to lobby against union advances.
Furious, Roosevelt announced his candidacy for an unprecedented third
term in 1912, challenging incumbent Taft. Between March and May, Roos-
evelt swept Republican primaries, winning 1,183,238 popular votes against
800,441 for Taft and 327,357 for Wisconsin senator Robert La Follette Sr.
Approaching the party’s national convention in June, Roosevelt claimed 571
delegates, versus 439 for Taft (with 540 required for nomination). Taft, how-
ever, had a stranglehold on the Republican political machine. After a bitter
fight over the rules for nomination, Taft carried the day with 556 delegate
votes, while 349 Roosevelt delegates abstained and only 109 cast votes for the
ex-president.
Undaunted, Roosevelt bolted to create a new Progressive Party, chaired
by California Governor Hiram Johnson. Funded chiefly by U.S. Steel
490 R O O S E V E L T, T H E O D O R E

and International Harvester—another “good trust” sued by Taft’s Justice

Department—the party nominated Roosevelt for president in August 1912,
with Johnson as his running mate. The party’s platform included women’s
suffrage; a National Health Service; social insurance for the elderly, unem-
ployed, and disabled; a minimum wage law for women; an eight-hour work
day; limited injunctions against strikers; direct election of U.S. senators;
recall elections; strict limits on campaign contributions with disclosure of
donors; registration of lobbyists; and other measures deemed “radical” at
the time.
After his near-death experience in Wisconsin, Roosevelt—perhaps recall-
ing President McKinley’s death in the care of physicians—declined surgery to
remove Schrank’s bullet, but reluctantly accepted an injection of tetanus an-
titoxin. (The slug was never removed, and caused no lasting physical impair-
ment.) Both Taft and Democratic nominee Woodrow Wilson suspended their
campaigns until Roosevelt let the hospital on October 23, two weeks before the
general election. On November 5, Wilson led the field with 6,296,284 votes,
against 4,122,721 for Roosevelt, 3,486,242 for Taft, and 901,551 for Socialist
Party candidate Eugene Debs.
Back in private life for good, Roosevelt continued his pattern of strenuous
behavior. In December 1913, with son Kermit, he embarked on a grueling
expedition to explore an uncharted tributary of the Amazon River, the Rio da
Duvida (“River of Doubt”). That epic 625-mile journey nearly killed the aging
Rough Rider, trimming 50 pounds from his starting weight of 220, leaving him
delirious with raging malarial fever, but he survived to see the Rio da Duvida re-
named as Rio Roosevelt. Finally stricken with inflammatory rheumatism in Oc-
tober 1918, Roosevelt died in his sleep, from coronary thrombosis, on January
6, 1919. Eight-two years later, in January 2001, President Bill Clinton awarded
Roosevelt a posthumous Congressional Medal of Honor for his actions at San
Juan Hill, in the Spanish-American War. Roosevelt remains the only U.S. presi-
dent to receive that medal, and the only person in history to receive both the
Medal of Honor and the Nobel Peace Prize.
See also: McKinley, William, Jr. (1843–1901).

Further Reading
Brinkley, Douglas. The Wilderness Warrior: Theodore Roosevelt and the Crusade for Amer-
ica. New York: HarperCollins, 2009.
Foley, W. J. “A Bullet and a Bull Moose.” JAMA, The Journal of the American Medical As-
sociation 209 (1969): 2035–38.
Gores, Stan. The Attempted Assassination of Teddy Roosevelt. Madison: Wisconsin His-
torical Society, 1977.
Gould, Lewis. Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Oxford University Press, 2012.
Morris, Edmund. The Rise of Theodore Roosevelt. New York: Random House, 1979.
R YA N , L E O J O S E P H , J R . 491

RYAN, LEO JOSEPH, JR. (1925–1978)

On November 14, 1978, California congressman Leo Ryan flew from Wash-
ington, D.C., to Guyana with a delegation of government officials, media rep-
resentatives, and relatives of persons living at Jonestown, a rural community
populated by members of a controversial sect, the People’s Temple. Three days
later, after failed attempts to reach sect leader James Warren Jones via radio,
Ryan proceeded from Georgetown to Jonestown with a party including People’s
Temple attorneys Mark Lane and Charles Garry, U.S. embassy official Richard
Dwyer, a Guyanese ministry of information officer, nine journalists, and four
members of the “concerned relatives” committee. Despite an initial warm wel-
come, the visitors were barred from spending that night in Jonestown, sent to
sleep instead at nearby Port Kaituma airfield. After a second day in Jonestown,
Ryan’s party prepared to leave with 14 Temple defectors who wished to leave
Guyana. As Ryan’s plane arrived at 5:10 P.M., Temple escorts opened fire on
his party with automatic weapons, killing Ryan and four others, wounding
nine more. Guyanese soldiers reached Jonestown on November 16, finding
909 cultists dead, many from apparent suicide by poison, and Jones and some
others were shot.
Leo Ryan was born in Lin-
coln, Nebraska, on May 5,
1925. His family moved often
during his childhood, spend-
ing time in five other states.
Ryan graduated from a Wiscon-
sin high school in 1943, then
briefly attended Bates College
in Lewiston, Maine, where he
participated in the V-12 Navy
College Training Program prior
to serving on a U.S. Navy sub-
marine from 1943 to 1946.
Upon discharge from the navy,
he enrolled at Creighton Uni-
versity in Omaha, Nebraska,
earning a BA in 1949 and an
MS two years later.
Fresh from college, Ryan
taught history at Capuchino
High School in San Bruno,
California, while doubling as a Congressman Leo Ryan was killed along with oth-
city councilman from 1956. In ers in his party in an ambush at a landing strip
January 1961, he chaperoned while leaving Jonestown. (Bettmann/Corbis)
492 R YA N , L E O J O S E P H , J R .

Capuchino High’s marching band when it joined in President John Kennedy’s

(JFK) inaugural parade. Inspired by JFK’s call to public service—“Ask not what
your country can do for you, ask what you can do for your country”—Ryan
decided to pursue a full-time career in politics.
In 1962, Ryan was elected mayor of South San Francisco, then moved up
to a seat in the California State Assembly the following year, holding that post
through 1972. Following the Watts riots of August 1965, Ryan worked as a
substitute teacher in that Los Angeles ghetto, collecting first-hand information
on local living conditions. Five years later, he arranged his own arrest under a
pseudonym and spent 10 days in notorious Folsom Prison, afterward report-
ing on its bleak conditions to a state committee supervising prison reform.
In 1973, voters in California’s 11th congressional district sent Ryan to the
House of Representatives. During his tenure in Washington, he visited New-
foundland to observe and report on the annual slaughter of seals, then turned
his attention to lapses in congressional oversight of the U.S. Central Intelli-
gence Agency (CIA). In 1974, with Iowa senator Harold Hughes, Ryan coau-
thored the Hughes–Ryan Act, requiring the U.S. president to report all covert
CIA operations to six congressional committees within a set time limit.
With that accomplished, Ryan focused next on the detrimental aspects of
fringe religions and cults. He was an early critic of Scientology, founded by
science-fiction writer L. Ron Hubbard with headquarters in San Bernardino,
California, and of the Korean-based Unification Church, founded and led by
Sun Myung Moon (described by multiple sources as a CIA “asset” in South
Korea). In letters to constituents, Ryan called cult leaders “jackals who feed on
children and young adults who are too emotionally weak to stand by them-
selves when they reach the age of consent.”
Ryan’s involvement with the People’s Temple began in 1977, after Jones
moved his headquarters and most of his flock from San Francisco to Guyana,
cutting off communications with relatives left behind in the United States. Re-
ports of physical and sexual abuse began to filter out of Jonestown, prompting
Ryan and 90 other congressmen to contact Guyanese prime minister Forbes
Burnham, seeking intervention on behalf of U.S. citizens in Jonestown. At the
same time, Ryan accused the U.S. State Department of “repeatedly stonewall-
ing” his inquiries, assuring him that “everything was fine” in Jonestown. Ryan
countered those assertions by calling Jonestown “a gulag” and vowing aid to
“free the captives.” Decades later, the San Francisco Chronicle reported that Ryan
had “bucked the local Democratic establishment and the Jimmy Carter admin-
istration’s State Department” to conduct his own on-site investigation of the
cult, thus leading to his death.
Whereas most members of the People’s Temple died with Ryan, one aid to
James Jones, Lawrence John Layton, was convicted by a federal court, in 1986,
on charges including conspiracy to murder Ryan and Richard Dwyer, late
R YA N , L E O J O S E P H , J R . 493

MARK LANE
Mark Lane (born on February 24, 1927) is a U.S. attorney, author, and for-
mer New York state legislator, most commonly associated with criticism of
the Warren Commission’s report on the assassination of President John F.
Kennedy. His books on that subject include Rush to Judgment (1966),
A Citizen’s Dissent (1968), Plausible Denial (1991), and Last Word: My Indict-
ment of the CIA in the Murder of JFK (2011). The 1973 conspiracy thriller
Executive Action was reportedly based in large part on Lane’s earlier writ-
ings. Before that film’s release, in 1970, Lane joined several committees
investigating alleged U.S. war crimes in Vietnam and published his find-
ings in Conversations with Americans: Testimony from 32 Vietnam Veterans.
Another of Lane’s books, Arcadia (1970), helped secure the release of a
defendant wrongfully convicted of mass murder in Florida. In his legal ca-
pacity, Lane has represented James Earl Ray, convicted assassin of Dr. Mar-
tin Luther King Jr. and also the People’s Temple, emerging as a survivor
of the 1978 Guyana massacre. He published books on both cases: Code
Name Zorro (1978, coauthored with activist-comedian Dick Gregory) sug-
gests a government conspiracy against Dr. King, and The Strongest Poison
(1980), claims involvement by the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency in the
Jonestown tragedy.

deputy chief of mission for the United States in Guyana. On March 3, 1987,
Layton received concurrent life prison terms for “aiding and abetting” Ryan’s
murder, and for “conspiracy to murder an internationally protected person”
(Dwyer), plus 15 additional years on lesser counts. He was paroled in April
2002.
Leo Ryan’s death at Jonestown proved irresistible to Hollywood. Actor Gene
Barry was cast as Ryan in the feature film Guyana: Crime of the Century (1979),
and Ned Beatty took over the role a year later, for the television miniseries Guy-
ana Tragedy: The Story of Jim Jones. On November 18, 1983, Ryan was posthu-
mously awarded a Congressional Gold Medal, marking his status as the only
member of Congress ever killed in the line of duty.

Further Reading
Hall, John. Gone from the Promised Land: Jonestown in American Cultural History. New
Brunswick, NJ: Transaction Publishers, 1987.
Lane, Mark. The Strongest Poison. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1980.
Nugent, John. White Night: The Untold Story of What Happened Before—And After—
Jonestown. New York: Rawson, Wade Publishers, 1979.
494 R Z AY E V G U R B A N O G L U , R A I L

Reiterman, Tim, and John Jacobs. Raven: The Untold Story of the Rev. Jim Jones and His
People. New York: Dutton, 1982.
U.S. House of Representatives Committee on Foreign Affairs. The Assassination of Rep-
resentative Leo J. Ryan and the Jonestown, Guyana Tragedy (May 15, 1979). http://
www.rickross.com/reference/jonestown/jonestown2.html.

RZAYEV GURBANOGLU, RAIL (1945–2009)

On February 11, 2009, an unknown gunman ambushed Lieutenant General
Rail Rzayev, commander of the Azerbaijani air force, outside his home in Baku,
the nation’s capital. Shot once in the head, Rzayev survived to reach a local
hospital, but died soon after arriving. Nijmedin Sadykhov, head of the Azeri
military general staff, told reporters that security cameras mounted outside
Rzayev’s house might solve the crime. “According to preliminary information,”
he announced, “Rzayev’s car had been under surveillance for several days.”
Eight months later, with no arrests in sight, General Prosecutor Zakir Garalov
said that the investigation “continues and it is under the control of President
[Ilham Heydaroglu] Aliyev.” Garalov also said that “several people”—including
Rafiyev assistant, Major Aydin Rafiyev, and his aide-de-camp, Captain Anar
Gashimov—were under investigation as possible conspirators. Both men had
been arrested on lesser charges of stealing “some items,” never specified, from
Rzayev’s office after the shooting. As this book went to press, the crime re-
mained officially unsolved.
Rail Rzayev Gurbanoglu was born at Salyan, in eastern Azerbaijan, on
March 10, 1945. After completing his secondary education in Sumgayit, in
1962, he enrolled at Moscow’s National Research University of Aviation, Mis-
sile and Aerospace Systems, in that institution’s Aircraft Electronics and Com-
munication Systems program. Graduating there in 1966, he was posted to
Baku’s Airforce District as a senior technician, later promoted to deputy divi-
sion commander. In 1975, he entered Kalinin’s Marshal Georgy Zhukov Mili-
tary Command Academy of Air Defense, a center dedicated to research on
problems of operational art and tactics, command, communications, and con-
trol in air-defense matters. From 1980 to 1992, Rzayev held various high-
ranking posts in the Soviet air force.
The collapse of Russian communism liberated Azerbaijan from Soviet con-
trol in 1992, and Rzayev returned to serve as department chief of the newly
created Azerbaijani Air and Air Defense Force. In 1993, President Heydar
Alirzaoglu Aliyev issued a decree naming Rzayev deputy minister of defense
and commander of the Azerbaijani Air and Air Defense Force. In 1994, Rzayev
was promoted to major general, and then again to lieutenant general in 2002.
His military awards included the Azerbaijani Flag Order (created by President
Abulfaz Elchibey in November 1992), and the Veten Ughrunda (“In the Name
of Motherland”) Medal.
R Z AY E V G U R B A N O G L U , R A I L 495

Despite a short list of possible suspects, no cogent motive for Rzayev’s murder
has yet been suggested. An Azeri criminal lawyer, speaking anonymously, sug-
gested that the triggerman was a foreign contract killer, saying, “He came to Baku,
fulfilled the order, and managed to leave Azerbaijan the same day or shortly after
that.” Another attorney in Baku, Eyyub Kerimov—also the editor in chief of the
legal newspaper Femida (“Justice”) 007, noted in October 2005 that the state’s
failure to produce a motive or suspect “shows the lack of any real progress in the
investigation.”

Further Reading
Abbasov, Shahin. “Azerbaijan: Air Force Commander’s Assassination May Have Been an
Inside Job—Baku Prosecutor.” Eurasianet (October 4, 2009). http://www.eurasianet
.org/departments/insightb/articles/eav100509a.shtml.
“Azerbaijan air force head killed.” BBC News, February 11, 2009. http://news.bbc
.co.uk/2/hi/europe/7882911.stm.
De Waal, Thomas. Black Garden: Armenia and Azerbaijan through Peace and War. New
York: New York University Press, 2013.
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S
SÁ CARNEIRO, FRANCISCO MANUEL
LUMBRALES DE (1934–1980)
On December 4, 1980, Portuguese prime minister Sá Carneiro, left Lisbon,
traveling with Defense Minister Adelino Amaro da Costa, their wives, and two
pilots to a presidential election rally in Porto, Portugal’s second-largest city.
On takeoff from Lisbon Portela Airport, witnesses reported seeing “pieces fall-
ing off ” the prime minister’s light twin-engine Cessna 421. Moments later, the
plane crashed into a building in Camarate, a Lisbon suburb, killing all six
persons aboard. Twenty-four years later, Nuno Melo, president of the fourth
parliamentary commission to investigate the crash, told journalists, “We have
evidence of an explosive device placed under the floor of the pilot’s cabin,
which had sufficient strength to damage control cables and injure the pilots. It
seems sufficiently clear to me that the Cessna 421A crashed at Camarate dur-
ing the night of December 4, 1980 due to sabotage.” Thus far, no suspects have
been charged with the crime.
Francisco de Sá Carneiro was born in Porto, Portugal, the son of a successful
attorney and a mother descended from Spanish royalty, on July 19, 1934. He fol-
lowed in his father’s footsteps as a lawyer, then turned to politics as a National
Assembly member, working toward gradual dissolution of Prime Minister An-
tónio de Oliveira Salazar’s quasi-fascist dictatorship. Salazar retired in September
1968, after 36 years in charge, but successor Marcelo Caetano proved no more
tolerant of dissent. In April 1974, a nearly bloodless military coup—the “Carna-
tion Revolution”—deposed Caetano and restored democracy in Portugal.
One month later, Sá Carneiro founded the Popular Democratic Party (later
the Social Democratic Party) with a group of like-minded liberals, serving as
its first secretary general. He served as minister without portfolio under the
National Salvation Junta and Prime Minister Vasco Gonçalves, then won elec-
tion as a deputy to the new Constitutional Assembly in 1975. The following
year, in another government shuffle, Sá Carneiro was elected to the Assembly
of the Republic, doubling as president of his party. He resigned the latter post
in 1977, but was called back by acclamation to reclaim it in 1978. In 1979, Sá
Carneiro forged the Democratic Alliance—a coalition of his Social Democrats,
the right-wing Democratic and Social Centre Party, and two small groups—
to win 128 of 250 seats in parliament. In January 1980, President António
498 S Á C A R N E I R O, F R A N C I S C O M A N U E L L U M B R A L E S D E

Ramalho Eanes called on Sá Carneiro to form Portugal’s first majority govern-

ment since the revolution, leading it as prime minister. At the time of his death,
Sá Carneiro was campaigning for Democratic Alliance presidential candidate
António Soares Carneiro (no relation).
According to investigator Nuno Melo, the plot that claimed Sá Carneiro’s
life had its roots in the United States—specifically, the so-called “October Sur-
prise” related to the recent U.S. presidential elections. Incumbent president
Jimmy Carter had failed to rescue or negotiate release of U.S. hostages held in
Iran since November 1979, while aides to opponent Ronald Reagan worked
secretly to free the captives on or around Election Day in November 1980. To
that end, they arranged illegal shipments of weapons (labeled as “farm machin-
ery”) to Iran, with some passing through Portugal. Defense Minister Costa re-
portedly seized one of those shipments, angering two Portuguese collaborators
in the scheme: General Francisco da Costa Gomes (president of Portugal from
September 1974 to July 1976) and Admiral José Baptista Pinheiro de Azevedo
(prime minister from September 1975 to June 1976). With Sá Carneiro and
Costa silenced, another arms shipment cleared Lisbon for Tehran on January 22,
1981—two days after President Reagan announced release of the hostages in
his inauguration speech.
Two former members of the now-defunct far-right terrorist group Comman-
dos para a Defesa da Civilização Ocidental—Commandos for Defense of West-
ern Civilization, or CODECO—have admitted knowledge of the Sá Carneiro
bombing. Fernando Farinha Simões, imprisoned on unrelated charges, waited
for Portugal’s 25-year statute of limitations to expire before telling his story to
journalist José Esteves in April 2012. That 18-page statement implicates the
U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, former secretary of state Henry Kissinger,
and convicted Iran-Contra conspirator Oliver North, who—Simões says—
participated in advance discussions of the bombing. No charges have been
filed in relation to the case, nor does it seem likely that any shall be.
Further Reading
Anderson, James. The History of Portugal. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2000.
“How They Killed Mr. Francisco Sá Carneiro and Mr. Adelino Amaro de Costa.”
Scribd. http://www.scribd.com/doc/90035961/How-they-killed-Mr-Sa-Carneiro-and-
Mr-Amaro-da-Costa.
Magone, Jose. European Portugal: The Difficult Road to Sustainable Democracy. New York:
St. Martin’s Press, 1997.
Maxwell, Kenneth. The Making of Portuguese Democracy. Cambridge: Cambridge Uni-
versity Press, 1995.
Mitchell, Paul. “Portugal: Inquiry Concludes Bomb Killed Prime Minister Carneiro
in 1980.” World Socialist Web Site (January 10, 2005). http://www.wsws.org/en/ar
ticles/2005/01/port-j10.html.
Wiarda, Howard, and Margaret Mott. Catholic Roots and Democratic Flowers: Political
Systems in Spain and Portugal. Westport, CT: Praeger: 2001.
S A D AT, A N WA R E L 499

SADAT, ANWAR EL (1918–1981)

On October 6, 1981, President Anwar El Sadat attended Egypt’s annual victory
parade in Cairo, staged each year to celebrate “Operation Badr,” Egypt’s cross-
ing of the Suez Canal to support Syrian forces at the onset of the brief Yom Kip-
pur War (October 6–25, 1973). Unknown to Sadat at the time, Muslim cleric
Omar Abdel-Rahman had declared a fatwā against the president over Sadat’s
role in negotiating peace with Israel two years earlier, and members of Egyptian
Islamic Jihad had accepted the challenge to kill him. Led by an army lieutenant,
Khalid Ahmed Showky Al-Islambouli, the hit team boarded a military truck
and joined the parade past Sadat’s reviewing stand, where they leapt from the
vehicle and rushed the presidential party. Islambouli hurled three grenades at
Sadat, two of them duds, while his accomplices strafed the stands with auto-
matic rifles, killing Sadat and 11 others, Cuba’s ambassador to Egypt among
them. Vice President Hosni Mubarak was injured, with 27 other victims. De-
spite the best efforts of 11 physicians, Sadat died hours later at a Cairo hospital.
Security officers killed one attacker and captured three more at the scene, later
arresting 20 more. At trial, Islambouli and three defendants were convicted and
condemned, all executed by a firing squad on April 15, 1982.
Anwar El Sadat was born into a poor family at Mit Abu al-Kum, in the Egyp-
tian Nile Delta, on Christmas Day 1918. His parents found the cost of feeding

Egyptian president Anwar El Sadat and 11 others died in a 1981 military uprising. (Alain
Keler/Sygma/Corbis)
500 S A D A T, A N W A R E L

13 children prohibitive, and Sadat spent his early childhood with his paternal
grandmother, raised to venerate a cast of heroes including India’s Mohandas
Gandhi, Turkish nationalist leader Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, and Egyptian vil-
lagers who battled British soldiers in the Denshawai Incident of June 1906.
Committed to Egyptian nationalism, Sadat graduated from Cairo’s Royal Mili-
tary Academy in 1938 and joined the army as a second lieutenant posted in
Sudan (then part of Egypt). After meeting future president Gamal Abdel Nasser
there, Sadat joined the Free Officers Movement, dedicated to toppling Egypt’s
monarchy and expelling its British supporters.
That goal was naturally deemed subversive, and Sadat was jailed in World
War II on charges of collaborating with Axis forces—Italy and Germany—
against Britain and Egypt’s king Farouk I. Seven years after V-E Day (Victory
in Europe Day), Sadat joined in the military coup led by Nasser and General
Muhammad Naguib, which deposed Farouk and established the Republic of
Egypt on July 23, 1952. Naguib took office as Egypt’s first president five days
later, succeeded by Nasser in November 1954. Nasser chose Sadat to serve as
minister of state in 1954, and promoted him five years later to secretary to the
National Union (at the time, Egypt’s only political party). From 1960 through
1968, Sadat served as president of the National Assembly, doubling in 1964
as a member of Egypt’s Presidential Council and as one of two vice presidents
in February of that year. December 1969 saw his return as vice president, that
time serving until October 14, 1970.
At the time of Gamal Nasser’s death on September 28, 1970, he served
both as president of Egypt and of the larger United Arab Republic (UAR),
formed by a merger with Syria in February 1958. Sadat inherited both of-
fices on October 15, 1970, then dissolved the UAR in September 1971. At
home, meanwhile, in May 1971, he declared a “Corrective Revolution” to
purge Nasser supporters whom he viewed as being too inclined toward col-
laboration with the Soviet Union. At the same time, he imprisoned various
“liberals” and Muslims, particularly members of Takfir wal-Hijra (“Excom-
munication and Exodus”), a radical offshoot of the banned Muslim Broth-
erhood, founded in Egypt during the 1960s. That move, along with Sadat’s
peace overtures toward Israel, would ultimately rebound against him with
fatal consequences.
Israel had dealt a humiliating defeat to Egypt and its allies—Jordan and
Syria, with expeditionary forces from eight other nations—in the Six Day
War of June 1967. Four years later, a war of attrition persisted along the
Suez Canal, characterized by air raids, border skirmishes, and acts of terror-
ism claiming at least 5,753 lives (some estimates exceed 15,000). Sadat and
President Hafez al-Assad of Syria sought to break that stalemate in October
1973, with a surprise attack on Israeli forces occupying the Egyptian Sinai
Peninsula and Syria’s Golan Heights. The result, after 19 days of combat, was
S A D AT, A N WA R E L 501

another Israeli triumph, with some 18,500 attackers slain, 35,000 wounded,
and 8,783 captured, against Israeli losses of 2,800 killed and 8,800 wounded.
Nonetheless, Sadat was hailed in Egypt as “Hero of the [Suez] Crossing,” and
the first day of the Yom Kippur War became a holiday marked by national
celebration.
In realistic terms, the latest war forced Sadat to pursue peace negotiations
with Israel, initially geared toward reopening the Suez Canal as a safe pas-
sage for merchant vessels. Agreements signed in January 1974 and September
1975 secured that goal, winning Sadat the praise of Western diplomats—and
Evangelical minister Billy Graham—when Sadat visited the United States in
October 1975. April 1976 saw Sadat invited to the Vatican, where Pope Paul
VI shared his opinions on the Middle East, including a fair settlement for dis-
placed Palestinian Arabs. In November 1977, Sadat broke new ground as the
first Arab leader to visit Israel, addressing the Knesset in Jerusalem after a pri-
vate meeting with Prime Minister Menachem Begin. There, he called for imple-
mentation of United Nations Security Council Resolution 242, withdrawing all
Israeli troops from territory seized in October 1967.
Israel would not agree to those terms, but Prime Minister Begin did join
Sadat in the United States 10 months later, to negotiate the Camp David Ac-
cords with President Jimmy Carter. Their agreement, accompanied by various
“side letters,” paved the way for signing of the Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty on
March 26, 1979, a momentous event that earned both Sadat and Begin a Nobel
Peace Prize. That treaty, coupled with Sadat’s close ties to Shah Mohammad
Reza Pahlavi of Iran (deposed by radical Islamic fundamentalists one month
before the treaty was signed between Israel and Egypt), left Sadat a marked
man among Muslim extremists.
Egyptian public opinion was far from unanimous in ascribing blame for Sa-
dat’s assassination. Sheikh Omar Abdel-Rahman, author of the fatwā condemn-
ing Sadat, spent three years in Egyptian jails before a court acquitted him and
ordered his expulsion from the country. Granted a tourist visa to the United
States in July 1990, despite his inclusion on a State Department terrorist watch
list, Rahman received a life prison term in October 1995, for his role in the Feb-
ruary 1993 car-bombing of New York City’s World Trade Centers.
Meanwhile, conspiracy theories surround Sadat’s presidential successor,
Muhammad Hosni El Sayed Mubarak, who escaped the 1981 fusillade of bul-
lets and grenade shrapnel with only a sprained thumb, while sitting at Sadat’s
right hand. Defense Minister Abu Ghazala, seated to Sadat’s immediate left,
also came through the storm of fire with only a bullet hole drilled through his
uniform cap. Named by one of Sadat’s daughters as the probable prime mover
behind her father’s assassination, Mubarak would rule Egypt as a de facto dic-
tator until a revolution deposed him in February 2011. Six months later, he
faced trial on charges of negligence for not giving orders to stop the killing
502 S A D U L AY E V, A B D U L - H A L I M A B U - S A L A M O V I C H

of peaceful protestors during the revolution. Conviction in that case earned

Mubarak a life prison term in June 2012.
Perhaps ironically, in September 2010, Egyptian journalist and former Sadat
aide Mohamed Hassanein Heikal accused Sadat of assassinating Gamal Nasser
to obtain the presidency, back in 1970. According to that “40-year bombshell,”
Nasser died three days after Sadat brought him a cup of coffee in a meeting
with Yasser Arafat, leader of the Palestine Liberation Organization. Heikal fur-
ther alleged that Sadat drove Nasser’s personal cook from the kitchen and made
the coffee himself, implying the use of some slow-acting poison. Sadat’s daugh-
ter filed a lawsuit against Heikal, while renewing accusations of murder against
Mubarak. No report on disposition of that litigation was available as this work
went to press.

Further Reading
Beattie, Kirk. Egypt during the Sadat Years. New York: Palgrave, 2000.
Haykal, Muhammad. Autumn of Fury: The Assassination of Sadat. New York: Random
House, 1983.
Hirst, David, and Irene Beeson. Sadat. London: Faber and Faber, 1981.
Israeli, Raphael. Man of Defiance: A Political Biography of Anwar Sadat. Totowa, NJ:
Barnes & Noble Books, 1985.
Kays, Doreen. Frogs and Scorpions: Egypt, Sadat and the Media. London: Frederick
Muller Ltd., 1983.
Quandt, William. Camp David: Peacemaking and Politics. Washington, DC: Brookings
Institution Press, 1986.

SADULAYEV, ABDUL-HALIM ABU-

SALAMOVICH (1966–2006)
On June 17, 2006, agents of Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) and Kady-
rovite soldiers—militia units founded by first Chechen Republic president
Akhmad Kadyrov—surrounded a small group led by Abdul-Halim Sadulayev,
president of the break-away Chechen Republic of Ichkeria, in the Chechen
town of Argun. A firefight ensued, leaving Sadulayev and at least three oth-
ers dead. Spokesmen for pro-Russian president Alu Alkhanov proclaimed that
Sadulayev was planning “a big terrorist attack” in St. Petersburg when he was
killed. They called Sadulayev’s death a “decapitating blow,” from which rebel
forces “will never recover.” In fact, one day later, Sadulayev was succeeded
by the vice president and guerrilla leader Dokka Umarov, widely known as
“Russia’s Osama bin Laden,” who continued armed attacks on Russia and its
Chechen allies until February 2012.
Abdul-Halim Sadulayev (the most common of at eight variant spellings) was
born at Argun, east of Grozny, on June 2, 1966. After completing his basic
education in Argun, Sadulayev enrolled at Grozny (now Chechen State) Uni-
versity to study Chechen and Russian linguistics. That plan was terminated by
S A D U L AY E V, A B D U L - H A L I M A B U - S A L A M O V I C H 503

eruption of the First Chechen War in December 1994, when military forces
of the Russian Federation moved to crush the secessionist Chechen Republic
of Ichkeria, founded three years earlier by Dzhokhar Dudayev. Abandoning
his studies, Sadulayev joined a militia unit based at Argun and participated in
various battles until the Khasavyurt Accord of August 1996 temporarily halted
hostilities.
The First Chechen War killed at least 25,000 combatants and 35,000 ci-
vilians (some tabulations top 100,000). It also changed Sadulayev’s life for-
ever, diverting him from academia to full-time Muslim zealotry. Between
August 1996 and the outbreak of renewed fighting three years later, he made
the obligatory Hajj pilgrimage to Mecca and returned to become a fixture
on Chechen television, lecturing on the tenets of Islam. In Argun, he led his
hometown’s jamia, an Islamic education center that combined missionary ac-
tivity with community policing and militia drills. In 1998, Sadulayev clashed
with Khabib Abdurrakhman, a Jordanian cleric living in Chechnya whose
followers attacked Russians and non-Muslim Chechens alike. Victorious in
that brief conflict, Sadulayev saw Abdurrakhman stripped of Chechen citi-
zenship and expelled from the country.
A year later, President Aslan Maskhadov offered Sadulayev the chairmanship
of Chechnya’s Supreme Sharia Court, but Sadulayev declined, citing a lack of
desire to judge others. That choice was taken from his hands in August 1999,
when members of the Chechnya-based Islamic International Brigade invaded
Dagestan, thus touching off the Second Chechen War. Some Chechens later
claimed the raid was planned by Russia, to justify its invasion of Chechnya
on October 1. In any case, the latest war would formally continue until May
2000, then settle into a decade-long war of insurgency and terrorism, claiming
at least 75,000 lives.
Abdul-Halim Sadulayev was in the thick of it, supporting Aslan Maskhadov
and being designated as his heir apparent to the separatist presidency in
2002. A year later, FSB agents kidnapped Sadulayev’s wife and executed her,
after failed ransom negotiations. Members of the same agency assassinated
President Maskhadov at Tolstoy-Yurt, on March 8, 2005, and the Chechen
rebel council confirmed Sadulayev as Maskhadov’s successor. Once installed,
Sadulayev called for “decolonization” of Muslim-dominated regions adjoin-
ing Chechnya and urged promulgation of a constitution based on Sharia law,
allowing for democratic election of the next president at war’s end.
Despite his dedication to the struggle—and his bitterness over the mur-
der of his wife—Sadulayev did his best to conduct the ongoing war on “civi-
lized” lines. He discouraged hostage-taking and terrorist attacks on civilians,
urging Chechen warlords to focus on “legitimate targets” including federal
troops, police, government officials. Sadulayev’s successor, Dokka Uma-
rov, proved less discriminating as he carried the battle to Russia, with in-
cidents such as the 2010 Moscow Metro bombings (40 dead, 100 injured)
504 SALIM, EZZEDINE

and the 2011 Domodedovo International Airport bombing (37 dead, 173
wounded).
There are two conflicting versions of Sadulayev’s death. In the first, Kady-
rovite militia leader (and future president) Ramzan Kadyrov claimed that his
men hoped to capture Sadulayev alive, but were forced to kill him and one of
his bodyguards when they resisted arrest. In June 2006, Memorial—a human
rights organization active in post-Soviet states—declared that Sadulayev’s death
was “accidental,” resulting from a grenade blast when FSB agents stormed a
rebel safe house without knowing that Sadulayev was inside.

Further Reading
Bodansky, Yossef. Chechen Jihad: Al Qaeda’s Training Ground and the Next Wave of Terror.
New York: Harper, 2007.
“Russia’s Tactics Make Chechen War Spread across Caucasus.” Kavkaz Center. http://
www.kavkaz.org.uk/eng/content/2005/09/16/4074.shtml.
Schaefer, Robert. The Insurgency in Chechnya and the North Caucasus: From Gazavat to
Jihad. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2011.
“Terrorist Leader Sadulayev Killed in Chechnya Was Planning Big Terrorist Act.” Pravda.
http://english.pravda.ru/news/hotspots/terror/18–06–2006/82150-sadulayev-0.

SALIM, EZZEDINE (1943–2004)

On May 1, 2004, Ezzedine Salim—a teacher, Muslim scholar, prolific author,
and leader of Iraq’s Islamic Dawa Party—was elected president of the Iraqi
Governing Council. His tenure was expected to be limited, with the govern-
ing council scheduled for replacement by an elected government on June
1. In fact, he would not live to finish out his one-month term. On May 17,
near Baghdad’s “Green Zone,” a suicide car bomb killed Salim and several
other victims. In the wake of that explosion, a previously unknown group,
calling itself the Arab Resistance Movement al-Rashid Brigades, posted an
Internet message claiming credit for the blast, described as “a qualitative he-
roic operation, which led to the killing of the traitor and mercenary Ezzedine
Salim.” U.S. spokesmen challenged that claim, blaming the assassination on
Jordanian-born al-Qaeda leader Abu Musab al-Zarqawi.
Ezzedine Salim was born in Basra, Iraq, probably in 1943. (Some sources
cited the year as 1940 or 1944.) At age 19 he joined the Dawa Party, a Shi’ite
movement organized in 1957 to combat secularism and promote creation of
an Islamic state in Iraq. Suppression by the dominant Ba’ath Party drove Salim
into exile during his early 20s, passing through Kuwait before he settled in
Iran, there serving as a newspaper editor for the Supreme Council for the Is-
lamic Revolution in Iraq. During his exile, he authored many books—some
accounts say “over 50,” others “over 100”—on religious and political topics.
SÁNCHEZ CERRO, LUIS MIGUEL 505

His best-known work is Fatima Bint Muhammad, a biography of the Muslim

prophet Mohammed’s daughter.
From Iran, Salim coordinated and encouraged opposition to the regime
of Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein. That stance made him unpopular with the
United States during the 1980s, when President Ronald Reagan supported
Hussein’s war against Iran, then earned him Washington’s favor a decade later,
during the first Gulf War. Living and traveling under assumed names while
he dodged Iraqi hit squads, Salim was ready to ally himself with the United
States when its troops occupied Iraq in March 2003. Four months later, he was
picked to join the Iraqi Governing Council.
Five days before his elevation to the presidency of that body, on April 25,
2004, Salim held a press conference in Baghdad. When asked whether his
homeland could retain its Arab identity under a democracy, he replied, “Iraq
is a member of the Arab League, but all are represented here now, including
Turkmen, Kurds and Christians for example. Iraq is full of diversity.” That pro-
nouncement undoubtedly sealed his fate in the minds of Islamic extremists.
Sheikh Ghazi Mashal Ajil al-Yawar succeeded Salim as president of the gov-
erning council, then served as acting president of the Iraqi Interim Government
(2004–2005) and as vice president under the Iraqi Transitional Government
(2005–2006). Determined not to appear as a lackey of U.S.-led Coalition
forces, he told reporters, “We blame the United States 100 percent for the [lack
of] security in Iraq. They occupied the country, disbanded the security agen-
cies and for 10 months left Iraq’s borders open for anyone to come in without
a visa or even a passport. The Coalition’s handling of the crisis is wrong. It’s like
someone who fired bullets at his horse’s head just because a fly landed on it;
the horse died and the fly went away.”

Further Reading
Ajami, Fouad. The Foreigner’s Gift: The Americans, the Arabs, and the Iraqis in Iraq. New
York: Free Press, 2006.
“Baghdad Blast Kills Iraq Leader.” BBC News (May 17, 2004). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/
hi/middle_east/3720161.stm.
Naylor, David. Al Qaeda in Iraq. Hauppauge, NY: Nova Science Publishers, 2009.
“Profile: Ezzedine Salim.” BBC News (May 17, 2004). http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/mid
dle_east/3721755.stm.

SÁNCHEZ CERRO, LUIS MIGUEL

(1889–1933)
In April 1933, Peru stood on the brink of war with neighboring Colom-
bia, over the town of Leticia, in Colombia’s Amazonas Department. Seven
months earlier, a “patriotic” band of Peruvians had seized the town, expelled
506 S Á N C H E Z C E R R O, L U I S M I G U E L

its elected officials, then demanded their government’s support for the inva-
sion. Although opposed to the move, President Luis Sánchez Cerro could not
resist the groundswell of strident nationalism. On April 30, he visited Lima’s
Hipódromo de Santa Beatriz racetrack (now El Campo de Marte) to review
20,000 new army recruits. As he completed the inspection, gunman Abelardo
de Mendoza, a member of the banned American Popular Revolutionary Alli-
ance (APRA), shot Sánchez with a pistol at close range, killing him instantly.
Presidential guards returned fire, slaying Mendoza. Parliament selected Field
Marshal and former president Óscar Raymundo Benavides Larrea to succeed
Sánchez.
Luis Miguel Sánchez Cerro was born at Piura, in northwestern Peru, on Au-
gust 12, 1889, to parents of the Malagasy ethnic group from Madagascar. After
completing basic education in his hometown, he enrolled at Lima’s Chorril-
los Military School in 1906, graduating as a lieutenant in 1910. In February
1914, Sánchez joined in a coup d’état against unpopular President Guillermo
Enrique Billingshurst Angulo, suffering wounds that included the loss of two
fingers on his right hand. Promoted to captain by the victors, Sánchez was sent
to Washington, D.C., as a military attaché, then returned to Peru in 1915 as a
member of the Army Geographical Service.
More promotions followed for Sánchez, but his career hit a snag when he
joined in another coup, this one meant to depose dictator Augusto Bernardino
Leguía y Salcedo in August 1922. Wounded once again, Sánchez was drummed
out of the service and spent two years in exile before Leguía granted amnesty
to the failed rebels. Appointed to a post at the ministry of war in 1924, Sánchez
was promoted to serve as chief of Cajatambo Province the following year, then
departed for Europe in August 1925, on a military fact-finding mission that
kept him abroad until January 1929.
Despite mending his fences with Augusto Leguía, Sánchez still despised the
autocratic president. On August 22, 1930, he led the Arequipa garrison in re-
volt and marched on Lima, forcing Leguía’s resignation three days later. A junta
led by Sánchez ran Peru’s government from August 27, 1930, to March 1, 1931,
when David Samanez Ocampo and Sobrino assumed the interim presidency,
pending national elections. Sánchez carried that campaign as a candidate for
the newly founded Revolutionary Union party, and was inaugurated as Pe-
ru’s 27th constitutional president—the first of indigenous Peruvian ancestry—
on December 8. 1931.
The APRA contested that election, and member José Melgar Marquez made
the party’s first attempt to kill Sánchez on March 6, 1932, outside Lima’s
Church in Miraflores. Sánchez drew his own pistol and was about to shoot
Melgar when guards subdued the gunman. At trial, Melgar claimed his actions
were “entirely personal,” without political motivation. He was condemned, but
Sánchez commuted the sentence to 25 years in prison. Three months after
SANDINO, AUGUSTO NICOLÁS CALDERÓN 507

the botched murder attempt, a clearly political uprising occurred in Huaraz,

prompting Sánchez to close Peru’s National College and National University as
“hotbeds of revolution.” He also requested private donations for an air force to
combat future rebellions.
The final crisis of his life took Sánchez by surprise. Unknown to most Pe-
ruvians, President Leguía had signed the Salomón–Lozano Treaty with Co-
lombia in July 1922, creating a “Corridor to the Amazon” between the two
nations, with Leticia at its western terminus. Intended as a final settlement
of long-running border disputes, the treaty was kept secret by Leguía for
reasons yet unclear, and Sánchez personally dismissed it as null and void.
Still it ultimately prompted the raid on Leticia that propelled Peru toward
war with its neighbor, bearing Sánchez along on a tide of martial hysteria to
his death.
Successor Óscar Benavides banned the APRA as an international party
supported by Russian communists, negotiated a new truce with Ecuador in
March 1934, and ruled as president until December 1939 under the motto
“Order, Peace, and Work.” He later served as Peruvian ambassador to Spain
(1940) and Argentina (1941–1944), before founding the National Demo-
cratic Front, ironically allied with the APRA and the Communist Party,
in 1945.

Further Reading
Drinot, Paulo. The Allure of Labor: Workers, Race, and the Making of the Peruvian State.
Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2011.
Garcia Márquez, Gabriel. Living to Tell the Tale. New York: Vintage Books, 2004.
Klaren, Peter. Peru: Society and Nationhood in the Andes. Oxford: Oxford University
Press, 2000.
Masterson, Daniel. Militarism and Politics in Latin America: Peru from Sanchez Cerro to
Sendero Luminoso. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1991.

SANDINO, AUGUSTO NICOLÁS

CALDERÓN (1895–1934)
On February 21, 1934, after a meeting with Nicaraguan president Juan Bautista
Sacasa in Managua, rebel leader Augusto Sandino and five companions were
surrounded by National Guardsmen at the gate of the presidential palace. Ar-
rested with Sandino, despite Bautista’s promise of safe passage, were Sandino’s
father, brother, two generals from his peasant army, and poet Sofonías Salvati-
erra (who doubled as Bautista’s minister of agriculture). Acting on orders from
National Guard commander Anastasio Somoza García, the soldiers executed
Sandino, brother Socrates, and the two generals. Some reports claim that San-
dino’s corpse was also decapitated and dismembered, with the head presented
to U.S. Marines who were battling Sandino’s forces. Allies of Sandino later
508 S A N D I N O, AU G U S T O N I C O L Á S C A L D E R Ó N

exhumed his remains and re-

buried them at another location,
still undisclosed to this day.
Augusto Calderón Sandino
was born out of wedlock at Ni-
quinohomo, Nicaragua, on May
18, 1895. His mother, Margar-
ita Calderón, was a servant in
the home of wealthy landowner
Gregorio Sandino, who im-
pregnated her. Augusto resided
with his mother until age nine,
then moved into his father’s
home. In 1921, after a failed
attempt to kill a wealthy man
who insulted his mother, fled
to Mexico and found work at
a Standard Oil refinery. He ab-
sorbed the messages of Mexico’s
recent revolution, cultivating an
anti-imperialist attitude even as
he dabbled in spiritualism and
Seventh Day Adventism. When
Nicaragua’s five-year statute of
limitations on attempted mur-
der ran out in 1926, Sandino
Government troops killed Nicaraguan rebel leader
Augusto Sandino in 1934. (Bettmann/Corbis) went home to work in a gold
mine near the Honduran border.
In March of that year, Emiliano Chamorro Vargas led a coup against Pres-
ident Carlos José Solórzano Gutiérrez and seized control of the country.
Pressure from the United States doomed Chamorro’s regime, forcing his res-
ignation in November 1926, and ex-president Adolfo Díaz Recinos reclaimed
his former office. A month later, exiled Vice President Juan Bautista Sacasa
returned from Mexico to declare himself the rightful president, supported by
General José María Moncada Tapia. Sandino joined the Bautista–Moncada re-
volt, leading a guerrilla force of fellow gold miners, but Moncada disdained
Sandino’s ragtag army and refused to support them. Undeterred, Sandino
gathered weapons from defeated federal troops and pursued his own parallel
war against the Diaz regime, recruiting peasant soldiers as he progressed from
one victory to the next.
In 1927, as Moncada prepared to capture Managua, Washington intervened
with a threat to occupy Nicaragua. That May, spokesmen for Diaz and Bautista
SANDINO, AUGUSTO NICOLÁS CALDERÓN 509

met with White House emissary Henry Stimson to negotiate the Pact of Espino
Negro, whereby President Diaz agreed to finish out his term, then guarantee a
fair election for his successor in 1928. Both the government and rebels agreed
to disarm, leaving matters of Nicaraguan security to a new “nonpartisan” Na-
tional Guard. Sandino and Bautista both refused to sign the pact; Bautista fled
to Mexico, and Sandino effectively declared war on both the National Guard
and its supporting force of U.S. Marines, led by General Logan Feland. General
Moncada signed the pact, thereby ensuring his election as president in 1928,
and Sandino branded him a vendepatria (“country-seller”) and condemned the
“Colossus of the North” as “the enemy of our race.”
During the seven-year conflict that followed, Sandino’s “Army in Defense
of the National Sovereignty of Nicaragua,” armed only with obsolete firearms
and simple machetes, claimed the lives of at least 3,000 soldiers. Despite initial
losses and the ever-growing odds against him, Sandino fought some 500 en-
gagements against Marines and the National Guard, winning more often than
he lost. Buoyed by frequent (if minor) victories, Sandino changed his name
to Augusto César Sandino, as a symbol of his confidence and defiance. San-
dino’s attitude was summarized in a letter published in Mexico City, which
read in part:

I will not abandon my resistance until the . . . pirate invaders . . . assassins of

weak peoples . . . are expelled from my country. . . . I will make them realize
that their crimes will cost them dear. . . . There will be bloody combat. . . .
Nicaragua shall not be the patrimony of Imperialists. I will fight for my cause as
long as my heart beats. . . . If through destiny I should lose, there are in my ar-
senal five tons of dynamite which I will explode with my own hand. The noise
of the cataclysm will be heard 250 miles. All who hear will be witness that San-
dino is dead. Let it not be permitted that the hands of traitors or invaders shall
profane his remains.

Pursuit of Sandino proved fruitless, and a letter from his mother, forced by
Marines to plead for his surrender, failed to move him. In April 1928, San-
dino’s troops destroyed equipment at the Bonanza and La Luz gold mines,
owned by brothers of Harry Fletcher, the U.S. ambassador to Italy. Marines
hunted Sandino from airplanes and canoes, all in vain, while dissatisfaction
with their failure mounted at home. Senator Burton Wheeler of Montana
railed in Congress that if U.S. troops were needed “stamp out banditry, let’s
send them to Chicago to stamp it out there. . . . I wouldn’t sacrifice . . . one
American boy for all the damn Nicaraguans.” Sandino, meanwhile, stuck
to his demands: President Diaz’s resignation, withdrawal of U.S. forces, re-
peal of the 1914 Bryan–Chamorro Treaty (granting the United States exclu-
sive rights to dig a canal across Nicaragua), and free elections supervised by
Latin American statesmen. American paranoia spiked as the U.S. Communist
510 S A N D I N O, AU G U S T O N I C O L Á S C A L D E R Ó N

Party endorsed Sandino, followed by the Soviet Union’s Pan-American Anti-

Imperialist League.
Mexican president Emilio Portes Gil offered sanctuary to Sandino in June
1929, and Sandino accepted, dividing his time in exile between discussions
with communist leaders and further dabbling in fringe religions, this time the
Magnetic-Spiritualist School of the Universal Commune, promoting a hybrid
form of communism based on “spiritism of Light and Truth.” Founded in Bra-
zil by an expatriate Basque electrician, the sect believed that all humans would
eventually be Hispanic, sharing Spanish as their common language. Sandino
named sect founder Joaquín Trincado as one of his official advisors, while sev-
ering most of his links to traditional communist parties.
In January 1931, Henry Stimson—now U.S. secretary of state—announced
that U.S. troops would withdraw from Nicaragua after the country’s next elec-
tion, in 1932, leaving only officers to advise the National Guard. Sandino re-
turned from Mexico in the summer of 1931, launching a new offensive against
federal and foreign troops, seizing various small towns along principal railway
lines. Juan Bautista Sacasa won the 1932 presidential election, and U.S. Ma-
rines departed as promised after his inauguration. In February 1933, Sandino
met with Bautista and promised to disarm his guerrillas by May, if they were
granted squatter’s rights in the Río Coco Valley bordering Honduras. Bautista
stalled, and the war continued for another year, until Sandino’s betrayal and
murder in February 1934.
For decades after his assassination, Sandino’s name remained a rallying cry
for opponents of Nicaragua’s brutal Somoza dynasty, which seized control
of the country in January 1937. The Sandinista National Liberation Front,
founded in 1961, finally deposed the last Somoza in July 1979 and estab-
lished its own duly elected government. Still unwilling to relinquish control
over Central America, the White House inaugurated a brutal (and illegal)
guerrilla war to destabilize the Sandinista regime in 1981, nearly bankrupt-
ing Nicaragua by 1990. Still, Sandinista’s name and his message endure, re-
suscitated as the Sandinista Renovation Movement in 2006, under President
Daniel Ortega.
See also: Somoza Debayle, Anastasio (1925–1980); Somoza García, Anastasio (1896–1956).

Further Reading
Hodges, Donald. Sandino’s Communism: Spiritual Politics for the Twenty-First Century.
Austin: University of Texas Press. 1992.
Ibarra Grijalva, Domingo. The Last Night of General Augusto C. Sandino. New York: Van-
tage Press, 1973.
Macaulay, Neil. The Sandino Affair. Chicago: Quadrangle Books, 1967.
Navarro-Génie, Marco. Augusto “César” Sandino: Messiah of Light and Truth. Syracuse,
NY: Syracuse University Press, 2002.
SANKARA, THOMAS ISIDORE NOËL 511

“The Sandino Rebellion: A Documentary History.” http://www.sandinorebellion.com.

Selser, Gregorio. Sandino. New York: Monthly Review Press, 1982.
Walker, Thomas. Nicaragua: Living in the Shadow of the Eagle. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 2003.

SANKARA, THOMAS ISIDORE NOËL

(1949–1987)
On October 15, 1987, Blaise Compaoré—founder of Burkina Faso’s Congress
for Democracy and Progress—staged a coup d’état against President Thomas
Sankara. After shooting him to death, with a dozen other government officials,
the assassins dismembered Sankara’s corpse and buried the remains in in an un-
marked grave. Sankara’s widow and two children fled the country, and Compaoré
installed himself as president, holding that office to the present day. Observer
Ulises Estrada, former colleague of South American revolutionary Che Guevara,
expressed his conviction that “the hand of [Sankara’s] assassins was guided by im-
perialism, which could not allow a man with the ideas and actions of Sankara to
lead a country on a continent so exploited for hundreds of years by international
imperialism, colonialism, and neocolonial governments that do their bidding.”
Thomas Sankara was born on December 21, 1949, at Yako, French Upper
Volta, a colony of French West Africa. His parents were Roman Catholics of
the Silmi-Mossi ethnic group, considered lower-class members of the tribal
caste system, chiefly farmers, smiths, and leatherworkers. Sankara’s father, a
gendarme who fought with the Free French in World War II and was captured
by Nazis, urged his son to train for the priesthood after graduating from high
school in Bobo-Dioulasso, but Thomas joined the army instead, enlisting at age
19. A year later, he was dispatched for officer’s training at Antisrabe, Madagas-
car. There, Sankara witnessed mass demonstrations against the state, forcing
President Philibert Tsiranana’s resignation in October 1972. At the same time,
Sankara was exposed for the first time to works by Karl Marx, Friedrich Engels,
and Vladimir Lenin.
Their message sank in, but Sankara still required further impetus to break
with the establishment of his homeland. Upper Volta had achieved auton-
omy as a self-governing colony within the French Community in December
1958, followed by full independence from France in August 1960. Soon after
Sankara returned from training in Madagascar, he was thrown into a border
war with the neighboring Republic of Mali, formerly part of French Sudan.
Though decorated for his valor in that conflict, Sankara regarded the war as
“useless and unjust.” Still, he remained in uniform, rising by 1976 to direct
the elite Commando Training Center at Pô, in Nahouri Province. That same
year, during advanced training in Morocco, he met and befriended another
native officer, 25-year-old Blaise Compaoré.
512 SANK ARA, THOMAS ISIDORE NOËL

Politics at home remained unstable. Major General Aboubakar Sangoulé

Lamizana claimed the presidency of Upper Volta in January 1966, after mass
strikes and demonstrations unseated predecessor Maurice Yaméogo. Lamizana
led a “provisional military government” until a new constitution was ratified in
June 1970, then served as president until November 25, 1980, when Colonel
Saye Zerbo ousted him at gunpoint, suspended the constitution, and ruled in
the name of a Military Committee of Recovery for National Progress. Quickly
dissatisfied with Zerbo and his junta, Sankara and Compaoré organized a cover
Regroupement des officiers communistes (Communist Officers’ Group) within the
army, plotting the dictator’s downfall.
Before they could strike at Zerbo, he was replaced by Major Jean-Baptiste
Ouédraogo, in November 1982. Their coup d’état proceeded, with a new tar-
get, on August 4, 1983, unseating Ouédraogo and installing Sankara as presi-
dent at age 33. His stated goal was to eradicate corruption and to cast aside the
remnants of French colonial domination. To symbolize that sweeping change,
he renamed Upper Volta as Burkina Faso (“Land of Upright Men”) on August
4, 1984. The new nation shunned foreign aid, nationalized all land and min-
eral wealth, vaccinated 2.5 million children against deadly diseases, planted
more than 10 million trees to halt the spread of the Sahara Desert, while sev-
ering connections to the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF).
Expanding into social issues, Sankara outlawed forced marriage, polygamy,
and female circumcision, appointed women to government posts, and encour-
aged them to stay in school if pregnant. Sankara’s reforms—coupled with his
penchant for guitar playing and motorcycle riding—soon earned him the nick-
name of “Africa’s Che Guevara.”
Inevitably, Sankara’s new programs made enemies. They included quasi-
feudal landlords stripped of property, tribal chiefs deprived of tribute pay-
ments and obligatory labor, corrupt officials driven from their public offices,
and “lazy workers” held for trial before local revolutionary tribunals. An ad-
mirer of both Che Guevara and Fidel Castro, Sankara also challenged estab-
lished military authority by creating and arming Cuban-style Committees for
the Defense of the Revolution. Conscious of his adversaries, Sankara gave a
public address six days before his slaying—on the 20th anniversary of Che
Guevara’s assassination—declaring that “while revolutionaries as individuals
can be murdered, you cannot kill ideas.”
It was all too much for Blaise Compaoré, who justified his October 1987
coup as a bid to “rectify” Burkina Faso’s revolution. Compaoré instantly re-
versed the nationalization of land and natural resources, welcomed new in-
vestment from the IMF and World Bank to assist the country’s “shattered”
economy, and generally scrapped the bulk of Sankara’s reforms. Compaoré
initially ruled as one of a triumvirate including cohorts Henri Zongo and Jean-
Baptiste Boukary Lingani, then had both arrested and shot in September 1989,
S A R G S YA N , VA Z G E N 513

on charges of conspiring to overthrow the government. Subsequently, Com-

paoré was elected president in 1991 (with only 25 percent of the electorate
voting), then won reelection in 1998. A constitutional amendment, passed in
2000, limited the president to five-year term, but Compaoré was exempted
from the rule on grounds of his incumbency. Reelected once again in Novem-
ber 2005, Compaoré survived an army mutiny in April 2011 and shows no in-
clination to surrender his office.
See also: Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro (1926– )—Attempted; Guevara, Ernesto “Che”
(1928–1967).

Further Reading
Cudjoe, Alfred. Who Killed Sankara? Berkeley: University of California Press, 1988.
Dembélé, Demba. “Sankara 20 years later: A Tribute to Integrity.” Pambazuka News
(October 10, 2008). http://www.pambazuka.org/en/category/features/51193/print.
Manson, Katrina, and James Knight. Burkina Faso. Guilford, CT: Pequot Press, 2006.
Sankara, Thomas. Thomas Sankara Speaks: The Burkina Faso Revolution: 1983–87. New
York: Pathfinder, 2007.

SARGSYAN, VAZGEN (1959–1999)

At 5:15 P.M. on October 27, 1999, Nairi Hunanyan and four other members
of the Armenian Revolutionary Federation invaded the National Assembly
building in Yerevan, Armenia. Interrupting a question-and-answer session,
they shot and killed Prime Minister Vazgen Sargsyan, Parliamentary Speaker
Karen Demirchyan, Deputy Speakers Yuri Bakhshyan and Ruben Miroyan,
Emergencies Minister Leonard Petrosyan, and three other victims, taking 40
hostages at gunpoint. In a statement to the media, Hunanyan announced that
he was staging a coup d’état to save Armenia from economic and political
ruin. Prime Minister Sargsyan had been his sole intended victim, he declared;
the other shootings were “mistakes.” The raiders surrendered on October 28,
after President Robert Kocharian promised them safe passage and a fair trial.
All five were later convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment.
Vazgen Sargsyan was born on March 5, 1959, at Ararat, in the Armenian
Soviet Socialist Republic. He studied at Yerevan’s Armenian State Institute of
Physical Culture, a school for athletic trainers, sports journalists, and special-
ists in adaptive physical therapy, graduating in 1979. From there, he returned
to Ararat, teaching physical education in a local school and leading the Com-
munist Youth League’s chapter at a cement plant from 1983 through 1986.
Next, he turned a flair for writing into a second career, heading the publicity
department of Garun (Spring), a literary monthly published in Yerevan.
Thus far, Sargsyan’s life had been almost idyllic, but Armenia was chang-
ing. Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev’s introduction of Perestroika
514 S A R G S YA N , VA Z G E N

(“restructuring”) and Glasnost (“openness”) during 1986–1988 sparked po-

litical stirrings in Armenia, including demands for reunion with Nagorno-
Karabakh, a region occupied by many Armenians and promised to Armenia
by Vladimir Lenin’s Bolsheviks in 1920, then made part of Azerbaijan in-
stead. On February 20, 1988, supported by mass demonstrations in Yerevan,
the Supreme Soviet of the Nagorno-Karabakh Autonomous Oblast voted to
unify with Armenia. A harsh reaction by Azerbaijani authorities ignited eth-
nic rioting between Armenians and Azeris, quickly escalating into full-scale
war. On May 5, 1990, a New Armenian army was created, operating inde-
pendently of Russian occupation troops, and the two units were locked in
battle by May 27.
Sargsyan, fired with a sudden enthusiasm for politics, took his first
step in 1990, winning a National Assembly seat in Armenia’s first semi-free
elections. Upon arrival in parliament, Sargsyan was appointed to the In-
ternal Affairs and State Defense Committee. On September 21, 1991, Arme-
nia declared its independence from the Soviet Union. Sargsyan traveled to
Nagorno-Karabakh, commanding guerrilla units that defended rural villages
from the Azerbaijani army. Before that conflict ended in May 1994, Sarg-
syan was recalled to Yerevan, named as Armenia’s new minister of defense. In
1996, Sargsyan crushed street demonstrations protesting the rigged reelec-
tion of incumbent President Levon Ter-Petrosyan, but a year later switched
his support to former president of Nagorno-Karabakh Robert Kocharyan,
named as prime minister in March 1997.
Kocharyan was on his way up, succeeding Ter-Petrosyan as president in April
1998. His first prime minister, Armen Darbinyan, resigned on June 11, 1999,
allowing Kocharyan to promote Vazgen Sargsyan. Sargsyan’s tenure would be
brief—only 138 days—but he left a deep impression on his homeland, receiv-
ing posthumous awards as a Hero of Artsakh (highest decoration from the self-
proclaimed Nagorno-Karabakh Republic) and as a National Hero of Armenia
(again, the country’s ultimate award). Various streets and schools in Karabakh
bear his name today.
At trial, Nairi Hunanyan claimed that he led the fatal National Assembly raid “to
save the Armenian people from perishing and restore their rights.” Soviet defector
Alexander Litvinenko told a different story, asserting that the Main Intelligence
Directorate of the General Staff of the Russian Armed Forces planned and sup-
ported the attack. The alleged motive: to derail ongoing peace negotiations over the
Nagorno-Karabakh territorial dispute that, despite cessation of open hostilities in
1994, is unresolved today. Russia’s embassy in Yerevan denied Litvinenko’s charge,
and no evidence of conspiracy was forthcoming. As for Litvinenko himself, he was
murdered in 2006, perhaps by Russian intelligence agents.

See also: Litvinenko, Alexander Valterovich (1962–2006).

SCHNEIDER CHEREAU, RENÉ 515

Further Reading
Marsden, Chris. “Shooting Death of Armenian Prime Minister Heightens Crisis in
the Caucasus.” World Socialist Web Site (October 29, 1999). http://www.wsws
.org/articles/1999/oct1999/arme-o29.shtml.
Melkonian, Markar. My Brother’s Road: An American’s Fateful Journey to Armenia. Lon-
don: I.B. Tauris, 2007.
Payaslian, Simon. The History of Armenia. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
Payaslian, Simon. The Political Economy of Human Rights in Armenia: Authoritarianism
and Democracy in a Former Soviet Republic. London: I.B. Tauris, 2011.

SCHNEIDER CHEREAU, RENÉ (1913–1970)

On September 4, 1970, despite concerted opposition from the U.S. Central
Intelligence Agency (CIA), Salvador Allende Gossens won a narrow plurality
in Chile’s presidential election. Having failed to prevent Allende’s election, the
CIA next moved to eliminate his strongest supporter, General René Schneider,
the Chilean army’s commander in chief. On October 22, a group of soldiers
loyal to General Roberto Viaux Marambio—leader of the quasi-fascist Father-
land and Liberty organization—ambushed Schneider’s car in Santiago. They
planned to abduct him, but Schneider drew a pistol and was shot repeatedly
at point-blank range instead. He lived to reach a military hospital, but died
there from his wounds on October 25. Ironically, the shooting prompted
Chile’s congress to confirm President Allende’s election one day before
Schneider died.
René Schneider Chereau was born on December 31, 1913, to German-
French immigrant parents, in Concepción, Chile. After studying at Santia-
go’s Liceo Jose Victorino Lastarria, he enrolled as a cadet at Chile’s Bernardo
O’Higgins Military Academy in February 1929. Rapid promotions elevated
him to ensign (1932), second lieutenant (1935), and lieutenant (1937). From
1941 to 1944, he served as an instructor at the military academy, advancing
to a captain’s rank in 1945, and major in 1951. Two years later, Schneider
joined Chile’s military mission in Washington, D.C. In 1955, he was appointed
secretary of studies at the École Militaire in Paris, France. More promotions
followed, to lieutenant colonel (1957), to colonel and attaché to the Chilean
embassy in Paraguay (1963), to director of the military academy (1967), and
to brigadier general (1968). In October 1969, Schneider suppressed an abor-
tive coup against President Eduardo Frei Montalva and was rewarded with ap-
pointment as the army’s commander in chief.
General Schneider was a stumbling block to American plans for Chile in
1970 because of his personal dedication to the constitutional process. On the
eve of Allende’s election, at a General Staff meeting, he declared that “the armed
forces are not a road to political power nor an alternative to that power. They
516 S C H N E I D E R C H E R E AU, R E N É

exist to guarantee the regular work of the political system and the use of force
for any other purpose than its defense constitute high treason.” With those
words and his determination to enforce them, Schneider frustrated would-be
putschists and ultimately sealed his own fate.
Armed with “sterilized” CIA weapons, conspirators made multiple at-
tempts to “neutralize” Schneider by kidnapping him. The first, on October
16, 1970, failed because an anonymous tip to his whereabouts proved false.
Three days later, plotters waited to snatch him after an official dinner, but
Schneider eluded them by leaving in a private car, rather than his normal
chauffeured limousine. On October 20, CIA headquarters authorized pay-
ment of $50,000 each to Viaux and his chief accomplice for speedy resolu-
tion of the problem. Following the botched kidnapping-cum-assassination,
outgoing President Frei Montalva named General Carlos Prats González as
Schneider’s successor.
President Allende’s prosecutors undertook investigation of Schneider’s mur-
der, placing equal blame on General Viaux’s clique and another led by General
Camilo Valenzuela. Declassified CIA memos demonstrate direct payments of
cash to Viaux, plus a promised $250,000 life insurance policy for the benefit
of his family, should he die in the attempt. In separate trials, Viaux was con-
victed of organizing Schneider’s abduction, and Valenzuela was convicted on
the lesser charge of plotting a coup. Both were released from custody in August
1973, after a U.S.-sponsored coup d’état deposed and killed President Allende,
replacing him with a neo-fascist military junta under dictator Augusto José
Ramón Pinochet Ugarte.
Pinochet left office at long last, in March 1990. More time elapsed before
the role of the United States in destabilizing Chile’s government was docu-
mented, and Schneider’s family filed a lawsuit against former U.S. secretary
of state Henry Kissinger on September 10, 2001, charging him with con-
spiracy in General Viaux’s murder of Schneider. A federal court in Washing-
ton, D.C., dismissed that case in June 2005, on grounds that the case posed
a “political question” and the court could not proceed “without expressing a
lack of respect to coordinate branches of government.” The Supreme Court
later declined to review that judgment.

Further Reading
Cames, Nat. Chile-New York: The Eleventh of September. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse,
2004.
“Chile and the United States: Declassified Documents Relating to the Military
Coup, September 11, 1973.” The National Security Archive. http://www.gwu
.edu/~nsarchiv/NSAEBB/NSAEBB8/nsaebb8i.htm.
Collier, Simon. A History of Chile, 1808–2002. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2004.
Davis, Nathaniel. The Last Two Years of Salvador Allende. London: I.B. Tauris, 1985.
SELEUCUS I 517

SELEUCUS I (350S BCE–281 BCE)

By September 281 BCE, Macedonian general Seleucus was the last surviv-
ing field commander of Alexander the Great’s League of Corinth, one of the
Diadochi (successors) who laid claim to Alexander’s mantle as ruler of the then-
known world. He had established the eponymous Seleucid Empire, sprawling
over central Anatolia, the Levant, Mesopotamia, Iran, Afghanistan, Turkmeni-
stan, and present-day Pakistan. Egypt remained beyond his grasp, but he was
more concerned with claiming Macedonia and Thraxe, after the recent death
of rival Lysimachus in the Battle of Corupedium. Seleucus never had a chance
to capitalize on that victory, however. Soon after crossing the Thracian Cher-
sonese (now the Gallipoli Peninsula), he was assassinated by Egyptian Ptol-
emy Keraunos (“Thunder”) near Lysimachia. Ptolemy—eldest son of Pharaoh
Ptolemy I Soter—then claimed the Macedonian throne, holding it until he was
captured and killed by Gauls in 279 BCE.

Macedonian general Seleucus I, killed by Egyptian rivals in 281 B.C.E. (Bettmann/Corbis)

518 SELEUCUS I

Seleucus was born in Europa, northern Macedonia, sometime between

358 and 354 BCE. His father, Antiochus, served as a general under Philip II
of Macedon (382–336 BCE), father of Alexander the Great. As a teenager,
Seleucus served as a page for Philip II, then joined Alexander’s army for its
Asian campaign in 334 BCE. Seven years later, as the force invaded India,
Seleucus had risen to command its elite Hypaspistai (“shield-bearers”).
When Alexander crossed northern India’s Hydaspes River by boat, in
326 BCE, he was accompanied by Seleucus, Ptolemy I Soter, Lysima-
chus, and Perdiccas, all of whom would later claim to be his rightful suc-
cessors. At the Battle of the Hydaspes, they defeated King Porus of the
Hindu Paurava kingdom, but the seven-foot-tall monarch’s courage so im-
pressed Alexander that he was allowed to remain as satrap (governor) in
Alexander’s name.
Alexander died suddenly in June 323 BCE, at age 32, in the palace of Baby-
lonian king Nebuchadnezzar II. Perdiccas succeeded him as regent of a con-
quered empire, naming Seleucus as his chiliarchos (viceroy). In theory, power
would eventually fall in equal parts to Philip III of Macedon (Alexander’s older,
epileptic half-brother) and to the yet-unborn son of Alexander’s wife Roxana.
Meleager, an infantry commander, contested that plan, seeking to install Philip
III as sole ruler by force, until he (Meleager) was arrested and killed on orders
from Perdiccas. Thereafter, Perdiccas proceeded to divide Alexander’s realm
among regional governors: Antipater ruling Macedon, Greece, and Illyria; Lysi-
machus governing Thrace; Antigonus supervising Greater Phrygia; Leonnatus
ruling Lesser Phrygia; Eumenes of Cardia governing Cappadocia and Paphla-
gonia; Menander ruling Lydia; Philotas in charge of Cilicia; Ptolemy I Soter rul-
ing Egypt, Libya and Arabia; Laomedon of Mytilene managing Syria; Arcesilaus
reigning in Mesopotamia; Peucestas serving as satrap of Persia; Tlepolemus
overseeing Carmania, and so on.
That intricate arrangement was too fragile to withstand the test of power-
ful opposing personalities. Soldiers from Athens and other Greek city states
besieged Antigonus at Lamia in 322 BCE, and were defeated at the Battle
of Crannon on September 5. Ptolemy stole Alexander’s corpse in December
322 BCE, prompting Perdiccas to launch two failed invasions of Europe be-
fore two of his officers, Peithon and Antigenes, assassinated him in 321 BCE.
Seleucus succeeded Perdiccas as satrap of Babylonia, but soon found himself
in conflict with Antigonus, who sought to build an empire from his base in
Greater Phrygia. Defeated on that front and forced to seek refuge in Egypt
by 316 BCE.
Reduced to serving Ptolemy as a naval commander, Seleucus ultimately
turned that setback to his advantage, plundering the coastline held by Anti-
gonus, capturing Crete, and teaming with Ptolemy to crush Demetrius, son
of Antigonus, at Gaza in 312 BCE. A truce the following year left Seleucus in
SELEUCUS I 519

charge of most Asian provinces formerly conquered by Alexander, except

for Palestine and Phoenicia (annexed by Ptolemy while Seleucus was fight-
ing at sea).
Still, Antigonus survived to pose a constant threat. In 305 BCE, incensed by
his old rival’s royal pretensions, Seleucus assumed the title basileus (“king”) to
place them on equal footing. Four years later, he joined Lysimachus to defeat
Antigonus in the Battle of Ipsus, winning control of Syria and the eastern prov-
inces of Asia Minor. In celebration, he shifted his capital city from Seleucia on
the Tigris River to Antioch, built in 293 BCE and named after his father, on the
Orontes River in northwestern Syria. Son Antiochus remained in Seleucia to
rule the eastern provinces on his father’s behalf.
All was well until 282 BCE, when Seleucus unwisely let himself be drawn
into a family feud between Lysimachus and his wife Arsinoë. Acting from
jealousy, Arsinoë trumped up charges of treason against Agathocles, Lysima-
chus’s son with former wife Nicaea, and convinced Lysimachus to have him
executed. Lysandra, widow of Agathocles, sought refuge with Seleucus and
persuaded him to invade Macedonia in a quest for justice. Seleucus and Ly-
simachus, both septuagenarians by that time, met in battle at Corupedium
and Lysimachus was slain, allegedly by Seleucus himself. Newly energized by
that late-life victory, Seleucus then planned an epic invasion and conquest
of Europe, foiled at the eleventh hour with Ptolemy Keraunos, a guest in his
camp, assassinated him. At the time, Keraunos was in exile, banished y his
brother Ptolemy II Philadelphus, and no motive was discovered for his mur-
der of Seleucus.
Antiochus I Soter succeeded his father as king of the Seleucid Empire, rul-
ing until 261 BCE, fighting a series of wars with neighbors that left his domain
smaller than he found it on ascension to the throne. His last futile campaign,
in 262 BCE, was an effort to contain expansion of Greek rivals from Pergamon.
The Greeks defeated him near year’s end at Sardis, in present-day Turkey’s
Manisa Province, and Antiochus died soon afterward, leaving his shrunken
empire to son Antiochus II Theos.

Further Reading
Ager, Sheila. “An Uneasy Balance: from the Death of Seleukos to the Battle of Ra-
phia.” In A Companion to the Hellenistic World. Malden, MA: Blackwell Publishing,
2005.
Bugh, Glenn. The Cambridge Companion to the Hellenistic World. Cambridge: Cam-
bridge University Press, 2006.
Grainger, John. Seleukos Nikator: Constructing a Hellenistic Kingdom. London: Rout-
ledge, 1990.
Shipley, Graham. The Greek World after Alexander 323–30 BC. London: Routledge,
2000.
520 SEPTEMBER, DULCIE EVONNE

SEPTEMBER, DULCIE EVONNE (1935–1988)

On March 29, 1988, while opening the African National Congress’s (ANC)
office in Paris, France, South African attorney Dulcie September was shot five
times in the back with a .22-caliber weapon. Based on the reactions and testi-
mony of neighbors, it appears that the firearm was equipped with a silencer.
The crime remains officially unsolved, but has been linked to September’s
ongoing investigation into arms trafficking—reportedly including nuclear
materials—between France and South Africa’s white-supremacist apartheid re-
gime. In August 2009, Cape Town’s National Prosecuting Authority announced
that it would “consider” reopening the case, but no further information has yet
been released.
Dulcie September was born at Athlone, a suburb of Cape Town, on August 20,
1935. She attended Athlone High School until her father forced her to with-
draw in her sophomore year, but she persevered to complete her exams inde-
pendently at age 17. Two years later, she enrolled at Wesley Training School,
obtaining her teacher’s certificate in 1955. Classroom assignments followed
in Maitland, Bridgetown, and Athlonee, before September joined the fledg-
ling Cape Peninsula Students’ Union (CPSU), an affiliate of the antiapartheid
Unity Movement of South Africa, in 1957. Three years later, she moved fur-
ther into activism when she joined the African Peoples Democratic Union of
Southern Africa, serving on that group’s finance committee. By January 1963,
she was a member of the militant National Liberation Front.
That affiliation led police to raid and search September’s home on July 12,
1963. Three months later, on October 7, she was arrested under the Criminal
Procedure Act, charged with “conspiracy to commit acts of sabotage, and incite
acts of politically motivated violence.” Convicted on April 15, 1964, Septem-
ber received a five-year prison term. Upon release in April 1969, she still faced
a banning order, which barred her from teaching or joining any further politi-
cal activity, while requiring her to check in with local police on a daily basis.
After completing that draconian probation period, September obtained a per-
manent departure permit—in effect, lifetime exile—and left South Africa for
England’s Madeley College of Education in December 1973.
September found a colony of exiled South Africans waiting to welcome her
in England, many associated with the ANC. Organized in 1912, the ANC had
tried for decades to unite black Africans against minority white overlords,
using methods that ranged from education and civil disobedience to labor
strikes and paramilitary action. In London, Dulcie September joined the ANC’s
protests against apartheid, and became a full-time staff member in 1976. In
1979, proclaimed the International Year of the Child by Secretary General of
the United Nations Kurt Waldheim, September was picked to chair a com-
mittee of the ANC’s Women’s Section, preparing a special report titled Chil-
dren under Apartheid. She presented her findings that September, in Paris, at a
SEPTEMBER, DULCIE EVONNE 521

meeting of the United Nations Unit against Apartheid. Further activities across
Europe culminated in 1983, with September’s appointment as the ANC’s chief
representative in France, Switzerland, and Luxembourg.
September did not limit her activities entirely to antiapartheid issues, nor
was she strictly committed to nonviolent protest. In 1984, she underwent brief
military training in the Soviet Union, and in the following year, she supported
both the Communist and Socialist Parties in French electoral contests. Between
October 1986 and September 1987, she was also immersed in the “Albertini
Affair,” campaigning for the release of French language instructor Pierre Alber-
tini, detained in South Africa for his affiliation with the ANC. Prior to his re-
lease, September petitioned French president François Mitterand to reject the
credentials of South Africa’s new ambassador.
Such activities caused South African police and intelligence agencies to
focus on ANC representatives abroad. Godfrey Motsepe, an ANC colleague of
September in Belgium, narrowly escaped death when a 35-pound bomb was
defused at his office in Brussels, on March 27, 1988. Dulcie September report-
edly sought police protection the same day—French police later denied it—
but she was unguarded when assassins overtook her two days later. A decade
after her murder, a city square in Paris was named in her honor.

APARTHEID’S “PRIME EVIL”

One of apartheid’s most malevolent defenders, nicknamed “Prime Evil”
by South African journalists, Eugene Alexander de Kock was responsible
for kidnapping, torturing, and killing hundreds of activists opposed to his
homeland’s white-supremacist regime between 1979 and 1993. Barred
from various military units because of poor eyesight and a speech im-
pediment, de Kock founded the counterinsurgency unit Koevoet in 1979,
graduating to command the “C1” death squad of the South African Police
in 1983. Multiple executions occurred at Vlakplaas, C1’s rural base, and
de Kock participated in other crimes such as the 1991 bombing murder
of Catherine Mlangeni, an attorney for the African National Congress.
In 1994, South Africa’s Truth and Reconciliation Commission denied de
Kock’s plea for amnesty. Tried in 1996 on 89 felony counts, including six
murder charges, he received a 212-year prison term. His pleas for release
and forgiveness continue with mixed results. Some victims’ families have
publicly forgiven him, but he remains in prison. In July 2007, de Kock
declared that ex-president Frederik Willem de Klerk had hands “soaked
in blood” from ordering numerous extra-judicial killings between 1989
and 1994. De Kock is eligible for parole at some uncertain future date.
522 SHAK A K ASENZ ANGAKHONA

Further Reading
“The Case of Dulcie September.” Truth Commission Files. http://www.withmalicean
dforethought.com/pdf/dulcie_september.pdf.
Forde, Fiona. “Unsolved murder of activist is reopened.” Independent Online News
(August 23, 2009). http://www.iol.co.za/news/south-africa/unsolved-murder-of-activist-
is-reopened-1.456016.
Holland, Heidi. The Struggle: A History of the African National Congress. New York:
George Braziller, 1990.
“Who killed Dulcie September?” Cape Times (May 18, 2012). http://www.iol.co.za/
capetimes/who-killed-dulcie-september-1.1299720.

SHAKA KASENZANGAKHONA (1781/87–1828)

In September 1828, near-legendary Chief Shaka of the Nguni people sent
most of his warriors on a broad sweep through northern Zululand (presently
KwaZulu-Natal in Southern Africa). That order left the royal kraal (village) lightly
guarded at a critical time for Shaka, who had alarmed his subjects with erratic
and deadly behavior since the death of his mother in October 1827. Mourning
had been enforced by execution of some 7,000 people who appeared insuffi-
ciently sad, and cattle were also slaughtered on Shaka’s order, to teach calves the
pain of losing a mother. Shaka further ordered that no crops be planted the fol-
lowing year, nor milk gathered, and that any woman found pregnant should be
executed with her husband. In that atmosphere, Shaka’s half-brothers, Dingane
and Mhlangana, plotted to kill him with help from a tribesman named Mbopa.
On September 28, while Mbopa created a diversion in the kraal, Dingane and
Mhlangana killed Shaka with their assegai war spears and hid his corpse in an
empty grain pit filled with mud and rocks. Soon afterward, Dingane murdered
Mhlangana and succeeded Shaka as king.
Shaka kaSenzangakhona, also called Shaka Zulu, was born near present-
day Melmoth, KwaZulu-Natal, sometime between 1781 and 1787 (accounts
differ). He was the illegitimate son of Zulu chief Senzangakhona kaJama and
wife Nandi, daughter of Lengeni tribal chief Bhebhe. After Shaka’s birth, Nandi
spent years shuttling back and forth between the Zulu tribe and her own, while
Senzangakhona took nine other wives. Much of her time and energy were de-
voted to protecting Shaka from cyclical famine, murder attempts by jealous ri-
vals, and the danger of his own explosive temper.
Among the Mthethwa people, under chief Dingiswayo, Shaka was initi-
ated into an impi (military unit) of the Izichwe regiment, serving with cour-
age and distinction for a decade. Dingiswayo had seized power by killing
his brother, a method common among African tribes, as with some Euro-
pean royal families. Neighboring tribes were frequently at war in the early
1800s, and Shaka led Dingiswayo’s troops against Amangwane in 1812,
driving them across the Buffalo River, where they in turn displaced other
SHAKA KASENZANGAKHONA 523

tribes. Shaka’s father died four years later, and his heir apparent—son
Sigujana—was found dead soon after, in murky circumstances. Supported
by Dingiswayo, Shaka proclaimed himself king of the Zulus, forging alliances
with other nearby tribes against a common enemy, the Ndwandwe people
dwelling north of Zululand.
As chief, Shaka still recognized Dingiswayo as his overlord, continuing tra-
ditional tribute payments to the Mthethwa Paramountcy. That changed in
1817, when King Zwide kaLanga of the Ndwandwe clan led an invasion of
Zululand and killed Dingiswayo, scattering his army. Shaka rallied the strag-
glers and sought revenge for his mentor, igniting the Ndwandwe–Zulu War
with heavy odds against him—his troops outnumbered roughly six to one.
Even so, Shaka’s tactical skill—employing diversions and combat formations
reminiscent of the Roman phalanx—proved superior to Zwide’s. At the Battle
of Gqokli Hill, in May 1818, Shaka killed 7,500 Ndwandwe against Zulu losses
of 2,000. Soon afterward, Shaka captured Zwide’s mother, Queen Ntombazi,
and executed her by locking her inside a hut with hungry hyenas. Zwide tried
to emulate Shaka’s tactics in 1819, at the Battle of Mhlatuze River, but Shaka
switched to guerrilla warfare and Zwide barely escaped with his life. The war
officially ended that year, but Shaka’s hatred of Zwide endured, culminating
with Zwide’s death in a final battle at Pongola, in 1825.
By that time, Shaka ruled a Zulu empire sprawling over thousands of square
miles. He was suspicious of European encroachment, but allowed some whites
to enter Zululand after British trader Henry Francis Fynn furnished Shaka
with medical aid, in the wake of a murder attempt by Ndwandwe assassins.
One beneficiary of Shaka’s flexible attitude was Nathaniel Isaacs, another Brit
whom Shaka named as his InDuna (“advisor”), granting him a large tract of
land where Durban stands today. Shaka also interceded in disputes between
tribes in his Zulu alliance, appointing sub-chiefs—such as Nqetho in Qwabe—
to do his bidding.
As a military leader for his place and time, Shaka was unrivaled. In addi-
tion to refining battle strategy, he introduced large shields made from cow hide
and shortened traditional assegai spears for use as stabbing weapons, rather
than throwing them at enemies and leaving his warriors unarmed. His troops
marched barefoot to toughen their feet, and those who objected to losing
their sandals were killed. Fifty-mile forced marches were routine, with strag-
glers severely punished. Traveling battalions marched with herds of cattle, and
were thus spared carrying provisions on their backs. Troops were placed in
regiments by age, with different groups assigned to combat, cattle herding,
guarding kraals, and so on. For major battles, Shaka devised the “bull horn”
formation, wherein one unit (the “chest”) confronted enemies directly, while
two others (the “horns”) encircled the target from its flanks, with other troops
(the “loins”) held in reserve as reinforcements.
524 SHAK A K ASENZ ANGAKHONA

ZULU WAR
A half-century after Shaka’s assassination, the British high commissioner
Sir Henry Bartle Frere issued an ultimatum for evacuation of South Africa
to Zulu king Cetshwayo kaMpande. Fully aware that the Zulus would
refuse to leave their homeland, Frere proceeded to invade Zululand in
January 1879, and thus provoked the tribe’s last great war against white
encroachment. The first thrust was halted at Isandlwana on January 22,
in an epic battle that left 1,000 Zulus and 1,300 white invaders dead on
the field, with thousands more wounded. Later the same day, a small
British garrison at Rorke’s Drift repulsed attacks by some 4,000 Zulus
and held their position. Heavy Zulu losses continued through successive
engagements until the Battle of Ulundi, on July 4, when British troops
captured the capital of Zululand using artillery and Gatling guns against
warriors armed with spears and a few captured rifles. King Cetshwayo
was captured in August and held prisoner until Frere partitioned Zulu-
land, then restored him as nominal king in January 1883. Feuds within
the tribe further decimated Zulu numbers prior to Cetshwayo’s death on
February 8, 1884. His son Dinuzulu kaCetshwayo replaced him as king
three months later.

Dingane kaSenzangakhona, Shaka’s assassin and successor, did not share his late
half-brother’s tolerance for white settlers in Zululand. Dingane’s hostility toward
Europeans drove Nathaniel Isaacs from the territory in 1831 and sparked repeated
conflicts with Dutch Voortrekkers (“pioneers”) intruding on Zulu lands from the
Cape Colony (founded by the Dutch East India Company in 1652, but occupied
and ruled by Britain since 1795). Dingane suffered a stunning defeat at the Battle
of Blood River, in December 1838, when 470 Voortrekkers faced 10,000 Zulus,
killing at least 2,000 tribesmen against losses of three wounded on their side. In
the wake of that debacle, Dingane personally strangled field commander Ndlela
kaSompisi, but Dingane’s reputation had suffered irreparable harm. Supported
by the Dutch, another of Shaka’s half-brothers—Mpande kaSenzangakhona, son
of Senzangakhona’s ninth wife—rebelled against Dingane and assassinated him
in January 1840. Mpande ruled Zululand until his death in 1873, then was suc-
ceeded by his son Cetshwayo kaMpande, last great war chief of the nation.

Further Reading
Chanaiwa, David Shingirai. “The Zulu Revolution: State Formation in a Pastoralist So-
ciety.” African Studies Review 23 (December 1980): 1–20.
Hamilton, Carolyn. Terrific Majesty: The Powers of Shaka Zulu and the Limits of Historical
Invention. Cambridge MA: Harvard University Press, 1998.
SHARPLES, RICHARD CHRISTOPHER 525

Morris, Donald. The Washing of the Spears: The Rise and Fall of the Zulu Nation. New
York: Simon & Schuster, 1989.
Omer-Cooper, J. D. The Zulu Aftermath. London: Longman, 1965.
Ritter, E. A. Shaka Zulu: The Biography of the Founder of the Zulu Nation. New York: Pen-
guin Books, 1985.
Wylie, Dan. Myth of Iron: Shaka in History. Athens: Ohio University Press, 2008.

SHARPLES, RICHARD CHRISTOPHER

(1916–1973)
On March 10, 1973, following a dinner party at Bermuda’s Government
House, Governor Sir Richard Sharples left to walk his dog, accompanied by
Captain Hugh Sayers of the Welsh Guards, who served as his aide-de-camp. A
short distance from home, around midnight, both men and the dog were shot
dead in an ambush. Seven months later, police arrested two members of the
militant Black Beret Cadre (BBC), Erskine Durrant “Buck” Burrows and Larry
Tacklyn. Two guns seized from Burrows were identified as the Sharples–Sayers
murder weapons. Prosecutors subsequently indicted the pair for three addi-
tional slayings—of Bermuda police commissioner George Duckett (shot on
September 9, 1972), and of two victims shot in an April 1973 supermarket
robbery. At trial, Burrows was convicted on all counts; Tacklyn was acquitted
of the March double slaying, but convicted of the holdup murders. Both de-
fendants were hanged at Casemates Prison on December 2, 1977.
Richard Sharples was born in England, to an affluent and influential family,
on August 6, 1916. He graduated from the Royal Military Academy at Sand-
hurst in 1936, and was commissioned as an officer of the Welsh Guards, serv-
ing with that unit in the European Theater of World War II. His close friendship
with Edward Heath, Chief Whip of the House of Commons and Parliamentary
Secretary of the Treasury, aided Sharples in getting elected to parliament as
a member of the Conservative Party, in 1954. He held that post, represent-
ing Sutton and Cheam, until 1970, when Heath—by then, prime minister—
named him to serve as minister of state for the Home Office. Sharples resigned
that office in 1972, to take up his final post as governor of Bermuda.
At the time, Britain’s island paradise was in the midst of a racial upheaval, in-
fluenced by “Black Power” movements in the United States. True-crime author
Mel Ayton specifically blames the U.S.-based Black Panther Party for inspiring
creation of Bermuda’s BBC, founded by 22-year-old John Hilton Bassett 1969.
The group was small, never claiming more than 100 members by Ayton’s es-
timate, but its doctrine of pursuing freedom “by any means necessary”—an
echo from former Black Muslim minister Malcolm X—fired the imagination of
many young blacks in Bermuda. By 1972, Ayton says, the BBC had compiled
a “hit-list of Bermuda pigs” marked for execution and had begun to stockpile
weapons.
526 SHERMARKE, ABDIR ASHID ALI

Police commissioner George Duckett was the first to die, in September 1972,
described by the BBC as “a mercenary and a killer who has virtually a free
hand in suppressing black people.” He was shot at home, in an attack that also
wounded his daughter. Following the Sharples–Sayers ambush, shopkeepers
Mark Doe and Victor Rigo were slain at their store in Hamilton, the island’s
capital city. Erskine Burrows was arrested after being identified as the bandit
who stole $28,000 from the Bank of Bermuda at gunpoint, in September 1973.
In his confession to the Sharples–Sayers murders, Burrows said, “The motive
for killing the Governor was to seek to make the people, black people in par-
ticular, become aware of the evilness and wickedness of the colonialist system
in this island. Secondly, the motive was to show that these colonialists were
just ordinary people like ourselves who eat, sleep and die just like anybody
else and that we need not stand in fear and awe of them.”
Unconfirmed reports suggest involvement of a “third man” in the March 1973
assassinations—or, perhaps, a second, because jurors acquitted Larry Tacklyn
of killing Sharples and Sayers. According to those stories, the elusive suspect
escaped from Bermuda disguised as a woman, then returned to visit his promi-
nent family in Bermuda during the 1990s. Mel Ayton, after examining files from
the British Foreign Office in 2005, implicates other members of the BBC in the
various murders, but no additional charges have been filed thus far.
Burrows and Tacklyn were the first persons hanged in Bermuda since World
War II, and the last executed anywhere under British law. Their deaths sparked
rioting in Bermuda, with property damage estimated at $2 million. Soldiers
from the 1st Battalion Royal Regiment of Fusiliers were deployed to suppress
that outbreak, when authorities on Bermuda proved unequal to the task. No
further violence by the BBC was reported from Bermuda or elsewhere. Founder
John Bassett died in 1998, at age 49.

Further Reading
“Assassination of Sir Richard Sharples.” Bernews. http://bernews.com/bermuda-facts/
government/assassination-of-sir-richard-sharples.
Ayton, Mel. Assault on Law and Order in Bermuda, 1972–1973: The Assassination of Gov-
ernor Sir Richard Sharples and the Related Killings. Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 2010.
Ayton, Mel. Justice Denied: Bermuda’s Black Militants, the “Third Man,” and the Assassi-
nations of a Police Chief and Governor. Rock Hill, SC: Strategic Media Books, 2013.
Darrell, Neville. Acel’dama: The Untold Story of the Murder of the Governor of Bermuda,
Sir Richard Sharples. Surrey, BC: Coastline Mountain Press, 2004.

SHERMARKE, ABDIRASHID ALI (1919–1969)

On October 15, 1969, while visiting Las Anod in the Sool region of north-
ern Somalia, Prime Minister Abdirashid Ali Shermarke was assassinated by
one of his own bodyguards. The gunman, standing watch outside a guest
SHERMARKE, ABDIRASHID ALI 527

house occupied by Sher-

marke, shot his boss at close
range with an automatic rifle,
killing Shermarke instantly. The
murder was widely attributed
to a personal grudge, rather
than political conspiracy, but
on October 21—one day after
Shermarke’s funeral—Major
General Mohamed Siad Barre
led a military coup that seized
control of the government, in-
stalling himself as president
with dictatorial powers. Barre
ruled Somalia until another
coup deposed him, in January
1991, and drove him into exile.
Abdirashid Ali Shermarke
was born at Harardhere, in the
Mudug Province of central So-
malia, on October 16, 1919. A Somalian prime minister Abdirashid Ali Shermarke,
member of the Majeerteen clan slain by his own bodyguard. (AFP/Getty Images)
that spawned Somali sultans
prior to independence in 1960, he was raised in Mogadishu and studied at ma-
drassas (Islamic schools) until age 17. Employed first as a trader, Shermarke sub-
sequently shifted to the civil service, then ruled from Rome as part of Italian East
Africa. In 1943, with fascist Italy reeling from Allied attacks, Shermarke joined
the newly formed Somali Youth League (SYL), his homeland’s first recognized
political party. A year later, British troops drove Italian forces out of Somalia, and
Shermarke remained at his government post, serving new European masters. In
November 1949, at the Potsdam conference, Somalia was divided into British
Somaliland and Italian Somaliland, and the SYL pressed for full independence.
In 1953, with that goal still unrealized, Shermarke earned a scholarship to
the Sapienza University of Rome, where he received a PhD in political science.
Returning to Somalia in 1959, he was elected to the country’s legislative as-
sembly. With the advent of full independence on July 1, 1960, President Aden
Abdullah Osman Daar chose Shermarke to serve as prime minister, holding
that post until June 14, 1964. Voters returned him to a seat in parliament
that year, where Shermarke remained for three years, then defeated incumbent
President Daar, becoming Somalia’s second president on June 10, 1967.
Then, as now, conditions in Somalia remained unsettled, with political
opponents prone to violent action. In 1968, a hand grenade exploded near
528 S H E V K E T PA S H A , M A H M U D

the vehicle transporting Shermarke home from Mogadishu’s airport, but he

escaped injury. Still, he remained at odds with military elements that would
eventually rally to depose his government. President Barre’s Somali Democratic
Republic, built on Marxist lines, survived for 21 years, before Somalia plunged
into civil war that continues to the present day despite United Nations in-
tervention. The central government, effectively defunct, has been replaced in
large part by tribal rule or control by regional warlords in states designated as
Puntland, Somaliland, and Xeer. Shermarke’s son, Omar Abdirashid Ali Sher-
marke, assumed office as prime minister of a hopeful transitional government
in February 2009, then resigned in September 2010 after a long-running stale-
mate with parliament. Today, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency describes
Somalia as “in the process of building a federated parliamentary republic” with-
out political parties, while famine, piracy and civil war continue to plague the
nation.

Further Reading
Coyne, Christopher. After War: The Political Economy of Exporting Democracy. Stanford,
CA: Stanford Economics and Finance, 2007.
Lewis, Ioan. Understanding Somalia and Somaliland: Culture, History, Society. New York:
Columbia University Press, 2008.
Schraeder, Peter. African Politics and Society: A Mosaic in Transformation. Belmont, CA:
Wadsworth Publishing, 2003.
Woodward, Peter. Crisis in the Horn of Africa: Politics, Piracy and the Threat of Terror.
London: I.B. Tauris, 2013.

SHEVKET PASHA, MAHMUD (1856–1913)

On June 11, 1913, gunmen ambushed Turkish Grand Vizier and Minister
of War Mahmud Shevket Pasha as he rode through Constantinople (now Is-
tanbul) in a chauffeured car. The assassins, riding in another vehicle, fired
10 pistol shots at Shevket, fatally wounding him and an aide-de-camp, Ibrahim
Bey. The shooters—presumed to be enemies of the 1908 Young Turk revolu-
tion and/or admirers of Ottoman minister of war Hussein Nazim Pasha, killed
by Young Turks on January 27, 1913—escaped after the drive-by killing. On
June 13, police cornered five suspects at a house in Constantinople, killing one
and arresting the others in a battle that also left one officer dead. Those cap-
tured included a Captain Kiazim, a Lieutenant Ali, and a member of the city’s
fire brigade. On June 15, police arrested more alleged conspirators, including
a son of ex-Grand Vizier Kâmil Pasha, while claiming that the plot’s ringleader
had escaped on an Italian steamship. Contemporary media reports disagree on
the number of suspects finally convicted, one claiming that 12 conspirators
were hanged on June 24, whereas another cites the number as 20.
S H E V K E T PA S H A , M A H M U D 529

Mahmud Shevket Pasha was born in Baghdad, probably in 1856. (One

source claims 1855, another 1858.) After completing his primary education,
he attended Constantinople’s Military Academy, joining the Ottoman Em-
pire’s army as a lieutenant in 1882. Further training in France was followed
by a posting to Crete, before Shevket returned to the academy as an instructor.
During that period, he met and was influenced by Wilhelm Leopold Colmar
Freiherr von der Goltz, a Prussian field marshal recruited to modernize the
Ottoman army after Turkey’s defeat in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878.
Goltz—sometimes known as “Goltz Pasha” during his Turkish service—taught
an early version of the German blitzkrieg (“lighting war”) that enabled Turkey
to defeat Greece in the Greco-Turkish War of 1897.
From his post at the Military Academy, Shevket was promoted to serve as
governor of Kosovo (held by the Ottoman Empire since the 15th century),
where he commanded the 3rd Army. An strong advocate of modernization,
credited with introducing the first automobiles to Constantinople, Shevket
was one of the Young Turks who rebelled against Sultan Abdul Hamid II in
June 1908, restoring the parliament Abdul Hamid had suspended 30 years
earlier and thus inaugurating Turkey’s Second Constitutional Era. The sultan,
who retained office as a symbolic figurehead, tried a countercoup against the
Young Turks on April 13, 1909, but Shevket’s 3rd Army crushed the reac-
tionary forces and drove Abdul Hamid into exile, succeeded by his brother,
Mehmed V Reshad.
Mehmed V, like his brother in the months since June 1908, ruled the Otto-
man Empire in name only, and parliament was controlled by two parties, the
Young Turks’ Committee of Union and Progress and the rival Liberal Union. A
revised constitution of August 1909 banned secret societies, while promoting
orderly reform under a strong central government and excluding foreign in-
fluence. Government sought to modernize the empire’s communications and
transportation networks, and Shevket helped that effort by promoting mili-
tary aviation. Ethnic dissent among lawmakers, coupled with preparation for
the First Balkan War, arrested that progress when parliament was close on Au-
gust 5, 1912.
War finally erupted two months later, pitting the Ottoman Empire against
the Balkan League of Bulgaria, Greece, Montenegro, and Serbia. Midway
through that seven-month conflict, on January 23, 1913, a leader of the
Young Turk movement, Deputy Commander in Chief Enver Pasha, led a coup
against Minister of War Nazim Pasha, killing him and claiming his office.
Mahmud Shevket joined in that rebellion, replacing Kâmil Pasha as Grand
Vizier to Sultan Mehmet V. Henceforth, effective control of the Ottoman Em-
pire reside in the “Three Pashas”: Enver, Minister of the Navy Djemal Pasha
(doubling as mayor of Istanbul), and Minister of the Interior Mehmed Talaat
Pasha. Shevket, although cast in a somewhat subordinate role, maintained a
530 SMITH, JOSEPH, JR.

position of influence—and was widely blamed for killing Nazim Pasha, ulti-
mately leading to his own assassination.
Said Halim Pasha succeeded Shevket as Grand Vizier, in time for Turkey’s
entry into World War I, signing the Ottoman–German Alliance. That move re-
bounded against him in February 1917, forcing his resignation and later send-
ing him to prison on a charge of treason. Mehmed Talaat Pasha was next in line
as Grand Vizier, tarnished by his passage of the Tehcir (Displacement) Law of
May 1915 that initiated Turkish genocide of some 1.8 million ethnic Arme-
nians. Turkey’s defeat at war’s end doomed the Ottoman Empire and the Three
Pashas. Mehmed Talaat fled into exile and was assassinated by agents of the
Armenian Revolutionary Federation in Berlin, on March 15, 1921. Members
of the same group killed Djemal Pasha in Tbilisi, Georgia, on July 25, 1922.
Enver Pasha survived until August 4, 1922, when he was slain in battle with
Red Army cavalry near Dushanbe, in present-day Tajikistan.

Further Reading
Balakian, Peter. The Burning Tigris: The Armenian Genocide and America’s Response. New
York: HarperCollins, 2003.
Finkel, Caroline. Osman’s Dream: The History of the Ottoman Empire. New York: Basic
Books, 2007.
Hanioğlu, M. Şükrü. Preparation for a Revolution: The Young Turks, 1902–1908. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2001.
Quataert, Donald. The Ottoman Empire, 1700–1922. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2005.

SMITH, JOSEPH, JR. (1805–1844)

On June 10, 1844, Joseph Smith—the mayor of Nauvoo, Illinois, and president
of the Mormon Church—ordered a town marshal to demolish the presses of
a local newspaper, the weekly Nauvoo Expositor, which had criticized Smith
in its first and only issue, three days earlier. Supported by a mob, the mar-
shal obeyed. Two days later, an anti-Mormon paper, the Warsaw Signal, edito-
rialized that “War and extermination is inevitable! Citizens ARISE, ONE and
ALL!!!—Can you stand by, and suffer such INFERNAL DEVILS! To ROB men
of their property and RIGHTS, without avenging them. We have no time for
comment, every man will make his own. LET IT BE MADE WITH POWDER
AND BALL!!!” State authorities charged Smith, his brother Hyrum, and
20-odd others with rioting. The defendants surrendered in Carthage on June
25, with all but the Smith brothers soon free on bond. A judge ordered Joseph
and Hyrum held over on new charges of treason, a capital crime, but they never
faced trial. On June 27, a mob of 200 vigilantes stormed the jail, riddling both
brothers with bullets.
SMITH, JOSEPH, JR. 531

Joseph Smith Jr. was born in Sharon, Vermont, on December 23, 1805. By age
12, his family had settled in western New York’s “burned-over district,” so called
because incessant religious proselytization had left no human “fuel” for new con-
version. There, Smith’s family tried to supplement their meager farm income by
digging (in vain) for buried treasure. Joseph put a new twist on the enterprise
by claiming possession of “seer stones” that let him spy gold underground and
selling the coordinates to neighbors. Years later, a local newspaper—the Wayne
Democratic Press—claimed that:

As early as 1820, Joe Smith, at the age of about 19 years, began to assume the gift of
supernatural endowments, and became the leader of a small party of shiftless men
and boys like himself who engaged in nocturnal money-digging operations upon the
hills in and about Palmyra. . . . Numbers of men and women, as was understood,
were found credulous enough to believe “there might be something in it,” who were
induced by their confidence and cupidity to contribute privately towards the cost of
carrying on the imposture, under the promise of sharing in the expected gains; and
in this way the loaferly but cunning Smith, who was too lazy to work for his living,
(his deluded followers did all the digging) was enabled to obtain a scanty subsistence
for himself without pursuing any useful employment.

Alleged swindling aside, Smith’s parents were ardent believers in religious

visions, and Joseph claimed his first encounter with an angel called Moroni
in September 1823. Four years later, after much discussion of sacred golden
plates inscribed by ancient prophets, Moroni allegedly led Smith to the price-
less relics in Wayne County. Affidavits from 11 witnesses purported to confirm
existence of the plates, inscribed in what Smith called “reformed Egyptian,”
which only he could interpret. In April 1830, Smith published his translation
of the Book of Mormon, using it as the foundation for his new Church of Jesus
Christ of Latter-day Saints (commonly called the Mormon or LDS Church).
In 1831, Smith and his followers left New York for Kirtland, Ohio, with
a second Mormon outpost established at “Zion,” near Independence, Mis-
souri. Unbelievers in the Show-Me State expelled Zion’s inhabitants two years
later, with Smith himself tarred and feathered. From Independence, Smith em-
barked on a search for buried treasure at Salem, Massachusetts, but returned
empty-handed to Kirtland. His next venture, with other church leaders, was
the Kirtland Safety Society, a quasi-bank organized in January 1837, with loyal
Mormons urged to buy shares as part of their religious duty. The enterprise
failed within a month, and creditors spent the rest of that year clamoring for
reimbursement that was not forthcoming. Finally indicted on a charge of bank-
ing fraud, Smith fled Ohio on January 12, 1838, to establish a new Mormon
enclave in Jackson County, Missouri.
Their reception by non-Mormons, dubbed “Gentiles” in LDS parlance, was
no better than at Independence, five years earlier. If anything, the response
532 SMITH, JOSEPH, JR.

proved more hostile since Smith’s “revelation” supporting polygamy. (Smith had
three wives by 1838, and a total of 34 by November 1843.) Anti-Mormon agi-
tation grew so militant, in fact, that Smith organized a covert force of “Danites”
to combat enemies of the church—and, some said, to weed out dissenting Mor-
mons. Thus began the first of several “Mormon Wars” (see sidebar), in which
Missouri governor Lilburn Boggs ordered that Mormons be “exterminated or
driven from the state.” Gentile raiders complied, killing at least 17 Mormons at
Haun’s Mill on October 30, 1838. Two days later, surviving Mormons surren-
dered to state troops, with an agreement to forfeit their property and leave Mis-
souri. Smith was charged with treason, but escaped from custody on April 6,
1839, while awaiting trial.
Illinois accepted the LDS refugees, and Smith established a new community
called Nauvoo (from Hebrew, “to be beautiful”). A recent convert, Dr. John Cook
Bennett, used his influence as quartermaster general of Illinois to obtain Nau-
voo’s municipal charter, approving formation of an LDS militia led by “Lieuten-
ant General” Smith and “Major General” Bennett. Smith simultaneously named
Bennett as Nauvoo’s first mayor and assistant president of the church, but had
cause to regret it when Bennett’s sexual relations with various women in town
were revealed. Other rumors circulated charging Nauvoo’s Mormons with adul-
tery, homosexuality, and performing illegal abortions. Smith replaced Bennett as
mayor, and his former ally went on to write lurid “exposés” of Mormon life. One
controversial doctrine that he did not have to fabricate was baptizing the dead,
introduced by Smith in 1840. In the summer of 1842, Smith proclaimed a new
revelation for establishment of a theocracy spanning the globe.
Hostility against Mormons escalated in May 1842, after a botched attempt to
kill ex-governor Boggs in Missouri. Smith had predicted Boggs’s death, and re-
puted Danite gunman Owen Porter Rockwell was charged with attempted mur-
der, then acquitted at trial. (The crime remains officially unsolved.) Missouri
sought to extradite Smith, but federal authorities deemed the writ unconstitu-
tional. Prosecutors tried again in June 1843, demanding Smith’s extradition on
the 1838 treason charge, but Smith obtained a writ of habeas corpus that foiled
the arrest. Six months later, he petitioned Congress to make Nauvoo an inde-
pendent territory. Failing that, he announced his third-party candidacy for the
presidency in early 1844.
By then, Smith’s relationship with several of his top advisors had soured,
prompting them to criticize him in their newly founded Nauvoo Expositor.
Smith’s intemperate response led to his death, and left successor Brigham
Young in charge of the LDS Church. Prosecutors charged five men—Mark Al-
drich, Jacob Davis, William Grover, Thomas Sharp, and Levi Williams—with
murdering the Smith brothers, but jurors acquitted all five at trial. Mormons
suspected Illinois governor Thomas Ford of complicity in the murders, and al-
though he denied it, Ford later expressed satisfaction with the Mormon exodus
SMITH, JOSEPH, JR. 533

MORMON WARS
Three separate conflicts in American history are commonly referred to as
“Mormon Wars.” The first, in 1838, pitted Latter-day Saints (LDS) Church
members against hostile neighbors in northwestern Missouri, claiming 22
lives. All but one of those killed were Mormons, including 17 summarily
executed at the Haun’s Mill massacre on October 30. A second “war” in Il-
linois, between church members and state militia during 1844–1845, fol-
lowed the murders of Joseph Smith and his brother and claimed another
10 Mormon lives. The final Mormon War, in 1857–1858, arose from con-
flicts between the U.S. government and Brigham Young’s regime in Utah
Territory, chiefly over the issue of polygamy. That “war” had no battles
per se, but troops were mobilized on both sides in May 1857 and a group
of Mormon guerrillas led by John Doyle Lee massacred 120 members of
a westward-bound wagon train at Mountain Meadows on September 11,
1857. Seventeen surviving children were spared and adopted by Mormon
families. State authorities indicted Lee and three other militia leaders on
murder charges in 1874, but only Lee was punished, being executed by a
firing squad on March 23, 1877. Meanwhile, Congress banned polygamy
in U.S. territories with the Morrill Act of July 1862.

from Illinois, calling Joseph Smith “the most successful impostor in modern
times.” With regard to the double lynching, Ford wrote that some persons “ex-
pect more protection from the laws than the laws are able to furnish in the face
of popular excitement.”
See also: Strang, James Jesse (1813–1856).

Further Reading
Brodie, Fawn. No Man Knows My History: The Life of Joseph Smith. New York: Knopf,
1971.
Fullmer, John. The Assassination of Joseph and Hyrum Smith, the Prophet and the Patri-
arch of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. London: Latter-day Saints’ Book
Depot, 1855.
Hill, Marvin. “Carthage Conspiracy Reconsidered: A Second Look at the Murder of
Joseph and Hyrum Smith.” Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society 97 (Summer
2004): 107–34.
Nickerson, Freeman. Death of the Prophets Joseph and Hyram [sic] Smith. Boston: John
Gooch, 1944.
Wicks, Robert, and Fred Foister. Junius and Joseph: Presidential Politics and the Assas-
sination of the First Mormon Prophet. Logan, UT: Utah State University Press, 2005.
534 SOGDIANUS

SOGDIANUS (?–423 BCE)

On January 10, 423 BCE, in his seventh month as Persia’s monarch, King Sogdi-
anus was assassinated by Arbarios, a cavalry commander acting on orders from
Ochus, the king’s younger half-brother. Sogdianus should not have been sur-
prised, because he had gained the throne by sending assassins named Meno-
stanes and Pharnacyas to slay his elder half-brother, Xerxes II. After Sogdianus
was eliminated, Ochus—subsequently crowned as King Darius II—executed
Pharnacyas, and Menostanes committed suicide.
The life and abbreviated reign of Sogdianus is known today from only
one source, Greek historian Ctesias of Cnidus (404–397 BCE), who de-
scribed them in the 18th book of his History of the Persians (§§46–51). How-
ever, as we shall see, that account’s chronology is clearly incorrect, leaving
an air of mystery around the various events related. According to Ctesias,
Artaxerxes I, fifth king of the Achaemenid Empire, ascended to the throne
in 465 BCE and sired three sons before his death on December 24, 424 BCE.
The first, Crown Prince Xerxes II, was his only legitimate heir, borne by
Queen Damaspia. Sogdianus came next, from concubine Alogyne or Baby-
lon, and Ochus was third in line, borne by another concubine, Cosmart-
idene of Babylon.
At the death of Artaxerxes, Xerxes II succeeded him, ruling Persia (by Cte-
sias’s calculation) for a grand total of 45 days. Sogdianus and his cohorts report-
edly found Xerxes drunk and murdered him, whereupon Sogdianus became
king, allegedly reigning for six months and 15 days. The date of his murder by
Arbarios, cited by Ctesias as January 10, 423 BCE, must therefore be inaccu-
rate unless his reign was only 17 days long, but no other fifth-century reports
exist to contradict it. Some modern historians resolve the riddle by suggesting
that all three sons of Artaxerxes I declared themselves the rightful kings of Per-
sia upon learning of their father’s death, Xerxes II being recognized in Persia
proper, while Sogdianus may have been recognized in Elam (now Iran’s Ilam
Province) and Ochus was recognized in Hyrcania (now Gorgan, in Golestan
Province).
With the death of his last contentious sibling, Darius II—known in Greece
as Darius Nothos (“Bastard”) ruled the Persian Empire with Queen Parysa-
tis, his wife and half-sister (also half-sister of Xerxes II and Sogdianus). At
his death in 405 BCE, he was succeeded by his eldest son, Artaxerxes II.
Parysatis, however, favored her second-born, Cyrus the Younger, who re-
belled against his brother and the Achaemenid Empire at large in 401 BCE.
On September 3 of that year, Artaxerxes II defeated Cyrus at the Battle of
Cunaxa, near present-day Baghdad, Iraq. Hopelessly outnumbered—14,500
men against 106,000—Cyrus was slain on the field and his army defeated.
Queen Parysatis blamed Tissaphernes, commander of Persian forces in Asia
Minor, for her favorite son’s death and sent an assassin named Tithraustes to
S O M O Z A D E B AY L E , A N A S TA S I O 535

kill him at Colossae, in 359 BCE. The bitter queen is commemorated by as-
teroid 888 Parysatis, discovered by German astronomer Maximillian Wolf in
February 1918.

Further Reading
Allen, Lindsay. The Persian Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Olmstead, A. T. History of the Persian Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1948.
Van de Mieroop, Marc. History of the Ancient Near East ca. 3000—323 BC. Malden, MA:
Blackwell Publishing, 2007.
Wiesehofer, Josef. Ancient Persia. London: I.B. Tauris, 2001.

SOMOZA DEBAYLE, ANASTASIO

(1925–1980)
On September 17, 1980, a seven-member assassination team carried out the
final act of “Operation Reptile,” targeting exiled Nicaraguan dictator Anasta-
sio Somoza Debayle in Asunción, Paraguay. The Nicaraguan commandos—
four men and three women—had stalked Somoza for six months prior to
staging their final attack. At 10:10 A.M. on that Monday, a lookout disguised
as a newspaper vendor reported Somoza’s departure from home with finan-
cial advisor Jou Baittiner and chauffeur César Gallardo. As Somoza’s car
approached the ambush site, Hugo Irurzun tried to stop it with an RPG-7
rocket launcher, but the weapon misfired. Reloading quickly, he struck the
Mercedes Benz with a second projectile, the other killers opened fire with au-
tomatic weapons, killing all three of the vehicle’s occupants. Subsequent re-
ports claimed that Somoza’s corpse was mangled and burned almost beyond
recognition, finally identified from his feet. All the assassins escaped, except
Irurzun, whose distinctive reddish-blond beard betrayed him. Cornered by
police on September 18, Irurzun died in the ensuing firefight. Team leader
Enrique Gorriarán Merlo explained Somoza’s murder by saying, “We can-
not tolerate the existence of millionaire playboys whilst thousands of Latin
Americans are dying of hunger.”
Anastasio Somoza Debayle was born in León, Nicaragua, on December 5,
1925, the third son of Anastasio Somoza García and Salvadora Debayle. At age
10, after three years in a school run by the Catholic Church, he was sent to
study in the United States, following older brother Luis Somoza Debayle in at-
tending Florida’s Saint Leo University and La Salle Military Academy on Long
Island, New York. While he was thus engaged, in January 1937, his father was
installed as Nicaragua’s president. Somoza Debayle entered the U.S. Military
Academy at West Point, New York, in July 1943, and graduated three years
later. Returning home, he was appointed by his father as chief of staff for the
536 S O M O Z A D E B AY L E , A N A S T A S I O

Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza Debayle, killed in exile, in September 1980. (Shepa-
rd Sherbell/CORBIS SABA)

National Guard, commanding Nicaragua’s army nationwide. That post made

him the second-most powerful official in his homeland.
Anastasio Somoza García’s assassination in September 1956, son Luis as-
cended to the presidency, leaving brother Anastasio in charge of the army and
secret police. During his tenure, the Sandinista National Liberation Front—
named for 1930s rebel leader Augusto César Sandino—began its long struggle
to rid Nicaragua of the corrupt and brutal Somoza dynasty. Luis died from nat-
ural causes in Managua, on April 13, 1967, and was succeeded by ex-foreign
minister René Schick Gutiérrez, widely regarded as a puppet of the Somozas.
Schick also died in office, in August 1966, succeeded in turn by Orlando Mon-
tenegro Medrano and Vice President Lorenzo Guerrero Gutiérrez. Another
pliable servant of the dynasty, Guerrero ceded the presidency to Anastasio So-
moza Debayle on May 1, 1967, and was rewarded with appointment as foreign
minister.
Somoza Debayle ruled Nicaragua with an iron hand, crushing dissent by any
means at his disposal. The country’s constitution required him to step down
in May 1972, but Somoza prepared himself working out a bargain. He agreed
to leave office as planned, while retaining command of the National Guard,
if allowed to seek reelection in 1974. During the two-year hiatus, Nicaragua
would be ruled (in theory) by a Government Triumvirate consisting of “liber-
als” Alfonso Lovo Cordero and Roberto Martínez Lacayo, with conservative
S O M O Z A D E B AY L E , A N A S TA S I O 537

Fernando Bernabé Agüero Rocha. In fact, however, Somoza Debayle continued

to manipulate the temporary regime, and resumed the presidency on Decem-
ber 1, 1974.
Throughout his reign, both in and out of office, Somoza Debayle enriched
himself through flagrant corruption. When a catastrophic earthquake struck
Managua, killing some 5,000 people on December 23, 1972, Somoza de-
clared martial law and claimed effective control of the country as head of a
new National Emergency Committee. In the process, he embezzled much of
the money donated for humanitarian relief by charities around the world, and
allegedly turned an extra profit by selling Nicaraguan blood plasma abroad,
when it was desperately needed at home. Aside from national emergencies,
bribery and nepotism were the earmarks of his rule, as they had been under
his father and brother before him. By the late 1970s, various human rights or-
ganizations condemned Somoza’s repressive measures, and support for Sand-
inista rebels flourished. After U.S. president Jimmy Carter terminated military
aid to Nicaragua, Israel remained as Somoza’s sole source of foreign arms and
ammunition.
With the Sandinistas closing in, Somoza Debayle resigned as president on
July 17, 1979, and flew to Miami, Florida—where he was denied entry to
the United States on orders from the Carter White House. Thus rebuffed, he
turned to Paraguay, welcomed by dictator Alfredo Stroessner Matiauda as were
many fugitives before him, including Auschwitz “Angel of Death” Dr. Josef
Mengele. Somoza invested some of his ill-gotten wealth in a gated estate on
Avenida de España, in Asunción, and settled down to a life of luxury while it
lasted. After his assassination, he was finally admitted to Miami, for internment
at Woodlawn Park Cemetery and Mausoleum. Somoza’s memoirs, Nicaragua
Betrayed, were published posthumously, blaming the Carter administration for
his family’s downfall.
Soon after his January 1981 inauguration, U.S. president Ronald Reagan
launched a covert war against the Sandinista regime that replaced Somoza’s
dictatorship, branding it as an outpost of Cuba-style communism in Central
America. To that end, the Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) employed for-
mer officers of Somoza’s National Guard—popularly known as Contras—to
destabilize the government. Perhaps predictably, the Contras employed tac-
tics reminiscent of their prior behavior, sparking new international protests
against atrocities and violations of human rights. Supporting themselves in
large part through cocaine sales, the insurgents—compared by Reagan to
the founding fathers of the United States—wreaked such havoc that Con-
gress banned further financial support for their cause in 1982. Reagan’s
aides then developed a convoluted (and illegal) scheme to fund the Contras
through arms sales to Iran, ultimately leading to the Iran-Contra scandal of
1986–1987. That episode produced a dozen indictments, with defendants
538 S O M OZ A GA RC Í A , A N A S TA S I O

including Reagan’s secretary of defense, an assistant secretary of state, and

a former CIA director. Seven defendants were convicted, most pardoned by
President George H. W. Bush shortly before he left office in 1993.
Enrique Gorriarán Merlo continued his career as a freedom fighter after
Somoza’s assassination. A native of Argentina, he returned home in 1987, and
two years later led an attack on the La Tablada Regimental barracks, killing
39 persons and wounding another 60. Arrested in Mexico, in 1995, he was
extradited for trial and convicted with 11 associates, including his ex-wife,
receiving a life prison term. President Eduardo Duhalde pardoned Gorriarán
in May 2003, five months after Gorriarán published his memoirs. Gorriarán
died from cardiac arrest in Buenos Aires, in September 2006, while attempt-
ing to rally support for a 2007 presidential campaign.
See also: Reagan, Ronald Wilson (1911–2004)—Attempted; Sandino, Augusto Nicolás
Calderón (1895–1934); Somoza García, Anastasio (1896–1956).

Further Reading
Alegria, Claribel, and Darwin Flakoll. Death of Somoza. Willimantic, CT: Curbstone
Press, 1996.
Berman, Karl. Under the Big Stick: Nicaragua and the United States Since 1848. Boston:
South End Press, 1986.
Crawley, Eduardo. Dictators Never Die: A Portrait of Nicaragua and the Somoza Dynasty.
Palgrave Macmillan, 1979.
Diederich, Bernard. Somoza and the Legacy of U.S. Involvement in Central America. Prince-
ton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007.
Morley, Morris. Washington, Somoza and the Sandinistas: State and Regime in US Policy to-
ward Nicaragua 1969–1981. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994.
Towell, Larry. Somoza’s Last Stand: Testimonies from Nicaragua. Trenton, NJ: Red Sea
Press, 1990.

SOMOZA GARCÍA, ANASTASIO

(1896–1956)
On September 21, 1956, longtime Nicaraguan dictator Anastasio Somoza
García attended a party at the Club Social de Obreros de León. Also present,
though without an invitation, was Rigoberto López Pérez, a 27-year-old artist,
poet, and composer who despised the corruption and brutality of Somoza’s re-
gime. Approaching Somoza, López shot him in the chest and was immediately
cut down by return fire from presidential bodyguards. Evacuated by air to a
hospital in the Panama Canal Zone, Somoza lingered until September 29, then
expired from his wounds.
Anastasio Somoza García was born in San Marcos, Nicaragua, on Feb-
ruary 1, 1896, the son of a wealthy coffee planter. He spent his teens with
relatives in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, where he attended the Pierce School
S O M O Z A G A R C Í A , A N A S TA S I O 539

of Business Administration (established in 1865 as Union Business College,

now simply Pierce College). While there, he also met his future wife, Salva-
dora Debayle Sacasa, granddaughter of Nicaraguan president Roberto Sacasa
Sarria and a member of a clan whose wealth exceeded Somoza’s.
Despite his education at Pierce, Somoza floundered as a businessman
upon returning to his homeland. In 1926, he joined a rebellion seeking to
depose President Emiliano Chamorro Vargas and replace him with Somoza’s
uncle-in-law, Juan Bautista Sacasa, but he fared no better as a field com-
mander than he had in business. Somoza’s raid on an army garrison at San
Marcos failed, but his fluency in English permitted Somoza to serve as an
interpreter when U.S. diplomats led peace negotiations between the oppos-
ing sides. Somoza finally advanced in January 1929, when the inauguration
of a distant relative, President José María Moncada Tapia, saw him named to
serve as governor of León.
Juan Bautista Sacasa succeeded Moncada as president, placing Somoza in
charge of the National Guard as his first act in office. His next move was an am-
nesty offer to rebel leader Augusto Sandino, an agrarian reformer and bitter ad-
versary of Somoza. Somoza eliminated that threat by assassinating Sandino on
February 1934, moving on to purge various local officials whom he believed
might oppose his next grab for power. On June 9, 1936, Somoza staged a coup
and forced Bautista to resign, filling the office briefly with hand-picked puppet
Carlos Alberto Brenes until Somoza officially claimed the presidency on Janu-
ary 1, 1937.
Thus began the long rule of Nicaragua by the Somoza dynasty, an era
marked by flagrant corruption, nepotism, and brutal suppression of any dis-
sent. Somoza García’s first election as president, by an improbable landslide
of 107,201 votes to 100, set the tone for all that followed. In short order, he
amended Nicaragua’s constitution to concentrate power in his own hands,
while filling top government offices with relatives and loyal supporters. Mul-
tiple parties existed on paper, but election fraud and brazen intimidation
placed Somoza’s Nationalist Liberal Party in firm control of the state, and So-
moza himself skimmed the profits from agricultural exports and government
contracts. By 1944, President Somoza was the country’s largest landowner,
claiming 51 cattle ranches, 46 coffee plantations, plus various sugar mills
and rum distilleries. Property confiscated from German immigrants during
World War II provided another source of wealth, and Somoza earned still
more from “presidential commissions” charged to U.S. firms for access to Ni-
caragua’s natural resources. As if that were not enough, he collaborated with
underworld elements to protect illegal gambling and prostitution, compiling
a fortune estimated at $400 million by 1950 ($3.8 billion today).
President Franklin Roosevelt tolerated Somoza’s dictatorship, telling friends,
“He may be a son of a bitch, but he’s our son of a bitch.” White House suc-
cessor President Harry Truman felt differently pressuring Somoza to decline
540 S O M OZ A GA RC Í A , A N A S TA S I O

reelection in 1947. Somoza obliged, directing his party to nominate 69-yeaar-

old Dr. Leonardo Argüello Barreto as his latest front man. Inaugurated on May 1,
Dr. Argüello suddenly displayed a startling independent streak, declaring,
“I will not be, by the way, a simple figurehead.” Somoza’s National Guard de-
posed Argüello on May 26, replacing him with Benjamín Lacayo Sacasa, an-
other of Somoza’s uncles by marriage. Lacayo, in turn, lasted less than three
months, ceding the presidency to Víctor Manuel Román y Reyes (yet another
Somoza uncle). Reyes died on May 6, 1950, and Manuel Fernando Zurita fol-
lowed as acting president, surrendering the pretense and his office to Somoza
on May 21.
Tired of playing games with the United States, Somoza amended the Ni-
caraguan constitution once again, in 1955, permitting himself to seek an-
other presidential term without employing stand-ins. By that time, he had also
founded a merchant marine company and Líneas Aéreas de Nicaragua, Nica-
ragua’s national airline. While milking profits from those enterprises, he built
a new container port near Managua, predictably named after himself. His as-
sassination failed to break the dynasty Somoza had established, as he was suc-
ceeded first by son Luis Somoza Debayle, and later by son Anastasio Somoza
Debayle, maintaining control of the country (with various puppet rulers) until
July 1979.
Once the family was finally expunged from Nicaragua, supplanted by a
leftist government named in honor of murdered Augusto Sandino, assassin
Rigoberto López Pérez was officially “rehabilitated.” The Sandinista Liberation
Front named one of its regional commands after López in April 1979; three
months later, with the movement’s triumph, Managua’s national stadium was
named after López. (President Arnoldo Alemán changed the stadium’s name
once again, in November 1998, to name it after Major League Baseball player
Dennis Martinez.) On the 25th anniversary of his death in León, the govern-
ment issued Decree No. 825, naming López as a National Hero. In 2006, a
monument dedicated to López was erected in Managua. Somoza’s name, mean-
while, has been removed from sundry landmarks nationwide.

See also: Sandino, Augusto Nicolás Calderón (1895–1934); Somoza Debayle, Anastasio
(1925–1980).

Further Reading
Berman, Karl. Under the Big Stick: Nicaragua and the United States Since 1848. Boston:
South End Press, 1986.
Diederich, Bernard. Somoza and the Legacy of U.S. Involvement in Central America. Prince-
ton, NJ: Markus Wiener Publishers, 2007.
Lake, Anthony. Somoza Falling: A Case Study of Washington at Work. Amherst, MA: Uni-
versity of Massachusetts Press, 1990.
S TA M B O L I Y S K I , A L E K S A N D A R 541

Millett, Richard. Guardians of the Dynasty. Maryknoll, NY: Orbis Books, 1977.
Schmitz, David. Thank God They’re On Our Side: The United States & Right-Wing Dicta-
torships. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1999.
Walter, Knut. The Regime of Anastasio Somoza, 1936–1956. Chapel Hill: University of
North Carolina Press, 1993.

STAMBOLIYSKI, ALEKSANDAR (1879–1923)

On June 9, 1923, Bulgarian fascist leader Aleksandar Tsolov Tsankov led a
coup d’état against Prime Minister Aleksandar Stamboliyski’s Bulgarian Agrar-
ian National Union (BANU). The Bulgarian Communist Party refused to take
sides, regarding the upheaval as a “struggle for power between the urban and
rural bourgeoisie.” Stamboliyski escaped from the capital at Sofia, hoping to
rally support in his native village of Slivnitsa, but rebels captured him there on
June 14, torturing him before he was finally shot. In a crowning act of contempt,
the assassins severed Stamboliyski’s right hand, with which he had signed the
Treaty of Niš three months earlier, vowing to suppress the far-right Internal
Macedonian Revolutionary Organization (IMRO). The killers also decapitated
Stamboliyski, sending his head back to Sofia in a box of biscuits.
Aleksandar Stamboliyski was a farmer’s son, born at Slivnitsa on March 1,
1879. He joined the BANU at its formation, in 1899, initially conceived as a
peasants’ professional organization rather than a political party. That quickly
changed, as Tsar Ferdinand I resisted any movement toward agrarian reform,
and by 1911, Stamboliyski was the BANU’s leader, marked by Bulgarian au-
thorities as the country’s leading antimonarchist in parliament. He opposed
Bulgaria’s entry to World War I in 1914, prompting other members of par-
liament to challenge his patriotism. When asked if he was a loyal Bulgarian,
Stamboliyski replied, “I am a Yugoslav!” He subsequently confronted Tsar Fer-
dinand personally to protest the war, an action that earned him a court-martial
and a life prison term on September 18, 1915.
Two weeks later, Bulgaria entered the war on the side of the Central Powers—
German, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire. Three years later, with un-
rest epidemic in the ranks of Bulgarian soldiers, Tsar Ferdinand released Stam-
boliyski in the vain hope that he might quell an impending mutiny. Instead, on
September 27, 1918, Stamboliyski issued a declaration condemning Ferdinand
and announcing a new Bulgarian republic, with himself in charge of its provi-
sional government. Some historians believe that declaration was released under
his name without Stamboliyski’s knowledge or approval, but it hardly mattered.
His supporters rose in a rebellion at Radomir, briefly battling tsarist troops before
they were crushed, with many executions, on October 2. Stamboliyski escaped
the ensuing round-up, and witnessed a surprise victory on October 3, 1918, as
Tsar Ferdinand fled Bulgaria, abdicating in favor of son Boris III the Unifier.
542 S TA M B O L I YS K I, A L E KSA N DA R

In the parliamentary elections of August 1919, the BANU won 27 of 236

available seats, one held by Stamboliyski. Two months later, on October 14, he
was named to serve as prime minister. He retained that post in March 1920,
when national elections gave the BANU 120 parliamentary seats. By April
1923, his party seemed unstoppable, with 212 seats in parliament. His tenure
as prime minister—described by some observers as a virtual dictatorship—was
not untroubled, however. Far-right extremists from the IMRO and the Internal
Thracian Revolutionary Organization (ITRO) waged guerrilla actions both in
Bulgaria and Greece, prompting the Greek government to expel large numbers
of Bulgarians by 1922. Stamboliyski also faced pressure from the left, while
coping with food shortages and an influenza epidemic that claimed thousands
of lives.
To defend his regime and carry out his agrarian reforms, Stamboliyski raised
a peasant army known as the Orange Guard, which skirmished with the IMRO
and ITRO. On November 27, 1919, he increased right-wing antipathy by sign-
ing the Treaty of Neuilly-sur-Seine, which ceded western Thrace, southern Do-
bruja, and other Bulgarian lands to victors of the late World War; reduced
Bulgaria’s standing army to 20,000 men; and promised payment of £100 mil-
lion in reparations. The Treaty of Niš was seen by his enemies as a further
capitulation, with its specific promise to the Kingdom of Yugoslavia that Stam-
boliyski would suppress the IMRO in Bulgaria.
The resultant fascist coup of June 1923 ensconced Aleksandar Tsankov as
prime minister, leading Bulgaria’s ironically named Democratic Alliance. Com-
munists failed to unseat him with an uprising in September 1923, then tried
again with a series of bombings in April 1925. Tsankov declared martial law
and banned the Bulgarian Communist Party, earning condemnation both from
the Communist International and the League of Nations. Tsankov left office in
January 1926, moving on to form a National Social Movement patterned on
Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party in 1932. Bulgaria’s army seized control of the coun-
try in May 1934, and was in turn deposed by communists in September 1944.
Tsankov staged a comeback of sorts that same month, named by Hitler as
prime minister of a Bulgarian government-in-exile, but war’s end found him
hiding in Argentina, where he died on July 27, 1959.

Further Reading
Bell, John. Peasants in Power: Alexander Stamboliski and the Bulgarian Agrarian National
Union, 1899–1923. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1977.
Berend, Ivan. Decades of Crisis: Central and Eastern Europe before World War II. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2001.
Chary, Frederick. The History of Bulgaria. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2011.
Frucht, Richard. Encyclopedia of Eastern Europe: From the Congress of Vienna to the Fall
of Communism. London: Routledge, 2000.
S TA M B O L O V, S T E FA N N I K O L O V 543

STAMBOLOV, STEFAN NIKOLOV

(1854–1895)
On July 3, 1895, ex-prime minister Stefan Stambolov rode through Sofia,
the Bulgarian capital, with a bodyguard and another companion. Thirteen
months had elapsed since his resignation from office, but Stambolov still felt
himself endangered by Prince Ferdinand of Saxe-Coburg-Gotha. As Stam-
bolov’s carriage neared home, a man armed with a revolver stepped into the
road and fired at the vehicle. Stambolov drew his own pistol and leapt from
the carriage, suddenly confronted by three more assassins brandishing dag-
gers. He shot one, before the others tackled him and threw him to the ground.
Apparently forewarned that Stambolov wore a bulletproof vest, the assailants
hacked at his head before Stambolov’s companions drove them away. Carried
home with a fractured skull, hands mutilated by defensive wounds, Stam-
bolov survived until 2:00 A.M. on July 6, blaming Ferdinand for the assault.
His last recorded words were a confession of failure: “Bulgaria’s people will
forgive me everything. But they will not forgive that it was I who brought
Ferdinand here.”
Stefan Stambolov was born on January 31, 1854, at Veliko Tarnovo on the
Yantra River. His father was a veteran of an abortive 1835 rebellion against
Turkish rule of Bulgaria. Educated first in his hometown, Stambolov proceeded
to a seminary in Odessa in 1870–1872, then abandoned his religious studied
for membership in the Bulgarian Revolutionary Central Committee (BRCC).
Founded by Lyuben Karavelov in 1869 and lately merged with Vasil Levs-
ki’s equally militant Internal Revolutionary Organization, the BRCC pursued
armed struggle against the Ottoman Turkish Empire that had ruled Bulgaria
since 1396. The Turks hanged Levski in February 1873, prompting a schism
in the BRCC. One faction chose Stambolov as its leader, and the other followed
rival revolutionary Hristo Botev. Both led unsuccessful uprisings: Stambolov
evaded capture after his effort at Stara Zagora in 1875, and Botev died in battle
near Kozloduy in 1876.
Those uprisings, and their brutal suppression, led to the Constantinople
Conference of 1876–1877, where the Great Powers—Britain, France, Ger-
many, Austria-Hungary, and Italy—mapped a plan for Bulgarian indepen-
dence. Turkey’s refusal to agree encouraged Russia’s declaration of war on the
Ottoman Empire, in April 1877, liberating much of present-day Bulgaria by
March 1878. Prince Alexander of Battenberg served as the first head of state,
appointed in April 1879. Stefan Stambolov helped organize the first Bulgar-
ian parliament that same year, serving as vice chairman in 1880, then rising
to the post of chairman. In November 1885, the two-week Serbo-Bulgarian
War completed unification of the territory, with the acquisition of Eastern Ru-
melia and Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid II recognized Prince Alexander as
governor-general.
544 S T E U N E N B E RG, FR A N K

That arrangement angered some Serbian military officers, who craved a

chance to run the country by themselves. Encouraged by Russia, they staged
a coup d’état that deposed Alexander on August 20, 1886. Stambolov led his
own countercoup eight days later, toppling the military junta and assuming
the post of regent, pending restoration of the monarchy. Russian antipathy to
Alexander threatened war if he resumed the throne, and he formally resigned
on September 8, retiring to private life. It was Stambolov, to his later sorrow,
who found a successor in Prince Ferdinand. Crowned as Bulgaria’s monarch
on August 14, 1887, Ferdinand named Stambolov as prime minister on Sep-
tember 1.
Bulgaria’s two leaders clashed almost immediately. Stambolov’s nationalism
drove him to oppose Ferdinand’s bid for ever-expanding power, while behav-
ing himself in a manner many Bulgarians viewed as despotic. In 1890, the
New York Times described Stambolov as “the only Prime Minister in Europe
who receives his visitors with a revolver lying next to the ink-stand on his
desk.” In March of that year, Stambolov arrested 15 army officers for plot-
ting to depose Ferdinand; they were tried in May and shot in June. Four of
Stambolov’s political adversaries were hanged at Sofia in 1891, with a fifth
sentenced to prison. Assassins, perhaps dispatched from Russia, retaliated by
killing two of Stambolov’s ministers and narrowly missing him. At last, he re-
signed the prime minister’s post on May 31, 1894, succeeded by Konstantin
Stoilov.
Resignation came too late to save Stambolov. Authorities made no visible
effort to arrest his killers, and violence erupted at his funeral, with rioters at-
tempting to seize the corpse. Ferdinand sought to improve relations with Rus-
sia, while laying claim to Macedonia’s largely Bulgarian population. Turkey,
Serbia, and Greece contested that claim, with tensions escalating over time into
the cataclysm that was World War I.

Further Reading
Crampton, R. J. Bulgaria. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2009.
Daskalov, Roumen. Debating the Past: Modern Bulgarian History from Stambolov to
Zhivkov. Budapest: Central European University Press, 2011.
Perry, Duncan. Stefan Stambolov and the Emergence of Modern Bulgaria, 1870–1895. Dur-
ham, NC: Duke University Press, 1993.

STEUNENBERG, FRANK (1861–1905)

On the evening of December 30, 1905, ex-governor Frank Steunenberg ap-
proached his home in the small town of Caldwell, Idaho. As he opened his
front gate, a bomb exploded, killing him instantly. Suspicion fell on Harry
Orchard—né Albert Edward Horsley, alias “Tom Hogan”—that same night,
STEUNENBERG, FRANK 545

when he visited the murder scene with hotel clerk Clinton Wood, stating his
view that Idaho mine owners had paid Steunenberg a “big wad” of money for
suppressing strikes during his second term as governor. Detained by private
Pinkerton detectives and promised leniency, Orchard confessed to the bombing
and implicated leaders of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM), who were
also arrested. Jurors acquitted the alleged conspirators in 1907, and Orchard
later pled guilty and was sentenced to hang. That sentence was later commuted
to life imprisonment.
Frank Steunenberg was born in Keokuk, Iowa, on August 8, 1861. He at-
tended Iowa State College, and upon graduation found work as a printer’s ap-
prentice. He worked at the Des Moines Register in 1881, then moved on to
publish a newspaper in tiny Knoxville, Iowa, remaining there until 1886. Dur-
ing that year, he moved west to join his brother in Caldwell, in Idaho Territory,
and published the Caldwell Tribune.
While engaged in that pursuit over the next six years, Steunenberg also
tried his hand at politics. In 1889, the year before Idaho achieved statehood,
he was a delegate to the state constitutional convention. From 1890 to 1893,
he was a member of the state legislature. In 1896, running as a “fusion” can-
didate with support from both the Democratic and Populist Parties, Steunen-
berg won election as Idaho’s fourth governor. After a relatively uneventful
two-year term, Steunenberg was reelected by the same coalition in Novem-
ber 1898.
By then, unrest was common among minters in Idaho and other nearby
states. The WFM pushed for higher wages and safer working conditions,
whereas stubborn mine owners resisted. In Idaho, fearing that Governor
Steunenberg would support strikers in the event of a walkout, most mine owners
reluctantly granted higher pay, but the Bunker Hill Mining Company refused
to cooperate. Its miners earned 50 cents less per hour than those employed by
other companies, whereas Bunker Hill shareholders received $600,000 in div-
idends. Mine superintendent Albert Burch fired 17 suspected WFM members,
while declaring that Bunker Hill would rather “shut down and remain closed
twenty years” than recognize the union. In April 1899, strikers bombed the
company’s mill at Wardner, in the Silver Valley, sparking a battle that left two
men dead.
Governor Steunenberg responded to that violence by declaring martial law,
but found himself without troops, because Idaho’s National Guard had been
sent to the Philippines, fighting native insurgents in the wake of the Spanish-
American War. Accordingly, he asked President William McKinley for federal
troops, a move viewed as rank betrayal by his union and Populist support-
ers. Soldiers arrested hundreds of miners, cramming them into open-air “bull
pens” with minimal sanitary facilities. Martial law remained in effect for the
546 S T E U N E N B E RG, FR A N K

remainder of Steunenberg’s second term as governor, and he declined to seek a

third. By 1900, the WFM strike had been crushed and the Bunker Hill mines
were operating with 10-hour shifts, seven days per week.
In a manner common for the time, Steunenberg’s assassination was inves-
tigated by James McParland, a private operative of the Pinkerton National
Detective Agency who had played a key role in prosecuting “Molly Magu-
ire” terrorists from Pennsylvania’s coal fields during 1876−1878. Focusing
on Harry Orchard—recently a paid antiunion informer for the Cripple Creek
Mine Owner’s Association—McParland procured a confession naming WFM
president Charles Moyer and General Secretary William “Big Bill” Haywood
as conspirators. Orchard also fingered George Pettibone, an Idaho miner and
labor activist, earlier convicted on charges related to violence around Coeur
d’Alene in 1899 (see sidebar). No evidence existed beyond Orchard’s confes-
sion, but McParland arrested the others in February 1906 and they were held
for trial in Boise the following year.
Bill Haywood was the first to face a jury, with Idaho senator William
Borah prosecuting and flamboyant attorney Clarence Darrow speaking for
the defense. In a move to buttress Orchard’s confession, Borah presented a
second witness obtained by McParland, miner Steve Adams, described in
the press as possessing “heavy, drooping eyelids and a booze-blotched com-
plexion.” Implicated by Orchard in various crimes, Adams had been jailed
with Orchard prior to trial (thus coordinating their stories), and his wife
and children were arrested by McParland “for their own protection.” Threat-
ened with prosecution in an unrelated murder case, Adams agreed to tes-
tify, then promptly recanted when Darrow offered to defend him. In court,
he testified that “[w]hen the confession was made, McParland led me on a
step-by-step and showed me all they wanted me to say. . . . He wanted the
names of the officers of the Federation used as much as possible all through
the confession.” Jurors acquitted Haywood, and a separate panel likewise
acquitted George Pettibone. Charges against Charles Moyer were dismissed.
Steve Adams faced trial twice in Idaho, resulting in hung juries, then was
tried and finally acquitted on a separate murder charge in Colorado, liber-
ated after three years in prison.
That left Harry Orchard to plead guilty as Steunenberg’s sole killer in
March 1908, receiving a death sentence, later commuted to life in prison.
Soon after sentencing, Orchard converted to Seventh-Day Adventism and
spent the rest of his life in custody, dying at age 88, on April 13, 1954.
Author Melvyn Dubofsky suggests that Orchard may have suffered from
a “psychotic personality disorder,” but no formal diagnosis supports that
supposition.
Big Bill Haywood, while escaping conviction for Steunenberg’s murder, con-
tinued his involvement in “radical” labor activity. He was a founder and leader
STEUNENBERG, FRANK 547

COEUR D’ALENE “DYNAMITE EXPRESS”

On April 29, 1899, in the midst of an ongoing strike, some 250 mem-
bers of the Western Federation of Miners (WFM) hijacked a train at
Burke, Idaho, proceeding to other stops on the line in Shoshone County.
Another 100 miners boarded the train at Mace, 150 at Gem, and 200
at Wallace. Along the way, at Frisco, the hijackers loaded 80 crates of
dynamite—4,000 pounds in all—and proceeded to Wardner, where they
blasted the Bunker Hill Mining Company’s $250,000 mill into ruins. Two
men died at the scene, a nonunion “scab” and a WFM member acci-
dentally shot by fellow strikers. Reboarding their “Dynamite Express,”
the raiders rolled on through Kellog and Wallace, greeted by pro-
union crowds along the track, who cheered as they passed. That inci-
dent prompted Governor Steunenberg’s declaration of martial law, with
a request for federal troops. State Auditor Bartlett Sinclair set the tone
for what followed, declaring that all residents of Canyon Creek had a
“criminal history,” and that “the entire community, or the male portion
of it, ought to be arrested.” Soldiers ransacked every home, packing hun-
dreds of men—including a doctor, a minister, the postmaster, and school
superintendent—into “bull pens” resembling concentration camps.

of the Industrial Workers of the World (IWW), frequently linked to strikes

marked by violence. In 1918, he was convicted with 100 other IWW members
on charges of violating the Espionage Act of 1917, for criticizing U.S. involve-
ment in World War I. While free on bond pending appeal of that conviction,
Haywood fled to the Soviet Union, where he spent the remainder of his life.
Haywood died in a Moscow hospital on May 18, 1928, from a stroke caused by
alcoholism and diabetes.

Further Reading
Carlson, Peter. Roughneck: The Life and Times of Big Bill Haywood. New York: W. W.
Norton, 1983.
Dubofsky, Melvyn. We Shall Be All: A History of the Industrial Workers of the World. New
York: Quadrangle Books, 1969.
“Famous American Trials: Bill Haywood Trial, 1907.” University of Missouri-Kansas
City. http://law2.umkc.edu/faculty/projects/ftrials/haywood/HAYWOOD.HTM.
Farrell, John. Clarence Darrow: Attorney for the Damned. New York: Doubleday,
2011.
Lukas, J. Anthony. Big Trouble: A Murder in a Small Western Town Sets Off a Struggle for
the Soul of America. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1997.
548 S T E W A R T, J A M E S , E A R L O F M O R AY

STEWART, JAMES, EARL OF MORAY

(1531–1570)
On January 19, 1570, James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, dined with Sir Henry
Gate, Marshal of Berwick, and Sir William Drury at Stirling Castle in Scot-
land. They discussed the Catholic rebellion against Queen Elizabeth I of En-
gland, ongoing since November 1569 by partisans supporting Mary, Queen of
Scots (Elizabeth’s first cousin, once removed). The diners discussed a meeting
with Scottish nobles, to be held in Edinburgh the following week, and Stew-
art proceeded toward Edinburgh on January 23. That day, entering the town
of Linlithgow on horseback, Steward passed the home of John Hamilton, arch-
bishop of St. Andrews and treasurer of Scotland. A nephew of the archbishop,
James Hamilton of Bothwellhaugh and Woodhouselee, fired a rifle from an
upstairs window of his uncle’s home, wounding Stewart in the abdomen and
killing an escort’s horse. Stewart dismounted and walked to the house where
he was scheduled to spend the night, and died there shortly before midnight.
Most historians consider his murder the first assassination performed with a
firearm.
James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, was born in 1531, one of many illegiti-
mate children sired by King James V of Scotland. His mother, Lady Margaret
Erskine, was said to be the king’s favorite mistress, undeterred by her exist-
ing marriage to Sir Robert Douglas of Lochleven. King James favored the lad
with a grant of lands around
Tantallon Castle, east of North
Berwick, in August 1536, and
two years later named the
seven-year-old Commenda-
tor of St. Andrews, a quasi-
ecclesiastical post that supported
Stewart for the remainder of
his life.
James V died on Decem-
ber 14, 1542, succeeded by his
only legitimate child, six-day-
old daughter Mary. She spent
most of her childhood in France
while regents ruled Scotland,
then returned to Scotland to
wed her first cousin, Henry
Stewart. Their short, unhappy
marriage ended six months
James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray, killed by Catholic later, when an explosion de-
rebels in 1570. (Getty Images) molished Stewart’s home and
S T E W A R T, J A M E S , E A R L O F M O R AY 549

servants found him murdered in the garden. Prime suspect James Hepburn was
acquitted in that case and married Queen Mary in May 1567, but their joint
reign was brief. In July of that year, rebels imprisoned Mary and forced her to
abdicate in favor of James, her one-year-old son by Henry Stewart, and James
Hamilton, Duke of Châtellerault, served as regent.
James Stewart was not idle in the meantime. In August 1557, he led raids
against the English in Northumbria, and two years later supported the Scottish
Reformation, a rift with the Papacy that would create the Church of Scotland.
Queen Mary, Stewart’s half-sister, clung to the Catholic faith, thereby sow-
ing the seeds of rebellion that would later unseat her. In June 1559, Stewart
led a Protestant march against Perth, where he removed icons from Catholic
churches and defeated French forces rallied in Mary’s support.
Mary escaped to France that time, but would return in 1561 to settle her
differences with James Stewart. Despite their separate and hostile religions,
she named Stewart Earl of Moray in 1562, a post that included title to Dar-
naway Castle, southwest of Forres. In October 1562, when George Gordon,
4th Earl of Huntly, led a revolt against Mary, Stewart defeated him at the Bat-
tle of Corrichie, near Aberdeen. He opposed Mary’s marriage to Henry Stew-
art in July 1565, and the following month led an ill-conceived rebellion later
dubbed the “Chaseabout Raid,” because opposing forces pursued each other
without making contact. Declared an outlaw, James fled to England, then to
France, missing the murder of Mary’s husband, her hasty marriage to James
Hepburn, 4th Earl of Bothwell, and her subsequent abdication. Returning to
Scotland on August 11, 1567, Stewart was named to serve as regent for young
James VI eleven days later.
When Mary escaped from prison on May 2, 1568, she raised an army of
6,000 men, clashing with Stewart’s troops near Glasgow, in the Battle of Lang-
side, on May 13. Although outnumbered, Stewart swept the field, forcing
Mary’s flight to England. There, she was taken into protective custody while
her Scottish supporters waged the five-year Marian Civil War. Her supporters
allegedly planned to assassinate Stewart during a diplomatic visit to York, in
September 1568, but cancelled their plans at the eleventh hour. Back in Scot-
land, during 1569, Stewart celebrated successive victories, capturing the rural
home of John Fleming, 5th Lord Fleming, along with other Marian strongholds
at Crawford, Hoddom, Annan, Skirling, Kenmuir, and Sanquhar.
After Stewart was shot in Linlithgow, both Hamiltons fled from the scene.
The archbishop sought refuge at Dumbarton Castle, a stronghold of Queen
Mary’s supporters, but Captain Thomas Crawford led a nocturnal raid that
captured him on April 2, 1571. Quickly tried and convicted of aiding in
Stewart’s murder—and in the slaying of Henry Stewart, 1st Duke of Albany,
with his valet in February 1567—John Hamilton was hanged at Stirling on
April 6, 1571.
550 S T R A N G, JA M E S J E S S E

Triggerman James Hamilton was more fortunate. He outran mounted pursu-

ers and escaped to France, where he found sanctuary with kinsmen of Queen
Mary. They asked him to assassinate Gaspard II de Coligny, a Huguenot leader
in the French Wars of Religion, but Hamilton refused on grounds that an hon-
orable man should slay his own enemies, but not kill on behalf of others.
Hamilton remained in France and died there, unpunished, in 1581. Mean-
while, four of his relatives were jailed in Scotland as accomplices in Stewart’s
assassination, and Scotland’s parliament declared the entire family rebels in
October 1579. A year after Hamilton’s death, in June 1582, George Hume of
Spott faced Scottish charges of aiding James and John Hamilton in their flight
from Linlithgow. Hume’s acquittal marked the final closing of the case.
Queen Mary ultimately found that “protective custody” in England offered
no protection at all. Still confined in August 1586, she was implicated in a
Catholic plot to depose Elizabeth I, and faced trial with 14 accomplices on
charges of conspiracy and treason. All were convicted and executed, with Mary
publicly beheaded on February 8, 1587.

Further Reading
Cadell, Patrick. Sudden Slaughter: The Murder of the Regent Moray. Glasgow: West Lo-
thian History and Amenity Society, 1975.
Ives, Edward. The Bonny Earl of Murray: The Man, the Murder, the Ballad. Urbana: Uni-
versity of Illinois Press, 1997.
Lawson, John. Life of the Celebrated Regent Moray, Patron of Scottish Reformation, Who
Was Assassinated 23d Jan. 1570: Including an Account of the Contention between the
Queen Regent and the Lords of the Congregation. Glasgow: John Lothia, 1828.
Lee, Maurice. James Stewart, Earl of Moray: A Political Study of the Reformation in Scot-
land. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1971.

STRANG, JAMES JESSE (1813–1856)

On the evening of June 16, 1856, James Strang—the self-proclaimed “king”
of Beaver Island, in Lake Michigan—passed by the docks at St. James, the is-
land’s principal settlement. As ruler of the island and its religious colony, a splin-
ter movement of the Mormon Church, Strang knew that he had enemies who
wished him dead, but he had written in his newspaper, the Northern Islander,
“We laugh with bitter scorn at all these threats.” Unarmed, without a bodyguard,
he was defenseless when ambushed by church members Thomas Bedford and
Alexander Wentworth, shot three times at close range, then pistol-whipped for
good measure. The gunmen, acting in full view of naval officers aboard the USS
Michigan, ran to the ship and received sanctuary from Captain Charles McBlair.
Friends transported Strang to nearby Voree, Wisconsin, headquarters of his sect,
where he died from his wounds on July 9. Captain McBlair refused demands
from Charlevoix County’s sheriff that he surrender Bedford and McCulloch. In-
stead, he carried them aboard the Michigan to Mackinac Island, where they were
STRANG, JAMES JESSE 551

fined $1.25 after a mock trial, then treated to a celebratory banquet. Neither the
gunmen nor two presumed conspirators, Alexander Wentworth and “Doctor”
J. Atkyn, were ever punished for Strang’s assassination.
James Strang was born on a farm near Scipio, New York, on March 21,
1813. Given to flights of fancy in his youth, at age 19 he penned an entry in his
diary complaining that he “ought to have been a member of the Assembly or a
Brigadier General before this time if I am ever to rival Cesar [sic] or Napoleon
which I have sworn to.” Another entry from the same year declared: “I have
spent the day in trying to contrive some plan of obtaining in marriage the heir
to the English Crown”—the future Queen Victoria, then 12 years old. Instead,
he married a Baptist minister’s daughter, moving from New York to Burlington,
Vermont, with his wife and first child in 1843.
In Vermont, after dabbling in journalism and lectures on temperance, Strang
turned to practicing law, apparently without formal training. That winter, he
converted to Mormonism and traveled to Nauvoo, Illinois, where he was bap-
tized as an elder by church president Joseph Smith Jr. Back in Burlington,
Strang began converting others, building up a congregation of his own. When
an Illinois lynch mob killed Smith and his brother, leaving the parent church
leaderless in June 1844, Strang saw no reason why he should not fill the mar-
tyred prophet’s shoes. Brigham Young had other ideas, rallying support in Nau-
voo and leading the Mormon Exodus westward to Utah, whereupon Strang
defected to form his own Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (Strang-
ite), casting himself as the sole legitimate heir to Smith’s legacy. A “letter of ap-
pointment,” allegedly signed by Smith the week before his murder, supported
Strang’s case. Serving as prophet, seer, and revelator of his church was not
enough for Strang, however. Subtly altering Smith’s message to include a di-
vine grant of royalty, he declared himself a king. In 1845, Strang—like Smith
before him—announced that an angel had led him to buried gold plates which
he alone could translate from “lost Levantine languages,” producing a Book of
the Law of the Lord to rival Smith’s Book of Mormon.
All he lacked now was a kingdom, secured when Strang led his own mini exodus
from Burlington to Beaver Island in 1847. A man of many parts, when not leading
his flock of some 12,000 acolytes, Strang served in Michigan’s state legislature and
penned a natural history of Beaver Island that was published by the Smithsonian
Institution. In 1849, after years of opposing polygamy, Strang abruptly changed
his view, accumulating four more wives. That turnabout caused some defections
from his sect, whereas others were occasioned by his strict—sometimes selective—
discipline. One of Strang’s slayers, Thomas Bedford, had been flogged for adultery;
the other, Alexander Wentworth, professed outrage over Strang’s recent order that
female church members must dress in “bloomers.” An accomplice in the murder
plot, Dr. Hezekiah McCulloch, was excommunicated for his heavy drinking and
assorted other “sins.” The other, “Doctor” Atkyn, was a swindler and blackmailer
Strang had threatened to ban from his island.
552 SVERKER I

Strang’s murder doomed his church. While he lay dying at Voree, on July
5, a mob from Mackinac stormed Beaver Island, robbing and evicting its
2,600 inhabitants. The power vacuum left by Strang’s assassination proved
particularly difficult to fill, because he had claimed angels must hand-pick
his successor. Lorenzo Dow Hickey eventually filled the post, until his death
in 1900, succeeded until 1922 by High Priest Wingfield Watson. Neither
claimed to be a prophet of the Lord, however, and most of Strang’s flock
subsequently joined the Reorganized Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
Saints, known since 2001 as the Community of Christ. Remnants of Strang’s
original sect persist today as the Church of Jesus Christ (Drewite), founded
by Thomas Drew in 1965, and the Holy Church of Jesus Christ, founded by
Alexandre Caffiaux in 1978.
See also: Smith, Joseph, Jr. (1805–1844).

Further Reading
Fitzpatrick, Doyle. The King Strang Story: A Vindication of James J, Strang, the Beaver Is-
land Mormon King. Lansing, MI: National Heritage, 1970.
Foster, Lawrence. “James J. Strang: The Prophet Who Failed.” Church History 50
(1981): 182–92.
Russell, William. “King James Strang: Joseph Smith’s Successor?” In Mormon Maver-
icks: Essays on Dissenters. Salt Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2002.
The Society for Strang Studies. http://www.strangstudies.org/James_Jesse_Strang.
Speek, Vickie. God Has Made Us a Kingdom: James Strang and the Midwest Mormons. Salt
Lake City, UT: Signature Books, 2006.
van Noord, Roger. King of Beaver Island: The Life and Assassination of James Jesse Strang.
Champaign: University of Illinois Press, 1988.
Weeks, Robert. “For His Was the Kingdom, and the Power, and the Glory . . . Briefly.”
American Heritage 21 (June 1970): 4–7, 78–86.

SVERKER I (?–1156)
On December 25, 1156, King Sverker I of Sweden set out from Ödeshög, in
Östergötland, to attend Christmas services at nearby Alvastra Abbey. Sverker
had donated land for construction of the Cistercian Order’s edifice, and would
have been an honored guest—if he had reached the church. Along the way,
however, as coach crossed the Alebäck Bridge, he was attacked and stabbed
to death by one of his own escorts. Two pretenders to the Swedish throne,
Magnus Henriksson and Erik Jedvardsson, were suspected conspirators in
Sverker’s assassination, and Erik in fact succeeded him, as King Erik IX.
Little is known of Sverker’s early. Life, and what remains is mixed with leg-
end. His birth date is unknown, surviving accounts disagree on the name of
his father. The Västgötalagen (Westgothic law), Sweden’s oldest text in Latin,
SVERKER I 553

includes an appendix by a priest called Laurentius listing Christian Swed-

ish kings, which names Sverker’s father as Cornube. Another document—the
Skáldatal (Catalogue of Poets), in Old Norse—disagrees, naming his sire as Kol.
In any case, tradition identifies Sverker as a wealthy landowner in Östergöt-
land by 1113, when he was chosen as king of Gothiscandza, settled by an East
Germanic tribe of Goths in the first century CE.
His rival for control of Sweden at that time was King Inge the Younger, of the
House of Stenkil, whose death in 1125—possibly poisoned by his queen and
her clandestine lover—effectively extinguished the dynasty. Sverker later mar-
ried Inge’s widow, Ulvhild Håkansdotter, but not before she spent four years
married to King Niels of Denmark. Niels died in battle Fotevik, in June 1134,
supporting son Magnus Nilsson—killed in the same engagement—against
rival Canute Lavard, thus freeing Ulvhild to take her third husband.
In the meantime, Sverker had ascended to the Swedish throne, in 1130.
Twelve years later, he successfully defended Sweden’s borders against forces
from the Novgorod Republic. Queen Ulvhild died in 1148, and Sverker soon
remarried to Riquilda (or Riclitza) or Poland, daughter of Polish king Boleslao
III and widow of the aforementioned Magnus Nilsson. Their union was brief,
ending with Riquilda’s death in 1150. Before year’s end, Sverker found him-
self challenged as king by Erik Jedvardsson of Västergötland. Another rival,
deemed less dangerous perhaps, was Danish lord Magnus Henriksson, great-
grandson of Inge I and an illegitimate grandson of late Danish king Sweyn II
Estridsson.
Whichever adversary planned Sverker’s assassination, Erik claimed the
Swedish throne in 1156, thereafter known as King Eric IX, Eric the Lawgiver,
Erik the Saint, and/or Eric the Holy. If he did kill Sverker, Erik’s own fate pres-
ents a lesson in irony. On May 18, 1160, he was ambushed and slain by agents
of Magnus Henriksson outside a church in Uppsala, reportedly tortured by
his killers before he was finally beheaded. Magnus II then claimed the throne,
but only briefly. In 1161, he was slain by Karl Sverkersson, son of Sverker I,
who then assumed the throne as Charles VII—and was himself assassinated on
April 12, 1167, by supporters of rival Knut Eriksson.

Further Reading
DuBois, Thomas. Sanctity in the North: Saints, Lives, and Cults in Medieval Scandinavia.
Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2008.
Kent, Neil. A Concise History of Sweden. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2008.
Morby, John. Dynasties of the World: A Chronological and Genealogical Handbook. New
York: Oxford University Press, 2002.
Svanstrom, Ragnar. A Short History of Sweden. Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1934.
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T
TAKAHASHI KOREKIYO (1854–1936)
On February 26, 1936, pursuing the ideal of a “Showa Restoration” pro-
posed by author Kita Ikki, some 1,500 soldiers of the Imperial Japanese
Army attempted a coup d’état to purge “destroying the deadly spirit that was
poisoning Japan.” Their targets in Tokyo included Prime Minister Okada
Keisuke, Grand Chamberlain Suzuki Kantar¯o, Lord Keeper of the Privy Seal
Saitō Makoto, former Keeper of the Privy Seal Makino Nobuaki, Inspec-
tor General of Military Education Watanabe Jōtarō, and Finance Minister
Takahashi Korekiyo. Before loyal troops suppressed the uprising on Feb-
ruary 29, Saitō, Takahashi, and Watanabe were dead. The prime minister
escaped through a fluke of mistaken identity, when the rebels shot his brother-
in-law, Captain Matsuo Denzō. Following a round-up of the insurrectionists,
two coup leaders committed suicide, 18 were executed for mutiny, seven
received life prison terms, and 28 received lesser sentences, ranging from
one to 15 years.
Takahashi Korekiyo was born out of wedlock in Edo (now Tokyo), the capi-
tal of Japan’s Tokugawa shogunate, on July 27, 1854. Adopted by Takahashi
Kakuji, a samurai warrior of the clan led by Date Kunishige, he learned English
and studied American culture at a missionary school, then was sent to London
in 1866, as a servant for the son of Count Katsu Kaishū. In 1867, Takahashi
traveled to Oakland, California, and spent a year as a common laborer, refining
his skill in English before he returned to Japan in 1868.
Despite his menial employment overseas, Takahashi’s fluency in English
permitted him to teach the language upon his return to Tokyo, established
that same year as Japan’s imperial capital. Soon, he was first master at Kyōritsu
Gakkō (now Kasei) High School, progressing from there to serve in the min-
istry of education, then the ministry of agriculture and commerce. Within the
latter department, he was soon promoted to First Chief of the Bureau of Pat-
ents, overhauling Japan’s antiquated patent system. A private business venture
in Peru proved disappointing, but Takahashi was back in Tokyo by 1892, now
working at the Bank of Japan. Finding his métier in the realm of finance, he
assumed vice presidency of the bank by 1898, and won national recognition
for securing $200 million in critical loans for Japan during the Russo-Japanese
War of 1904–1905.
556 TA K A H A S H I KO R E K I YO

Japanese finance minister Takahashi Korekiyo, assassinated in 1936. (Getty Images)

That wartime effort earned Takahashi appointment to the National Diet’s

House of Peers in 1905, followed by appointment as president of the Yoko-
hama Specie Bank (now the Bank of Tokyo, Ltd.) in 1906. A year later, Em-
peror Meiji made Takahashi a danshaku (baron) under the kazoku (“illustrious
heritage”) system. Continuing his rise through the financial world, Takahashi
served as governor of the Bank of Japan from June 1, 1911, until February 20,
1913, when Prime Minister Yamamoto Gonnohyōe chose him as minister of fi-
nance from the Rikken Seiyūkai (Friends of Constitutional Government) Party.
Takahashi left that post when Yamamoto’s term expired, in April 1914, but was
reappointed to the same position in September 1918, by Prime Minister Hara
Takashi.
In 1920, Takahashi’s royal title was elevated to shishaku (viscount). Follow-
ing Prime Minister Hara’s assassination in Tokyo, in November 1921, Taka-
hashi filled the vacant office while doubling as president of the Rikken Seiyūkai.
He served as prime minister for only seven months, hampered by the lack of
a personal power base and by the fact that he was a Christian, whereas most
Japanese were Buddhists or Shintoists. Resigning on June 12, 1922, Takahashi
still retained his party presidency. In 1924, he left his seat in the House of
Peers and won election to the Diet’s House of Representatives. That June, new
Prime Minister Katō Takaaki chose Takahashi as his minister of agriculture and
TA K A H A S H I K O R E K I Y O 557

commerce. Before leaving office—and the Rikken Seiyūkai—in 1925, Takahashi

split his department into a ministry of agriculture and forestry, and a ministry
of commerce and industry.
His retirement from public life was short lived. As Japan grappled with an
economic depression, Takahashi returned to serve as minister of finance under
Prime Ministers Tanaka Giichi (April 1927 to July 1929), Inukai Tsuyoshi (De-
cember 1931 to May 1932), Saitō Makoto (May 1932 to July 1934), and Okada
Keisuke (elected July 8, 1934). Throughout that period, Takahashi’s efforts to
salvage the Japanese economy focused on reduction of military spending—a
policy that marked him among army and naval officers as one of the elements
“poisoning” Japan.
Prior to the fatal upheaval in February 1936, reactionary forces in the mili-
tary had attempted other coups. Eleven naval officers assassinated Prime Min-
ister Inukai on May 15, 1932, receiving 15-year prison terms after 350,000
citizens signed a leniency petition with their own blood. In November 1934,
two army offices and five cadets from the Imperial Military Academy tried an-
other coup. Sparse evidence prevented criminal convictions, but the leaders
were suspended, and the cadets were expelled. Nine months later, Lieutenant
Colonel Aizawa Saburō assassinated Major Nagata Tetsuzan, bureau chief of
Military Affairs of the Army, and was executed by a firing squad. Within that
atmosphere, the “February Incident” of 1936 seemed almost inevitable.
Following his murder, Takahashi received a posthumous elevation in
rank to Dai-kun’i kikka-shō (Grand Cordon of the Supreme Order of the
Chrysanthemum), comparable to Britain’s Order of the Garter. He was suc-
ceeded as minister of finance by Machida Chūji, former minister of com-
merce and industry. A monument to the victims of February 1936 presently
stands in Tokyo’s Shibuya district, at the site where the condemned rebels
were executed.

Further Reading
Harries, Meirion, and Susie Harries. Soldiers of the Sun: The Rise and Fall of the Imperial
Japanese Army. New York: Random House, 1991.
Myung Soo Cha, “Did Takahashi Korekiyo Rescue Japan from the Great Depression?”
Journal of Economic History 63 (March 2003): 127–44.
Nanto, Dick, and Shinji Takagi. “Korekiyo Takahashi and Japan’s Recovery from the
Great Depression.” American Economic Review 75 (May 1985): 369–74.
Shillony, Ben-Ami. Revolt in Japan: The Young Officers and the February 26, 1936 Incident.
Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1973.
Smethurst, Richard. From Foot Soldier to Finance Minister: Takahashi Korekiyo, Japan’s
Keynes. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007.
Toland, John. The Rising Sun: The Decline and Fall of the Japanese Empire 1936–1945.
New York: Random House, 1970.
558 TA R A K I, N U R M U H A M M A D

TARAKI, NUR MUHAMMAD (1917–1979)

On September 14, 1979, Afghani chief of state Nur Muhammad Taraki returned
to Kabul from Havana, Cuba, where he had attended a conference international
conference meant to ensure “the national independence, sovereignty, territo-
rial integrity and security of non-aligned countries” in their “struggle against
imperialism, colonialism, neo-colonialism, racism and all forms of foreign ag-
gression, occupation, domination, interference or hegemony as well as against
great power and bloc politics.” Hafizullah Amin, Taraki’s nominal second in
command, met Taraki at Kabul’s airport, where they quarreled over Taraki’s
proposal that Amin leave Afghanistan to serve as an ambassador abroad. The
next day, Taraki invited Amin to the presidential palace for a conciliatory lunch
with Taraki’s “Gang of Four”: General Mohammad Aslam Watanjar, Major Gen-
eral Sayed Mohammad Gulabzoy, Captain Sherjan Mazdoryar, and Air Force
Commander Assadullah Sarwari. Amin arrived with Major Sayed Daoud Ta-
rum, chief of Afghanistan’s security police, and an intelligence officer, Nawab
Ali. Taraki’s men opened fire on the guests, killing Tarum, but Amin escaped,
rallied troops, and returned to arrest Taraki. After a telephone conversation
with Soviet leader Leonid Brezhnev, Amin ordered Taraki’s execution, then re-
ported that he had died from illness.
Nur Muhammad Taraki was born at Ghazni, Afghanistan, to a Pashtun peas-
ant family, on July 15, 1917. He left home at 15, to work in Bombay, India
(now Mumbai), as a clerk for the Pashtun Trading Company. There, for the first
time, Taraki discovered communism through contact with the Surkh Posh (“Red
Shirt”) movement led by Khan Abdul Ghaffar Khan. Home again by 1937,
Taraki went to work for Minister of Finance Abdul Majid Zabuli, founder of
the Afghan National Bank. Taraki subsequently studied at Kabul University
and worked as a journalist before cofounding the People’s Democratic Party
of Afghanistan (PDPA) in January 1965. Delegates to the PDPA’s first congress
chose Taraki as their general secretary, but the party lacked sufficient num-
bers to secure him a parliamentary seat in that year’s election. In 1966, Taraki
launched the party’s newspaper, Khalq (“Masses”), but it was soon suppressed
by King Mohammed Zahir Shah.
Abolition of the monarchy in August 1973 placed President Mohammed
Daoud Khan in charge of the nation, but his harsh repression of dissent and his
regime’s pervasive nepotism failed to satisfy PDPA activists. On April 17, 1978,
suspected government agents assassinated party leader Mir Akbar Khyber. Fif-
teen thousand angry mourners staged a demonstration at his funeral, prompt-
ing a crackdown by President Daoud on PDPA leaders. On April 28, Taraki
and Hafizullah Amin led a coup d’état—commonly called the Saur Revolu-
tion, after the second month in the Persian calendar—and killed Daoud, with
most of his family. Minister of Defense Abdul Qadir Dagarwal served as interim
chairman of the Revolutionary Council of the Armed Forces—equivalent to
president—then ceded that office to Taraki on April 30.
TA S E E R , S A L M A A N 559

Taraki’s presidency was fraught with controversy from its beginning, marked
by a purge of PDPA officers whom he regarded as prospective rivals. His pro-
gram of agrarian reform, launched on January 1, 1979, generated anger when
family holdings were restricted, any excess acreage seized by the state without
compensation. Further implementation of Marxist programs clashed with tra-
ditional Afghan-Islamic values and threatened the power of local leaders, thus
breeding more enemies for the regime. In education, Taraki scrapped a 20-year
plan to wipe out illiteracy, created under President Daoud by the United Na-
tions Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization, declaring its curricu-
lum “rubbish” and replacing textbooks with PDPA leaflets. At the same time,
Taraki signed a Twenty-Year Treaty of Friendship with the Soviet Union that
expanded Russian aid to Afghanistan. Even so, Moscow found Taraki’s domes-
tic programs too radical, rejecting his plea for “practical and technical assis-
tance with men and armament.” Leonid Brezhnev personally warned Taraki
that arming Afghanistan “would only play into the hands of our enemies, both
yours and ours.”
Thus rebuffed, in September 1979 Taraki turned to Cuba’s Fidel Castro and
the growing Non-Aligned Movement, established in 1961 as the Conference
of Heads of State or Government of Non-Aligned Countries. Stopping briefly
in Moscow, on his return flight from Havana, Taraki met with Brezhnev and
other Soviet officials who, unknown to him, supported Hafizullah Amin’s plan
to depose Taraki. Once that object was achieved, however, matters quickly
went from bad to worse. Amin reportedly slaughtered dissidents by the tens of
thousands—some 27,000 at Kabul’s Pul-e-Charkhi Prison alone, and Soviet
troops intervened on December 24, 1979, eliminating Amin at the outset of a
nine-year occupation.
See also: Amin, Hafizullah (1929–1979).

Further Reading
Adamec, Ludwig. Historical Dictionary of Afghanistan. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press,
2011.
Dorronsoro, Gilles. Revolution Unending: Afghanistan, 1979 to the Present. London:
C. Hurst & Co., 2005.
Misdaq, Nabi. Afghanistan: Political Frailty and External Interference. New York: Taylor &
Francis, 2006.
Reddy, L. R. Inside Afghanistan: End of the Taliban Era? New Delhi: APH Publishing,
2002.

TASEER, SALMAAN (1944–2011)

On January 4, 2011, Punjab Province governor Salmaan Taseer met a friend
for lunch at the Koshar Market in Islamabad, Pakistan. He traveled with a
bodyguard, following threats from Muslim clerics, but the precaution did not
560 TA S E E R , SA L M A A N

save him. As Taseer returned to his car, one of those bodyguards—Malik

Mumtaz Qadri, an officer of the Elite Punjab Police—opened fire on Taseer
with his submachine gun, striking the governor 27 times. Qadri then dropped
his weapon and surrendered to colleagues at the scene, declaring that he shot
Taseer over the governor’s opposition to Pakistan’s criminal statute on blas-
phemy. Investigators linked Qadri to Dawat-i-Islami, described in media re-
ports as the world’s largest nonpolitical Muslim organization with members in
more than 150 countries. Admirers of Qadri rallied outside Rawalpindi’s Anti-
Terrorism Court before his trial, showering the gunman with rose petals. De-
spite that outpouring of public support, and continuing attacks on Taseer from
fundamentalist spokesmen, the court convicted Qadri and sentenced him to
death on October 1, 2011.
Salmaan Taseer was born on May 31, 1944, at Simla, in then-British India.
His parents came from Amritsar, in the state of Punjab, which became a part
of Pakistan with India’s partition in 1947. Taseer’s grandparents were peas-
ants, but his father had earned a PhD in England—the first native of India to
do so—and taught as a professor at Amritsar’s Aligarh Muslim University. Tas-
eer’s father died in 1950, leaving his wife and three children relatively well off.
Taseer studied at Lahore’s Saint Anthony School, where he was a classmate of
future prime minister Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif, and later studied ac-
counting in London.
Upon returning home, he joined the center-left Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP)
when it was formed by Zulfikar Ali Bhutto in November 1967. Taseer was ac-
tive in the party for the remainder of his life, serving as its information secre-
tary and as a close aide to future prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Opposition
to dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq was hazardous, landing Taseer in jail on
16 separate occasions. One arrest placed him in solitary confinement for six
months, shackled in a cell with meager rations, losing 40 pounds in custody.
Still, he persevered in defense of democratic socialism, challenging his home-
land’s rock-ribbed conservatism.
Taseer’s liberalism extended into his personal life. Twice married, with three
children from each union, he also enjoyed romantic affairs with Indian journal-
ist Tavleen Singh (who bore his son out of wedlock in 1980), and “Bollywood”
actress/director Simi Garewal. Despite those entanglements, in February 1981
Taseer found time to join Pakistan’s Movement for the Restoration of Democracy,
a coalition aimed at deposing dictator Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq. That campaign
culminated in August 1988 with Zia-ul-Haq’s death in a plane crash, believed by
some to have been an assassination. Before year’s end, Taseer won election to Pun-
jab’s Assembly as Deputy Opposition Leader. He subsequently sought a seat in the
National Assembly, but was defeated three times, in 1990, 1993, and 1997.
Never satisfied with politics alone, Taseer also built a successful business ca-
reer. In 1994, he founded First Capital Securities Corporation, a full-service
TA S E E R , S A L M A A N 561

brokerage house, which Taseer ran as chief executive officer. Two years later,
he filled the same position with a new firm, WorldCall, first operating a net-
work of public pay telephones, later expanding into a major media company
with broadband wireless, cable television, and other services. Oman Telecom-
munications Company purchased a majority share of WorldCall in May 2008.
Meanwhile, Taseer also operated Business Plus (Pakistan’s first English-language
news channel), Wikkid Plus (the first TV channel for children), and an English-
language newspaper, Lahore’s Daily Times.
In November 2007, caretaker Prime Minister Muhammad Mian Soomro
chose Taseer to serve as his interim federal minister for industries, production,
and special initiatives. Six months later, on May 15, 2008, a voters’ coalition
dominated by the PPP elected him as governor of Punjab, succeeding Lieu-
tenant General Khalid Maqbool Vohra. Already unpopular with conservative
Muslims, Taseer sparked controversy in June 2009, when Asia Bibi—a Chris-
tian woman living in the Sheikhupura District—was sentenced to death for
blasphemy against the Prophet Mohammed. Taseer joined Minister for Minori-
ties Affairs Clement Shahbaz Bhatti in condemning that sentence and the stat-
ute itself, passed by the National Assembly in 1986. Both men received death
threats, and Taseer reportedly left Pakistan briefly in December 2010, prompt-
ing Punjab Assembly Speaker Rana Muhammad Iqbal Khan to call for his re-
moval as governor under constitutional provision that barred a governor from
leaving the province.
That petition was still pending at the time of Taseer’s assassination in Janu-
ary 2011. Eight hours before his murder, Taseer posted a message on Twitter,
quoting a couplet from Urdu poet Shakeel Badayuni: “My resolve is so strong
that I do not fear the flames from without, I fear only the radiance of the flow-
ers, that it might burn my garden down.” Two months after Taseer’s murder,
on March 2, Shahbaz Bhatti also was slain by gunmen in Islamabad, outside
his mother’s home. On August 26, 2011, Taliban members kidnapped Shahbaz
Taseer, son of the murdered governor. Conflicting reports of his fate include an
announcement of his execution in June 2012, and a government claim from
January 2013 that negotiations for his safe release had reached “an advanced
stage.”
See also: Bhutto, Benazir (1953–2007).

Further Reading
Asghar, Mohammed. “Assassin Linked to Dawat-i-Islami.” Dawn ( January 5, 2011).
http://dawn.com/2011/01/05/assassin-linked-with-dawat-i-islami.
Bruillard, Karin. “Salman [sic] Taseer Assassination Points to Pakistani Extremists’
Mounting Power.” Washington Post ( January 5, 2011). http://www.washingtonpost
.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2011/01/04/AR2011010400955.html.
562 T I S Z A D E B O R O S J E N Ő E T S Z E G E D, I S T VÁ N

Hanif, Mohammed. “How Pakistan Responded to Salmaan Taseer’s Assassination.”

The Guardian (January 5, 2011). http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/jan/06/
pakistan-salman-taseer-assassination.
Hashim, Asad. “Deadly Warning to Pakistan Liberals.” Aljazeera ( January 7, 2011).
http://www.aljazeera.com/indepth/features/2011/01/2011141762235392.html.
“Salman [sic] Taseer Murder: Mumatz Qadri Sentenced to Death.” BBC (October 1,
2011). http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-15135502.

” ET SZEGED, ISTVÁN
TISZA DE BOROSJENO
(1861–1918)
On October 31, 1918, a gang of drunken deserters from the Hungarian army
stormed the home of ex-prime minister István Tisza, planning to arrest him on
a charge of starting World War I. When Tisza confronted the invaders, one of
them shot him at close range, wounding him fatally. Tisza’s assassination—the
fourth attempt on his life in six years—sparked the Aster (or Chrysanthemum)
Revolution, led by socialist Count Mihály Károlyi, which founded the short-
lived Hungarian Democratic Republic, placing the nation under communist
rule until March 1, 1920.
István Tisza de Borosjenő et Szeged was born in Pest, Hungary (the eastern
part of present-day Budapest), on April 22, 1861. His father, Count Kálmán
Tisza de Borosjenő, founded Hungary’s Liberal Party in 1875 and served as prime
minister from 1875 to 1890 (still a record for the country’s longest-serving head
of state). István studied law in Budapest, Berlin, and Heidelberg, before earning
a PhD in political science at England’s Oxford University in 1881. He spent the
next five years managing family estates at Geszt and Hajdú-Bihar, before win-
ning election to Hungary’s parliament as a Liberal Party member in 1886.
Tisza received the title of count in 1897, while serving as president of the
Hungarian Industrial and Commercial Bank and sitting on the directorial
boards of various corporations. Not surprisingly, in business and in politics
he favored right-wing policies, opposing agrarian reform movements and sup-
porting restriction of suffrage to the wealthiest 10 percent of Hungary’s popu-
lation. His first term as prime minister, from November 3, 1903, to June 18,
1905, was notable for Tisza’s suppression of a railroad workers’ strike and a
police assault on a Socialist Party gathering in Bihar, which left 33 persons
dead and several hundred injured. His defeat in 1905 sprang from an ill-
advised attempt to muzzle opposition spokesmen by amending rules of parlia-
mentary procedure, an overreaching that prompted high-level defections from
the Liberal Party.
Still a member of parliament, Tisza founded a new Nemzeti Munkapárt (Na-
tional Party of Work) in February 1910, which carried the year’s parliamentary
elections. His elevation to serve as Speaker of the House of Representatives
on May 22, 1912, sparked Socialist protest demonstrations memorialized as
T I S Z A D E B O R O S J E N Ő E T S Z E G E D , I S T V Á N 563

“Blood Red Thursday” for the harsh police response that left six dead and 300
incarcerated. Sixteen days later, on June 7, opposition party member Gyula
Kovács tried to kill Tisza in parliament, missing him with three pistol shots,
then failing in an attempt to commit suicide. At trial, Kovács was acquitted on
grounds of insanity. Despite such animosity, Tisza was elected to a second term
as prime minister in June 1913, retaining that post for four years.
His second term in office coincided with the assassination of Archduke
Franz Ferdinand in Sarajevo and the outbreak of World War I. Prior to Fer-
dinand’s murder, Tisza had opposed Serbian demands for independence from
Austria-Hungary, but after the slaying he argued against military action, fear-
ing that war would doom the Hungarian monarchy. Once battle was joined,
Tisza passed new laws restricting freedom of speech and association, further
obstructing moves toward universal suffrage proposed by the apostolic king
of Hungary and emperor of Austria, Charles I. During the war, Tisza was also
dogged by charges of forced Magyarization against Hungary’s ethnic minori-
ties. Ongoing conflict with King Charles forced Tisza’s resignation as prime
minister on May 23, 1917.
A short time later, he visited the nearest battlefront and nearly lost his life,
when a disaffected soldier fired a rifle shot at him and missed. The third at-
tempt on Tisza’s life occurred on October 16, 1918, when János Lékai—a
member of the antiwar Galilei Circle led by communist Ottó Korvin—lay in
wait for Tisza outside parliament. Lékai’s revolver misfired and he was arrested,
sentenced to prison, then freed two weeks later during the Aster Revolution.
President Mihály Károlyi’s government pretended to investigate Tisza’s as-
sassination, but professed itself unable to identify the killers. Tisza’s family en-
countered no such difficulty once the communist regime collapsed, naming
the men responsible as Sándor Hüttner, Pál Kéri, József Pogány, Tivadar Hor-
váth Sanovics, and Tibor Sztanykovszky. Sanovics fled the country after Tisza’s
murder and was never apprehended. Hüttner, Kéri, and Sztanykovszky were
convicted of murder at trial in October 1921, receiving 18-year prison terms.
Kéri was subsequently freed in a prisoner exchange with the Soviet Union;
Hüttner died in custody, in 1923; and Sztanykovszky was paroled in 1938.
József Pogány enjoyed a life of intrigue and adventure after Tisza’s assassi-
nation, emerging as a leader of the Budapest Soldiers’ Soviet. In March 1919,
he supported Béla Kun’s rise to lead a new Hungarian Soviet Republic and was
named to serve as the People’s Commissar of War. Internal dissension within
the Communist Party saw Pogány demoted in April 1919 to Deputy People’s
Commissar of Foreign Affairs, then moved once more, to become People’s
Commissar of Education. A proponent of “Red Terror” in Hungary, Pogány
fled to Austria when Admiral Miklós Horthy deposed the communist regime
and reestablished Hungary’s monarchy in March 1920. A year later, he tried to
foment revolution in Germany, then traveled to the United States as an agent
564 TJ I BAO U, J E A N - M A R I E

of the Communist International (Comintern) in July 1922, under the name

“John Pepper.” Conflict with party leader William Foster prompted Pepper’s
recall to Moscow in 1925, where he chaired the Comintern’s Information De-
partment. In July 1927, Pepper was elected to head the Presidium of the Co-
mintern’s Executive Committee, but he ran afoul of dictator Josef Stalin two
years and was removed from office. Stalin’s secret police arrested him in July
1937, on charges of “participation in a counter-revolutionary organization,”
and he was executed on February 8, 1938. The Military Collegium of the Su-
preme Court posthumously “rehabilitated” Pepper in May 1956, during the
Soviet Union’s process of de-Stalinization.
See also: Franz Ferdinand (1863–1914).

Further Reading
Deak, Istvan. “The Decline and Fall of Habsburg Hungary, 1914–18.” In Hungary in
Revolution. Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.
Kann, Robert. A History of the Habsburg Empire, 1526–1918. Berkeley: University of
California Press, 1974.
Menczer, Bela. “Bela Kun and the Hungarian Revolution of 1919.” History Today 19
(May 1969): 299–309.
Vermes, Gabor. “The October Revolution in Hungary.” In Hungary in Revolution. Lin-
coln: University of Nebraska Press, 1971.

TJIBAOU, JEAN-MARIE (1936–1989)

On May 4, 1989, Jean-Marie Tjibaou, leader of New Caledonia’s Kanak and So-
cialist National Liberation Front (FLNKS), visited Ouvéa with his chief lieuten-
ant, Yeiwéné Yeiwéné. A Kanak tribal extremist, Djubelly Wéa, killed both men
with close-range gunfire and was instantly gunned down by one of Tjibaou’s
bodyguards. The shooting capped a 13-year period of sporadic violence by
Kanaks who sought independence from French rule over New Caledonia, first
imposed in 1853.
Jean-Marie Tjibaou was born on January 30, 1936, at Tiendanite, on New
Caledonia. His father a chief of the Kanak (formerly Canaque) tribe, indig-
enous Melanesian inhabitants of an archipelago east of Australia, including
Grand Terre, Belep, the Isle of Pines, and the six Loyalty Islands. After educa-
tion in Catholic schools and seminaries from age nine, Tjibaou was ordained as
a priest in 1965 and sent to work as an army chaplain at Bourail, in New Cale-
donia’s South Province. From there, in 1966, he was promoted to second vicar
at St. Joseph’s Cathedral in Noumea. The cathedral’s first vicar, Jacob Kapéta,
doubled as chaplain for the Caledonian Union, a party seeking independence
from France, who involved Tjibaou in the group’s political work.
TJIBAOU, JEAN-MARIE 565

New Caledonian politician Jean-Marie Tjibaou, shot by tribal extremists in 1989. (AFP/
Getty Images)

Motivated by that experience, and his ongoing work with poor tribesmen,
Tjibaou left New Caledonia in 1968, to study sociology at the Catholic Univer-
sity of Lyon, then pursued courses in ethnology in 1970, under anthropologist
Jean Guiart at the Practical School of Higher Studies, also in Lyon. His father
died that year, while Tjibaou was writing his thesis on adaptation of traditional
Kanak society in the modern world, and Tjibaou subsequently renounced his
religious vocation, choosing social activism instead with the comment that “it
is impossible for a priest in this area to take a position, for example in favor of
the restitution of land to the Kanak people.”
In that same year, 1971, Tjibaou joined New Caledonia’s Territorial Admin-
istration as a teacher, there encountering his future wife, Marie-Claude Wetta.
Two years later, he also joined the Union of Native Caledonian Friends of
Liberty and Order, created by the Catholic Church in 1946 to eliminate dis-
crimination against indigenous natives as a means of frustrating communist
agitation among them. In September 1975, Tjibaou organized the first Melane-
sian arts festival, dubbed Melanesia 2000, despite opposition from the French-
dominated Caledonian Union and the newly created radical separatist Kanak
Liberation Party. Taking the final step from advocacy to political candidacy in
Mach 1977, Tjibaou won election as mayor of Hienghène, running a separatist
campaign under the slogan Maxha Hienghen (“Raise Your Head”). Two months
566 TJ I BAO U, J E A N - M A R I E

later, at the Caledonian Union’s congress in Bourail, Tjibaou was elected as the
party’s vice president.
In June 1979, on the eve of territorial elections, Tjibaou helped organize
a new Independence Front (FI), forging a tenuous alliance of five competing
nationalist groups. Together, they led the field with 63 percent of the popular
votes, winning five of seven available parliamentary seats. Three years later,
the FI coalition outnumbered opposition members in the Territorial Assembly,
with Tjibaou elected as vice president of New Caledonia’s Governing Council,
but the island’s French masters still resisted any substantive move toward in-
dependence. In September 1984, with Tjibaou’s blessing, the FI transformed
itself into the more radical FLNKS.
Tjibaou still favored a peaceful road to independence, including a boycott
of territorial elections scheduled for November 1984, but others in the FLNKS
disagreed. A militant faction led by Yann Céléné Uregei sought aid from Libyan
dictator Muammar Gaddafi. Violence erupted for the first time on December 5,
1984, when a party of Caldoches (New Caledonians of European ancestry) fired
on a party of Kanaks at Hienghène, killing 10 persons. Trial of the gunmen took
three years, resulting in acquittal by an all-white jury on October 27, 1987.
Before that case was concluded, FLNKS militants retaliated, killing young
Caldoche Yves Tual on January 11, 1985. That, in turn, sparked anti-independence
riots in Noumea, and French antiterrorist troops killed FLNKS member Eloi
Machoro near La Foa. Tjibaou still persisted in calls for nonviolence, peti-
tioning the United Nations for help. In December 1986, three-fifths of the
UN’s General Assembly supported a resolution affirming “the inalienable right
of the people of New Caledonia to self-determination and independence,”
adding New Caledonia to a list of nonautonomous territories deserving full
recognition.
Still, the UN took no further action and Kanak impatience simmered on
the island. On April 22, 1988, in the midst of a French presidential election,
FLNKS stormed a police station at Fayoué, on the island of Ouvea, killing four
officers and taking 27 hostages. Elite troops were dispatched from France, and
after questioning—some say torturing—relatives of the hostage-takers, staged
a rescue attempt on May 5, killing 19 FLNKS members and losing two of their
own. Witnesses later claimed that some prisoners were either summarily ex-
ecuted after the assault.
A month later, Tjibaou proposed a referendum to decide the issue of inde-
pendence, but no action had been taken at the time of his assassination. One
day after Tjibaou was killed, French prime minister Lionel Jospin signed the
Noumea Accord, providing for a referendum on the independence issue to
be held sometime between 2014 and 2019, while granting additional auton-
omy to the island. Under terms of the accord, if the president of New Caledo-
nia’s Governing Council was a person who was opposed to independence from
T O L B E R T, W I L L I A M R I C H A R D , J R . 567

France, the vice president must be an activist in favor of independence. As this

work went to press, the referendum had not been held.

Further Reading
Spencer, Michael, and Alan Ward. New Caledonia: Essays in Nationalism and Depen-
dency. Brisbane, Australia: University of Queensland Press, 1989.
Tjibaou, Jean-Marie. Jean-Marie Tjibaou: Kanaky. Canberra, Australia: Pandanus
Books, 2007.
Waddell, Eric. Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Kanak Witness to the World: An Intellectual Biogra-
phy. Honolulu, HI: Center for Pacific Islands Studies, 2008.

T OL B E R T , W ILLIAM R IC H ARD, JR. (1913–1 9 8 0 )

On April 12, 1980, Master Sergeant Samuel Doe led 17 soldiers of the Liberian
army in a coup d’état against President William Tolbert Jr. Storming the presi-
dential palace in Monrovia, the rebels killed Tolbert and 27 others, dumping
their corpses together in a mass grave nearby. Mobs of angry Liberians gath-
ered to curse and hurl stones at the bodies before they were finally covered.
Conflicting reports of Tolbert’s death agree that he was caught sleeping by the
attackers; some reports claiming he was shot in his office, and others say he was
surprised in bed and killed there, perhaps disemboweled by Samuel Doe per-
sonally. In any case, the first day’s violence, followed by successive roundups
and executions expunged the leadership of Tolbert’s unpopular regime.
William Tolbert was born in Bensonville, Liberia, on May 13, 1913, the grand-
son of former slave Daniel Frank Tolbert, who joined 205 others in the April
1878 Liberian exodus from South Carolina. Founded in 1821 by the American
Colonization Society, Liberia was conceived as a haven for liberated slaves—and
hailed after the Civil War, by white supremacists, as a destination for Ameri-
can freedmen going “back to Africa.” Transplanted African Americans produced
their own Declaration of Independence and constitution in July 1847, banning
foreign trade with inland tribes in 1865 and refusing citizenship to indigenous
Africans until 1904.
Tolbert enjoyed a privileged existence as a member of one of Liberia’s larg-
est Americo-Liberian families. He attended elementary school and high school
in Bensonville, then graduated summa cum laude from the University of Liberia
in 1934. Ordained as a Baptist minister, he entered politics in 1943, winning
election to the House of Representatives. Nine years later, he took office as
vice president under President William Tubman—himself a Methodist minis-
ter and relative of American “Underground Railway” heroine Harriet Tubman.
In 1965, Tolbert became the first African to serve as president of the Bap-
tist World Alliance. President Tubman died in a London hospital on July 23,
1971, whereupon Tolbert succeeded him.
568 T O L B E R T, W I L L I A M R I C H A R D, J R .

Many world leaders viewed the peaceful transition of power with re-
lief, failing to recognize Liberia as a de facto one-party state. Likewise, its
constitution—written with the U.S. model in mind—failed to prevent the
government’s executive branch from dominating the legislative and judi-
cial branches in a virtual dictatorship. President Tolbert did permit creation
of the country’s first opposition party since 1878, but he still won reelec-
tion easily in 1975, although his claims of “liberal” reform left indigenous
ethnic groups economically subjugated to a minority of Americo-Liberians.
Nepotism determined many of his cabinet appointments, and half-hearted
efforts to include indigenous people in the governing process evoked pro-
tests against “radical” change from Americo-Liberians. It came as a surprise
to some, therefore, when Tolbert promulgated a constitutional amendment
limiting himself and future presidents to eight years in office.
In foreign policy, Tolbert also reversed his predecessor’s stolid alliance with
the West. Although supporting the U.S. involvement in Vietnam, he paradoxi-
cally forged trade agreements with Cuba, the People’s Republic of China, the
Soviet Union, and other Warsaw Pact nations. During the October 1973 Yom
Kippur War, Tolbert severed diplomatic relations with Israel and called for rec-
ognition of an Arab state in Palestine. That relatively independent status played
well in Africa at the time, as did Tolbert’s May 1975 signing of a treaty creating
the Economic Community of West African States. Such efforts led to Tolbert’s
election as chairman of the Organization of African Unity (OAU) in July 1979,
a post he held until he was assassinated nine months later.
Despite Tolbert’s best efforts, Liberia’s economy still suffered in the face of
depressed rubber prices worldwide. New problems arose in April 1979, when
Minister of Agriculture Florence Chenoweth proposed an increase in gov-
ernment subsidies to rice farmers. Critics quickly noted that the $4 increase
per 100 pounds of rice would personally enrich the Tolbert clan—and
Chenoweth—via their own huge rice farms. The Progressive Alliance of Libe-
ria (PAL) scheduled peaceful protests in Monrovia for April 14, but the 2,000
party marchers found themselves outnumbered five to one by local hooligans,
resulting in a riot that left 40 persons dead, more than 500 injured, with prop-
erty damage exceeding $40 million. Eleven months later, Tolbert banned the
PAL, arresting leader Gabriel Baccus Matthews and most of his fellow officers
on charges of treason. They would be liberated following the April coup, with
Matthews chosen to serve as foreign minister under President Samuel Doe.
Following Tolbert’s murder on April 12, 1980, most his cabinet members
were held for trial by a military court and sentenced to death; they were ex-
ecuted by a firing squad in Monrovia 10 days after the coup. One who survived
was Minister of Finance Ellen Johnson Sirleaf, who would be elected president
of Liberia in 2005, and again in 2011. In 2011, Sirleaf also received a Nobel
Peace Prize—shared with Leymah Gbowee of Liberia and Tawakkol Karman of
T O M B A L B AY E , F R A N Ç O I S 569

Yemen—“for their non-violent struggle for the safety of women and for wom-
en’s rights to full participation in peace-building work.”
See also: Doe, Samuel Kanyon (1951–1990).

Further Reading
Gray, Beverly. Liberia during the Tolbert Era: A Guide. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan
Library, 1983.
Hlophe, Stephen. Class Ethnicity and Politics in Liberia: A Class Analysis of Power Strug-
gles in the Tubman and Tolbert Administrations From, 1944–1975. Lanham, MD: Uni-
versity Press of America, 1979.
Levitt, Jeremy. The Evolution of Deadly Conflict in Liberia: From ‘Paternaltarianism’ to
State Collapse. Durham, NC: Carolina Academic Press, 2005.
Olukoju, Ayodeji. Culture and Customs of Liberia. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press,
2006.
Sankawulo, Wilton. Tolbert of Liberia. Denver: Ardon Press, 1979.
Williams, Gabriel. Liberia: The Heart of Darkness. Victoria, BC: Trafford, 2002.

TOMBALBAYE, FRANÇOIS (1918–1975)

On March 23, 1975, Chadian president François Tombalbaye launched his
third purge of the nation’s military, ordering the arrest of General Negue
Djogo, the army’s chief of staff, and several lower-ranking officers. On April 2,
Tombalbaye went further, striking at the national gendarmerie’s Chadian Se-
curity Company, with the arrests of its commander, Colonel Djimet, and his
second in command, Major Alphonse Kotiga. Both officers were charged with
permitting captured members of the National Liberation Front of Chad (FRO-
LINAT) to escape from their custody. On April 13, a band of gendarmerie sol-
diers led by a Lieutenant Dimtolaum, drove 35 miles from their barracks in
Boraho to the capital at N’Djamena, to storm the presidential palace. President
Tombalbaye was fatally wounded in the ensuing battle and died later that day,
after a ceasefire was achieved. Journalists on the scene reported thousands of
Chadians thronging the capital’s streets, dancing and cheering, “Tombalbaye
is dead!”
François Tombalbaye was born near Koumara, in the Moyen-Chari Prefec-
ture of southern Chad, on June 15, 1918. He was a member of the Sara (or ka-
meeni) people, Chad’s largest ethnic group. At the time of Tombalbaye’s birth,
Chad was part of French Equatorial Africa, viewed chiefly as a source of cotton
and unskilled labor for more productive colonies to the south. French admin-
istrators made no effort to unify or modernize the territory, seemingly satisfied
to a vague semblance of law and order. By the time Chadian lieutenant gover-
nor Félix Éboué led the rest of French Equatorial Africa to support Free French
troops in World War II, Tombalbaye was employed as a teacher. After the war,
570 T O M B A L B AY E , F R A N Ç O I S

he emerged as a trade union activist and member of the Chadian Progressive

Party (PPT), founded in February 1947.
After initial opposition from France, PPT founder Gabriel Lisette led the
party to victory in 1957’s Territorial Assembly elections, rising to become vice
president of the Governing Council in May 1957, then president in July 1958.
On February 11, 1959, after a parliamentary vote of no confidence, Lisette re-
signed, succeeded by François Tombalbaye on March 26. When Chad achieved
full independence from France on August 11, 1960, Tombalbaye remained as
head of state. At the same time, while Lisette was traveling abroad, Tombalbaye
expelled him from the PPT, declared him a noncitizen, and forbade him from
returning to the country.
Thus began the regime characterized by autocratic rule and distrust of dem-
ocratic institutions, coupled with political isolation of Muslims in Chad. Tom-
balbaye banned all parties but the PPT in January 1962, then used Muslim
riots in N’Djamena as an excuse for dissolving the National Assembly in Sep-
tember 1963. At the same time, he created a special court to try real and imag-
ined political opponents, filling Chadian prisons with those he suspected of
plotting against him. A new National Assembly, convened in June 1964, gave
Tombalbaye total control over all appointments to the PPT’s Political Bureau,
recognized as the sole source of political authority nationwide. Tombalbaye
also nationalized the civil service, replacing French administrators with na-
tive Chadians loyal to his party, funded by increased taxes under a scheme a
dubbed the “National Loan.”
The rationale behind those moves, as Tombalbaye explained it, was “Afri-
canization” of Chad. In fact, however, he ignored the large Muslim population
of northern and southern Chad, while favoring his fellow Sara tribesmen of
the south, of whom 6 percent were Christians and 94 percent traditional ani-
mists. Riots in Guéra Prefecture, populated chiefly by Arabs and related Hadje-
rai peoples, claimed 500 lives in November 1965, spreading to other districts
with encouragement from Chad’s Islamic neighbors, Libya and Sudan. By June
1966, guerrillas from the FROLINAT were staging regular assaults on Chad
from their bases in Sudan, prompting Tombalbaye to request French military
intervention in 1968. France agreed in 1969, after Tombalbaye agreed to vari-
ous reforms, including liberation of political prisoners, repeal of various ar-
bitrary laws and taxes, and restoration of tax-collecting privileges to regional
sultans (who kept 10 percent of the monies collected).
Despite those changes, Tombalbaye still ran unopposed for reelection in
1969, and liberalization ground to a halt in August 1971, after Libyan dicta-
tor Muammar Gaddafi sponsored an abortive coup d’état against Tombalbaye.
Tombalbaye retaliated by severing diplomatic relations with Libya, jailing some
of his top army officers, and granting anti-Gaddafi insurgents permission to
operate inside Chad. Gaddafi, in turn, formally recognized FROLINAT, and
T O M B A L B AY E , F R A N Ç O I S 571

the cross-border raiding continued. At home, facing a catastrophic drought

and student protests, Tombalbaye rescinded his amnesty for political prison-
ers, jailing some 1,000 dissidents in 1972. When Army Chief of Staff Jacques
Doumro proved unequal to that task, Tombalbaye replaced him with General
Céliix Malloum.
None of those measures made Tombalbaye feel secure. In June 1973, he
jailed General Malloum and other officers in a round-up dubbed the “Black
Sheep Plot” (see sidebar). Two months later, Tombalbaye dissolved the PPT, re-
placing it with a new party called the National Movement for the Cultural and
Social Revolution. The motto of that new movement was authenticité, derisively
labeled “Chaditude” by some observers, which accelerated Tombalbaye’s bid to
“Africanize” Chad. The regime denounced Christianity, expelled Western mis-
sionaries, and required all non-Muslim males between the ages of 16 and 50
to undergo traditional animist initiation rites (yondo) before obtaining promo-
tion in the army or civil service. Outside of Tombalbaye’s own Sara clan, most
Chadians viewed those rituals as oppressive, and they were further angered
by compulsory “volunteer” service in cotton production, striving to rescue ex-
ports in the face of a worsening drought.

“BLACK SHEEP PLOT”

In June 1973, President François Tombalbaye ordered the arrest of some
two dozen political opponents, accused of plotting a coup d’état against
the government of Chad. The alleged conspiracy was dubbed the “Black
Sheep Plot,” because suspects were charged with practicing “political sor-
cery” against Tombalbaye by means of animal sacrifices. Chief among
those jailed was Colonel Félix Malloum Ngakoutou Bey-Ndi, chief of
staff for the Chadian army and a high-ranking member of the dominant
Chadian Progressive Party (PPT). No proof of the supposed plot was ever
produced, but Colonel Malloum remained in custody until April 1975,
when an actual coup deposed and killed Tombalbaye. Malloum subse-
quently served as president of Chad, from August 1978 to March 1979,
then resigned and spend the next 23 years in exile, in Nigeria. Returning
to Chad in May 2002, Malloum was granted various benefits as an ex-
president, including a home, two chauffeured cars, and a monthly sti-
pend of 3 million Central African CFA (Communauté Financière Africaine
[“African Financial Community”]) francs ($6,134). (The two currencies
used in Africa, guaranteed by the French treasury, are Central African
CFA francs and West African CFA francs.) Malloum died from cardiac ar-
rest on June 12, 2009, at the American Hospital in Paris, France.
572 T R O T S K Y, L E O N

Following the fatal coup of April 13, 1975, victorious rebels announced that
they had “exercised their responsibilities before God and the nation.” General
Malloum emerged from prison to lead a nine-man military junta on April 15,
jailing most of Tombalbaye’s men, dissolving all political parties and the Na-
tional Assembly. Ironically, because Malloum was also a member of the Sara
ethnic group, his ascension changed little in terms of Tombalbaye’s govern-
ing policies. Discontent among Muslims continued, as did the FROLINAT
rebellion.
See also: Gaddafi, Muammar (1942–2011).

Further Reading
Azevedo, Mario. The Roots of Violence: A History of War in Chad. London: Routledge,
1998.
Burr, J. Millard, and Robert Collins. Africa’s Thirty Years’ War: Chad, Libya, and the
Sudan, 1963–1993. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1999.
Decalo, Samuel. Africa: The Lost Decades. Gainesville: Florida Academic Press, 2012.
Decalo, Samuel. Historical Dictionary of Chad. Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1997.
Powell, Nathaniel. “The ‘Claustre Affair’: A Hostage Crisis, France, and Civil War in
Chad, 1974–1977.” In An International History of Terrorism: Western and Non-Western
Experiences. London: Routledge, 2013.
Reyna, S. P. “A Cold War Story: The Barbarization of Chad (1966–91).” In The State,
Identity and Violence: Political Disintegration in the Post-Cold War World. London:
Routledge, 2003.

TROTSKY, LEON (1879–1940)

On August 20, 1940, Spanish communist Jaime Ramón Mercader del Río vis-
ited exiled Russian revolutionary Leon Trotsky at his home in the Coyoacán
borough of Mexico City. Posing as a Canadian called “Frank Jackson,” Mer-
cader had befriended Trotsky while serving as an agent of the Soviet secret
police, acting on orders from dictator Josef Stalin to kill Trotsky “within a year.”
That Tuesday, Mercader carried an ice axe under his coat, striking Trotsky on
the head, but the blow failed to kill Trotsky outright. A struggle ensued, with
Trotsky’s loyal bodyguards nearly killing Mercader before Trotsky restrained
them. Trotsky died at a local hospital on August 21, his last words reported as,
“Stalin has finally accomplished the task he attempted unsuccessfully before.”
Mercader was convicted of murder and sentenced to 20 years in prison.
Leon Trotsky was born Lev Davidovich Bronshtein, the fifth son of affluent
Jewish-Ukrainian farmers, on November 7, 1879. At age nine, his parents sent
him to school in Odessa, where he learned French in addition to Ukrainian
and Russian. He discovered Marxism at 17, after moving to Nikolayev (now
Mykolaiv), in southern Ukraine, where he studied mathematics and helped
T R O T S K Y, L E O N 573

organize the South Russian

Workers’ Union. Arrested with
200 other members in Janu-
ary 1898, Bronshtein spent two
years in custody awaiting trial,
but was not idle in the mean-
time. In jail, he studied philos-
ophy, married fellow Marxist
Aleksandra Sokolovskaya, and
joined the Russian Social Dem-
ocratic Labor Party (RSDLP).
At trial in 1900, Bronshtein was
sentenced to four years exile in
Siberia.
Bronshtein escaped from Si-
beria in the summer of 1902,
traveling as “Leon Trotsky,”
a name lifted from one of his
Odessa jailers. He fled Russia
for London, where he joined Soviet assassins murdered exiled revolutionary
the staff of the Russian-language Leon Trotsky in Mexico City. (Getty Images)
newspaper, Iskra (“The Spark”).
Iskra’s editors, at the time, were divided between “old guard” revolutionaries
led by Georgi Plekhanov (exiled since 1880 and opposed to terrorism), and a
“new guard” led by younger, more radical Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. Trotsky ini-
tially sided with Lenin, but a rift developed after the second RSDLP congress,
held between July 30 and August 23, 1903. Over the course of that protracted
meeting, the party split between Lenin’s Bolsheviks (“majority”) and the Men-
sheviks (“minority”) led by Julius Martov. Trotsky first sided with Martov, then
switched to the Bolshevik side in September 1904 and spent the next 13 years
striving to reunite the party.
Trotsky returned to Russia in February 1905, shortly after tsarist troops
massacred 96 striking workers (some reports say 1,000) in Saint Petersburg.
His publications proved no more popular with the tsar than they had in 1898,
and Trotsky fled to Finland in May 1905, one step ahead of the secret police.
In hiding for the next five months, until he surfaced in Moscow to publish the
Russian Gazette and launch Nachalo (“The Beginning”) with the Mensheviks,
Trotsky developed his philosophy of “permanent revolution” beyond the scope
of Marxism, in countries that had not achieved advanced capitalism.
In December 1905, as chairman of the first Soviet (“Council”) of Workers,
Trotsky published a statement that Russia’s monarchy “was never granted any
authority by the people” and was, in fact, “openly engaged in a war with the
574 T R O T S K Y, L E O N

entire people.” Arrested the following day, Trotsky was convicted in 1906 of
supporting armed rebellion, and was sentenced once again to Siberian exile.
This time, he escaped before reaching his destination, in January 1907, and
returned briefly to London before settling in Vienna, where he joined the So-
cial Democratic Party of Austria and made occasional forays into neighboring
Germany. Between October 1908 and April 1912, with fellow revolutionar-
ies, Trotsky published the newspaper Pravda (“Truth”), primarily for Russian
workers.
Tension between the Bolsheviks and Mensheviks escalated during the years
before World War I, as Lenin’s group participated in “expropriations”—armed
robberies—to finance their cause. A “unification” meeting chaired by Trotsky
in January 1912 failed to bridge the divide, and Trotsky departed for the Bal-
kans as a war correspondent nine months later. Back in Vienna by August
1914, when Austria-Hungary went to war with Russia, Trotsky fled to Swit-
zerland, fearing arrest as an enemy alien. November found him in France as a
war correspondent for Nashe Slovo (“Our Word”), promoting the slogan “peace
without indemnities or annexations, peace without conquerors or conquered.”
Lenin, meanwhile, called for Russia’s defeat as a means of unseating the tsar.
French authorities deported Trotsky to Spain in March 1916, for his oppo-
sition to the war; Spain in turn deported him to the United States on Christ-
mas Day. Arriving in New York City on January 13, 1917, Trotsky spent three
months writing for Novy Mir (“New World”) and Des Forverts (“The Forward”),
thereby missing the February Revolution that finally deposed Tsar Nicholas II.
Attempting to reach Russia in March, Trotsky was detained for a month in Can-
ada, then released on April 29. June saw him elected to the first All-Russian
Central Executive Committee of the new Russian Soviet Federative Socialist Re-
public, but he was arrested in Petrograd (formerly Saint Petersburg) on August 7
and spent 40 days in jail after General Lavr Kornilov, commander in chief of
the Russian army, led an abortive rebellion against the Russian Provisional Gov-
ernment led by Alexander Kerensky. Kerensky, in turn, was unseated by Len-
in’s Bolsheviks on November 7, with Trotsky ranked as second in command of
Russia’s latest revolution.
Lenin rewarded Trotsky’s service by appointing him as People’s Commis-
sar for Foreign Affairs, in which post Trotsky joined in peace negotiations at
Brest-Litovsk, marking Russia’s exit from the war in February 1918. Trotsky
then resigned his diplomatic post to serve as People’s Commissar of Army and
Navy Affairs, commanding Russia’s new Red Army during the Russian Civil War
against the anticommunist “White Guard” led by Alexander Kolchak. Jealous
rival Josef Stalin rallied opposition against Trotsky’s leadership but failed to oust
him from command. Upon defeat of the White Guard, Trotsky received the
Order of the Red Banner, then moved on to rebuilding Russia’s war-ravaged
economy and railroad network. Once again, tension flared between Lenin and
T R O T S K Y, L E O N 575

Trotsky over Trotsky’s plan to create a “new regime” of militant trade unions, cli-
maxed by victory for Lenin’s faction at the Tenth Party Congress in March 1921.
By then, however, Lenin was in poor health, plagued by a series of strokes
that sidelined him from May 1922 onward, finally killing him in January 1924.
Trotsky was expected to succeed him, but Stalin subverted his election by the
Politburo through political maneuvers and rumors that Trotsky suffered from
epilepsy. Publicly declaring that “the Party is always right,” Trotsky retreated
from active political life to focus on writing until 1926, when he joined in a
“New Opposition” to Stalin’s increasingly dictatorial rule. At the end of January
1928, Trotsky was exiled to Kazakhstan, then deported to Turkey in February
1929. France granted him asylum in 1933, then expelled him two years later,
whereupon Trotsky settled briefly in Norway, then moved on to Mexico City.
He might have survived in exile, but for his continued prolific writings, in-
cluding a History of the Russian Revolution (1930) and a critique of Stalin titled
The Revolution Betrayed (1936). Of Stalin’s party purges in the Great Depression,
Trotsky said, “The Moscow trials are perpetuated under the banner of social-
ism. We will not concede this banner to the masters of falsehood! . . . Neither
threats nor persecutions nor violations can stop us! Be it even over our bleaching
bones the future will triumph! We will blaze the trail for it. It will conquer!” In
1939, Trotsky visited the United States as a witness before the Dies Commit-
tee, forerunner of the House Committee on Un-American Activities, describing
Soviet secret police harassment of his family and friends. The American Com-
munist Party retaliated by branding him an agent of the Federal Bureau of In-
vestigation and wealthy oil interests.
Trotsky’s long-distance criticism was more than Stalin could bear. In March
1939, Stalin reportedly gave orders that “Trotsky should be eliminated within
a year.” The first attempt missed that deadline, occurring on May 24, when
would-be assassins Iosif Grigulevich, David Alfaro Siqueiros, and Vittorio Vi-
dale staged a raid on Trotsky’s home, shooting his grandson in the foot and
abducting a bodyguard, Robert Harte, whom they murdered. The second at-
tempt, by Jaime Mercader del Río three months later, proved successful.
Stalin was grateful, awarding Mercader’s mother the Order of Lenin for her
part in the plot against Trotsky. Paroled from prison in May 1960, Mercader
was welcomed in Cuba by Fidel Castro, then moved to Russia in 1961, receiv-
ing the country’s highest decoration, Hero of the Soviet Union. He spent the
rest of his life traveling between Russia and Cuba. Mercader died in Havana on
October 18, 1978, and was buried at Moscow’s Kuntsevo Cemetery. He is hon-
ored by a plaque at the Museum of Security Services, on Moscow’s Lubyanka
Square. Trotsky’s former home in Coyoacán is today preserved as a museum.
Publication of his writings was forbidden in the Soviet Union until 1989. He
was formally “rehabilitated” by order of the Russian General Prosecutor’s Office
on June 16, 2001.
576 T R U J I L L O M O L I N A , R A FA E L L E O N I DA S

See also: Nicholas II (1868–1918).

Further Reading
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Armed: Trotsky 1879–1921. London: Oxford University
Press, 1954.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Outcast: Trotsky 1929–1940. London: Oxford University
Press, 1963.
Deutscher, Isaac. The Prophet Unarmed: Trotsky 1921–1929. London: Oxford University
Press, 1959.
Patenaude, Bertrand. Downfall of a Revolutionary. New York City: HarperCollins, 2009.
Service, Robert. Trotsky: A Biography. New York: Macmillan, 2009.
Wistrich, Robert. Trotsky: Fate of a Revolutionary. New York: Stein & Day, 1982.

TRUJILLO MOLINA, RAFAEL LEONIDAS

(1891–1961)
On May 30, 1961, dictator Rafael Trujillo was ambushed by rebels on San
Cristóbal Highway in Ciudad Trujillo, capital of the Dominican Republic (now
Santo Domingo). Shots from several weapons, including three M1 carbines
later traced back to the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency, killed Trujillo in-
stantly, ending his reign of three decades. One member of the ambush party,
Antonio de la Maza, accidentally dropped a pistol belonging to a friend, Juan
Tomás Díaz, which was traced by agents of Trujillo’s Military Intelligence Ser-
vice, permitting officers to locate and kill both men on June 4. Two days earlier,
in a separate raid, agents killed conspirator Amado García Guerrero, an army
officer who tipped Trujillo’s executioners to his itinerary. Other participants in
Trujillo’s assassination included Luis Amiama Tió, Luis Manuel Cáceres Michel,
Pedro Livio Cedeño Herrera, Modesto Díaz Quezada, Salvador Estrella Sad-
halá, Antonio Imbert Barrera Manuel de Ovín Filpo, Roberto Pastoriza Neret,
and Huáscar Antonio Tejeda Pimentel. All except Imbert and Amiama were
subsequently captured and executed on November 18, 1961, in the so-called
“Hacienda Maria Massacre.”
Rafael Trujillo Molina was born in San Cristóbal on October 24, 1891. His
early education was enlivened by membership in a gang called “The 42,” until
Trujillo found work as a telegraph operator at 16, later spending two years
as a guard at a paper company. He got married at 21 to Aminta Ledesma,
then divorced her in 1925 and later expunged all mention of their marriage
from official biographies. (At the same time, Trujillo suppressed information
concerning his mother’s ancestry, because his government pursued a policy of
“ethnic cleansing” against Afro-Dominicans and Haitians.) He would get mar-
ried twice more, to Bienvenida Ricardo in 1927 (divorced 1935), then to María
de los Angeles Martínez Alba, siring a total of six children. A mistress, Lina
Lovatón Pittaluga, also bore Trujillo two children, in 1939 and 1943.
T R U J I L L O M O L I N A , R A FA E L L E O N I D A S 577

Amidst those romantic entanglements, in 1919, Trujillo joined the National

Guard, training with U.S. Marines who then occupied the Dominican Repub-
lic. Displaying a rare talent for office politics, he rose to the rank of general by
1928, and was ideally placed when rebels led by Rafael Estrella Ureña deposed
President Felipe Horacio Vásquez Lajara in March 1930. By advance agree-
ment with Estrella, General Trujillo allowed the revolution to proceed, then
replaced Estrella as president on August 16, 1930. He would maintain control,
ruling with an iron hand until his death in 1961, killing some 50,000 persons
(by conservative estimates) across three decades.
On the first anniversary of his inauguration, Trujillo banned all political par-
ties except his own, the Dominican Party. Adult citizens were strong-armed
into joining the party, made subject to immediate arrest for vagrancy if they ap-
peared in public without a membership card. Government employees, mean-
while, were expected to “donate” 10 percent of their salaries to the national
treasury—that is, to Trujillo. Unopposed when he stood for reelection in 1934,
Trujillo pursued a campaign of self-aggrandizement, renaming the capital for
himself, dubbing San Cristobal Province “Trujilo,” even placing his name onto
the country’s tallest mountain. Cars sprouted license tags reading “¡Viva Tru-
jillo!” and “Año Del Benefactor De La Patria” (“Year of the Benefactor of the
Nation”), and churches were required to post signs reading “God in Heaven,
Trujillo on Earth.”
Finally, it seemed too much of a good thing. Though constitutionally eligible
for a third term in 1938, Trujillo declared, “I voluntarily, and against the wishes
of my people, refuse reelection to the high office.” His hand-picked succes-
sor, 71-year-old Vice President Jacinto Bienvenido Peynado, served as Trujillo’s
puppet until February 1940, succeeded in turn by Vice President Manuel de
Jesús Troncoso de la Concha. Finally tired of the pretense, Trujillo resumed his
role as president in May 1942. After two more terms—lengthened by law to
five years in his “absence”—brother Héctor Trujillo, remaining as president-
in-name until Rafael reorganized the government and once again assumed
control in August 1960.
Such maneuvers were fairly routine in “Third World” nations, but Trujillo’s
brutality set his regime apart. Johnny Abbes García, chief of the Military In-
telligence Service, routinely tortured and “disappeared” those who protested
against Trujillo’s one-man rule, and wider violence sometimes made media
headlines outside the country. In October 1937, Trujillo’s “Parsley Massacre”
of Haitian immigrants (see sidebar) sparked sufficient outrage to scuttle a third
presidential term the following year. Other notorious cases included the pre-
sumed assassination of Spanish writer Jesús Galíndez Suárez by Trujillo goons
in New York City, in March 1956, and the murders of three dissident sisters—
Antonia, Maria, and Patricia Mirabal—with a companion, Rufino de la Cruz,
in November 1960. Although Trujillo’s killers concealed Galíndez’s body and
578 T R U J I L L O M O L I N A , R A FA E L L E O N I DA S

staged the Mirabal slaughter to resemble a traffic accident, such incidents se-
verely strained the president’s relations with the United States and the Catholic
Church.
In terms of foreign policy, Trujillo supported Cuban dictator Fulgencio Ba-
tista in his futile war against rebels led by Fidel Castro, and pursued a relentless
campaign of Antihaitianismo against immigrants from Haiti (which occupies
the western part of the island formerly known as Hispaniola). Batista landed in
the Dominican Republic after Castro ousted him in January 1959, then found
himself a “virtual prisoner” of Trujillo until payment of some $3 million se-
cured him passage to Portugal. Castro retaliated by landing several small raid-
ing parties on the Dominican coast in June 1959, and Trujillo fumbled his own
attempt to infiltrate Cuba two months later.
Trujillo’s brutality and corruption—controlling at least 111 companies, col-
lecting 2,000 suits and 10,000 neckties, cavorting with rotating shifts of “very
young” females who dubbed him el chivo (“the goat”)—increasingly caused
U.S. diplomats to view him as a grave embarrassment. CIA involvement in Tru-
jillo’s death remains a subject of debate, but three of the assassins’ rifles traced
back to the agency, and internal CIA memorandum submitted to the Office
of Inspector General, later declassified, conceded “quite extensive Agency in-
volvement with the plotters.”
Even so, Trujillo’s slayers had their own motives. Aside from opposition to
his brutal style of governance, some of the reasons were personal. Antonio de
la Maza ran a sawmill owned by Trujillo near Restauracion until his brother,
Octavio, was framed as a scapegoat in the December 1956 murder of American
airline pilot Gerald Lester Murphy near Ciudad Trujillo. Octavio de la Maza al-
legedly hanged himself in jail on January 7, 1957, but analysts from the Fed-
eral Bureau of Investigation later declared his “suicide note” a forgery. Murphy,
they surmised, had flown kidnapped writer Jesús Galíndez Suárez from New
York to the Dominican Republic in November 1956, then was killed to ensure
his silence.
Conspirator Amado García Guerrero harbored an equally personal grudge
against Trujillo, who had forbidden him to marry the woman he loved—sister
of a “dangerous communist rebel”—while García served Trujillo as a military
aide. Going further still, Trujillo ordered García to personally execute a pris-
oner held in army custody, later identified as René Gil, his fiancée’s rebellious
brother. His life thus blighted, García took a vow with like-minded friends to
eliminate Trujillo.
One of the surviving plotters, Antonio Imbert Barrera, hated Trujillo for re-
moving him as governor of Puerto Plata in 1940. Nursing that grudge for two
decades, he joined in the plot to kill Trujillo and managed to escape the ensu-
ing manhunt, later earning recognition as a “National Hero.” In the subsequent
Dominican Civil War of 1965, Imbert led one faction battling the regime of
T R U J I L L O M O L I N A , R A FA E L L E O N I D A S 579

“PARSLEY MASSACRE”
On October 2, 1937, President Rafael Trujillo ordered the eradication of
Haitian immigrants living in districts of the Dominican Republic that bor-
dered Haiti. To explain the order, Trujillo said, “I have traveled and tra-
versed the border in every sense of the word. I have seen, investigated,
and inquired about the needs of the population. To the Dominicans who
were complaining of the depredations by Haitians living among them,
thefts of cattle, provisions, fruits, etc., and were thus prevented from en-
joying in peace the products of their labor, I have responded, ‘I will fix
this’.” The “fix” was mass execution of at least 20,000 persons, with some
estimates placing the total at 30,000. The five-day slaughter earned its
nickname from sprigs of parsley carried by the murder teams. Suspected
Haitians were required to pronounce its Spanish name (perejil), then ex-
ecuted if their accents indicated they spoke French or Haitian Creole.
Trujillo tried to blame the murders on Dominican civilians, but U.S. ob-
servers reported that most victims were shot with Krag-Jørgensen rifles
carried exclusively by soldiers of the Dominican army. Trujillo later paid
$525,000 in reparations to Haiti—$30 per victim, of which the corrupt
Haitian government kept $29.70.

Colonel Francisco Alberto Caamaño Deñó, with U.S. support. Caamaño was
defeated in his effort to restore ex-president Juan Bosch Gaviño, and the presi-
dency passed instead to Joaquín Balaguer. Presumed Trujillo loyalists shot Im-
bert in an ambush in Santo Domingo, on March 21, 1967, but he survived the
attack and drove himself to a hospital.

Further Reading
Crassweller, Robert. Trujillo: The Life and Times of a Caribbean Dictator. New York: Mac-
millan, 1966.
Derby, Lauren. The Dictator s Seduction: Politics and the Popular Imagination in the Era of
Trujillo. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2009.
Diederich, Bernard. Trujillo: The Death of the Dictator. Princeton, NJ: Markus Wiener
Publishers, 2000.
“Interview with General Rafael Trujillo (1961).” National Archives. http://archive.org/
details/gov.archives.arc.647563.
López-Calvo, Ignacio. “God and Trujillo”: Literary and Cultural Representations of the
Dominican Dictator. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 2005.
Roorda, Eric. The Dictator Next Door: The Good Neighbor Policy and the Trujillo Regime
in the Dominican Republic, 1930–1945. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 1998.
580 TRUM AN, HARRY S.

Turits, Richard. Foundations of Despotism: Peasants, the Trujillo Regime, and Modernity in
Dominican History. Stanford, CA: Stanford University Press, 2004.
Wiarda, Howard. Dictatorship and Development: The Methods of Control in Trujillo’s
Dominican Republic. Gainesville: University Press of Florida, 1968.

TRUMAN, HARRY S. (1884–1972)—

ATTEMPTED
President Harry Truman survived two assassination attempts during his first
term in office. Details of the first attempt are vague, but public records indi-
cate that militant Zionists affiliated with Lohamei Herut Israel (“Fighters for the
Freedom of Israel—Lehi,” commonly known as the Stern Gang, after leader
Avraham Stern), sent several mail bombs to the White House, addressed to
Truman and various staffers, during the summer of 1947. All were intercepted
by alert mailroom personnel, and none exploded. The attempts were motivated
by Truman’s early opposition to establishment of a “Jewish state” in Palestine,
although he later shifted to support for Israel and officially recognized its new
government in May 1948.

Harry S. Truman survived two assassination attempts during his first term in office.
(Library of Congress, Prints & Photographs Division)
TRUMAN, HARRY S. 581

Ironically, Truman’s would-be killers were likely unaware of his personal

anti-Semitism, as revealed in a 1947 diary entry published decades later.
There, Truman complained about a call received from Secretary of the Treasury
Henry Morgenthau, writing: “He’d no business, whatever to call me. The Jews
have no sense of proportion nor do they have any judgement [sic] on world af-
fairs. Henry brought a thousand Jews to New York on a supposedly temporary
basis and they stayed. . . . The Jews, I find are very, very selfish.” On other oc-
casions, Truman referred to New York City as “kike town” and “the U.S. capital
of Israel.” In 1953, when talk-radio pioneer David Susskind asked why he had
never been invited to Truman’s home, Truman replied, “You’re a Jew, David,
and no Jew has ever been in the house. Bess runs it, and there’s never been a
Jew inside the house in her or her mother’s lifetime.”
Three years elapsed between the abortive White House mail-bombing and
the second attempt on Truman’s life. The latter attempt sprang from Puerto
Rico’s independence movement, carried out by militant nationalists Oscar Col-
lazo and Griselio Torresola. On October 28, 1950, they received news that
the latest popular uprising in Puerto Rico had been crushed by military force,
with Torresola’s sister wounded and his brother arrested. Because their home-
land’s Law 53 of 1948—better known as the “Gag Law”—banned any public
mention of the independence movement, Collazo and Torresola decided to
publicize their cause by killing President Truman. As Collazo later explained,
Truman was chosen as “a symbol of the system. You don’t attack the man, you
attack the system.”
Arriving in Washington, D.C., on October 31, Collazo and Torresola regis-
tered at the Harris Hotel to finalize their plan. The next day, armed with pistols,
they sought to enter Blair House, on Pennsylvania Avenue, where Truman and
his wife were living during renovation of the White House. Intercepted by Of-
ficer Leslie Coffelt of the White House Police Force (now the Uniformed Divi-
sion of the U.S. Secret Service), they opened fire prematurely, fatally wounding
Coffelt. Before he collapsed, Coffelt returned fire, killing Torresola with a shot to
the head. Other officers and Secret Service agents rallied to the sounds of gun-
fire, joining in the battle. Before Collazo fell wounded by a shot to the chest,
two other policemen also suffered bullet wounds. Collazo survived to face trial
and was sentenced to death, later commuted by Truman to life imprisonment.
In 1979, President Jimmy Carter commuted that term to time served and Col-
lazo returned to Puerto Rico, where he died at age 80, in February 1994.
Harry Truman was born on May 8, 1884, in Lamar, Missouri, the son of
a farmer and livestock dealer. He had no middle name: the “S” was a paren-
tal compromise to please grandfathers Anderson Shipp Truman and Solomon
Young. Drawn to politics early, Truman served as a page at the 1900 Demo-
cratic National Convention in Kansas City, a year before he graduated from
high school. Poor eyesight foiled his childhood dream of attending West Point,
582 TRUM AN, HARRY S.

and Truman never obtained a college degree. He joined Missouri’s National

Guard in 1905—reportedly memorizing the eye chart to pass inspection—and
served until 1911, then rejoined when the United States entered World War I
in 1917. He was deployed to France as an artillery officer, discharged as a cap-
tain at war’s end.
In boot camp, prior to shipping overseas, Truman met a nephew of Missouri
political boss Tom Pendergast, who would later pave the way for Truman’s po-
litical career. Returning to civilian life, Truman ran a haberdashery in Kansas
City but went bankrupt in 1921. The following year, as a member in good
standing of the Pendergast machine, Truman won election as a Jackson County
judge. It was around this time, historians and his biographers agree, that Tru-
man joined the rising Ku Klux Klan. Some say he paid his $10 membership
fee, then resigned before initiation, whereas others suggest he went through
with oath. Truman later claimed he left the Klan when its leaders ordered him
not to hire Jews or Catholics, but his own prejudice can scarcely be doubted in
light of correspondence revealed since his death. One example comes from a
letter penned to his then-fiancée in 1911. In it, Truman wrote:

I think one man is just as good as another so long as he’s honest and decent and
not a nigger or a Chinaman. Uncle Will [Young] says that the Lord made a white
man from dust, a nigger from mud, then He threw up what was left and it came
down a Chinaman. He does hate Chinese and Japs. So do I. It is race prejudice,
I guess. But I am strongly of the opinion Negroes ought to be in Africa, yellow
men in Asia and white men in Europe and America.

Decades later, as a U.S. senator, Truman wrote to his daughter, describing

White House waiters as “an army of coons.” In a 1939 letter to his wife, he
made reference to a “nigger picnic day.” Obviously, Truman’s falling out with
fellow Klansmen in the 1920s was not based on revulsion toward their racism.
Voters turned Truman out of his judgeship in 1924, leaving him to sell cars
for two years, until the Pendergast organization found him a new bench to
rule from in 1926, reelected in 1930. Three years later, he was picked as Mis-
souri’s director for a New Deal reemployment program. In 1934, after several
candidates refused Pendergast’s offer of a U.S. Senate seat, he reluctantly pro-
moted Truman for that post and ensured electoral victory. Truman reciprocated
by leaving all his patronage appointments to Pendergast, and was derided by
some Washington observers as “the senator from Pendergast.” Tax-evasion
charges sent Pendergast to prison in 1939, and Truman nearly lost his Senate
seat the following year, defeating Republican rival Manvel Davis by a narrow
margin of 51 to 49 percent.
Truman’s owed his next move up the political ladder to Vice President
Henry Wallace, an ultraliberal (some said “communist”) who had worn out
TRUMAN, HARRY S. 583

his welcome with Democratic Party leaders as the 1944 presidential election
approached. Seeking his third vice president since 1933, President Franklin
Roosevelt preferred Supreme Court Justice William O. Douglas, but state and
local leaders weighed in for Truman and Roosevelt agreed, in what some called
the “Second Missouri Compromise.” Their ticket won easily, and Truman was
sworn in as vice president in January 1945.
The first weeks of his term were uneventful—in fact, he was virtually ignored,
not even informed of America’s race to build an atomic bomb—but Roosevelt’s
death on April 12 changed all that. After 82 days in office, he was suddenly
commander in chief of a nation at war worldwide, with the Manhattan Project
nearing completion. Soon after taking the oath as president, Truman told re-
porters, “Boys, if you ever pray, pray for me now. I don’t know if you fellas ever
had a load of hay fall on you, but when they told me what happened yesterday,
I felt like the moon, the stars, and all the planets had fallen on me.”
He had been dropped into a maelstrom: Germany’s surrender, the Potsdam
Conference with Winston Churchill and Josef Stalin, the decision to use atomic
bombs against the “Japs” he had hated from his youth. Debate still rages over
his employment of nuclear weapons against Japan, with some historians insist-
ing that Truman saved at least 250,000 U.S. lives, and others brand the bomb-
ings an immoral racist act. Truman himself would later write, “I knew what
I was doing when I stopped the war. . . . I have no regrets and, under the same
circumstances, I would do it again.”
War’s end confronted Truman with a host of new problems: labor upheav-
als, a new postwar “Red Scare” with critics who branded him “soft on com-
munism,” exposure of corruption among his closest aides, threats of Red
revolution in Europe and Asia. Seeking reelection to the White House in 1948,
he found the Democratic Party split three ways, as the left followed Henry Wal-
lace into a new Progressive Party, and Southern racists defected to Strom Thur-
man’s “Dixiecrat” movement. Pundits predicted Truman’s defeat by Republican
contender Thomas Dewey—and the Chicago Tribune famously printed election-
eve headlines reading “Dewey Defeats Truman”—but he stunned detractors
with a surprise victory, establishing a Democratic Party’s majority that endured
for another two decades.
Truman’s second term produced more crises. Aside from the Puerto Rican
attempt on his life, he promoted the North Atlantic Treaty Organization, con-
fronted the Korean War and rebellious General Douglas MacArthur, fended
off attacks Senator Joseph McCarthy and other congressional Red hunters, en-
dured criticism of “losing” China to Mao Zedong’s communists, and haphaz-
ardly defended basic civil rights for African Americans, and still found time
to threaten music critic Paul Hume for criticizing daughter Margaret Truman’s
concert style: “Some day I hope to meet you. When that happens you’ll need
a new nose, a lot of beefsteak for black eyes, and perhaps a supporter below!”
584 TRUM AN, HARRY S.

The Twenty-Second Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, ratified in 1947,

prevented Truman from seeking a third White House term in 1952. Retired
to private life, he traveled through Europe and received an honorary degree
in Civic Law from Oxford University in 1956. He campaigned for Democratic
candidates through 1964, when a fall from a horse began a long decline in Tru-
man’s health. He died on December 26, 1972, after three weeks’ hospitaliza-
tion for pneumonia.

Further Reading
Benson, Michael, ed. Harry S. Truman and the Founding of Israel. Westport, CT: Praeger
Publishers, 1997.
Beschlosss, Michael. Presidential Courage: Brave Leaders and How They Changed America
1789–1989. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2007.
Burnes, Brian. Harry S. Truman: His Life and Times. Kansas City, MO: Kansas City Star
Books, 2003.
Dallek, Robert. Harry S. Truman. New York: Times Books, 2008.
Ferrell, Robert. Harry S. Truman: A Life. Columbia, MO: University of Missouri Press,
1994.
Hamby, Alonzo. Man of the People: A Life of Harry S. Truman. Oxford: Oxford Univer-
sity Press, 1995.
Hunter, Stephen, and John Bainbridge Jr. American Gunfight: The Plot to Kill Harry
Truman—and the Shoot-Out That Stopped It. New York: Simon & Schuster, 2005.
McCullough, David. Truman. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1992.
U
U M A R I B N A L - K H A T T ĀB ( 5 8 6 / 5 9 0 – 6 4 4 )
In October 644, Umar ibn Al-Khattāb—the second caliph of Sunni Islam—
received a visit from Pirouz Nahavandi, a Persian soldier captured and enslaved
eight years earlier, now employed as a carpenter at Medina, in the Kingdom
of Saudi Arabia. Nahavandi, also known as Abu Lulu, complained to Umar of
the wages held back from him by his master, Mughira ibn Shu’ba. Umar re-
jected Nahavandi’s plea for intervention, leaving the supplicant embittered. On
November 3, as Umar led morning prayers at his mosque, Nahavandi sprang
from hiding, stabbing the caliph five times with a dagger. Fleeing the scene,
Nahavandi stabbed another dozen people who tried to subdue him, fatally
wounding six (or nine, in some accounts), then killed himself when cornered
by Umar’s bodyguards. Umar survived until November 7, issuing various reli-
gious pronouncements before he succumbed to his wounds.
Umar ibn Al-Khattāb was born in Mecca, a member of the Banu Adi clan
from the Quraish tribe that sometimes served as arbiters of disputes between
other rival tribes. His birth date is uncertain, placed sometime between 586
and 590 CE by different historians. Various accounts describe Umar’s father,
Khattāb ibn Nufayl, as a middle-class merchant of exceptional intelligence, and
as an abusive father. Umar himself later wrote of frequent beatings and being
worked to the point of exhaustion. On the other hand, he was taught to read
and write in a society where few were literate, developing a passion for litera-
ture and poetry that rivaled his skill in the manly arts of horseback riding and
combat. He followed in his father’s footsteps as a merchant, traveling as far as
Rome in pursuit of commerce.
Umar and his father were contemporaries of Muhammad, the founder of
Islam, but Khattāb ibn Nufayl despised the new religion and Umar initially
joined Khattāb in persecuting Muslims. Umar reportedly hatched a plot to kill
Muhammad, but Muhammad foiled the conspiracy by ordering his hundred-
odd disciples to migrate southward, finding sanctuary in the kingdom of
Aksum (now Eritrea and northern Ethiopia) in 615. Muslim historian Ibn
Ishaq (704–770) described Umar following the fugitives, intent on killing Mu-
hammad, but a chance encounter with a friend along the way brought news
that Umar’s sister and her husband, Saeed bin Zaid, had converted to Islam and
joined the migration. After a tense meeting with the couple, Umar accepted the
586 U M A R I B N A L - K H A T T Ā B

new faith in 616 and began to preach its tenets around Mecca, in defiance of
his hostile tribal chief, Amr ibn Hishām.
Umar’s conversion is regarded in Islamic history as a crucial breakthrough
for the young religion. In 622, on orders from Muhammad, he led a migration
of Muslims to Medina, soon recognized as the capital of Islam. Other members
of Umar’s Quraish tribe still remained hostile to the point of homicide, and
Umar fought against them repeatedly, in the Battle of Badr (March 13, 624),
the Battle of Uhud (March 9, 625), the Battle of the Trench (April 627), and
forged a 10-year truce in March 628, with the Treaty of Hudaybiyyah. In the
midst of those conflicts that spread Islam throughout Arabia, Umar’s widowed
20-year-old daughter, Hafsah, became the fourth of Muhammad’s 13 wives.
Meanwhile, the Quraish were not alone in opposing Islam’s advance. In 629,
he joined in a campaign against Jews inhabiting the Khaybar Oasis, 95 miles
north of Medina, who agitated other Arab tribes against Islam. Once again,
Muhammad’s forces were victorious, moving on to the conquest of Mecca in
December 629. That proved to be a nearly bloodless victory, with 12 Quraish
slain, against two Muslim fatalities. The following year, Umar fought Bedouins
at the Battle of Hunayn, clashed with soldiers of the Byzantine Empire in the
Battle of Tabouk, and participated in the unsuccessful Siege of Ta’if.
Muhammad’s death in June 632 left Umar grieving and dismayed that the
“Messenger of God” was actually mortal. To preserve and further spread the
faith, he joined in founding the Rashidun (“Rightly Guided”) Caliphate, with
Abu Bakr—Muhammad’s senior companion and, like Umar, his father-in-
law—chosen as the first caliph (Muslim chief of state). A rift at once devel-
oped, as some Muslims claimed Muhammad’s cousin/son-in-law, Ali ibn Abi
Talib, had been hand-picked to succeed the Prophet, but Abu Bakr prevailed,
with Umar designated as his chief secretary and advisor. During the Ridda wars
of 632–633, also known as the Wars of Apostasy, Umar advised Abu Bakr on
his campaigns against rival “prophets” Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid (defeated at the
Battle of Buzakha, in September 632), Musaylimah (killed at the Battle of Ya-
mamah, in December 632), and Sajah (who returned to mainstream Islam after
Musaylimah’s defeat).
At Abu Bakr’s death, in August 634, Umar succeeded him as Islam’s second
caliph. A final self-styled prophet, Tulayha ibn Khuwaylid, returned to the fold
out of personal loyalty to Umar, and went on to fight for the cause against Per-
sia’s Sassanid Empire, including the Battle of al-Qādisiyyah (November 636),
the Battle of Jalula (April 637), and the Battle of Nahāvand (in 642). Known
during his tenure as Farooq the Great—from Al-Farooq, “one who distinguishes
right from wrong”—Umar expanded the Islamic realm to encompass all of Per-
sia’s Sassanid Empire and some two-thirds of the Byzantine Empire. At the
same time, despite his earlier conflicts with Jews, he lifted the ban formerly im-
posed by Christians that prevented Jews from entering Jerusalem.
U M A R I B N A L - K H AT TĀ B 587

Under Umar’s administration, Arabia was divided into the provinces of

Mecca and Medina; Syria was a single province; the province of Jazira spanned
the Upper Tigris and Euphrates River valleys; Palestine was split into Aylya and
Ramlah Provinces; Iraq was divided between Basra and Kufa; Upper and Lower
Egypt were formally designated; and occupied Persia was carved into thirds:
Azerbaijan, Fars, and Khorasan. Each province had a governor, appointed by
Umar, who was in turn served by offices including a Katib (chief secretary),
Katib-ud-Diwan (military secretary), Sahib-ul-Ahdath (chief of police), Sahib-
Bait-ul-Mal (treasurer), Sahib-ul-Kharaj (tax collector), and Qadi (chief justice).
Umar demanded strict honesty from all officials, and further created a special
investigative branch to probe complaints against them, led by Muhammad ibn
Maslamah. Among the rules imposed on government officials were a ban on
“fine clothes” and food made from sifted flour, a prohibition against riding
“Turkic horses” or employing a doorman, and a demand that each officer’s door
should always be open to the public. Judges, in addition to intelligence and
knowledge of Sharia (Islamic law), were expected to maintain reputations for
modesty and morality.
In dealings with non-Muslims, members of the faith relied on the Pact (or
Covenant) of Umar—regarded by some modern historians as apocryphal, yet
subsequently granted canonical status in Muslim law. Traditionally, the pact is
regarded as a treaty between Muslims and Christians, which also covered Jews
living in or traveling through Muslim lands. In exchange for personal safety
and religious freedom of a sort, non-Muslims were prohibited from building
or repairing churches and monasteries, public processions or funerals, or dis-
play of crosses or religious books. Within Jerusalem, Christians were expected
to wear a distinctive girdle (zunnar), and abstain from wearing Muslim clothes
or placing saddles on their horses. Christians who converted to Islam were
banned from proselytizing Muslims, learning Arabic, or—rather curiously—
from studying the Quran.
On his deathbed, Umar appointed a six-man committee to choose the next
caliph from among their number. Meeting in Medina, at a house surrounded
by 50 soldiers, the panel elected Uthman ibn Affan as Umar’s successor. Uth-
man ruled the caliphate until 1656, when a band of armed rebels laid siege to
his palace and killed him on June 23.

Further Reading
Abdul-Rauf, Muhammad. Umar Al Faruq. Alexandria, VA: Al-Saadawi Publications,
1998.
Busool, Assad. The Role of Opposition in Islam: A Case Study of the Life of ‘Umar Ibn al-
Khattab. Skokie, IL: The Qur’an Society, 1999.
Madelung, Wilferd. The Succession to Muhammad. Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 1997.
588 UMBERTO I

Majdalawi, Farouk. Islamic Administration Under Omar Ibn Al-Khattab. Syracuse, NY:
Syracuse University Press, 2003.
Numani, Shibli. Umar: Makers of Islamic Civilization. London: I.B. Tauris, 2004.
Sallabi, Ali. Umar bin Al-Khattab: His Life and Times. Riyadh, Saudi Arabia: Interna-
tional Islamic Publishing House, 2007.

UMBERTO I (1844–1900)
On July 29, 1900, King Umberto I of Italy visited Monza, nine miles northeast
of Milan in Lombardy, to present medals to the winners of a local athletic com-
petition. The ceremony was completed, and Umberto had returned to his open
coach when Gaetano Bresci, a 30-year-old Italian-American anarchist, fired four
shots from a revolver, striking the king three times in his chest. Umberto died
at the scene, and Bresci was disarmed and arrested while shouting, “I have not
shot Umberto. I have killed the king, I have killed a principle!” At trial, in late
August, Bresci said he killed
Umberto to avenge the deaths
of striking workers slain by sol-
diers in Milan, during the Bava-
Beccaris massacre of May 1898.
Sentenced to life imprisonment,
Bresci was the first European
regicide to escape execution.
Italy had abolished capital pun-
ishment in 1889, but it hardly
mattered. On May 22, 1901,
Bresci was found dead in his
prison cell under circumstances
still unclear.
Future king Umberto Ran-
ieri Carlo Emanuele Giovanni
Maria Ferdinando Eugenio di
Savoia was born in Turin, then
the capital of the kingdom of
Sardinia, on March 14, 1844. At
the time, his father—Victor Em-
manuel II—was the king of Sar-
dina, married to Archduchess
Adelaide of Austria. As a child,
Umberto was educated by tu-
King Umberto I of Italy, slain by an anarchist gun- tors, including lawyer–journalist
man in 1900. (Mondadori via Getty Images) Pasquale Stanislao Mancini and
UMBERTO I 589

statesman–novelist Massimo Taparelli, marquis d’Azeglio. At the tender age of 14,

Umberto joined the Sardinian army as a captain, fighting in the Second Italian
War of Independence (April 29 to July 11, 1859).
Victor Emmanuel II was crowned king of Italy on March 17, 1861, but
his country was still not entirely united. Another war would be required to
complete that task, in the summer of 1866, with Umberto commanding the
XVI Division against Austrian occupation forces at Villafranca, on June 24. Al-
though Italy lost that battle, it regained control of Venetia in October, leaving
only Rome and its Patrimony of St. Peter (now Lazio) outside the kingdom of
Italy. Rome, in turn, was finally secured in September 1870. That victory, how-
ever, failed to reverse Victor Emmanuel’s excommunication from the Catholic
Church, pronounced in 1861 after he drove Pope Pius IX from Rome into the
smaller confines of Vatican City.
The final years of Victor Emmanuel’s reign were more peaceful. He died in
Rome on January 9, 1878, and Umberto ascended to the throne. He styled him-
self Umberto I of Italy, while ignoring three ancestral namesakes—Umberto I,
Umberto II, and Umberto III—who had ruled as counts of Savoy at various
times between 1003 and 1189.
Umberto survived the first attempt on his life while touring his kingdom with
queen consort Margherita. During a parade in Naples, on November 17, 1878,
29-year-old anarchist Giovanni Passannante tried to stab the king with a dagger.
Umberto deflected the blade with his saber, receiving a small cut on his arm, and
Prime Minister Benedetto Cairoli was stabbed in one thigh. At trial, Passannante
was condemned, despite the fact that Italian law permitted execution only if the
king was actually killed. Umberto “generously” commuted that sentence to life
imprisonment, served in solitary confinement, wearing 40 pounds of chains in a
tiny cell with no sanitary facilities. That punishment drove Passannante insane,
described by witnesses as eating his own feces. Removed to the asylum at Monte-
lupo Fiorentino in 1899, he survived there until February 1910.
Passannante’s attack on Umberto was no aberration. In both foreign and do-
mestic policy, the king seemed to do everything within his power to alienate
and inflame left-of-center opponents. In 1882, ignoring the sentiments of Ital-
ians who resented Austrian claims to parts of their nation, he forged the Triple
Alliance with Germany and Austria-Hungary, which would help drag Europe
into World War I in 1914. Umberto was also an ardent colonialist, sending
troops to occupy Massawa (on the Red Sea coast of Eritrea) in 1885, transform-
ing it into Italian Eritrea. Further African expansion ended with Italy’s defeat at
the Battle of Adwa, in Ethiopia, on March 1, 1896, but Umberto rebounded to
join the Eight-Nation Alliance that challenged China’s Boxer Rebellion in 1899.
He would not live to witness victory in that instance, or to profit from his king-
dom’s trading concession at Tientsin (now Tianjin), granted by the Chinese
government in September 1901.
590 UMBERTO I

At home, Umberto presided over an era of social turmoil, fired in equal

part by his suppression of civil liberties, the rapid spread of socialist and anar-
chist ideas, opposition to Italian colonialism, and labor agitation by the Sicilian
Workers Leagues that prompted imposition of martial law in 1894. A second
attempt on the king’s life occurred in Rome, on April 22, 1897, when 26-year-
old unemployed ironsmith Pietro Acciarito tried to stab Umberto at a horse
race held in honor of the monarch’s 29th wedding anniversary. In custody, Ac-
ciarito voiced disgust that Umberto was willing to offer a prize of 24,000 lira to
the winning horse, but would give nothing to the poor. Tortured to identify ac-
complices, Acciarito named six alleged conspirators. One, Romeo Frezzi, died
under interrogation, and five others were later acquitted. Acciarito received a
life prison term and, like Giovanni Passannante, ended his life in the Monte-
lupo Fiorentino.
An extreme example of Umberto’s repressive measures occurred in May 1898,
when Milanese workers struck against the rising cost of bread, occasioned by
Italy’s colonial wars in Africa. After the hungry people raided several baker-
ies, Umberto declared martial law in Milan, assigning General Fiorenzo Bava-
Beccaris to deal with protesters as he saw fit. The resulting massacre, including
artillery fire, officially claimed 118 lives while leaving 450 wounded. Other ac-
counts list 400 dead and more than 2,000 injured. In either case, Umberto was
pleased, decorating General Bava-Beccaris with the Military Order of Savoy and
telling him, “You have rendered a great service to the King and to the country.”
Emigrant Gaetano Bresci read accounts of the massacre in Paterson, New
Jersey, where he worked as a weaver and had founded an Italian-language an-
archist newspaper, La Questione Sociale (The Social Issue). His anger simmered
until May 1900, when he collected sufficient funds for passage back to Europe.
He landed at La Havre, then made his way to Paris, and finally to Castel San
Pietro near Bologna, where relatives owned a small inn. There, he purchased a
revolver and practiced with it in their yard until he felt proficient. Bresci trav-
eled to Monza on July 26 and spent three days surveying Umberto’s royal party
before he struck on July 29. Fourteen months later, fellow anarchist Leon Czol-
gosz claimed that Bresci’s murder of Umberto had inspired his own assassina-
tion of U.S. president William McKinley.
Umberto was succeeded by his son, Victor Emmanuel III, who proved to
be Italy’s last significant king. Victor initially supported fascist dictator Benito
Mussolini’s rise to power, as a means to save the monarchy, but later staged a
coup against Mussolini in July 1943 and signed an armistice with the Allied
Powers two months later. Victor Emmanuel abdicated his throne in May 1946,
briefly succeeded by son Umberto II, before the monarchy was formally abol-
ished on June 12, 1946.
See also: McKinley, William Jr. (1843–1901); Mussolini, Benito Amilcare Andrea
(1883–1945).
U W I L I N G I Y I M A N A , A G AT H E 591

Further Reading
Bencivenni, Marcela. Italian Immigrant Radical Culture: The Idealism of the Sovversivi in
the United States, 1890–1940. New York: New York University Press, 2011.
Cannistraro, Philip, and Gerald Meyer, eds. The Lost World of Italian-American Radical-
ism: Politics, Labor, and Culture. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2003.
Ciancabilla, Giuesppe. Fired by the Ideal: Italian-American Anarchist Responses to Czol-
gosz’s Killing of McKinley. London: Kate Sharpley Library, 2002.
Duggan, Christopher. The Force of Destiny: A History of Italy Since 1796. London: Allen
Lane, 2007.
Khuri-Makdisi, Ilham. The Eastern Mediterranean and the Making of Global Radicalism,
1860–1914. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2010.
Levy, Carl. “The Anarchist Assassin and Italian History, 1870s to 1930s.” In Assassina-
tions and Murder in Modern Italy: Transformations in Society and Culture. New York:
Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.

UWILINGIYIMANA, AGATHE (1953–1994)

With the assassination of President Juvénal Habyarimana on April 6, 1994,
Prime Minister Agathe Uwilingiyimana assumed temporary command of
Rwanda’s government. Speaking to Radio France, shortly after the president’s
death, she reported that her home was under siege. Her last recorded words
were: “There is shooting, people are being terrorized, people are inside their
homes lying on the floor. We are suffering the consequences of the death of
the head of state, I believe. We, the civilians, are in no way responsible for
the death of our head of state.” Ten Belgian members of a United Nations
(UN) peacekeeping force reached Uwilingiyimana’s home around 3:00 A.M. on
April 7, intending to escort the prime minister to Radio Rwanda for a morn-
ing broadcast, but members of the presidential guard refused to let them enter
the property bearing weapons. After a tense stand-off, the UN soldiers sur-
rendered their arms, then were killed, their bodies grossly mutilated. Uwil-
ingiyimana’s supposed guards then entered her compound, killing the prime
minister and her husband, while her children managed to escape unseen. In
September 2006, the International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda convicted
Major Bernard Ntuyahaga of killing the peacekeepers and an unknown num-
ber of Rwandan civilians, but acquitted him of Uwilingiyimana’s murder, im-
posing a 20-year sentence. Colonel Theoneste Bagosora was also convicted in
the peacekeepers’ slayings, in December 2008, receiving a life prison term.
The court found Bagosora “responsible” for Uwilingiyimana’s death, but did
not formally convict him of it.
Agathe Uwilingiyimana was born in the village of Nyaruhengeri, in south-
ern Rwanda’s Butare Province, on May 23, 1953. Soon afterward, her family
emigrated to the Belgian Congo (now the Democratic Republic of the Congo),
seeking work, but they returned to Butare, the provincial capital, in 1957.
592 U W I L I N G I Y I M A N A , AGAT H E

Uwilingiyimana graduated from Notre Dame des Citeaux High School, and
in 1973 received her certificate to teach humanities. Three years later, after
graduate studies in mathematics and chemistry, she was hired as a mathematics
teacher in in Butare. That same year, she married former high school classmate
Ignace Barahira, keeping her maiden name, and in 1977 bore the first of their
five children.
Their growing family prospered through education. By 1983, Uwilingiy-
imana was teaching chemistry at Butare’s National University of Rwanda,
and Ignace held a lucrative post at the university’s laboratory. Two years later,
Uwilingiyimana completed studies for her BSc and spent the next four years
teaching chemistry at various schools in Butare Province. Although some tra-
ditionalists criticized her, both for studying science and sharing her knowledge
with female students, Uwilingiyimana persevered and broadened her activities
to include support for fellow teachers, creating a Sorority and Credit Coopera-
tive Society for school staffers in Butare. In 1989, official recognition of her
efforts led to Uwilingiyimana’s appointment as minister of commerce under
President Habyarimana.
Six years later, after opposition parties were legitimized, Uwilingiyimana
left President Habyarimana’s National Republican Movement for Democracy
and Development to join the Republican and Democratic Movement (MDR).
That party’s leader, Dismas Nsengiyaremye, was elected as prime minister
in April 1992 and named Uwilingiyimana to serve as his minister of educa-
tion. Although a member of the dominant Hutu ethnic group, Uwilingiyimana
abolished Rwanda’s academic ethnic quota system that gave Hutus an edge
on higher education, instead using a merit system for awarding public school
placement and scholarships. That move, coming as it did in the midst of Rwan-
da’s civil war between Hutus and Tutsis, marked Uwilingiyimana as a target for
extremists within her own tribe.
Even as war divided the nation, so politics created turmoil in the capital,
with five opposition parties challenging President Habyarimana. After a con-
tentious meeting between rival party leaders, Uwilingiyimana was chosen
as Rwanda’s next prime minister on July 17, 1993. Dismas Nsengiyaremye,
disgruntled at being replaced, immediately suspended Uwilingiyimana mem-
bership in the MDR. Just over two weeks later, on August 4, Habyarimana
and Uwilingiyimana reached a tentative agreement with their enemies from
the Tutsi-dominated Rwandan Patriotic Front (RPF), signing the Arusha Ac-
cords at a meeting in Tanzania. Under that agreement, a new government
would be formed, with Habyarimana holding the transitional presidency and
five of 21 cabinet posts, the MDR would hold four posts and name the prime
minister, and three other parties would divide the remaining cabinet seats.
The Arusha Accords posed a problem for Prime Minister Uwilingiy-
imana, due to her suspension from the MDR. Party leaders named Faustin
U W I L I N G I Y I M A N A , A G AT H E 593

Twagiramungu to succeed her, and although President Habyarimana officially

terminated Uwilingiyimana’s role as prime minister on August 4, 1993, he kept
her on as a de facto “caretaker” in the same post for the remaining eight months
of her life. Hutu opponents railed against that move and Twagiramungu
marked time in waiting, denouncing Uwilingiyimana as a “political trickster.”
The formal hand over of authority was scheduled for March 25, 1994, but RPF
rebels foiled Twagiramungu by failure to attend the launch of Rwanda’s new
“Broad Based Transitional Government.” Before another meeting was arranged,
Habyarimana and Uwilingiyimana were assassinated on successive days, and
Rwanda plunged into bloody chaos.
Jean Kambanda, vice president of the MDR, trumped Faustin Twagi-
ramungu on April 9, 1994, when he was sworn in as prime minister of
Rwanda. He held that post until July 19, then fled the country, whereupon
Twagiramungu finally claimed the office he had sought for so long. Twagi-
ramungu, in turn, resigned in August 1995 and fled to Belgium, remaining
there for eight years. He returned to Rwanda in 2003, as a candidate for
president, running second in a field of three contenders with 3.6 percent of
the popular vote.

RWANDAN GENOCIDE
Over the course of roughly 100 days, between April and July 1994, more
than 500,000 people—mostly members of the Tutsi ethnic group—were
slaughtered by Hutu enemies in Rwanda. Some estimates double that
death toll, accounting for 20 percent of the African country’s population.
Rwanda’s Hutu majority harbored centuries of animosity against their for-
mer rulers from the Tutsi minority, exacerbated by the Rwandan Patriotic
Front’s 1990 invasion from Uganda and the resulting civil war. The assassi-
nations of April 6, 1994, sparked a furious homicidal reaction in the name
of “Hutu Power,” carried out in well-organized fashion by the Rwandan
military and mobs of sympathetic civilians. Machetes—including 581,000
imported from China—were often employed as cheaper methods of kill-
ing than firearms. An International Criminal Tribunal for Rwanda, estab-
lished in November 199¬4, heard testimony from Rwandan prime minister
Jean Kambanda that mass murder of Tutsis was openly discussed in cabi-
net meetings, then carried out by high-ranking army officers. Scheduled to
complete its work in December 2014, the tribunal had 50 trials and con-
victed 29 defendants as this volume went to press, with 11 more trials in
progress, 14 defendants awaiting trial, and 13 others still at large.
594 U W I L I N G I Y I M A N A , AGAT H E

See also: Habyarimana, Juvénal (1937–1994).

Further Reading
Bartrop, Paul. A Biographical Encyclopedia of Contemporary Genocide: Portraits of Evil and
Good. Santa Barbara, CA: ABC-CLIO, 2010.
Hill, Kevin. “Agathe Uwilingiyimana.” In Women and the Law: A Bio-Bibliographical
Sourcebook. Edited by Kevin Hill. Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1996.
Melvern, Linda. A People Betrayed: The Role of the West in Rwanda’s Genocide. London:
Zed Books, 2000.
Nyankanzi, Edward. Genocide: Rwanda and Burundi. Rochester, VT: Schenkman Books,
1998.
Prunier, Gérard. The Rwanda Crisis: History of a Genocide. New York: Columbia Univer-
sity Press, 1995.
Scherrer, Christian. Genocide and Crisis in Central Africa: Conflict Roots, Mass Violence,
and Regional War. Westport, CT: Praeger, 2002.
V
VALKO, ERNEST (1953–2010)
On November 8, 2010, visitors found prominent Slovak attorney Ernest Valko,
former chief of the Czechoslovak Constitutional Court, shot to death at his
home in Limbach, near Bratislava, capital of the Slovak Republic. The motive
for his murder is unknown. As this work went to press, the crime remained of-
ficially unsolved, still under active investigation by agents of Zásahová skupina
Úradu boja proti organizovanej kriminalite Prezídia Policajného zboru (the Engage-
ment Group of the Office for Combating Organized Crime of the Presidium of
the Police Force).
Ernest Valko was born on August 10, 1953, at Spišská Nová Ves, in the
Košice region of Czechoslovakia. He enrolled at Bratislava’s Comenius Univer-
sity in 1973, receiving his MA from that institution’s faculty of law in 1977.
Two years later, Valko received his doctoral degree in law from Comenius, then
entered private practice in Bratislava.
By then, he had already witnessed momentous events, beginning with Alex-
ander Dubček’s attempt to reform the nation’s communist government in the
“Prague Spring” of 1968, crushed by a Soviet invasion that August which left
Czechoslovakia occupied by Russian troops until the so-called “Velvet Revolu-
tion” of November 16 to December 10, 1989. On the last day of that bloodless
rebellion, President Gustáv Husák swore in the first government since 1948
not dominated by the Communist Party. By December 29, dissident poet and
playwright Václav Havel had been installed as president of the new republic,
his government legitimized by free elections in June 1990. Running unop-
posed for a second term in July 1992, Havel was defeated by lack of support
from Slovak delegates in the Federal Parliament. On January 1, 1993, Czecho-
slovakia peacefully dissolved in a “Velvet Divorce,” with Havel chosen as presi-
dent of the new Czech Republic, and voters in the Slovak Republic elected
President Michal Kováč.
Ernest Valko continued his practice of law while the face of his homeland
evolved, rising to become one of the country’s best-known attorneys. He also
tried his hand at politics, winning election to the Federal Assembly in 1990,
where he was instrumental in revising national laws related to labor, trade, civil
liberties, and the conduct of referendums. He served as Speaker for the lower
house of parliament in 1990–1991, and was chairman of the Constitutional
596 VA L K O , E R N E S T

Court of Czechoslovakia from

January 31 to December 31,
1992. From 1993 onward, his
private firm specialized in con-
stitutional law. In 2000, Valko
began studies for his PhD at the
Slovak Academy of Sciences’
Institute of State and Law,
achieving his degree in 2004.
Two years later, he sought a
seat in the National Council of
the Slovak Republic, but lost at
the polls.
Meanwhile, Valko’s legal
cases dominated headlines in
Slovakia. In 1992, he defended
poet L’ubomír Feldek against a
libel action filed by Minister of
Culture Dušan Slobodník after
Feldek accused Slobodník of
being a Nazi collaborator dur-
ing World War II. Valko fought
Slovak attorney Ernest Valko, killed by unidenti- that case all the way to the Eu-
fied gunmen in 2010. (Getty Images)
ropean Court of Human Rights
in Strasbourg, France, where a
2001 judgment in his favor won Feldek an award of 500,000 Slovak koruna
($22,482 today). In another libel action, Valko filed suit against Prime Minister
Robert Fico, on behalf of Finance Minister Ivan Mikloš, winning another lu-
crative victory. Valko ’s other clients included Ján Ducký, director of Slovenský
plynárenský priemysel (Slovak Gas Industry), whose murder in January 1999
remains unsolved today; and Tipos, the Slovak national lottery, which he
represented—prior to his own death—in a lawsuit filed by the Cypriot com-
pany Lemikon Limited, seeking a payout of 66 million euros ($88.5 million).
Aside from private litigation, Valko also served as an arbiter at the Arbitra-
tion Court of the Chamber of Commerce and Industry of the Slovak Republic
(1997–2010); as a trustee in bankruptcy proceedings (1998); as member of the
supervisory board of the commercial bank Istrobanka (1999–2002); as a mem-
ber of the supervisory board of the Slovak Insurance Company (1999–2002);
as a member of the European Law and Policy Advisory Group’s project to har-
monize Slovakian law with other states in the European Union (2000–2001);
as a member of the Slovak Board for Radio and Television Broadcasting and
Retransmission (1999–2004); and as a member of the supervisory board of
VA N C E , R O B E R T S M I T H 597

Slovak Electric Power (2003–2010). Somewhere within Valko’s public or pri-

vate connections, presumably, lay the roots of his murder.
Investigators noted that in November 2006, police charged Valko and finan-
cier Ladislav Rehák with attempting to extort $2 million from owners of the
firm Ravi Slovakia, a manufacturer of doors and windows in Záhorie, claiming
that Rehák had been cheated on a business deal. Those charges were dropped
without trial, in 2008. The newspaper Nový Čas blamed Valko’s death on an
unnamed crime syndicate in Bratislava, and other theories involved the Tipos
lawsuit and the similar slaying of Valko client Ján Ducký in 1999 (gunned
down in the lobby of his apartment house). In that case, police charged Ukrai-
nian suspect “Oleg T.,” said to reside and work for underworld boss Ivan Mis-
kov, but the charge was dismissed in in 2000. Bratislava police officially closed
that case, leaving it unsolved, in July 2007.
Another Slovakian newspaper, the tabloid SME, raised alternative theories
for Valko’s murder. One was a straightforward robbery gone wrong, based
on prior burglaries at his home. Another suggestion involved a case in which
Valko represented Tobiáš Loyka, owner of a lucrative peat bog operation, in a
lawsuit filed against Slovak Information Service (SIS) agents Michal Hrbáček
and Martin Lieskovský. The SIS is a Slovakian intelligence agency, established
in January 1993 as a descendant of Czechoslovakia’s defunct Federal Secu-
rity Information Service. In 1995, its agents kidnapped and “lightly” tortured
the son of President Michal Kováč, then allegedly killed prosecution witness
Róbert Remiáš, a Bratislava policeman, in April 1996.

Further Reading
Leff, Carol. The Czech and Slovak Republics: Nation versus State. Boulder, CO: Westview
Press, 1996.
Schwartz, Herman. The Struggle for Constitutional Justice in Post-Communist Europe. Chi-
cago: University of Chicago Press, 2000.
Shepherd, Robin. Czechoslovakia: The Velvet Revolution and Beyond. New York: St. Mar-
tin’s Press, 2000.
Wheaton, Bernard, and Zdeněk Kavan. The Velvet Revolution: Czechoslovakia,
1988–1991. Boulder, CO: Westview Press, 1992.
Whipple, Tim. After the Velvet Revolution: Vaclav Havel and the New Leaders of Czechoslo-
vakia Speak Out. Lanham, MD: University Press of America, 1991.

VANCE, ROBERT SMITH (1931–1989)

On December 16, 1989, Judge Robert Vance of the United States Court of Ap-
peals for the Eleventh Circuit opened a package at his home in Mountain Brook
Alabama. A bomb inside the parcel detonated, killing Vance and gravely injur-
ing his wife. Two days later, a similar mail bomb killed Robert E. Robinson, an
African American civil rights lawyer, in Savannah, Georgia. Within days, two
598 VA N C E , R O B E R T S M I T H

more bombs were intercepted and defused by authorities—one at the Eleventh

Circuit Court’s headquarters in Atlanta, Georgia, the other at a Jacksonville,
Florida, office of the National Association for the Advancement of Colored
People (NAACP). The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) launched an inves-
tigation tagged VANPAC—for “Vance” and “package”—in an effort to identify
the bomber, with results that some regard as controversial to this day.
Robert Vance was born in Talladega, Alabama, on May 10, 1931. Raised in
nearby Birmingham, he received a BS degree from the University of Alabama
in 1950, while serving as president of the Student Government Association,
and earned his JD from the university’s school of law two years later. Vance
then entered military service as an attorney for the U.S. Army Judge Advocate
General’s Corps, where he assisted in defending the army against charges of
communist infiltration raised by Senator Joseph McCarthy. Back in civilian life,
Vance earned his master of laws degree from George Washington University
Law School in 1955, then served as a law clerk for Alabama Supreme Court
Justice James Mayfield. He subsequently spent one year as an attorney with the
U.S. Department of Labor, then returned to private practice in Birmingham.
Vance’s return to Alabama coincided with the rise of the black civil rights
movement. Despite his education in segregated schools, immersed in Ala-
bama’s culture of white supremacy, Vance found himself in sympathy with Af-
rican Americans. In court, he balked at automatically eliminating blacks from
jury pools, and joined as an intervening plaintiff in the case of Reynolds v. Sims,
producing a 1964 decision from the U.S. Supreme Court that state legisla-
ture districts must be roughly equal in population to avoid racial bias. Despite
that stance, unpopular with many Alabama whites, Vance was elected chair-
man of the state’s Democratic Party in 1966 and held that post for the next
11 years, restricting control of the party by overtly racist Governor George
Wallace. Aside from politics and his legal practice, Vance also served as a lec-
turer at Samford University’s Cumberland School of Law, in Birmingham, from
1967 through 1969.
On November 4, 1977, President Jimmy Carter nominated Vance for a seat
on the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Fifth Circuit, covering portions of portions
of six Southern states. Confirmed by the U.S. Senate on December 15, 1977,
Vance received his commission the same day and continued in that post until
October 1981, when the Fifth Circuit was divided to create a new Eleventh
Circuit Court of Appeals. Vance transferred to that court, hearing cases from
Alabama, Florida, and Georgia for the remainder of his life. In 1990, Congress
passed a bill renaming Birmingham’s federal building in honor of Vance.
FBI agents began their VANPAC investigation with the assumption of a rac-
ist motive, based on the targets selected. That premise shifted in January 1990,
when bureau spokesmen said that suspect Robert Wayne O’Ferrell, owner
of an army surplus store in Enterprise, Alabama, had failed a polygraph test.
VA N C E , R O B E R T S M I T H 599

While denying that O’Ferrell was their “chief suspect,” agents noted that he
had filed a lawsuit against his former employer, the Gulf Life Insurance Com-
pany of Jacksonville, and Judge Vance had dismissed O’Ferrell’s claim.
While O’Ferrell was still under scrutiny, the case moved in yet another di-
rection. An agent of the U.S. Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms, who
had defused the recent Atlanta bomb, told investigators that its construction
reminded him of another incident dating from 1972. In that case, Georgia resi-
dent Walter Leroy Moody Jr. had been arrested after a homemade bomb ex-
ploded in his house, injuring his wife. Moody had received a four-year prison
term in that case, which prosecutors linked to an abortive extortion scheme,
subsequently filing an unsuccessful motion with the Eleventh Circuit Court
to have his criminal record expunged. Judge Vance was not a member of the
panel that rejected Moody’s plea, but federal prosecutors still cited revenge as
his motive, claiming that the three subsequent bombings were “red herrings”
designed to focus attention on Southern racists.
Arrested on July 11, 1990, Moody faced a slate of federal charges that in-
cluded 72 felony counts by January 1991. Defense attorneys obtained an order
recusing all federal judges within the Eleventh Circuit, whereupon Moody’s
trial was moved to St. Paul, Minnesota, in June 1991. In that proceeding,
Moody took the stand against advice from his lawyers, denying any role in the
bombing and suggesting that the mail bombs could have been sent by mem-
bers of the Ku Klux Klan. Jurors rejected that notion, convicting Moody on 71
of the counts filed against him, on June 28. Two months later, on August 21,
Judge Edward J. Devitt imposed a sentence of seven life terms plus 400 years
without possibility of parole. Triumphant prosecutor Louis Freeh was subse-
quently named director of the FBI, filling that post in September 1993.
Walter Moody’s legal troubles were not all behind him, meanwhile. Indicted
by Alabama state authorities for Judge Vance’s murder, he was convicted once
again, and received a death sentence on February 10, 1997. Alabama’s Su-
preme Court rejected Moody’s appeal of that sentence on May 18, 2012. At this
writing, he remains on death row at the Holman Correctional Facility, outside
Atmore, Alabama. Some observers, however, still question his guilt in the 1989
bombings.
A year after Moody’s state murder conviction, scandal engulfed the FBI
Laboratory in Washington, D.C. Dr. Frederic Whitehurst, a chemist and Su-
pervisory Special Agent at the lab from 1986 to 1998, emerged in 1999 as a
whistleblower detailing perceived mishandling of evidence and violations of
established FBI investigative procedures in many notorious cases, including
VANPAC and the 1995 bombing of Oklahoma City’s Alfred P. Murrah Federal
Building. In Moody’s case, Whitehurst alleged that agents J. Thomas Thurman
of the Explosives Unit and Roger Martz of the Chemistry-Toxicology Unit cir-
cumvented standard procedures, specifically bypassing mandatory analysis of
600 V E R W O E R D, H E N D R I K F R E N S C H

explosives residue by the lab’s Materials Analysis Unit. He further charged that
Martz reached a flawed opinion in concluding that the mail bombs contained
a particular smokeless powder, traced to Moody; that Thurman improperly
based his opinions on the flawed residue analysis performed by Martz; that
Thurman improperly testified outside his field of expertise on various matters;
and that Thurman lacked a factual basis for certain testimony about the explo-
sives used in the bombs. Whitehurst also accused Thurman and Martz of fabri-
cating evidence, perjuring themselves, and obstructing justice in the VANPAC
case, while suggesting that prosecutors Freeh and Howard Shapiro may have
committed misconduct by offering testimony from Martz and Thurman.
An investigation by the U.S. Department of Justice Office of the Inspector
General subsequently dismissed all of Whitehurst’s claims against the FBI Lab-
oratory, as well as Thurman, Martz, Freeh, and Shapiro, but conspiracy theo-
rists persist in suggesting that Moody may be an innocent patsy. Supporting
that case, they point to a mail-bombing that wounded Maryland judge John P.
Corderman on December 22, 1989, later deemed “dissimilar” from the explo-
sive parcels in the VANPAC case. Supporters of Moody’s innocence contend
that both judges were targeted for their involvement in federal narcotics cases.
Meanwhile, Robert O’Ferrell sued the FBI, seeking $50 million for damage to
his reputation from their abortive investigation of him, but U.S. District Judge
Harold Albritton of Birmingham dismissed that claim in November 1998.
See also: Ku Klux Klan (1866– ); Wallace, George Corley, Jr. (1919–1998)—Attempted.

Further Reading
“A Byte Out of History: The Mail Bomb Murders.” Federal Bureau of Investigation.
http://www.fbi.gov/news/stories/2006/december/vanpac_122606.
Jenkins, Ray. Blind Vengeance: The Roy Moody Mail Bomb Murders. Athens: University of
Georgia Press, 1997.
Kelly, John, and Phillip Weaver. Tainting Evidence: Inside the Scandals at the FBI Crime
Lab. New York: The Free Press, 2002.
Winne, Mark. Priority Mail. New York: Scribner, 1995.

VERWOERD, HENDRIK FRENSCH (1901–1966)

On September 6, 1966, South African prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd was
scheduled to deliver a report on his recent meeting with Chief Leabua Johna-
thon, prime minister of Lesotho, at the House of Assembly in Cape Town. He
entered the chamber at 2:15 P.M., and was attacked moments later by Dimitri
Tsafendas, a uniformed parliamentary messenger. Tsafendas stabbed Verwoerd
four times in the neck and chest before he was disarmed by Assembly mem-
bers. Other legislators administered cardiopulmonary resuscitation to Verwo-
erd before an ambulance arrived, but he was declared dead on arrival at Groote
VERWOERD, HENDRIK FRENSCH 601

Schuur Hospital. In custody, Tsafendas told police that he killed Verwoerd be-
cause he was “so disgusted with the racial policy” of apartheid that Verwoerd
and other South African leaders had crafted since 1948. He also claimed that a
giant tapeworm inside his body regularly spoke to him. At trial, Judge Andries
Beyers declared Tsafendas not guilty of murder by reason of insanity. Diagnosed
as schizophrenic, Tsafendas spent the remainder of his life in various prisons
and psychiatric hospitals, dying in October 1999, at age 81.
Hendrik Verwoerd was born in Amsterdam on September 8, 1901, the son
of a Dutch merchant who favored the Afrikaner side in the Second Boer War
(1899–1902). In 1913, Verwoerd’s family emigrated to Bulawayo, Southern
Rhodesia (now Zimbabwe), where his father served as an evangelist for the
Dutch Reformed Church. Verwoerd attended Milton High School and re-
ceived a Beit Trust Scholarship, but had to decline it when his father moved
the clan again, this time to Brandfort in South Africa’s Orange Free State. He
subsequently enrolled at Stellenbosch University, with a theology major, then
switched to psychology, receiving both a masters and a doctorate cum laude. He
declined an Abe Bailey scholarship to Oxford University, preferring study in
Germany during 1925–1927, when Adolf Hitler’s Nazi Party was on the rise.
That movement’s influence on Verwoerd’s racial attitudes remains a subject of
speculation by South African historians today.
Back in South Africa by
1928, Verwoerd was appointed
to chair the Department of Ap-
plied Psychology at his alma
mater, Stellenbosch University,
advancing professor of sociol-
ogy and social work in 1934.
Two years later, he led a deputa-
tion of six professors opposing
admission of German-Jewish
refugees from Nazism to South
Africa. By 1937, Verwoerd
was an active member of the
far-right National Party in the
Transvaal and editor of its rac-
ist newspaper, Die Transvaler. A
Supreme Court judgment sub-
sequently found as fact that
Die Transvaler, with Verwoerd’s
knowledge and collaboration, An opponent of apartheid assassinated South Af-
operated as an organ of the Ger- rican prime minister Hendrik Verwoerd. (Getty
man Nazi Party in South Africa. Images)
602 V E R W O E R D, H E N D R I K F R E N S C H

Whereas Hitler’s Third Reich lay in ruins after World War II, the National
Party grew stronger under Verwoerd’s leadership, sweeping to power in the
South African general election of May 1948. Its platform hinged on apartheid
(“the status of being apart”)—that is, white minority rule over a strictly segre-
gated society. Step one was passage of the 1949 Prohibition of Mixed Marriages
Act. A year later, with Verwoerd’s appointment as minister of native affairs
under Prime Minister Daniel Malan, more restrictive legislation followed. In
1950, came the Immorality Amendment Act (banning interracial adultery and
extramarital sex), the Population Registration Act (creating a national registry
of every citizen’s race), the Group Areas Act (imposing residential segregation),
and the Suppression of Communism Act (banning the Communist Party and
any form of “radical” change). In 1951, legislators passed the Bantu Build-
ing Workers Act (banning black artisans from work in white urban areas), the
Separate Representation of Voters Act (removing “coloreds” from the common
voters’ roll), the Prevention of Illegal Squatting Act (moving blacks from pub-
lic lands to resettlement camps), and the Bantu Authorities Act (establishing
“black homelands” with illusory self-government).
The onslaught of racist legislation continued throughout Verwoerd’s ten-
ure as minister of native affairs and accelerated in September 1958, when he
succeeded Johannes Strijdom as South Africa’s prime minister. By early 1960,
apartheid had been formally condemned by British prime minister Harold
Macmillan. On March 21 of that year, black protests against discrimination and
police brutality culminated in the Sharpeville massacre (see sidebar). Less than
three weeks later, Verwoerd survived his first assassination attempt.
That attack came on April 9, 1960, when Verwoerd opened the Union Ex-
position on the Witwatersrand, a large sedimentary range of rocky hills that
forms a continental divide in South Africa. David Pratt, a farmer from Natal,
fired two shots at Verwoerd from a .22-caliber pistol, at point-blank range,
striking the prime minister in his right cheek and right ear. Surgeons at Preto-
ria Hospital called Verwoerd’s survival “absolutely miraculous,” resulting from
Pratt’s selection of a small-caliber weapon. Disarmed and arrested at the scene,
Pratt faced trial in Johannesburg Magistrates’ Court on April 11, where he was
judged to be “mentally disordered and epileptic.” Sentenced to indefinite de-
tention pending “indication of the Governor General’s pleasure,” Pratt hanged
himself at Bloemfontein Mental Hospital on October 1, 1961.
Seemingly unfazed by his near miss with death, Verwoerd pressed on with
ever-tightening restrictions on South Africa’s racially divided society. United
Nations Secretary General Dag Hammarskjöld failed to negotiate more liberal
terms with Verwoerd in 1961, and the UN General Assembly passed Resolu-
tion 1761 on November 6, 1962, formally condemning apartheid and asking
all UN member states to sever diplomatic relations with Pretoria. A second UN
resolution, passed on August 7, 1963, called for a voluntary international arms
VERWOERD, HENDRIK FRENSCH 603

SHARPEVILLE MASSACRE
On March 21, 1960, an estimated 19,000 black residents of Sharpeville,
in the Transvaal, rallied at a local police station to protest laws requiring
“colored” citizens to carry special pass books whenever they ventured
outside of segregated black “homelands.” The demonstrators left their
pass books at home, offering themselves for mass arrest to highlight the
law’s inequity. When overflights by jet fighters failed to discourage the
crowd, 150 police officers supported by armored vehicles opened fire on
the protesters with rifles and automatic weapons, killing at least 69 per-
sons and wounding 180 more. Those gunned down—many shot in the
back as they fled—included 39 women and 29 children. Police subse-
quently blamed the shooting on panic among “young and inexperienced”
officers, but testimony offered before South Africa’s Truth and Reconcil-
iation Commission in 1998 suggested “a degree of deliberation in the
decision to open fire.” The massacre sparked international outrage and
prompted the African National Congress to organize a paramilitary wing,
Umkhonto we Sizwe (“Spear of the Nation”), to carry out guerrilla actions
against the white-supremacist state.

embargo against South Africa. A year later, the United States and Britain sus-
pended arms sales to Verwoerd’s racist state.
Despite international condemnation, the National Party remained in control
of South Africa, winning the 1966 general elections. Throughout the 1960s,
South Africa developed its own military–industrial complex, producing mili-
tary hardware ranging from small arms to nuclear and biological weapons.
Even after Verwoerd’s murder, the National Party would remain intransigent,
defending apartheid by any and all means available until 1994.
Some 250,000 white mourners attended Verwoerd’s funeral, at the Hero’s
Acre in Pretoria. Countless public facilities, roads, and other locations were
named in his honor, though most have been renamed since 1994. Pretoria’s
H. F. Verwoerd Hospital, as an example, today bears the name of martyred
black activist Steve Biko. The last vestige of Verwoerd’s regime—the blood-
stained carpet where his body lay in parliament after his stabbing—was finally
removed in 2004.

Further Reading
Ainslie, Rosalynde. The Unholy Alliance: Salazar, Verwoerd, Welensky. London: M. W.
Books, 1962.
“Attempted Assassination of Dr. Verwoerd 1960.” British Pathé. http://www.britishpathe
.com/video/attempted-assassination-of-dr-verwoerd.
604 VICTORIA, QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM

Bunting, Brian. The Rise of the South African Reich. New York: Penguin African Library,
1969.
Hepple, Alexander. Verwoerd. New York: Pelican/Penguin Books, 1967.
Kenny, Henry. Architect of Apartheid: H. F. Verwoerd, an Appraisal. London: J. Ball, 1980.
Welsh, David. The Rise and Fall of Apartheid. Charlottesville: University of Virginia
Press, 2010.

VICTORIA, QUEEN OF THE UNITED

KINGDOM (1819–1901)—ATTEMPTED
Great Britain’s longest-serving monarch (thus far) made many enemies during
her 63 years and seven months on the throne. Between 1840 and 1887, Queen
Victoria survived at least eight assassination attempts that are documented in
public records.
The first attempt occurred on June 10, 1840, in the third year of Victoria’s
reign, when she was 21 years old and four months pregnant with the first of
her nine children. The would-be assassin, 18-year-old Edward Oxford, fired
two pistol shots at the queen as she rode through London in an open carriage,
with husband Prince Albert. Neither shot struck anyone, and some historians
theorize that Oxford forgot to put bullets in his muzzle-loading weapon. No
motive for the bungled shooting was suggested. Charged with high treason,
Oxford was acquitted on grounds of insanity and spent the next 27 years in lu-
natic asylums. Released in 1867, he emigrated to Australia and lived an appar-
ently normal life there until his death, in April 1900.
The first attempt on Victoria’s life produced an outpouring of public sup-
port in Britain and throughout Europe, but its failure did not dissuade other
hopeful assassins. On May 29, 1842, cabinetmaker John Francis waited for
Victoria on The Mall, in London, but his pistol misfired and he escaped in
the ensuing confusion. Surmising that the then-unknown gunman might try
again, Victoria rode along the same route on May 30, and Francis repeated his
attempt to kill her. His pistol worked that time, but Francis missed his target
and was seized by a plainclothes policeman. Convicted of high treason at trial,
he was sentenced to hang, but that sentence was commuted in July and Fran-
cis was transported to Australia.
Two days after Francis heard his death sentence commuted—on July 3,
1842—John William Bean, described as a “deformed and deranged” 17-year
old, joined the list of would-be regicides. Strangely, his pistol was loaded with
paper and tobacco rather than a bullet, and he used too little gunpowder to
send the odd projectile very far. Considering his situation and ineptitude, the
court was lenient, imposing only an 18-month prison term.
Nearly seven years passed before the next known attempt on Victoria’s life.
The assailant this time was William Hamilton, an unemployed farm laborer
from Adare, Ireland. On May 19, 1849, Hamilton carried his poorly loaded
VICTORIA, QUEEN OF THE UNITED KINGDOM 605

pistol to London’s Constitution Hill and fired a cloud of smoke at the queen’s
passing carriage. Whether he included a projectile is unclear, but the shooting
produced no casualties. At trial, on June 14, Hamilton pled guilty to attempted
regicide and was transported to Australia for a term of seven years.
Next in line to stalk the queen was Robert Francis Pate Jr., a 31-year-old
lieutenant in the 10th Light Dragoons (now the 10th Royal Hussars), who
began to exhibit strange behavior in 1844, after his favorite horse and dog
were euthanized for rabies during a tour of duty in Ireland. On the evening of
June 27, 1850, after Victoria had visited a dying uncle at Cambridge House in
Picadilly, Pate attacked her with cane, inflicting a scar on the queen’s forehead
that remained visible for years afterward. At trial, while shunning a plea of in-
sanity, Pate sought leniency by claiming he had suffered “a momentary lapse
caused by a weak mind.” Convicted and transported to Tasmania for a seven-
year term, he later returned to London and died there in 1895.
Britain’s Irish “troubles” prompted the next attack on Queen Victoria, on Feb-
ruary 29, 1872. The assailant, 17-year-old youth Arthur O’Connor, accosted
Victoria outside Buckingham Palace, brandishing a pistol and demanding free-
dom for Fenian prisoners incarcerated over their struggle for Irish freedom
from England. A servant, John Brown, tackled and disarmed O’Connor, only
then discovering that the teenager’s gun was both defective and unloaded.
A court sentenced O’Connor to one year’s imprisonment and 20 lashes with a
birch whip, but Victoria waived the public beating.
Victoria’s next would-be slayer was Roderick MacLean, a London poet who
had mailed some of his verses to the queen and received a curt response that
he deemed insulting. On March 2, 1882, MacLean fired a pistol at Victoria’s
carriage outside Windsor Station, wounding no one. Two students from Eton
College attacked MacLean with their umbrellas, beating him until a constable
arrived to seize him. Charged with high treason, MacLean was deemed “not
guilty, but insane” on April 20. That verdict reportedly enraged Victoria, but
she took consolation from another outpouring of public support, remarking
that it was “worth being shot at, to see how much one is loved.”
Five years later, on June 20, 1887, Victoria celebrated her Golden Jubilee,
marking half a century as Britain’s queen. Irish nationalists found the temptation
to disrupt that ceremony irresistible, allegedly plotting to blow up Westminster
Abbey with Victoria and half her cabinet inside. We say “allegedly” today, be-
cause the mastermind of the conspiracy—Francis Millen, a member of Clan
na Gael, a successor to the defunct Fenian Brotherhood—had been employed
since 1885 as a spy for the British Home Office. According to later reports,
Scotland Yard officer Edward Jenkinson encouraged the plot, with approval
from Prime Minister Lord Salisbury, as a means of arresting militant nationalists
and embarrassing the Irish Parliamentary Party, created in 1882 to seek home
rule for Ireland. British newspapers exposed the “plot” in June 1887, when
606 VIEIR A, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

two Irish-American suspects—Thomas Callan and Michael Harkins—were ar-

rested for smuggling dynamite into London. Jurors convicted both in February
1888 and sentenced to 15-year terms, and ringleader Millen slipped through
police hands and escaped to the United States. The Times of London named de-
ceased American James Monro as a financier of the plot, and although he could
not defend himself, Irish politician Charles Stewart Parnell sued the paper for
linking him to nationalist violence, winning a judgment of £5,000 for libel.
Future queen Alexandrina Victoria was born on May 24, 1819, granddaugh-
ter of King George III and daughter of heir apparent Prince Edward, Duke of
Kent and Strathearn. George and Edward died within six days of one another,
in January 1820, leaving Victoria to inherit the British throne at age 18. Three
years later, she married a first cousin, Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha,
producing the first of their nine children in November 1840. Albert died in
December 1861, after a protracted illness, and Victoria then entered a long
period of mourning, avoiding public appearances for several years. Momen-
tous events of her long reign include the Irish potato famine (1844), establish-
ment of Britain’s first public libraries (1850), the Crimean War (1853–1856),
transfer of government in India from a private trading company to the Crown
(1858), extension of suffrage to tax-paying men of the urban working class
(1867), institution of compulsory primary education to age 11 (1870), ex-
panding property rights of married women (1883), extension of suffrage to
agricultural workers (1884), and still-unsolved serial murders by “Jack the
Ripper” (1888), believed by some historians to be Victoria’s grandson, Prince
Albert Victor, Duke of Clarence and Avondale. At her death in 1901, Victoria
was succeeded by her son, Edward VII.

Further Reading
Campbell, Christy. Fenian Fire: The British Government Plot to Assassinate Queen Victoria.
London: HarperCollins. 2002.
Charles, Barrie. Kill the Queen! The Eight Assassination Attempts on Queen Victoria.
Stroud, Gloucestershire, United Kingdom: Amberley Publishing, 2012.
Marshall, Dorothy. The Life and Times of Queen Victoria. London: Weidenfeld & Nicol-
son, 1972.
St. Aubyn, Giles. Queen Victoria: A Portrait. London: Sinclair-Stevenson, 1991.
Strachey, Lytton. Queen Victoria. London: Chatto and Windus, 1921.
Woodham-Smith, Cecil. Queen Victoria: Her Life and Times 1819–1861. London:
Hamish Hamilton, 1972.

VIEIRA, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

(1939–2009)
On March 1, 2009, a bomb exploded at army headquarters in Bissau, the capital
of Guinea-Bissau, killing Chief of Staff Batista Tagme Na Waie. In the predawn
VIEIRA, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO 607

hours of March 2, soldiers raided the home of General Na Waie’s bitter rival,
President João “Nino” Vieira, killing him as he attempted to flee. Reports differ as
to the cause of Vieira’s death. European media reports quoted a pathologist who
performed his autopsy as saying the president was “savagely beaten before being
finished off with several bullets.” Best-selling novelist Frederick Forsyth, visiting
Guinea-Bissau at the time of the assassination, later claimed that the patholo-
gist, over dinner, told him that Vieira survived an explosion at the presidential
villa, then was captured and carried to his mother-in-law’s home, where soldiers
hacked him to death with machetes. Thousands attended Vieira’s funeral at the
National People’s Assembly, but foreign world leaders shunned the event.
João Vieira was born in Bissau, then the capital of Portuguese Guinea, on
April 27, 1939. Details of his early life are vague, beyond the fact that he be-
longed to the minority Papel ethnic group and trained to work as an electrician.
In 1960, Vieira joined the African Party for the Independence of Guinea and
Cape Verde (PAIGC), led by nationalist spokesman Amílcar Lopes da Costa Ca-
bral, rising to serve as the party’s political commissioner and military chief for
the Tombali region by 1961. In January 1963, Cabral declared all-out guerrilla
war against Portugal, launching a 10-year struggle for independence. Vieira
rose swiftly through the PAIGC’s ranks, serving as military commander of its
southern front in 1964, as a member of its Political Bureau in 1964–1965, as
vice president of its War Council from 1965 to 1967, as a southern front politi-
cal bureau delegate from 1967 to 1970, and as a member of the War Council
Executive Committee during 1970–1971.
In 1972, Amílcar Cabral began to organize a People’s Assembly, meant to
govern his homeland when it achieved independence. Based in Conakry, in
neighboring Guinea, the People’s Assembly served as a government in exile for
what would become Guinea-Bissau. Assassins murdered Cabral in Conakry on
January 23, 1973, but his half-brother Luis Cabral assumed command of the
PAIGC. João Vieira, at the time, was both the party’s deputy secretary general
and a member of its Permanent Secretariat. The PAIGC declared Guinea-Bissau
independent on September 24, 1973, but Portuguese resistance continued
until Portugal’s “Carnation Revolution” of April 1974 deposed dictator Marcelo
Caetano. Guinea-Bissau officially achieved its independence on September 10,
1974, with Luis as its first president.
João Vieira, meanwhile, had advanced to serve as president of the People’s
National Assembly in 1973, a post he held for the next five years. On Septem-
ber 28, 1978, President Cabral named Vieira to serve as prime minister. He
held that post for two years, while Guinea-Bissau’s economy declined, then led
a bloodless coup against Cabral on November 14, 1980, driving Cabral into
exile. That move, exacerbated by racial tension within the PAIGC, split the
party’s Guinea-Bissau faction from its apparatus in Cape Verde. Vieira ruled
the roost in Guinea-Bissau, as chairman of the Council of the Revolution, and
608 VIEIR A, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO

the party’s Cape Verdean branch was reborn as the African Party for the Inde-
pendence of Cape Verde.
In May of 1984, Guinea-Bissau adopted a new constitution. To preserve an
image of propriety, Vieira ceded his office to acting president Carmen Pereira
on May 14, then resumed it two days later, with his title changed from chair-
man of the Council of the Revolution to chairman of the Council of State. Al-
ready fond of calling himself “God’s gift” to Guinea-Bissau, Vieira banned rival
political parties until 1991, then bowed to pressure from the Democratic Front
led by Aristide Menezes, scheduling the country’s first presidential election
for July 3, 1994. Running as one of seven candidates, Vieira led the field with
46 percent of the popular vote, but his failure to achieve a clear majority forced
a run-off with second-place contender Kumba Ialá on August 7. In that contest,
Vieira emerged with 52 percent of the vote, against Ialá’s 48 percent. He was
inaugurated as Guinea-Bissau’s first elected president on September 29, 1994.
By then, more was at stake than command of the country. Guinea-Bissau,
since the 1980s, had emerged as West Africa’s hub of trafficking in Colom-
bian cocaine. Outside observers recognized the “well-known secret” that Vie-
ira stood as “the Biggest Man in the cocaine trade,” dealing ruthlessly with his
competitors. Reelected to a second term as president in May 1998, Vieira dis-
missed Army Chief of Staff Ansumane Mané on June 6, based on allegations
that Mané had smuggled weapons to rebel separatists in Senegal. Mané’s sup-
porters retaliated with a bungled coup against Vieira on June 7, sparking a civil
war that continued until May 1999, claiming thousands of lives and displacing
some 350,000 persons. Finally outmatched, Vieira resigned as president on
May 7, 1999, sought refuge in the Portuguese embassy, then fled to Portugal.
Mané invited ex-president Cabral home from exile, and although Cabral briefly
returned to Guinea-Bissau, he declined the presidency.
Seven days after Vieira’s expulsion, Mané named Malam Bacai Sanhá as act-
ing president. In September 1999, a PAIGC party congress expelled Vieira for
what it called “treasonable offences, support and incitement to warfare, and
practices incompatible with the statutes of the party.” Kumba Ialá defeated
President Sanhá’s reelection bid in February 2000, serving until a coup led
by General Veríssimo Correia Seabra deposed him in mid-September 2003.
Seabra ruled for two weeks, then appointed acting president Henrique Rosa.
Vieira returned from Portugal on April 7, 2005, met by 5,000 cheering ad-
mirers when his helicopter landed at Bissau’s National Stadium. Buoyed by a
petition with 30,000 signatures urging him to run for president again, Vieira
announced his candidacy on April 16.
Some opponents considered Vieira ineligible for election, based on his years
in exile and still-pending charges of killing suspected coup leaders 20 years
earlier, but in May 2005 the nation’s Supreme Court approved his participa-
tion in a field of 13 candidates. As before, the first round of voting on June 19
VIEIRA, JOÃO “NINO” BERNARDO 609

produced no clear winner. Incumbent Sanhá polled 35 percent of the vote, to

Vieira’s 29 percent and Kumba Ialá’s 25 percent. An August run-off found Vie-
ira leading with 216,167 votes to Sanhá’s 196,759, and Vieira began another
term as president on October 1.
According to outside observers, Vieira also resumed—if, in fact, he had ever
relinquished—his role as the primary smuggler of cocaine through Guinea-
Bissau. The perils of drug trafficking aside, his final presidential term was
fraught with conflict. On October 25, 2005, Vieira dismissed hostile Prime
Minister Carlos Domingos Gomes Júnior, replacing him with ally Aristides
Gomes. In March 2007, the PAIGC formed an alliance with two smaller parties
to force Gomes’s resignation. Vieira then appointed Martinho Ndafa Kabi as
prime minister, then dissolved the National People’s Assembly in August 2008.
Three months later, shortly after the PAIGC won a majority in Guinea-Bissau’s
parliamentary elections, rebellious soldiers attacked Vieira’s home on Novem-
ber 26, 2008, but failed in their attempt to kill him. That remained for the final
coup, on March 2, which spawned an enduring mystery.
Vieira’s murder was condemned by the African Union, the European Union,
the United States, and the Socialist International, and investigation of the as-
sassination began. Agents of the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation arrived
in April 2009, but never published results of their findings. Three months
later, the United Nations approved an investigation by the Economic Union of
West African States, apparently without reaching definitive conclusions. Au-
gust 2009 brought speculation from South America that Colombia’s Medellín
cocaine cartel, then led by Pedro Juan Morena Villa, had orchestrated the mur-
ders of both Vieira and General Na Waie, through a Senegalese terrorist group
called the Movement of Democratic Forces of Casamance. Thus far, no one has
been charged with either crime.

Further Reading
Azikiwe, Ifeoha. Africa: Conflict Resolution and International Diplomacy. Milton Keynes,
United Kingdom: AuthorHouse UK Ltd., 2009.
Barry, Boubacar-Sid, and Quentin Wodon. “Conflict, Growth, and Poverty in Guinea-
Bissau.” In Growth and Poverty Reduction: Case Studies from West Africa. Washington,
D.C.: The World Bank, 2007.
Chabal, Patrick, David Birmingham, Joshua Forrest, and Malyn Newitt. A History of
Postcolonial Lusophone Africa. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 2002.
Jessup, John. An Encyclopedic Dictionary of Conflict and Conflict Resolution, 1945–1996.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 1998.
Levitt, Jeremy. Illegal Peace in Africa: An Inquiry into the Legality of Power Sharing with
Warlords, Rebels, and Junta. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2012.
Vigh, Henry. “Critical States and Cocaine Connections.” In African Conflicts and Infor-
mal Power: Big Men and Networks. London: Zed Books, 2012.
610 V I L L A , F R A N C I S C O “ PA N C H O ”

VILLA, FRANCISCO “PANCHO” (1878–1923)

On July 20, 1923, longtime revolutionary leader Francisco “Pancho” Villa trav-
eled to Hidalgo del Parral, in the Mexican state of Chihuahua. Villa owned a
ranch nearby, and frequently stopped there to deal with personal business. On
this particular Friday, he was bound for the local bank, to collect the payroll
for his ranch hands. Contrary to custom, Villa left most of his armed body-
guards at the ranch, taking only three—Ramon Contreras, Claro Huertado,
and Rafael Madreno—with him in his four-year-old Dodge roadster. An aide to
Villa, Colonel Miguel Trillo, drove the car, and Villa was also accompanied by
his secretary, Daniel Tamayo. As the party passed a school, a roadside pump-
kinseed vendor shouted, “Viva Villa!” Responding to that prearranged signal,
seven snipers fired on the Dodge, killing everyone inside the car except Contre-
ras, who killed one of the ambush party then escaped, gravely wounded. Villa’s
men soon fanned out from the ranch, capturing the other six assassins, and
delivered them to state authorities. Two were sentenced to short jail terms, and
the other four were rewarded with army commissions, effectively confirming
suspicion that Villa was killed on orders from President Álvaro Obregón Salido.
Pancho Villa was born José Doroteo Arango Arámbula on June 5, 1878,
at a ranch in the state of Durango where his parents labored as sharecrop-
ping peasants. The eldest of
five children, he received some
education from a local Catho-
lic school, then dropped out
to support his family after his
father died. Although details
of his early life are sparse and
controversial, Arango later
claimed that he left Durango
for Chihuahua at age 16, then
returned to track down and kill
a man who had raped his sister.
Following that episode, he stole
a horse and fled into the Sierra
Madre Occidental mountains,
using the name “Orango” when
he joined a bandit gang led by
Ignacio Parra.
Police nabbed Arango in
1902, on charges of assault
Mexican revolutionary Francisco "Pancho" Villa, and stealing mules, a capital of-
shot in an ambush in July 1923. (Hulton-Deutsch fense. Luckily, the “fence” who
Collection/CORBIS) bought his rustled livestock
V I L L A , F R A N C I S C O “ PA N C H O ” 611

was rich and influential enough to spare Arango’s life, on the condition that
he join Mexico’s army. Arango agreed, then deserted in 1903, killing an of-
ficer and fleeing on the dead man’s horse. Thereafter, he assumed the name
Francisco “Pancho” Villa, in honor of his paternal grandfather. Over the next
seven years, Villa waffled between legitimate odd jobs and robbery, until the
outbreak of the Mexican Revolution in 1910. Revolutionary leader Francisco
Madero González soon persuaded Villa to forsake a life of banditry for the
crusade against dictator Porfirio Díaz. Villa soon proved himself a skilled field
commander, helping Madero’s forces triumph in the month-long Battle of Ci-
udad Juárez (April–May 1911). As a result, Díaz fled into exile, ceding the
presidency to Madero.
Thus ended the first state of the Mexican Revolution, but not Pancho Villa’s
long war. Villa despised Venustiano Carranza, a former Díaz loyalist selected by
Madero as his minister of war. Despite that disappointment, Villa balked at join-
ing Pascual Orozco’s rebellion against Madero in March 1912, joining General
Victoriano Huerta to suppress the uprising. In the process, Huerta recognized
Villa as an ambitious potential rival, trumping up charges of insubordination
and horse theft to justify Villa’s execution. President Madero intervened at the
eleventh hour, commuting Villa’s death sentence to life imprisonment, but Villa
soon escaped from custody. He was on the run in February 1913, when Huerta,
conspiring with U.S. ambassador Henry Wilson and Félix Díaz (a nephew of the
exiled former president), deposed and murdered Madero.
With Huerta’s installation as president, Villa swallowed his dislike for Venus-
tiano Carranza, joining Álvaro Obregón, Emiliano Zapata, and Pablo González
Garza as leaders of a new Constitutional Army, pledged to Huerta’s defeat.
Villa supervised the army’s operation in northern Mexico, redoubling his ef-
forts in March 1913, after Huerta executed a close friend of Villa’s, Chihuahua
governor Abraham González Casavantes. Four months later, U.S. president
Woodrow Wilson dismissed Ambassador Wilson (no relation) and threw U.S.
support behind Carranza. Huerta fought on for another year, then resigned in
July 1914 and fled into exile. By that time, Carranza had named Villa to serve
as provisional governor of Chihuahua, financing his army through selective
robberies and coercive assessments on hostile ranchers such as those who had
held his parents in peonage.
Villa had not been President Carranza’s first choice as governor of Chihua-
hua, but local military officers demanded his appointment over Carranza’s
preferred candidate, Manuel Chao. Once in office, Villa prepared for a move
against Carranza, supplementing his income from holdups and hacienda taxa-
tion with reams of paper currency he printed himself, compelling its accep-
tance on an equal basis with standard gold pesos. In Texas, Brigadier General
John Pershing was impressed enough with Villa to invite him for a visit at Fort
Bliss, outside El Paso.
612 V I L L A , F R A N C I S C O “ PA N C H O ”

On October 1, 1914, Carranza summoned a “Great Convention of Com-

manding Military Chiefs and State Governors,” meeting first in Mexico City,
then relocating to Aguascalientes for sessions lasting through November 9.
Designed to settle differences between Carranza, Villa, Zapata, and Obregón,
the convention surprised Carranza by picking General Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz
as president of the new Mexican Republic, and Villa emerged as commander
of the Conventionalist Army. That force entered Mexico City on December 6,
1914, driving Carranza and his troops to seek sanctuary in Veracruz. Carranza
established his new capital there, controlling Mexico’s primary seaport, as Ál-
varo Obregón came to Carranza’s defense.
Battle was joined between Villa and Obregón at Celaya, Guanajuato, on
April 13, 1915. Obregón lost 600 men in that fight, but still defeated Villa,
killing 4,000 Conventionalist soldiers and capturing 6,000 more (of whom
120 were executed). Retreating to Trinidad García de la Cadena, in Zacate-
cas, Villa fought Obregón again on June 1, fielding 25,500 men against Ob-
regón’s 23,900. Obregón lost his right arm in that battle, but still crushed
Villa’s army, inflicting some 8,000 casualties. Another defeat followed on
November 1, 1915, at Agua Prieta, Sonora, where 15,000 Villistas were un-
able to conquer 6,500 troops led by General Plutarco Elías Calles. In the wake
of that loss, 1,500 survivors deserted Villa’s ranks. He tried to recoup morale
by attacking Hermosillo on November 21, but lack of discipline produced yet
another defeat.
Next, Villa turned his eyes toward the border. On January 11, 1916, Villa’s
men stopped a Mexico North Western Railway train near Santa Isabel, Chi-
huahua, executing 16 U.S. employees of the American Smelting and Refin-
ing Company. Villa admitted ordering the raid, presumably in response to
Washington’s support for President Carranza, but he denied authorizing the
executions. While General Pershing marshaled troops along the southwest-
ern border, Villa sent 100 men to raid Columbus, New Mexico, on March 9.
The Villistas killed eight members of the 13th Cavalry Regiment and 10 civil-
ians, torching the town before they fled with stolen weapons, ammunition, and
horses, but it was pyrrhic victory, with 67 raiders dead on the field.
Six days later, Pershing led 4,800 troops into Mexico, pursuing Villa. Their
first clash, at a ranch near Guerrero, Chihuahua, on March 29, drove Villa from
that town with 75 men dead or wounded. Other battles followed, with Lieu-
tenant George Patton’s 8th Cavalry joining the hunt in May. Most were fought
on Mexican soil, but Villistas still crossed the border as well, striking a ranch
in Texas on Christmas Day 1917 and another in March 1918. By the time Per-
shing concluded his Mexican Punitive Expedition, 8 U.S. soldiers were dead,
against 171 Villistas and (ironically) 24 of Carranza’s federal troops.
Villa, although hunted and harried, continued his war against Carranza.
In June 1919, he nearly captured Ciudad Juárez from Carranza’s army, then
V I L L A , F R A N C I S C O “ PA N C H O ” 613

retreated when U.S. troops from El Paso intervened. From there, he attempted
a siege of Durango, but was once again defeated. Another bitter loss occurred
near year’s end, when Carranza captured Villa’s best-surviving ally, General Fe-
lipe Ángeles Ramirez, and executed him on November 26. A break came for
Villa in May 1920, when supporters of Álvaro Obregón assassinated Carranza,
replacing him with interim President Adolfo de la Huerta. Villa negotiated
peace terms with de la Huerta, whereby Villa received a 25,000-acre hacienda
near Hidalgo del Parral, plus a pension of 500,000 gold pesos, in return for a
cessation of hostilities. Those terms were still in force when Obregón became
president in December 1920, but Villa’s fate was effectively sealed.
Whereas some historians blame President Obregón for Villa’s assassination,
two alternate theories exist. One is that Plutarco Elías Calles, frontrunner for
the Mexican presidency in 1924, who may have feared Villa’s announced in-
tent to contest that election, may have been responsible. The other holds Jesús
Herrera, last surviving son of former Villista General Jose de la Luz Herrera,
who had shifted to Carranza’s side in 1914, responsible for the assassination.
Subsequently, son Malclovia Herrera died in battle against Villistas in 1915,
and another son—Luis Herrera—was captured and executed in 1916. Finally,
in 1919, General de la Luz Herrera was captured with two more sons and like-
wise put to death. Thereafter, Jesús Herrera allegedly spent the remainder of
his family’s fortune in a long vendetta against Villa.

PANCHO VILLA ON FILM

In life and death, Pancho Villa remains the most famous—some say
romantic—figure of the Mexican Revolution. He portrayed himself in four
documentary films, between 1912 and 1916, and the century between
1912 and 2012 saw 37 actors cast as Villa in various films and television
series. Wallace Beery played Villa twice, in Patria (1917) and Viva Villa!
(1934), the latter movie nominated for four Academy Awards, including
Best Picture. Others cast as Villa for the big screen include Raoul Walsh,
Alan Reed, Leo Carillo, Pedro Armendáriz and son Pedro Armendáriz Jr.,
Yul Brynner, Telly Savalas, Freddy Fender, and Antonio Banderas. On
television, Villa featured in episodes of Have Gun Will Travel, The Young
Indiana Jones Chronicles, and a made-for-TV movie, Wanted: The Sundance
Woman. Villa, played by Anglo actor Peter Butler, also appears briefly op-
posite vampires in a 2000 horror film, From Dusk Till Dawn 3: The Hang-
man’s Daughter. In the third season of Spike TV’s Deadliest Warrior series,
Villa was pitted against Sioux war chief Crazy Horse, emerging trium-
phant in hand-to-hand combat.
614 VILL ARROEL LÓPEZ, GUALBERTO

See also: Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano (1859–1920); Madero González, Francisco

Ignacio (1873–1913); Obregón Salido, Álvaro (1880–1928); Zapata Salazar, Emiliano
(1879–1919).

Further Reading
Katz, Friedrich. The Life and Times of Pancho Villa. Stanford, CA: Stanford University
Press, 1998.
McLynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata: A History of the Mexican Revolution. New York: Basic
Books, 2002.
Orellana, Margarita de. Filming Pancho Villa: How Hollywood Shaped the Mexican Revolu-
tion. London: Verso, 2009.
Tuck, Jim. Pancho Villa and John Reed: Two Faces of Romantic Revolution. Tucson: Univer-
sity of Arizona Press, 1984.
Welsome, Eileen. The General and the Jaguar: Pershing’s Hunt for Pancho Villa: A True
Story of Revolution and Revenge. New York: Little, Brown and Company, 2006.
Williams, Ben Jr. Pancho Villa: A Lifetime of Vengeance. Tucson, AZ: Smokin’ Z Press,
2010.

VILLARROEL LÓPEZ, GUALBERTO

(1908–1946)
On July 18, 1946, after months of simmering unrest, Bolivian troops crushed
a student protest rally in La Paz, Bolivia, with brutal force. Two days later,
President Gualberto Villarroel López announced creation of a military cabinet
selected to suppress “reactionary counter-revolution” and ensure “public order
and the constitutional regime.” On July 21, thousands of protesters swarmed
the Plaza Murillo in downtown La Paz, breaking into the government arsenal to
arm themselves, then storming the Palacio Quemado (“Palace of Government”)
occupied by the president. After some 30 minutes of fighting with bodyguards,
the raiders killed President Villarroel and several of his aides, dragging Villar-
roel’s corpse outside and hanging it from a lamp post in a scene reminiscent of
Italian dictator Benito Mussolini’s death three years earlier.
Gualberto Villarroel López was born at Villa Rivero, in central Bolivia’s Co-
chabamba Department, on December 15, 1908. Little is known of his early
life, but he chose a military career and participated in Bolivia’s Chaco War
with Paraguay, also known as La Guerra de la Sed (Spanish for “The War of the
Thirst”). Both countries laid claim to the semi-arid Gran Chaco region, be-
lieved erroneously to be rich in oil. The three-year struggle, lasting from June
1932 to June 1935, resulted in Bolivia’s defeat and left Paraguay holding two-
thirds of the disputed territory, with historians reporting that three Bolivians
and two Paraguayans and died for each of Gran Chaco’s 20,000 square miles.
Villarroel emerged as a hero of sorts from that debacle, committed to re-
forms within Bolivian society, part of the Generación del Chaco that rejected his
VILLARROEL LÓPEZ, GUALBERTO 615

nation’s traditional order. To that end, he supported the military coup d’état
that deposed President José Tejada Sorzano on May 16, 1936, replacing him
with Colonel José Toro Ruilova. As president, Toro instituted a regime of “Mili-
tary Socialism” aimed at lifting Bolivia out of its postwar economic depression.
A primary target was Standard Oil, accused of smuggling Bolivian oil into Ar-
gentina for sale. In March 1937, Toro’s regime nationalized the company’s Bo-
livian holdings, and although that move was popular with Bolivia’s workers,
they were less pleased by Toro’s adoption of trapping resembling fascist gov-
ernments then on the rise in Italy, Spain, and Germany. Four months after his
move against Standard Oil, Toro was deposed and driven into exile by fellow
army officer Germán Busch Becerra.
Gualberto Villarroel supported the Busch regime as he had Toro’s, pleased
when Busch restored the constitution Toro had suspended in 1936. Two years
later, Bolivia’s Constituent Assembly proclaimed Busch the country’s constitu-
tional president, but he soon tired of political wrangling with opponents and
reverted to the role of dictator, pledged to “deepening” the Military Socialism
inaugurated by his predecessor. That claim of reformist zeal was undercut by
Busch’s employment of German advisors to train his soldiers, particularly when
Chaco War veteran Major Achim von Kries formed the Landesgruppe-Bolivie as
a branch of the German Nazi Party’s Auslands-Organisation (“Foreign Organiza-
tion”) in La Paz. Busch himself tooled around the capital in a Mercedes Benz
he received as a gift from Adolf Hitler, while insisting that his government was
“uniquely Bolivian.” A greater problem, perhaps, was Busch’s erratic temper,
displayed in 1938 when he personally beat up prominent author Alcides Ar-
guedas in retaliation for a critical newspaper column. Finally, on August 23,
1939, Busch shot himself in the Palacio Quemado.
With the constitution once again suspended, Gualberto Villarroel and other
military leaders chose General Carlos Quintanilla Quiroga as president. Fright-
ened by Bolivian extremists on both political wings, Quintanilla held office
for barely eight months, ceding the presidency to General Enrique Peñaranda
del Castillo. Increasingly repressive and corrupt, influenced heavily by Boliv-
ia’s large mining interests, President Peñaranda soon saw his popularity wane
with both the nation’s lower classes and among military officers led by Villar-
roel, who wished to broaden the scope of Toro–Busch Military Socialism. On
December 20, 1943, Villarroel led a coup d’état and seized the presidency for
himself, in the name of Razon de Patria (“Reason for the Fatherland”), and Pe-
ñaranda decamped for Spain.
Within his limits as a Latin American military officer, Villarroel was com-
mitted to reform. He recognized labor unions and supported pensions for re-
tired workers, while abolishing the system of pongueaje that bound Bolivia’s
Indians in de facto slavery as unpaid domestic servants. Collaborating with
the country’s Movimiento Nacionalista Revolucionario (Revolutionary Nationalist
616 VO M R AT H, E R N S T E D UA R D

Movement, or MNR), created in June 1942, Villarroel called a National As-

sembly and promulgated a new constitution that established him as president
for a six-year term, beginning in August 1944, while bucking opposition from
Washington based on Bolivia’s long-running flirtation with European fascists.
By the end of World War II, Villarroel’s regime was caught in a tug-of-war be-
tween conservative interests financed by rich mine owners, and workers in-
clined to take their newly granted freedoms seriously. He ultimately proved
unable to resist harsh military measures against labor and certain prominent
intellectuals, who were executed with their bodies tossed from a 3,000-foot
cliff. The revolt that claimed Villarroel’s life in 1946 was seemingly inevitable.
In the wake of that rebellion, Major Jorge Eguino—former chief of Villar-
roel’s national police—was captured on July 26, attempting to flee the country
disguised as an Indian. In custody, he confessed to kidnapping Mauricio Hoch-
schild, a wealthy Argentine industrialist held for ransom in Bolivia during Au-
gust 1944. On August 3, interim President Néstor Guillén Olmos announced a
purge of 41 army officers from the Villarroel regime, while members of Bolivia’s
largest tin miners’ union pledged support to the new administration. Twelve days
later, Guillén ceded the presidency to Tomás Monje Gutierréz, chief justice of
the La Paz Court of Appeals. He, in turn, stepped down when voters elected
successor Enrique Hertzog Garaizabal in March 1947. Two more presidents
followed in turn, before deterioration of the national economy sparked another
revolution in 1952.
Today, despite his unpopularity in later life and his death at the hands of
a howling mob, Gualberto Villarroel López is revered by many Bolivians as a
martyr, El Presidente Colgado (“The Hanged President”). In hindsight, his ad-
mirers regard him as a national hero ahead of his time, lynched by a populace
that failed to grasp his vision of reform.

Further Reading
Dorn, Glenn. The Truman Administration and Bolivia: Making the World Safe for Liberal
Constitutional Oligarchy. University Park: Pennsylvania State University Press, 2011.
Farcau, Bruce. The Chaco War: Bolivia and Paraguay, 1932–1935. Westport, CT: Praeger,
1996.
Gotkowitz, Laura. A Revolution for Our Rights: Indigenous Struggles for Land and Justice in
Bolivia, 1880–1952. Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007.
Scheina, Robert. Latin America’s Wars Volume I: The Age of the Professional Soldier,
1900–2001. Washington, D.C.: Brassey’s, Inc., 2003.
Smale, Robert. “I Sweat the Flavor of Tin”: Labor Activism in Early Twentieth-Century Bo-
livia. Pittsburgh: University of Pittsburgh Press, 2010.

VOM RATH, ERNST EDUARD (1909–1938)

On November 7, 1938, Herschel Feibel Grynszpan, a Polish Jew whose fam-
ily had fled from Nazi Germany to France, purchased a pistol in Paris went to
V O M R AT H , E R N S T E D U A R D 617

the German embassy, where he met Ambassador Graf Welczeck on the street.
Claiming that he had to deliver an unspecified document, Grynszpan gained
admittance to the embassy and to the office of Ernst vom Rath, a secretary on
Welczeck’s consular staff. Moments later, a clerk heard cries for help—but no
gunshots—and found vom Rath wounded. He died two days later, at a local
hospital. Legal arguments stalled Grynszpan’s trial for 19 months, by which
time Germany had conquered France. In June 1940, the Gestapo transported
him to Berlin. Testimony at the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann indicated that
Grynszpan was still alive, in Nazi custody, as late as 1943, but no further record
of his fate exists today.
Ernst vom Rath was born in Frankfurt, Germany, on June 3, 1909, the son
of a local politician. He studied law at the University of Königsberg, receiving
his degree in 1932, and joined the Nazi Party that same year. By April 1933, he
was a member of the party’s paramilitary Sturmabteilung (“Storm Detachment,”
or SA), which specialized in guarding Nazi rallies, disrupting opposition par-
ties, and intimidating Jews with random acts of violence. He survived Adolf
Hitler’s bloody purge of the SA in June and July 1934, transferring to the Ger-
man Foreign Office. Posted first to Bucharest, then Paris, he was shipped out
to Calcutta in 1935. There, vom Rath contracted “a bowel disorder,” reportedly
diagnosed by a German specialist in sexually transmitted disease as resulting
from anal intercourse. Upon recovering, vom Rath returned to Paris in July
1936, and was promoted to legation secretary three months later.
By 1938, Hitler’s government had begun stripping German Jews of their fi-
nancial resources, “aryanizing” formerly Jewish businesses in an effort to force
Jews out of Germany. Registration of all Jewish property was scheduled for
completion by September 30, followed by deportation orders and “spontane-
ous” riots against Jews in various cities. Against that background, vom Rath’s
murder by a Jew provided Nazis with a prime excuse for escalating violence.
Soon after the announcement of vom Rath’s death, on November 9, anti-
Jewish riots erupted across Germany and parts of Austria (annexed by Ger-
many in March 1938). By sunrise on November 10—the end of Kristallnacht
(“Crystal Night”), the “Night of Broken Glass”—at least 91 Jews had died in
mob violence, with some estimates topping 600. More than 1,000 synagogues
were torched (95 in Vienna alone), along with some 7,500 Jewish businesses.
Further draconian laws were enacted, including a November 12 decree ban-
ning Jews from attending theaters, cinemas, concerts, or public exhibitions.
Today, few historians doubt that the Kristallnacht was planned in advance by
top-ranking Nazi leaders.
The orchestration of events in Germany and Austria fueled conspiracy the-
ories surrounding Ernst vom Rath’s assassination. Police could not explain
why Grynszpan passed on killing Ambassador Welczeck outside the embassy,
where he might have escaped, rather than shooting a secretary inside, where
he was sure to be captured. Embassy witnesses insisted that Grynszpan did not
618 VO M R AT H, E R N S T E D UA R D

ask for any particular person by name, simply requesting time with any staff
member. His admission to the embassy raised further questions, because no
one recalled asking Grynszpan for any identification papers, and a French po-
liceman claimed that he had found Grynszpan five-shot revolver unfired on the
floor of vom Rath’s office after the attack.
In custody, before he was seized by Gestapo agents, Grynszpan claimed that
he had killed vom Rath for seducing him into a homosexual tryst. Although
Nazi minister of propaganda Joseph Goebbels branded that claim an “insolent
argument” and a “shameless lie,” it raised the specter of vom Rath’s rumored
homosexuality, with allegations that he had been treated for rectal gonorrhea
at the Berlin Institute of Radiology, after his return from Calcutta. Grynszpan’s
gay-sex defense is regarded by some as the reason why Nazi prosecutors by-
passed their normal tactic of staging a public show trial, consigning Grynszpan
to obscurity in a concentration camp where he presumably died before the end
of World War II.
Other conspiracy allegations surround vom Rath’s medical treatment in the
wake of his shooting. Ambassador Welczeck’s physician, a Dr. Claas, listed the
patient’s condition as serious, whirs the ambassador told reporters that “treat-
ment up until this point . . . gives us hope that he [vom Rath] will make further
progress.” Dissatisfied with that prognosis, Hitler sent his personal physician—
Dr. Karl Brandt, a high-ranking officer in the elite SS—to Paris aboard Hitler’s
private plane on the night of November 7, accompanied by a Professor Mag-
nus. The pair spent half an hour alone with vom Rath on November 8 and pro-
nounced his condition grave, including “signs of weak circulation.” When vom
Rath’s mother arrived to visit him, shortly before his death on November 9,
she was forbidden from seeing her son. Back in Berlin, meanwhile, a journal-
ist asked Dr. Heinrich Muehsam if he expected vom Rath to die. Although
Muehsam had never met vom Rath, he replied, “Of course he will die. If not,
the whole thing is worthless. The greater the mourning, the more fanatical the
hatred will be.”
Could Dr. Brandt have guaranteed vom Rath’s death, for the party’s ben-
efit? Vom Rath’s father, also a Third Reich diplomat, apparently had doubts
about his son’s assassination, reportedly telling a friend that he blamed
“a creature hired by the Nazis [rather] than a Jewish assassin.” The senior vom
Rath opined that his son “knew too much,” but declined to elaborate. As for
Dr. Brandt, he went on to plan and participate in mass murder of Jews under
Hitler’s euthanasia program, targeting “defective” humans characterized as “life
unworthy of life.” He also coordinated and joined in various medical experi-
ments conducted on prisoners in Nazi concentration camps, which ultimately
placed him on trial for his life in December 1946, charged with 22 codefen-
dants in the case titled United States of America v. Karl Brandt et al. That “doc-
tor’s trial” concluded in April 1947, with Brandt and six others condemned for
V O M R AT H , E R N S T E D U A R D 619

crimes against humanity; nine more defendants were sentenced to prison, and
seven were acquitted. Before he was hanged, on June 2, 1948, Dr. Brandt de-
fended his actions by saying that “any personal code of ethics must give way to
the total character of the war.”

Further Reading
Gilbert, Martin. Kristallnacht: Prelude to Destruction. London: HarperCollins, 2006.
Kirsch, Jonathan. The Short, Strange Life of Herschel Grynszpan: A Boy Avenger, a Nazi
Diplomat, and a Murder in Paris. New York: Liveright Publishing, 2013.
Pehle, Walter. November 1938: From “Kristallnacht” to Genocide. London: Berg Publish-
ers, 1990.
Read, Anthony, and Dawn Fisher. Kristallnacht: The Nazi Night of Terror. New York:
Crown Publishing, 1990.
Schwab, Gerald. The Day the Holocaust Began: The Odyssey of Herschel Grynszpan. New
York: Praeger, 1990.
Schwarz, Meier. “The Mysterious Murder of Ernst vom Rath.” Ashkenaz House. http://
www.ashkenazhouse.org/vomrath.htm.
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W
W A L L A C E , G E O R G E C O R L E Y, J R .
(1919–1998)—ATTEMPTED
On May 15, 1972, in the midst of his second independent campaign for the
U.S. presidency, Alabama governor George Wallace staged a campaign rally at
a shopping center in Laurel, Maryland. After his speech, as he passed through
the crowd, 21-year-old Arthur Herman Bremer opened fire with a revolver,
wounding Wallace and three bystanders. All four victims survived, though a
bullet lodged in his spinal column left Wallace paralyzed from the waist down
for the remainder of his life. Investigators found that Bremer had been seen at
two prior Wallace rallies: one in Dearborn, Michigan, on May 13, and another
at Wheaton, Maryland, earlier on May 15. His diary, later published, indicated
that the shooting was inspired by a desire for notoriety. At trial, in August 1972,
Bremer received a 63-year sentence, later reduced by a decade. Bremer was
paroled from custody on November 9, 2007.
George Wallace Jr. was born in Clio, Alabama, on August 25, 1919. Al-
though Wallace was named after his father and grandfather, his parents dis-
liked the suffix “Junior” and distinguished him from his forebears by calling
him “George C.” In time, his own son—technically named George Corley Wal-
lace III—would be commonly known as “George Jr.”
Wallace’s father, a physician like his father before him, abandoned medicine
to try his hand at farming after World War I. It was a failed attempt, his death
in 1937 forcing wife Mozell to sell the property in settlement of the outstand-
ing mortgage. Entranced by politics from childhood, George C. won a contest
at age 16 to serve as a page in Alabama’s state senate. Two years later, with his
father’s death, he bypassed conventional college study to enroll at the Univer-
sity of Alabama’s School of Law, earning his LLB in 1942. From law school,
Wallace joined the U.S. Army Air Corps, failed at training as a pilot, but be-
came a bomber crewman in the Pacific Theater. There, he suffered a near-fatal
case of spinal meningitis, emerging from the war partially deaf, with a medical
disability pension.
That handicap did not keep Wallace out of politics, beginning with his
1945 appointment as an assistant to Alabama attorney general William Mc-
Queen. May 1946 saw Wallace elected to the lower house of the state leg-
islature, where he was viewed as a moderate on racial matters by Alabama
622 W A L L A C E , G E O R G E C O R L E Y, J R .

Alabama governor George Wallace survived a near-fatal shooting in 1972. (Associated

Press)

standards. Selected as a delegate to the 1948 Democratic National Conven-

tion, Wallace refused to join in the “Dixiecrat” walkout protesting President
Harry Truman’s. Later, following appointment as a judge for Alabama’s Third
Judicial Circuit in 1952, Wallace straddled the fence on matters of race. He
treated African Americans fairly in court, referring to black attorneys as “Mis-
ter,” but blocked federal attempts to review his county’s mostly white voter
rolls and issued an injunction barring segregation signs from local railroad
depots.
Running for governor in 1958, Wallace cast himself as a relative liberal,
courting endorsement from the National Association for the Advancement
of Colored People and criticizing rival John Patterson’s alliance with the Ku
Klux Klan (KKK). Patterson crushed Wallace at the polls, prompting Wal-
lace to complain that “They outniggered me. I’ll never be outniggered again.”
True to his word, Wallace actively recruited Klan support for his next gu-
bernatorial bid, in 1962, employing former KKK “wizard” Asa Earl Carter as
his chief speech writer and tactician. Victorious in that campaign, Wallace
relied on Carter for a combative inauguration speech in January 1963, tell-
ing a crowd of cheering racists, “In the name of the greatest people that have
ever trod this earth, I draw the line in the dust and toss the gauntlet before
the feet of tyranny, and I say segregation now, segregation tomorrow, segrega-
tion forever!”
WA L L A C E , G E O R G E C O R L E Y, J R . 623

Under Wallace, from 1963 to 1966, the Klan had a virtual free hand against
blacks and civil rights workers in Alabama. Robert Shelton, leader of the state’s
largest KKK faction, landed a million-dollar contract for his then employer,
Goodyear Tire and Rubber, to supply tires for all state vehicles; a publishing
company that produced the Klan’s Fiery Cross newsletter was hired to print all
state textbooks; and Wallace cronies in the legislature killed a bill designed
to restrict access to dynamite. When Klansmen were accused of murder, Al-
bert Lingo—a self-described “good friend” of the KKK, named by Wallace to
head the state police—obstructed criminal investigations and provided bail for
those arrested. Wallace even called for the impeachment of Attorney General
Richmond Flowers after Flowers launched his own investigation of the Klan.
The charge: “collaborating with the federal government.”
Despite such antics, Wallace failed to halt desegregation in the Cotton State,
meekly surrendering after a brief “stand in the schoolhouse door” to bar black
students from the state university. During the 1965 civil rights march from
Selma to Montgomery, Wallace hid inside the governor’s mansion, peering at
the crowd with binoculars, from behind Venetian blinds. Despite such fail-
ures, though, he was a champion of racists and far-right radicals nationwide,
a fact that spurred him into presidential politics in early 1964. That February,
in Wisconsin’s Democratic primary, Wallace logged 266,000 votes, one-third
of all the ballots cast. Three months later, in Indiana, he secured 30 percent
of the Democratic primary vote, then landed 47 percent of the Maryland pri-
mary vote, reaching the Democratic National Convention with 672,984 elec-
tors pledged to support him. He could not unseat incumbent Lyndon Johnson,
but the heady campaign convinced Wallace to try again in 1968.
Meanwhile, state law barred him from a second consecutive term as gov-
ernor. Wallace dodged that legal obstruction by securing the nomination for
his wife, Lurleen, who won election handily (and once again with public
KKK support). Effectively running the state as Alabama’s “First Gentleman,”
Wallace focused on 1968 but suffered a setback in May of that year, when
cancer left him a widower, costing Wallace both his wife and much of his in
the state capital. Undeterred by grief, he forged ahead with his presidential
race as standard-bearer for the American Independent Party (AIP), an alli-
ance of far-right and racist groups founded in July 1967, ostensibly directed
by segregationist attorney Tom Turnipseed. Drawing its members from the
Klan, White Citizens’ Council, John Birch Society, and other fringe groups
even more extreme, the AIP nominated Wallace in August 1968, with re-
tired Air Force General Curtis LeMay as his running mate. (Wallace had first
considered ex-Kentucky governor Albert “Happy” Chandler for vice presi-
dent, but dropped him when reminded that Chandler, while commissioner
of baseball, had integrated the Major League by hiring black player Jackie
Robinson in 1946.)
624 W A L L A C E , G E O R G E C O R L E Y, J R .

Given Wallace’s recent record and the AIP’s constituency, the party’s pro-
gram was predictable. It favored segregation in the name of “states’ rights,”
condemned foreign aid as “money poured down a rat-hole,” and promised U.S.
withdrawal from Vietnam if that war proved unwinnable within 90 days of
Wallace’s inauguration. (General Lemay’s prescription: “Bomb North Vietnam
back to the Stone Age.”) “Law and order” proved a catch-all slogan, chiefly
targeting ghetto upheavals from the “long hot summers” of 1964–1967, and
was eagerly adopted from the AIP by Republican candidate Richard Nixon.
All-white audiences cheered Wallace’s promise to run down any demonstra-
tors who blocked his campaign limousine, and laughed uproariously when he
declared that the only four-letter words unknown to hippies were “soap” and
“work.” Closer to home, in Alabama, a reporter who photographed Wallace
shaking hands with Klansman Robert Shelton was roughed up, and his camera
smashed. Ultimately, Wallace had no chance, but he polled nearly 10 million
popular votes and won 46 votes in the Electoral College—enough to guarantee
that he would try again.
Meanwhile, he moved to recaptured Alabama’s governorship in 1970, run-
ning a blatantly racist campaign with ads declaring, “Wake Up! Blacks vow
to take over Alabama.” Incumbent Albert Brewer fought back with pleas that
“Alabama needs a full-time governor,” leading Wallace to promise (falsely) that
he would not mount another presidential race. Easily elected to his second
term, Wallace flew to Wisconsin the very next day, to kick off his next White
House race. He officially declared himself a Democratic candidate on January
13, 1972, but this time his road to Washington was cut short by gunfire. Even
crippled, he won primaries in Maryland and Michigan, but had to settle for
delivering a speech before the national convention that nominated George Mc-
Govern in July.
Wallace soon resumed his gubernatorial duties, and easily won reelection in
1974 (the state constitution having been amended, at his urging, to permit it).
Wallace announced his fourth presidential bid in November 1975, then lost
several Southern primaries to ex-Georgia governor Jimmy Carter before quit-
ting the race in June 1976. Elected to a final term as governor in 1982, Wallace
renounced his former dedication to segregation, declaring “I was wrong. Those
days are over, and they ought to be over.” Such statements prompted one Klan
leader to complain that Wallace was not “as white as he used to be.” Wallace
rejected intimations of a fifth term in 1986, and died from a bacterial infection
on September 13, 1998.
Arthur Bremer’s attempt on Wallace’s life inspired two feature films: Nash-
ville, directed by David Hayward in 1975, and Taxi Driver, directed by Martin
Scorsese the following year. Ironically, the latter film inspired an attempt on the
life of President Ronald Reagan by John Hinckley Jr. in March 1981.
WELCH, RICHARD SKEFFINGTON 625

See also: Ku Klux Klan (1866– ); Patterson, Albert Leon (1894–1954); Reagan, Ronald
Wilson (1911–2004)—Attempted.

Further Reading
Bremer, Arthur. An Assassin’s Diary. New York: Pocket Books, 1973.
Carter, Dan. The Politics of Rage: George Wallace, the Origins of the New Conservatism, and
the Transformation of American Politics. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1995.
Frady, Marshall. Wallace. New York: Random House, 1996.
“Governor George C. Wallace’s Schoolhouse Door Speech.” Alabama Department of
Archives and History. http://www.archives.state.al.us/govs_list/schooldoor.html.
Healey, Thomas. The Two Deaths of George Wallace: The Question of Forgiveness. Mont-
gomery, AL: River City Publishing, 1996.
Lesher, Stephan. George Wallace: American Populist. Reading, MA: Addison-Wesley,
1994.
Stang, Alan. Arthur Bremer: The Communist Plot to Kill George Wallace. Appleton, WI:
American Opinion, 1972.

WELCH, RICHARD SKEFFINGTON (1929–1975)

On December 23, 1975, members of the Marxist group “17N”—full name the
Revolutionary Organization 17 November—laid an ambush for Richard Welch,
Greek station chief of the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), at his home
in Athens. A month earlier, Welch’s name and address had been published
in the Athens News and another newspaper, Eleftherotypia (“Freedom of the
Press”), obtained through leaks from ongoing congressional investigations of
the CIA in Washington, DC. As Welch and his wife returned from a Christmas
party that night, three gunmen rushed their chauffeur-driven car. Two held
Mrs. Welch and the driver at gunpoint, while the third shot Welch twice at
close range with a .45-caliber pistol, killing him instantly. The killers escaped
and remained at large until the summer of 2002.
Richard Skeffington Welch was born in Hartford, Connecticut, on Decem-
ber 14, 1929. Educated at Harvard University, Welch was recruited by the CIA
upon graduation, in 1951. His first post was in Athens, where he operated in
the guise of a civilian employed by the U.S. Army from 1952 to 1959. Assign-
ments followed in Cyprus (1960–1964) and Guatemala (1965–1967), before
he was promoted to serve as chief of station in Guyana (1967–1969) and Peru
(1972–1975). Welch returned to Athens as chief of station in July 1975, mov-
ing into a house occupied by several of his CIA predecessors.
Welch’s second posting to Athens coincided with a dramatic shift in Greek
politics, known as the Metapolitefsi (“regime change”). From April 1967 to July
1974, Greece had suffered in the grip of a military junta so brutal that its ac-
tions sparked protests before the European Commission of Human Rights from
626 WELCH, RICHARD SKEFFINGTON

Denmark, the Netherland, Norway, and Sweden. However, because the junta
was rigidly anticommunist and promoted a high rate of economic growth, it
enjoyed both diplomatic and financial support from the United States under
Presidents Lyndon Johnson and Richard Nixon. On November 17, 1973, the
regime used tanks and troops to crush a student rebellion National Techni-
cal University of Athens, thus inspiring the 17N group to name itself for that
date. The junta collapsed in 1974, and 20 of its leaders were awaiting trial on
charges of mutiny and high treason when Richard Welch arrived for the second
time in Athens.
Meanwhile, in the United States, the Watergate scandal exposed President
Nixon’s extensive abuses of power, including misuse of both the CIA and the
Federal Bureau of Investigation to persecute his political enemies. Beginning
in 1975, the U.S. Senate Select Committee to Study Governmental Operations
with Respect to Intelligence Activities—better known as the Church Commit-
tee, after its chairman, Senator Frank Church of Idaho—held extensive hear-
ings on both agencies, including allegations of CIA involvement in foreign
assassinations, mind-control experiments, and illegal operations on U.S. soil
(specifically banned by the agency’s 1947 charter). Information from those
hearings, contained in a series of reports published during 1975 and 1976,
supported many charges of CIA misconduct in foreign nations, deeply embar-
rassing the agency and then-director William Colby. Some observers cite the
Welch assassination as a first step toward regaining public sympathy for the
CIA and its covert role in protecting U.S. national security. Welch’s death also
contributed to passage of the Intelligence Identities Protection Act of 1982,
making it a federal crime to intentionally reveal the identity of U.S. intelligence
agents.
Welch was the first of 23 known victims murdered by 17N, in a series of
103 attacks targeting Greek, American, British, and Turkish adversaries of the
group. Other crimes included 11 bank robberies netting some $3.5 million,
several kidnappings, four bombings, 24 rocket attacks, and various “symbolic”
assaults on government and corporate offices. Aside from Welch, 17N’s murder
victims included five Greek policemen, two prosecutors, four industrialists,
one newspaper editor, three Greek politicians, two Turkish diplomats, British
military attaché Stephen Saunders, U.S. Navy Captains William Nordeen and
George Tsantes, U.S. Air Force Sergeant Ronald Stewart, and U.S. Army Master
Sergeant Robert Judd.
Between June and September 2002, Greek police arrested 19 members of
17N, charging them with a total of 2,500 crimes. Three of those defendants—
Nikos Papanastasiou, Pavlos Seriffs, and Alexandros Yiotopoulos—were
named as participants in Richard Welch’s slaying. They could not be charged
with that crime since the 20-year statute of limitation had elapsed, but trial
commenced in more recent cases on March 3, 2003. Nine months later, on
WELCH, RICHARD SKEFFINGTON 627

December 8, jurors convicted 15 of those charged, while acquitting four others

on all counts. Prison terms were imposed on the 15 convicted, and an appel-
late court upheld those verdicts on May 3, 2007.
A twist was added to the case in December 2005, by the Greek Sunday
newspaper To Proto Thema (“The First Issue”). Reporter Kleanthis Grivas ac-
cused a shadowy group called “Sheepskin”—the Greek branch of the North
Atlantic Treaty Organization’s paramilitary “Operation Gladio”—with killing
Welch and British military attaché Stephen Saunders (assassinated on June 8,
2000). Among other sources, Grivas cited U.S. Army Field Manual 30–31B,
describing counterinsurgency tactics including deliberate creation of a “strat-
egy of tension,” accomplished by framing leftist groups for crimes they did not
commit. Although acknowledging the existence of Operation Gladio, a “stay-
behind” group designed to wage guerrilla warfare if Europe was overrun by
Soviet troops, the U.S. State Department denied any knowledge of “Sheepskin”
and dismissed the army manual in question as a Russian forgery.
Despite his murder in 1975, Richard Welch lives on in fiction as a character
in the shared universe anthology series Heroes in Hell, published between 1986
and 2012. Welch appears in several stories as an intelligence agent for Satan,

VALERIE PLAME AFFAIR

In his January 28, 2003, State of the Union Address, President George W.
Bush claimed that the British government had proof of Iraqi dictator Sad-
dam Hussein buying weapons-grade uranium from Niger. Two months
later, after the U.S. invasion of Iraq, journalist Joseph C. Wilson wrote
an article for the New York Times, debunking that false claim. On July 14,
2003, reporter Robert Novak published a piece in the Washington Post,
criticizing Wilson and identifying Wilson’s wife—Valerie Plame Wilson—
as a CIA agent. That revelation violated terms of the 1982 Intelligence
Identities Protection Act, prompting a federal investigation. Suspects
in the leak included Vice President Dick Cheney, White House Dep-
uty Chief of Staff Karl Rove, and Cheney’s chief of staff, Lewis “Scooter”
Libby. A special grand jury investigated the case, and although no one
was charged with leaking Plame’s identity, the panel indicted Libby one
count of perjury, one count of obstructing justice, and three counts of
lying to investigators. In March 2007, jurors convicted Libby on four of
five counts. He received a 30-month prison term and a $250,000 fine.
President Bush commuted Libby’s jail term on July 2, 2007, to two years
of supervised probation and leaving intact the fine.
628 WENCESL AUS I

sharing adventures and amorous interludes with Tamara Bunke, a colleague of

Che Guevara in the Bolivian Insurgency of 1966–1967, killed in an ambush by
CIA-assisted Bolivian army rangers on August 31, 1967.

Further Reading
Kessler, Ronald. Inside the CIA: Revealing the Secrets of the World’s Most Powerful Spy
Agency. New York: Pocket Books, 1992.
Olmstead, Kathryn. Challenging the Secret Government: The Post-Watergate Investigations
of the CIA and FBI. Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 1996.
Smith, W. Thomas. The Encyclopedia of the CIA. New York: Checkmark Books, 2003.
Weiner, Tim. Legacy of Ashes: The History of the CIA. New York: Anchor Books, 2007.

WENCESLAUS I (907–935)
In September 935, Prince Boleslaus (or Boleslav) invited his elder brother,
Duke Wenceslaus I of Bohemia (now the Czech Republic) to celebrate the feast
of Saints Cosmas and Damian, scheduled to be held in Brandýs nad Labem-
Stará Boleslav on September 28. Unknown to Wenceslaus, Boleslaus had con-
spired with other Bohemian nobles to assassinate his brother at the banquet.
The deed was carried out by three accomplices remembered only as Čsta, Hněvsa,
and Tira, who set upon the duke and stabbed him to death. Tradition has it that
one of Wenceslaus’s servants, named Podevin, killed one of the assassins and
was subsequently hanged on orders from Boleslaus, who succeeded his brother
as planned. Ironically, a son was born to Boleslaus on the day of the murder,
saddled with the name Strachkvas, which translates to English as “a dreadful
feast.”
Born in 907, Wenceslaus was the son of Vratislaus I, third duke of Bohe-
mia under the Přemyslid dynasty. Vratislaus died in battle against Hungarian
Magyar invaders, in 921, succeeded by Wenceslaus, but the new duke’s youth
precluded him from ruling directly. His staunchly Christian grandmother,
Ludmila of Bohemia, served as regent, inspiring jealously from Wenceslaus’s
mother, Drahomíra. A former princess of the pagan Hevelli tribe, Drahomíra
had been baptized prior to marrying Vratislaus, but she was not prepared to
take a backseat in her son’s education. She persuaded two noblemen to murder
Ludmila on September 15, 921, then assumed Ludmila’s place as regent until
924, when Wenceslaus attained his majority. Little more is known about Dra-
homíra, and whereas some accounts claim she tried to lure Wenceslaus from
Christianity back to paganism, most histories describe the new duke as an ar-
dent and pious Christian. Claims of the pagan conversion are undermined by
the fact that Wenceslaus exiled Drahomíra when he came of age.
As duke in his own right, Wenceslaus faced continuous incursions by the
Magyars, and threats from Henry the Fowler, Duke of Sazony and first king
WENCESLAUS I 629

of East Francia (now Germany), who launched multiple invasions of territory

occupied by the Polabian Slavs, ancestors of Wenceslaus’s mother. Vratislaus
I had resisted Henry’s attacks in collaboration with Arnulf, Duke of Bavaria,
but Wenceslaus lost that valuable alliance with his father’s death in 921, when
Arnulf and Henry signed a peace treaty at Regensburg, in Bavaria. Eight years
later, the combined forces of Arnulf and Henry marched on Prague, forcing
Wenceslaus to resume tribute payments imposed on Duke Bořivoj I by East
Frankish king Arnulf of Carinthia three decades earlier.
Despite that drain on his resources, Wenceslaus managed to maintain order
at home, defeating a rebellion at Kouřim and building a rotunda consecrated to
Saint Vitue in Prague, which survives to this day as St. Vitus, St. Wenceslaus,
and St. Adalbert Cathedral. Regarded as a martyr at his death, and the subject
of four laudatory biographies, posthumously honored as a king by Holy Roman
emperor Otto I, Wenceslaus was subsequently canonized, with his feast day
falling on the date of his assassination. Grandmother Ludmila had preceded
him in sainthood, honored with feasting on September 15. Aside from beati-
fication, Wenceslaus was also honored in song—first by the “Saint Wenceslas
Chorale,” one of the oldest known Czech songs, then by John Mason Neal’s
“Good King Wenceslas,” published in 1853. Since 2000, the date of Wenc-
eslaus’s murder has been celebrated in the Czech Republic as Czech Statehood
Day, a public holiday.
Boleslaus I, also widely known as Boleslaus the Cruel, reined as Duke of Bo-
hemia for at least 32 years after his brother’s murder. (Modern scholars disagree
as to whether he died in 967 or 972.) Despite his common nickname and the
stigma of slaying his brother, most Czech historians hold Boleslaus in fairly high
esteem for his support of Christianity and his expansion of Bohemia territory.
Soon after killing Wenceslaus, in 936, Boleslaus halted tribute payments to East
Francia, sparking a war with the same Emperor Otto I who had elevated Wenc-
eslaus to posthumous kingship. Rather than await invasion, Boleslaus launched
his own offensive, defeating two of Otto’s armies from Merseburg and Thuringia.
The long war ultimately went against him, leading Boleslaus to resume paying
tribute in 950. Three years later, he joined forces with Otto to crush an uprising
of Slavic dukes at Mecklenburg, and supported Otto once more, against Magyar
enemies, at the Battle of Lechfeld (August 10, 955). That victory ended Hun-
gary’s threat to Moravia, and expanded Boleslaus’s control to Malopolska and
Silesia. Boleslaus’s daughter Dobrawa married pagan Duke Mieszko I of Poland
in 965, and played a key role in spreading Christianity to Poland. At his death,
Boleslaus the Cruel was succeeded by his eldest son, Boleslaus the Pious.

Further Reading
Agnew, Hugh. The Czechs and the Lands of the Bohemian Crown. Stanford, CA: Hoover
Institution Press, 2004.
630 WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF OR ANGE

Collins, Ace. Stories behind the Best-Loved Songs of Christmas. Grand Rapids, MI: Zonder-
van, 2001.
Panek, Jaroslav, and Oldrich Tuma, eds. A History of the Czech Lands. Chicago: Karoli-
num Press, 2009.
Schulman, Jana. The Rise of the Medieval World 500–1300: A Biographical Dictionary.
Westport, CT: Greenwood Press, 2002.
Wolverton, Lisa. Hastening Toward Prague: Power and Society in the Medieval Czech
Lands. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2001.

WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF ORANGE (1533–1584)

In 1584, Prince William of Orange was a man with a price on his head. King
Philip II of Spain blamed him in large part for the Dutch revolt that had cost
Spain control of the Netherlands, branding William an outlaw in March 1580
and offering a bounty of 25,000 crowns to anyone who killed him. Balthasar
Gérard, a 27-year-old Frenchman, accepted the challenge in March 1584, con-
spiring with Christopher d’Assonleville (an opponent of William’s in the Spanish
Netherlands) and Jesuit priests who deemed William an enemy of the Catholic
Church. Upon learning Gérard’s plan, d’Assonleville reportedly told him, “Go
forth, my son, and if you succeed in your enterprise, the King will fulfill all
his promises, and you will gain an immortal name besides.” On July 10, 1584,
Gérard ambushed William at
his home in Delft, shooting
him at close range with a pis-
tol purchased two days earlier.
Captured at the scene, Gérard
was tortured prior to trial, then
sentenced to death by torture
on July 13. Under orders from
the court, his right hand was
burned off with a red-hot iron,
flesh was ripped from various
parts of his body with pincers,
then he was disemboweled and
quartered while alive, his heart
removed and “flung in his face”
before he was finally beheaded.
William of Orange was born
in Dillenburg, into the wealthy
House of Orange-Nassau, on
April 24, 1533. At birth, he
Prince William of Orange, killed by a Jesuit assas- was the Count of Nassau-
sin in 1584. (Getty Images) Dillengurg, becoming Prince of
WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF ORANGE 631

Orange at age 11, inheriting the large estates of his late, childless cousin, René
of Châlon. Deemed too young to rule his newly acquired lands, William was
dispatched by his regent, Holy Roman emperor Charles V, to complete his edu-
cation in Brussels. William further expanded his holdings in 1551 by marriage
to Dutch heiress Anna van Egmont, thus gaining new titles as Lord of Egmond
and Count of Buren. Anna bore William three children before her death in
March 1558, and he soon produced a fourth child (and his second son) with
mistress Eva Elincx. In August 1561, William remarried Anna of Saxony. That
union produced five more children, though some observers believed William’s
primary interest lay in expanding his influence over Germany.
Meanwhile, Charles V had abdicated in August 1556, in favor of his son,
Philip II. Still friendly with Philip at that point, William won appointment in
1559 as stadtholder (governor) of the Dutch provinces of Holland, Utrecht,
and Zeeland. Two years later, Philip named William as stadtholder of Franche-
Comté, in Burgundy. Although William’s relationship with Philip seemed out-
wardly cordial, and he never directly attacked the king, William gradually
allied himself with Dutch nationalist spokesmen including Philip de Mont-
morency, Count of Horn, and Lamoral, Count of Egmont. Raised first as a
Lutheran, then as a Catholic, William advocated freedom of religion and re-
sented persecution of Dutch Protestants under Cardinal Antoine Perrenot de
Granvelle, who doubled as prime minister under Philip’s half-sister and governor
of the Netherlands, Margaret of Parma. In 1565, addressing the Dutch Council
of State, William affirmed his Catholic faith, but simultaneously disavowed mon-
archs who sought to rule their subjects’ souls by dictating religious faith.
In April of that year, William’s younger brother Louis joined other Dutch
nobles to form a Compromise of Nobles, presenting Margaret of Parma with a
petition urging religious freedom for Protestants. Between August and October
1566, angry Protestants throughout the Low Countries engaged in a Beelden-
storm (“statue storm”), invading Catholic churches and monasteries, defacing
religious icons. Margaret initially agreed to demands from the Compromise of
Nobles, then reneged under pressure from Philip, who dispatched “The Iron
Duke”—General Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, 3rd Duke of Alba—to restore
order in the Netherlands.
Arriving in Alba established a Council of Troubles to judge the Beelden-
storm rebels. William of Orange was among some 10,000 summoned to tes-
tify before that tribunal, but he declined to appear, whereupon Alba declared
him an outlaw and confiscated his Dutch estates. That action propelled Wil-
liam into armed resistance, bankrolling the Watergeuzen (“sea beggars”), a
fleet of Protestant privateers who ranged along the Dutch coast, raiding ports,
sometimes killing Spaniards. William also funded battalions on land, includ-
ing French Huguenots and German mercenaries who engaged Alba’s forces in
combat. Brother Louis was a leader of the latter army, invading the northern
632 WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF OR ANGE

Netherlands in 1568. He defeated Spanish troops at the Battle of Heiligerlee,

on May 23, killing opponent Jean de Ligne, Duke of Arenberg, while losing an-
other brother, Adolf, in the same engagement. Alba retaliated by executing the
Counts of Egmont and Hoorn on June 6, 1568, and slaughtered Louis’s army
at the Battle of Jemmingen, on July 21. Today, historians treat those battles as
the opening engagements of the ensuing Eighty Years’ War, also known as the
Dutch War of Independence.
William of Orange would not survive to see his homeland triumph in that
struggle, but he did his part, leading an army to Brabant against General Alba.
Alba ducked a confrontation, expecting William’s force to fall apart, and his ex-
pectations were fulfilled as rioting disrupted William’s force and the advance
of winter found him short of funds to pay the troops who still remained. By
that time, Margaret and Alba had executed 1,000 rebels, driving many more
into exile. William was among those fleeing, plotting new campaigns from his
hideout in Dillenburg, Germany. Even in the midst of all-out war, William
maintained that he was not opposing King Philip, whom he acknowledged as
sovereign, but only the misrule of foreign governors and their use of foreign
groups on Dutch soil.
After nearly four years of conspiring in vain, the tide of battle shifted in
William’s favor on April 1, 1572, when his Watergeuzen captured the seaport
of Brielle and raised William’s flag over the city. That victory prompted other
towns in Holland and Zeeland to welcome rebel forces, joining to convene an
unauthorized States-General of the Netherlands that restored William’s title as
stadtholder in those two provinces. Encouraged, William led his army south-
ward, toward Leuven and Roermond, but Philip’s larger force repulsed them,
rolling on to capture and sack the rebel cities of Mechelen and Zutphen. The
Spanish advance captured Haarlem in July 1573, but only at a cost of seven
months and some 8,000 soldiers slain. Alkmaar proved even more resistant,
forcing General Alba to withdraw in October 1573 and providing rebel forces
with a new slogan: “Victory begins at Alkmaar.”
Those victories continued in 1574. William, having formally renounced Ca-
tholicism to join the Calvinist Church, defeated Alba’s replacement, Don Luis
de Requesens y Zúñiga, at the Battle of Mookerheyde on April 14, 1574, but
lost brothers Henry and Louis on the field. Next, in May, Requesens laid siege
to Leiden, but withdrew in October, when Dutch defenders breached local
dikes, permitting ships to resupply the flooded city. William celebrated that
triumph by founding Leiden University in 1575, as the first university in the
northern provinces.
On the domestic front, William married his third wife, ex-nun Charlotte of
Bourbon, in April 1575. (His marriage to Anna had been annulled four years
earlier, after William claimed she was insane.) Unlike his second marriage, this
one proved to be happy, producing six more daughters while the war with
WILLIAM I, PRINCE OF ORANGE 633

Spain dragged on. Peace negotiations failed in 1575, but rebel prospects im-
proved when Don Requesens died suddenly in Brussels, on March 5, 1576.
Spanish soldiers, short-changed on their pay by King Philip since the previous
September, mutinied and ran amok in Antwerp on November 4, 1876, scoring
a propaganda coup for Dutch insurgents with the slaughter of 7,000 towns-
folk. Four days later, William secured the Pacification of Ghent, an alliance of
provinces in the Habsburg Netherlands to drive Spanish forces from Holland
and Zeeland.
Don John of Austria, Spanish governor-general of the Habsburg Netherlands,
made that alliance perpetual with the Edict of 1577, signed in February, then
reneged five months later and prepared a fresh invasion of the Netherlands.
William was ready with a new ally, Queen Elizabeth I of England, who pledged
troops and £100,000 in cash to resist John if he pressed the attack. Despite that
aid, John captured Namur, in southern Belgium, and entered Brussels on Sep-
tember 24, 1577. At the time, William was preoccupied with trouble from his
fellow Calvinists, campaigning to eliminate Catholicism from the regions they
controlled. That persecution sparked a backlash in the southern Netherlands,
embodied in the Union of Arras, signed on January 6, 1579, wherein the dis-
trict pledged loyalty to King Philip and Governor-General Don John. Philip, in
return, agreed to withdraw his troops from Dutch soil.
Seventeen days later, leaders of five northern provinces signed the Union
of Utrecht, opposing Philip’s rule. William of Orange, still hoping to unite
all provinces of the Netherlands, withheld endorsement of the Union until
May 3, 1579, when he reluctantly signed on. On September 29, 1580, most
of the Staten Generaal (except Holland and Zeeland) agreed to the Treaty of
Plessis-les-Tours, accepting Francis, Duke of Anjou (brother of French king
Henry III), as “Protector of the Liberty of the Netherlands.” Ten months later,
the Staten Generaal passed an Act of Abjuration, formally declaring indepen-
dence of the Dutch Low Countries from Spain. William welcomed the Duke
of Anjou to Vlissingen in February 1582, and Spanish gunman Juan de Jáure-
gui tried to assassinate William in Antwerp on March 18, leaving William with
bullet fragments in his neck and jaw. Guards killed Jáuregui on the spot, and
two conspirators—Antonio de Venero and Antonio Timmerman, a Dominican
monk—were executed on March 28.
The Dutch alliance with France caused more trouble for William, peaking
when the Duke of Anjou marched to seize Antwerp on January 17, 1583. He
was surprised when townsfolk mobbed his troops, killing more than 1,500 sol-
diers. The duke survived to suffer scathing reprimands from Queen Elizabeth,
and fled the Netherlands six months later, leaving William largely discredited.
Widowed the previous May, William increased Catholic alienation in April
1583, with his marriage to a French Huguenot, Louise de Coligny, who bore
his fourth and last legitimate son in January 1584. William’s eldest son, Philip
634 WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND

William, succeeded him as Prince of Orange, and the fight for Dutch indepen-
dence continued until October 1648, with the Peace of Westphalia.
British historian Lisa Jardine names William of Orange as the first national
head of state assassinated with a pistol. His was not the first assassination with
a firearm, however, since James Stewart, 1st Earl of Moray and regent of Scot-
land for his infant nephew, King James VI of Scotland, had been shot by a
sniper on January 23, 1570.

Further Reading
Blok, Petrus. History of the People of the Netherlands. New York: G. P. Putnam’s Sons,
1898.
Jardine, Lisa. The Awful End of William the Silent: The First Assassination of a Head of State
with a Handgun. London: HarperCollins, 2005.
Motley, John. History of the United Netherlands from the Death of William the Silent to the
Synod of Dort. London: John Murray, 1860.
Motley, John. The Rise of the Dutch Republic. New York: Harper & Brothers, 1855.
Rowen, Herbert. The Princes of Orange: The Stadholders in the Dutch Republic. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 1988.

WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND (1056–1100)

On August 2, 1100, while hunting in southern England’s New Forest, near
Southampton in Hampshire County, King William II was struck in the chest
by an arrow. The shaft pierced his lung, reportedly producing almost instant
death. The first report of his slaying, contained in the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle,
says simply that William was shot “by one of his own men.” Later accounts
named the archer as Walter Tirel III, an Anglo-Norman nobleman. English his-
torian William of Malmesbury, in his Chronicle of the Kings of England, written
circa 1128, offers the following account of William’s death—disputed as fanci-
ful by some modern scholars.
The day before the king died he dreamt that he went to hell and the Devil said to
him “I can’t wait for tomorrow because we can finally meet in person!”. He sud-
denly awoke. He commanded a light to be brought, and forbade his attendants
to leave him. The next day he went into the forest. . . . He was attended by a few
persons . . . Walter Thurold remained with him, while the others, were on the
chase. The sun was now declining, when the king, drawing his bow and letting
fly an arrow, slightly wounded a stag which passed before him. . . . The stag was
still running. . . . The king, followed it a long time with his eyes, holding up his
hand to keep off the power of the sun’s rays. At this instant Walter decided to kill
another stag. Oh, gracious God! the arrow pierced the king’s breast.
On receiving the wound the king uttered not a word; but breaking off the
shaft of the arrow where it projected from his body . . . This accelerated his
death. Walter immediately ran up, but as he found him senseless, he leapt upon
WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND 635

his horse, and escaped with the utmost speed. Indeed there were none to pursue
him: some helped his flight; others felt sorry for him.
The king’s body was placed on a cart and conveyed to the cathedral at Win-
chester . . . blood dripped from the body all the way. Here he was buried
within the tower. The next year, the tower fell down. William Rufus died in
1100 . . . aged forty years. He was a man much pitied by the clergy . . . he had
a soul which they could not save. . . . He was loved by his soldiers but hated by
the people because he caused them to be plundered.

Some current historians describe William’s death as a simple hunting ac-

cident, and others—notably Emma Mason, former Senior Lecturer in History
at Birkbeck College, author of two books on William II and various others on
British royalty—confidently treat the incident as an assassination.
William II—commonly known as William Rufus for his ruddy complex-
ion—was the third son of King William I, also known as William the Con-
queror (and to some as William the Bastard). His birth date is uncertain, with
various histories offering a four-year spread, between 1056 and 1060. William
I’s second son, Richard of Normandy, also died in an apparent hunting accident
in the New Forest, and details of his passing are similarly vague, dated between
1069 and 1075 by different historians. Equal confusion surrounds the num-
ber of William’s sisters, with the existence of four confirmed, and two others—
Adeliza and Matilda—are dismissed by some scholars as mythical.
Elder brother Robert Curthose might have been expected to succeed Wil-
liam the Conqueror as king, but familial conflict hurt his case. English chron-
icler Orderic Vitalis (1075–1142), in his Historia Ecclesiastica, described an
incident occurring in 1077 or 1078, when William and younger brother Henry
dumped a chamber pot over Robert’s head, sparking a brawl that forced their
father’s intervention to forestall serious injury. Angered when his brothers went
unpunished for that insult, Robert laid siege to King William’s castle at Rouen,
the capital of Normandy. That ill-conceived campaign nearly resulted in Rob-
ert’s arrest, but he escaped to Rémalard, and then to Flanders. The estranged
father and son met in battle, in January 1079, at which time Robert wounded
King William. They reconciled in 1080, through the persistent efforts of Queen
Matilda of Flanders, but her death in November 1083 left them at odds once
more. When a riding accident killed William I in September 1087, William II
ascended to the English throne, and brother Robert was relegated to service as
the Duke of Normandy.
William II proved to be a ruthless and unpopular king, described in the
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle as “hateful to almost all his people and odious to God.”
The latter charge involved his frequent conflicts with the Anglican Church,
including his appointment of Ranulf Flambard, from Normandy, as bishop
of Durham in 1099. He also engaged in long-running disputes with Anselmo
d’Aosta, archbishop of Canterbury, whom William appointed in 1093, then
636 WILLIAM II OF ENGLAND

almost instantly regretted his selection as they wrangled over Anselmo’s sup-
port for reforms initiated by Pope Gregory VII. By 1097, when he finally drove
Anselmo into exile, William had been heard to say, “Yesterday I hated him
with great hatred, today I hate him with yet greater hatred and he can be cer-
tain that tomorrow and thereafter I shall hate him continually with ever fiercer
and more bitter hatred.”
William II also proved unconventional in his refusal to marry, and by failing
to sire any children, legitimate or otherwise. His father had conquered England
in 1066, and William still faced uprisings from rebellious nobles in his own
time. In 1095, when Robert de Mowbray, the Earl of Northumbria, supported
Stephen of Aumale’s attempt to seize the English throne, William led troops to
crush the rebels. Mowbray was captured and imprisoned for life, accomplice
William of Aldrie was executed, and another, William of Eu, was castrated and
blinded. Stephen was also sentenced to prison, but escaped from England, and
his French father, Count Odo of Champagne, was stripped of his English es-
tates for joining in the conspiracy.
In France, William asserted himself aggressively, invading Normandy in
1091 to defeat brother Robert and claim portions of his inherited territory.
They later made peace, and Robert joined William in defeating Elias I, Count
of Maine, when he laid claim to that province, supported by Fulk IV, Count
of Anjou. During the same period, William beat back an invasion of England
by King Malcolm III of Scotland, in May of 1091. The following year, Wil-
liam erected Carlisle Castle in Cumbria, frustrating Scottish claims to Cum-
berland and Westmorland. Malcolm retaliated by invading Northumbria, but
that campaign proved fatal. Both Malcolm and his eldest son, Edward, suf-
fered fatal wounds at the Battle of Alnwick, on November 13, 1093. Mal-
colm’s brother Donald claimed the Scottish throne, and William backed the
late king’s son Edgar in a campaign to unseat Donald, finally achieving success
in 1097.
Following William’s death in the New Forest, brother Henry rushed first
to Winchester, seizing the royal treasury, then on to London, where he was
crowned as King Henry I on August 5, 1100. He reigned until December 1,
1135, when he died during a visit to Normandy. His death was attributed to
food poisoning, allegedly from consuming “a surfeit of lampreys.”

Further Reading
Barlow, Frank. William Rufus. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2000.
Grinnell-Milne, Duncan. The Killing of William Rufus: An Investigation in the New Forest.
Newton Abbot, United Kingdom: David & Charles, 1968.
Hart, Ray. William Rufus: The Second Norman King. Far Hills, NJ: New Horizon, 1984.
Hollister, C. Warren. “The Strange Death of William Rufus.” Speculum 48 (1973):
637–53.
WOOD, JOHN HOWLAND, JR. 637

Mason, Emma. King Rufus: The Life & Murder of William II of England. Stroud, Glouces-
tershire, United Kingdom: The History Press, 2008.
Mason, Emma. William II: Rufus, the Red King. Stroud, United Kingdom: Tempus, 2005.

WOOD, JOHN HOWLAND, JR. (1916–1979)

On May 29, 1979, a single shot from a high-powered rifle killed U.S. Dis-
trict Judge John Wood Jr. outside his home in San Antonio, Texas. The first
of three federal judges assassinated in the 20th century, Wood was known as
“Maximum John” for the harsh sentences he dealt out in narcotics cases. Before
the first indictments were returned in Wood’s murder, agents from the Federal
Bureau of Investigation (FBI) conducted more than 30,000 interviews and col-
lected more than 500,000 pieces of evidence. That investigation, with its trials
and appeals, ultimately cost taxpayers more than $11 million—and still left
some critics protesting that justice had not been fully served.
John Wood Jr. was born to a prominent family at Rockport, Texas, on March
31, 1916, the great-great-grandson of a participant in the 1836 Texas Revolu-
tion against Mexico, founder of both Rockport and the town of Woodsboro. A
second-generation lawyer, Wood received a bachelor of business administra-
tion degree in 1935, from St. Mary’s University in San Antonio, and earned
his LLB from Austin’s University of Texas School of Law three years later. He
joined the San Antonio law firm Beckmann, Stanard & Olson after graduation,
in 1938, and remained there until 1970, with a brief hiatus for wartime service
as a U.S. Navy ensign during 1944–1945.
President Richard Nixon nominated Wood to the federal bench on October 7,
1970, after Congress created a new seat, the United States District Court, for
the Western District of Texas. The U.S. Senate confirmed his appointment on
November 25, 1970, and Wood was formally commissioned six days later.
Between Wood’s nomination and his confirmation, on October 27, Congress
passed the Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention and Control Act, including
the Controlled Substances Act, which established five “schedules” (categories)
of regulated drugs based on their medicinal value and potential for addiction.
Six months after Wood’s confirmation to the bench, on June 17, 1971, Presi-
dent Nixon formally declared a federal “War on Drugs,” branding drug abuse
“public enemy number one in the United States.”
As a federal judge in Texas, with its long Mexican border, Wood saw more
than his share of narcotics cases. One defendant facing trial before Maxi-
mum John was Lebanese-American drug trafficker Jamiel Alexander “Jimmy”
Chagra, described by one observer as “the undisputed marijuana kingpin of
the Western world.” Arrested in 1978 for shipping tons of pot from El Paso,
Texas, to Las Vegas, Nevada, Chagra faced a maximum sentence of life impris-
onment without parole if convicted at trial. One of Wood’s law clerks allegedly
638 W O O D, J O H N H O W L A N D, J R .

told Chagra’s attorney/brother, Joe Chagra, that Jimmy could expect the worst
if found guilty. After an alleged $10 million bribe failed to soften Wood’s atti-
tude, Chagra reportedly decided to kill Wood, instead.
Authorities did not immediately link Jamiel Chagra to Wood’s assassina-
tion. His drug case proceeded to trial with a new judge, and upon conviction,
Chagra received a 30-year sentence rather than life. In 1981, FBI microphones
eavesdropped on conversations between Chagra and his brother Joe, in a visit-
ing room at Leavenworth Federal Prison. (Although Joe Chagra was a lawyer,
he was not his brother’s attorney, and a court found that recording conversa-
tions between blood relatives did not violate attorney–client privilege.) De-
spite those tapes, jurors at his murder trial acquitted Jimmy Chagra of ordering
Wood’s assassination when brother Joe refused to testify against him. A sepa-
rate panel convicted Joe Chagra of conspiracy, resulting in a 10-year prison
term. Joe’s relatively lenient sentence came in exchange for his testimony
against brother Jimmy’s wife, convicted at trial for paying off Wood’s killer. She
received a 30-year sentence and died in prison, from cancer.
The triggerman in Wood’s assassination was contract killer Charles Voyde
Harrelson—father of film and television actor Woody Harrelson—paroled in
September 1978 after serving barely three years of a 15-year sentence imposed
for the 1968 murder-for-hire of Texas victim Sam Degelia Jr. Indicted on the
basis of the Chagra Prison tapes, Harrelson denied killing Wood, insisting that
he only claimed credit for the murder to collect Chagra’s $250,000 bounty on
the judge. Jurors disbelieved that tale, convicting Harrelson of on his second
count of murder for hire, resulting in a double life sentence. Harrelson’s wife,
who purchased the murder weapon using false identification, was also con-
victed on five counts of perjury, receiving a 20-year sentence (later reduced on
appeal).
Jimmy Chagra subsequently confessed his part in conspiring to murder
Judge Wood and an abortive plot to kill Assistant U.S. Attorney James Kerr of
San Antonio in 1978, in a futile legal maneuver designed to free his incarcer-
ated wife. The court imposed a life sentence on those charges, but declining
health resulted in Chagra’s release from custody December 9, 2003. Some ac-
counts suggest that he entered the Federal Witness Security Program, but no
official confirmation of that story is available today. Chagra married his third
wife in Las Vegas, on November 22, 2005, using the name the name “James
Madrid.” They were living in Mesa, Arizona, when cancer claimed Chagra’s life
on July 25, 2008.
Charles Harrelson remains a somewhat enigmatic figure. At Harrelson’s mur-
der trial, Joe Chagra testified that Harrelson had boasted of assassinating Presi-
dent John F. Kennedy ( JFK) in November 1963, supporting his statement with
hand-drawn diagrams of the murder scene at Dealey Plaza in Dallas, Texas.
WOOD, JOHN HOWLAND, JR. 639

In 1989, conspiracy author Jim Marrs suggested that Harrelson was one of
three unidentified “tramps” arrested by Dallas police near Dealey Plaza mo-
ments after the Kennedy shooting. Marrs also alleged that Harrelson was ac-
quainted with gangster Jack Ruby—slayer of accused JFK assassin Lee Harvey
Oswald—and with other “criminals connected to intelligence agencies and the
military.”
Harrelson and two other inmates, Michael Rivers and Garhy Settle, tried to
escape from the federal prison in Atlanta, Georgia, on July 4, 1995, but surren-
dered after a guard fired a warning shot over their heads. Transferred thereaf-
ter to a federal “supermax” at Florence, Colorado, Harrelson penned letters to
friends describing his enjoyment of the new facility, where, he said, “the silence
is wonderful.” Guards found Harrelson dead in his cell on March 15, 2007. An
autopsy attributed his passing to coronary artery disease.

Further Reading
Cartwright, Gary. Dirty Dealing: Drug Smuggling on the Mexican Border and the Assassina-
tion of a Federal Judge. New York: Atheneum, 1984.
Denton, Sally. The Bluegrass Conspiracy: An Inside Story of Power, Greed, Drugs and Mur-
der. Lincoln, NE: iUniverse, 1999.
Marrs, Jim. Crossfire: The Plot That Killed Kennedy. New York: Carroll & Graf Publish-
ers, 1989.
United States of America v. Jo Ann Harrelson. United States Court of Appeals, Fifth
Circuit, 754 F.2d 1182 (February 15, 1985). http://openjurist.org/754/f2d/1182/
united-states-v-harrelson.
Varhola, Michael. Texas Confidential: Sex, Scandal, Murder, and Mayhem in the Lone Star
State. Cincinnati: Clerisy Press, 2011.
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X
XERXES I OF PERSIA (519 BCE–465 BCE)
In August 465 BCE, Xerxes I, fourth king of the Achaemenid Persian Empire, was
assassinated in Persepolis (43 miles northeast of present-day Shiraz, Iran) by a
palace eunuch called Aspamitres, acting under orders from Artabanus the
Hyrcanian, commander of the king’s bodyguards. Prior to the assassination,
Artabanus had placed his seven sons in key positions at the royal court, all
serving his plan to topple the Achaemenid dynasty. Xerxes’s eldest son, Crown
Prince Darius, was also slain in the abortive coup d’état, though ancient Greek
historians differ on the order of the murders. Aristotle wrote that Artabanus
killed Darius before Xerxes, whereas Ctesias claimed that Artabanus accused
Darius of killing Xerxes, then persuaded younger brother Artaxerxes to avenge
their father’s death by executing Darius. In either event, Artaxerxes soon learned
the truth, personally killing Artabanus and ordering the execution of his sons
in by 464 BCE.
Xerxes was born sometime in 519 BCE, the eldest son of King Darius I and
Atossa, daughter of Achaemenid Empire founder Cyrus the Great. Darius
claimed the imperial throne in 522 BCE, after killing the assassins of predeces-
sor Bardia, son of Cyrus the Great and his brother-in-law. In 487 BCE, prior to
launching a military campaign against Athens, Darius complied with Persian
law by naming Xerxes as his successor, in the event of his death. That choice
proved timely when a rebellion in Egypt sidetracked the Persian army, and
Darius died from natural causes in October 486 BCE. Artobarzanes, an older
son of Darius with his commoner first wife, briefly contested Xerxes’s right to
claim the throne, they wisely abandoned his bid, thus sparing his family from
annihilation.
Soon after his coronation, Xerxes completed his father’s unfinished work
of suppressing the Egyptian revolt, naming his brother Achaemenes as satrap
(provincial governor) over that region. In 484 BCE, Xerxes provoked a new up-
rising in Babylon, when he seized and melted down a golden statue of Marduk,
the sun god. Babylonian tradition required each rightful king to lay hands on
the statute each New Year’s Day, and its destruction was regarded as an act of
sacrilege. Xerxes suppressed the rebellion by 482 BCE, in the process renounc-
ing his father’s title of king of Babylon, to call himself instead the King of Persia
and Media, Great King, King of Kings, and King of Nations.
642 XER XES I OF PERSIA

Such a grandiose title required further conquests, so Xerxes picked up where

his father had left off, planning Persia’s second invasion of Greece. Launched
in spring 480 BCE, after three years of preparation, that campaign carried Xe-
rxes across the Dardanelles, through Thrace, Macedon, and Thessaly, until a
small force of defenders under King Leonidas I of Sparta at Thermopylae. (In
fact, the famous 300 Spartans were actually part of a larger force, totaling some
7,000 men, facing a Persian army variously estimated as including 60,000 to
500,000 warriors.) After three brutal days, Xerxes routed the defenders with
aid from a Greek traitor, Ephialte, then pushed on to capture Athens, driving
the Greeks back to Isthmus of Corinth. In September 480 BCE, Greek naval
forces defeated Xerxes Battle of Salamis. His army then went into winter camp,
and victory eluded him when a new rebellion in Babylon forced Xerxes to re-
treat from Greece.
Aside from making war—and allegedly burning Athens, an act disputed
by some modern historians who blame the Greeks themselves for pursuing a
scorched-earth policy in retreat after Thermopylae—Xerxes I is best known for
his domestic construction projects. He finished building the imperial capital
at Persepolis, still unfinished at his father’s death, with its Gate of all Nations
and the Hall of a Hundred Columns, the Apadana (a large meeting hall), the
Palace of Darius and the Treasury. He also completed the city of Susa, another
project of his father’s, located in the Zagros Mountains, 160 miles east of the
Tigris River.
Artaxerxes I ruled the Achaemenid Persian Empire for 41 years after his fa-
ther’s assassination, until his death in 424 BCE. During those four decades, he
renewed hostilities with Greece, then agreed to the Peace of Callias in 449 BCE,
bringing an end to conflict between Persia and the Delian League dominated
by Athens. He also commissioned a Jewish historian, Ezra the Scribe, to pro-
duce a document that survives today as the Old Testament’s Book of Ezra, in-
cluding a decree from Artaxerxes dictating the course of ecclesiastical and civil
affairs for the Jewish nation. Nehemiah, royal cupbearer for Artaxerxes, also
penned his own chapter of the Old Testament circa 444 BCE. At his death, Ar-
taxerxes was succeeded by his son, Xerxes II, who was assassinated after only
45 days on the throne.
Depictions of Xerxes I in popular fiction begin with Francesco Cavalli’s opera
Xerse, first performed in Venice on January 12, 1564. Giovanni Battista Bon-
oncini cribbed from that performance in 1694, proceeding in that vein until
plagiarism of a madrigal by Antonio Lotti saw Bononcini effectively banished
from London in 1732. George Frideric Handel was next to adapt the opera, as
Serse, performed for the first time in London on April 15, 1738. Mercilessly
panned by critics, Serse was not performed again until July 1924, in a version
revised by Oscar Hagen. Over the next two years, it played in 15 German cit-
ies, to widespread critical acclaim. Serse was produced for the stage in Milan,
in January 1962, with a live recording made of the performance.
XERXES I OF PERSIA 643

More recently, popular fascination with the Battle of Thermopylae has car-
ried Xerxes into fiction and film, typically portrayed as a villain and megalo-
maniac. British actor David Farrar first struck that tone in The 300 Spartans
(1962), opposite Richard Eagan as King Leonidas. Author/artist Frank Miller
followed that trend in his graphic novel 300 (1999), and in production of its
2007 film adaptation, casting Brazilian actor Rodrigo Santoro as Xerxes, com-
plete with piercings and gold body paint. A year later, Meet the Spartans spoofed
that feature for slapstick laughs, with Kevin Davitian portraying the comically
grotesque opposite of Santoro’s seven-foot-tall “God-king.”

Further Reading
Abbott, Jacob. Xerxes. North Charleston, SC: CreateSpace, 2012.
Allen, Lindsay. The Persian Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2005.
Holland, Tom. Persian Fire: The First World Empire and the Battle for the West. London:
Little, Brown, 2005.
Martin, Thomas. Ancient Greece: From Prehistoric to Hellenistic Times. New Haven, CT:
Yale University Press, 1996.
Olmstead, A. T. History of the Persian Empire. Chicago: University of Chicago Press,
1959.
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Y
YULDASHEV, TOHIR ABDUHALILOVICH
(1967–2009)
On September 30, 2009, a Pakistani English-language newspaper, The News In-
ternational, reported that Tohir Yuldashev, cofounder of the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan (IMU) and an ally of al-Qaeda terrorists, had been killed by a
rocket fired from a U.S. drone aircraft. According to that article, Yuldashev lost
an arm and a leg in the blast on August 27, but survived to reach a hospital at
Zhob, in the Pakistani province of Balochistan, where he died on August 28.
IMU headquarters in Tajikistan subsequently confirmed that account, naming
Abu Usman Adil as Yuldashev’s successor on August 17, 2010.
Tohir Yuldashev, widely known in later life as Tohir Yo‘ldosh, was born in
the Uzbek Soviet Socialist Republic (SSR) on October 2, 1967. Little is known
of his life under communist rule, when the Uzbek SSR was commanded by
Sharof Rashidov (1959–1983) and his successors. Despite official suppres-
sion of religion and closing of mosques throughout Central Asia, Yuldashev
was raised in a strict Muslim home and remained a committed ideologue until
his death. By the time Uzbekistan declared independence from Russia, in Au-
gust 1991, Yuldashev had joined a veteran of the Soviet war in Afghanistan,
Jumaboi Ahmadzhanovich Khojayev (alias Jummah Khan Namangani and/or
Jumma Kasimov), to found the IMU. That group’s immediate objective was to
overthrow authoritarian President Islam Karimov and establish a Muslim state
ruled by Sharia religious law.
Official retaliation for that campaign soon drove Yuldashev and Khojayev
into exile, operating from Tajikistan, where, where civil war erupted during
1992, between the regime of President Emomalii Rahmon and United Tajik
Opposition (UTO), as Islamic group led by Sayid Abdulloh Nuri, founder of
the Islamic Renaissance Party of Tajikistan. Jumaboi Khojayev soon established
himself as a UTO field commander, while Yuldashev traveled through the Mid-
dle East, forging alliances with like-minded Islamic militant groups. By 1995,
he had settled in Peshawar, Pakistan, working closely with al-Qaeda founder
Osama bin Laden. He also forged close ties with the Taliban, which seized ef-
fective control of neighboring Afghanistan in September 1996.
A year later, after President Rahmon agreed to peace terms with the UTO
in Tajikistan, Yuldashev and Jumaboi Khojayev turned their full attention
646 Y U L D A S H E V, T O H I R A B D U H A L I L O V I C H

back to destabilizing the Karimov administration in Uzbekistan. Financed and

armed by Pakistan’s Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence—also linked to
frequent terrorist actions in India—they established a base in Tajikistan’s Ta-
vildara Valley and launched a campaign of guerrilla warfare. On February 16,
1999, the IMU detonated six car bombs in Tashkent over the course of an hour
and a half, targeting government buildings. Sixteen persons died in the explo-
sions, with at least 120 injured. President Karimov’s security forces responded
by detaining some 5,000 persons, in move that sparked protests from human
rights groups.
Later in 1999, IMU guerrillas launched an invasion of southern Kyrgyz-
stan, where ethnic Uzbeks comprised a majority of the population. Gunmen
kidnapped the mayor of Osh, extorting a cash ransom from the Kyrgyz gov-
ernment, together with a helicopter that transported them into Afghanistan. A
second raid resulted in abduction of some Japanese geologists, subsequently
released after payment of a large but unspecified ransom (still denied by the
Japanese government). International pressure on Uzbekistan ultimately forced
the IMU out of its Tavildara Valley, relocating to Afghanistan in early 2000.
There, Yuldashev and Jumaboi Khojayev joined their Taliban allies in battle
against their primary rival, Ahmad Shah Massoud’s United Islamic Front for
the Salvation of Afghanistan, better known in the West as the Afghan Northern
Alliance.
IMU collaboration with the Taliban and al-Qaeda continued through 2000
and into 2001, by no means limited to Afghanistan. In August 2000, the group
kidnapped four U.S. mountaineers in Kyrgyzstan’s Kara-Su Valley, holding
them hostage until the four escaped on August 12. During that same month, a
member of the Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission, Sultan Bashiruddin Mah-
mood, met with Osama bin Laden in Kabul, where bin Laden claimed the IMU
had given him enough fissile material from Soviet stockpiles to construct a
functional nuclear bomb. As a result of those events, the U.S. State Department
formally branded the IMU a Foreign Terrorist Organization in 2001. Jumaboi
Khojayev was reportedly killed in Afghanistan before year’s end, and although
his corpse was never found, Yuldashev assumed full command of the IMU.
The year 2001 also produced a curious report—aired by the British Broad-
casting Corporation (BBC) a year after the fact—linking Yuldashev to the ter-
rorist skyjackings of September 11. According to the BBC, Yuldashev learned of
Osama bin Laden’s plans in advance and feared that the action would prompt
an invasion of Afghanistan (which, in fact, it did). Yuldashev allegedly alerted
Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakil to the forthcoming raids,
with a plea to warn Washington of the impending attacks. What happened
next, if anything, remains unclear. Muttawakil surfaced in Pakistan, in October
2001, supposedly asking General Ehsan ul Haq, chairman of Pakistan’s Joint
Chiefs of Staff, to negotiate a ceasefire in Afghanistan with U.S. secretary of
Y U L D A S H E V, T O H I R A B D U H A L I L O V I C H 647

state Colin Powell. If true, that effort clearly failed, and Muttawakil next turned
up in the United Arab Emirates, on October 15, announcing his defection from
the Taliban.
Since 2001, some sources have deemed IMU has been declared “operation-
ally inactive” in Uzbekistan, whereas others strongly disagree. In 2003, U.S.
assistant secretary of state for Europe and Eurasia A. Elizabeth Jones told Con-
gress that the group “is still active in the region—particularly in Kyrgyzstan, Ta-
jikistan, Uzbekistan, and Kazakhstan—and it represents a serious threat to the
region and therefore to our interests.” Russia’s government banned the IMU in
2006, under an alternative label, the “Islamic Party of Turkestan.” Kyrgyzs spe-
cial forces killed an alleged IMU field commander at Kara-Suu in August 2006,
and two months later, the head of organized crime investigations in Tajikistan
told reporters that the “Islamic Movement of Turkestan is the Islamic Movement
of Uzbekistan,” operating under a cover name created by Uzbek intelligence
agencies. Yuldashev ostensibly controlled the whole network from hiding, in Af-
ghanistan, until the drone attack claimed his life in September 2009.
His death did not destroy the IMU, nor did the killing of successor Abu
Usman Adil by another U.S. drone aircraft in in April 2012. Deputy Usman
Ghazi succeeded Adil, and 10 alleged IMU members faced trial in Paris, on De-
cember 3, 2012, for collecting millions of euros from mosques in French cities,
sending the cash to finance terrorist operations between 2003 and 2008.

Further Reading
Akbarzadeh, Shahram. Uzbekistan and the United States: Authoritarianism, Islamism and
Washington’s New Security Agenda. London: Zed Books, 2005.
Carlisle, Donald. Uzbekistan Under Russian Rule: Communism, Nationalism and Islam in
Central Asia. New York: Routledge, 2006.
Marat, Erica. The Military and the State in Central Asia: From Red Army to Independence.
New York: Routledge, 2009.
Melvin, Neil. Uzbekistan: Transition to Authoritarianism on the Silk Road. Amsterdam:
Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000.
Rasanayagam, Johan. Islam in Post-Soviet Uzbekistan: The Morality of Experience. Cam-
bridge: Cambridge University Press, 2011.
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Z
ZAPATA SALAZAR, EMILIANO (1879–1919)
In April 1919, Colonel Jesús Maria Guajardo of the Mexican army issued a
surprise invitation to Emiliano Zapata Salazar, commander of the revolutionary
Southern Liberation Army. After pursuing Zapata for the past six years, on behalf
of General Pablo González Garza and President Venustiano Carranza, Guajardo
now suggested that he might be ready to defect and join Zapata in opposing the
Carranza government. To prove it, he had recently attacked an army column,
killing 57 soldiers as a sign of dedication to the revolution. Zapata kept their
appointment on April 10, at the Hacienda de San Juan in Chinameca, in the
state of Morelos. On arrival, Zapata was greeted by an honor guard presenting
arms—until a bugle blared and the soldiers fired on Zapata from point-blank
range, killing him instantly. Guajardo then delivered Zapata’s corpse to General
González at Cuautla, expecting a reward, but reportedly received only half the
amount originally promised.
Emiliano Zapata was born at Anenecuilco, Morelos, on August 8, 1879, the
ninth of ten children in an impoverished family. Mexico’s quasi-feudal system,
established by President Porfirio Díaz in 1876, bound peasants to the land and
generally crushed any hope of upward mobility. Zapata received a limited edu-
cation, and worked full time to support his family after his father died in 1895.
Marriage to the daughter of a middle-class family spared him from abject peon-
age, but Zapata remained unsatisfied, dabbling in revolutionary politics from
1906 onward. A brief stint in military service, during 1908, failed to curb his
inbred opposition to Mexico’s ruling elite, and in 1909 Zapata won election
as council president of Anenecuilco with a program of agrarian reform. When
Governor Pablo Escandón y Barrón resisted those reforms, Zapata began to ex-
propriate land at gunpoint.
In 1910, Zapata supported Francisco Madero’s electoral challenge to Presi-
dent Díaz. Díaz responded by imprisoning Madero, but Madero escaped from
custody and fled to Texas, where he drafted the Plan of St. Luis Potosi, call-
ing for rebellion against the ruling regime. The Mexican Revolution formally
began in November 1910, with Madero directing field commanders Pascual
Orozco and Francisco “Pancho” Villa from his provisional capital in El Paso.
After losing Juarez to his opposition in May 1911, Díaz fled to exile in France,
and Madero won election as his successor. The new president carried out
some land reforms, but Zapata was dissatisfied and recognized Orozco as the
650 Z A PATA S A L A Z A R , E M I L I A N O

revolution’s rightful leader in November 1911. His own Plan of Ayala, drafted
at the same time, demanded return of all land seized under Díaz to its right-
ful peasant owners, a condition that Madero could not bring himself to meet.
Allied with Orozco and Emiliano Vázquez Gómez, Zapata led his Liberation
Army of the South in pursuit of Reforma, Libertad, Ley y Justicia—“Reform,
Freedom, Law and Justice.” He branded President Madero a counterrevolu-
tionary, skirmishing with federal troops in southern Mexico, as far north as
Mexico City. Madero assigned Panch Villa and José Victoriano Huerta Márquez
to defeat Zapata, who, by early 1912, had been proclaimed Supreme Chief of
the Revolutionary Movement of the South. Fighting under the motto “It’s bet-
ter to die on your feet than to live on your knees,” Zapata continued his efforts
to topple Madero, but General Huerta staged a preemptive strike in February
1913, conspiring with U.S. ambassador Henry Lane Wilson and a nephew of
Porfirio Díaz to seize the presidency and execute Madero. That move officially
ended Mexico’s civil war—while leaving Huerta branded as El Chacal (“The
Jackal”) or El Usurpador (“The Usurper”)—but it brought no peace.
Huerta had barely occupied the president’s office when Venustiano Carranza
announced his Plan of Guadalupe, calling for creation of a Constitutional Army
to depose Huerta’s dictatorship. Zapata supported that movement, joined by
Pancho Villa and Álvaro Obregón Salido, defeating Huerta’s forces at the Battle
of Zacatecas in June 1914, forcing his resignation and departure for Jamaica
in July. Francisco Carvajal y Gual briefly succeeded Huerta, handing power to
Carranza on August 20, then departed for New Orleans.
Still, peace remained elusive. Neither Zapata nor Villa had signed Carranza’s
Plan of Guadalupe, and Villa in particular despised the new president—a feel-
ing returned in full measure by Carranza. Villa continued his guerrilla raids,
in defiance of orders from Carranza, while Álvaro Obregón backed the new
president and Zapata watched from the southern sidelines, generally more
supportive of Villa than Carranza. In October 1914, Carranza summoned his
opponents to the Convention of Aguascalientes, seeking to resolve their differ-
ences, but the effort quickly went awry. Neither Zapata nor Villa attended in
person, but their supporters hijacked the convention, declared themselves sov-
ereign, and elected Eulalio Gutiérrez Ortiz as president of republic, while nam-
ing Villa to command a new Conventionalist Army, battling against Carranza’s
Constitutionalists. President Gutiérrez fled from Mexico City in January 1915
and formally resigned six months later, after branding both Carranza and Villa
traitors to Mexico’s “revolutionary spirit.”
So the chaotic war continued, with General Obregón hunting Pancho
Villa in northern Mexico, joined by U.S. troops staged cross-border raids
in early 1916, while General Pablo González stalked Zapata in the south.
In that pursuit, González adopted a policy of scorched earth and mass ex-
ecutions, capturing Zapatista headquarters at Tlaltizapan in June 1916.
Z A PATA S A L A Z A R , E M I L I A N O 651

ZAPATISTA ARMY OF NATIONAL LIBERATION

Founded on November 17, 1983, in a merger between indigenous reb-
els of eastern Chiapas and guerrillas from Mexico’s urban north, the
Ejército Zapatista de Liberación Nacional (EZLN) made its first public
appearance on January 1, 1994, when the North American Free Trade
Agreement between Mexico, Canada, and the United States became op-
erational. Typically disguised by ski masks or red bandanas, the new Za-
patistas declared war “against the Mexican state.” Its philosophy reflects
a mixture of anarchism and libertarian Marxism, incorporating elements
of Roman Catholic liberation theology and stressing alter-globalization,
broadly defined as resisting the “disestablishment of local economies
and disastrous humanitarian consequences.” President Vicente Fox Que-
sada, elected in 2000, once claimed he could end the Chiapas rebellion
“in fifteen minutes,” yet it continues, with Zapatistas led by anonymous
“Subcomandante Marcos” presenting human rights petitions in all 31
Mexican states during January 2006. Three years later, in January 2009,
Marcos broadened the group’s field of interest, declaring Zapatista sup-
port for Palestinian Arabs against “the Israeli government’s march of death
and destruction.”

Undeterred, Zapata rebounded to threaten Mexico City in September 1916,

to bomb a train and kill 400 passengers in November, and to seize Cuer-
navaca in January 1917. Even after losing Morelos to González in October
1917, seeing his ranks thinned by deadly Spanish influenza, Zapata fought
on from a retreat in the mountains. Only treachery would finally cut short
his struggle and his life.
Without its charismatic leader, the Liberation Army of the South dissolved,
watching the dream of comprehensive agrarian reform slip beyond recall. Even
so, Zapata’s elected successor—General Gildardo Magaña Cerda—and others
pursued their mentor’s ideals through more conventional political channels.
President Carranza survived an assassination attempt in April 1920, then was
killed by rebel soldiers the following month. Much of the land redistribution
advocated by Zapata was finally achieved under President Lázaro Cárdenas del
Río between 1935 and 1940. Zapata, meanwhile, has been memorialized on
Mexican currency, and in the naming of various streets and towns. His depic-
tions on film include portrayals by Marlon Brando (Viva Zapata!, 1952) and
Alejandro Fernández (Zapata: A Hero’s Dream, 2004).
See also: Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano (1859–1920); Villa, Francisco “Pancho”
(1878–1923).
652 ZHANG ZUOLIN

Further Reading
Brunk, Samuel. ¡Emiliano Zapata! Revolution and Betrayal in Mexico. Albuquerque: Uni-
versity of New Mexico Press, 1995.
Mclynn, Frank. Villa and Zapata. New York: Basic Books, 2002.
Parrkinson, Roger. Zapata: A Biography. New York: Stein & Day, 1975.
Womack, John. Zapata and the Mexican Revolution. New York: Vintage Books, 1970.

ZHANG ZUOLIN (1875–1928)

On June 3, 1928, Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin (sometimes rendered as
Chang Tso-lin) left Beijing by train, retreating from the advance of enemy Gen-
eral Chiang Kai-shek’s Nationalist Army. Chiang had defeated Zhang in battle
the previous month, and Zhang was fleeing to Shenyang (Mukden in the Man-
chu language), capital of Fengtian (now Liaoning) Province. Zhang traveled on
the Jingfeng (now Beijing–Harbin) Railway, amply guarded by his troops, but he
was not prepared for treachery by the Japanese Guandong Army that supported
him. Colonel Kōmoto Daisaku,
furious at Zhang’s failure to
stop the Nationalist advance,
had planted a bomb on the out-
skirts of Shenyang, where the
Jingfeng line passed beneath
the South Manchuria Railroad.
At 5:23 A.M. on June 4, as
Zhang’s train passed beneath
the booby-trapped trellis, Sap-
per 1st Lieutenant Fujii Sada-
toshi triggered the explosion,
demolishing Zhang’s train.
Several passengers, includ-
ing Governor Wu Junsheng of
Heilongjiang Province, died
instantly. Zhang was mortally
wounded, but survived the
short trip to Shenyang and died
there, several hours later. Guan-
dong Army leaders concealed
Zhang’s death until June 21, by
Manchurian warlord Zhang Zuolin, killed in a 1928 which time they had installed
railroad bombing. (Gamma-Keystone via Getty his eldest son, Zhang Xueliang,
Images) as the late warlord’s successor.
ZHANG ZUOLIN 653

Zhang Zuolin was born at Haicheng, in southern Fengtian Province, some-

time in 1875. His family was poor, and Zhang—nicknamed “Pimple” in his
youth—acquired little formal education, though he did achieve a smattering
of amateur veterinary skill while hunting and working in stables. A brawler by
nature, he became affiliated with one of Manchuria’s numerous outlaw gangs,
and by his 20s led his own band of armed brigands on horseback. During the
so-called Boxer Rebellion of 1898–1901, Zhang and his bandits joined the
Qing Dynasty’s imperial army in a futile attempt to expel Western elements
from China, earning a reputation as the “Mukden Tiger” in the process. Three
years later, in the Russo-Japanese War of 1904–1905, Zhang and his men
served Japan as mercenaries, battling Russian troops in Manchuria and along
the Russo-Chinese border.
In October 1911, republican forces led by the Tongmenghui (Chinese United
League) and Gelaohui (Elder Brothers Society) rebelled against Emperor Puyi,
toppling the Qing Dynasty in February 1912. Zhang and his troops resisted the
new order, intimidating would-be rebels as the head of a Manchurian People’s
Peacekeeping Council. When revolutionary leader Sun Yat-sen declared him-
self president of a new Chinese republic, based in Nanking (now Nanjing),
monarchist Yuan Shikai reached out to Zhang from Beijing, seeking support for
the resistance. Meanwhile, Yuan struck a bargain with Sun Yat-sen, arranging
Emperor Puyi’s abdication in exchange for Sun’s support in a presidential elec-
tion scheduled for March 1912. Within a year, Yuan moved to suppress Sun’s
Kuomintang (Chinese Nationalist Party), and in December 1915 he declared
himself the new emperor of China.
Zhang supported the new imperial regime, defeating an attempt by the
Kuomintang and Japan’s Kwantung Army to expel him from Manchuria. Chas-
tened by that experience, Beijing named Zhang the superintendent of military
affairs for Fengtian Province, promoting him to serve as both the civil and
military governor after Yuan Shikai’s death in June 1916. Still a Qing loyal-
ist at heart, Zhang conspired with like-minded General Zhang Xun to restore
Emperor Puyi to his throne. At the last moment, however, while Zhang Xun
marched to Beijing on July 1, 1917, Zhang Zuolin withheld his critical sup-
port, thereby dooming the rebellion, which collapsed 12 days later. In fact, he
used the debacle to increase his own power, first seizing Heilongjiang Province
for himself, then captured Jilin Province, securing control over all of Manchu-
ria except for the southeastern quadrant occupied by Japan.
By 1918, Zhang Zuolin ranked among China’s most powerful warlords. His
nearest rival, the Beiyang (“North Ocean”) Army, was fragmented after Yuan
Shikai’s death, distracted by internecine conflict while Zhang consolidated his
power. After two wars with a rival force commanded by Cao Kun, warlord of
Zhili Province (now Hebei), in 1922 and 1924, Zhang joined in a provisional
654 ZHANG ZUOLIN

triumvirate with Feng Yuxiang, commander of the Kuomintang’s Guominjun

(Northwest Army), and Duan Qirui, warlord of Anhui Province. At the same
time, Zhang forged an alliance with the Kwantung Army, which patrolled the
South Manchurian Railway.
With an army of 100,000 men in 1920, nearly tripling in size over the next
eight years, Zhang was a force to reckon with. He used that power for Man-
churia’s benefit, as well as personal enrichment, importing temporary workers
during spring and summer, as labor in forestry, mining, and agriculture. With
regard to farming alone, Manchurian acreage under active cultivation increased
from 20 million in 1920 to 35 million by 1929. Indeed, Manchuria’s econ-
omy prospered so dramatically in comparison to the rest of China that it was
coveted both by Japan and by the Kuomintang, now led by Chiang Kai-shek.
In July 1926, Chiang launched his First Northern Expedition, defeating Cao
Kun’s Zhili clique, then paused to purge the Kuomintang’s left wing of com-
munists in the Shanghai massacre of April 1927. That diversion gave Zhang
Zuolin time to regroup with new Zhili Province warlord Sun Chuanfang, who
invaded China proper in July 1927 but was defeated in the Battle of Longtan, on
August 25. Chiang Kai-shek rebuilt his forces through the winter, then began
his Second Northern Expedition in April 1928. Rather than face the enemy,
Zhang began his retreat toward Shenyang, thereby prompting officers of the
Kwantung Army to plot his murder.
Zhang Xueliang, hand-picked by local Japanese commanders to succeed his
father, did not accuse them of his murder, but he did declare support for Chi-
ang Kai-shek and the Kuomintang, emerging from the momentary chaos as a
Nationalist general. In January 1929, Zhang Xueliang executed two Chinese
officials known for their pro-Japanese viewpoints, before the assembled guests
at a state banquet. Nine months later, Emperor Hirohito dismissed Prime Min-
ister Tanaka Giichi with scathing criticism for his failure to prosecute Zhang
Zuolin’s killers. Japan would not secure its goal of capturing Manchuria until
September 1931, when the Kwantung Army occupied the region and estab-
lished the puppet state of Manchuoko under former Qing emperor Puyi.

Further Reading
Beasley, William. Japanese Imperialism 1894–1945. Oxford: Oxford University Press,
1991.
Gordon, Andrew. A Modern History of Japan: From Tokugawa Times to the Present. Oxford:
Oxford University Press, 2003.
Jiang, Arnold. The United States and China. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
McCormack, Gavan. Chang Tso-Lin in Northeast China, 1911–1928: China, Japan, and
the Manchurian Idea. Palo Alto, CA: Stanford University Press, 1977.
Paine, S.C.M. The Wars for Asia, 1911–1949. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2012.
ZORIG, SANJAASUREN 655

Shai, Aron. Zhang Xueliang: The General Who Never Fought. New York: Palgrave Mac-
millan, 2012.
Spence, Johnathan. The Search for Modern China. New York: Norton & Sons, 1991.

ZORIG, SANJAASUREN (1962–1998)

On October 2, 1998, two unidentified persons invaded the apartment occu-
pied by prominent politician Sanjaasuren Zorig in Ulan Bator, Mongolia. After
overpowering and tying up Zorig’s wife, the intruders waited for him to return
home, then attacked him with knives, tabbing him 16 times. Three wounds
pierced his heart, killing Zorig within minutes. Before fleeing, in a move still
unexplained, the assassins paused to steal bottles of vinegar and soy sauce from
their victim’s refrigerator. The murder prevented Zorig’s anticipated appoint-
ment to serve as Mongolia’s prime minister, a post claimed two months later
by Mayor Janlavyn Narantsatsralt of Ulan Bator. Police briefly detained Zorig’s
wife on suspicion of instigating his murder, then released her without charges,
leaving the crime officially unsolved today.
Sanjaasuren Zorig was born on April 20, 1962, the grandson of a Rus-
sian geographer who joined
Pyotr Kuzmich Kozlov to ex-
plore Mongolia in 1923–1926
and remained to marry a na-
tive woman. In the mid-1930s,
Zorig’s grandparents fell prey to
the Stalinist purges carried out
by Marshal Khorloogiin Choi-
balsan on orders from Moscow,
claiming at least 22,000 lives
(some estimates claim 100,000).
Zorig’s mother, Dorjpalam, was
left orphaned and subsequently
married a medical professor
named Sanjaasüren, bearing him
three children.
Zorig, their second child,
attended a Russian-language
school in Ulan Bator, beginning
at age eight, then enrolled at
Lomonosov Moscow State Uni-
versity, where he studied phi- Sanjaasuren Zorig, head of the Mongolian Demo-
losophy from 1980 to 1985. cratic Association was attacked in his home and
Upon graduation, he returned stabbed 16 times. (Associated Press)
656 ZO R I G, S A N JA A S U R E N

to Ulan Bator as a teacher for the Mongolian Revolutionary Youth League, then
lectured on “scientific communism” at the National University of Mongolia. His
family history, meanwhile, undermined commitment to doctrinaire tenets pre-
scribed from Moscow. In 1988, he founded a “New Generation” movement of
college-age dissidents pledged to spread democracy throughout Mongolia. On
December 10, 1989, Zorig led a demonstration by 200 protesters seeking free
elections and a free-market economy. A month later, as a member of the Demo-
cratic Party of Mongolia, he began staging regular weekend protests in Ulan Ba-
tor’s Sükhbaatar Square, growing in size through February 1990.
Mongolia’s communist regime, led by Jambyn Batmönkh since 1984, ini-
tially resisted any democratic reforms, but Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev in-
fluenced Russia’s client state with his policies of perestroika (“reconstruction”)
and glasnost (“openness”). In March 1990, the Mongolian Politburo resigned
en masse, thereby ending one-party rule nationwide. Three months later, Zorig
was elected to a seat in the People’s Great Khural (national assembly). That
body, in turn, was reconstituted in 1992 as the unicameral State Great Khural,
with Zorig first elected as a minority member, then reelected in 1996 as a lead-
ing spokesman for the dominant Democratic Union Coalition, defeating the
now ex-communist Mongolian People’s Party.
In April 1998, Prime Minister Tsakhiagiin Elbegdorj named Zorig to
serve as his minister for infrastructure, but the new government soon foun-
dered on an unexpected crisis. Shortly after taking office as Prime Minister,
Elbegdorj sold the state-owned Reconstruction Bank to Mongolia’s largest
privately owned banking firm, the Golomt Bank, controlled by members
of the Democratic Union Coalition. Furious members of the Mongolian
People’s Party staged a walkout from the State Great Khural, thereby forc-
ing Elbegdorj’s resignation. An urgent conference between rival party lead-
ers settled on Zorig as a compromise successor to Elbegdorj, with public
announcement of his selection scheduled for October 5. His murder, three
days prior to that declaration, foiled the plan.
In place of Zorig, Janlavyn Narantsatsralt became Mongolia’s new prime
minister, in December 1998. He held the post until July 1999, when a furor
over the wording of a letter to Russia’s first deputy prime minister on the sub-
ject of copper-mining rights forced his resignation in turn. Soon after Zorig’s
murder, voters sent his sister Sanjaasürengiin Oyuun to the State Great Khural,
and she later served as Mongolia’s minister of foreign affairs. Well known for
her belief that Zorig was slain to prevent him from interfering with government
corruption, Oyuun founded the Civil Will Party (now the Civil Will-Green
Party) in March 2000, pursuing liberal policies with an emphasis on environ-
mentalism. In Mongolian, the new party’s name—Irgenii Zorig Nam—included
her martyred brother’s name.
ZORIG, SANJAASUREN 657

Further Reading
Batbayar, Tsedenambyn and Sharad Soni. Modern Mongolia: A Concise History.
New Delhi: Pentagon Press, 2007.
Bawden, Charles. Modern History of Mongolia. London: Routledge, 2002.
Bosson, James. Modern Mongolia. Richmond, Surrey, United Kingdom: Curzon Press,
1997.
Rossabi, Morris. Modern Mongolia: From Khans to Commissars to Capitalists. Berkeley:
University of California Press, 2005.
Sabloff, Paula, ed. Modern Mongolia: Reclaiming Genghis Khan. Philadelphia: Pennsylva-
nia Museum of Archaeology and Anthropology, 2001.
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PRIMARY DOCUMENTS
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Document 1
ASSASSINATION OF POMPEY THE GREAT
(48 BCE)—PLUTARCH’S DESCRIPTION OF
THE MURDER OF POMPEY IN EGYPT

On August 9, 48 BCE, the Battle of Pharsalus, a decisive encounter of the Roman

civil war, was fought in central Greece between the forces of Julius Caesar and those
of the Roman senate commanded by Pompey (Gnaeus Pompeius). Caesar’s victory
forced the senatorial leaders to flee, with Pompey deciding to go to Egypt. As Pom-
pey approached, the advisors of the young Egyptian ruler, Ptolemy XIII, debated
the advisability of offering Pompey refuge. Believing such a decision would offend
Caesar, who was known to also be sailing to Egypt, the king’s eunuch Pothinus suc-
cessfully argued that Pompey should be killed. Accordingly, when Pompey landed
in Egypt on September 28, 48 BCE, he was met and murdered on the shore by a
party that included Achillas, one of the guardians of Ptolemy XIII, and Septimius,
the commander of Roman troops serving in the Egyptian army. Pompey’s body was
cremated where it fell by his servant Philip, and his head and seal were presented
to Caesar upon the latter’s arrival in Egypt. Angered rather than pleased by the
treacherous murder of his former friend and son-in-law, Caesar ordered the execu-
tions of both Pothinus and Achillas.

So when it was decided that he should fly to Egypt, he set sail from Cy-
prus on a Seleucian trireme with his wife (of the rest, some sailed along with
him in ships of war like his own, and others in merchant vessels), and crossed
the sea in safety; but on learning that Ptolemy was posted at Pelusium with
an army, making war upon his sister, he put in there, and sent on a messen-
ger to announce his arrival to the king and to ask his aid. Now, Ptolemy was
quite young; but Potheinus, who managed all his affairs, assembled a council
of the most influential men (and those were most influential whom he wished
to be so), and bade each one give his opinion. It was certainly a dreadful thing
that the fate of Pompey the Great was to be decided by Potheinus the eunuch,
and Theodotus of Chios, who was a hired teacher of rhetoric, and Achillas the
Egyptian; for these were the chief counsellors of the king among the chamber-
lains and tutors also gathered there. And it was such a tribunal’s verdict which
Pompey, tossing at anchor some distance of the shore, was waiting for, a man
who would not deign to be under obligations to Caesar for his life.
The opinions of the other counsellors were so far divergent that some ad-
vised to drive Pompey away, and others to invite him in and receive him. But
Theodotus, making a display of his powerful speech and rhetorical art, set
forth that neither course was safe for them, but that if they received Pompey,
they would have Caesar for an enemy and Pompey for a master; while if they
662 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT

rejected him, Pompey would blame them for casting him off, and Caesar for
making him continue his pursuit; the best course, therefore, was to send for
the man and put him to death, for by doing so they would gratify Caesar and
have nothing to fear from Pompey. To this he smilingly added, we are told,
“A dead man does not bite.”
Having determined upon this plan, they entrusted the execution of it to
Achillas. So he took with him a certain Septimius, who had once been a
tribune of Pompey’s, and Salvius besides, a centurion, with three or four
servants, and put out towards the ship of Pompey. Now, all the most distin-
guished of Pompey’s fellow-voyagers had come aboard of her to see what was
going on. Accordingly, when they saw a reception that was not royal, nor
splendid, nor in accordance with the hopes of Theophanes, but a few men
sailing up in a single fishing-boat, they viewed this lack of respect with sus-
picion, and advised Pompey to have his ship rowed back into the open sea,
while they were beyond reach of missiles. But meanwhile the boat drew near,
and first Septimius rose up and addressed Pompey in the Roman tongue as
Imperator. Then Achillas saluted him in Greek, and invited him to come
aboard the boat, telling him that the shallows were extensive, and that the
sea, which had a sandy bottom, was not deep enough to float a trireme. At
the same time some of the royal ships were seen to be taking their crews
aboard, and men-at-arms were occupying the shore, so that there seemed to
be no escape even if they changed their minds; and besides, this very lack of
confidence might give the murderers an excuse for their crime. Accordingly,
after embracing Cornelia, who was bewailing his approaching death, he or-
dered two centurions to go into the boat before him, besides Philip, one of
his freedmen, and a servant named Scythes, and while Achillas was already
stretching out his hand to him from the boat, turned towards his wife and
son and repeated the verses of Sophocles:—

Whatever man upon a tyrant takes his way,

His slave he is, even though a freeman when he goes.

After these last words to his friends, he went into the boat. And since it was
a long distance from the trireme to the land, and none of his companions in
the boat had any friendly word for him, turning his eyes upon Septimius he
said: “Surely I am not mistaken, and you are an old comrade of mine!” Septi-
mius nodded merely, without saying anything to him or showing any friend-
liness. So then, as there was profound silence again, Pompey took a little roll
containing a speech written by him in Greek, which he had prepared for his
use in addressing Ptolemy, and began to read in it. Then, as they drew near the
shore, Cornelia, together with his friends, stood on the trireme watching with
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F P O M P E Y T H E G R E AT 663

great anxiety for the outcome, and began to take heart when she saw many
of the king’s people assembling at the landing as if to give him an honourable
welcome. But at this point, while Pompey was clasping the hand of Philip that
he might rise to his feet more easily, Septimius, from behind, ran him through
the body with his sword, then Salvius next, and then Achillas, drew their dag-
gers and stabbed him. And Pompey, drawing his toga down over his face with
both hands, without an act or a word that was unworthy of himself, but with
a groan merely, submitted to their blows, being sixty years of age less one, and
ending his life only one day after his birth-day.
When the people on the ships beheld the murder, they uttered a wailing cry
that could be heard as far as the shore, and weighing anchor quickly, took to
flight. And a strong wind came to their aid as they ran out to sea, so that the
Egyptians, though desirous of pursuing, turned back. But they cut off Pompey’s
head, and threw the rest of his body unclothed out of the boat, and left it for
those who craved so pitiful a sight. Philip, however, stayed by the body, until
such had taken their fill of gazing; then he washed it in sea-water, wrapped it
in a tunic of his own, and since he had no other supply, sought along the coast
until he found the remnants of a small fishing-boat, old stuff, indeed, but suffi-
cient to furnish a funeral pyre that would answer for an unclothed corpse, and
that too not entire. As he was gathering the wood and building the pyre, there
came up a Roman who was now an old man, but who in his youth had served
his first campaigns with Pompey, and said: “Who art thou, my man, that think-
est to give burial rites to Pompey the Great?” And when Philip said that he was
his freedman, the man said: “But thou shalt not have this honour all to thyself;
let me too share in a pious privilege thus offered, that I may not altogether re-
gret my sojourn in a foreign land, if in requital for many hardships I find this
happiness at least, to touch with my hands and array for burial the greatest of
Roman imperators.” Such were the obsequies of Pompey. And on the follow-
ing day Lucius Lentulus, as he came sailing from Cyprus and coasted along the
shore not knowing what had happened, saw a funeral pyre and Philip standing
besides it, and before he had been seen himself exclaimed: “Who, pray, rests
here at the end of his allotted days?” Then, after a slight pause and with a groan
he said: “But perhaps it is thou, Pompey the Great!” And after a little he went
ashore, was seized, and put to death.
This was the end of Pompey. But not long afterwards Caesar came to Egypt,
and found it filled with this great deed of abomination. From the man who
brought him Pompey’s head he turned away with loathing, as from an assassin;
and on receiving Pompey’s seal-ring, he burst into tears; the device was a lion
holding a sword in his paws. But Achillas and Potheinus he put to death. The
king himself, moreover, was defeated in battle along the river, and disappeared.
Theodotus the sophist, however, escaped the vengeance of Caesar; for he fled
664 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F J U L I US C A E SA R

out of Egypt and wandered about in wretchedness and hated of all men. But
Marcus Brutus, after he had slain Caesar and come into power, discovered him
in Asia, and put him to death with every possible torture. The remains of Pom-
pey were taken to Cornelia, who gave them burial at his Alban villa.

Source: Plutarch Lives: Agesilaus and Pompey. Pelopidas and Marcellus. Translated
by Bernadotte Perrin. Vol. 5. Loeb Classical Library 87. Cambridge, MA: Har-
vard University Press, 1917, 318–29.

Document 2
ASSASSINATION OF JULIUS CAESAR (44 BCE)—
LETTER OF BRUTUS TO CICERO ON CAESAR’S
ASSASSINATION (43 BCE)

Marcus Tullius Cicero, considered one of the greatest Roman orators, was also a law-
yer, statesman, philosopher, and author of works on legal, rhetorical, and philosophi-
cal subjects. He was also a prolific writer of letters to various professional colleagues,
friends, and family members; these letters provide insight into the social, cultural,
and intellectual life in Rome during the late Republican period. Moreover, because
Cicero was so deeply involved in the complex and competitive political situation of his
day, his letters often contain valuable first-hand observations of many of the influen-
tial events, powerful men, and personal rivalries that marked the Roman Republic’s
tumultuous last decades.
Marcus Junius Brutus, one of the leading conspirators in Julius Caesar’s assassina-
tion in 44 BCE, wrote this letter to Cicero in 43 BCE. Because he was no longer safe at
Rome, where Caesar’s heir, the young Octavian (the future emperor Augustus, here
called Octavius), was gaining support, Brutus was then living in Crete. In the letter,
he urges Cicero not to underestimate the ambition of Octavian (often called a “boy”
in the letter), who Brutus sees as a second Caesar—that is, another dictator in the
making. He also asks Cicero to reevaluate his animosity toward Mark Antony, whom
Brutus considers less dangerous than Octavian. Throughout the letter, Brutus appeals
to Cicero’s republican idealism and hopes of reviving Roman liberty. Cicero’s attempts
to play Octavian against Antony ultimately failed, and he was murdered on Antony’s
orders in December 43 BCE. Brutus, defeated in October 42 BCE by the forces of Octa-
vian and Antony at the Battle of Philippi, committed suicide.

I have read a small part of your letter to Octavius, transmitted to me by At-

ticus. Your zeal and concern for my safety gave me no new pleasure, for it is
not only our common, but our daily news to hear something which you have
said or done with your usual fidelity in support of my honour and dignity. Yet
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F J U L I US C A E SA R 665

that same part of your letter affected me with the most sensible grief which
my mind could possibly receive. For you compliment him so highly for his
services to the republic, and in a strain so suppliant and abject that what shall
I say? I am ashamed of the wretched state to which we are reduced; yet it must
be said, you recommend my safety to him, (to which what death is not pref-
erable?) and thus make it manifest that our servitude is not yet abolished, but
our master only changed. Recollect your words, and deny them, if you dare,
to be the prayers of a subject to his king. There is one thing, you say, which is
required and expected from him that he would allow those citizens to live in
safety, of whom all honest men and the people of Rome think well. But what if
he will not allow it? Shall we be the less safe for that? It is better not to be safe,
than to be saved by him. For my part, I can never think all the gods so averse
to the preservation of the Roman people, that Octavius must be entreated for
the life of any one citizen; not to say for the deliverers of the world. These are
the lofty terms in which I have a pleasure in declaring myself, and it becomes
me to use this language to those who know not what to fear from, or what to
ask of, any one.
Can you allow Octavius to possess this power, and yet be his friend? Or if
you have any value for me, would you wish to see me at Rome; when it be-
hoves me first to be recommended to this boy, that he would permit me to be
there? What reason can you have to thank him, if you think it necessary to beg
of him that he would suffer us to live in safety? Or is it to be considered a kind-
ness that he chooses to see himself rather than Antony, in the condition to have
such petitions presented to him? One may supplicate, indeed, the successor,
but what need is there to supplicate the abolisher of a tyranny, that those who
have deserved well of the republic may be safe? It was this weakness and de-
spair, not more blameable, indeed, in you than in all, which first incited Caesar
to the ambition of reigning; and after his death encouraged Antony to think of
seizing his place; and which has now raised this boy so high, that you judge
it necessary to address your supplications to him for the preservation of men
such as we are; and that we are to be saved only by the mercy of one, scarcely
yet a man, and by no other means. But if we had remembered ourselves to be
Romans, these infamous men would not be more daring to aim at dominion
than we to repel it; nor would Antony be more encouraged by Caesar’s reign,
than deterred by his fate. How can you, a consular senator, and the avenger of
so many treasons, (by suppressing which, you have but postponed our ruin,
I fear, for a time) reflect on what you have done, and yet approve these things,
or bear them so tamely, as to seem to approve them?
For what particular quarrel had you with Antony? No other, but that he as-
sumed all this to himself; that our lives should be begged of him; that we from
whom he had received liberty, should hold our safety in precarious depen-
dence upon his will; that the republic should be at his disposal. You thought
666 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F J U L I US C A E SA R

it necessary to take arms to arrest his tyranny. But was this done only, that a
stop being put to him, we might carry our submission to another, who might
condescend to be put in his place; or was it that the republic might be its own
mistress: unless after all, our quarrel was not with slavery, but with the condi-
tions of it. No doubt, we might have had an easy master in Antony, and what-
ever share with him we pleased, could we have been content with such a state
of things: for what could he have denied to those whose tolerance would have
been the best support of his domination. But nothing was of such value to us
as to be worth the sacrifice of our fidelity and liberty. This very boy, whom the
name of Caesar seems to stimulate against the slayers of Caesar, how would he
value (if there were really room to treat with him,) our help towards the attain-
ment of his objects; we being content to live, and to be rich, and to be called
consulars. But Caesar would then have perished in vain. For what reason have
we to rejoice at his death, if still our lot is to be slaves? Let others be as un-
concerned as they will; but may the powers of heaven sooner take all from
me, than the determination not to allow to the heir of the man I killed what
I would not allow to the man himself. No, nor would I suffer my father, were
he living, to possess a power above the laws and the senate.
Can you persuade yourself, that any one can be free under him, without
whose leave there is no place for us in that city? Or how is it possible for you,
after all, to obtain what you ask? You ask that he would allow us to be safe.
Shall we then receive safety when we receive life? But how can we receive it,
if we first part with our honour and our liberty? Do you fancy that to live at
Rome is to be safe? It is the thing, and not the place, which must secure that
to me; for I was never safe, while Caesar lived, till I had resolved on that at-
tempt: nor can I be an exile any where as long as I continue to abhor slavery
and contumely beyond all other evils. Is it not to fall back into the same state
of darkness in which we were, when he who has taken upon him the name of
the tyrant must be entreated that the avengers of tyranny may be safe, while
in the cities of Greece the punishment of tyrants is extended to their children?
Can I ever wish to see that city or think it a city, which would not accept lib-
erty when offered, and even forced upon it, but has more dread of the name
of their late king in the person of a boy, than reliance on itself, though it has
seen that very king taken off in the plenitude of his power by the virtue of a
few? If you listen to me, you will no more after this recommend either me or
yourself to this your Caesar. You set a high value on the few years that remain
to you at your age, if for their sake you can become a supplicant to that boy.
Henceforth have a care, lest what you have done and are doing with respect to
Antony, instead of being praised as the effect of magnanimity, be imputed to
fear: for if you are so pleased with Octavius as to petition him for our safety,
you will be thought not to have disliked a master, but to have wanted only a
more friendly one.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F J U L I US C A E SA R 667

As to your praising him for the things that he has hitherto done, I approve
of it; they deserve to be praised, provided he did them to repel the power of
others, not to advance his own. But when you adjudge him not only to have
this power, but think you ought to submit to it so far as to entreat him that he
would not destroy us, you make him too great a recompense; you give to him
what the republic seemed to enjoy through him. Nor does it seem to occur
to you, that if Octavius deserves any honours, because he makes war against
Antony, that those who extirpated the very evil of which these are but the rel-
ics, can never be sufficiently requited by the Roman people, though they were
to heap upon them everything in their power to bestow; but see how much
stronger people’s fears are than their memories; because Antony still lives, and
is in arms.
As to Caesar, all that could and ought to have been done has been done,
and cannot be undone, to be done again in any other manner. Is then Octa-
vius so great a man, that the people of Rome are to wait in suspense his judg-
ment upon us? Or are we so little, that any one man is to be entreated for our
safety? As for me, that I may return to Rome, not only will I not supplicate any
man, but I will restrain those from doing it who are disposed to do it for them-
selves: or I will remove to a distance from all such who can be slaves, and will
think myself at Rome wherever I can live free, and shall pity you whose fond
desire of life neither age, nor honours, nor the example of other men’s virtue
can reduce. For my own part, I shall ever think myself happy, solaced with
the constant and perpetual conviction, that my piety to my country has met
its reward; for what condition can be better than for a man supported by the
recollection of noble actions, and in full content with his liberty, to look with
indifference on all human things. Never will I yield to those who suffer them-
selves to be trampled upon by others, nor be conquered by those who submit
to be conquered. I will make experiment of all things, and try every resource,
nor will ever desist from dragging our state out of slavery. If that fortune at-
tends me which ought to attend me, we shall all rejoice; if not, still I shall re-
joice myself. For how can this life be better spent than in acts and thoughts
which tend to make my countrymen free.
I beseech you, Cicero, not to desert the cause through weariness or want of
confidence. In repelling present evils have your eyes always on the future, lest
it steal upon you before you are aware. Consider that the fortitude and cour-
age with which you delivered the republic, when consul, and again a consular,
are nothing without constancy and perseverance. The case of tried, is, I own,
harder than of untried virtue. We exact services as debts in the former case,
and if disappointed, we feel especially resentful, as persons deceived. Where-
fore, for Cicero to withstand Antony, though very commendable, yet because
such a consul promised such a consular, nobody wondered at it: but if the
same Cicero in the case of others should waver at last in that resolution, which
668 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F T H E RO M A N E M P E RO R C A L I G U L A

he exerted with such firmness and greatness of mind against Antony, he would
deprive himself not only of the hopes of future glory, but make even his glory
past to disappear. Nothing is great in itself but that in which a determination
of the judgment is apparent. Nor is it the duty of any man more than of you to
shew attachment and devotion to the republic, and to be a patron of liberty;
called upon as you are by your abilities, by the things you have performed, by
the regard and expectation of all men. Wherefore, I hold, that Octavius ought
not to be asked to permit us to live in safety. Rather encourage yourself to think
the city, in which you have done such great things, to be free and honourable,
only so long as there are in it leaders of the people to oppose the designs of the
profligate.

Source: William Roberts. History of Letter-Writing, from the Earliest Period to the
Fifth Century. London: W. Pickering, 1843.

Document 3
ASSASSINATION OF THE ROMAN EMPEROR CALIGULA
(41 CE)—SUETONIUS’S ACCOUNT OF THE MURDER

Gaius Julius Caesar Augustus Germanicus, known to history as Caligula, became

emperor of Rome in 37 CE upon the death of his great uncle Tiberius. Sources for
the reign of Caligula depict him as cruel, extravagant, sexually perverse, and even
insane. In 41 CE, Cassius Chaerea, commander of the Praetorian Guard, headed
a plot to kill the emperor. Although the actual murder was carried out by Chaerea
and a few others, the conspiracy was supposedly known and approved by many in
the senate and the military command. Chaerea and his colleges are said to have
stabbed Caligula as he passed through an underground passage at the imperial
palace on his way to address a troupe of actors. Hoping to restore the republic, the
conspirators also murdered Caligula’s wife Caesonia and his young daughter Julia
Drusilla. The solders of the Praetorian Guard, whose privileged position depended
upon the existence of an emperor, elevated Caligula’s uncle Claudius to the imperial
throne, and Claudius ordered the executions of Chaerea and the other assassins.
Reproduced below is the account of Caligula’s death written by the Roman historian
Suetonius in about 121 CE.

During this frantic and riotous career several thought of attempting his life.
But when one or two conspiracies had been detected and the rest were waiting
for a favourable opportunity, two men made common cause and succeeded,
with the connivance of his most influential freedmen and the officers of the
praetorian guard; for although the charge that these last were privy to one of
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F T H E RO M A N E M P E RO R C A L I G U L A 669

the former conspiracies was false, they realised that Caligula hated and feared
them. In fact, he exposed them to great odium by at once taking them aside
and declaring, drawn sword in hand, that he would kill himself, if they too
thought he deserved death; and from that time on he never ceased accusing
them one to the other and setting them all at odds.
When they had decided to attempt his life at the exhibition of the Pala-
tine games, as he went out at noon, Cassius Chaerea, tribune of a cohort of
the praetorian guard, claimed for himself the principal part; for Gaius used to
taunt him, a man already well on in years, with voluptuousness and effemi-
nacy by every form of insult. When he asked for the watchword Gaius would
give him “Priapus” or “Venus,” and when Chaerea had occasion to thank him
for anything, he would hold out his hand to kiss, forming and moving it in an
obscene fashion.
His approaching murder was foretold by many prodigies. The statue of
Jupiter at Olympia, which he had ordered to be taken to pieces and moved
to Rome, suddenly uttered such a peal of laughter that the scaffoldings col-
lapsed and the workmen took to their heels; and at once a man called Cas-
sius turned up, who declared that he had been bidden in a dream to sacrifice
a bull to Jupiter. The Capitol at Capua was struck by lightning on the Ides
of March, and also the room of the doorkeeper of the Palace at Rome. Some
inferred from the latter omen that danger was threatened to the owner at
the hands of his guards; and from the former, the murder of a second dis-
tinguished personage, such as had taken place long before on that same day.
The soothsayer Sulla too, when Gaius consulted him about his horoscope,
declared that inevitable death was close at hand. The lots of Fortune at An-
tium warned him to beware of Cassius, and he accordingly ordered the death
of Cassius Longinus, who was at the time proconsul of Asia, forgetting that
the family name of Chaerea was Cassius. The day before he was killed he
dreamt that he stood in heaven beside the throne of Jupiter and that the
god struck him with the toe of his right foot and hurled him to earth. Some
things which had happened on that very day shortly before he was killed
were also regarded as portents. As he was sacrificing, he was sprinkled with
the blood of a flamingo, and the pantomimic actor Mnester danced a tragedy
which the tragedian Neoptolemus had acted years before during the games
at which Philip king of the Macedonians was assassinated. In a farce called
“Laureolus,” in which the chief actor falls as he is making his escape and
vomits blood, several understudies so vied with one another in giving evi-
dence of their proficiency that the stage swam in blood. A nocturnal perfor-
mance besides was rehearsing, in which scenes from the lower world were
represented by Egyptians and Aethiopians.
On the ninth day before the Kalends of February at about the seventh hour
he hesitated whether or not to get up for luncheon, since his stomach was still
670 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F T H E RO M A N E M P E RO R C A L I G U L A

disordered from excess of food on the day before, but at length he came out
at the persuasion of his friends. In the covered passage through which he had
to pass, some boys of good birth, who had been summoned from Asia to ap-
pear on the stage, were rehearsing their parts, and he stopped to watch and to
encourage them; and had not the leader of the troop complained that he had
a chill, he would have returned and had the performance given at once. From
this point there are two versions of the story: some say that as he was talking
with the boys, Chaerea came up behind, and gave him a deep cut in the neck,
having first cried, “Take that,” and that then the tribune Cornelius Sabinus,
who was the other conspirator and faced Gaius, stabbed him in the breast.
Others say that Sabinus, after getting rid of the crowd through centurions who
were in the plot, asked for the watchword, as soldiers do, and that when Gaius
gave him “Jupiter,” he cried “So be it,” and as Gaius looked around, he split
his jawbone with a blow of his sword. As he lay upon the ground and with
writhing limbs called out that he still lived, the others dispatched him with
thirty wounds; for the general signal was “Strike again.” Some even thrust their
swords through his privates. At the beginning of the disturbance his bearers
ran to his aid with their poles, and presently the Germans of his body-guard,
and they slew several of his assassins, as well as some inoffensive senators.
He lived twenty-nine years and ruled three years, ten months and eight days.
His body was conveyed secretly to the gardens of the Lamian family, where it
was partly consumed on a hastily erected pyre and buried beneath a light cov-
ering of turf; later his sisters on their return from exile dug it up, cremated
it, and consigned it to the tomb. Before this was done, it is well known that
the caretakers of the gardens were disturbed by ghosts, and that in the house
where he was slain not a night passed without some fearsome apparition, until
at last the house itself was destroyed by fire. With him died his wife Caesonia,
stabbed with a sword by a centurion, while his daughter’s brains were dashed
out against a wall.
One may form an idea of the state of those times by what followed. Not even
after the murder was made known was it at once believed that he was dead,
but it was suspected that Gaius himself had made up and circulated the report,
to find out by that means how men felt towards him. The conspirators too had
not agreed on a successor, and the senate was so unanimously in favour of re-
establishing the republic that the consuls called the first meeting, not in the
senate house, because it had the name Julia, but in the Capitol; while some in
expressing their views proposed that the memory of the Caesars be done away
with and their temples destroyed. Men further observed and commented on
the fact that all the Caesars whose forename was Gaius perished by the sword,
beginning with the one who was slain in the times of Cinna.

Source: Suetonius. The Lives of the Twelve Caesars. Translated by J. C. Rolfe. Lon-
don, 1913–14, 56–60.
D E AT H O F W I L L I A M I I , K I N G O F E N G L A N D 671

Document 4
DEATH OF WILLIAM II, KING OF ENGLAND
(1100)—DESCRIPTION OF WILLIAM’S DEATH
BY CHRONICLER PETER OF BLOIS

On August 2, 1100, King William II (known as William Rufus), the son of William I,
“the Conqueror,” was killed by an arrow while hunting in the New Forest. The arrow
was supposedly shot by Walter Tirel, a member of the hunting party who was later
described as a skilled bowman. Although initial accounts seemed to indicate that the
king’s death was an accident, an act of God that brought down divine retribution on
a cruel and wicked king, later historians have seen the death as an assassinated,
perhaps plotted by William’s brother Henry, who in the hunting party that day
and who succeeded his brother on the throne as Henry I. Whereas the assassination
theory is accepted by many modern historians, the death of William II is still contro-
versial. Reproduced below is an account of the king’s death written by Peter of Blois
(1070–c. 1117), who was a continuator of the possibly spurious chronicle of Ingulf.
Peter, like many chroniclers of the time, viewed William II as a tyrant.

William Rufus reigning over the land, and having with a powerful arm con-
quered all his adversaries, so much so as to have brought all his foes beneath
the yoke, while there was no one who dared in any way to murmur against
his sway, Ranulph, the bishop of Durham, was his especial adviser in affairs of
state. This Ranulph proved a most cruel extortioner, and being the most ava-
ricious and most abandoned of all men in the land, woefully oppressed the
whole kingdom, and wrung it even to the drawing of blood; while at the same
time Anselm, the most holy archbishop of Canterbury who had succeeded
Lanfranc, dragging out a weary existence in exile beyond sea, mercy and truth
with him had taken to flight from out of the land, and justice and peace had
been banished therefrom. Confession and the fair graces of repentance fell into
disesteem, holiness and chastity utterly sickened away, sin stalked in the streets
with open and undaunted front, and facing the law with haughty eye, daily tri-
umphed, exulting in her abominable success.
Wherefore, the heavens did abominate the land, and, fighting against sin-
ners, the sun and the moon stood still in their abode, and spurning the earth
with the greatest noise and fury, caused all nations to be amazed at their numer-
ous portents. For there were thunders terrifying the earth, lightnings and thun-
derbolts most frequent, deluging showers without number, winds of the most
astonishing violence, and whirlwinds that shook the towers of churches and
levelled them with the ground. On the earth there were fountains flowing with
blood, and mighty earthquakes, while the sea, overflowing its shores, wrought
infinite calamities to the maritime places. There were murders and dreadful se-
ditions; the Devil himself was seen bodily appearing in many woods; there was
672 MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET

a most shocking famine, and a pestilence so great among men, as well as beasts
of burden, that agriculture was almost totally neglected as well as all care of the
living, all sepulture of the dead.
The limit and termination at last of so many woes, was the death of the king,
a cause, to every person of Christian feelings, of extreme grief. For there had
come from Normandy, to visit king William, a very powerful baron, Walter
Tirel by name. The king received him with the most lavish hospitality, and
having honored him with a seat at his table, was pleased, after the banquet
was concluded, to give him an invitation to join him in the sport of hunting.
After the king had pointed out to each person his fixed station, and the deer,
alarmed at the barking of the dogs and the cries of the huntsmen, were swiftly
flying towards the summits of the hills, the said Walter incautiously aimed an
arrow at a stag, which missed the stag, and pierced the king in the breast.
The king fell to the earth, and instantly died; upon which, the body being
laid by a few countrymen in a cart, was carried back to the palace, and on the
morrow was buried, with but few manifestations of grief, and in an humble
tomb; for all his servants were busily attending to their own interests, and few
or none cared for the royal funeral. The said Walter, the author of his death,
though unwittingly so, escaped from the midst of them, crossed the sea, and
arrived safe home in Normandy.

Source: Ingulf’s Chronicle of the Abbey of Croyland with the Continuation of Peter
of Blois. Translated by Henry T. Riley. London: Henry G. Bohn, 1854, 229–30.

Document 5
MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET (1170)—
THE EYEWITNESS ACCOUNT OF EDWARD GRIM

On December 29, 1170, four knights entered Canterbury Cathedral and murdered
Thomas Becket, the Archbishop of Canterbury, as he prepared to say Mass. The mur-
der was the culmination of a long quarrel between Becket and his former friend, King
Henry II of England. At contention was the right of royal courts to try clergymen; the
king maintained this right, whereas Becket denounced it as an infringement of the
rights and privileges of the English Church. According to tradition, Henry, exasper-
ated by Becket’s excommunication of three English bishops, cried out “Will no one rid
me of this turbulent priest?” What Henry actually said is uncertain, but, whatever
his words, they were interpreted as a call to action by Reginald FitzUrse, Hugh de
Morville, William de Tracy, and Richard le Breton. The four knights left France,
where Henry was holding court, and returned to England, where they confronted and
killed Becket in his cathedral. After the murder, Becket was held to be a saint and
MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET 673

Canterbury Cathedral became an important pilgrimage site until the Becket shrine
was dismantled in 1538 by order of Henry VIII. Reproduced below is an account
of the murder written by Edward Grim, who was present in the cathedral on Decem-
ber 29, and who was himself injured in an attempt to assist the archbishop.

After the monks took [Thomas] through the doors of the church, the four
aforementioned knights followed behind with a rapid pace. A certain subdea-
con, Hugh the Evil-clerk, named for his wicked offense and armed with their
malice, went with them—showing no reverence for either God or the saints
because by following them he condoned their deed. When the holy arch-
bishop entered the cathedral the monks who were glorifying God abandoned
vespers—which they had begun to celebrate for God—and ran to their father
whom they had heard was dead but they saw alive and unharmed. They has-
tened to close the doors of the church in order to bar the enemies from slaugh-
tering the bishop, but the wondrous athlete turned toward them and ordered
that the doors be opened. “It is not proper,” he said, “that a house of prayer, a
church of Christ, be made a fortress since although it is not shut up, it serves
as a fortification for his people; we will triumph over the enemy through suf-
fering rather than by fighting—and we come to suffer, not to resist.” Without
delay the sacrilegious men entered the house of peace and reconciliation with
swords drawn; indeed the sight alone as well as the rattle of arms inflicted not
a small amount of horror on those who watched. And those knights who ap-
proached the confused and disordered people who had been observing vespers
but, by now, had run toward the lethal spectacle exclaimed in a rage: “Where
is Thomas Becket, traitor of the king and kingdom?” No one responded and
instantly they cried out more loudly, “Where is the archbishop?” Unshaken he
replied to this voice as it is written, “The righteous will be like a bold lion and
free from fear,” he descended from the steps to which he had been taken by the
monks who were fearful of the knights and said in an adequately audible voice,
“Here I am, not a traitor of the king but a priest; why do you seek me?” And
[Thomas], who had previously told them that he had no fear of them added,
“Here I am ready to suffer in the name of He who redeemed me with His blood;
God forbid that I should flee on account of your swords or that I should depart
from righteousness.” With these words—at the foot of a pillar—he turned to
the right. On one side was the altar of the blessed mother of God, on the other
the altar of the holy confessor Benedict—through whose example and prayers
he had been crucified to the world and his lusts; he endured whatever the
murderers did to him with such constancy of the soul that he seemed as if he
were not of flesh. The murderers pursued him and asked, “Absolve and restore
to communion those you have excommunicated and return to office those who
have been suspended.” To these words [Thomas] replied, “No penance has
been made, so I will not absolve them.” “Then you,” they said, “will now die
674 MURDER OF ARCHBISHOP THOMAS BECKET

and will suffer what you have earned.” “And I,” he said, “am prepared to die
for my Lord, so that in my blood the church will attain liberty and peace; but
in the name of Almighty God I forbid that you hurt my men, either cleric or
layman, in any way.” The glorious martyr acted conscientiously with foresight
for his men and prudently on his own behalf, so that no one near him would
be hurt as he hastened toward Christ. It was fitting that the soldier of the Lord
and the martyr of the Savior adhered to His words when he was sought by the
impious, “If it is me you seek, let them leave.”
With rapid motion they laid sacrilegious hands on him, handling and drag-
ging him roughly outside of the walls of the church so that there they would
slay him or carry him from there as a prisoner, as they later confessed. But when
it was not possible to easily move him from the column, he bravely pushed one
[of the knights] who was pursuing and drawing near to him; he called him
a panderer saying, “Don’t touch me, Rainaldus, you who owes me faith and
obedience, you who foolishly follow your accomplices.” On account of the
rebuff the knight was suddenly set on fire with a terrible rage and, wielding
a sword against the sacred crown said, “I don’t owe faith or obedience to you
that is in opposition to the fealty I owe my lord king.” The invincible martyr—
seeing that the hour which would bring the end to his miserable mortal life
was at hand and already promised by God to be the next to receive the crown
of immortality—with his neck bent as if he were in prayer and with his joined
hands elevated above—commended himself and the cause of the Church to
God, St. Mary, and the blessed martyr St. Denis.
He had barely finished speaking when the impious knight, fearing that
[Thomas] would be saved by the people and escape alive, suddenly set upon
him and, shaving off the summit of his crown which the sacred chrism conse-
crated to God, he wounded the sacrificial lamb of God in the head; the lower
arm of the writer was cut by the same blow. Indeed [the writer] stood firmly
with the holy archbishop, holding him in his arms—while all the clerics and
monks fled—until the one he had raised in opposition to the blow was sev-
ered. Behold the simplicity of the dove, behold the wisdom of the serpent in
this martyr who presented his body to the killers so that he might keep his
head, in other words his soul and the church, safe; nor would he devise a trick
or a snare against the slayers of the flesh so that he might preserve himself be-
cause it was better that he be free from this nature! O worthy shepherd who
so boldly set himself against the attacks of wolves so that the sheep might not
be torn to pieces! and because he abandoned the world, the world—wanting
to overpower him—unknowingly elevated him. Then, with another blow re-
ceived on the head, he remained firm. But with the third the stricken martyr
bent his knees and elbows, offering himself as a living sacrifice, saying in a low
voice, “For the name of Jesus and the protection of the church I am ready to
embrace death.” But the third knight inflicted a grave wound on the fallen one;
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A L B E R T I O F H A B S B U RG 675

with this blow he shattered the sword on the stone and his crown, which was
large, separated from his head so that the blood turned white from the brain
yet no less did the brain turn red from the blood; it purpled the appearance of
the church with the colors of the lily and the rose, the colors of the Virgin and
Mother and the life and death of the confessor and martyr. The fourth knight
drove away those who were gathering so that the others could finish the mur-
der more freely and boldly. The fifth—not a knight but a cleric who entered
with the knights—so that a fifth blow might not be spared him who had imi-
tated Christ in other things, placed his foot on the neck of the holy priest and
precious martyr and (it is horrible to say) scattered the brains with the blood
across the floor, exclaiming to the rest, “We can leave this place, knights, he
will not get up again.”
But during all these incredible things the martyr displayed the virtue of per-
severance. Neither his hand nor clothes indicated that he had opposed a mur-
derer—as is often the case in human weakness; nor when stricken did he utter
a word, nor did he let out a cry or a sigh, or a sign signaling any kind of pain;
instead he held still the head that he had bent toward the unsheathed swords.
As his body—which had been mingled with blood and brain—laid on the
ground as if in prayer, he placed his soul in Abraham’s bosom. Having risen
above himself, without doubt, out of love for the Creator and wholly striving
for celestial sweetness, he easily received whatever pain, whatever malice, the
bloody murderer was able to inflict. And how intrepidly—how devotedly and
courageously—he offered himself for the murder when it was made clear that
for his salvation and faith this martyr should fight for the protection of others
so that the affairs of the church might be managed according to its paternal tra-
ditions and decrees.

Source: Edward Grim. Vita S. Thomae, Cantuariensis Archepiscopi et Martyris. In

James Robertson, ed., Materials for the Life of Thomas Becket. Vol. II. London:
Rolls Series, 1875–85.

Document 6
ASSASSINATION OF ALBERT I OF
HABSBURG (1308)—ACT V, SCENE 2 OF THE PLAY
WILHELM TELL BY FRIEDRICH SCHILLER (1804)

On May 1, 1308, Albert I, the first king of Germany from the House of Habsburg,
was murdered as he crossed the Reuss River near Windisch. The assassin was Al-
bert’s nephew, Duke John of Swabia, who was henceforth known as John the Par-
ricide or John Parricida. Albert had become separated from his attendants, when a
676 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A L B E R T I O F H A B S B U RG

small party on horseback led by John attacked the German king. John, without any
warning, supposedly charged his uncle and split his skull with a sword. The murder
apparently stemmed from John’s belief that he had been deprived of his inheritance
by Albert, who had forced his younger brother, John’s father, to waive his rights to
the duchies of Austria and Styria. John virtually disappears from the historical re-
cord after 1308. Reproduced here is Act V, Scene 2 of Friedrich Schiller’s 1804 play
Wilhem Tell, in which Tell encounters Duke John, who is on the run after murder-
ing his uncle. John begs for Tell’s help, saying that, like Tell, he had taken proper
vengeance on an enemy. Tell rejects the duke’s arguments and advises him to seek
papal absolution for his crime.

TELL (to the Monk).

You are the Duke Of Austria—I know it.
You have slain The Emperor, your uncle and liege lord.
JOHN.
He robb’d me of my patrimony.
TELL.
How! Slain him—your king, your uncle! And the earth
Still bears you! And the sun still shines on you!
JOHN.
Tell, hear me; are you—
TELL.
Reeking, with the blood
Of him that was your Emperor, your kinsman,
Dare you set foot within my spotless house,
Dare to an honest man to show your face,
And claim the rights of hospitality?
JOHN.
I hoped to find compassion at your hands.
You took, like me, revenge upon your foe!
TELL.
Unhappy man! Dare you confound the crime
Of blood-imbrued ambition with the act
Forced on a father in mere self-defence?
Had you to shield your children’s darling heads,
To guard your fireside’s sanctuary—ward off
The last, the direst doom from all you loved?
To Heaven I raise my unpolluted hands,
To curse your act and you! I have avenged
That holy nature which you have profaned.
I have no part with you. You murdered, I
Have shielded all that was most dear to me.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A L B E R T I O F H A B S B U RG 677

JOHN.
You cast me off to comfortless despair!
TELL.
I shrink with horror while I talk with you.
Hence, on the dread career you have begun!
Cease to pollute the home of innocence!
[John turns to depart.]
JOHN.
I cannot and I will not live this life!
TELL.
And yet my soul bleeds for you. Gracious Heaven,
So young, of such a noble line, the grandson
Of Rudolph, once my lord and Emperor,
An outcast—murderer—standing at my door,
The poor man’s door—a suppliant, in despair!
[Covers his face.]
JOHN.
If you have power to weep, oh let my fate
Move your compassion—it is horrible!
I am—say, rather was—a prince. I might
Have been most happy, had I only curb’d
The impatience of my passionate desires:
But envy gnaw’d my heart—I saw the youth
Of mine own cousin Leopold endow’d
With honour, and enrich’d with broad domains,
The while myself, of equal age with him,
In abject slavish nonage was kept back.
TELL.
Unhappy man, your uncle knew you well,
When from you land and subjects he withheld!
You, by your mad and desperate act have set
A fearful seal upon his wise resolve.
Where are the bloody partners of your crime?
JOHN.
Where’er the avenging furies may have borne them;
I have not seen them since the luckless deed.
TELL.
Know you the Empire’s ban is out,—that you
Are interdicted to your friends, and given
An outlaw’d victim to your enemies!
JOHN.
Therefore I shun all public thoroughfares,
678 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A L B E R T I O F H A B S B U RG

And venture not to knock at any door—

I turn my footsteps to the wilds, and through
The mountains roam, a terror to myself!
From mine own self I shrink with horror back,
If in a brook I see my ill-starr’d form!
If you have pity or a human heart—
[Falls down before him.]
TELL.
Stand up, stand up! I say.
JOHN.
Not till you give
Your hand in promise of assistance to me.
TELL.
Can I assist you? Can a sinful man?
Yet get ye up—how black soe’er your crime—
You are a man. I, too, am one. From Tell
Shall no one part uncomforted. I will
Do all that lies within my power.
JOHN (springs up and grasps him ardently by the hand).
Oh, Tell,
You save me from the terrors of despair.
TELL.
Let go my hand! You must away. You can not
Remain here undiscover’d, and, discover’d,
You cannot count on succour. Which way, then,
Would you be going? Where do you hope to find
A place of rest?
JOHN.
Alas! I know not where.
TELL.
Hear, then, what Heaven unto my heart suggests.
You must to Italy,—to Saint Peter’s City—
There cast yourself at the Pope’s feet,—confess
Your guilt to him, and ease your laden soul!
JOHN.
Will he not to the avengers yield me up?
TELL.
Whate’er he does, accept it as from God.
JOHN.
But how am I to reach that unknown land?
I have no knowledge of the way, and dare not
Attach myself to other travellers.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A L B E R T I O F H A B S B U RG 679

TELL.
I will describe the road, so mark me well!
You must ascend, keeping along the Reuss,
Which from the mountains dashes wildly down.
JOHN (in alarm).
What! See the Reuss? The witness of my deed!
TELL. The road you take lies through the river’s gorge,
And many a cross proclaims where travellers
Have been by avalanches done to death.
JOHN.
I have no fear for nature’s terrors, so
I can appease the torments of my soul.
TELL.
At every cross, kneel down and expiate
Your crime with burning penitential tears—
And if you ’scape the perils of the pass,
And are not whelm’d beneath the drifted snows,
That from the frozen peaks come sweeping down,
You’ll reach the bridge that’s drench’d with drizzling spray.
Then if it give not way beneath your guilt,
When you have left it safely in your rear,
Before you frowns the gloomy Gate of Rocks,
Where never sun did shine. Proceed through this,
And you will reach a bright and gladsome vale.
Yet must you hurry on with hasty steps,
You must not linger in the haunts of peace.
JOHN.
O, Rudolph, Rudolph, royal grandsire! Thus
Thy grandson first sets foot within thy realms!
TELL.
Ascending still, you gain the Gotthardt’s heights,
Where are the tarns, the everlasting tarns,
That from the streams of Heaven itself are fed,
There to the German soil you bid farewell;
And thence, with swift descent, another stream
Leads you to Italy, your promised land.
[Ranz des Vaches sounded on Alp-horns is heard without.]
But I hear voices! Hence!
HEDW. (hurrying in).
Where art thou, Tell?
My father comes, and in exulting bands
All the confederates approach.
680 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N CO L N

DUKE JOHN (covering himself).

Woe’s me! I dare not tarry ’mong these happy men!
TELL.
Go, dearest wife, and give this man to eat.
Spare not your bounty; for his road is long.
And one where shelter will be hard to find.
Quick—they approach!
HEDW.
Who is he?
TELL.
Do not ask!
And when he quits you, turn your eyes away,
So that you do not see which way he goes.
[Duke John advances hastily towards Tell, but he beckons him aside and
exit. When both have left the stage, the scene changes.]

Source: Project Gutenberg. http://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/2782/pg2782

.html.

Document 7
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM
LINCOLN (1865)—OFFICIAL MESSAGES AND
CORRESPONDENCE RELATING TO THE SHOOTING
OF PRESIDENT LINCOLN (APRIL 15, 1865)

Reproduced below are a series of telegrams and messages that passed between vari-
ous government and military officers during the early morning hours of April 15,
1865, as President Abraham Lincoln lay dying of the gunshot would he suffered the
night before at Ford’s Theater in Washington. The messages report the president’s
condition and his death, trace the early stages of the investigation into his murder,
and indicate the growing certainty that John Wilkes Booth was at the head of a
conspiracy to murder not only Lincoln, but also other government officials, such
as Secretary of State William Seward. Among the correspondents are Secretary of
War Edwin M. Stanton; Major-General John Adams Dix, department commander
in New York City; General John Potts Slough, military governor of Alexandria, Vir-
ginia; Major-General Christopher Columbus Augur, commander of the Department
of Washington; Brigadier-General John Reese Kenly, commander of the District
of Eastern Shore, Maryland; Samuel B. Lawrence, the assistant adjutant-general;
Major-General George Gordon Meade, the commander of the Army of the Po-
tomac; and Thomas T. Eckert, chief of the War Department telegraph staff.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N CO L N 681

Secretary Stanton to General Dix

WASHINGTON CITY,
No. 458 Tenth Street,

April 15, 1865

3 A.M. (Sent 3.20 A.M.)

Major-General Dix:
(Care Horner, New York.)

The President still breathes, but is quite insensible, as he has been ever since he
was shot. He evidently did not see the person who shot him, but was looking
on the stage as he was approached behind.
Mr. Seward has rallied, and it is hoped he may live. Frederick Seward’s con-
dition is very critical. The attendant who was present was stabbed through the
lungs, and is not expected to live. The wounds of Major Seward are not seri-
ous. Investigation strongly indicates J. Wilkes Booth as the assassin of the Pres-
ident. Whether it was the same or a different person that attempted to murder
Mr. Seward remains in doubt. Chief Justice Cartter is engaged in taking the
evidence. Every exertion has been made to prevent the escape of the murderer.
His horse has been found on the road, near Washington.

EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.

General Augur to General Slough

HEADQUARTERS DEPARTMENT OF WASHINGTON,
TWENTY-SECOND ARMY CORPS,
Washington, D.C.,

April 15, 1865—4 A.M.

General SLOUGH, Military Governor:

The murderer of the President is undoubtedly J. Wilkes Booth, the actor. The
other party is a smooth-faced man, quite stout. You had better have a squad
of cavalry sent down toward the Occoquan to intercept anything crossing
the river. The fishermen along the river should be notified and kept on the
lookout.

C. C. AUGUR,
Major-General.
682 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N CO L N

Adjutant-General Lawrence to General Kenly

BALTIMORE, MD.,
April 15, 1865—4.20 A.M.

Brig. Gen. J. R. KENLY, Commanding Officer, Wilmington, Del.:

In consequence of the assassination of the President and Secretary of State the most
vigorous measures will be taken in this department to suppress any outbreak.
J. Wilkes Booth, tragedian, is the murderer of Mr. Lincoln. No trains will be
permitted to leave this city. Do your utmost to preserve order and keep a sharp
lookout for Booth. Report your action.

By order:

SAML. B. LAWRENCE,
Assistant Adjutant-General.

Thomas Eckert to General Meade

WASHINGTON,
April 16, 1865.

Major-General MEADE:

The President died at 7.22 yesterday morning. J. Wilkes Booth was the assas-
sin of the President. Secretary Seward passed a bad night, but is much better
this morning and probably out of danger. His son Frederick will not live, al-
though he still lingers with wonderful tenacity.
THOS. T. ECKERT.
(Same to General Sheridan.)

Secretary Stanton to General Dix

WAR DEPARTMENT,
Washington,

April 27, 1865—9.35 A.M.

Major-General DIX, New York:

J. Wilkes Booth and Herold were chased from the swamp in Saint Mary’s
County, Md.; pursued yesterday morning to Garrett’s farm, near Port Royal,
on the Rappahannock, by Colonel Baker’s force. The barn in which they
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N C O L N 683

took refuge was fired. Booth, in making his escape, was shot through the head
and killed, lingering about three hours, and Herold captured. Booth’s body and
Herold are now here.

EDWIN M. STANTON,
Secretary of War.
Source: U.S. War Department. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies, Ser. I, Vol. XLVI/3.

Document 8
ASSASSINATION OF ABRAHAM
LINCOLN (1865)—GENERAL COURT-MARTIAL
ORDERS NO. 356 FOR TRIAL OF THE LINCOLN
ASSASSINATION CONSPIRATORS

Reproduced here are the list of charges and specifications brought against the defen-
dants accused of taking part in the conspiracy to murder President Abraham Lincoln
and other high government officials. John Wilkes Booth, who shot President Lincoln on
April 14, had been killed by federal troops on April 26, but the rest of the conspirators
were brought to trial before a military commission on May 9, 1865.

WAR DEPARTMENT, ADJUTANT-GENERAL’S OFFICE, Washington,

July 5, 1865.
I. Before a military commission which convened at Washington, D.C., May 9,
1865, pursuant to paragraph 4 of Special Orders, No. 211, dated May 6, 1865,
and paragraph 91 of Special Orders, No. 216, dated May 9, 1865, War Depart-
ment, Adjutant General’s Office, Washington, and of which Maj. Gen. David
Hunter, U.S. Volunteers, is president, were arraigned and tried—
David E. Herold, G. A. Atzerodt, Lewis Payne, Mary E. Surratt, Michael
O’Laughlin, Edward Spangler, Samuel Arnold, and Samuel A. Mudd.
CHARGE I: For maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously, and in aid of the exist-
ing armed rebellion against the United States of America, on or before the 6th day
of March, A.D. 1865, and on divers other days between that day and the 15th day
of April, A.D. 1865, combining, confederating, and conspiring, together with one
John H. Surratt, John Wilkes Booth, Jefferson Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly
Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C. Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper,
George Young, and others unknown, to kill and murder, within the Military
Department of Washington, and within the fortified and intrenched lines
thereof, Abraham Lincoln, late, and at the time of said combining, confederating,
684 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N CO L N

and conspiring, President of the United States of America and Commander-in-

Chief of the Army and Navy thereof; Andrew Johnson, now Vice-President of
the United States aforesaid; William H. Seward, Secretary of State of the United
States aforesaid, and Ulysses S. Grant, lieutenant-general of the Army of the
United States aforesaid, then in command of the Armies of the United States,
under the direction of the said Abraham Lincoln; and in pursuance of and in
prosecuting said malicious, unlawful, and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and
in aid of said rebellion, afterward, to wit, on the 14th day of April, A.D. 1865,
within the Military Department of Washington aforesaid, and within the forti-
fied and intrenched lines of said military department, together with said John
Wilkes Booth and John H. Surratt, maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously
murdering the said Abraham Lincoln, then President of the United States and
Commander-in-Chief of the Army and Navy of the United States, as aforesaid;
and maliciously, unlawfully, and traitorously assaulting, with intent to kill and
murder, the said William H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States,
as aforesaid; and lying in wait, with intent maliciously, unlawfully, and traitor-
ously, to kill and murder the said Andrew Johnson, then being Vice-President
of the United States; and the said Ulysses S. Grant, then being lieutenant-
general and in command of the Armies of the United States, as aforesaid.
Specification 1.—In this, that they, the said David E. Herold, Edward
Spangler, Lewis Payne, Michael O’Laughlin, Samuel Arnold, Mary E. Surratt,
George A. Atzerodt, and Samuel A. Mudd, together with the said John H.
Surratt and John Wilkes Booth, incited and encouraged thereunto by Jeffer-
son Davis, George N. Sanders, Beverly Tucker, Jacob Thompson, William C.
Cleary, Clement C. Clay, George Harper, George Young, and others unknown,
citizens of the United States aforesaid, and who were then engaged in armed
rebellion against the United States of America, within the limits thereof, did,
in aid of said armed rebellion, on or before the 6th day of March, A.D. 1865,
and on divers other days and times between that day and the 15th day of
April, A.D. 1865, combine, confederate, and conspire together at Washing-
ton City, within the Military Department of Washington, and within the in-
trenched fortifications and military lines of the said United States, there being,
unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously to kill and murder Abraham Lincoln,
then President of the United States aforesaid, and Commander-in-Chief of the
Army and Navy thereof; and unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously to kill
and murder Andrew Johnson, now Vice-President of the said United States,
upon whom, on the death of said Abraham Lincoln, after the 4th day of March,
A.D. 1865, the office of President of the said United States and Commander-
in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof would devolve; and to unlawfully, mali-
ciously, and traitorously kill and murder Ulysses S. Grant, then lieutenant-general,
and, under the direction of the said Abraham Lincoln, in command of the Armies
of the United States aforesaid; and unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously to
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N C O L N 685

kill and murder William H. Seward, then Secretary of State of the United States
aforesaid, whose duty it was by law, upon the death of said President and Vice-
President of the United States aforesaid, to cause an election to be held for elec-
tors of President of the United States—the conspirators aforesaid designing
and intending by the killing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, Andrew
Johnson, Ulysses S. Grant, and William H. Seward, as aforesaid, to deprive
the Army and Navy of the said United States of a constitutional commander-
in-chief; and to deprive the Armies of the United States of their lawful com-
mander; and to prevent a lawful election of President and Vice-President of
the United States aforesaid; and by the means aforesaid to aid and comfort the
insurgents engaged in armed rebellion against the said United States, as afore-
said, and thereby to aid in the subversion and overthrow of the Constitution
and laws of the said United States.
And being so combined, confederated, and conspiring together in the pros-
ecution of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy on the night of the 14th
day of April, A.D. 1865, at the hour of about 10 o’clock and 15 minutes P.M.,
at Ford’s Theater, on Tenth street, in the city of Washington, and within the
military department and military lines aforesaid, John Wilkes Booth, one of the
conspirators aforesaid, in pursuance of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy,
did, then and there, unlawfully, maliciously, and traitorously, and with intent to
kill and murder the said Abraham Lincoln, discharge a pistol, then held in the
hands of him, the said Booth, the same being then loaded with powder and a
leaden ball, against and upon the left and posterior side of the head of the said
Abraham Lincoln; and did thereby, then and there, inflict upon him, the said
Abraham Lincoln, then President of the said United States and Commander-
in-Chief of the Army and Navy thereof, a mortal wound, whereof afterward, to
wit, on the 15th day of April, A.D. 1865, at Washington City aforesaid, the said
Abraham Lincoln died; and thereby, then and there, and in pursuance of said
conspiracy, the said defendants and the said John Wilkes Booth and John H.
Surratt did, unlawfully, traitorously, and maliciously, and with the intent to aid
the rebellion as aforesaid, kill and murder the said Abraham Lincoln, President
of the United States, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of the unlawful and traitorous conspiracy afore-
said, and of the murderous and traitorous intent of said conspiracy, the said
Edward Spangler, on said 14th day of April, A.D. 1865, at about the same hour
of that day, as aforesaid, within said military department and the military lines
aforesaid, did aid and assist the said John Wilkes Booth to obtain entrance to
the box in said theater in which said Abraham Lincoln was sitting at the time
he was assaulted and shot, as aforesaid, by John Wilkes Booth; and also did
then and there aid said Booth in barring and obstructing the door of the box of
said theater so as to hinder and prevent any assistance to or rescue of the said
Abraham Lincoln against the murderous assault of the said John Wilkes Booth,
686 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N CO L N

and did aid and abet him in making his escape after the said Abraham Lincoln
had been murdered in manner aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said unlawful, murderous, and traitorous
conspiracy, and in pursuance thereof and with the intent, as aforesaid, the
said David E. Herold did, on the night of the 14th of April, A.D. 1865, within
the military department and military lines aforesaid, aid, abet and assist the
said John Wilkes Booth in the killing and murder of the said Abraham Lincoln,
and did then and there aid and abet and assist him, the said John Wilkes
Booth, in attempting to escape through the military lines aforesaid, and did
accompany and assist the said John Wilkes Booth in attempting to conceal
himself and escape from justice after killing and murdering said Abraham
Lincoln, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said unlawful and traitorous conspiracy, and
of the intent thereof, as aforesaid, the said Lewis Payne did, on the same
night of the 14th day of April, A.D. 1865, about the same hour of 10 o’clock
and 15 minutes P.M., at the city of Washington, and within the military de-
partment and the military lines aforesaid, unlawfully and maliciously make
an assault upon the said William H. Seward, Secretary of State, as aforesaid,
in the dwelling-house and bedchamber of him, the said William H. Seward,
and the said Payne did then and there, with a large knife, held in his hand,
unlawfully, traitorously, and in pursuance of said conspiracy, strike, stab, cut,
and attempt to kill and murder the said William H. Seward, and did thereby,
then and there, and with the intent aforesaid, with said knife inflict upon the
face and throat of the said William H. Seward divers grievous wounds. And
the said Lewis Payne, in further prosecution of said conspiracy, at the same
time and place last aforesaid, did attempt, with the knife aforesaid, and a pis-
tol held in his hand, to kill and murder Frederick W. Seward, Augustus H.
Seward, Emrick W. Hansell, and George F. Robinson, who were then striving
to protect and rescue the said William H. Seward from murder by the said
Lewis Payne, and did then and there, with said knife and pistol held in his
hands, inflict upon the head of said Frederick W. Seward, and upon the per-
sons of said Augustus H. Seward, Emrick W. Hansell, and George F. Robinson,
divers grievous and dangerous wounds with intent, then and there, to kill
and murder the said Frederick W. Seward, Augustus H. Seward, Emrick W.
Hansell, and George F. Robinson.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy and its traitorous and mur-
derous designs, the said George A. Atzerodt did, on the night of the 14th
of April, A.D. 1865, and about the same hour of the night aforesaid, within
the military department and the military lines aforesaid, lie in wait for An-
drew Johnson, then Vice-President of the United States aforesaid, with the
intent unlawfully and maliciously to kill and murder him, the said Andrew
Johnson.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A B R A H A M L I N C O L N 687

And in the further prosecution of the conspiracy aforesaid, and of its mur-
derous and treasonable purposes aforesaid, on the nights of the 13th and
14th of April, A.D. 1865, at Washington City, and within the military depart-
ment and military lines aforesaid, the said Michael O’Laughlin did then and
there lie in wait for Ulysses S. Grant, then lieutenant-general and commander
of the Armies of the United States, as aforesaid, with intent then and there to
kill and murder the said Ulysses S. Grant.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said Samuel Arnold did,
within the military department and military lines aforesaid, on or before the
6th day of March, A.D. 1865, and on divers other days and times between that
day and the 15th day of April, A.D. 1865, combine, conspire with, and aid,
counsel, abet, comfort, and support, the said John Wilkes Booth, Lewis Payne,
George A. Atzerodt, Michael O’Laughlin, and their confederates, in said un-
lawful, murderous, and traitorous conspiracy and in the execution thereof, as
aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of the said conspiracy, Mary E. Surratt did,
at Washington City, and within the military department and military lines
aforesaid, on or before the 6th day of March, A.D. 1865, and on divers other
days and times between that day and the 20th day of April, A.D. 1865. re-
ceive, entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and assist the said John Wilkes
Booth, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt, Michael O’Langhlin,
George A. Atzerodt, Samuel Arnold, and their confederates, with knowledge
of the murderous and traitorous conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to aid,
abet, and assist them in the execution thereof, and in escaping from justice
after the murder of the said Abraham Lincoln, as aforesaid.
And in further prosecution of said conspiracy, the said Samuel A. Mudd
did, at Washington City, and within the military department and military
lines aforesaid, on or before the 6th day of March, A.D. 1865, and on divers
other days and times between that day and the 20th day of April, A.D. 1865,
advise, encourage, receive, entertain, harbor and conceal, aid and assist the
said John Wilkes Booth, David E. Herold, Lewis Payne, John H. Surratt, Mi-
chael O’Laughlin, George A. Atzerodt, Mary E. Surratt, and Samuel Arnold,
and their confederates, with knowledge of the murderous and traitorous
conspiracy aforesaid, and with intent to aid, abet, and assist them in the ex-
ecution thereof, and in escaping from justice after the murder of said Abra-
ham Lincoln, in pursuance of said conspiracy in manner aforesaid.
To which charge and specification the accused, David E. Herold, G. A. Atze-
rodt, Lewis Payne, Mary E. Surratt, Michael O’Laughlin, Edward Spangler,
Samuel Arnold, and Samuel A. Mudd, pleaded not guilty.

Source: U.S. War Department. War of the Rebellion: A Compilation of the Official
Records of the Union and Confederate Armies. Ser. II, Vol. VIII.
688 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F C Z A R A L E X A N D E R I I O F RUS S I A

Document 9
ASSASSINATION OF CZAR ALEXANDER II
OF RUSSIA (1881)—PRINCE PETER KROPOTKIN’S
ACCOUNT OF THE MURDER

On March 13, 1881, Czar Alexander II traveled by carriage to the Mikhailovsky

Manège, an architectural monument in central St. Petersburg. The czar was known
to attend the military roll-call held at the monument every Sunday. On this Sunday,
three members of the Russian terrorist organization Narodnaya Volya (“The People’s
Will”) lay in wait for the czar along the route he always took. The first, Nikolai
Rysakov, threw a small bomb wrapped in a handkerchief under the carriage. The
explosion injured the driver and several in the crowd, but the carriage, being bullet-
proof, was only slightly damaged and Alexander emerged unhurt. Urged on by
Rysakov, who was immediately arrested, the second terrorist, Ignaty Grinevitsky,
tossed a bomb at Alexander’s feet, where it exploded, horribly mutilating the czar and
killing or wounding some 20 others. Alexander died shortly thereafter at the imperial
palace. Reproduced below is an account of Alexander’s assassination, as well as of at-
tempts on the life of his son, Alexander III, written by Prince Peter Kropotkin, a noted
philosopher, writer, and socialist revolutionary.

For some time before March 13, 1881, Gen. Count Loris Melikoff, the offi-
cer responsible for the safety of Czar Alexander II, had received disquieting re-
ports which gave him the greatest anxiety. On the 10th of the month Jelaboff,
the ringleader of the conspiracy, was arrested by accident, and the direction
of the attempt on the Czar’s life was accordingly left to Sophie Perowskaia, a
young, pretty and highly educated noblewoman, who had left everything to
join the Nihilists. It is said that on the morning of the 13th Melikoff begged the
Czar to forego his purpose of reviewing the Marine Corps, and keep within the
palace. The Emperor laughed at him, and declared there was no danger. There
was no incident until after the review. As the Emperor drove back beside
the Ekaterinofsky Canal, just opposite the imperial stables, a young woman on
the other side of the canal fluttered a handkerchief, and immediately a man
started out from the crowd that was watching the passing of the Czar, and threw
a bomb under the closed carriage. There was a roaring explosion, a cloud of
smoke. The rear of the vehicle was blown away, and the horror-stricken mul-
titude saw the Czar standing unhurt, staring about him. On the ground were
several members of the Life Guard, groaning and writhing in pain. The assassin
had pulled out a revolver to complete his work, but he was at once mobbed by
the people. Col. Dvorjitsky and Captains Kock and Kulebiekan, of the guards,
rushed up to their master and asked him if he was hurt.
“Thank God! no,” said the Czar. “Come, let us look after the wounded.”
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F C Z A R A L E X A N D E R I I O F RUS S I A 689

And he started toward one of the Cossacks.

“It is too soon to thank God yet, Alexander Nicolaivitch,” said a clear, threat-
ening voice in the crowd, and before any one could stop him, a young man
bounded forward, lifted tip both arms above his head, and brought them down
with a swing. There was a crash of dynamite, a blaze, a smoke, and the autocrat
of all the Russias was lying on the bloody snow, with his murderer also dying
in front of him. Col. Dvorjitsky lifted tip the Czar, who whispered:
“I am cold, my friend, so cold, -take me to the Winter Palace to die.”
The desperate Nihilist had thrown his bomb right between the Czar’s feet,
and had sacrificed his own life to kill the Emperor.
Alexander was shockingly mutilated. Both of his legs were broken, and the
lower part of his body was frightfully torn and mangled. The assassin—his name
was Nicholas Elnikoff, of Wilna—was even more badly hurt. He died at once.
The Czar was taken into an open sled, and although it was claimed he re-
ceived the last sacrament at the Winter Palace, most of those who know believe
that he died on the way there.
In the meantime the police, with the utmost difficulty, rescued the first bomb-
thrower from the maddened mob. The man, whose name proved to be Risakoff,
coolly thanked the officers for preserving him, and then tried to swallow some
poison which he had ready. In this he was foiled, and he was taken to prison.
I said above that Jelaboff, the real leader of the conspiracy, had been arrested
on the 10th. He was merely a suspect, and it was some time before the police
realized what an important arrest had been made. Only two hours before the
murder of the Emperor, Jelaboff’s house was searched, and there was found a
great quantity of black dynamite, India rubber tubes, fuses and other articles.
Jelaboff had been living here with a woman who was called Lidia Voinoff. This
Lidia Voinoff was arrested on the Newsky Prospect, on March 22nd, and al-
most immediately identified as Sophia Perowskaja, the young woman who had
given the handkerchief signal to the bomb-throwers, and who was wanted be-
sides for the Moscow railway mine case. On the prisoner were found papers
which led to the search of a house on Telejewskaia Street, where a man named
Sablin committed suicide immediately on the appearance of the police, and
a woman named Hessy Helfmann was arrested. A regular Nihilist arsenal of
black jelly, fuses, maps of different districts of St. Petersburg, with the Czar’s
usual routes marked upon them, copies of papers from the secret press, etc.,
were found. While the police were still engaged in the search of the prem-
ises Timothy Mikhaeloff came in by accident. He was taken, and on him was
found a copy of the new Czar’s proclamation, and penciled on the back were
the names of three shops with three different hours in the afternoon. The of-
ficers descended on these places and gathered in customers, shop-keepers and
everybody else about the place,—a process which brought in Kibaltchik, the
Nihilist chemist and bomb-maker.
690 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F C Z A R A L E X A N D E R I I O F RUS S I A

The evidence was soon got in shape, and early in April the trial began. It was
shown that Jelaboff was agent in the third degree of the Revolutionary Execu-
tive Committee—that he had issued the call for volunteers for the killing of the
Czar, and that forty-seven persons had offered themselves, out of whom Risa-
koff, Mikhaeloff, Hessy Helfmann, Kibaltchik, Sophia Perowskaja and Thilkoff
had been accepted. Elnikoff was dead, but the others, with Jelaboff, were put
in the dock. They all confessed except Hessy Helfmann, and upon April iith all
were condemned to death, with the proviso needed under the Russian law that
the sentence of Sophia Perowskaja should be approved by the Czar, as she was a
member of the class of nobles, and a noble may not be put to death without the
Emperor’s concurrence. The Czar concurred, and on April 15th, at 9 A.M., all the
prisoners save Hessy Helfmann were hung. This woman was reprieved because
she was about to become a mother. The execution was a most brutal one.
The present Czar [Alexander III] has had several narrow escapes, none of
them more nearly fatal than the conspiracy of the book-bomb in March last.
On the 13th of March, 1888, the anniversary of his father’s terrible death, the
Czar made the usual visit to the Cathedral of St. Peter and Paul, where the
body of Alexander II is buried. For some time before the ceremony St. Peters-
burg was full of rumors that a catastrophe was impending, and, although the
police took the most careful precautions, the Czar himself paid no attention
to the warnings of the “Third Section,” and would permit no alteration in the
preparations for the requiem.
In Christmas week of 1887, the Russian agents at Geneva, in Switzerland,
reported the presence in that city of two revolutionary agents who, seemed to
have the closest relations with the committee of the discontents in London and
Paris. They were shadowed for a time, but lost. In February they reappeared in
Berlin. They were known to be in communication with the St. Petersburg Nihil-
ists. Before facts enough had accumulated to justify their arrest they disappeared
once more and were believed to have gone to the Russian capital. The facts were
reported to the Czar, but he laughed at Chief Gresser of the capital police.
In solemnizing the requiem of the late Czar a public progress was made
to the Cathedral, amid a dense throng of citizens, among whom were all the
detectives that Chief Gresser could get together. In a small cafe in one of the
side streets of the Morokaya two of the detectives ran across a couple of uni-
formed university students—in Russia the students have a peculiar costume—
who were acting suspiciously. They were conversing in a most excited manner
with a man dressed as a peasant. The trio were watched. At the cafe door they
separated, but all three made by different routes for the Nevsky Prospect, the
chief drive of the capital and the one along which the Czar was to return. The
peasant was lost by the detectives, but the other two were kept in sight, and
the suspicions of the police were made all the more keen by the fact that the
young men passed each other in the crowd several times with an elaborate
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J A M E S A . G A R F I E L D 691

appearance of not knowing each other. One of them had a law-book in his
hand; the other had a traveling bag over his shoulder.
A few moments before the Czar was to pass on his return from the Cathedral
the students came together and whispered, and the two were immediately and
quietly arrested. Their names were given as Andreleff sky and Petroff, univer-
sity students, and this was proven to be the truth.
A thrilling discovery was made, however, at once. The innocent-looking
law-book was really a most dangerous infernal machine-sufficiently powerful
not alone to kill everybody in the Czar’s carriage, but many in the crowd. . . .
Hardly had the arrest been made when the Czar was notified at the Cathedral.
He ordered that the news should be withheld from the Empress, although he was
himself visibly affected. He sprang into his sleigh with the Czarowitz, and drove by
an unused route to the railway station. The Czarina followed shortly after in a car-
riage, greatly agitated by a presentiment of evil. Not until the train had started was
she informed of the occurrence. She burst into tears, and was inconsolable for the
rest of the journey. Once safe in his Gatschina Palace, the Czar is said to have given
vent to his feelings in the strongest language, heaping anathemas upon the heads
of the, Nihilists, and threatening dire revenge.
Less than two hours after the arrest of Andreleff sky and Petroff their com-
panion peasant fell into the hands of the police. His name was Genezeraloff, a
native of Jaroslav, South Russia. He had been actively engaged in the Nihilist
propaganda for some time past. He also carried bombs on his person.
These arrests were supplemented by numerous others. The lodgings of the
prisoners in the suburbs of St. Petersburg known as the Peski (the Sands) were
searched, and other explosives as well as documents incriminating other per-
sons were found. As a result the procession of prisoners to the Peter and Paul’s
Fortress for a time was almost unremitting, and no one felt safe against police
intrusion. All three of the prisoners were subsequently executed.

Source: James Harvey Robinson and Charles Beard, eds. Readings in Modern
European History. Vol. 2. Boston: Ginn and Company, 1908, 362–63.

Document 10
ASSASSINATION OF JAMES A. GARFIELD (1881)—
ADDRESS OF VICE PRESIDENT CHESTER A. ARTHUR
UPON ASSUMING THE PRESIDENCY

On July 2, 1881, President James A. Garfield was shot twice from behind as he walked
through a railway station in Washington. The shooter was Charles J. Guiteau, a
disappointed federal office seeker who was mentally unstable. Believing God was
692 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J A M E S A . G A R F I E L D

telling him to eliminate Garfield, Guiteau stalked the president for weeks armed
with a .44 caliber revolver. Garfield survived until September 19, when he died from
his wounds. Upon Garfield’s death, Vice President Chester A. Arthur assumed the
presidency. Arthur never delivered an official inaugural address, but instead
gave the following short speech on September 22. In the speech, Arthur focused
upon Garfield’s death, the stability of the republic, and the peaceful transfer of
power. He promised to continue to focus on the issues that Garfield had begun to
address.

For the fourth time in the history of the Republic its Chief Magistrate has
been removed by death. All hearts are filled with grief and horror at the hid-
eous crime which has darkened our land, and the memory of the murdered
President, his protracted sufferings, his unyielding fortitude, the example and
achievements of his life, and the pathos of his death will forever illumine the
pages of our history.
For the fourth time the officer elected by the people and ordained by the
Constitution to fill a vacancy so created is called to assume the Executive chair.
The wisdom of our fathers, foreseeing even the most dire possibilities, made
sure that the Government should never be imperiled because of the uncer-
tainty of human life. Men may die, but the fabrics of our free institutions re-
main unshaken. No higher or more assuring proof could exist of the strength
and permanence of popular government than the fact that though the chosen
of the people be struck down his constitutional successor is peacefully installed
without shock or strain except the sorrow which mourns the bereavement. All
the noble aspirations of my lamented predecessor which found expression in
his life, the measures devised and suggested during his brief Administration to
correct abuses, to enforce economy, to advance prosperity, and to promote the
general welfare, to Insure domestic security and maintain friendly and honor-
able relations with the nations of the earth, will be garnered in the hearts of the
people; and it will be my earnest endeavor to profit, and to see that the nation
shall profit, by his example and experience.
Prosperity blesses our country. Our fiscal policy is fixed by law, is well
grounded and generally approved. No threatening issue mars our foreign in-
tercourse, and the wisdom, integrity, and thrift of our people may be trusted to
continue undisturbed the present assured career of peace, tranquilly, and wel-
fare. The gloom and anxiety which have enshrouded the country must make
repose especially welcome now. No demand for speedy legislation has been
heard; no adequate occasion is apparent for an unusual session of Congress.
The Constitution defines the functions and powers of the executive as clearly as
those of either of the other two departments of the Government, and he must
answer for the just exercise of the discretion it permits and the performance
of the duties it imposes. Summoned to these high duties and responsibilities
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F M O R G A N E A R P 693

and profoundly conscious of their magnitude and gravity, I assume the trust
imposed by the Constitution, relying for aid on divine guidance and the virtue,
patriotism, and intelligence of the American people.

Source: James D. Richardson, ed. A Compilation of the Messages and Papers of

the Presidents. Vol.8, Part 2. New York: Bureau of National Literature, Inc.,
1902.

Document 11
ASSASSINATION OF MORGAN EARP (1882)—
TOMBSTONE EPITAPH ACCOUNT OF THE MURDER

On March 18, 1882, less than five months after the notorious gunfight at the O.K.
Corral, Morgan Earp, the younger brother of lawman Wyatt Earp, was gunned
down while playing billiards in a Tombstone, Arizona, billiard parlor. Morgan died
less than an hour after being shot. Although several members of the Cowboys out-
law organization, who had been threatening the Earps since some of their associates
had died at the O.K. Corral, were arrested for the crime, the judge eventually dis-
missed the charges for lack of evidence. Taking the law into his own hands, Wyatt
Earp led a heavily armed posse into the countryside surrounding Tombstone, where,
over a two-week period, the party killed at least four members of the Cowboys who
were thought to have been involved in Morgan Earp’s murder. Reproduced below is
a report of Morgan’s death that appeared in the Tombstone Epitaph newspaper
two days after the attack.

The Assassin at Last Successful in His Devilish Mission

Morgan Earp Shot Down and Killed While Playing Billiards
At 10:00 Saturday night while engaged in playing a game of billiards in Camp-
bell & Hatch’s Billiard parlor, on Allen between Fourth and Fifth, Morgan Earp
was shot through the body by an unknown assassin. At the time the shot was
fired he was playing a game with Bob Hatch, one of the proprietors of the house
and was standing with his back to the glass door in the rear of the room that
opens out upon the alley that leads straight through the block along the west
side of A.D. Otis & Co.’s store to Fremont Street. This door is the ordinary
glass door with four panes in the top in place of panels. The two lower panes
are painted, the upper ones being clear. Anyone standing outside can look
over the painted glass and see anything going on in the room just as well as
though standing in the open door. At the time the shot was fired the deceased
must have been standing within ten feet of the door, and the assassin standing
694 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y

near enough to see his position, took aim for about the middle of his person,
shooting through the upper portion of the whitened glass. The bullet entered
the right side of the abdomen, passing through the spinal column, completely
shattering it, emerging on the left side, passing the length of the room and lodg-
ing in the thigh of Geo. A.B. Berry, who was standing by the stove, inflicting a
painful flesh wound. Instantly after the first shot a second was fired through
the top of the upper glass which passed across the room and lodged in the
wall near the ceiling over the head of Wyatt Earp, who was sitting as a specta-
tor of the game. Morgan fell instantly upon the first fire and lived only about
one hour. His brother Wyatt, Tipton, and McMasters rushed to the side of the
wounded man and tenderly picked him up and moved him some ten feet away
near the door of the card room, where Drs. Matthews, Goodfellow and Millar,
who were called, examined him and, after a brief consultation, pronounced
the wound mortal. He was then moved into the card room and placed on the
lounge where in a few brief moments he breathed his last, surrounded by his
brothers, Wyatt, Virgil, James and Warren with the wives of Virgil and James
and a few of his most intimate friends. Notwithstanding the intensity of his
mortal agony, not a word of complaint escaped his lips, and all that were heard,
except those whispered into the ear of his brother and known only to him
were, “Don’t, I can’t stand it. This is the last game of pool I’ll ever play.” The first
part of the sentence being wrung from him by an attempt to place him upon
his feet.
The funeral cortege started away from the Cosmopolitan hotel about
12:30 yesterday with the fire bell tolling its solemn peals of “Earth to earth,
dust to dust.”

Source: The Tombstone Epitaph, “The Deadly Bullet,” March 20, 1882.

Document 12
ASSASSINATION OF WILLIAM MCKINLEY (1901)—
NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF THE SHOOTING
AND DEATH OF THE PRESIDENT

On September 6, 1901, anarchist Leon Czolgosz shot President William McKinley

while he was visiting the Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, New York. McKinely
lingered for over a week, dying of his wounds on September 14. Reproduced here are
various newspaper accounts of the shooting and its aftermath. The first article is an
account of the shooting that appeared in the New York Times on September 7. The
article is remarkably detached and adopts the unemotional tone and language of the
physicians reporting on the president’s condition, complete with reports of his vital
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y 695

statistics. This tone can be interpreted as an example of the age’s supreme confidence
in the triumph of reason and science over chaos, or, as the Times’s attempt to reassure
the public that despite the attack, all was under control.
In the second article, an editorial from September 8, the New York Times con-
tinued in this moderate tone. The editorial describes the assassination attempt as an
act hearkening back to the Old World and that has no place in a modern democratic
nation. The Times assured its readers that the individual violent act of an individual
against the government had no lasting effect when the government was chosen demo-
cratically, organized rationally, and secured in stability.
In the third article, also from September 8, the Chicago Tribune used the tragedy
to make comparisons between disorder and order. The Tribune celebrated the public’s
restraint in the heat of the moment and the American legal system that would ensure
the assassin got his just deserts. This was much in keeping with the Tribune’s general
attitude toward mob violence, for it had been conducting a vigorous campaign against
the lynching of blacks in the South for the past decade. For the Tribune, Czolgosz’s
orderly arrest—despite the enormity of his crime—was a vindication of America’s
form of government and the rule of law.
The fourth article, from the San Francisco Chronicle, describes the president’s death
on September 14. The Chronicle’s description of a peaceful and forgiving McKinley
at the hour of his death might be trite or even a complete fabrication, but it does suc-
ceed in promoting a certain confidence that all would be well.

New York Times, September 7

PRESIDENT SHOT AT BUFFALO FAIR
Wounded in the Breast and Abdomen
HE IS RESTING EASILY
One Bullet Extracted, Other Cannot Be Found Assassin is Leon Czol-
gosz of Cleveland, Who Says He is an Anarchist and Follower of Emma
Goldman
Buffalo, Sept. 6—President McKinley, while holding a reception in the
Temple of Music at the Pan-American Exposition at 4 o’clock this afternoon,
was shot and twice wounded by Leon Czolgosz, an Anarchist, who lives in
Cleveland.
One bullet entered the President’s breast, struck the breast bone, glanced
and was later easily extracted. The other bullet entered the abdomen, pen-
etrated the stomach, and has not been found, although the wounds have been
closed.
The physicians in attendance upon the President at 10:40 o’clock to-night
issued the following bulletin:
“The President is rallying satisfactorily and resting comfortably. 10:15 P.M.,
temperature, 100.4 degrees; pulse 124; respiration 24.
696 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y

“P.M. rixey,
“m.b. mann,
“r.e. parke,
“h. mynter
“eugene wanbin
“Signed by George B. Cortelyou, Secretary to the President.”

This condition was maintained until 1 o’clock A.M. when the physicians
issued the following bulletin:
“The President is free from pain and resting well. Temperature, 100.2; pulse,
120; respiration 24.”
The assassin was immediately overpowered and taken to a police station on
the Exposition grounds, but not before a number of the throng had tried to
lynch him. Later he was taken to police headquarters.
The exact nature of the President’s injuries is described in the following bul-
letin issued by Secretary Cortelyou for the physicians who were called:
“The President was shot about 4 o’clock. One bullet struck him on the upper
portion of the breast bone. . . .”
Leon Czolgosz, the assassin, has signed a confession, covering six pages
of foolscap, in which he states that he is an Anarchist and that he be-
came an enthusiastic member of that body through the influence of Emma
Goldman, whose writings he had read and whose lectures he had listened
to. He denies having any confederate, and says he decided on the act three
days ago and bought the revolver with which the act was committed in
Buffalo.
He has seven brothers and sisters in Cleveland, and the Cleveland Direc-
tory has the names of about that number living in Hosmer Street and Ackland
Avenue, which adjoin. Some of them are butchers and others are in other
trades.
Czolgosz is now detained at Police Headquarters pending the result of the
President’s injuries. He does not appear in the least degree uneasy or penitent
for his action. He says he was induced by his attention to Emma Goldman’s
lectures and writing to decide that the present form of government in this
country was all wrong, and he thought the best way to end it was by the kill-
ing of the President. He showed no sign of insanity, but is very reticent about
much of his career.
While acknowledging himself an Anarchist, he does not state to which
branch of the organization he belongs.

Source: New York Times, September 7, 1901.

A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y 697

New York Times, September 8

The Crime and Its Effect
It is one of the elements of wanton atrocity in the crime attempted upon the
President that, had it been successful, it would and could have made no change
of importance in the course of the national life. Had the desire of the assailant
been to secure a change in the Government, it would have been absolutely fu-
tile, and must have been known to be so to any person of even low intelligence.
While this fact makes the crime more inexplicable, it is one of immense signifi-
cance for the American people. It makes plainer than ever the essential stability
of our Government and the degree of completeness with which it serves its
original purpose.
The President may die, and the land will mourn with deep and sincere grief,
but any vacancy in the office, however it may occur, whether it be temporary
or final, is provided for. The Vice President is chosen for precisely that emer-
gency. Whatever may be the opinion of a critical minority as to the excellence
of the choice made last Fall, it was the choice of the legal majority of the voters,
made with full knowledge of the ultimate purpose of the Vice Presidency, and
of the fact, that for seventeen Presidents who have served out the term of their
election there have been four Vice Presidents who have succeeded to the office
of President. The election of Vice President is definitely a contingent election to
the Presidency. If the possible contingency occurs, the incumbent enters on his
duties and powers with the full and explicit authorizations of the popular will
duly expressed. There can be no serious interruption. And the law has taken
care that no interruption shall exist even if the Vice President is also disabled.
The head of each of the important departments is designated to assume in turn
the office that may be left vacant.
Nor does the admirable stability of our Government depend solely on the
forethought with which possible accidents have been provided for. It rests on
deeper foundations. Its peculiar basis is the representative character of the
Government itself. The power lodged therein is not an inheritance, and follows
no line of personal succession. It is derived from the popular will, and it is dis-
tributed between the Legislature and the Executive. The share of the latter is
great, but it is substantially subordinate and delegated. The immediate reposi-
tory of the National will is the Legislature. Both together are but the temporary
agents of the real principal, the people. Year by year, sometimes blindly and
foolishly, but always in the stern school of experience and responsible free-
dom, the people live their own life, develop their own character, find their way
through the complex conditions of National growth. The passing of the great-
est of their servants, even by atrocious violence, cannot deeply disturb, cannot
at all disable their vigorous and steady institutions . . .
698 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y

Another feature in the effect of the crime attempted on the President is to

be noted. The feeling that has found universal expression among all classes is,
to a remarkable degree, as much personal as patriotic. It is not the possible va-
cancy in the office of the Chief Executive that is in the general mind. There has
been hardly a trace of apprehension as to consequences. There has been a deep
sense of sorrow over the suffering and danger of a brave and blameless citizen.
There has been an outpouring of affection for the public servant who had en-
deared himself to the people and was so unaffectedly one of them in heart and
thought. But the calm, sustained confidence of the Nation in itself has not for a
moment been shaken. Nor, even, if the worst should come, need it be!

Source: New York Times, September 8, 1901.

Chicago Tribune, September 8

Punishing the Assassin
The feeling among law-abiding people everywhere—after the moment of blind
sorrow and anger—will be one of satisfaction that the man who attempted to
assassinate President McKinley was not killed by the excited crowds at Buffalo.
The first and natural impulse in such a case is to slay the offender as summar-
ily as one would crush a venomous insect. If the mob had leaped upon the
assassin and taken his worthless life on the scene of his deed the first impulse
of the nation would have been to exclaim that he deserved it. But this would
have been followed almost instantly by a sober second thought of regret. It is
best that the law should punish lawbreakers. The greater the crime the more
necessary is it that the proper punishment shall be inflicted in accordance with
the dignity and majesty of the law.
If the President should die of his wounds the assassin will be tried according
to the just forms of law and will be put to death as he deserves. If the President
recovers, as the whole nation devoutly hopes, then the criminal will suffer a
corresponding punishment in the form of a prison sentence. In either case, the
law will be vindicated and justice will be done. The dignity and self-restraint
of this orderly procedure in a trying crisis are in themselves a vindication of
the splendid system of government whose Chief Executive has been stricken
down. President McKinley himself would have been the first to deplore the
lynching of his assailant. One of his first thoughts amid the confusion that fol-
lowed the shooting was to ask that no violence be done to the assassin.
The moral effect of the orderly trial and deliberate punishment of such a
criminal is worth infinitely more than the momentary gratification of the sav-
age instinct of self-preservation which suggests that he be killed on the spot.
Lynching at best is the avenging of one crime by another. It tends to multiply
lawbreakers rather than to decrease their number. For the mob to have torn
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F W I L L I A M M C K I N L E Y 699

the assassin limb from limb would not have undone any of the harm inflicted
by his bullets, but would simply have added a new cause for regret. It would
have been a temporary lapse into the anarchy which this criminal stands for
and which is the enemy of all government except that of brute force. Even the
excited crowds that called for the assassin’s death realized this fact the moment
their reason had a chance to assert itself.

Source: Chicago Tribune, September 8, 1901.

San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 1901

Death Stills the Heart of President M’kinley in the Early Morning Hours
Mrs. McKinley with Him during His Last Conscious Moments—
Touching Incidents at the Deathbed
BUFFALO, September 14—President McKinley died at 2:15 this morning. His
last breath passed calmly and almost imperceptibly. Peace and forgiveness were
written on his white face. He had been unconscious for several hours before the
end came, and his death was free from pain.
Secretary Cortelyou made the announcement. He came out of the Milburn
house and walked slowly down to the newspaper men, who were congregated
behind the rope barrier.
“The President died at 2:15 o’clock,” said he, in an even address.
He then turned and walked back to the house, maintaining even after all was
over, the calm demeanor which has characterized all his actions during the anx-
ious days and the sleepless nights which have passed since the President was shot.
All night the President battled with death. At 10 o’clock he was alone in the
combat. Science, skill, infinite tenderness, were beaten and hopeless. Surgeons
and physicians measured his brief span by moments. They had no hope and
offered none. Mystified, baffled and defeated, they stood aside and left William
McKinley alone to face the inevitable.
Meanwhile the nation—the world—stood watching for the final word. Buf-
falo, where the President was assassinated, stood agape with horror and rage.
Doctors of known and heralded cunning were summoned from all available
quarters. They came by special trains, and were rushed into the presence of
death and its unyielding victim. The wires were hot with summonses for the
Vice-President, for the Cabinet, for the friends nearest to the dying man, and
they came.
From all quarters men who have known the dying man as a man first and
then as a leader of his people came rushing, pale with sad-eyed and hopeless
grief. . . .

Source: San Francisco Chronicle, September 14, 1901.

700 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A RC H D U K E FR A N Z FE R D I N A N D

Document 13
ASSASSINATION OF ARCHDUKE FRANZ
FERDINAND (1914)—AUSTRIAN OFFICIAL
REPORT ON THE ASSASSINATION

The event that triggered World War I was the assassination of Archduke Franz Fer-
dinand of Austria and his morganatic wife, Duchess Sophie, on June 28, 1914, in Sa-
rajevo, the capital of the Austrian province of Bosnia. The archduke was the nephew
and heir of Emperor Franz Josef II of Austria. The assassin was Gavrilo Princip, a
Bosnian political activist and member of the Black Hand, a Serbian terrorist organi-
zation that supported the incorporation of Bosnia into Serbia. Princip shot the impe-
rial couple in the hope of precipitating a crisis within the Austrian Empire that would
facilitate this objective. Black Hand received weapons and assistance from elements
within the Serbian army and secret police, but the extent of Serbian government
involvement in the assassination plot is unclear. The Austrian government, however,
sought to use the assassination as a pretext for taking military action against Ser-
bia. Thus, the Austrian court at Sarajevo that produced the following report on the
murder slanted the report to throw maximum suspicion on the Serbian government.

Record of the District Court at Sarajevo, touching the proceedings there

instituted against Gavrilo Princip and confederates on account of the crime
of assassination perpetrated on June 28, 1914, on His Imperial and Royal
Highness the Archduke Franz Ferdinand of Austria-Este and Her Highness
the Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg.
Gavrilo Princip, Nedeljko Cabrinovic, Trifko Grabez, Vaso Cubrilovic and
Cetres Popovic confess that in common with the fugitive Mehemed Mehmed-
basic they contrived a plot for the murder of the Archduke Franz Ferdinand
and, armed with bombs and in the case of some of them with Browning pistols,
laid in wait for him on June 28, 1914, on his progress through Sarajevo for the
purpose of carrying out the planned attack.
Nedeljko Cabrinovic confesses that he was the first of the conspirators to
hurl a bomb against the Archduke’s carriage, which missed its mark and which
on exploding injured only the occupants of the carriage following the Archdu-
cal motor car.
Gavrilo Princip confesses that he fired two shots from a Browning pistol
against the Archducal motor car, by which the Archduke Franz Ferdinand and
the Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg received fatal wounds.
Both perpetrators confess that the act was done with intent to murder.
These confessions have been fully verified by means of the investigations
which have taken place, and it is established that the deceased Archduke Franz
Ferdinand and the deceased Duchess Sophie of Hohenberg died as a result of
the revolver shots fired at them by Gavrilo Princip.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A RC H D U K E FR A N Z FE R D I N A N D 701

The accused have made the following declarations, which are essentially
consistent, before the examining magistrate:
In April, 1914, Princip, during his stay at Belgrade, where he associated
with a number of Serbian students in the cafés of the town, conceived the plan
for the execution of an attempt on the life of the late Archduke Franz Ferdi-
nand. He communicated this intention to his acquaintance, Cabrinovic, who
also was in Belgrade at the time. The latter had already conceived a similar idea
and was ready at once to participate in the attempt. The execution of an at-
tempt on the Archduke’s life was a frequent topic of conversation in the circle
in which Princip and Cabrinovic moved, because the Archduke was consid-
ered to be a dangerous enemy of the Serbian people.
Princip and Cabrinovic desired at first to procure the bombs and weapons
necessary for the execution of the deed from the Serbian Major Milan Pribi-
cevic or from the Narodna Odbrana [“Defense of the People,” a Serbian in-
dependence group founded in 1908], as they themselves did not possess the
means for their purchase. As, however, Major Pribicevic and the authoritative
member of the said association, Zivojin Dacic, were absent from Belgrade at
that time, they decided to try to obtain the weapons from their acquaintance
Milan Ciganovic, who had formerly been a Komitadji [brigand or guerrilla
fighter] and was at that time in the employment of the State railways.
Princip, through the instrumentality of an intimate friend of Ciganovic, now
got into communication with the latter. Thereupon Ciganovic called on Prin-
cip and discussed the planned attempt with him. He entirely approved it, and
thereupon declared that he would like to consider further whether he should
provide the weapons for the attempt. Cabrinovic also talked with Ciganovic on
the subject of the weapons.
At Easter Princip took Trifko Grabez, who also was in Belgrade, into his con-
fidence. The latter is also shown by his own confession to have declared him-
self ready to take part in the attempt.
In the following weeks Princip had repeated conversations with Ciganovic
about the execution of the attempt.
Meanwhile Ciganovic had reached an understanding on the subject of
the planned attack with the Serbian Major Voja Tankosic, who was a close
friend of his and who then placed at his disposal for this object the Browning
pistols.
Grabez confesses in conformity with the depositions of Princip and Cabri-
novic that on the 24th of May he, accompanied by Ciganovic, visited Major
Tankosic at the latter’s request at his rooms. He says that after he had been
introduced Tankosic said to him: “Are you the man? Are you determined?”
Whereupon Grabez answered: “I am.” Tankosic next asked: “Do you know
how to shoot with a revolver?” and when Grabez answered in the negative
Tankosic said to Ciganovic: “I will give you a revolver, go and teach them how
to shoot.”
702 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F A RC H D U K E FR A N Z FE R D I N A N D

Hereupon Ciganovic conducted Princip and Grabez to the military rifle

range at Topcider and instructed them in a wood adjoining the range in shoot-
ing with a Browning pistol at a target. Princip provided himself the better shot
of the two. Ciganovic also familiarized Princip, Grabez and Cabrinovic with
the use of bombs which were given them.
On the 27th of May, 1914, Ciganovic handed over to Princip, Cabrinovic
and Grabez, as their confessions agree in stating, six bombs, four Browning re-
volvers and a sufficient quantity of ammunition as well as a glass tube of cya-
nide of potassium with which to poison themselves after the accomplishment
of the deed in order that the secret might be kept. Moreover, Ciganovic gave
them some money.
Princip had previously informed Danilo Ilic, at Easter, of his plan of assas-
sination. He now begged the latter on his return to Sarajevo to enlist certain
additional persons, in order to ensure the success of the attempt. Hereupon Ilic
according to his confession enlisted Jaso Cubrilovic, Cetro Popovic, and Me-
hemed Mehmedbasic in the plot.
Only one of the bombs was made use of in the execution of the attempt. The
remaining five bombs came later into the possession of the police at Sarajevo.
In the opinion of the judicial experts these bombs are Serbian hand-
grenades which were factory-made and intended for military purposes. They
are identical with the 21 bombs which were found in the Save at Brcko in the
year 1913 and which were partly in their original packing, which proved with-
out a doubt that they came from the Serbian arsenal of Kragujevatz.
It is thus proved that the grenades which were used in the attempt against
the Archduke Franz Ferdinand also came from the stores of the Army Depot at
Kragujevatz. . . . It is clear how far the criminal agitation of the Narodna Od-
brana and those who shared in its views, has of late been primarily directed
against the person of the hereditary Archduke. From these facts, the conclu-
sion may be drawn that the Narodna Odbrana, as well as the associations hos-
tile to the Monarchy in Serbia, which were grouped round it, recently decided
that the hour had struck to translate theory into practice.
It is noteworthy, however, that the Narodna limits itself in this way to incit-
ing, and where the incitement has fallen on fertile soil to providing means of
material assistance for the realization of its plans, but that it has confided the
only dangerous part of this propaganda of action to the youth of the [Hapsburg]
Monarchy, which it has excited and corrupted, and which alone has to bear the
burden of this miserable “heroism.”
All the characteristics of this procedure are found in men who have been
poisoned from their school days by the doctrines of the Narodna Odbrana. . . .
But however far this plot may have prospered, and however determined the
conspirators may have been to carry out the attempt, it would never have been
effected, if people had not been found, as in the case of Jukic, to provide the
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D 703

accomplices with means of committing their crime. For, as Princip and Cabri-
novic have expressly admitted, they lacked the necessary arms, as well as the
money to purchase them.
It is interesting to see where the accomplices tried to procure their arms.
Milan Pribicevic and Zivojin Dacie, the two principal men in the Narodna Od-
brana, were the first accomplices thought of as a sure source of help in their
need, doubtless because it had already become a tradition amongst those ready
to commit crimes that they could obtain instruments for murder from these
representatives of the Narodna Odbrana. The accidental circumstance that
these two men were not at Belgrade at the critical moment doubtless balked
this plan. However, Princip and Cabrinovic were not at a loss in finding other
help, that of Milan Ciganovic, an ex-komitadji, and now a railway official at
Belgrade, and at the same time an active member of the Narodna Odbrana,
who, in 1909, first appeared as a pupil at the school at Cuprija. Princip and
Cabrinovic were not deceived in their expectations, as they at once received
the necessary help from Ciganovic.

Source: Charles F. Horne, ed. Source Records of the Great War. Vol. 1. Indianapo-
lis: National Alumni, 1923, 247–51.

Document 14
ASSASSINATION OF ARCHDUKE FRANZ
FERDINAND (1914)—EXCERPTS FROM AMERICAN
NEWSPAPER ACCOUNTS OF THE MURDER OF
THE ARCHDUKE AND HIS WIFE

On June 28, 1914, Serbian nationalist Gavrilo Princip, a member of Black Hand, a
Serbian terrorist organization, assassinated Archduke Franz Ferdinand, heir to the
Austrian throne, and his wife, Duchess Sophie. The murder, which occurred in the
Bosnian capital of Sarajevo, precipitated the outbreak of World War I in August 1914.
Nineteen at the time of the assassination, Princip was instructed, with other would-
be assassins in the plot, to commit suicide so as to avoid having to divulge the plot-
ters’ ties to high Serbian military officers. Princip apparently agreed because he had
tuberculosis and expected to die shortly anyway. However, after the assassination,
a bystander stopped Princip before he was able to turn the gun on himself. He was
convicted of murder, but because Austro-Hungarian law allowed capital punishment
only for adults over 20, Princip was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment. He died
in prison of tuberculosis in 1918. Reproduced here are accounts of the assassination
that appeared in various American newspapers in the days immediately following
the murder.
704 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D

Washington Post, June 29, 1914

Vienna, June 28—It is feared that the Sarayevo tragedy will still further embit-
ter the none too friendly relations existing between Austria and Servia. Both the
youth who fired the fatal shots and the bomb thrower are Servians, with close
associations with Belgrade. The bombs also came from Belgrade.
It is likewise remarkable that the first news of the assassination received at
Budapest came from the Servian capital.

Rumors Blame Servia

Many vague rumors are in circulation regarding Servian complicity in the
assassination of the archduke, but it is difficult at the present moment to es-
timate their accuracy. The two chief criminals are intense Servian chauvinists,
but there is no satisfactory evidence regarding their accomplices or the origina-
tor of what is declared to have been a widespread and completely organized
conspiracy.
Ever since the archduke’s journey to Bosnia was first announced the authori-
ties have received warnings from various quarters that it was inadvisable for
him to visit Bosnia at the present time. It is said that even the Servian Minister
at Vienna made private representations to this effect, as there were many indi-
cations of a recrudescence of pan-Servian agitation in that territory.

Balked Servia’s Plan

Ever since the annexation of Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1908 Servian hatred of
Austria-Hungary has been steadily increasing. The events of the last Balkan
war, when Austria-Hungary stood in the way of Servia’s ardent desire to secure
an Adriatic port and openly sided with Bulgaria against her former allies, still
further estranged the Servian people.
The Servians were disinclined to believe that the emperor at his advanced
age was initiating any anti-Servian policy, and attributed it mainly to the arch-
duke. The archduke also was believed to be a foe to the pan-Servian move-
ment, and it is thought probable some such motives as these may have inspired
the plot which culminated so tragically at Sarayevo.

Source: Washington Post, June 29, 1914.

Washington Post, June 29, 1914

Possible Consequences of Archduke’s Assassination
The assassination of Archduke Ferdinand of Austria and his wife will strike
terror to the heart of every crowned head in Europe. The act stands as an
appalling reminder of the peril in which kings and princes live and move,
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D 705

whether they are hated and hunted, or whether they have gained the loyalty
and love of their subjects, as had the Archduke Ferdinand. There was no
apparent reason for his taking off; but the absence of political or personal
motive more sharply emphasizes the danger of assassination at the hands of
lunatics and anarchists.
The empire of Austria-Hungary may be profoundly affected by Ferdinand’s
death. Emperor Franz Joseph is near his end, and the prospect of a transfer of
power to Ferdinand was acceptable to the people. He had proved himself a
good soldier and an able statesman, devoted to the empire, ambitious for its
aggrandizement, and strong-willed enough to defend its interests in the midst
of the tangled politics of western and southeastern Europe. He was credited
with being the controlling mind in Austrian policies with respect to the Bal-
kans and Italy.
The extinction of Ferdinand as a factor in the Balkan situation may have far-
reaching consequences, when it is borne in mind that the kingdom of Servia is
rent with internal strife, and that Greece and Turkey are bent upon a renewal
of hostilities. The map of the Balkans, radically altered within the last three
years, seems to be subject to further alterations as a result of the weakening of
Austria-Hungary’s influence.

Source: Washington Post, June 29, 1914.

Atlanta Journal & Constitution, June 29, 1914

Heir to Austro-Hungarian Throne and Wife Murdered in Serbia
The archduke and his wife were victims of the second attempt in the same day
against their lives. First a bomb was thrown at the automobile in which they
were driving to the town hall. Forewarned, however, of a possible attempt
against his life, the archduke was watchful and struck the missile aside with
his arm. It fell under the automobile following which carried members of the
archduke’s suite, wounding count Von Boos-Waldeck and Colonel Merizzo.

Darted at Car and Fired

On their return from the town hall the archduke and the duchess were driv-
ing to the hospital when Gavrio Prinzip darted at the car and fired a volley at
the occupants. His aim was true and the archduke and his wife were mortally
wounded. With them at the time was the governor of the city, who escaped
injury. The bodies of his murdered companions collapsed across him and pro-
tected him from stray bullets.
The governor shouted to the chauffeur to rush to the palace. Physicians
were in prompt attendance, but their services were useless, as the archduke
and his wife were dead before the palace was reached.
706 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D

Weeping Women Seen in Groups

Until the emperor’s wishes are known the bodies will lie in state at the palace
here. They will doubtless be interred in the Hapsburg vaults in the Capuchin
church at Vienna.
In Sarajevo there is mourning everywhere with black draped flags and
streamers on all public buildings. Throughout the day weeping women were
to be seen in groups, while great crowds surrounded the spots where the fatal
shots were fired. The bomb was filled with nails and lead filings, and the ex-
plosion was violent. The iron shutters on many shops were pierced by flying
fragments and iron railings were shattered. About a score of persons were in-
jured, several of them women and children.

Source: Atlanta Journal & Constitution, June 29, 1914.

New York Times, June 29, 1914

Archduke Ignored Warning Not to Go to Bosnia
Servian Minister Feared Trouble If Heir Went to Bosnia
VIENNA, June 28—When the news of the assassination of the Archduke
Francis Ferdinand and the Duchess was broken to the aged Emperor Francis
Joseph he said: “Horrible, horrible! No sorrow is spared me.”
The Emperor, who yesterday left here for Ischl, his favorite summer resort,
amid acclamations of the people, will return to Vienna at once, in spite of the
hardships of the journey in the terrible heat.
The Archduke, who was created head of the army, went to Bosnia to repre-
sent the Emperor at the grand manoeuveres there. This was the first time the
Archduke had paid an official visit to Bosnia. The Emperor visited the prov-
inces immediately after their annexation, in 1908, and the manner in which
he mixed freely with the people was much criticised at the time, as those in
his party were always afraid lest some Slave or Mohammedan fanatic might at-
tempt the monarch’s life. The emperor’s popularity, however, saved him from
all danger of this kind.
Before the Archduke went to Bosnia last Wednesday the Servian Minister
here expressed doubt as to the wisdom of the journey, saying the country was
in a very turbulent condition and the Servian part of the population might or-
ganize a demonstration against the Archduke. The Minister said if the Arch-
duke went himself he certainly ought to leave his wife at home, because Bosnia
was no place for a woman in its present disturbed state.
The Minister’s word proved correct. The people of Sarajevo welcomed the
Archduke with a display of Servian flags, and the authorities had some diffi-
culty removing them before the Archduke made his state entry into the city
yesterday, after the conclusion of the manoeuvres. . . .
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D 707

The boy must have been carefully instructed in his part, for it was a well-
guarded secret that the Archduke always wore a coat of silk strands which were
woven obliquely, so that no weapon or bullet could pierce it. I once saw a strip
of this fabric used for a motor-car tire, and it was puncture-proof. This new in-
vention enabled the Archduke to brave attempts on his life, but his head natu-
rally was uncovered.
The Duchess was shot in the body. The boy fired several times, but only two
shots took effect. The Archduke and his wife were carried to the Konak, or pal-
ace, in a dying condition.
Later details show that the assassin darted forth from his hiding place be-
hind a house and actually got on the motor car in which the Archduke and
his wife were sitting. He took close aim first at the Archduke, and then at the
Duchess. The fact that no one stopped him and that he was allowed to perpe-
trate the dastardly act indicate that the conspiracy was carefully planned and
that the Archduke fell a victim to a political plot. The aspiration of the Servian
population in Bosnia to join with Servia and form a great Servian kingdom is
well known. No doubt today’s assassination was regarded as a means of for-
warding this plan.

Break News to Children

The Archduke’s children are at Glumex, in Bohemia, and relatives already have
left Vienna to break the news to them. The Duke of Cumberland motored to
Ischl immediately upon receipt of the news and was received by the Emperor,
who will arrive in Vienna at 6 o’clock tomorrow. The bodies of the Archduke
and his wife will not be brought to Vienna until tomorrow a week.
The Archduke Charles Francis Joseph, the new heir to the throne, is at
Reichenau, near Vienna, with his wife, Princess Zita of Parma, and their little
son and daughter. He is expected in Vienna tonight.
When the first news of the assassination became known in Vienna, early this
afternoon, crowds collected in solemn silence and discussed the report, which
was not credited at first. Everyone connected with the press was stormed by
crowds asking whether confirmation had been received, and on hearing the
truth they said, “How awful!” and then dispersed, to go about their ordinary
business or pleasure.

Source: New York Times, June 29, 1914.

Christian Science Monitor, June 29, 1914

Assassination Is Another Test for Austria-Hungary
Few men have experienced greater sorrows than the Emperor Franz Josef and
none have borne them with more serene fortitude. The latest, however, of these
708 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F A R C H D U K E F R A N Z F E R D I N A N D

misfortunes extends far beyond the interest of his private life. It raises ques-
tions not only of national but of European importance. . . . What all this will
mean no man can tell.

Source: Christian Science Monitor, June 29, 1914.

New York Times, June 29, 1914

Assassinations Exact Brutal Revenge for Austria—
Hungary’s Seizure of Bosnia
Some weeks since, when the life of the emperor Francis Joseph was daily de-
spaired of, the whole world, in spite of its sympathy with the courageous old
ruler of Austria-Hungary, felt that there would be compensation for his loss in
the likelihood that his successor, the Archduke Francis Ferdinand, would be
able to hold together the various States united under Austrian rule. He was ac-
counted a popular Prince, a sagacious and resourceful man, and he was known
throughout the empire. Today the situation is changed. The heir to the throne is
dead, the chief victim of one of the most horrible assassinations ever shamefully
associated with the sacred cause of liberty. The old Emperor’s failing health is
rendered still more precarious by the shock of this murder, and the prospect that
the tremendous responsibilities of his kingship may shortly fall upon a young
man whose capacity for rule has never been proved must disturb all Europe.
For the present, however, the unutterable brutality of the slaughter of the
Archduke and the wife for whose sake he risked all his kingly prospects, and
the wounding of some members of their escort, absorbs the attention. No po-
litical murder was ever more deliberately performed. It was a festal day in Sa-
rajevo, and there was no suspicion that the heir to the throne and the lady who
has been looked upon throughout all Austria and its dependences as a popular
idol were in any danger. The event proves that the successor to Francis Joseph’s
throne will have a task set before him which might bewilder the most heroic
mind. This murder was inspired not by the spirit of anarchy, but by revenge.
The seizure by Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina was high-handed and in de-
fiance of the concert of Europe. The act has been punished in a manner which
reflects no credit on Bosnia.

Source: New York Times, June 29, 1914.

Atlanta Journal & Constitution, June 30, 1914

Assassination Will Only Increase Instability in Balkans
Abhorrent as is assassination under any conditions, it is doubly sinister in the
cases of Archduke Francis Ferdinand, heir to the Austria-Hungarian throne,
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA 709

and his wife. The bloody deed climaxes the fatalities that have followed the
House of Hapsburg with the relentlessness of Nemesis.
While the assassination seems to have been of Servian origin, the circum-
stances under which it transpired simply illustrate the loose manner in which
the Austria-Hungarian empire is hung together. In this respect, the domain
over which Francis Joseph has held sway is one of the most complicated, if not
the most complicated, in all Europe.
Austria’s insatiable land lust has led her to absorb peoples of totally dissimi-
lar birth, breeding and traditions. The tragedy at Sarajevo is the tragedy of in-
herited hatreds, of racial antipathies, religious and tribal feuds reaching back
many years for their origins.
In its personal aspects, the affair is sorrowful enough. Ferdinand seems to
have been a rather forceful character, gallant and fearless of danger. His mar-
riage to the Bohemian countess, Sophie Chotek, illustrates his independence.
Francis Joseph and the Austrian politicians generally opposed the marriage
since, under the Hapsburg laws, any children born of such a union were in-
eligible to royal rank or succession. But Ferdinand stubbornly rejected any ef-
forts to enter into a typical royal “marriage of convenience,” and instead made
a marriage in which he served his affections rather than political interests. The
marriage was, of course, a morganatic one, and bars his wife and children from
any of the royal prerogatives of husband and father.
The principal menaces of the assassination are in the intensification of bit-
terness between Servia and Austria, and the unrest that is bound to follow in
the other heterogeneous elements of the empire.

Source: Atlanta Journal & Constitution, June 30, 1914.

Document 15
ASSASSINATION OF EMILIANO ZAPATA (1919)—
THREE ACCOUNTS OF THE AMBUSH

On April 10, 1919, the Mexican revolutionary Emiliano Zapata was killed, the victim
of an act of betrayal and assassination that shocked not only his followers, known as
Zapatistas, but even high members of the Constitutionalist government then in power.
The plot was hatched by General Pablo González, some believe in collaboration with
Venustiano Carranza, the president of the Mexican Republic. In March, Zapata dis-
covered that González was embroiled in a conflict with one of his subordinates, Colonel
Jesús Guajardo. As had happened often during the Mexican Revolution, Zapata hoped
to suborn Guajardo and convince him to switch sides; he therefore proposed this in
a letter to the colonel. González instructed Guajardo to play along, in the hopes of
710 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA

trapping and killing Zapata. Guajardo lured Zapata to the Chinameca Hacienda on
April 10, where an ambush killed Zapata and a small number of his personal escorts.
Leadership of the Zapatistas passed to Gildardo Magaña, but the death of Zapata
demoralized his movement and prompted efforts to find the way out of the civil war
without losing everything that Zapata’s peasant rebels had achieved in their state of
Morelos. As it turned out, the exit from the labyrinth appeared in the form of an Ob-
regonista rebellion against Carranza one year later, in April 1920.
The three documents reproduced below address the killing of Zapata. The first two
are the earliest known reports of the ambush. The first is by Salvador Reyes, Zapata’s
personal secretary, who survived the ambush and sent his account to Magaña later
that day. The second is Guajardo’s version, sent to Pablo González five days after the
fact. The final document is from a Mexican American newspaper, El Heraldo Mexi-
cano (The Mexican Herald) published in Los Angeles, California, which expresses
the grief and shock felt by many Mexicans abroad. The author of the article, Ramón
Puente, blames Carranza for the killing and compares him to Shakespeare’s Macbeth,
who was prepared to commit murder in pursuit of his political ambitions.

Zapata Was Treacherously Murdered

Salvador Reyes Avilés,

April 10, 1919

It is with profound sorrow that I must inform you that today, at half past
one P.M., Citizen General-in-Chief, Emiliano Zapata was treacherously mur-
dered by the troops of Colonel Jesús Guajardo. They carried out this premedi-
tated and cowardly act at the Hacienda of San Juan Chinameca. So that you are
properly informed about this tragic event I will recount the following details:
As you know, we had learned about the deep discord between Pablo
González and Jesús Guajardo. As a result, General Zapata wrote to the latter
with an invitation to join the revolutionary movement.
Guajardo replied to this letter: “I am ready to work alongside you, as long
as you give sufficient guarantees for me and my soldiers.” Citizen General-in-
Chief Zapata immediately answered Guajardo and offered every kind of assur-
ances and congratulated him for being “a man of his word and a gentleman,
who will honour his promises to the letter.” The negotiations continued in this
way, by correspondence.
That very day, in order to definitively arrange things, the Citizen General-in-
Chief sent Citizen Colonel Feliciano Palacios to Guajardo’s camp in San Juan
Chinameca. He remained with Guajardo until yesterday at four in the morn-
ing, when Guajardo headed to Jonacatepec. Palacios wrote two letters to the
Chief, copies of which are attached to this. Here I must mention a fact that
made Citizen General-in-Chief Zapata confident in the “sincerity” of Guajardo.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA 711

The rumours were circulating publicly that Guajardo was negotiating to join
with Citizen General Zapata. These rumours were so widespread that some
villagers asked the Citizen General-in-Chief to punish some traitors who were
responsible for looting, rapes, murders and robberies. These were committed
by Victoriano Bárcenes and his men who were then under the command of
Guajardo.
In view of this justified request Citizen General Zapata ordered Guajardo
to arrest Bárcenes and 59 of his soldiers, under the command of General Mar-
garito Ocampo and “Colonel” Guillermo López. They were all disarmed by
Guajardo at a place called “Mancornadero.” This was yesterday while Guajardo
was in Jonacatepec.
Upon learning this we went to Pastor Station, and from there Palacios wrote
to Guajardo, by order of the Chief, to say that we would meet in Tepalcingo.
General Zapata planned go with thirty men and asked Guajardo to do likewise.
The Chief ordered the rest of his men to withdraw and headed to Tepalcingo
with thirty men, where we waited for Guajardo. Guajardo arrived at four pm,
but not with thirty soldiers. He had sixty cavalry and a machine gun.
It was there that we saw for the first time the man who, the next day, would
be the murderer of our General-in-Chief, who with all the nobility of his soul
received him with opened arms. He smiled and said: “My Colonel Guajardo,
I congratulate you with all my heart!” At 10 PM, we left Tepalcingo and headed
for Chinameca, where Guajardo arrived with his column. It was nearly eight in
the morning at Chinameca.
The Chief then ordered his people (150 men had joined us in Tepalcingo)
to wait in the courtyard. Meanwhile he, Guajardo, Colonels Castrejón, Casals
y Camano, and Colonel Palacios, went to discuss the coming campaign. A few
moments later rumours began to spread that the enemy was approaching. So
the Chief ordered Colonel José Rodríguez of his escort to take some men and
scout towards Santa Rita. Then Guajardo said to the Chief: “General, if you
head towards Piedras Encimada, I will head towards the plain.” The Chief
agreed and took thirty men to the point indicated. Getting ready to march,
Guajardo mustered his men, and returned saying: “My General, I am at you or-
ders. Will you take Infantry or Cavalry?”
“The plain has a lot of fences; you take the infantry” replied General Zapata. At
Piedras Encimadas we explored the countryside but, seeing no enemy move-
ment, we returned to Chinameca. It was approximately half past twelve. The
Chief sent Colonel Palacios to Guajardo, to ask about the promised delivery of
five thousand cartridges.
Then “Captain” Ignacio Castillo and a sergeant presented themselves, and
in the name of Guajardo invited the Chief to enter the Hacienda, where “Gua-
jardo and Palacios were arranging things.” We waited another half an hour
with Castillo, and after repeated invitations, the Chief agreed. “We’re going to
712 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA

see the Colonel; no more than ten men are going with me,” he ordered, mount-
ing the sorrel horse that Guajardo had given him the previous day.
He approached the door of the house of the Hacienda. As ordered, we ten
men followed, leaving the others to rest confidently under the shade of the
trees with their carbines at rest. The guard formed and seemed ready to do our
Chief honours. The bugle sounded the call of honour three times, and as it
played the last note our General-in-Chief arrived at the threshold of the door.
Then in the most perfidious, most cowardly, and most villainous manner, at
point blank range, and without giving him time to draw his pistols, the sol-
diers who were presenting arms fired their rifles twice and our unforgettable
General Zapata fell, never to rise again!
His faithful assistant Agustín Cortes died at the same time. Palacios also
must have been killed inside the Hacienda. The surprise was terrible. Soldiers
of the traitor Guajardo were high up in the parapets, in the plain, in the gully,
and everywhere (about a thousand men) and they discharged their weapons
against us. Very soon resistance was futile. On the one hand, we were a hand-
ful of men shocked by the loss of our Chief, and on the other hand, the enemy
soldiers took advantage of our natural confusion to attack us fiercely. That was
the tragedy. So it happened. Guajardo betrayed the nobility of our General-in-
Chief. So Emiliano Zapata died.

Official Report on the Assassination of Zapata

Colonel Jesús Guajardo,

April 15, 1919

Commander:
I am honoured to report on the operations carried out during April 8 to 10 of
this month.
April 8: Having received instructions from Citizen General-in-Chief of the
Army Corps of Operations in the South, Pablo Gonzalez, I left with my escort
heading towards Chinameca at 8:15 AM, arriving at Moyotepec at 11 AM the
same day. There I waited for an escort of fifty men commanded by a second
captain. I left that point and reached Chinameca at 3 PM. I then proceeded to
communicate with Emiliano Zapata through the so-called General Feliciano
Palacios, secretary of the aforementioned Zapata, who spent a few days with
our detachment, finalizing arrangements to incorporate me and my men, un-
known to the Supreme Government, receiving later instructions.
April 9: At one o’clock this morning, leading my men, mounted, fully armed
and well-supplied with ammunition, we left the Chinameca Hacienda head-
ing to Huichila Station, arriving there at 7 am, where we foddered the horses
and received instructions for the attack on Jonacatepec. We headed there at
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA 713

9 AM and arrived within a kilometre of that place at 12:45 PM, where, as agreed,
I met the men waiting for me, led by Citizen Captain Salgado, of the 66th Regi-
ment. We then proceeded to attack and capture the plaza, fighting for half an
hour, losing two men of the troop who died in the battle.
At 4 PM, I left Jonacatepec to meet Emiliano Zapata for the first time in front
of the Pastor Station, bringing approximately 600 men. I was well received by
the southern ringleader, who expressed his desire to meet my officers. This was
done immediately. I was invited to move out to Tepalcingo, where Zapata ac-
cepted my forces. We spent the night there, where there was a force of Zapatis-
tas of close to 1300.
At 8 AM, Zapata, with a force of approximately four hundred men, came to
inform me that Constitutionalist forces numbering three thousand were ad-
vancing to attack us. He gave orders to some of his forces to fight them and or-
dered to me to stay in my place. Meanwhile Emiliano and his escort occupied
Piedra Encimada in order to repel an attack.
At this time the so-called Generals Castrejón, Zeferino Ortega, Lucio Bastida,
Gil Muñoz and Jesús Capistrán arrived, bringing with them forces close to
2500 men.
At 1:30 PM, I was at the Hacienda with Castrejón, Palacios, Bastida and an-
other general whose name I do not remember, who came to call for Emiliano
Zapata. Citizen Captain Salgado also arrived at this time.
At 2 PM, Zapata arrived with 100 to enter the Hacienda. I had arranged in
advance to have the guard at the entrance give him honours, with orders to fire
on the ringleader at the second call of honour, while the rest of the force was or-
ganized and ready to fight his men. The result was that at 2:10 PM he appeared
before the guard who opened fire and killed Emiliano Zapata himself, Zeferino
Ortega, and Gil Muñoz as well as other generals and troops who could not be
identified. The casualties, dead and wounded, were approximately 30 men.
At the same time, I personally shot Palacios, while Castrejón y Bastida was
also killed on the spot. I note that Citizen Captain Salgado, who had been at
my side left at the precise time of discharge, returning moments later. There
was already a mounted force that pursued the enemy in different directions to
completely disperse them, leaving large numbers of dead and wounded, in-
cluding the so-called General Capistrán.
An hour later, the bugler sounded Bota Silla with the aim delivering the
corpse of Zapata. Half an hour later, at 4 PM, I left the Hacienda with my
force, heading towards Cuautla, where we arrived at 9:10 PM, delivering the
corpse to Citizen General-in-Chief of the Army Corps of Operations in the
South, Pablo González, as proof that I fulfilled the order I was given 60 hours
earlier.
This day, we lost 16 men.

I am honoured, my General, to present my obedience and respect.

714 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F E M I L I A N O Z A PATA

The Death of Zapata

Dr. Ramón Puente,

May 19, 1919

Carranza must be content, for killing Zapata must mean to him, more or less,
what it meant for Huerta to have murdered Madero. It is the eternal mistake of
all tyrants who believe that their enemies are men, not the ideas that these men
embody. Zapata, much more than a man, represented and will continue to rep-
resent the unstoppable strength of an idea.
The death of this fighter does mean the disappearance of a great enemy of
Carranza, an enemy who was as much his rival as Francisco Madero and Fran-
cisco Villa. But Zapatismo is not finished, and will yet rise from the ashes of
its apostle and martyr. A new champion will appear before Carranza, like the
shadow of Banquo at Macbeth’s banquet, the character in Shakespeare’s tragedy
who symbolizes the homicidal madness of political ambition.
Carranza, with a cold heart, but with a conscience dripping in blood—and
which “cannot be cleaned with oceans of water”—has seen many revolution-
aries fall, men who dreamed of a better Mexico in good faith and without po-
litical ambition—such men as Calixto Contreras the good, Orestes Pereyra the
honest, and Zapata the visionary. They were simple men who took to heart the
cause of the humble classes to which they belonged and who were ready to
sacrifice their lives for a moral and transcendental ideal.
The revolution was of the people and for the people, but Carranza, when
he came to the revolution, never understood this. He wanted the Presidency
of the Republic, with such a voracious ambition that he used every means to
achieve it. He has tolerated the excesses of revolutionaries, and has pretended
to be a reformer with principles that he has never had, either in his mind or in
his soul. He has only managed to be a dagger wielded against many good men
and the source of hatreds that have divided those who should be brothers.
Zapata is dead—and the deaths of giants are always a joy to dwarves—but
his blood is rich with the demand for justice. The time of redemption for the
proletarians is approaching, for those who yearn for land usurped by large
landowners. Zapata was one [of] the first to struggle for this ideal and everyone
heard his call. Villa also may disappear, but his revolutionary strength is also
great and tenacious, and he will not be forgotten either. On the other hand,
Carranza will go to his grave stained with blood, and History will one day ask
in anger, just as God asked the son of Adam: Cain, Cain! What have you done
to your brother?

Source: Reprinted from Chris Frazer, ed. Competing Voices from the Mexican
Revolution. Santa Barbara: ABC-CLIO, 2009.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F S E N AT O R H U E Y P. L O N G 715

Document 16
ASSASSINATION OF SENATOR HUEY P. LONG
(1935)—SENATOR LONG’S “SHARE
THE WEALTH” PROGRAM (1934)

Senator Huey P. Long was a flamboyant, populist politician who dominated the poli-
tics of his home state of Louisiana, where he was wildly popular. In February 1934, in
the following statement that Long had read into the congressional record, he laid out
his “Share the Wealth” program for lifting the country out of the Great Depression.
The plan contained some elements in common with President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s
New Deal, such as old-age pensions for persons over 60 and public works projects
to provide employment. However, it also proposed caps on how much net worth an
individual could accumulate and limits on annual incomes and inheritances as well
as higher taxes on the wealthy. Many viewed the Share the Wealth Society that Long
founded to promote the program as merely a vehicle for a possible third party chal-
lenge to Roosevelt in 1936. When this was true or not, Long’s ambition was stilled on
September 8, 1935, when he was shot in the Louisiana State Capitol in Baton Rouge
by Dr. Carl Weiss, the son-in-law of a long-time political opponent. Weiss was shot
and killed by Long’s bodyguards and Long, who was wounded in the abdomen, died
two days later.

Mr. Long: Mr. President, I send to the desk and ask to have printed in the
RECORD not a speech but what is more in the nature of an appeal to the peo-
ple of America.
There being no objection, the paper entitled “Carry Out the Command of
the Lord” was ordered to be printed in the RECORD, as follows:
By Huey P. Long, United States Senator
People of America: In every community get together at once and organize a
share-our-wealth society—Motto: Every man a king
Principles and platform:

1. To limit poverty by providing that every deserving family shall share in

the wealth of America for not less than one third of the average wealth,
thereby to possess not less than $5,000 free of debt.
2. To limit fortunes to such a few million dollars as will allow the balance of
the American people to share in the wealth and profits of the land.
3. Old-age pensions of $30 per month to persons over 60 years of age
who do not earn as much as $1,000 per year or who possess less than
$10,000 in cash or property, thereby to remove from the field of labor in
times of unemployment those who have contributed their share to the
public service.
716 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F S E N AT O R H U E Y P. L O N G

4. To limit the hours of work to such an extent as to prevent overproduc-

tion and to give the workers of America some share in the recreations,
conveniences, and luxuries of life.
5. To balance agricultural production with what can be sold and consumed
according to the laws of God, which have never failed.
6. To care for the veterans of our wars.
7. Taxation to run the Government to be supported, first, by reducing big
fortunes from the top, thereby to improve the country and provide em-
ployment in public works whenever agricultural surplus is such as to
render unnecessary, in whole or in part, any particular crop.

Simple and Concrete—Not an Experiment

To share our wealth by providing for every deserving family to have one third
of the average wealth would mean that, at the worst, such a family could have
a fairly comfortable home, an automobile, and a radio, with other reasonable
home conveniences, and a place to educate their children. Through sharing
the work, that is, by limiting the hours of toil so that all would share in what
is made and produced in the land, every family would have enough coming in
every year to feed, clothe, and provide a fair share of the luxuries of life to its
members. Such is the result to a family, at the worst.
From the worst to the best there would be no limit to opportunity. One
might become a millionaire or more. There would be a chance for talent to
make a man big, because enough would be floating in the land to give brains
its chance to be used. As it is, no matter how smart a man may be, everything
is tied up in so few hands that no amount of energy or talent has a chance to
gain any of it.
Would it break up big concerns? No. It would simply mean that, instead of
one man getting all the one concern made, that there might be 1,000 or 10,000
persons sharing in such excess fortune, any one of whom, or all of whom,
might be millionaires and over.
I ask somebody in every city, town, village, and farm community of America
to take this as my personal request to call a meeting of as many neighbors and
friends as will come to it to start a share-our-wealth society. Elect a president
and a secretary and charge no dues. The meeting can be held at a courthouse,
in some town hall or public building, or in the home of someone.
It does not matter how many will come to the first meeting. Get a society
organized, if it has only two members. Then let us get to work quick, quick,
quick to put an end by law to people starving and going naked in this land of
too much to eat and too much to wear. The case is all with us. It is the word
and work of the Lord. The Gideons had but two men when they organized.
Three tailors of Tooley Street drew the Magna Carta of England. The Lord says:
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F S E N AT O R H U E Y P. L O N G 717

“For where two or three are gathered together in My name, there am I in the
midst of them.”
We propose to help our people into the place where the Lord said was their
rightful own and no more.
We have waited long enough for these financial masters to do these things.
They have promised and promised. Now we find our country $10 billion fur-
ther in debt on account of the depression, and big lenders even propose to
get 90 percent of that out of the hides of the common people in the form of a
sales tax.
There is nothing wrong with the United States. We have more food than we
can eat. We have more clothes and things out of which to make clothes than
we can wear. We have more houses and lands than the whole 120 million can
use if they all had good homes. So what is the trouble? Nothing except that a
handful of men have everything and the balance of the people have nothing if
their debts were paid. There should be every man a king in this land flowing
with milk and honey instead of the lords of finance at the top and slaves and
peasants at the bottom.
Now be prepared for the slurs and snickers of some high-ups when you start
your local spread-our-wealth society. Also when you call your meeting be on
your guard for some smart-aleck tool of the interests to come in and ask ques-
tions. Refer such to me for an answer to any question, and I will send you a
copy. Spend your time getting the people to work to save their children and to
save their homes, or to get a home for those who have already lost their own.
To explain the title, motto, and principles of such a society I give the full in-
formation, viz:
Title: Share-our-wealth society is simply to mean that God’s creatures on this
lovely American continent have a right to share in the wealth they have created
in this country. They have the right to a living, with the conveniences and some
of the luxuries of this life, so long as there are too many or enough for all. They
have a right to raise their children in a healthy, wholesome atmosphere and to
educate them, rather than to face the dread of their under-nourishment and
sadness by being denied a real life.
Motto: “Every man a king” conveys the great plan of God and of the Declara-
tion of Independence, which said: “All men are created equal.” It conveys that
no one man is the lord of another, but that from the head to the foot of every
man is carried his sovereignty.
Now to cover the principles of the share-our-wealth society, I give them in
order:

1. To limit poverty:
We propose that a deserving family shall share in our wealth of Amer-
ica at least for one third the average. An average family is slightly less
718 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F S E N AT O R H U E Y P. L O N G

than five persons. The number has become less during depression. The
United States total wealth in normal times is about $400 billion or about
$15,000 to a family. If there were fair distribution of our things in Amer-
ica, our national wealth would be three or four or five times the $400
billion, because a free, circulating wealth is worth many times more than
wealth congested and frozen into a few hands as is America’s wealth. But,
figuring only on the basis of wealth as valued when frozen into a few
hands, there is the average of $15,000 to the family. We say that we will
limit poverty of the deserving people. One third of the average wealth to
the family, or $5,000, is a fair limit to the depths we will allow any one
man’s family to fall. None too poor, none too rich.
2. To limit fortunes:
The wealth of this land is tied up in a few hands. It makes no difference
how many years the laborer has worked, nor does it make any difference
how many dreary rows the farmer has plowed, the wealth he has created
is in the hands of manipulators. They have not worked any more than
many other people who have nothing. Now we do not propose to hurt
these very rich persons. We simply say that when they reach the place
of millionaires they have everything they can use and they ought to let
somebody else have something. As it is, 0.1 of 1 percent of the bank de-
positors nearly half of the money in the banks, leaving 99.9 of bank de-
positors owning the balance. Then two thirds of the people do not even
have a bank account. The lowest estimate is that 4 percent of the people
own 85 percent of our wealth. The people cannot ever come to light un-
less we share our wealth, hence the society to do it.
3. Old-age pensions:
Everyone has begun to realize something must be done for our old peo-
ple who work out their lives, feed and clothe children and are left pen-
niless in their declining years. They should be made to look forward to
their mature years for comfort rather than fear. We propose that, at the
age of 60, every person should begin to draw a pension from our Gov-
ernment of $30 per month, unless the person of 60 or over has an in-
come of over $1,000 per year or is worth $10,000, which is two thirds of
the average wealth in America, even figured on a basis of it being frozen
into a few hands. Such a pension would retire from labor those persons
who keep the rising generations from finding employment.
4. To limit the hours of work:
This applies to all industry. The longer hours the human family can rest
from work, the more it can consume. It makes no difference how many
labor-saving devices we may invent, just as long as we keep cutting
down the hours and sharing what those machines produce, the better we
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F S E N AT O R H U E Y P. L O N G 719

become. Machines can never produce too much if everybody is allowed

his share, and if it ever got to the point that the human family could
work only 15 hours per week and still produce enough for everybody,
then praised be the name of the Lord. Heaven would be coming nearer to
earth. All of us could return to school a few months every year to learn
some things they have found out since we were there: All could be gen-
tlemen: Every man a king.
5. To balance agricultural production with consumption:
About the easiest of all things to do when financial masters and market
manipulators step aside and let work the law of the Lord. When we have
a supply of anything that is more than we can use for a year or two, just
stop planting that particular crop for a year either in all the country or in
a part of it. Let the Government take over and store the surplus for the
next year. If there is not something else for the farmers to plant or some
other work for them to do to live on for the year when the crop is banned,
then let that be the year for the public works to be done in the section
where the farmers need work. There is plenty of it to do and taxes of the
big fortunes at the top will supply plenty of money without hurting any-
body. In time we would have the people not struggling to raise so much
when all were well fed and clothed. Distribution of wealth almost solves
the whole problem without further trouble.
6. To care for the veterans of our wars:
A restoration of all rights taken from them by recent laws and further, a
complete care of any disabled veteran for any ailment, who has no means
of support.
7. Taxation:
Taxation is to be levied first at the top for the Governments support and
expenses. Swollen fortunes should be reduced principally through taxa-
tion. The Government should be run through revenues it derives after
allowing persons to become well above millionaires and no more. In this
manner the fortunes will be kept down to reasonable size and at the same
time all the works of the Government kept on a sound basis, without
debts.

Things cannot continue as they now are. America must take one of three
choices, viz:

1. A monarchy ruled by financial masters—a modern feudalism.

2. Communism.
3. Sharing of the wealth and income of the land among all the people by
limiting the hours of toil and limiting the size of fortunes.
720 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M

The Lord prescribed the last form. It would preserve all our gains, share
them among our population, guarantee a greater country and a happy people.
The need for such share-our-wealth society is to spread the truth among the
people and to convey their sentiment to their Members of Congress.
Whenever such a local society has been organized, please send me notice of
the same, so that I may send statistics and data which such local society can
give out in their community, either through word of mouth in meetings, by cir-
culars, or, when possible, in local newspapers.
Please understand that the Wall Street controlled public press will give you
as little mention as possible and will condemn and ridicule your efforts. Such
makes necessary the organizations to share the wealth of this land among the
people, which the financial masters are determined they will not allow to be
done. Where possible, I hope those organizing a society in one community will
get in touch with their friends in other communities and get them to organize
societies in them. Anyone can have copies of this article reprinted in circular
form to distribute wherever they may desire, or, if they want me to have them
printed for them, I can do so and mail them to any address for 60 cents per
hundred or $4 per thousand copies.
I introduced in Congress and supported other measures to bring about the
sharing of our wealth when I first reached the United States Senate in January
1932. The main efforts to that effect polled about six votes in the Senate at first.
Last spring my plan polled the votes of nearly twenty United States Senators,
becoming dangerous in proportions to the financial lords. Since then I have
been abused in the newspapers and over the radio for everything under the
sun. Now that I am pressing this program, the lies and abuse in the big news-
papers and over the radio are a matter of daily occurrence. It will all become
greater with this effort. Expect that. Meantime go ahead with the work to orga-
nize a share-our-wealth society.

Source: Social Security Administration. Official Social Security Website. http://

www.ssa.gov/history/longsen.html.

Document 17
ASSASSINATION OF NGO DINH DIEM (1963)—STATE
DEPARTMENT CABLES CONCERNING THE COUP THAT
OVERTHREW PRESIDENT DIEM OF SOUTH VIETNAM

Reproduced below is a series of cables involving U.S. ambassador to Vietnam, Henry

Cabot Lodge Jr., just before the coup that overthrew Ngo Dinh Diem’s regime in the
Republic of Vietnam, or South Vietnam, on November 1, 1963. Lodge sent the first
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M 721

cable on October 25, 1963, to the special assistant to the president for national secu-
rity affairs, McGeorge Bundy, regarding Ngo Dinh Diem’s oppressive regime in South
Vietnam. Lodge stated, “It is vital that we neither thwart a coup nor that we are even
in a position where we do not know what is going on,” although the United States had
unofficially agreed to support the generals planning the coup in the establishment of
a superior government.
The second cable, from Bundy to Lodge, expressed reservations, stating that the coup
needed to be delayed, that Bundy did not believe victory was possible, and that pro-
longed fighting might incur. The third document is a transcript of a phone conversation
between Ngo Dinh Diem and Lodge on November 1, 1963, in which Lodge denies any
U.S. involvement in the insurgency. The fourth document is a November 2 cable from
Lodge describing what was known of the circumstances surrounding the death of Diem.

Cable from Ambassador Henry Cabot Lodge

to National Security Adviser McGeorge
Bundy (October 25, 1963)
1. I appreciate the concern expressed by you in ref. a relative to the Gen.
Don/Conein relationship, and also the present lack of firm intelligence
on the details of the general’s plot. I hope that ref. b will assist in clearing
up some of the doubts relative to general’s plans, and I am hopeful that
the detailed plans promised for two days before the coup attempt will
clear up any remaining doubts.
2. CAS [Classified American Source-refers to CIA] has been punctilious in
carrying out my instructions. I have personally approved each meeting
between Gen. Don and Conein who has carried out my orders in each
instance explicitly. While I share your concern about the continued in-
volvement of Conein in this matter, a suitable substitute for Conein as
the principal contact is not presently available. Conein, as you know, is a
friend of some eighteen years’ standing with Gen. Don, and General Don
has expressed extreme reluctance to deal with anyone else. I do not be-
lieve the involvement of another American in close contact with the gener-
als would be productive. We are, however, considering the feasibility of
a plan for the introduction of an additional officer as a cut-out between
Conein and a designee of Gen. Don for communication purposes only.
This officer is completely unwitting of any details of past or present coup
activities and will remain so.
3. With reference to Gen Harkins’ comment to Gen. Don which Don reports
to have referred to a presidential directive and the proposal for a meeting
with me, this may have served the useful purpose of allaying the Gen-
eral’s fears as to our interest. If this were a provocation, the GVN could
have assumed and manufactured any variations of the same theme. As a
722 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M

precautionary measure, however, I of course refused to see Gen. Don. As

to the lack of information as to General Don’s real backing, and the lack
of evidence that any real capabilities for action have been developed, ref.
b provides only part of the answer. I feel sure that the reluctance of the
generals to provide the U.S. with full details of their plans at this time, is
a reflection of their own sense of security and a lack of confidence that in
the large American community present in Saigon their plans will not be
prematurely revealed.
4. The best evidence available to the Embassy, which I grant you is not as
complete as we would like it, is that Gen. Don and the other generals in-
volved with him are seriously attempting to effect a change in the gov-
ernment. I do not believe that this is a provocation by Ngo Dinh Nhu,
although we shall continue to assess the planning as well as possible.
In the event that the coup aborts, or in the event that Nhu has master-
minded a provocation, I believe that our involvement to date through
Conein is still within the realm of plausible denial. CAS is perfectly pre-
pared to have me disavow Conein at any time it may serve the national
interest.
5. I welcome your reaffirming instructions contained in CAS Washington
[cable] 74228. It is vital that we neither thwart a coup nor that we are
even in a position where we do not know what is going on.
6. We should not thwart a coup for two reasons. First, it seems at least an
even bet that the next government would not bungle and stumble as
much as the present one has. Secondly, it is extremely unwise in the long
range for us to pour cold water on attempts at a coup, particularly when
they are just in their beginning stages. We should remember that this is
the only way in which the people in Vietnam can possibly get a change
of government. Whenever we thwart attempts at a coup, as we have done
in the past, we are incurring very long lasting resentments, we are assum-
ing an undue responsibility for keeping the incumbents in office, and
in general are setting ourselves in judgment over the affairs of Vietnam.
Merely to keep in touch with this situation and a policy merely limited
to “not thwarting” are courses both of which entail some risks but these
are lesser risks than either thwarting all coups while they are stillborn or
our not being informed of what is happening. All the above is totally dis-
tinct from not wanting U.S. military advisors to be distracted by matters
which are not in their domain, with which I heartily agree. But obviously
this does not conflict with a policy of not thwarting. In judging proposed
coups, we must consider the effect on the war effort. Certainly a suc-
cession of fights for control of the Government of Vietnam would inter-
fere with the war effort. It must also be said that the war effort has been
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M 723

interfered with already by the incompetence of the present government

and the uproar which this has caused.
7. Gen. Don’s intention to have no religious discrimination in a future gov-
ernment is commendable and I applaud his desire not to be “a vassal” of
the U.S. But I do not think his promise of a democratic election is realis-
tic. This country simply is not ready for that procedure. I would add two
other requirements. First, that there be no wholesale purges of person-
nel in the government. Individuals who were particularly reprehensible
could be dealt with later by the regular legal process. Then I would be
impractical, but I am thinking of a government which might include Tri
Quang and which certainly should include men of the stature of Mr. Buu,
the labor leader.
8. Copy to Gen. Harkins.

Cable from National Security Adviser McGeorge Bundy to

Ambassador Lodge (October 30, 1963)
1. Your [cables] 2023, 2040, 2041 and 2043 examined with care at high-
est levels here. You should promptly discuss this reply and associated
messages with Harkins whose responsibilities toward any coup are very
heavy especially after you leave (see para. 7 below). They give much
clearer picture group’s alleged plans and also indicate chances of action
with or without our approval now so significant that we should urgently
consider our attitude and contingency plans. We note particularly Don’s
curiosity your departure and his insistence Conein be available from
Wednesday night on, which suggests date might be as early as Thursday.
2. Believe our attitude to coup group can still have decisive effect on its
decisions. We believe that what we say to coup group can produce
delay of coup and that betrayal of coup plans to Diem is not repeat not
our only way of stopping coup. We therefore need urgently your com-
bined assessment with Harkins and CAS (including their separate com-
ments if they desire). We concerned that our line-up of forces in Saigon
(being cabled in next message) indicates approximately equal balance
of forces, with substantial possibility serious and prolonged fighting or
even defeat. Either of these could be serious or even disastrous for U.S.
interests, so that we must have assurance balance of forces clearly
favorable.
3. With your assessment in hand, we might feel that we should convey
message to Don, whether or not he gives 4 or 48 hours notice that would
(A) continue explicit hands-off policy, (B) positively encourage coup, or
(C) discourage.
724 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M

4. In any case, believe Conein should find earliest opportunity express to

Don that we do not find presently revealed plans give clear prospect of
quick results. This conversation should call attention important Saigon
units still apparently loyal to Diem and raise serious issue as to what
means coup group has to deal with them.
5. From operational standpoint, we also deeply concerned Don only spokes-
man for group and possibility cannot be discounted he may not be in good
faith. We badly need some corroborative evidence whether Minh and oth-
ers directly and completely involved. In view Don’s claim he doesn’t han-
dle “military planning” could not Conein tell Don that we need better
military picture and that Big Minh could communicate this most naturally
and easily to [General Richard] Stilwell [Harkins’ Chief of Staff]? We rec-
ognize desirability involving MACV [U.S. Military Assistance Command,
Vietnam] to minimum, but believe Stilwell far more desirable this pur-
pose than using Conein both ways.
6. Complexity above actions raises question whether you should adhere to
present Thursday schedule. Concur you and other U.S. elements should
take no action that could indicate U.S. awareness coup possibility. How-
ever, DOD [Department of Defense] is sending berth-equipped military
aircraft that will arrive Saigon Thursday and could take you out thereaf-
ter as late as Saturday afternoon in time to meet your presently proposed
arrival Washington Sunday. You could explain this being done as con-
venience and that your Washington arrival is same. A further advantage
such aircraft is that it would permit your prompt return from any point
en route if necessary. To reduce time in transit, you should use this plane,
but we recognize delaying your departure may involve greater risk that
you personally would appear involved if any action took place. However,
advantages your having extra two days in Saigon may outweigh this and
we leave timing of flight to your judgment.
7. Whether you leave Thursday or later, believe it essential that prior your
departure there be fullest consultation Harkins and CAS and that there
be clear arrangements for handling (A) normal activity, (B) continued
coup contacts, (C) action in event a coup starts. We assume you will wish
Truehart as charge to be head of country team in normal situation, but
highest authority desires it clearly understood that after your departure
Harkins should participate in supervision of all coup contacts and that
in event a coup begins, he become head of country team and direct rep-
resentative of President, with [William] Truehart [Deputy Chief of Mis-
sion] in effect acting as POLAD [Political Adviser]. On coup contacts we
will maintain continuous guidance and will expect equally continuous
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M 725

reporting with prompt account of any important divergences in assess-

ments of Harkins and Smith.
8. If coup should start, question of protecting U.S. nationals at once arises.
We can move Marine Battalion into Saigon by air from Okinawa within
24 hours—if available. We are sending instructions to CINCPAC to ar-
range orderly movement of seaborne Marine Battalion to waters adja-
cent to South Vietnam in position to close Saigon within approximately
24 hours.
9. We are now examining post-coup contingencies here and request
your immediate recommendations on position to be adopted after
coup begins, especially with respect to requests for assistance of dif-
ferent sorts from one side or the other also request you forward con-
tingency recommendations for action if coup (A) succeeds, (B) fails,
(C) is indecisive.
10. We reiterate burden of proof must be on coup group to show a sub-
stantial possibility of quick success; otherwise, we should discourage
them from proceeding since a miscalculation could result in jeopardiz-
ing U.S. position in Southeast Asia.

Phone Conversation between Ngo Dinh Diem and

Henry Cabot Lodge (November 1, 1963)
DIEM: Some Units have made a rebellion and I want to know, what is
the attitude of the U.S.?
LODGE: I do not feel well enough informed to be able to tell you. I have
heard the shootings but with all the facts. Also, it is 4: 30 A.M.
in Washington and the U.S. Government cannot possibly have
a view.
DIEM: But you must have some general ideas. After all, I am Chief of
State. I have tried to do my duty. I want to do now what duty and
good sense require. I believe in duty above all.
LODGE: You have certainly done your duty. As I told you only this morn-
ing, I admire your courage and your great contribution to your
country. No one can take away from you the credit for all you
have done. Now I am worried about your physical safety. I have
a report that those in charge of the current activity offer you and
your brother safe conduct out of the country if you resign. Had
you heard this?
DIEM: No. (pause) You have my phone number.
LODGE: Yes. If I can do anything for your physical safety, please call me.
DIEM: I am trying to re-establish order. (hangs up)
726 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F N G O D I N H D I E M

Cable from Ambassador Lodge to the

State Department (November 2, 1963)
Saigon, November 2, 1963, 8 P.M.
888. 1. Very reliable source gives following story about death of Diem
and Nhu:
They left the Palace on Friday evening of November 1 accompanied by Chinese
businessman who was the organizer of the Republican Youth in the Chinese
town of Cholon. This man had engaged in this work not because he believed in
it but in the interests of avoiding trouble for the Chinese community.
This Chinese took Diem and Nhu to a clubhouse which he owned where
they arrived at about nine o’clock. Diem and Nhu, through this Chinese busi-
nessman, made a strong effort to have ChiNat Embassy give them asylum, did
not succeed.
After spending the night in the clubhouse they, at eight o’clock in the morn-
ing went to church and about 10 minutes after that were picked up by the
Army and were forced to enter an Army vehicle into which they were locked.
This source does not know what happened after that-whether they are alive or
murdered or suicides.
2. Luong, Finance Minister in Diem government, together with Thuan and
former Economic Minister Thanh, spent Saturday afternoon at Generals’ head-
quarters. General Big Minh told him that Diem and Nhu had been found in a
church in Cholon at about 8 A.M. this morning and were locked up inside an
Army vehicle. Due to an inadvertence there was a gun inside the vehicle. It was
with this gun, said Big Minh, that they committed suicide.
3. Other versions received from CAS sources:
A. According one CAS report, Col. Pham Ngoc Thao said at 1130 November 2,
that he, with his forces, had entered Gia Long Palace in early morning hours
for purpose of escorting Diem and Nhu to JGS Hqs after their unconditional
surrender. Following search, it was determined that Diem and Nhu were not at
Gia Long and had not been there during course of coup. Thao returned to JGS
with this information. There followed check of villas in Saigon/Cholon known
to be used by Ngo family.
Detail, under personal direction of Gen Mai Huu Xuan, located Diem and
Nhu at villa on Phung Hung St., Cholon. Xuan returned to JGS with bodies of
Diem and Nhu. Nothing is known about actual cause of their demise.
B. Another CAS report indicates that Lt. Nguyen Ngoc Linh, Special Assis-
tant to General Nguyen Khanh, CG, II Corps, and at present in Saigon, said he
had personally viewed at 1330 November 2, bodies of Diem and Nhu at JGS
Hqs and there was no possibility of mistaken identities. Linh said it was clear
that Diem and Nhu had been assassinated, if not by Xuan personally, at least
at his direction.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 727

While above apparently confirmed information, it should be remembered

that current situation in Saigon is made to order for any speculation surround-
ing Diem and Nhu.
According to Thao and Linh, Diem and Nhu could have maintained tele-
phone communications from Cholon villa throughout coup since lines run
from Gia Long Palace to Thu Duc, and from Thu Duc to Cholon villa.
C. Still another CAS report indicates reliable source at JGS was told by
Generals Big Minh and Little Minh and other officers that Diem and Nhu es-
caped from Gia Long Palace shortly after 0700 hours, November 2, by third
tunnel which was unknown to Generals. Diem and Nhu left tunnel in dock area
and then went to Don Thanh Chinese Catholic Church in Cholon, where they
took poison. Diem and Nhu were found at church at 1030 furs. Usually reliable
source was offered opportunity to see remains of Diem and Nhu, offer which he
declined. CAS source has strong impression that Diem and Nhu are dead and
bodies are at JGS.
D. Finally, another CAS officer was informed by officer of J-2, JGS, that
President Diem, and his brother and one presidential orderly were caught and
killed by personnel under direction of Gen Mai Huu Xuan at church in Cho
Quan, Cholon. Also captured with them was Capt Do Hai, nephew of Do Mau,
Chief of Military Security Service.

Source: U.S. Department of State. Office of the Historian. http://history.state

.gov/historicaldocuments/frus1961–63v04/ch3.

Document 18
ASSASSINATION OF JOHN F. KENNEDY
(1963)—EXCERPTS FROM THE WARREN
COMMISSION REPORT (1964)

In a report issued on September 27, 1964, the Warren Commission presented its
findings to the American people regarding the assassination of John F. Kennedy on
November 22, 1963. Headed by U.S. Supreme Court Chief Justice Earl Warren, and
comprising many leading congressional and government figures of the day, including
future president Gerald R. Ford, the commission held that Lee Harvey Oswald had
acted alone in killing Kennedy and had not been part of a larger conspiracy. Officials
hoped that the report would put to rest a wide range of conspiracy theories regarding
the assassination, but, if anything, the report actually stirred more controversy. Many
Americans continue to believe that a conspiracy of one sort or another was behind
the assassination. The following excerpts from the report of the Warren Commission
include a narrative of the assassination and the commission’s conclusions.
728 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

THE ASSASSINATION of John Fitzgerald Kennedy on November 22, 1963,

was a cruel and shocking act of violence directed against a man, a family, a na-
tion, and against all mankind. A young and vigorous leader whose years of
public and private life stretched before him was the victim of the fourth Presi-
dential assassination in the history of a country dedicated to the concepts of
reasoned argument and peaceful political change. This Commission was cre-
ated on November 29, 1963, in recognition of the right of people everywhere
to full and truthful knowledge concerning these events. This report endeavors
to fulfill that right and to appraise this tragedy by the light of reason and the
standard of fairness. It has been prepared with a deep awareness of the Com-
mission’s responsibility to present to the American people an objective report
of the facts relating to the assassination.

Narrative of Events
At 11:40 A.M., c.s.t., on Friday, November 22, 1963, President John F. Kennedy,
Mrs. Kennedy, and their party arrived at Love Field, Dallas, Tex. Behind them
was the first day of a Texas trip planned 5 months before by the President, Vice
President Lyndon B. Johnson, and John B. Connally, Jr., Governor of Texas.
After leaving the White House on Thursday morning, the President had flown
initially to San Antonio where Vice President Lyndon B. Johnson joined the
party and the President dedicated new research facilities at the U.S. Air Force
School of Aerospace Medicine. Following a testimonial dinner in Houston for
U.S. Representative Albert Thomas, the President flew to Fort Worth where he
spent the night and spoke at a large breakfast gathering on Friday.
Planned for later that day were a motorcade through downtown Dallas, a
luncheon speech at the Trade Mart, and a flight to Austin where the President
would attend a reception and speak at a Democratic fundraising dinner. From
Austin he would proceed to the Texas ranch of the Vice President. Evident on
this trip were the varied roles which an American President performs—Head
of State, Chief Executive, party leader, and, in this instance, prospective candi-
date for reelection.
The Dallas motorcade, it was hoped, would evoke a demonstration of the
President’s personal popularity in a city which he had lost in the 1960 election.
Once it had been decided that the trip to Texas would span 2 days, those re-
sponsible for planning, primarily Governor Connally and Kenneth O’Donnell,
a special assistant to the President, agreed that a motorcade through Dallas
would be desirable. The Secret Service was told on November 8 that 45 min-
utes had been allotted to a motorcade procession from Love Field to the site of
a luncheon planned by Dallas business and civic leaders in honor of the Presi-
dent. After considering the facilities and security problems of several build-
ings, the Trade Mart was chosen as the luncheon site. Given this selection, and
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 729

in accordance with the customary practice of affording the greatest number

of people an opportunity to see the President, the motorcade route selected
was a natural one. The route was approved by the local host committee and
White House representatives on November 18 and publicized in the local pa-
pers starting on November 19. This advance publicity made it clear that the
motorcade would leave Main Street and pass the intersection of Elm and Hous-
ton Streets as it proceeded to the Trade Mart by way of the Stemmons Freeway.
By midmorning of November 22, clearing skies in Dallas dispelled the threat
of rain and the President greeted the crowds from his open limousine without
the “bubbletop,” which was at that time a plastic shield furnishing protection
only against inclement weather. To the left of the President in the rear seat was
Mrs. Kennedy. In the jump seats were Governor Connally, who was in front of
the President, and Mrs. Connally at the Governor’s left. Agent William R. Greer
of the Secret Service was driving, and Agent Roy H. Kellerman was sitting to
his right.
Directly behind the Presidential limousine was an open “follow-up” car with
eight Secret Service agents, two in the front seat, two in the rear, and two on
each running board. These agents, in accordance with normal Secret Service
procedures, were instructed to scan the crowds, the roofs, and windows of
buildings, overpasses, and crossings for signs of trouble. Behind the “follow-up”
car was the Vice-Presidential car carrying the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson
and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough. Next were a Vice-Presidential “follow-up”
car and several cars and buses for additional dignitaries, press representatives,
and others.
The motorcade left Love Field shortly after 11:50 A.M., and proceeded
through residential neighborhoods, stopping twice at the President’s request
to greet well-wishers among the friendly crowds. Each time the President’s car
halted, Secret Service agents from the “follow-up” car moved forward to as-
sume a protective stance near the President and Mrs. Kennedy. As the motor-
cade reached Main Street, a principal east-west artery in downtown Dallas,
the welcome became tumultuous. At the extreme west end of Main Street the
motorcade turned right on Houston Street and proceeded north for one block
in order to make a left turn on Elm Street, the most direct and convenient ap-
proach to the Stemmons Freeway and the Trade Mart. As the President’s car ap-
proached the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets, there loomed directly
ahead on the intersection’s northwest corner a seven-story, orange brick ware-
house and office building, the Texas School Book Depository. Riding in the
Vice President’s car, Agent Rufus W. Youngblood of the Secret Service noticed
that the clock atop the building indicated 12:30 P.M., the scheduled arrival
time at the Trade Mart.
The President’s car which had been going north made a sharp turn toward
the southwest onto Elm Street. At a speed of about 11 miles per hour, it started
730 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

down the gradual descent toward a railroad overpass under which the motor-
cade would proceed before reaching the Stemmons Freeway. The front of the
Texas School Book Depository was now on the President’s right, and he waved
to the crowd assembled there as he passed the building. Dealey Plaza—an
open, landscaped area marking the western end of downtown Dallas stretched
out to the President’s left. A Secret Service agent riding in the motorcade radi-
oed the Trade Mart that the President would arrive in 5 minutes.
Seconds later shots resounded in rapid succession. The President’s hands
moved to his neck. He appeared to stiffen momentarily and lurch slightly for-
ward in his seat. A bullet had entered the base of the back of his neck slightly
to the right of the spine. It traveled downward and exited from the front of
the neck, causing a nick in the left lower portion of the knot in the President’s
necktie. Before the shooting started, Governor Connally had been facing to-
ward the crowd on the right. He started to turn toward the left and suddenly
felt a blow on his back. The Governor had been hit by a bullet which entered at
the extreme right side of his back at a point below his right armpit. The bullet
traveled through his chest in a downward and forward direction, exited below
his right nipple, passed through his right wrist which had been in his lap, and
then caused a wound to his left thigh. The force of the bullet’s impact appeared
to spin the Governor to his right, and Mrs. Connally pulled him down into her
lap. Another bullet then struck President Kennedy in the rear portion of his
head, causing a massive and fatal wound. The President fell to the left into Mrs.
Kennedy’s lap.
Secret Service Agent Clinton J. Hill, riding on the left running board of the
“follow-up” car, heard a noise which sounded like a firecracker and saw the
President suddenly lean forward and to the left. Hill jumped off the car and
raced toward the President’s limousine. In the front seat of the Vice-Presidential
car, Agent Youngblood heard an explosion and noticed unusual movements in
the crowd. He vaulted into the rear seat and sat on the Vice President in order
to protect him. At the same time Agent Kellerman in the front seat of the Presi-
dential limousine turned to observe the President. Seeing that the President
was struck, Kellerman instructed the driver, “Let’s get out of here; we are hit.”
He radioed ahead to the lead car, “Get us to the hospital immediately.” Agent
Greer immediately accelerated the Presidential car. As it gained speed, Agent
Hill managed to pull himself onto the back of the car where Mrs. Kennedy
had climbed. Hill pushed her back into the rear seat and shielded the stricken
President and Mrs. Kennedy as the President’s car proceeded at high speed to
Parkland Memorial Hospital, 4 miles away.
At Parkland, the President was immediately treated by a team of physicians
who had been alerted for the President’s arrival by the Dallas Police Department
as the result of a radio message from the motorcade after the shooting. The doc-
tors noted irregular breathing movements and a possible heartbeat, although
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 731

they could not detect a pulsebeat. They observed the extensive wound in the
President’s head and a small wound approximately one-fourth inch in diameter
in the lower third of his neck. In act effort to facilitate breathing, the physicians
performed a tracheotomy by enlarging the throat wound and inserting a tube.
Totally absorbed in the immediate task of trying to preserve the President’s life,
the attending doctors never turned the president over for an examination of
his back. At l P.M., after all heart activity ceased and the Last Rites were admin-
istered by a priest, President Kennedy was pronounced dead. Governor Con-
nally underwent surgery and ultimately recovered from his serious wounds.
Upon learning of the President’s death, Vice President Johnson left Park-
land Hospital under close guard and proceeded to the Presidential plane at
Love Field. Mrs. Kennedy, accompanying her husband’s body, boarded the
plane shortly thereafter. At 2:38 P.M., in the central compartment of the plane,
Lyndon B. Johnson was sworn in as the 36th President of the United States
by Federal District Court Judge Sarah T. Hughes. The plane left immediately
for Washington, D.C., arriving at Andrews AFB, Md., at 5:58 P.M., e.s.t. The
President’s body was taken to the National Naval Medical Center, Bethesda,
Md., where it was given a complete pathological examination. The autopsy dis-
closed the large head wound observed at Parkland and the wound in the front
of the neck which had been enlarged by the Parkland doctors when they per-
formed the tracheotomy. Both of these wounds were described in the autopsy
report as being “presumably of exit.” In addition the autopsy revealed a small
wound of entry in the rear of the President’s skull and another wound of entry
near the base of the back of the neck. The autopsy report stated the cause of
death as “Gunshot wound, head” and the bullets which struck the President
were described as having been fired “from a point behind and somewhat above
the level of the deceased.”
At the scene of the shooting, there was evident confusion at the outset con-
cerning the point of origin of the shots. Witnesses differed in their accounts
of the direction from which the sound of the shots emanated. Within a few
minutes, however, attention centered on the Texas School Book Depository
Building as the source of the shots. The building was occupied by a private
corporation, the Texas School Book Depository Co., which distributed school
textbooks of several publishers and leased space to representatives of the pub-
lishers. Most of the employees in the building worked for these publishers. The
balance, including a 15-man warehousing crew, were employees of the Texas
School Book Depository Co. itself.
Several eyewitnesses in front of the building reported that they saw a rifle
being fired from the southeast corner window on the sixth floor of the Texas
School Book Depository. One eyewitness, Howard L. Brennan, had been watch-
ing the parade from a point on Elm Street directly opposite and facing the
building. He promptly told a policeman that he had seen a slender man, about
732 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

5 feet 10 inches, in his early thirties, take deliberate aim from the sixth-floor
corner window and fire a rifle in the direction of the President’s car. Brennan
thought he might be able to identify the man since he had noticed him in the
window a few minutes before the motorcade made the turn onto Elm Street.
At 12:34 P.M., the Dallas police radio mentioned the Depository Building as a
possible source of the shots, and at 12:45 P.M., the police radio broadcast a de-
scription of the suspected assassin based primarily on Brennan’s observations.
When the shots were fired, a Dallas motorcycle patrolman, Marrion L. Baker,
was riding in the motorcade at a point several cars behind the President. He
had turned right from Main Street onto Houston Street and was about 200 feet
south of Elm Street when he heard a shot. Baker, having recently returned from
a week of deer hunting, was certain the shot came from a high-powered rifle.
He looked up and saw pigeons scattering in the air from their perches on the
Texas School Book Depository Building. He raced his motorcycle to the build-
ing, dismounted, scanned the area to the west and pushed his way through the
spectators toward the entrance. There he encountered Roy Truly, the building
superintendent, who offered Baker his help. They entered the building, and
ran toward the two elevators in the rear. Finding that both elevators were on an
upper floor, they dashed up the stairs. Not more than 2 minutes had elapsed
since the shooting.
When they reached the second-floor landing on their way up to the top
of the building, Patrolman Baker thought he caught a glimpse of someone
through the small glass window in the door separating the hall area near the
stairs from the small vestibule leading into the lunchroom. Gun in hand, he
rushed to the door and saw a man about 20 feet away walking toward the other
end of the lunchroom. The man was empty handed. At Baker’s command, the
man turned and approached him. Truly, who had started up the stairs to the
third floor ahead of Baker, returned to see what had delayed the patrolman.
Baker asked Truly whether he knew the man in the lunchroom. Truly replied
that the man worked in the building, whereupon Baker turned from the man
and proceeded, with Truly, up the stairs. The man they encountered had started
working in the Texas School Book Depository Building on October 16, 1963.
His fellow workers described him as very quiet—a “loner.” His name was Lee
Harvey Oswald.
Within about 1 minute after his encounter with Baker and Truly, Oswald was
seen passing through the second-floor offices. In his hand was a full “Coke”
bottle which he had purchased from a vending machine in the lunchroom. He
was walking toward the front of the building where a passenger elevator and
a short flight of stairs provided access to the main entrance of the building
on the first floor. Approximately 7 minutes later, at about 12:40 P.M., Oswald
boarded a bus at a point on Elm Street seven short blocks east of the Deposi-
tory Building. The bus was traveling west toward the very building from which
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 733

Oswald had come. Its route lay through the Oak Cliff section in southwest
Dallas, where it would pass seven blocks east of the roominghouse in which
Oswald was living, at 1026 North Beckley Avenue. On the bus was Mrs. Mary
Bledsoe, one of Oswald’s former landladies who immediately recognized him.
Oswald stayed on the bus approximately 3 or 4 minutes, during which time it
proceeded only two blocks because of the traffic jam created by the motorcade
and the assassination. Oswald then left the bus. A few minutes later he entered
a vacant taxi four blocks away and asked the driver to take him to a point on
North Beckley Avenue several blocks beyond his roominghouse. The trip re-
quired 5 or 6 minutes. At about 1 P.M. Oswald arrived at the roominghouse.
The housekeeper, Mrs. Earlene Roberts, was surprised to see Oswald at mid-
day and remarked to him that he seemed to be in quite a hurry. He made no
reply. A few minutes later Oswald emerged from his room zipping up his jacket
and rushed out of the house.
Approximately 14 minutes later, and just 45 minutes after the assassina-
tion, another violent shooting occurred in Dallas. The victim was Patrolman
J. D. Tippit of the Dallas police, an officer with a good record during his more
than 11 years with the police force. He was shot near the intersection of 10th
Street and Patton Avenue, about nine-tenths of a mile from Oswald’s rooming-
house. At the time of the assassination, Tippit was alone in his patrol car, the
routine practice for most police patrol officers at this time of day. He had been
ordered by radio at 12:45 P.M. to proceed to the central Oak Cliff area as part
of a concentration of patrol car activity around the center of the city following
the assassination. At 12:54 Tippit radioed that he had moved as directed and
would be available for any emergency. By this time the police radio had broad-
cast several messages alerting the police to the suspect described by Brennan at
the scene of the assassination—slender white male, about 30 years old, 5 feet
10 inches and weighing about 165 pounds.
At approximately 1:15 P.M., Tippit was driving slowly in an easterly direc-
tion on East 10th Street in Oak Cliff. About 100 feet past the intersection of
10th Street and Patton Avenue, Tippit pulled up alongside a man walking in
the same direction. The man met the general description of the suspect wanted
in connection with the assassination. He walked over to Tippit’s car, rested his
arms on the door on the right-hand side of the car, and apparently exchanged
words with Tippit through the window. Tippit opened the door on the left side
and started to walk around the front of his car. As he reached the front wheel
on the driver’s side, the man on the sidewalk drew a revolver and fired several
shots in rapid succession, hitting Tippit four times and killing him instantly.
An automobile repairman, Domingo Benavides, heard the shots and stopped
his pickup truck on the opposite side of the street about 25 feet in front of Tip-
pit’s car. He observed the gunman start back toward Patton Avenue, removing
the empty cartridge cases from the gun as he went. Benavides rushed to Tippit’s
734 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

side. The patrolman, apparently dead, was lying on his revolver, which was out
of its holster. Benavides promptly reported the shooting to police headquarters
over the radio in Tippit’s car. The message was received shortly after 1:16 P.M.
As the gunman left the scene, he walked hurriedly back toward Patton Av-
enue and turned left, heading south. Standing on the northwest corner of 10th
Street and Patton Avenue was Helen Markham, who had been walking south
on Patton Avenue and had seen both the killer and Tippit cross the intersec-
tion in front of her as she waited on the curb for traffic to pass. She witnessed
the shooting and then saw the man with a gun in his hand walk back toward
the corner and cut across the lawn of the corner house as he started south on
Patton Avenue.
In the corner house itself, Mrs. Barbara Jeanette Davis and her sister-in-law,
Mrs. Virginia Davis, heard the shots and rushed to the door in time to see the
man walk rapidly across the lawn shaking a revolver as if he were emptying it
of cartridge cases. Later that day each woman found a cartridge case near the
home. As the gunman turned the corner he passed alongside a taxicab which
was parked on Patton Avenue a few feet from 10th Street. The driver, William W.
Scoggins, had seen the slaying and was now crouched behind his cab on the
street side. As the gunman cut through the shrubbery on the lawn, Scoggins
looked up and saw the man approximately 12 feet away. In his hand was a pis-
tol and he muttered words which sounded to Scoggins like “poor dumb cop”
or “poor damn cop.”
After passing Scoggins, the gunman crossed to the west side of Patton Av-
enue and ran south toward Jefferson Boulevard, a main Oak Cliff thoroughfare.
On the east side of Patton, between l0th Street and Jefferson Boulevard, Ted
Callaway, a used car salesman, heard the shots and ran to the sidewalk. As the
man with the gun rushed past, Callaway shouted “What’s going on?” The man
merely shrugged, ran on to Jefferson Boulevard and turned right. On the next
corner was a gas station with a parking lot in the rear. The assailant ran into the
lot, discarded his jacket and then continued his flight west on Jefferson.
In a shoe store a few blocks farther west on Jefferson, the manager, Johnny
Calvin Brewer, heard the siren of a police car moments after the radio in his
store announced the shooting of the police officer in Oak Cliff. Brewer saw a
man step quickly into the entranceway of the store and stand there with his
back toward the street. When the police car made a U-turn and headed back
in the direction of the Tippit shooting, the man left and Brewer followed him.
He saw the man enter the Texas Theatre, a motion picture house about 60 feet
away, without buying a ticket. Brewer pointed this out to the cashier, Mrs. Julia
Postal, who called the police. The time was shortly after 1:40 P.M.
At 1:29 P.M., the police radio had noted the similarity in the descriptions
of the suspects in the Tippit shooting and the assassination. At 1:45 P.M.,
in response to Mrs. Postal’s call, the police radio sounded the alarm: “Have
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 735

information a suspect just went in the Texas Theatre on West Jefferson.” Within
minutes the theater was surrounded. The house lights were then turned up.
Patrolman M. N. McDonald and several other policemen approached the man,
who had been pointed out to them by Brewer.
McDonald ordered the man to his feet and heard him say, “Well, it’s all over
now.” The man drew a gun from his waist with one hand and struck the officer
with the other. McDonald struck out with his right hand and grabbed the gun
with his left hand. After a brief struggle McDonald and several other police of-
ficers disarmed and handcuffed the suspect and drove him to police headquar-
ters, arriving at approximately 2 P.M.
Following the assassination, police cars had rushed to the Texas School
Book Depository in response to the many radio messages reporting that the
shots had been fired from the Depository Building. Inspector J. Herbert Sawyer
of the Dallas Police Department arrived at the scene shortly after hearing the
first of these police radio messages at 12:34 P.M. Some of the officers who had
been assigned to the area of Elm and Houston Streets for the motorcade were
talking to witnesses and watching the building when Sawyer arrived. Sawyer
entered the building and rode a passenger elevator to the fourth floor, which
was the top floor for this elevator. He conducted a quick search, returned to
the main floor and, between approximately 12:37 and 12:40 P.M., ordered that
no one be permitted to leave the building.
Shortly before 1 P.M. Capt. J. Will Fritz, chief of the homicide and robbery
bureau of the Dallas Police Department, arrived to take charge of the investiga-
tion. Searching the sixth floor, Deputy Sheriff Luke Mooney noticed a pile of
cartons in the southeast corner. He squeezed through the boxes and realized
immediately that he had discovered the point from which the shots had been
fired. On the floor were three empty cartridge cases. A carton had apparently
been placed on the floor at the side of the window so that a person sitting on
the carton could look down Elm Street toward the overpass and scarcely be
noticed from the outside. Between this carton and the half-open window were
three additional cartons arranged at such an angle that a rifle resting on the
top carton would be aimed directly at the motorcade as it moved away from
the building. The high stack of boxes, which first attracted Mooney’s attention
effectively screened a person at the window from the view of anyone else on
the floor.
Mooney’s discovery intensified the search for additional evidence on the
sixth floor, and at 1:22 P.M. approximately 10 minutes after the cartridge cases
were found, Deputy Sheriff Eugene Boone turned his flashlight in the direction
of two rows of boxes in the northwest corner near the staircase. Stuffed be-
tween the two rows was a bolt-action rifle with a telescopic sight. The rifle was
not touched until it could be photographed. When Lt. J. C. Day of the police
identification bureau decided that the wooden stock and the metal knob at the
736 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

end of the bolt contained no prints, he held the rifle by the stock while Cap-
tain Fritz ejected a live shell by operating the bolt. Lieutenant Day promptly
noted that stamped on the rifle itself was the serial number “C2766” as well
as the markings “1940” “MADE ITALY” and “CAL. 6.5.” The rifle was about
40 inches long and when disassembled it could fit into a handmade paper sack
which after the assassination, was found in the southeast corner of the building
within a few feet of the cartridge cases.
As Fritz and Day were completing their examination of this rifle on the sixth
floor, Roy Truly, the building superintendent, approached with information
which he felt should be brought to the attention of the police. Earlier, while
the police were questioning the employees, Truly had observed that Lee Har-
vey Oswald, 1 of the 15 men who worked in the warehouse, was missing.
After Truly provided Oswald’s name, address, and general description, Fritz
left for police headquarters. He arrived at headquarters shortly after 2 P.M. and
asked two detectives to pick up the employee who was missing from the Texas
School Book Depository. Standing nearby were the police officers who had just
arrived with the man arrested in the Texas Theatre. When Fritz mentioned the
name of the missing employee, he learned that the man was already in the inter-
rogation room. The missing School Book Depository employee and the suspect
who had been apprehended in the Texas Theatre were one and the same—Lee
Harvey Oswald.
The suspect Fritz was about to question in connection with the assassination
of the President and the murder of a policeman was born in New Orleans on
October 18, 1939, 2 months after the death of his father. His mother, Margue-
rite Claverie Oswald, had two older children. One, John Pic, was a half-brother
to Lee from an earlier marriage which had ended in divorce. The other was
Robert Oswald, a full brother to Lee and 5 years older. When Lee Oswald was
3, Mrs. Oswald placed him in an orphanage where his brother and half-brother
were already living, primarily because she had to work.
In January 1944, when Lee was 4, he was taken out of the orphanage, and
shortly thereafter his mother moved with him to Dallas, Tex., where the older
boys joined them at the end of the school year. In May of 1945 Marguerite Os-
wald married her third husband, Edwin A. Ekdahl. While the two older boys
attended a military boarding school, Lee lived at home and developed a warm
attachment to Ekdahl, occasionally accompanying his mother and stepfather
on business trips around the country. Lee started school in Benbrook, Tex., but
in the fall of 1946, after a separation from Ekdahl, Marguerite Oswald reen-
tered Lee in the first grade in Covington, La. In January 1947, while Lee was
still in the first grade, the family moved to Fort Worth, Tex., as the result of an
attempted reconciliation between Ekdahl and Lee’s mother. A year and a half
later, before Lee was 9, his mother was divorced from her third husband as the
result of a divorce action instituted by Ekdahl. Lee’s school record during the
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 737

next 5 and a half years in Fort Worth was average, although generally it grew
poorer each year. The comments of teachers and others who knew him at that
time do not reveal any unusual personality traits or characteristics.
Another change for Lee Oswald occurred in August 1952, a few months
after he completed the sixth grade. Marguerite Oswald and her 12-year-old
son moved to New York City where Marguerite’s oldest son, John Pic, was sta-
tioned with the Coast Guard. The ensuing year and one-half in New York was
marked by Lee’s refusals to attend school and by emotional and psychologi-
cal problems of a seemingly serious nature. Because he had become a chronic
school truant, Lee underwent psychiatric study at Youth House, an institution
in New York for juveniles who have had truancy problems or difficulties with
the law, and who appear to require psychiatric observation, or other types of
guidance. The social worker assigned to his case described him as “seriously
detached” and “withdrawn” and noted “a rather pleasant, appealing quality
about this emotionally starved, affectionless youngster.” Lee expressed the feel-
ing to the social worker that his mother did not care for him and regarded
him as a burden. He experienced fantasies about being all powerful and hurt-
ing people, but during his stay at Youth House he was apparently not a be-
havior problem. He appeared withdrawn and evasive, a boy who preferred to
spend his time alone, reading and watching television. His tests indicated that
he was above average in intelligence for his age group. The chief psychiatrist
of Youth House diagnosed Lee’s problem as a “personality pattern disturbance
with schizoid features and passive-aggressive tendencies.” He concluded that
the boy was “an emotionally, quite disturbed youngster” and recommended
psychiatric treatment.
In May 1953, after having been at Youth House for 3 weeks, Lee Oswald re-
turned to school where his attendance and grades temporarily improved. By
the following fall, however, the probation officer reported that virtually every
teacher complained about the boy’s behavior. His mother insisted that he did
not need psychiatric assistance. Although there was apparently some improve-
ment in Lee’s behavior during the next few months, the court recommended
further treatment. In January 1954, while Lee’s case was still pending, Margue-
rite and Lee left for New Orleans, the city of Lee’s birth.
Upon his return to New Orleans, Lee maintained mediocre grades but had
no obvious behavior problems. Neighbors and others who knew him outside
of school remembered him as a quiet, solitary and introverted boy who read
a great deal and whose vocabulary made him quite articulate. About l month
after he started the l0th grade and 11 days before his 16th birthday in October
1955, he brought to school a note purportedly written by his mother, stating
that the family was moving to California. The note was written by Lee. A few
days later he dropped out of school and almost immediately tried to join the
Marine Corps. Because he was only 16, he was rejected. After leaving school
738 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

Lee worked for the next 10 months at several jobs in New Orleans as an office
messenger or clerk. It was during this period that he started to read communist
literature. Occasionally, in conversations with others, he praised communism
and expressed to his fellow employees a desire to join the Communist Party.
At about this time, when he was not yet 17, he wrote to the Socialist Party of
America, professing his belief in Marxism.
Another move followed in July 1956 when Lee and his mother returned to
Fort Worth. He reentered high school but again dropped out after a few weeks
and enlisted in the Marine Corps on October 1956, 6 days after his 17th birth-
day. On December 21, 1956, during boot camp in San Diego, Oswald fired a
score of 212 for record with the M-1 rifle—2 points over the minimum for a
rating of “sharpshooter” on a marksman/sharpshooter/expert scale. After his
basic training, Oswald received training in aviation fundamentals and then in
radar scanning.
Most people who knew Oswald in the Marines described him as “loner” who
resented the exercise of authority by others. He spent much of his free time
reading. He was court-martialed once for possessing an unregistered privately
owned weapon and, on another occasion, for using provocative language to a
noncommissioned officer. He was, however, generally able to comply with Ma-
rine discipline, even though his experiences in the Marine Corps did not live
up to his expectations.
Oswald served 15 months overseas until November 1958, most of it in
Japan. During his final year in the Marine Corps he was stationed for the most
part in Santa Ana, Calif., where he showed marked interest in the Soviet Union
and sometimes expressed politically radical views with dogmatic conviction.
Oswald again fired the M-1 rifle for record on May 6, 1959, and this time
he shot a score of 191 on a shorter course than before, only 1 point over the
minimum required to be a “marksman.” According to one of his fellow ma-
rines, Oswald was not particularly interested in his rifle performance, and his
unit was not expected to exhibit the usual rifle proficiency. During this period
he expressed strong admiration for Fidel Castro and an interest in joining the
Cuban army. He tried to impress those around him as an intellectual, but his
thinking appeared to some as shallow and rigid.
Oswald’s Marine service terminated on September 11, 1959, when at his
own request he was released from active service a few months ahead of his
scheduled release. He offered as the reason for his release the ill health and
economic plight of his mother. He returned to Fort Worth, remained with his
mother only 3 days and left for New Orleans, telling his mother he planned to
get work there in the shipping or import-export business. In New Orleans he
booked passage on the freighter SS Marion Lykes, which sailed from New Or-
leans to Le Havre, France, on September 20, 1959.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 739

Lee Harvey Oswald had presumably planned this step in his life for quite
some time. In March of 1959 he had applied to the Albert Schweitzer Col-
lege in Switzerland for admission to the Spring 1960 term. His letter of ap-
plication contained many blatant falsehoods concerning his qualifications and
background. A few weeks before his discharge he had applied for and obtained
a passport, listing the Soviet Union as one of the countries which he planned
to visit. During his service in the Marines he had saved a comparatively large
sum of money, possibly as much as $1,500, which would appear to have been
accomplished by considerable frugality and apparently for a specific purpose.
The purpose of the accumulated fund soon became known. On October 16,
1959, Oswald arrived in Moscow by train after crossing the border from Fin-
land, where he had secured a visa for a 6-day stay in the Soviet Union. He
immediately applied for Soviet citizenship. On the afternoon of October 21,
1959, Oswald was ordered to leave the Soviet Union by 8 P.M. that evening.
That same afternoon in his hotel room Oswald, in an apparent suicide at-
tempt, slashed his left wrist. He was hospitalized immediately. On October 31,
3 days after his release from the hospital, Oswald appeared at the American
Embassy, announced that he wished to renounce his U.S. citizenship and be-
come a Russian citizen, and handed the Embassy officer a written statement he
had prepared for the occasion. When asked his reasons, Oswald replied, “I am
a Marxist.” Oswald never formally complied with the legal steps necessary to
renounce his American citizenship. The Soviet Government did not grant his
request for citizenship, but in January 1960 he was given permission to remain
in the Soviet Union on a year-to-year basis. At the same time Oswald was sent
to Minsk where he worked in radio factory as an unskilled laborer. In January
1961 his permission to remain in the Soviet Union was extended for another
year. A few weeks later, in February 1961, he wrote to the American Embassy
in Moscow expressing a desire to return to the United States.
The following month Oswald met a 19-year-old Russian girl, Marina Niko-
laevna Prusakova, a pharmacist, who had been brought up in Leningrad but was
then living with an aunt and uncle in Minsk. They were married on April 30,
1961. Throughout the following year he carried on a correspondence with
American and Soviet authorities seeking approval for the departure of him-
self and his wife to the United States. In the course of this effort, Oswald and
his wife visited the U.S. Embassy in Moscow in July of 1961. Primarily on the
basis of an interview and questionnaire completed there, the Embassy con-
cluded that Oswald had not lost his citizenship, a decision subsequently rati-
fied by the Department of State in Washington, D.C. Upon their return to
Minsk, Oswald and his wife filed with the Soviet authorities for permission to
leave together. Their formal application was made in July 1961, and on De-
cember 25, 1961, Marina Oswald was advised it would be granted.
740 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

A daughter was born to the Oswalds in February 1962. In the months that
followed they prepared for their return to the United States. On May 9, 1962
the U.S. Immigration and Naturalization Service, at the request of the Depart-
ment of State, agreed to waive a restriction under the law which would have
prevented the issuance of a United States visa to Oswald’s Russian wife until
she had left the Soviet Union. They finally left Moscow on June 1, 1962, and
were assisted in meeting their travel expenses by a loan of $435.71 from the
U.S. Department of State. Two weeks later they arrived in Fort Worth, Tex.
For a few weeks Oswald, his wife and child lived with Oswald’s brother
Robert. After a similar stay with Oswald’s mother, they moved into their own
apartment in early August. Oswald obtained a job on July 16 as a sheet metal
worker. During this period in Fort Worth, Oswald was interviewed twice by
agents of the FBI. The report of the first interview, which occurred on June 26,
described him as arrogant and unwilling to discuss the reasons why he had
gone to the Soviet Union. Oswald denied that he was involved in Soviet intel-
ligence activities and promised to advise the FBI if Soviet representatives ever
communicated with him. He was interviewed again on August 16, when he
displayed a less belligerent attitude and once again agreed to inform the FBI of
any attempt to enlist him in intelligence activities.
In early October 1962 Oswald quit his job at the sheet metal plant and moved
to Dallas. While living in Forth Worth the Oswalds had been introduced to a
group of Russian-speaking people in the Dallas Fort Worth area. Many of them
assisted the Oswalds by providing small amounts of food, clothing, and house-
hold items. Oswald himself was disliked by almost all of this group whose help
to the family was prompted primarily by sympathy for Marina Oswald and the
child. Despite the fact that he had left the Soviet Union, disillusioned with its
Government, Oswald seemed more firmly committed than ever to his concepts
of Marxism. He showed disdain for democracy, capitalism, and American so-
ciety in general. He was highly critical of the Russian-speaking group because
they seemed devoted to American concepts of democracy and capitalism and
were ambitious to improve themselves economically.
In February 1963 the Oswalds met Ruth Paine at a social gathering. Ruth
Paine was temporarily separated from her husband and living with her two
children in their home in Irving, Tex., a suburb of Dallas because of an interest
in the Russian language and sympathy for Marina Oswald, who spoke no En-
glish and had little funds, Ruth Paine befriended Marina and, during the next
2 months, visited her on several occasions.
On April 6, 1963, Oswald lost his job with a photography firm. A few days
later, on April 10, he attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Retired,
U.S. Army), using a rifle which he had ordered by mail 1 month previously
under an assumed name. Marina Oswald learned of her husband’s act when
she confronted him with a note which he had left, giving her instructions in
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 741

the event he did not return. That incident, and their general economic difficul-
ties impelled Marina Oswald to suggest that her husband leave Dallas and go to
New Orleans to look for work.
Oswald left for New Orleans on April 24, 1963. Ruth Paine, who knew
nothing of the Walker shooting, invited Marina Oswald and the baby to stay
with her in the Paines’ modest home while Oswald sought work in New Or-
leans. Early in May, upon receiving word from Oswald that he had found a
job, Ruth Paine drove Marina Oswald and the baby to New Orleans to rejoin
Oswald.
During the stay in New Orleans, Oswald formed a fictitious New Orleans
Chapter of the Fair Play for Cuba Committee. He posed as secretary of this or-
ganization and represented that the president was A. J. Hidell. In reality, Hidell
was a completely fictitious person created by Oswald, the organization’s only
member. Oswald was arrested on August 9 in connection with a scuffle which
occurred while he was distributing pro-Castro leaflets. The next day, while at
the police station, he was interviewed by an FBI agent after Oswald requested
the police to arrange such an interview. Oswald gave the agent false informa-
tion about his own background and was evasive in his replies concerning Fair
Play for Cuba activities. During the next 2 weeks Oswald appeared on radio
programs twice, claiming to be the spokesman for the Fair Play for Cuba Com-
mittee in New Orleans.
On July 19, 1963, Oswald lost his job as a greaser of coffee processing machin-
ery. In September, after an exchange of correspondence with Marina Oswald,
Ruth Paine drove to New Orleans and on September 23, transported Marina,
the child, and the family belongings to Irving, Tex. Ruth Paine suggested that
Marina Oswald, who was expecting her second child in October, live at the
Paine house until after the baby was born. Oswald remained behind, ostensi-
bly to find work either in Houston or some other city. Instead, he departed by
bus for Mexico, arriving in Mexico City on September 27, where he promptly
visited the Cuban and Russian Embassies. His stated objective was to obtain
official permission to visit Cuba, on his way to the Soviet Union. The Cuban
Government would not grant his visa unless the Soviet Government would also
issue a visa permitting his entry into Russia. Oswald’s efforts to secure these
visas failed, and he left for Dallas, where he arrived on October 3, 1963.
When he saw his wife the next day, it was decided that Oswald would rent a
room in Dallas and visit his family on weekends. For 1 week he rented a room
from Mrs. Bledsoe, the woman who later saw him on the bus shortly after the
assassination. On October 14, 1963, he rented the Beckley Avenue room and
listed his name as O. H. Lee. On the same day, at the suggestion of a neighbor,
Mrs. Paine phoned the Texas School Book Depository and was told that there
was a job opening. She informed Oswald who was interviewed the following
day at the Depository and started to work there on October 16, 1963.
742 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

On October 20 the Oswalds’ second daughter was born. During October

and November Oswald established a general pattern of weekend visits to Ir-
ving, arriving on Friday afternoon and returning to Dallas Monday morning
with a fellow employee, Buell Wesley Frazier, who lived near the Paines. On
Friday, November 15, Oswald remained in Dallas at the suggestion of his wife
who told him that the house would be crowded because of a birthday party
for Ruth Paine’s daughter. On Monday, November 18, Oswald and his wife
quarreled bitterly during a telephone conversation, because she learned for
the first time that he was living at the roominghouse under an assumed name.
On Thursday, November 21, Oswald told Frazier that he would like to drive
to Irving to pick up some curtain rods for an apartment in Dallas. His wife and
Mrs. Paine were quite surprised to see him since it was a Thursday night. They
thought he had returned to make up after Monday’s quarrel. He was concilia-
tory, but Marina Oswald was still angry.
Later that evening, when Mrs. Paine had finished cleaning the kitchen, she
went into the garage and noticed that the light was burning. She was certain
that she had not left it on, although the incident appeared unimportant at the
time. In the garage were most of the Oswalds’ personal possessions. The fol-
lowing morning Oswald left while his wife was still in bed feeding the baby.
She did not see him leave the house, nor did Ruth Paine. On the dresser in
their room he left his wedding ring which he had never done before. His wallet
containing $170 was left intact in a dresser-drawer.
Oswald walked to Frazier’s house about half a block away and placed a long
bulky package, made out of wrapping paper and tape, into the rear seat of
the car. He told Frazier that the package contained curtain rods. When they
reached the Depository parking lot, Oswald walked quickly ahead. Frazier fol-
lowed and saw Oswald enter the Depository Building carrying the long bulky
package with him.
During the morning of November 22, Marina Oswald followed President
Kennedy’s activities on television. She and Ruth Paine cried when they heard
that the President had been shot. Ruth Paine translated the news of the shoot-
ing to Marina Oswald as it came over television, including the report that the
shots were probably fired from the building where Oswald worked. When Ma-
rina Oswald heard this, she recalled the Walker episode and the fact that her
husband still owned the rifle. She went quietly to the Paine’s garage where
the rifle had been concealed in a blanket among their other belongings. It ap-
peared to her that the rifle was still there, although she did not actually open
the blanket.
At about 3 P.M. the police arrived at the Paine house and asked Marina Os-
wald whether her husband owned a rifle. She said that he did and then led them
into the garage and pointed to the rolled up blanket. As a police officer lifted
it, the blanket hung limply over either side of his arm. The rifle was not there.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 743

Meanwhile, at police headquarters Captain Fritz had begun questioning Os-

wald. Soon after the start of the first interrogation, agents of the FBI and the
U.S. Secret Service arrived and participated in the questioning. Oswald denied
having anything to do with the assassination of President Kennedy or the mur-
der of Patrolman Tippit. He claimed that he was eating lunch at the time of
the assassination, and that he then spoke with his foreman for 5 to 10 minutes
before going home. He denied that he owned a rifle and when confronted, in
a subsequent interview, with a picture showing him holding a rifle and pistol,
he claimed that his face had been superimposed on someone else’s body. He
refused to answer any questions about the presence in his wallet of a selective
service card with his picture and the name “Alek J. Hidell.”
During the questioning of Oswald on the third floor of the police depart-
ment, more than 100 representatives of the press, radio, and television were
crowded into the hallway through which Oswald had to pass when being
taken from his cell to Captain Fritz’ office for interrogation. Reporters tried to
interview Oswald during these trips. Between Friday afternoon and Sunday
morning he appeared in the hallway at least 16 times. The generally confused
conditions outside and inside Captain Fritz’ office increased the difficulty of
police questioning. Advised by the police that he could communicate with
an attorney, Oswald made several telephone calls on Saturday in an effort to
procure representation of his own choice and discussed the matter with the
president of the local bar association, who offered to obtain counsel Oswald
declined the offer saying that he would first try to obtain counsel by himself.
By Sunday morning he had not yet engaged an attorney.
At 7:10 P.M. on November 22, 1963, Lee Harvey Oswald was formally ad-
vised that he had been charged with the murder of Patrolman J. D. Tippit. Sev-
eral witnesses to the Tippit slaying and to the subsequent flight of the gunman
had positively identified Oswald in police lineups. While positive firearm iden-
tification evidence was not available at the time, the revolver in Oswald’s pos-
session at the time of his arrest was of a type which could have fired the shots
that killed Tippit.
The formal charge against Oswald for the assassination of President Kennedy
was lodged shortly after 1:30 A.M., on Saturday, November 23. By 10 P.M. of the
day of the assassination, the FBI had traced the rifle found on the sixth floor
of the Texas School Book Depository to a mail order house in Chicago which
had purchased it from a distributor in New York. Approximately 6 hours later
the Chicago firm advised that this rifle had been ordered in March 1963 by an
A. Hidel for shipment to post office box 2915, in Dallas, Tex., box rented by
Oswald. Payment for the rifle was remitted by a money order signed by A. Hidell.
By 6:45 P.M. on November 23, the FBI was able to advise the Dallas police
that, as a result of handwriting analysis of the documents used to purchase the
rifle, it had concluded that the rifle had been ordered by Lee Harvey Oswald.
744 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

Throughout Friday and Saturday, the Dallas police released to the pub-
lic many of the details concerning the alleged evidence against Oswald. Police
officials discussed important aspects of the case, usually in the course of im-
promptu and confused press conferences in the third-floor corridor. Some of
the information divulged was erroneous. Efforts by the news media representa-
tives to reconstruct the crime and promptly report details frequently led to er-
roneous and often conflicting reports. At the urgings of the newsmen, Chief of
Police Jesse E. Curry, brought Oswald to a press conference in the police assem-
bly room shortly after midnight of the day Oswald was arrested. The assembly
room was crowded with newsmen who had come to Dallas from all over the
country. They shouted questions at Oswald and flashed cameras at him. Among
this group was a 52-year-old Dallas nightclub operator—Jack Ruby.
On Sunday morning, November 24, arrangements were made for Oswald’s
transfer from the city jail to the Dallas County jail, about 1 mile away. The
news media had been informed on Saturday night that the transfer of Oswald
would not take place until after 10 A.M. on Sunday. Earlier on Sunday, between
2:30 and 3 A.M., anonymous telephone calls threatening Oswald’s life had been
received by the Dallas office of the FBI and by the office of the county sheriff.
Nevertheless, on Sunday morning, television, radio, and newspaper represen-
tatives crowded into the basement to record the transfer. As viewed through
television cameras, Oswald would emerge from a door in front of the cameras
and proceed to the transfer vehicle. To the right of the cameras was a “down”
ramp from Main Street on the north. To the left was an “up” ramp leading to
Commerce Street on the south.
The armored truck in which Oswald was to be transferred arrived shortly
after 11 A.M. Police officials then decided, however, that an unmarked police
car would be preferable for the trip because of its greater speed and maneuver-
ability. At approximately 11:20 A.M. Oswald emerged from the basement jail
office flanked by detectives on either side and at his rear. He took a few steps
toward the car and was in the glaring light of the television cameras when a
man suddenly darted out from an area on the right of the cameras where news-
men had been assembled. The man was carrying a Colt .38 revolver in his right
hand and, while millions watched on television, he moved quickly to within a
few feet of Oswald and fired one shot into Oswald’s abdomen. Oswald groaned
with pain as he fell to the ground and quickly lost consciousness. Within
7 minutes Oswald was at Parkland Hospital where, without having regained
consciousness, he was pronounced dead at 1:07 P.M.
The man who killed Oswald was Jack Ruby. He was instantly arrested and,
minutes later, confined in a cell on the fifth floor of the Dallas police jail. Under
interrogation, he denied that the killing of Oswald was in any way connected
with a conspiracy involving the assassination of President Kennedy. He main-
tained that he had killed Oswald in a temporary fit of depression and rage over
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 745

the President’s death. Ruby was transferred the following day to the county jail
without notice to the press or to police officers not directly involved in the trans-
fer. Indicted for the murder of Oswald by the State of Texas on November 26,
1963, Ruby was found guilty on March 14, 1964, and sentenced to death. As
of September 1964, his case was pending on appeal.

Conclusions
This Commission was created to ascertain the facts relating to the preceding
summary of events and to consider the important questions which they raised.
The Commission has addressed itself to this task and has reached certain con-
clusions based on all the available evidence. No limitations have been placed
on the Commission’s inquiry; it has conducted its own investigation, and all
Government agencies have fully discharged their responsibility to cooperate
with the Commission in its investigation. These conclusions represent the rea-
soned judgment of all members of the Commission and are presented after an
investigation which has satisfied the Commission that it: has ascertained the
truth concerning the assassination of President Kennedy to the extent that a
prolonged and thorough search makes this possible.

1. The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Con-
nally were fired from the sixth floor window at the southeast corner of
the Texas School Book Depository. This determination is based upon the
following:
(a) Witnesses at the scene of the assassination saw a rifle being fired
from the sixth floor window of the Depository Building, and some
witnesses saw a rifle in the window immediately after the shots were
fired.
(b) The nearly whole bullet found on Governor Connally’s stretcher at
Parkland Memorial Hospital and the two bullet fragments found
in the front seat of the Presidential limousine were fired from the
6.5-millimeter Mannlicher-Carcano rifle found on the sixth floor of
the Depository Building to the exclusion of all other weapons.
(c) The three used cartridge cases found near the window on the sixth
floor at the southeast corner of the building were fired from the same
rifle which fired the above-described bullet and fragments, to the ex-
clusion of all other weapons.
(d) The windshield in the Presidential limousine was struck by a bullet
fragment on the inside surface of the glass, but was not penetrated.
(e) The nature of the bullet wounds suffered by President Kennedy and
Governor Connally and the location of the car at the time of the
746 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

shots establish that the bullets were fired from above and behind the
Presidential limousine, striking the President and the Governor as
follows:
1. President Kennedy was first struck by a bullet which entered at
the back of his neck and exited through the lower front portion of
his neck, causing a wound which would not necessarily have been
lethal. The President was struck a second time by a bullet which
entered the right-rear portion of his head, causing a massive and
fatal wound.
2. Governor Connally was struck by a bullet which entered on the
right side of his back and traveled downward through the right
side of his chest, exiting below his right nipple. This bullet then
passed through his right wrist and entered his left thigh where it
caused a superficial wound.
(f) There is no credible evidence that the shots were fired from the Triple
Underpass, ahead of the motorcade, or from any other location.
3. The weight of the evidence indicates that there were three shots fired.
4. Although it is not necessary to any essential findings of the Commis-
sion to determine just which shot hit Governor Connally, there is very
persuasive evidence from the experts to indicate that the same bullet
which pierced the President’s throat also caused Governor Connally’s
wounds. However, Governor Connally’s testimony and certain other
factors have given rise to some difference of opinion as to this prob-
ability but there is no question in the mind of any member of the Com-
mission that all the shots which caused the President’s and Governor
Connally’s wounds were fired from the sixth floor window of the Texas
School Book Depository.
5. The shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded Governor Con-
nally were fired by Lee Harvey Oswald. This conclusion is based upon
the following:
(a) The Mannlicher-Carcano 6.5-millimeter Italian rifle from which the
shots were fired was owned by and in the possession of Oswald.
(b) Oswald carried this rifle into the Depository Building on the morn-
ing of November 22, 1963.
(c) Oswald, at the time of the assassination, was present at the window
from which the shots were fired.
(d) Shortly after the assassination, the Mannlicher-Carcano rifle belong-
ing to Oswald was found partially hidden between some cartons
on the sixth floor and the improvised paper bag in which Oswald
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 747

brought the rifle to the Depository was found dose by the window
from which the shots were fired.
(e) Based on testimony of the experts and their analysis of films of the
assassination, the Commission has concluded that a rifleman of Lee
Harvey Oswald’s capabilities could have fired the shots from the rifle
used in the assassination within the elapsed time of the shooting. The
Commission has concluded further that Oswald possessed the capa-
bility with a rifle which enabled him to commit the assassination.
(f) Oswald lied to the police after his arrest concerning important sub-
stantive matters.
(g) Oswald had attempted to kill Maj. Gen. Edwin A. Walker (Retired,
U.S. Army) on April 10, 1963, thereby demonstrating his disposition
to take human life.

6. Oswald killed Dallas Police Patrolman J. D. Tippit approximately 45 min-

utes after the assassination. This conclusion upholds the finding that
Oswald fired the shots which killed President Kennedy and wounded
Governor Connally and is supported by the following:

(a) Two eyewitnesses saw the Tippit shooting and seven eyewitnesses
heard the shots and saw the gunman leave the scene with revolver in
hand. These nine eyewitnesses positively identified Lee Harvey Os-
wald as the man they saw.
(b) The cartridge cases found at the scene of the shooting were fired
from the revolver in the possession of Oswald at the time of his ar-
rest to the exclusion of all other weapons.
(c) The revolver in Oswald’s possession at the time of his arrest was pur-
chased by and belonged to Oswald.
(d) Oswald’s jacket was found along the path of flight taken by the gun-
man as he fled from the scene of the killing.

7. Within 80 minutes of the assassination and 35 minutes of the Tippit kill-

ing Oswald resisted arrest at the theatre by attempting to shoot another
Dallas police officer.
8. The Commission has reached the following conclusions concerning Os-
wald’s interrogation and detention by the Dallas police:
(a) Except for the force required to effect his arrest, Oswald was not sub-
jected to any physical coercion by any law enforcement officials. He
was advised that he could not be compelled to give any informa-
tion and that any statements made by him might be used against
him in court. He was advised of his right to counsel. He was given
748 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

the opportunity to obtain counsel of his own choice and was offered
legal assistance by the Dallas Bar Association, which he rejected at
that time.
(b) Newspaper, radio, and television reporters were allowed uninhibited
access to the area through which Oswald had to pass when he was
moved from his cell to the interrogation room and other sections of
the building, thereby subjecting Oswald to harassment and creating
chaotic conditions which were not conducive to orderly interroga-
tion or the protection of the rights of the prisoner.
(c) The numerous statements, sometimes erroneous, made to the press
by various local law enforcement officials, during this period of con-
fusion and disorder in the police station, would have presented seri-
ous obstacles to the obtaining of a fair trial for Oswald. To the extent
that the information was erroneous or misleading, it helped to cre-
ate doubts, speculations, and fears in the mind of the public which
might otherwise not have arisen.
8. The Commission has reached the following conclusions concerning the
killing of Oswald by Jack Ruby on November 24, 1963:
(a) Ruby entered the basement of the Dallas Police Department shortly
after 11:17 A.M. and killed Lee Harvey Oswald at 11:21 A.M.
(b) Although the evidence on Ruby’s means of entry is not conclusive,
the weight of the evidence indicates that he walked down the ramp
leading from Main Street to the basement of the police department.
(c) There is no evidence to support the rumor that Ruby may have been
assisted by any members of the Dallas Police Department in the kill-
ing of Oswald.
(d) The Dallas Police Department’s decision to transfer Oswald to the
county jail in full public view was unsound. The arrangements made
by the police department on Sunday morning, only a few hours be-
fore the attempted transfer, were inadequate. Of critical importance
was the fact that news media representatives and others were not
excluded from the basement even after the police were notified of
threats to Oswald’s life. These deficiencies contributed to the death
of Lee Harvey Oswald.
9. The Commission has found no evidence that either Lee Harvey Oswald
or Jack Ruby was part of any conspiracy, domestic or foreign, to assassi-
nate President Kennedy. The reasons for this conclusion are:
(a) The Commission has found no evidence that anyone assisted Oswald
in planning or carrying out the assassination. In this connection it
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 749

has thoroughly investigated, among other factors, the circumstances

surrounding the planning of the motorcade route through Dallas, the
hiring of Oswald by the Texas School Book Depository Co. on Oc-
tober 15, 1963, the method by which the rifle was brought into the
building, the placing of cartons of books at the window, Oswald’s
escape from the building, and the testimony of eyewitnesses to the
shooting.
(b) The Commission has found no evidence that Oswald was involved
with any person or group in a conspiracy to assassinate the Presi-
dent, although it has thoroughly investigated, in addition to other
possible leads, all facets of Oswald’s associations, finances, and per-
sonal habits, particularly during the period following his return from
the Soviet Union in June 1962.
(c) The Commission has found no evidence to show that Oswald was
employed, persuaded, or encouraged by any foreign government to
assassinate President Kennedy or that he was an agent of any foreign
government, although the Commission has reviewed the circum-
stances surrounding Oswald’s defection to the Soviet Union, his life
there from October of 1959 to June of 1962 so far as it can be recon-
structed, his known contacts with the Fair Play for Cuba Committee
and his visits to the Cuban and Soviet Embassies in Mexico City dur-
ing his trip to Mexico from September 26 to October 3, 1963, and
his known contacts with the Soviet Embassy in the United States.
(d) The Commission has explored all attempts of Oswald to identify him-
self with various political groups, including the Communist Party,
U.S.A., the Fair Play for Cuba Committee, and the Socialist Work-
ers Party, and has been unable to find any evidence that the contacts
which he initiated were related to Oswald’s subsequent assassination
of the President.
(e) All of the evidence before the Commission established that there was
nothing to support the speculation that Oswald was an agent, em-
ployee, or informant of the FBI, the CIA, or any other governmental
agency. It has thoroughly investigated Oswald’s relationships prior to
the assassination with all agencies of the U.S. Government. All con-
tacts with Oswald by any of these agencies were made in the regular
exercise of their different responsibilities.
(f) No direct or indirect relationship between Lee Harvey Oswald and
Jack Ruby has been discovered by the Commission, nor has it been
able to find any credible evidence that either knew the other, al-
though a thorough investigation was made of the many rumors and
speculations of such a relationship.
750 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

(g) The Commission has found no evidence that Jack Ruby acted with
any other person in the killing of Lee Harvey Oswald.
(h) After careful investigation the Commission has found no credible
evidence either that Ruby and Officer Tippit, who was killed by Os-
wald, knew each other or that Oswald and Tippit knew each other.

10. Because of the difficulty of proving negatives to a certainty the possi-

bility of others being involved with either Oswald or Ruby cannot be
established categorically, but if there is any such evidence it has been
beyond the reach of all the investigative agencies and resources of the
United States and has not come to the attention of this Commission.
11. In its entire investigation the Commission has found no evidence of
conspiracy, subversion, or disloyalty to the U.S. Government by any
Federal, State, or local official.
12. On the basis of the evidence before the Commission it concludes that
Oswald acted alone. Therefore, to determine the motives for the as-
sassination of President Kennedy, one must look to the assassin him-
self. Clues to Oswald’s motives can be found in his family history, his
education or lack of it, his acts, his writings, and the recollections of
those who had close contacts with him throughout his life. The Com-
mission has presented with this report all of the background informa-
tion bearing on motivation which it could discover. Thus, others may
study Lee Oswald’s life and arrive at their own conclusions as to his
possible motives.
The Commission could not make any definitive determination of Os-
wald’s motives. It has endeavored to isolate factors which contributed
to his character and which might have influenced his decision to assas-
sinate President Kennedy. These factors were:

(a) His deep-rooted resentment of all authority which was expressed in

a hostility toward every society in which he lived;
(b) His inability to enter into meaningful relationships with people,
and a continuous pattern of rejecting his environment favor of new
surrounding;
(c) His urge to try to find a place in history and despair at times over
failures in his various undertakings;
(d) His capacity for violence as evidenced by his attempt to kill General
Walker;
(e) His avowed commitment to Marxism and communism, as he un-
derstood the terms and developed his own interpretation of them;
this was expressed by his antagonism toward the United States, by
his defection to the Soviet Union, by his failure to be reconciled
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 751

with life in the United States even after his disenchantment with the
Soviet Union, and by his efforts, though frustrated, to go to Cuba.
Each of these contributed to his capacity to risk all in cruel and ir-
responsible actions.
13. The Commission recognizes that the varied responsibilities of the Presi-
dent require that he make frequent trips to all parts of the United States
and abroad. Consistent with their high responsibilities Presidents can
never be protected from every potential threat. The Secret Service’s dif-
ficulty in meeting its protective responsibility varies with the activi-
ties and the nature of the occupant of the Office of President and his
willingness to conform to plans for his safety. In appraising the perfor-
mance of the Secret Service it should be understood that it has to do its
work within such limitations. Nevertheless, the Commission believes
that recommendations for improvements in Presidential protection are
compelled by the facts disclosed in this investigation.
(a) The complexities of the Presidency have increased so rapidly in re-
cent years that the Secret Service has not been able to develop or
to secure adequate resources of personnel and facilities to fulfill its
important assignment. This situation should be promptly remedied.
(b) The Commission has concluded that the criteria and procedures of
the Secret Service designed to identify and protect against persons
considered threats to the president, were not adequate prior to the
assassination.
1. The Protective Research Section of the Secret Service, which
is responsible for its preventive work, lacked sufficient trained
personnel and the mechanical and technical assistance needed
to fulfill its responsibility.
2. Prior to the assassination the Secret Service’s criteria dealt with
direct threats against the President. Although the Secret Ser-
vice treated the direct threats against the President adequately,
it failed to recognize the necessity of identifying other poten-
tial sources of danger to his security. The Secret Service did not
develop adequate and specific criteria defining those persons
or groups who might present a danger to the President. In ef-
fect, the Secret Service largely relied upon other Federal or State
agencies to supply the information necessary for it to fulfill its
preventive responsibilities, although it did ask for information
about direct threats to the President.
(c) The Commission has concluded that there was insufficient liaison
and coordination of information between the Secret Service and other
Federal agencies necessarily concerned with Presidential protection.
752 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

Although the FBI, in the normal exercise of its responsibility, had

secured considerable information about Lee Harvey Oswald, it had
no official responsibility, under the Secret Service criteria existing
at the time of the President’s trip to Dallas, to refer to the Secret
Service the information it had about Oswald. The Commission has
concluded, however, that the FBI took an unduly restrictive view
of its role in preventive intelligence work prior to the assassination.
A more carefully coordinated treatment of the Oswald case by the
FBI might well have resulted in bringing Oswald’s activities to the
attention of the Secret Service.
(d) The Commission has concluded that some of the advance prepa-
rations in Dallas made by the Secret Service, such as the detailed
security measures taken at Love Field and the Trade Mart, were
thorough and well executed. In other respects, however, the Com-
mission has concluded that the advance preparations for the Presi-
dent’s trip were deficient.

2. Although the Secret Service is compelled to rely to a great extent

on local law enforcement officials, its procedures at the time of
the Dallas trip did not call for well-defined instructions as to the
respective responsibilities of the police officials and others assist-
ing in the protection of the President.
3. The procedures relied upon by the Secret Service for detecting the
presence of an assassin located in a building along a motorcade
route were inadequate. At the time of the trip to Dallas, the Se-
cret Service as a matter of practice did not investigate, or cause
to be checked, any building located along the motorcade route to
be taken by the President. The responsibility for observing win-
dows in these buildings during the motorcade was divided be-
tween local police personnel stationed on the streets to regulate
crowds and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade. Based
on its investigation the Commission has concluded that these ar-
rangements during the trip to Dallas were clearly not sufficient.

(e) The configuration of the Presidential car and the seating arrange-
ments of the Secret Service agents in the car did not afford the Se-
cret Service agents the opportunity they should have had to be of
immediate assistance to the President at the first sign of danger.
(f) Within these limitations, however, the Commission finds that the
agents most immediately responsible for the President’s safety re-
acted promptly at the time the shots were fired from the Texas
School Book Depository Building.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 753

Recommendations
Prompted by the assassination of President Kennedy, the Secret Service has
initiated a comprehensive and critical review of its total operations. As a result
of studies conducted during the past several months, and in cooperation with
this Commission, the Secret Service has prepared a planning document dated
August 27, 1964, which recommends various programs considered necessary
by the Service to improve its techniques and enlarge its resources. The Com-
mission is encouraged by the efforts taken by the Secret Service since the assas-
sination and suggests the following recommendations.
1. A committee of Cabinet members including the Secretary of the Treasury
and the Attorney General, or the National Security Council, should be
assigned the responsibility of reviewing and overseeing the protective ac-
tivities of the Secret Service and the other Federal agencies that assist in
safeguarding the President. Once given this responsibility, such a com-
mittee would insure that the maximum resources of the Federal Govern-
ment are fully engaged in the task of protecting the President, and would
provide guidance in defining the general nature of domestic and foreign
dangers to Presidential security.
2. Suggestions have been advanced to the Commission for the transfer of
all or parts of the Presidential protective responsibilities of the Secret Ser-
vice to some other department or agency. The Commission believes that
if there is to be any determination of whether or not to relocate these re-
sponsibilities and functions, it ought to be made by the Executive and
the Congress, perhaps upon recommendations based on studies by the
previously suggested committee.
3. Meanwhile, in order to improve daily supervision of the Secret Service
within the Department of the Treasury, the Commission recommends
that the Secretary of the Treasury appoint a special assistant with the
responsibility of supervising the Secret Service. This special assistant
should have sufficient stature and experience in law enforcement, intel-
ligence, and allied fields to provide effective continuing supervision, and
to keep the Secretary fully informed regarding the performance of the Se-
cret Service. One of the initial assignments of this special assistant should
be the supervision of the current effort by the Secret Service to revise and
modernize its basic operating procedures.
4. The Commission recommends that the Secret Service completely over-
haul its facilities devoted to the advance detection of potential threats
against the President. The Commission suggests the following measures.
(a) The Secret Service should develop as quickly as possible more useful
and precise criteria defining those potential threats to the President
754 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

which should be brought to its attention by other agencies. The cri-

teria should, among other additions, provide for prompt notice to
the Secret Service of all returned defectors.
(b) The Secret Service should expedite its current plans to utilize the
most efficient data-processing techniques.
(c) Once the Secret Service has formulated new criteria delineating the
information it desires, it should enter into agreements with each
Federal agency to insure its receipt of such information.
5. The Commission recommends that the Secret Service improve the pro-
tective measures followed in the planning, and conducting of Presiden-
tial motorcades. In particular” the Secret Service should continue its
current efforts to increase the precautionary attention given to buildings
along the motorcade route.
6. The Commission recommends that the Secret Service continue its re-
cent efforts to improve and formalize its relationships with local police
departments in areas to be visited by the President.
7. The Commission believes that when the new criteria and procedures
are established, the Secret Service will not have sufficient personnel or
adequate facilities. The Commission recommends that the Secret Ser-
vice be provided with the personnel and resources which the Service
and the Department of the Treasury may be able to demonstrate are
needed to fulfill its important mission.
8. Even with an increase in Secret Service personnel, the protection of
the President will continue to require the resources and cooperation
of many Federal agencies. The Commission recommends that these
agencies, specifically the FBI, continue the practice as it has devel-
oped, particularly since the assassination, of assisting the Secret Service
upon request by providing personnel or other aid, and that there be a
closer association and liaison between the Secret Service and all Federal
agencies.
9. The Commission recommends that the President’s physician always ac-
company him during his travels and occupy a position near the Presi-
dent where he can be immediately available in case of any emergency.
10. The Commission recommends to Congress that it adopt legislation
which would make the assassination of the President and Vice Presi-
dent a Federal crime. A state of affairs where U.S. authorities have no
clearly defined jurisdiction to investigate the assassination of a Presi-
dent is anomalous.
11. The Commission has examined the Department of State’s handling
of the Oswald matters and finds that it followed the law throughout.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 755

However, the Commission believes that the Department in accor-

dance with its own regulations should in all cases exercise great care
in the return to this country of defectors who have evidenced disloy-
alty or hostility to this country or who have expressed a desire to re-
nounce their American citizenship and that when such persons are so
returned, procedures should be adopted for the better dissemination
of information concerning them to the intelligence agencies of the
Government.
12. The Commission recommends that the representatives of the bar, law
enforcement associations, and the news media work together to es-
tablish ethical standards concerning the collection and presentation
of information to the public so that there will be no interference with
pending criminal investigations, court proceedings, or the right of indi-
viduals to a fair trial.

THIS CHAPTER describes President Kennedy’s trip to Dallas, from its origin
through its tragic conclusion. The narrative of these events is based largely on
the recollections of the participants, although in many instances documentary
or other evidence has also been used by the Commission. Beginning with the
advance plans and Secret Service preparations for the trip, this chapter reviews
the motorcade through Dallas, the fleeting moments of the assassination, the
activities at Parkland Memorial Hospital, and the return of the Presidential
party to Washington. An evaluation of the procedures employed to safeguard
the President, with recommendations for improving these procedures, appears
in Chapter VIII of the report.

Planning the Texas Trip

President Kennedy’s visit to Texas in November 1963 had been under consid-
eration for almost a year before it occurred. He had made only a few brief visits
to the State since the 1960 Presidential campaign and in 1962 he began to con-
sider a formal visit. During 1963, the reasons for making the trip became more
persuasive. As a political leader, the President wished to resolve the factional
controversy within the Democratic Party in Texas before the election of 1964.
The party itself saw an opportunity to raise funds by having the President speak
at a political dinner eventually planned for Austin. As Chief of State, the Presi-
dent always welcomed the opportunity to learn, firsthand, about the problems
which concerned the American people. Moreover, he looked forward to the
public appearances which he personally enjoyed.
The basic decision on the November trip to Texas was made at a meeting of
President Kennedy, Vice President Johnson, and Governor Connally on June 5,
1963, at the Cortez Hotel in El Paso, Tex. The President had spoken earlier that
756 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

day at the Air Force Academy in Colorado Springs, Colo., and had stopped in
El Paso to discuss the proposed visit and other matters with the Vice President
and the Governor. The three agreed that the President would come to Texas in
late November 1963. The original plan called for the President to spend only
1 day in the State, making whirlwind visits to Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio,
and Houston. In September, the White House decided to permit further visits
by the President and extended the trip to run from the afternoon of Novem-
ber 21 through the evening of Friday, November 22. When Governor Connally
called at the White House on October 4 to discuss the details of the visit, it was
agreed that the planning of events in Texas would be left largely to the Gov-
ernor. At the White House, Kenneth O’Donnell, special assistant to the Presi-
dent, acted as coordinator for the trip.
Everyone agreed that, if there was sufficient time, a motorcade through
downtown Dallas would be the best way for the people to see their President.
When the trip was planned for only 1 day, Governor Connally had opposed
the motorcade because there was not enough time. The Governor stated, how-
ever, that “once we got San Antonio moved from Friday to Thursday afternoon,
where that was his initial stop in Texas, then we had the time, and I withdrew
my objections to a motorcade.” According to O’Donnell, “we had a motorcade
wherever we went,” particularly in large cities where the purpose was to let the
President be seen by as many people as possible. In his experience, “it would
be automatic” for the Secret Service to arrange a route which would, within the
time allotted, bring the President “through an area which exposes him to the
greatest number of people.”

Advance Preparations for the Dallas Trip

Advance preparations for President Kennedy’s visit to Dallas were primarily the
responsibility of two Secret Service agents: Special Agent Winston G. Lawson, a
member of the White House detail who acted as the advance agent, and Forrest V.
Sorrels, special agent in charge of the Dallas office. Both agents were advised
of the trip on November 4. Lawson received a tentative schedule of the Texas
trip on November 8 from Roy H. Kellerman, assistant special agent in charge of
the White House detail, who was the Secret Service official responsible for the
entire Texas journey. As advance agent working closely with Sorrels, Lawson
had responsibility for arranging the timetable for the President’s visit to Dallas
and coordinating local activities with the White House staff, the organizations
directly concerned with the visit, and local law enforcement officials. Lawson’s
most important responsibilities were to take preventive action against anyone
in Dallas considered a threat to the President, to select the luncheon site and
motorcade route, and to plan security measures for the luncheon and the
motorcade.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 757

Preventive Intelligence Activities

The Protective Research Section (PRS) of the Secret Service maintains records
of people who have threatened the President or so conducted themselves as to
be deemed a potential danger to him. On November 8, 1963, after undertaking
the responsibility for advance preparations for the visit to Dallas, Agent Lawson
went to the PRS offices in Washington. A check of the geographic indexes there
revealed no listing for any individual deemed to be a potential danger to the
President in the territory of the Secret Service regional office which includes
Dallas and Fort Worth.
To supplement the PRS files, the Secret Service depends largely on local po-
lice departments and local offices of other Federal agencies which advise it of
potential threats immediately before the visit of the President to their commu-
nity. Upon his arrival in Dallas on November 12 Lawson conferred with the
local police and the local office of the Federal Bureau of Investigation about
potential dangers to the President. Although there was no mention in PRS files
of the demonstration in Dallas against Ambassador Adlai Stevenson on Octo-
ber 24, 1963, Lawson inquired about the incident and obtained through the
local police photographs of some of the persons involved. On November 22 a
Secret Service agent stood at the entrance to the Trade Mart, where the Presi-
dent was scheduled to speak, with copies of these photographs. Dallas detec-
tives in the lobby of the Trade Mart and in the luncheon area also had copies
of these photographs. A number of people who resembled some of those in the
photographs were placed under surveillance at the Trade Mart.
The FBI office in Dallas gave the local Secret Service representatives the
name of a possibly dangerous individual in the Dallas area who was investi-
gated. It also advised the Secret Service of the circulation on November 21
of a handbill sharply critical of President Kennedy, discussed in chapter VI of
this report. Shortly before, the Dallas police had reported to the Secret Service
that the handbill had appeared on the streets of Dallas. Neither the Dallas po-
lice nor the FBI had yet learned the source of the handbill. No one else was
identified to the Secret Service through local inquiry as potentially dangerous,
nor did PRS develop any additional information between November 12, when
Lawson left Washington, and November 22. The adequacy of the intelligence
system maintained by the Secret Service at the time of the assassination, in-
cluding a detailed description of the available data on Lee Harvey Oswald and
the reasons why his name had not been furnished to the Secret Service, is dis-
cussed in chapter VIII.

The Luncheon Site

An important purpose of the President’s visit to Dallas was to speak at a lun-
cheon given by business and civic leaders. The White House staff informed
758 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

the Secret Service that the President would arrive and depart from Dallas’ Love
Field; that a motorcade through the downtown area of Dallas to the luncheon
site should be arranged; and that following the luncheon the President would
return to the airport by the most direct route. Accordingly, it was important to
determine the luncheon site as quickly as possible, so that security could be
established at the site and the motorcade route selected.
On November 4, Gerald A. Behn, agent in charge of the White House de-
tail, asked Sorrels to examine three potential sites for the luncheon. One build-
ing, Market Hall, was unavailable for November 22. The second, the Women’s
Building at the State Fair Grounds, was a one-story building with few en-
trances and easy to make secure, but it lacked necessary food-handling facili-
ties and had certain unattractive features, including a low ceiling with exposed
conduits and beams. The third possibility, the Trade Mart, a handsome new
building with all the necessary facilities, presented security problems. It had
numerous entrances, several tiers of balconies surrounding the central court
where the luncheon would be held, and several catwalks crossing the court
at each level. On November 4, Sorrels told Behn he believed security difficul-
ties at the Trade Mart could be overcome by special precautions. Lawson also
evaluated the security hazards at the Trade Mart on November 13. Kenneth
O’Donnell made the final decision to hold the luncheon at the Trade Mart;
Behn so notified Lawson on November 14.
Once the Trade Mart had been selected, Sorrels and Lawson worked out de-
tailed arrangements for security at the building. In addition to the preventive
measures already mentioned, they provided for controlling access to the build-
ing, closing off and policing areas around it, securing the roof and insuring
the presence of numerous police officers inside and around the building. Ul-
timately more than 200 law enforcement officers, mainly Dallas police but in-
cluding 8 Secret Service agents, were deployed in and around the Trade Mart.

The Motorcade Route

On November 8, when Lawson was briefed on the itinerary for the trip to Dal-
las, he was told that 45 minutes had been allotted for a motorcade procession
from Love Field to the luncheon site. Lawson was not specifically instructed to
select the parade route, but he understood that this was one of his functions.
Even before the Trade Mart had been definitely selected, Lawson and Sorrels
began to consider the best motorcade route from Love Field to the Trade Mart.
On November 14, Lawson and Sorrels attended a meeting at Love Field and on
their return to Dallas drove over the route which Sorrels believed best suited
for the proposed motorcade. This route, eventually selected for the motorcade
from the airport to the Trade Mart, measured 10 miles and could be driven eas-
ily within the allotted 45 minutes. From Love Field the route passed through
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 759

a portion of suburban Dallas, through the downtown area along Main Street
and then to the Trade Mart via Stemmons Freeway. For the President’s return
to Love Field following the luncheon, the agents selected the most direct route,
which was approximately 4 miles.
After the selection of the Trade Mart as the luncheon site, Lawson and Sor-
rels met with Dallas Chief of Police Jesse E. Curry, Assistant Chief Charles
Batchelor, Deputy Chief N. T. Fisher, and several other command officers to
discuss details of the motorcade and possible routes. The route was further re-
viewed by Lawson and Sorrels with Assistant Chief Batchelor and members of
the local host committee on November 15. The police officials agreed that the
route recommended by Sorrels was the proper one and did not express a be-
lief that any other route might be better. On November 18, Sorrels and Lawson
drove over the selected route with Batchelor and other police officers, verifying
that it could be traversed within 45 minutes. Representatives of the local host
committee and the White House staff were advised by the Secret Service of the
actual route on the afternoon of November 18.
The route impressed the agents as a natural and desirable one. Sorrels, who
had participated in Presidential protection assignments in Dallas since a visit
by President Franklin D. Roosevelt in 1936, as testified that the traditional pa-
rade route in Dallas was along Main Street, since the tall buildings along the
street gave more people an opportunity to participate. The route chosen from
the airport to Main Street was the normal one, except where Harwood Street
was selected as the means of access to Main Street in preference to a short
stretch of the Central Expressway, which presented a minor safety hazard and
could not accommodate spectators as conveniently as Harwood Street. Accord-
ing to Lawson, the chosen route seemed to be the best.
It afforded us wide streets most of the way, because of the buses that were in
the motorcade. It afforded us a chance to have alternative routes if something
happened on the motorcade route. It was the type of suburban area a good part
of the way where the crowds would be able to be controlled for a great dis-
tance, and we figured that the largest crowds would be downtown, which they
were, and that the wide streets that we would use downtown would be of suf-
ficient width to keep the public out of our way.
Elm Street, parallel to Main Street and one block north, was not used for the
main portion of the downtown part of the motorcade because Main Street of-
fered better vantage points for spectators.
To reach the Trade Mart from Main Street the agents decided to use the
Stemmons Freeway (Route No. 77), the most direct route. The only practical
way for westbound traffic on Main Street to reach the northbound lanes of the
Stemmons Freeway is via Elm Street, which Route No. 77 traffic is instructed
to follow in this part of the city. (See Commission Exhibit No. 2113, p. 34.)
Elm Street was to be reached from Main by turning right at Houston, going one
760 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

block north and then turning left onto Elm. On this last portion of the journey,
only 5 minutes from the Trade Mart, the President’s motorcade would pass the
Texas School Book Depository Building on the northwest corner of Houston
and Elm Streets. The building overlooks Dealey Plaza, an attractively land-
scaped triangle of 3 acres. . . .
From Houston Street, which forms the base of the triangle, three streets—
Commerce, Main, and Elm—trisect the plaza, converging at the apex of the
triangle to form a triple underpass beneath a multiple railroad bridge almost
500 feet from Houston Street. Elm Street, the northernmost of the three, after
intersecting Houston curves in a southwesterly arc through the underpass and
leads into an access road, which branches off to the right and is used by traffic
going to the Stemmons Freeway and the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. . . .
The Elm Street approach to the Stemmons Freeway is necessary in order to
avoid the traffic hazards which would otherwise exist if right turns were per-
mitted from both Main and Elm into the freeway. To create this traffic pattern,
a concrete barrier between Main and Elm Streets presents an obstacle to a right
turn from Main across Elm to the access road to Stemmons Freeway and the
Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike. This concrete barrier extends far enough beyond
the access road to make it impracticable for vehicles to turn right from Main
directly to the access road. A sign located on this barrier instructs Main Street
traffic not to make any turns. . . . In conformity with these arrangements, traf-
fic proceeding west on Main is directed to turn right at Houston in order to
reach the Dallas-Fort Worth Turnpike, which has the same access road from
Elm Street as does the Stemmons Freeway. . . .
The planning for the motorcade also included advance preparations for se-
curity arrangements along the route. Sorrels and Lawson reviewed the route in
cooperation with Assistant Chief Bachelor and other Dallas police officials who
took notes on the requirements for controlling the crowds and traffic, watching
the overpasses, and providing motorcycle escort. To control traffic, arrange-
ments were made for the deployment of foot patrolmen and motorcycle police
at various positions along the route. Police were assigned to each overpass on
the route and instructed to keep them clear of unauthorized persons. No ar-
rangements were made for police or building custodians to inspect buildings
along the motorcade route since the Secret Service did not normally request or
make such a check? Under standard procedures, the responsibility for watch-
ing the windows of buildings was shared by local police stationed along the
route and Secret Service agents riding in the motorcade.
As the date for the President’s visit approached, the two Dallas newspa-
pers carried several reports of his motorcade route. The selection of the Trade
Mart as the possible site for the luncheon first appeared in the Dallas Times-
Herald.on November 15, 1963. The following day, the newspaper reported
that the Presidential party “apparently will loop through the downtown area,
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 761

probably on Main Street, en route from Dallas Love Field” on its way to the
Trade Mart. On November 19, the Times-Herald afternoon paper detailed the
precise route: From the airport, the President’s party will proceed to Mock-
ingbird Lane to Lemmon and then to Turtle Creek, turning south to Cedar
Springs. The motorcade will then pass through downtown on Harwood and
then west on Main, turning back to Elm at Houston and then out Stemmons
Freeway to the Trade Mart.
Also on November 19, the Morning News reported that the President’s
motorcade would travel from Love Field along specified streets, then “Har-
wood to Main, Main to Houston, Houston to Elm, Elm under the Triple Un-
derpass to Stemmons Freeway, and on to the Trade Mart.” On November 20 a
front page story reported that the streets on which the Presidential motorcade
would travel included “Main and Stemmons Freeway.” On the morning of the
President’s arrival, the Morning News noted that the motorcade would travel
through downtown Dallas onto the Stemmons Freeway, and reported that “the
motorcade will move slowly so that crowds can ‘get a good view’ of President
Kennedy and his wife.”

Dallas before the Visit

The President’s intention to pay a visit to Texas in the fall of 1963 aroused
interest throughout the State. The two Dallas newspapers provided their read-
ers with a steady stream of information and speculation about the trip, begin-
ning on September 13, when the Times-Herald announced in a front page
article that President Kennedy was planning a brief l-day tour of four Texas
cities—Dallas, Fort Worth, San Antonio, and Houston. Both Dallas papers
cited White House sources on September 26 as confirming the President’s
intention to visit Texas on November 21 and 22, with Dallas scheduled as one
of the stops.
Articles, editorials, and letters to the editor in the Dallas Morning News and
the Dallas Times-Herald after September 13 reflected the feeling in the com-
munity toward the forthcoming Presidential visit. Although there were critical
editorials and letters to the editors, the news stories reflected the desire of Dal-
las officials to welcome the President with dignity and courtesy. An editorial in
the Times-Herald of September 17 called on the people of Dallas to be “con-
genial hosts” even though “Dallas didn’t vote for Mr. Kennedy in 1960, may
not endorse him in ’64.” On October 3 the Dallas Morning News quoted U.S.
Representative Joe Pool’s hope that President Kennedy would receive a “good
welcome” and would not face demonstrations like those encountered by Vice
President Johnson during the 1960 campaign.
Increased concern about the President’s visit was aroused by the incident
involving the U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations, Adlai E. Stevenson. On
762 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

the evening of October 24, 1963, after addressing a meeting in Dallas, Steven-
son was jeered, jostled, and spat upon by hostile demonstrators outside the
Dallas Memorial Auditorium Theater. The local, national, and international
reaction to this incident evoked from Dallas officials and newspapers strong
condemnations of the demonstrators. Mayor Earle Cabell called on the city
to redeem itself during President Kennedy’s visit. He asserted that Dallas had
shed its reputation of the twenties as the “Southwest hate capital of Dixie.”
On October 26 the press reported Chief of Police Curry’s plans to call in 100
extra off-duty officers to help protect President Kennedy. Any thought that
the President might cancel his visit to Dallas was ended when Governor Con-
nally confirmed on November 8 that the President would come to Texas on
November 21–22, and that he would visit San Antonio, Houston, Fort Worth,
Dallas, and Austin.
During November the Dallas papers reported frequently on the plans for
protecting the President, stressing the thoroughness of the preparations. They
conveyed the pleas of Dallas leaders that citizens not demonstrate or create dis-
turbances during the President’s visit. On November 18 the Dallas City Council
adopted a new city ordinance prohibiting interference with attendance at law-
ful assemblies. Two days before the President’s arrival Chief Curry warned that
the Dallas police would not permit improper conduct during the President’s
visit.
Meanwhile, on November 17 the president of the Dallas Chamber of Com-
merce referred to the city’s reputation for being the friendliest town in America
and asserted that citizens would “greet the President of the United States with
the warmth and pride that keep the Dallas spirit famous the world over.” Two
days later, a local Republican leader called for a “civilized nonpartisan” wel-
come for President Kennedy, stating that “in many respects Dallas County has
isolated itself from the main stream of life in the world in this decade.”
Another reaction to the impending visit—hostile to the President—came
to a head shortly before his arrival. On November 21 there appeared on the
streets of Dallas the anonymous handbill mentioned above. It was fashioned
after the “wanted” circulars issued by law enforcement agencies. Beneath two
photographs of President Kennedy, one full-face and one profile, appeared the
caption, “Wanted for Treason,” followed by a scurrilous bill of particulars that
constituted a vilification of the President. And on the morning of the President’s
arrival, there appeared in the Morning News a full, black-bordered advertise-
ment headed “Welcome Mr. Kennedy to Dallas,” sponsored by the American
Fact-finding Committee, which the sponsor later testified was an ad hoc com-
mittee “formed strictly for the purpose of having a name to put in the paper.”
The “welcome” consisted of a series of statements and questions critical of the
President and his administration. . . .
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 763

Visits to Other Texas Cities

The trip to Texas began with the departure of President and Mrs. Kennedy from
the White House by helicopter at 10:45 A.M., e.s.t., on November 21, 1963,
for Andrews AFB. They took off in the Presidential plane, Air Force One, at
11 A.M., arriving at San Antonio at 1:30 P.M., e.s.t. They were greeted by Vice
President Johnson and Governor Connally, who joined the Presidential party
in a motorcade through San Antonio. During the afternoon, President Kennedy
dedicated the U.S. Air Force School of Aerospace Medicine at Brooks AFB. Late
in the afternoon he flew to Houston where he rode through the city in a motor-
cade, spoke at the Rice University Stadium, and attended a dinner in honor of
U.S. Representative Albert Thomas.
At Rice Stadium a very large, enthusiastic crowd greeted the President. In
Houston, as elsewhere during the trip, the crowds showed much interest in
Mrs. Kennedy. David F. Powers of the President’s staff later stated that when the
President asked for his assessment of the day’s activities, Powers replied “that
the crowd was about the same as the one which came to see him before but
there were 100,000 extra people on hand who came to see Mrs. Kennedy.” Late
in the evening, the Presidential party flew to Fort Worth where they spent the
night at the Texas Hotel.
On the morning of November 22, President Kennedy attended a breakfast at
the hotel and afterward addressed a crowd at an open parking lot. The Presi-
dent liked outdoor appearances because more people could see and hear him.
Before leaving the hotel, the President, Mrs. Kennedy, and Kenneth O’Donnell
talked about the risks inherent in Presidential public appearances. According
to O’Donnell, the President commented that “if anybody really wanted to shoot
the President of the United States, it was not a very difficult job—all one had to
do was get a high building someday with a telescopic rifle, and there was noth-
ing anybody could do to defend against such an attempt.” Upon concluding
the conversation, the President prepared to depart for Dallas.

Arrival at Love Field

In Dallas the rain had stopped, and by midmorning a gloomy overcast sky had
given way to the bright. sunshine that greeted the Presidential party when Air
Force One touched down at Love Field at 11:40 A.M., e.s.t. Governor and Mrs.
Connally and Senator Ralph W. Yarborough had come with the President from
Fort Worth. Vice President Johnson’s airplane, Air Force Two, had arrived at
Love Field at approximately 11:35 A.M., and the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson
were in the receiving line to greet President and Mrs. Kennedy.
After a welcome from the Dallas reception committee, President and Mrs.
Kennedy walked along a chain-link fence at the reception area greeting a large
764 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

crowd of spectators that had gathered behind it. Secret Service agents formed a
cordon to keep the press and photographers from impeding their passage and
scanned the crowd for threatening movements. Dallas police stood at intervals
along the fence and Dallas plain clothes men mixed in the crowd. Vice Presi-
dent and Mrs. Johnson followed along the fence, guarded by four members of
the Vice-Presidential detail. Approximately 10 minutes after the arrival at Love
Field, the President and Mrs. Kennedy went to the Presidential automobile to
begin the motorcade.

Organization of the Motorcade

Secret Service arrangements for Presidential trips, which were followed in the
Dallas motorcade, are designed to provide protection while permitting large
numbers of people to see the President. Every effort is made to prevent un-
scheduled stops, although the President may, and in Dallas did, order stops in
order to greet the public. Men the motorcade slows or stops, agents take posi-
tions between the President and the crowd. The order of vehicles in the Dallas
motorcade was as follows:

Motorcycles.—Dallas police motorcycles preceded the pilot car.

The pilot car.—Manned by officers of the Dallas Police Department, this au-
tomobile preceded the main party by approximately quarter of a mile. Its
function was to alert police along the route that the motorcade was ap-
proaching and to check for signs of trouble.
Motorcycles.—Next came four to six motorcycle policemen whose main
purpose was to keep the crowd back.
The lead car.—Described as a “rolling command car,” this was an unmarked
Dallas police car, driven by Chief of Police Curry and occupied by Se-
cret Service Agents Sorrels and Lawson and by Dallas County Sheriff J. E.
Decker. The occupants scanned the crowd and the buildings along the
route. Their main function was to spot trouble in advance and to direct
any necessary steps to meet the trouble. Following normal practice, the
lead automobile stayed proximately four to five car lengths ahead of the
President’s limousine.
The Presidential limousine.—The President’s automobile was specially de-
signed 1961 Lincoln convertible with two collapsible jump seats between
the front and rear seats. . . . It was outfitted with a clear plastic bubble-
top which was neither bulletproof nor bullet resistant. Because the skies
had cleared in Dallas, Lawson directed that the top not be used for the
day’s activities. He acted on instructions he had received earlier from As-
sistant Special Agent in Charge Roy H. Kellerman, who was in Fort Worth
with the President. Kellerman had discussed the matter with O’Donnell,
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 765

whose instructions were, “If the weather is clear and it is not raining, have
that bubbletop off.” Elevated approximately 15 inches above the back
of the front seat was a metallic frame with four handholds that riders in
the car could grip while standing in the rear seat during parades. At the
rear on each side of the automobile were small running boards, each de-
signed to hold a Secret Service agent, with a metallic handle for the rider
to grasp. The President had frequently stated that he did not want agents
to ride on these steps during a motorcade except when necessary. He had
repeated this wish only a few days before, during his visit to Tampa, Fla.
President Kennedy rode on the right-hand side of the rear seat with Mrs.
Kennedy on his left. Governor Connally occupied the right jump seat, Mrs.
Connally the left. Driving the Presidential limousine was Special Agent William
R. Greer of the Secret Service; on his right sat Kellerman. Kellerman’s responsi-
bilities included maintaining radio communications with the lead and follow-
up cars, scanning the route, and getting out and standing near the President
when the cars stopped.
Motorcycles.—Four motorcycles, two on each side, flanked the rear of the
Presidential car. They provided some cover for the President, but their
main purpose was to keep back the crowd. On previous occasions, the
President had requested that, to the extent possible, these flanking motor-
cycles keep back from the sides of his car.
Presidential follow-up car.—This vehicle, a 1955 Cadillac eight-passenger
convertible especially outfitted for the Secret Service, followed closely be-
hind the President’s automobile. It carried eight Secret Service agents—
two in the front seat, two in the rear, and two on each of the right and
left running boards. Each agent carried a .38-caliber pistol, and a shot-
gun and automatic rifle were also available. Presidential Assistants David
F. Powers and Kenneth O’Donnell sat in the right and left jump seats,
respectively.
The agents in this car, under established procedure, had instructions to
watch the route for signs of trouble, scanning not only the crowds but the win-
dows and roofs of buildings, overpasses, and crossings. They were instructed
to watch particularly for thrown objects, sudden actions in the crowd, and any
movements toward the Presidential car. The agents on the front of the running
boards had directions to move immediately to positions just to the rear of the
President and Mrs. Kennedy when the President’s car slowed to a walking pace
or stopped, or when the press of the crowd made it impossible for the escort
motorcycles to stay in position on the car’s rear flanks. The two agents on the
rear of the running boards were to advance toward the front of the President’s
car whenever it stopped or slowed down sufficiently for them to do so.
766 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

Vice-Presidential car.—The Vice-Presidential automobile, a four-door Lin-

coln convertible obtained locally for use in the motor-cade, proceeded
approximately two to three car lengths behind the President’s follow-up
car. This distance was maintained so that spectators would normally turn
their gaze from the President’s automobile by the time the Vice President
came into view. Vice President Johnson sat on the right-hand side of the
rear seat, Mrs. Johnson in the center, and Senator Yarborough on the left.
Rufus W. Youngblood, special agent in charge of the Vice President’s de-
tail, occupied the right-hand side of the front seat, and Hurchel Jacks of
the Texas State Highway patrol was the driver.
Vice-Presidential follow-up car.—Driven by an officer of the Dallas Police
Department, this vehicle was occupied by three Secret Service agents and
Clifton C. Garter, assistant to the Vice President. These agents performed
for the Vice President the same functions that the agents in the Presiden-
tial follow-up car performed for the President.
Remainder of motorcade.—The remainder of the motorcade consisted of
five cars for other dignitaries, including the mayor of Dallas and Texas
Congressmen, telephone and Western Union vehicles, a White House
communications car, three cars for press photographers, an official party
bus for White House staff members and others, and two press buses. Ad-
miral George G. Burkley, physician to the President, was in a car follow-
ing those “containing the local and national representatives.”
Police car and motorcycles.—A Dallas police car and several motorcycles at
the rear kept the motorcade together and prevented unauthorized vehi-
cles from joining the motorcade.
Communications in the motorcade.—A base station at a fixed location in
Dallas operated a radio network which linked together the lead car, Pres-
idential car, Presidential follow-up car, White House communications
car, Trade Mart, Love Field, and the Presidential and Vice-Presidential
airplanes. The Vice-Presidential car and Vice-Presidential follow-up car
used portable sets with a separate frequency for their own car-to-car
communication.

The Drive through Dallas

The motorcade left Love Field shortly after 11:50 A.M. and drove at speeds up
to 25 to 30 miles an hour through thinly populated areas on the outskirts of
Dallas. At the President’s direction, his automobile stopped twice, the first time
to permit him to respond to a sign asking him to shake hands. During this brief
stop, agents in the front positions on the running boards of the Presidential
follow-up car came forward and stood beside the President’s car, looking out
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 767

toward the crowd, and Special Agent Kellerman assumed his position next to
the car. On the other occasion, the President halted the motorcade to speak to
a Catholic nun and a group of small children.
In the downtown area, large crowds of spectators gave the President a tre-
mendous reception. The crowds were so dense that Special Agent Clinton J.
Hill had to leave the left front running board of the President’s follow-up car
four times to ride on the rear of the President’s limousine. (See Commission
Exhibit No. 698, p. 47.) Several times Special Agent John D. Ready came for-
ward from the right front running board of the Presidential follow-up car to
the right side of the President’s car. Special Agent Glen A. Bennett once left his
place inside the follow-up car to help keep the crowd away from the President’s
car. When a teenage boy ran toward the rear of the President’s car, Ready left
the running board to chase the boy back into the crowd. On several occasions
when the Vice President’s car was slowed down by the throng, Special Agent
Youngblood stepped out to hold the crowd back.
According to plan, the President’s motorcade proceeded west through
downtown Dallas on Main Street to the intersection of Houston Street, which
marks the beginning of Dealey Plaza. From Main Street the motorcade turned
right and went north on Houston Street, passing tall buildings on the right,
and headed toward the Texas School Book Depository Building. The spectators
were still thickly congregated in front of the buildings which lined the east side
of Houston Street, but the crowd thinned abruptly along Elm Street, which
curves in a southwesterly direction as it proceeds downgrade toward the Triple
Underpass and the Stemmons Freeway.
As the motorcade approached the intersection of Houston and Elm Streets,
there was general gratification in the Presidential party about the enthusi-
astic reception. Evaluating the political overtones, Kenneth O’Donnell was
especially pleased because it convinced him that the average Dallas resident
was like other American citizens in respecting and admiring the President.
Mrs. Connally, elated by the reception, turned to President Kennedy and said,
“Mr. President, you can’t say Dallas doesn’t love you.” The President replied,
“That is very obvious.”

The Assassination
At 12:30 P.M., e.s.t., as the President’s open limousine proceeded at approxi-
mately 11 miles per hour along Elm Street toward the Triple Underpass, shots
fired from a rifle mortally wounded President Kennedy and seriously injured
Governor Connally. One bullet passed through the President’s neck; a subse-
quent bullet, which was lethal, shattered the right side of his skull. Governor
Connally sustained bullet wounds in his back, the right side of his chest, right
wrist, and left thigh.
768 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

The Time
The exact time of the assassination was fixed by the testimony of four witnesses.
Special Agent Rufus W. Youngblood observed that the large electric sign clock
atop the Texas School Book Depository Building showed the numerals “12:30”
as the Vice-Presidential automobile proceeded north on Houston Street, a few
seconds before the shots were fired. Just prior to the shooting, David F. Powers,
riding in the Secret Service follow-up car, remarked to Kenneth O’Donnell that
it was 12:30 P.M., the time they were due at the Trade Mart. Seconds after the
shooting, Roy Kellerman, riding in the front seat of the Presidential limousine,
looked at his watch and said “12:30” to the driver, Special Agent Greer. The
Dallas police radio log reflects that Chief of Police Curry reported the shooting
of the President and issued his initial orders at 12:30 P.M.

Speed of the Limousine

William Greer, operator of the Presidential limousine, estimated the car’s speed
at the time of the first shot as 12 to 15 miles per hour. 144 Other witnesses
in the motorcade estimated the speed of the President’s limousine from 7 to
22 miles per hour. A more precise determination has been made from motion
pictures taken on the scene by an amateur photographer, Abraham Zapruder.
Based on these films, the speed of the President’s automobile is computed at an
average speed of 11.2 miles per hour. The car maintained this average speed
over a distance of approximately 186 feet immediately preceding the shot
which struck the President in the head. While the car traveled this distance,
the Zapruder camera ran 152 frames. Since the camera operates at a speed of
18.3 frames per second, it was calculated that the car required 8.3 seconds to
cover the 136 feet. This represents a speed of 11.2 miles per hour.

In the Presidential Limousine

Mrs. John F. Kennedy, on the left of the rear seat of the limousine, looked to-
ward her left and waved to the crowds along the route. Soon after the motor-
cade turned onto Elm Street., she heard a sound similar to a motorcycle noise
and a cry from Governor Connally, which caused her to look to her right. On
turning she saw a quizzical look on her husband’s face as he raised his left hand
to his throat. Mrs. Kennedy then heard a second shot and saw the President’s
skull torn open under the impact of the bullet. As she cradled her mortally
wounded husband, Mrs. Kennedy cried, “Oh, my God, they have shot my hus-
band. I love you, Jack.”
Governor Connally testified that he recognized the first noise as a rifle shot
and the thought immediately crossed his mind that it was an assassination at-
tempt. From his position in the right jump seat immediately in front of the
President, he instinctively turned to his right because the shot appeared to
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 769

come from over his right shoulder. Unable to see the President as he turned to
the right, the Governor started to look back over his left shoulder, but he never
completed the turn because he felt something strike him in the back. In his tes-
timony before the Commission, Governor Connally was certain that he was hit
by the second shot, which he stated he did not hear.
Mrs. Connally, too, heard a frightening noise from her right. Looking over
her right shoulder, she saw that the President had both hands at his neck but
she observed no blood and heard nothing. She watched as he slumped down
with an empty expression on his face. Roy Kellerman, in the right front seat
of the limousine, heard a report like a firecracker pop. Turning to his right in
the direction of the noise, Kellerman heard the President say “My God, I am
hit,” and saw both of the President’s hands move up toward his neck. As he
told the driver, “Let’s get out of here; we are hit,” Kellerman grabbed his mi-
crophone and radioed ahead to the lead car, “We are hit. Get us to the hospital
immediately.”
The driver, William Greer, heard a noise which he took to be a backfire from
one of the motorcycles flanking the Presidential car. When he heard the same
noise again, Greer glanced over his shoulder and saw Governor Connally fall.
At the-sound of the second shot he realized that something was wrong, and he
pressed down on the accelerator as Kellerman said, “Get out of here fast.” As he
issued his instructions to Greer and to the lead car, Kellerman heard a “flurry
of shots” Within 5 seconds of the first noise. According to Kellerman, Mrs.
Kennedy then cried out: “What are they doing to you!” Looking back from
the front seat, Kellerman saw Governor Connally in his wife’s lap and Special
Agent Clinton J. Hill lying across the trunk of the car.
Mrs. Connally heard a second shot fired and pulled her husband down into
her lap. Observing his blood-covered chest as he was pulled into his wife’s lap,
Governor Connally believed himself mortally wounded. He cried out, “Oh, no,
no, no. My God, they are going to kill us all.” At first Mrs. Connally thought
that her husband had been killed, but then she noticed an almost impercepti-
ble movement and knew that he was still alive. She said, “It’s all right. Be still.”
The Governor was lying with his head on his wife’s lap when he heard a shot
hit the President. At that point, both Governor and Mrs. Connally observed
brain tissue splattered over the interior of the car. According to Governor and
Mrs. Connally, it was after this shot that Kellerman issued his emergency in-
structions and the car accelerated.

Reaction by Secret Service Agents

From the left front running board of the President’s follow-up car, Special Agent
Hill was scanning the few people standing on the south side of Elm Street after
the motorcade had turned off Houston Street. He estimated that the motorcade
770 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

had slowed down to approximately 9 or 10 miles per hour on the turn at the
intersection of Houston and Elm Streets and then proceeded at a rate of 12 to
15 miles per hour with the follow-up car trailing the President’s automobile by
approximately 5 feet. Hill heard a noise, which seemed to be a firecracker, com-
ing from his right rear. He immediately looked to his right, “and, in so doing,
my eyes had to cross the Presidential limousine and I saw President Kennedy
grab at himself and lurch forward and to the left.” Hill jumped from the follow-
up car and ran to the President’s automobile. At about the time he reached the
President’s automobile, Hill heard a second shot, approximately 5 seconds after
the first, which removed a portion of the President’s head.
At the instant that Hill stepped onto the left rear step of the President’s au-
tomobile and grasped the handhold, the car lurched forward, causing him to
lose his footing. He ran three or four steps, regained his position and mounted
the car. Between the time he originally seized the handhold and the time he
mounted the car, Hill recalled: Mrs. Kennedy had jumped up from the seat and
was, it appeared to me, reaching for something coming off the fight rear bum-
per of the car, the right rear tail, when she noticed that I was trying to climb on
the car. She turned toward me and I grabbed her and put her back in the back
seat, crawled up on top of the back seat and lay there.
David Powers, who witnessed the scene from the President’s follow-up car,
stated that Mrs. Kennedy would probably have fallen off the rear end of the car
and been killed if Hill had not pushed her back into the Presidential automo-
bile. Mrs. Kennedy had no recollection of climbing onto the back of the car.
Special Agent Ready, on the right front running board of the Presidential
follow-up car, heard noises that sounded like firecrackers and ran toward the
President’s limousine. But he was immediately called back by Special Agent
Emory P. Roberts, in charge of the follow-up car, who did not believe that he
could reach, the President’s car at the speed it was then traveling. Special Agent
George W. Hickey, Jr., in the rear seat of the Presidential follow-up car, picked
up and cocked an automatic rifle as he heard the last shot. At this point the
cars were speeding through the underpass and had left the scene of the shoot-
ing, but Hickey kept the automatic weapon ready as the car raced to the hos-
pital. Most of the other Secret Service agents in the motorcade had drawn their
sidearms. Roberts noticed that the Vice President’s car was approximately one-
half block behind the Presidential follow-up car at the time of the shooting and
signaled for it to move in closer.
Directing the security detail for the Vice President from the right front seat
of the Vice-Presidential car, Special Agent Youngblood recalled: As we were be-
ginning to go down this incline, all of a sudden there was an explosive noise.
I quickly observed unnatural movement of crowds, like ducking or scattering,
and quick movements in the Presidential follow-up car. So I turned around
and hit the Vice President on the shoulder and hollered, get down, and then
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 771

looked around again and saw more of this movement, and so I proceeded to go
to the back seat and get on top of him.
Youngblood was not positive that he was in the rear seat before the sec-
ond shot, but thought it probable because of President Johnson’s statement to
that effect immediately after the assassination. President Johnson emphasized
Youngblood’s instantaneous reaction after the first shot: I was startled by the
sharp report or explosion, but I had no time to speculate as to its origin be-
cause Agent Youngblood turned in a flash, immediately after the first explo-
sion, hitting me on the shoulder, and shouted to all of us in the back seat to
get down. I was pushed down by Agent Youngblood. Almost in the same mo-
ment in which he hit or pushed me, he vaulted over the back seat and sat on
me. I was bent over under the weight of Agent Youngblood’s body, toward
Mrs. Johnson and Senator Yarborough.
Clifton C. Carter, riding in the Vice President’s follow-up car a short distance
behind, reported that Youngblood was in the rear seat using his body to shield
the Vice President before the second and third shots were fired.
Other Secret Service agents assigned to the motorcade remained at their
posts during the race to the hospital. None stayed at the scene of the shoot-
ing, and none entered the Texas School Book Depository Building at or im-
mediately after the shooting. Secret Service procedure requires that each agent
stay with the person being protected and not be diverted unless it is necessary
to accomplish the protective assignment. Forrest V. Sorrels, special agent in
charge of the Dallas office, was the first Secret Service agent to return to the
scene of the assassination, approximately 20 or 25 minutes after the shots were
fired.

Parkland Memorial Hospital

The Race to the Hospital
In the final instant of the assassination, the Presidential motorcade began a race
to Parkland Memorial Hospital, approximately 4 miles from the Texas School
Book Depository Building. On receipt of the radio message from Kellerman to
the lead car that the President had been hit, Chief of Police Curry and police
motorcyclists at the head of the motorcade led the way to the hospital. Mean-
while, Chief Curry ordered the police base station to notify Parkland Hospital
that the wounded President was en route. The radio log of the Dallas Police De-
partment shows that at 12:30 P.M. on November 22 Chief Curry radioed, “Go to
the hospital—Parkland Hospital. Have them stand by.” A moment later Curry
added, “Looks like the President has been hit. Have Parkland stand by.” The
base station replied, “They have been notified.” Traveling at speeds estimated
at times to be up to 70 or 80 miles per hour down the Stemmons Freeway and
Harry Hines Boulevard, the Presidential limousine arrived at the emergency
772 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

entrance of the Parkland Hospital at about 12:35 P.M. Arriving almost simulta-
neously were the President’s follow-up car, the Vice President’s automobile, and
the Vice President’s follow-up car. Admiral Burkley, the President’s physician,
arrived at the hospital “between 3 and 5 minutes following the arrival of the
President,” since the riders in his car “were not exactly aware what had hap-
pened” and the car went on to the Trade Mart first.
When Parkland Hospital received the notification, the staff in the emergency
area was alerted and trauma rooms 1 and 2 were prepared. These rooms were
for the emergency treatment of acutely ill or injured patients. Although the first
message mentioned an injury only to President Kennedy, two rooms were pre-
pared. As the President’s limousine sped toward the hospital, 12 doctors to the
emergency area: surgeons, Drs. Malcolm O. Perry, Charles R. Baxter, Robert N.
McClelland, Ronald C. Jones; the chief neurologist, Dr. William Kemp Clark;
4 anesthesiologists, Drs. Marion T. Jenkins, Adolph H. Giesecke, Jr., Jackie H.
Hunt, Gene C. Akin; urological surgeon, Dr Paul C. Peters; an oral surgeon,
Dr. Don T. Curtis; and a heart specialist, Dr. Fouad A. Bashour.
Upon arriving at Parkland Hospital, Lawson jumped from the lead car and
rushed into the emergency entrance, where he was met by hospital staff mem-
bers wheeling stretchers out to the automobile. Special Agent Hill removed
his suit jacket and covered the President’s head and upper chest to prevent
the taking of photographs. Governor Connally, who had lost consciousness on
the ride to the hospital, regained consciousness when the limousine stopped
abruptly at the emergency entrance. Despite his serious wounds, Governor
Connally tried to get out of the way so that medical help could reach the Presi-
dent. Although he was reclining in his wife’s arms, he lurched forward in an
effort to stand upright and get out of the car, but he collapsed again. Then he
experienced his first sensation of pain, which became excruciating. The Gov-
ernor was lifted onto a stretcher and taken into trauma room 2. For a moment,
Mrs. Kennedy refused to release the President, whom she held in her lap, but
then Kellerman, Greer, and Lawson lifted the President onto a stretcher and
pushed it into trauma room 1.

Treatment of President Kennedy

The first physician to see the President at Parkland Hospital was Dr. Charles J.
Carrico, a resident in general surgery. Dr. Carrico was in the emergency area,
examining another patient, when he was notified that President Kennedy was
en route to the hospital. Approximately 2 minutes later, Dr. Carrico saw the
President on his back, being wheeled into the emergency area. He noted that
the President was blue-white or ashen in color; had slow, spasmodic, agonal
respiration without any coordination; made no voluntary movements; had his
eyes open with the pupils dilated without any reaction to light; evidenced no
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 773

palpable pulse; and had a few chest sounds which were thought to be heart beats.
On the basis of these findings, Dr. Carrico concluded that President Kennedy
was still alive.
Dr. Carrico noted two wounds: a small bullet wound in the front lower
neck, and an extensive wound in the President’s head where a sizable portion
of the skull was missing. He observed shredded brain tissue and “considerable
slow oozing” from the latter wound, followed by “more profuse bleeding” after
some circulation was established. Dr. Carrico felt the President’s back and de-
termined that there was no large wound there which would be an immediate
threat to life. Observing the serious problems presented by the head wound
and inadequate respiration, Dr. Carrico directed his attention to improving the
President’s breathing. He noted contusions, hematoma to the right of the lar-
ynx, which was deviated slightly to the left, and also ragged tissue which in-
dicated a tracheal injury. Dr. Carrico inserted a cuffed endotracheal tube past
the injury, inflated the cuff, and connected it to a Bennett machine to assist in
respiration.
At that point, direction of the President’s treatment was undertaken by
Dr. Malcolm O. Perry, who arrived at trauma room 1 a few moments after the
President. Dr. Perry noted the President’s back brace as he felt for a femoral
pulse, which he did not find. Observing that an effective airway had to be es-
tablished if treatment was to be effective, Dr. Perry performed a tracheotomy,
which required 3 to 5 minutes. While Dr. Perry was performing the trache-
otomy, Drs. Carrico and Ronald Jones made cutdowns on the President’s right
leg and left arm, respectively, to infuse blood and fluids into the circulatory
system. Dr. Carrico treated the President’s known ad-renal insufficiency by ad-
ministering hydrocortisone. Dr. Robert N. McClelland entered at that point
and assisted Dr. Perry with the tracheotomy.
Dr. Fouad Bashour, chief of cardiology, Dr. M. T. Jenkins, chief of anesthesi-
ology, and Dr. A. H. Giesecke, Jr., then joined in the effort to revive the Presi-
dent. When Dr. Perry noted free air and blood in the President’s chest cavity,
he asked that chest tubes be inserted to allow for drainage of blood and air.
Drs. Paul C. Peters and Charles R. Baxter initiated these procedures. As a result
of the infusion of liquids through the cutdowns, the cardiac massage, and the
airway, the doctors were able to maintain peripheral circulation as monitored
at the neck (carotid) artery and at the wrist (radial) pulse. A femoral pulse was
also detected in the President’s leg. While these medical efforts were in prog-
ress, Dr. Clark noted some electrical activity on the cardiotachyscope attached
to monitor the President’s heart responses. Dr. Clark, who most closely ob-
served the head wound, described a large, gaping wound in the right rear part
of the head, with substantial damage and exposure of brain tissue, and a con-
siderable loss of blood. Dr. Clark did not see any other hole or wound on the
President’s head. According to Dr. Clark, the small bullet hole on the right rear
774 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

of the President’s head discovered during the subsequent autopsy “could have
easily been hidden in the blood and hair.”
In the absence of any neurological, muscular, or heart response, the doctors
concluded that efforts to revive the President were hopeless. This was verified
by Admiral Burkley, the President’s physician, who arrived at the hospital after
emergency treatment was underway and concluded that “my direct services to
him at that moment would have interfered with the action of the team which
was in progress.” At approximately 1 P.M., after last rites were administered to
the President by Father Oscar L. Huber, Dr. Clark pronounced the President
dead. He made the official determination because the ultimate cause of death,
the severe head injury, was within his sphere of specialization. The time was
fixed at 1 P.M., as an approximation, since it was impossible to determine the
precise moment when life left the President. President Kennedy could have
survived the neck injury, but the head wound was fatal. From a medical view-
point, President Kennedy was alive when he arrived at Parkland Hospital; the
doctors observed that he had a heart beat and was making some respiratory ef-
forts. But his condition was hopeless, and the extraordinary efforts of the doc-
tors to save him could not help but to have been unavailing.
Since the Dallas doctors directed all their efforts to controlling the massive
bleeding caused by the head wound, and to reconstructing an airway to his
lungs, the President remained on his back throughout his medical treatment
at Parkland. When asked why he did not turn the President over, Dr. Carrico
testified as follows:
A. This man was in obvious extreme distress and any more thorough inspec-
tion would have involved several minutes—well, several—considerable time
which at this juncture was not available. A thorough inspection would have
involved washing and cleansing the back, and this is not practical in treating
an acutely injured patient. You have to determine which things, which are im-
mediately life threatening and cope with them, before attempting to evaluate
the full extent of the injuries.

Q. Did you ever have occasion to look at the President’s back?

A. No, sir. Before—well, in trying to treat an acutely injured patient, you
have to establish an airway, adequate ventilation and you have to estab-
lish adequate circulation. Before this was accomplished the President’s
cardiac activity had ceased and closed cardiac massage was instituted,
which made it impossible to inspect his back.
Q. Was any effort made to inspect the President’s back after he had expired?
A. No, sir.
Q. And why was no effort made at that time to inspect his back?
A. I suppose nobody really had the heart to do it.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 775

Moreover, the Parkland doctors took no further action after the President
had expired because they concluded that it was beyond the scope of their per-
missible duties.

Treatment of Governor Connally

While one medical team tried to revive President Kennedy, a second performed
a series of operations on the bullet wounds sustained by Governor Connally.
Governor Connally was originally seen by Dr. Carrico and Dr. Richard Dulany.
While Dr. Carrico went on to attend the President, Dr. Dulany stayed with
the Governor and was soon joined by several other doctors. At approximately
12: 45 P.M., Dr. Robert Shaw, chief of thoracic surgery, arrived at trauma room 2,
to take charge of the care of Governor Connally, whose major wound fell within
Dr. Shaw’s area of specialization.
Governor Connally had a large sucking wound in the front of the right chest
which caused extreme pain and difficulty in breathing. Rubber tubes were in-
serted between the second and third ribs to reexpand the right lung, which
had collapsed because of the opening in the chest wall. At 1: 35 P.M., after Gov-
ernor Connally had been moved to the operating room, Dr. Shaw started the
first operation by cutting away the edges of the wound on the front of the Gov-
ernor’s chest and suturing the damaged lung and lacerated muscles. The ellipti-
cal wound in the Governor’s back, located slightly to the left of the Governor’s
right armpit approximately five-eighths inch (a centimeter and a half) in its
greatest diameter, was treated by cutting away the damaged skin and suturing
the back muscle and skin. This operation was concluded at 3:20 P.M.
Two additional operations were performed on Governor Connally for wounds
which he had not realized he had sustained until he regained consciousness
the following day. From approximately 4 P.M. to 4:50 P.M. on November 22,
Dr. Charles F. Gregory, chief of orthopedic surgery, operated on the wounds of Gov-
ernor Connally’s right wrist, assisted by Drs. William Osborne and John Parker.
The wound on the back of the wrist was left partially open for draining, and the
wound on the palm side was enlarged, cleansed, and closed. The fracture was
set, and a cast was applied with some traction utilized. While the second opera-
tion was in progress, Dr. George T. Shires, assisted by Drs. Robert McClelland,
Charles Baxter, and Ralph Don Patman, treated the gunshot wound in the left
thigh. This punctuate missile wound, about two-fifths inch in diameter (1 centi-
meter) and located approximately 5 inches above the left knee, was cleansed and
closed with sutures; but a small metallic fragment remained in the Governor’s leg.

Vice President Johnson at Parkland

As President Kennedy and Governor Connally were being removed from the
limousine onto stretchers, a protective circle of Secret Service agents surrounded
776 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

Vice President and Mrs. Johnson and escorted them into Parkland Hospital
through the emergency entrance. The agents moved a nurse and patient out of
a nearby room, lowered the shades, and took emergency security measures to
protect the Vice President. Two men from the President’s follow-up car were de-
tailed to help protect the Vice President. An agent was stationed at the entrance
to stop anyone who was not a member of the Presidential party. U.S. Represen-
tatives Henry B. Gonzalez, Jack Brooks, Homer Thornberry, and Albert Thomas
joined Clifton C. Carter and the group of special agents protecting the Vice
President. On one occasion Mrs. Johnson, accompanied by two Secret Service
agents, left the room to see Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Connally.
Concern that the Vice President might also be a target for assassination
prompted the Secret Service agents to urge him to leave the hospital and return
to Washington immediately. The Vice President decided to wait until he re-
ceived definitive word of the President’s condition. At approximately 1:20 P.M.,
Vice President Johnson was notified by O’Donnell that President Kennedy was
dead. Special Agent Youngblood learned from Mrs. Johnson the location of her
two daughters and made arrangements through Secret Service headquarters in
Washington to provide them with protection immediately.
When consulted by the Vice President, O’Donnell advised him to go
to the airfield immediately and return to Washington. It was decided that
the Vice President should return on the Presidential plane rather than on the
Vice-Presidential plane because it had better communication equipment. The
Vice President conferred with White House Assistant Press Secretary Malcolm
Kilduff and decided that there would be no release of the news of the Presi-
dent’s death until the Vice President had left the hospital. When told that
Mrs. Kennedy refused to leave without the President’s body, the Vice Presi-
dent said that he would not leave Dallas without her. On the recommenda-
tion of the Secret Service agents, Vice President Johnson decided to board
the Presidential airplane, Air Force One, and wait for Mrs. Kennedy and the
President’s body.

Secret Service Emergency Security Arrangements

Immediately after President Kennedy’s stretcher was wheeled into trauma
room 1, Secret Service agents took positions at the door of the small emergency
room. A nurse was asked to identify hospital personnel and to tell everyone,
except necessary medical staff members, to leave the emergency room. Other
Secret Service agents posted themselves in the corridors and other areas near
the emergency room. Special Agent Lawson made certain that the Dallas police
kept the public and press away from the immediate area of the hospital. Agents
Kellerman and Hill telephoned the head of the White House detail, Gerald A.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 777

Behn, to advise him of the assassination. The telephone line to Washington was
kept open throughout the remainder of the stay at the hospital.
Secret Service agents stationed at later stops on the President’s itinerary of
November 22 were redeployed. Men at the Trade Mart were driven to Parkland
Hospital in Dallas police cars. The Secret Service group awaiting the President
in Austin were instructed to return to Washington. Meanwhile, the Secret Ser-
vice agents in charge of security at Love Field started to make arrangements
for departure. As soon as one of the agents learned of the shooting, he asked
the officer in charge of the police detail at the airport to institute strict security
measures for the Presidential aircraft, the airport terminal, and the surround-
ing area. The police were cautioned to prevent picture taking. Secret Service
agents working with police cleared the areas adjacent to the aircraft, including
warehouses, other terminal buildings and the neighboring parking lots, of all
people. The agents decided not to shift the Presidential aircraft to the far side
of the airport because the original landing area was secure and a move would
require new measures.
When security arrangements at the airport were complete, the Secret Ser-
vice made the necessary arrangements for the Vice President to leave the hos-
pital. Unmarked police cars took the Vice President and Mrs. Johnson from
Parkland Hospital to Love Field. Chief Curry drove one automobile occupied
by Vice President Johnson, U.S. Representatives Thomas and Thornberry,
and Special Agent Youngblood. In another car Mrs. Johnson was driven
to the airport accompanied by Secret Service agents and Representative
Brooks. Motorcade policemen who escorted the automobiles were requested
by the Vice President and Agent Youngblood not to use sirens. During the
drive Vice President Johnson, at Youngblood’s instruction, kept below win-
dow level.

Removal of the President’s Body

While the team of doctors at Parkland Hospital tried desperately to save the life
of President Kennedy, Mrs. Kennedy alternated between watching them and
waiting outside. After the President was pronounced dead, O’Donnell tried to
persuade Mrs. Kennedy to leave the area, but she refused. She said that she
intended to stay with her husband. A casket was obtained and the President’s
body was prepared for removal. Before the body could be taken from the hos-
pital, two Dallas officials informed members of the President’s staff that the
body could not be removed from the city until an autopsy was performed. De-
spite the protests of these officials, the casket was wheeled out of the hospital,
placed in an ambulance, and transported to the airport shortly after 2 P.M. At
approximately 2:15 P.M. the casket was loaded, with some difficulty because of
778 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y

the narrow airplane door, onto the rear of the Presidential plane where seats
had been removed to make room. Concerned that the local officials might try
to prevent the plane’s departure, O’Donnell asked that the pilot take off im-
mediately. He was informed that takeoff would be delayed until Vice President
Johnson was sworn in.

The End of the Trip

Swearing in of the New President
From the Presidential airplane, the Vice President telephoned Attorney General
Robert F. Kennedy, who advised that Mr. Johnson take the Presidential oath of
office before the plane left Dallas. Federal Judge Sarah T. Hughes hastened to the
plane to administer the oath. Members of the Presidential and Vice-Presidential
parties filled the central compartment of the plane to witness the swearing in.
At 2:38 P.M., e.s.t., Lyndon Baines Johnson took the oath of office as the 36th
President of the United States. Mrs. Kennedy and Mrs. Johnson stood at the
side of the new President as he took the oath of office. Nine minutes later, the
Presidential airplane departed for Washington, D.C.

Return to Washington, D.C.

On the return flight, Mrs. Kennedy sat with David Powers, Kenneth O’Donnell,
and Lawrence O’Brien. At 5:58 P.M., e.s.t., Air Force One landed at Andrews
AFB, where President Kennedy had begun his last trip only 31 hours before.
Detailed security arrangements had been made by radio from the President’s
plane on the return flight. The public had been excluded from the base, and
only Government officials and the press were permitted near the landing area.
Upon arrival, President Johnson made a brief statement over television and ra-
dio. President and Mrs. Johnson were flown by helicopter to the White House,
from where Mrs. Johnson was driven to her residence under Secret Service
escort. The President then walked to the Executive Office Building, where he
worked until 9 P.M.

The Autopsy
Given a choice between the National Naval Medical Center at Bethesda, Md.,
and the Army’s Walter Reed Hospital, Mrs. Kennedy chose the hospital in
Bethesda for the autopsy because the President had served in the Navy. Mrs.
Kennedy and the Attorney General, with three Secret Service agents, accom-
panied President Kennedy’s body on the 45-minute automobile trip from An-
drews AFB to the Hospital. On the 17th floor of the Hospital, Mrs. Kennedy
and the Attorney General joined other members of the Kennedy family to await
the conclusion of the autopsy. Mrs. Kennedy was guarded by Secret Service
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F J O H N F. K E N N E D Y 779

agents in quarters assigned to her in the naval hospital. The Secret Service
established a communication system with the White House and screened all
telephone calls and visitors.
The hospital received the President’s body for autopsy at approximately
7:35 P.M. X-rays and photographs were taken preliminarily and the pathologi-
cal examination began at about 8 P.M. The autopsy report noted that President
Kennedy was 46 years of age, 721/2 inches tall, weighed 170 pounds, had
blue eyes and reddish-brown hair. The body was muscular and well developed
with no gross skeletal abnormalities except for those caused by the gunshot
wounds. Under “Pathological Diagnosis” the cause of death was set forth as
“Gunshot wound, head.”. . .
The autopsy examination revealed two wounds in the President’s head.
One wound, approximately one-fourth of an inch by five-eighths of an inch
(6 by 15 millimeters), was located about an inch (2.5 centimeters) to the right
and slightly above the large bony protrusion (external occipital protuberance)
which juts out at the center of the lower part of the back of the skull. The
second head wound measured approximately 5 inches (13 centimeters) in its
greatest diameter, but it was difficult to measure accurately because multiple
crisscross fractures radiated from the large defect. During the autopsy exami-
nation, Federal agents brought the surgeons three pieces of bone recovered
from Elm Street and the Presidential automobile. When put together, these
fragments accounted for approximately three-quarters of the missing portion
of the skull. The surgeons observed, through X-ray analysis, 30 or 40 tiny
dustlike fragments of metal running in a line from the wound in the rear of the
President’s head toward the front part of the skull, with a sizable metal frag-
ment lying just above the right eye. From this head wound two small irregu-
larly shaped fragments of metal were recovered and turned over to the FBI.
The autopsy also disclosed a wound near the base of the back of President
Kennedy’s neck slightly to the right of his spine. The doctors traced the course
of the bullet through the body and, as information was received from Parkland
Hospital, concluded that the bullet had emerged from the front portion of the
President’s neck that had been cut away by the tracheotomy at Parkland. The
nature and characteristics of this neck wound and the two head wounds are
discussed fully in the next chapter.
After the autopsy was concluded at approximately 11 P.M., the President’s
body was prepared for burial. This was finished at approximately 4 A.M. Shortly
thereafter, the President’s wife, family and aides left Bethesda Naval Hospital.
The President’s body was taken to the East Room of the White House where it
was placed under ceremonial military guard.

Source: National Archives. JFK Assassination Records. http://www.archives

.gov/research/jfk/warren-commission-report/.
780 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

Document 19
ASSASSINATION OF MARTIN LUTHER
KING JR. (1968)—EXCERPTS FROM THE DEPARTMENT
OF JUSTICE REPORT ON ALLEGATIONS OF
CONSPIRACY IN THE DEATH OF DR. KING (2000)

In December 1993, Loyd Jowers appeared on the ABC program Prime Time Live
to relate details of a conspiracy to kill Martin Luther King that involved both the
U.S. government and the Mafia. Jowers was the owner of a restaurant located near
the Lorraine Motel in Memphis, where Dr. King was assassinated in 1968. Jowers
claimed that convicted King assassin James Earl Ray was merely a scapegoat, and
that Dr. King was actually killed by a Memphis police officer named Earl Clark. In
1999, the King family initiated a wrongful death suit to bring before a jury evidence
of the conspiracy theory, which the family believed. The jury found that King had
been the victim of a conspiracy that involved both the federal government and the
Memphis Police Department. In June 2000, the Justice Department, after investi-
gating the Jowers allegations, issued the report excerpted below. The report found
no good evidence to support Jowers’s allegations and much evidence to refute them,
including numerous contradictions in Jowers’s own statements. The report concluded
that no further investigation of the King assassination was warranted unless new
evidence surfaced.

VII. King v. Jowers Conspiracy Allegations

A. The King v. Jowers Trial
In November 1999, trial commenced in King v. Jowers, a wrongful death civil
action filed by Dr. Pepper on behalf of Dr. King’s wife and children. Jowers
was the only defendant and thus the only other party to the lawsuit. At the
conclusion of the nearly four week trial, the jury adopted a verdict offered by
the parties finding that Jowers and “others, including government agencies”
participated in a conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King.
We reviewed the trial’s evidence in connection with our ongoing investiga-
tion of the Jowers and Wilson allegations. We also conducted additional wit-
ness interviews and searched for and reviewed records as warranted by the
evidence.
In Sections IV and VI of this report, we discussed the evidence presented
in King v. Jowers related to the Jowers allegation, as well as the relevant, ad-
ditional investigation we initiated. Much of the information we considered in
those sections was not presented to the jury. For instance, the parties did not
introduce Jowers’ many inconsistent claims, the inconsistent statements of
several critical witnesses, or information that contradicted and undermined
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 781

the trial evidence. As to the Wilson allegations, no evidence, other than news-
paper articles recounting Wilson’s claims, was offered. Accordingly, after con-
sidering the trial evidence in light of all available, relevant information, we
still conclude that the Jowers and Wilson allegations are not credible and that
there is no Raoul.
We also considered evidence from King v. Jowers suggesting the existence
of various conspiracies broader than the one claimed by Jowers. These con-
spiracies purportedly included government agents and two African American
ministers who were associates of Dr. King. The evidence never linked Jowers
or his alleged co-conspirators to any federal agency or the United States
military, even though the plaintiffs maintained that Dr. King’s assassination
was the result of a government-directed conspiracy and Jowers was the only
party sued.
Nonetheless, we examined the trial evidence relating to these far-ranging
conspiracy claims. We found that it was both contradictory and based on
uncorroborated secondhand and thirdhand hearsay accounts. Nor did we
find any credible, concrete facts to substantiate any of the conspiracy allega-
tions. Because there was no reliable evidence presented at trial relating to a
conspiracy to assassinate Dr. King involving either Jowers, the government,
African American ministers, or anyone else, and because we know of no in-
formation to support such allegations, we find no justification for further
investigation.
To explain our conclusion, we have summarized the trial evidence relating
the purported conspiracies and analyzed that evidence in view of the results
of our investigation and other relevant information that was not presented in
King v. Jowers.

B. Evidence Alleging the Involvement of the Federal Government

1. Hearsay Evidence
Most of the witnesses and writings offered to support the various government-
directed conspiracy claims relied exclusively on secondhand and thirdhand
hearsay and speculation. Additionally, none of these allegations were ever linked
together. Rather, the hearsay evidence alleged that various government agencies
participated in assorted assassination plots that are actually contradictory.
One allegation came from an acquaintance of Jowers who testified regarding
a double hearsay account of an alleged conversation in a barbershop in which
a supposed FBI agent remarked that the CIA was responsible for the assassina-
tion. Unrelated to this allegation, other hearsay evidence presented a different
conspiracy, one to silence Ray after he pled guilty. One of Ray’s former attorneys
related a double hearsay account from two deceased inmates suggesting that,
ten years after the assassination, Ray was the target of a government-directed
782 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

murder contract. A former government official further testified that he heard

an unconfirmed rumor that FBI snipers were dispatched when Ray escaped
from prison.
The deposition of a person identified only as “John Doe” related yet another
conspiracy claim. The unknown deponent recounted his alleged participation
in a Mafia-assisted plot initiated by the President and Vice President of the
United States. Finally, several authors, a newspaper article, and notes of al-
leged witness interviews offered various hearsay allegations that the United
States military was somehow involved in the assassination. These allegations
included a claim by an unidentified source that, while conducting military sur-
veillance of Dr. King, his military team witnessed the assassination and even
photographed a man with a rifle leaving the scene.

2. Eyewitness Testimony
In contrast to the several, disparate hearsay accounts presented at trial, only
three witnesses provided firsthand information relating to any of the conspir-
acy allegations. Significantly, these witnesses did not directly support any of
the hearsay claims that the government participated in the assassination, but
merely recounted their observations of conduct suggesting that Dr. King may
have been under government surveillance.
James Smith, formerly a Memphis police officer, testified that he understood
that Dr. King was under government surveillance during the sanitation work-
ers’ strike in Memphis in March 1968, two weeks before the assassination.
Smith reported that he observed a van filled with radio equipment outside the
Rivermont Hotel where Dr. King was staying. Smith said that he heard from
unidentified sources that the occupants of the van were federal agents con-
ducting electronic surveillance.
Eli Arkin, a former Memphis police intelligence officer, answered questions
about the presence of military personnel in Memphis. Arkin testified, consis-
tent with what he previously related to us, that in March or April 1968, Army
intelligence agents worked in his office while he was gathering information
about the sanitation strike. According to Arkin, the agents never explained
what they were doing and merely observed and took notes.
Finally, Carthel Weeden, then the captain of Fire Station No. 2 across from
the Lorraine, testified that on the morning of the assassination, two men who
identified themselves as Army personnel said they wanted to conduct photo-
graphic surveillance. He reported that he showed them to the fire station’s roof.
When we spoke to him after the trial, Weeden advised that, while he was sure
he took military personnel to the roof, it was possible that he did so on a day
before—not on the day of—the assassination. He also told us that he did not
know how long the men remained on the roof.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 783

3. Analysis of the Evidence Alleging the Involvement

of the Federal Government
When critically analyzed and considered in light of other relevant information,
the trial evidence does not establish that federal agents were involved in a con-
spiracy to assassinate Dr. King. Rather, it consists of speculation or secondhand
and thirdhand hearsay accounts that remain totally unsubstantiated or contra-
dicted. After considering all available information, including numerous facts
not presented to the King v. Jowers jury, we have concluded that none of the
assorted conspiracy allegations warrant any further investigation.

a. Allegations of CIA and FBI involvement in a conspiracy

William Hamblin, a former cab driver who knew both Jowers and his friend
James McCraw, testified regarding a double hearsay account that the CIA was
responsible for the assassination. Hamblin reported that while he was a barber
in Memphis in 1968, his boss, Vernon Jones, now deceased, told him about a
comment made by a long-standing customer, referred to only as “Mr. Purdy.”
Hamblin testified that Jones said that in response to Jones’ question—“who do
you think did it?”—Mr. Purdy answered—“the CIA.” Hamblin also maintained,
without explaining the basis for his knowledge, that Mr. Purdy was an FBI
agent.
Hamblin did not claim to have heard the alleged conversation between
Jones and Purdy. There was no evidence presented that the conversation actu-
ally occurred or that Hamblin’s unexplained belief that Mr. Purdy was an FBI
agent was correct. Nor was any evidence offered to show that Mr. Purdy’s al-
leged opinion was based upon fact rather than conjecture. Accordingly, Hamb-
lin’s testimony is nothing more than an unconfirmed report of idle barbershop
speculation.
A limited amount of other trial evidence was offered in an attempt to suggest
that the FBI and the CIA were involved in the assassination. Several witnesses
made vague accusations that the FBI failed to investigate thoroughly or sup-
pressed evidence related to the murder and that its leadership wanted Dr. King
killed. No specific trial evidence, however, supported these accusations and we
found nothing to confirm the speculation.
As to the CIA, a witness testified that an undercover officer, who at the time
of the assassination worked for the Memphis Police Department, was hired by
that federal agency several years later. Thus, it was implied that the CIA may
have been involved in a conspiracy. Additionally, an unidentified source, who
was not credited by the newspaper reporter who heard his story, alleged that
his National Guard reconnaissance team was met in Memphis on the day of the
murder by someone who “smelled like” a CIA agent. After reviewing the his-
torical record, including CIA records, some of which were classified, we found
784 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

nothing to substantiate the speculative claims that the CIA was involved in a
conspiracy.

b. Allegations of a government conspiracy to silence Ray

Reverend Walter Fauntroy, former delegate to the United States House of Repre-
sentatives, testified regarding a rumor. Fauntroy, who headed the HSCA probe
of the King assassination, stated that at the time of Ray’s escape from prison in
1977, he “heard” that FBI snipers had been sent to Tennessee. Fauntroy em-
phasized, “I don’t know that. I have no evidence, but that’s what we heard and
that alarmed us.”
Attorney April Ferguson, who assisted Mark Lane in representing Ray dur-
ing the HSCA hearings, testified about a related, double hearsay account from
two inmates regarding an alleged contract to kill Ray. According to Ferguson,
in January 1979, she met a now deceased, incarcerated extortionist, William
Kirk, who told her that another now deceased inmate, Arthur Baldwin, advised
him of a supposed $5000 contract to murder Ray. Ferguson added that Kirk
told her, without providing any specifics or sources for his information, that he
“got the impression that * * * Baldwin was working as an agent or informer for
the federal government.”
We did not find anything to confirm either hearsay allegation about the
plots to kill Ray. Reverend Fauntroy correctly cautioned in his testimony that
he knew of no evidence to support the rumor he had heard. In fact, Ray was
in the custody of the government for over 30 years and died of liver disease
in 1998.
We did determine that Baldwin assisted the government in federal investi-
gations that were unrelated to the assassination in return for a reduced sen-
tence for his own criminal activity. We are aware, however, of no information
to substantiate the inference that Baldwin was thus involved in a government-
directed plot to kill Ray. The former United States Attorney, who used Baldwin
as an informant, advised that, because of Baldwin’s poor credibility, he relied
on Baldwin’s information only when it could be independently corroborated.
We found nothing to corroborate the hearsay account of Kirk’s allegation of
Baldwin’s claim. Moreover, it is not uncommon for inmates to make false accu-
sations with some hope of personal gain.

c. Allegation of a conspiracy involving the

President and Vice President
During the trial, Garrison, on behalf of Jowers, presented a “John Doe” deposi-
tion outlining a conspiracy involving the Mafia and implicating both the Presi-
dent and Vice President of the United States. The unidentified deponent, whose
name was withheld for unexplained “security reasons,” claimed to have worked
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 785

for the Houston Post in 1968. His deposition provides that he was contacted by
a former treasurer of the United Auto Workers at the request of a bookmaker
acquaintance and offered $400,000, allegedly to be supplied by the union, “to
satisfy Mr. [Hubert] Humphrey and Mr. [Lyndon] Johnson by making Martin
Luther King * * * ‘shut up’ about the Vietnam War * * * by just taking him
out.” According to the deposition, the deponent accepted the offer, and along
with the assistance of several others, including Raoul and Mafia figure, Carlos
Marcello, assassinated Dr. King.
The deposition provides details as to how the murder was allegedly accom-
plished. It states that on April 4, 1968, the deponent and others flew to Mem-
phis from a secret airstrip owned by Marcello. Upon arrival, a woman from
Belize, South America, now deceased, drove them to downtown Memphis and
dropped off Raoul near Mulberry Street. Raoul then went into a building and
left a bag outside. Afterwards, Raoul drove to New Orleans, picked up Ray in
Atlanta, and flew with him to Canada. The deposition also alleges that after “the
actual shooting of King took place [from] behind * * * a brushy little wall,” the
woman from Belize “c[a]me around and pick[ed] up the shooter” in a Chevrolet
Corvair. The shooter, along with the deponent, flew back to the Mafia airstrip
and, while passing over the Mississippi River, threw the rifle into the river.
While the “John Doe” deposition presented the most detailed evidence alleg-
ing a government-directed conspiracy, no live witness testimony or documen-
tary or physical evidence corroborated any part of its allegations. Conveniently,
Doe remained unidentified for “security reasons” and virtually all of his alleged
co-conspirators are supposedly dead. Moreover, many of Doe’s claims are contra-
dicted by otherwise established facts. For example, none of the many witnesses
at the Lorraine, nor the police who immediately responded, saw a woman drive
by and pick up the shooter, and Ray never claimed that he flew to Canada with
Raoul. Thus, this far-fetched, anonymous story has no indicia of reliability and
is not credible.

d. Allegations of military involvement in a conspiracy

The King v. Jowers trial included evidence relating allegations of United States
military involvement in the assassination. Although no evidence specifically al-
leged that military personnel killed Dr. King, hearsay accounts and speculation
suggested that military personnel were somehow connected to the assassina-
tion and actually witnessed it.
Dr. Pepper introduced redacted copies of notes purporting to document in-
terviews with unidentified military sources who claimed to have observed the
assassination. One set of notes records allegations by an unidentified source,
claiming that he was one of two soldiers with the 902d Military Intelligence
Group who was on the rooftop of Fire Station No. 2 conducting surveillance of
786 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

Dr. King at the time of the assassination. This source reported that he observed
and his partner photographed the assassination and “a white man with a rifle”
on the ground leaving the scene. According to the notes, the source offered to
approach his partner to attempt to obtain the alleged photographs for $2,000.
Another set of notes purported to document the allegations of a different
unnamed source that he was one of two guardsmen with an Alabama National
Guard unit, the 20th Special Forces Group (SFG), who was watching Dr. King
and Ambassador Young from another rooftop near the Lorraine and observed
the assassination. That source also claimed that his team coordinated with the
Memphis police and someone he assumed to be with the CIA.
In a 1993 newspaper article from the Memphis Commercial Appeal, which
was also introduced, reporter Stephen Tompkins asserts, without citing sources
for the specific claims, that in the late 1960s, the 20th SFG conducted military
intelligence surveillance of Dr. King and others from the civil rights movement.
The article further provides that, on the day before the assassination, the 111th
Military Intelligence Group (MIG) “shadowed [Dr. King’s] movements and
monitored radio traffic from a sedan crammed with electronic equipment” and
that “[e]ight Green Berets from an ‘Operation Detachment Alpha 184 Team’
were also in Memphis carrying out an unknown mission.”
Douglas Valentine, who authored a book about CIA intelligence operations
during the Vietnam war, presented hearsay testimony from another unidenti-
fied source. He related that while writing his book, he learned that a single un-
named source allegedly involved in the military’s anti-war surveillance “heard
a rumor” that the 111th MIG was conducting surveillance of Dr. King in Mem-
phis on April 4, 1968, and took photographs of the assassination. Valentine
advised us after the trial that he could not recall the identity of the person who
told him the rumor but thought it was a former military enlisted man.
Another writer, Jack Terrell, who claimed to have worked with a CIA-
directed group supplying arms and military software to the Contra rebels in
Honduras in the 1980s, offered a hearsay opinion of a deceased source. Ter-
rell testified that in the 1970s, as a private businessman, one of his employees,
J.D. Hill, now deceased, claimed to have been with the 20th SFG in the 1960s.
According to Terrell, Hill, who was a “strange person” with a drinking prob-
lem, expressed the “view” that in 1968 he had been trained specifically to par-
ticipate in a military sniper mission to assassinate Dr. King that was canceled
without explanation.

(1) Allegations regarding the military that

are relevant to Jowers’ claim
Although none of the King v. Jowers conspiracy allegations were directly linked
to Jowers’ allegations, some of the evidence relating to claims of military
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 787

involvement suggests the existence of witnesses and/or physical evidence that

could support Jowers’ contention that the assassin fired from behind Jim’s Grill.
As a result, we searched for witnesses from the military and physical evidence
that might confirm Jowers’ allegation.
We found no evidence—no witness, document or photograph—to confirm
the hearsay allegations that military personnel witnessed or photographed the
assassination. Rather, we found evidence to establish that those allegations are
not credible.
Initially, we obtained an un-redacted copy of the interview notes that were
introduced at trial. It named the man who claimed that he and another soldier
witnessed and photographed the assassination. We also learned that former
Memphis Commercial Appeal reporter Stephen Tompkins, who did not testify
in King v. Jowers, authored the interview notes. Accordingly, we interviewed
Tompkins.
Tompkins confirmed that he prepared the notes based on his interview of
a source whose identity he was unable to substantiate. He emphasized that he
did not believe the account related by the source and that, had he been called
as a witness at the trial, he would have stated his belief to the jury.
Tompkins explained that he was unable to corroborate any information
provided by the source, who identified himself as Jacob Brenner, including
whether that was the man’s real name. In addition, Tompkins said he found no
evidence to substantiate that the 902d Military Intelligence Group (Brenner’s
alleged unit) ever conducted surveillance of Dr. King or was in Memphis.
Rather, he determined that the 902d MIG’s mission did not include domestic
intelligence work. Tompkins also advised that he never interviewed Brenner’s
alleged partner, who purportedly photographed both the assassination and the
man with a rifle, because Brenner never named him. Nor did he ever speak
to Colonel John Downie, the commander of the 902d MIG to whom Brenner
claimed the photographs were given, because Downie was no longer alive.
Tompkins said that he was skeptical about Brenner’s story based upon more
than his inability to corroborate it. Brenner asked for increasing amounts of
money for the photographs that he claimed would substantiate his story. Ac-
cording to Tompkins, when initially meeting Brenner in Chicago, he wanted
$2,000 for the photographs; later in Miami, he escalated the demand to at least
$10,000. Concluding Brenner did not have any photographs, Tompkins said
he advised Dr. Pepper not to pay. In the end, Tompkins described Brenner as
a “slimeball” whose story was no different than numerous false stories he had
heard from conspiracy buffs asking for money.
Notwithstanding Tompkins’ assessment of Brenner’s credibility and story,
we investigated whether military personnel from the 902d MIG or from some
other unit were on the roof of Fire Station No. 2, observed the assassination, or
photographed a man with a rifle after the shooting.
788 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

Official records reflect that the 111th MIG and the Tennessee National
Guard were the only military units which had personnel in Memphis on the
day of the assassination. We found no record to indicate that any other military
unit, including the 902d MIG, had personnel in Memphis on April 4, 1968.
The Department of Defense also confirmed Tompkins’ understanding that the
902d MIG did not conduct domestic intelligence work. Finally, we found no
written record of any surveillance of Dr. King at the Lorraine Motel by military
personnel from any unit.
In addition to reviewing records, we located and interviewed five surviving
members of the 111th MIG who were in Memphis on April 4, 1968. They all
claimed they were not aware that military personnel from any other unit, in-
cluding the 902d MIG, were in Memphis around the time of the assassination.
Jimmie Locke, then a Major and the 111th MIG’s ranking officer in Memphis
at the time of the assassination, advised that under the military’s standing op-
erating procedures he would have been advised if personnel from another unit
were in his area. He specifically stated that, even if the other unit’s operation
was covert, he would have been advised of the personnel’s presence, if not their
mission.
Additionally, no one from the 111th MIG had firsthand knowledge that any
military personnel were in the vicinity of the Lorraine on the day of the assas-
sination or that military personnel ever conducted surveillance of Dr. King.
Steve McCall, then a Sergeant and investigator with the 111th MIG, did re-
member, however, somehow hearing that agents from his unit were being dis-
patched to the Lorraine on the day of the assassination to watch Dr. King and
his party. McCall could not recall the source for this information or any other
details, including whether anyone actually went to the Lorraine and, if they
did, who they were, when they went, or what they did.
Significantly, one witness from the 111th MIG also told us that he was on
the roof of Fire Station No. 2 before—but not on the day of—the assassination.
James Green, then a Sergeant and investigator, recalled going to the fire station
on the day that Dr. King’s advance party arrived in Memphis, perhaps March
31st. He claims he went with another agent from his unit, whom he could
not now recall, to scout for locations to take photographs of persons visiting
the King party at the Lorraine Motel at a later time, if necessary. According to
Green, someone from the station may have shown them to the roof, where he
and the other agent remained for 30 to 45 minutes before determining it was
too exposed a location from which to take photographs. Green stated he never
returned to the roof or the vicinity of the Lorraine and never conducted sur-
veillance of or photographed Dr. King. He also advised that he never heard that
any other military personnel were in the area of the Lorraine on the day of the
assassination or conducted surveillance of Dr. King.
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 789

We also interviewed all surviving firemen who worked at Fire Station No. 2
at the time of the assassination. No fireman, other than Weeden, had any
knowledge about the presence of military personnel at the fire station.
While we found no reason to disbelieve Captain Weeden’s recollection that
he led two Army agents to the station’s roof or Green’s account to support it, we
found nothing to confirm that military personnel were in fact at that location
on the day of the assassination. Further, when we interviewed Weeden after
the trial, he acknowledged that his memory of an event 30 years ago might be
inexact, and, thus, it was possible that he took the military personnel to the
roof sometime before—not the day of—the assassination. He added that he
had never spoken with anyone about his recollection until Dr. Pepper inter-
viewed him “before [Pepper] wrote his book” in 1995. Accordingly, Green’s
recollection that military personnel went to the roof on a different day than the
assassination appears accurate.
We likewise found physical evidence to contradict Jacob Brenner’s story that
he or anyone else was on the fire station’s roof at the time of the assassina-
tion. Attachments 4a and 4b, photographs taken by television producer Joseph
Louw of the police responding to the shooting, clearly depict the fire station’s
roof most probably within a minute of the shooting. The photographs were
taken through the window of Louw’s balcony room, which was two doors from
where Dr. King lay mortally wounded. Had Brenner or someone else been on
the roof photographing the assassination when Louw was taking his photo-
graphs, they would necessarily appear in them. Louw’s photographs, however,
show no one on the roof.
After examining all relevant information, we have concluded that the King v.
Jowers hearsay evidence that military personnel witnessed and photographed
both the assassination and a man with a rifle as he left the scene is not credible.
We found no evidence to support the allegation. Rather, we discovered infor-
mation to contradict it, including Louw’s photographs and the assessment of
the only person who heard the story, Tompkins, that it is not worthy of belief.
(2) Other allegations regarding the military
We have also concluded that allegations in a second set of interview notes re-
lating to military personnel also authored by Tompkins and introduced at trial
are not credible. Those notes reflect the claims of two men, who alleged that
they were sent to Memphis with the 20th Special Forces Group of the Alabama
National Guard, met a Memphis police officer and someone appearing to be
a CIA agent, and witnessed the assassination. Although Tompkins declined
to provide the names of the guardsmen, asserting that they are news sources
whose identities he is obliged to protect, he nonetheless advised that he was
unable to corroborate their story and doubted their credibility.
790 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

Tompkins recounted that, during his investigation for the Memphis Commer-
cial Appeal in the early 1990s, he received information that the 20th SFG had
been in Memphis at the time of the assassination. His inquiry led to a man then
living in Mexico, who claimed to have been a guardsman with that unit and on
the roof of a building (not the fire station) watching Dr. King at the time of the
assassination. Tompkins said that the guardsman introduced him to another
man in Mexico who allegedly was the team’s observer. Tompkins emphasized
that the guardsman claimed that he was only conducting “reconnaissance” and
not deployed as a sniper to shoot Dr. King.
Tompkins told us that he never found anything to corroborate the alle-
gations of the guardsman and his observer and no longer believes them. He
stated that the guardsman, like Brenner, wanted money in exchange for docu-
ments that he claimed would substantiate his story. Because Tompkins and
his newspaper did not credit the story, they did not attempt to purchase the
alleged documents or publish the account. Later, according to Tompkins, he
gave money from Dr. Pepper to the guardsman for the documents (he did not
recall the amount), but the guardsman never provided them. Tompkins ex-
plained that he did not think the guardsman was “on the level” and that what
he related may have been “just bullshit” and “made up.” Tompkins summed
up his evaluation of the guardsman by saying that he “would not testify under
oath that [the guardsman] was truthful,” and, in his view, it would “be a waste
of taxpayers’ dollars” to travel to Mexico to speak with him.
We found no evidence to corroborate the allegations of the guardsman or
his purported observer. We could find no record or witness to confirm that the
20th SFG or any other military unit besides the 111th MIG and the Tennessee
National Guard was in Memphis at the time of the assassination or anything
else alleged. Moreover, according to the National Guard Bureau of the Depart-
ment of Defense, the 20th SFG was never authorized to engage in surveillance
or any other activities against civil rights leaders.
Additionally, one critical fact mentioned by the guardsman that was subject
to verification proved to be false. According to Tompkins, the guardsman said
his team leader, an officer whom he named, accompanied the team to Mem-
phis. Tompkins’ interview notes also make several references to the team lead-
er’s activities in Memphis on the day of the assassination. In 1997, the team
leader, who was supposedly dead, came forward to contest the accusations. He
denied both being in Memphis on April 4, 1968, and knowing that other per-
sonnel from the 20th SFG were there, and provided an account of his where-
abouts on the day of the assassination. We are aware of nothing to contradict
the team leader’s denial.
We also considered both Tompkins’ claim in his 1993 article that the 111th
MIG monitored Dr. King in Memphis on the day before the assassination with
“a sedan crammed with electronic equipment” and police officer James Smith’s
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 791

alleged March 1968 observations of a van, which he heard was involved in

surveillance. Tompkins advised that, while witnesses told him they had heard
electronic surveillance occurred, no one claimed to have actually observed it.
Nor did we find any record or witness to support the allegation that the 111th
MIG even had such electronic surveillance equipment. Additionally, 111th
MIG Sergeant James Green, who admitted being on the fire station’s roof, ac-
knowledged that approximately two weeks after the assassination he was op-
erating a sedan in Memphis crammed with communication, not surveillance,
equipment. According to Green, local law enforcement officers were aware of
his presence and the radio equipment.
Finally, we assessed the testimony of both author Douglas Valentine that an
unidentified source heard a rumor that the 111th MIG photographed the assas-
sination and writer Jack Terrell that his now deceased employee talked about
a canceled 20th SFG mission to kill Dr. King. We found neither witnesses’ tes-
timony significant in view of its hearsay nature and in light of the information
discussed above. According to Valentine, an unidentified source conveyed a
rumor and, according to Terrell, another source, who was unreliable and is
now deceased, expressed an unsubstantiated opinion. As with many hearsay
accounts, after critical examination of the relevant facts, these secondhand ac-
counts proved inaccurate.
In conclusion, we found no evidence that military personnel saw, photo-
graphed, or were even present at the time of the assassination. Neither the
guardsmen’s allegation nor Jacob Brenner’s story is credible. At the same time,
we were unable to determine definitively whether the military conducted sur-
veillance of Dr. King on the day of the assassination. We found no conclusive
evidence that they did. Other information, however, establishes that the mili-
tary did carry out surveillance of Dr. King and many other civilians participating
in civil disobedience in the 1960s. Because such surveillance, which Congress
later condemned, was so pervasive, the mere possibility that the military may
have spied on Dr. King on the day of the assassination does not suggest its
complicity in the murder. In fact, we found nothing to indicate that surveillance
at any time had any connection with the assassination.

C. Evidence Alleging the Involvement of Dr. King’s Associates

Dr. Pepper also introduced evidence during the trial to suggest that two Afri-
can American ministers, who were associates of Dr. King, conspired to kill him.
Testimony was presented to imply that Dr. King’s associates facilitated the as-
sassination by luring Dr. King to the Lorraine Motel where he had never stayed,
changing his room assignment from an interior to an exposed balcony room, dis-
missing a portion of his security, leading him to the balcony at exactly 6:00 P.M.,
and leaving him alone and exposed to allow the assassin an unobstructed shot.
792 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

We reviewed the trial testimony relating to these claims. Based on an analy-

sis of all relevant information, including numerous facts not presented to the
jury, we have concluded that the allegation that two of Dr. King’s associates
conspired to kill him is not credible and does not warrant further investigation.

1. Dr. King and the Lorraine Motel

During the trial, evidence suggested that Dr. King’s stay at the Lorraine was out
of the ordinary and intentionally directed by insiders to assist the assassina-
tion. For example, Jerry Williams, a former Memphis police officer, one of the
African American officers who provided security for Dr. King’s previous visits to
Memphis, testified that Dr. King had never stayed overnight at the Lorraine be-
cause of security concerns. Reverend James Lawson, an associate of Dr. King’s,
also testified that Dr. King “mostly stayed” at “white” motels, rather than the
motels patronized by African Americans, like the Lorraine.
Supporting the theory that one of Dr. King’s associates deliberately moved
him to a balcony room to facilitate the assassination, Leon Cohen testified that
on the day after the assassination he heard that Dr. King’s room assignment
at the Lorraine had been changed by someone within his own organization.
Cohen, who claimed to be a friend of the Lorraine’s owner, Walter Bailey, tes-
tified that Bailey told him that a male member of Dr. King’s group called from
Atlanta the day prior to Dr. King’s arrival to change his interior courtyard
room to an exposed, balcony room. According to Cohen’s hearsay account,
Bailey was adamantly against the move because of his concerns for Dr. King’s
security.
The historical record contradicts the trial testimony that Dr. King’s final stay
at the Lorraine was unusual. The motel owner, Walter Bailey, now deceased,
told investigators on several occasions that Dr. King was a frequent overnight
guest at the Lorraine. For example, on the day of the assassination, Bailey told
the FBI that Dr. King had stayed at his motel on approximately 12 occasions
since 1958. In 1969, Bailey similarly told investigators for James Earl Ray that
Dr. King had stayed at the Lorraine on and off for the past 15 years.
Others corroborate Bailey’s official statements about Dr. King’s frequent pa-
tronage of the Lorraine. Bailey’s daughter Caroline Champion, who worked at
the motel, advised our investigators that Dr. King stayed there “many times.”
Dr. King’s close friend and colleague, Reverend Ralph Abernathy, told the
HSCA under oath that he and Dr. King stayed in room 306 at the Lorraine so
often that it was referred to as the “King-Abernathy suite.” Memphis police of-
ficer Edward Redditt, who also provided security for Dr. King during an earlier
visit, corroborated the recollections of Bailey, Champion, and Abernathy that
Dr. King had previously stayed at the Lorraine. Accordingly, contrary to the
trial testimony, other information from several reliable sources demonstrates
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 793

that Dr. King was a frequent overnight guest at the Lorraine. Thus, there is
nothing suspicious about his being at the Lorraine on April 4, 1968.
The suggestion that one of Dr. King’s associates moved him to Room 306
on the balcony level to make him a target for the assassin is also contradicted
by well-documented accounts. When interviewed by the FBI the day of the
assassination, Bailey said that he had no knowledge that anyone had acted in
a suspicious manner and absolutely no information or thoughts on the assas-
sination. He likewise expressed no concern about Dr. King’s room assignment
in statements to Ray’s investigators and specifically told them that there was
no advance registration for Dr. King, who was not registered until Reverend
Lawson’s arrival on April 3, 1968. Had Bailey actually received instructions,
with which he disagreed, to change Dr. King’s room, it is inconceivable that he
would have related that fact only to Cohen and not to any of the several inves-
tigators, including those representing Ray, who interviewed him.
Moreover, Reverend Abernathy’s testimony to the HSCA about the “King-
Abernathy suite” (balcony Room 306) completely contradicts Cohen’s testi-
mony. Reverend Abernathy further testified that during the April 3–4, 1968
visit, he and Dr. King were moved to Room 306 at their own request as soon
as it was vacated by another guest. Accordingly, we found nothing to support
a conclusion that some unidentified associate of Dr. King deliberately moved
him to a balcony room to facilitate his assassination.
2. Dr. King’s Security
Evidence was also presented to suggest a plot to facilitate the removal of
Dr. King’s security. We discussed most of this trial evidence, along with other
related information not presented in the trial, when we considered general ac-
cusations that security was removed in Section IV.D.2.b.(1) above. However,
two additional pieces of evidence were presented in King v. Jowers in an effort to
suggest that Dr. King’s associates assisted the alleged plot to remove his security.
Philip Mellanson, a professor and author, testified that Memphis Police In-
spector Sam Evans, now deceased, told him that he ordered tactical units away
from the Lorraine at the request of a specific “Memphis Minister” associated
with Dr. King, whom he named. In addition, other witnesses testified about
their belief that the eviction of the Invaders, a group of young Memphis, Af-
rican American activists, from their room at the Lorraine minutes before the
shooting facilitated the assassination. One former Invader, Charles Cabbage,
testified that he was told that another minister, the “SCLC Minister,” a rank-
ing member of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, ordered that his
group be immediately ejected.
We found nothing to support Mellanson’s hearsay account that the “Mem-
phis Minister” was the specific source of the request to remove tactical units.
When we interviewed the “Memphis Minister,” he denied ever making such a
794 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

request. Moreover, the fact that TACT Unit 10 remained in the vicinity across
the street at the fire station undermines the inference that the “Memphis Min-
ister” conspired with law enforcement.
Likewise, nothing supports a conclusion that the eviction of the Invaders
from the Lorraine, allegedly at the direction of the “SCLC Minister,” is related
to the assassination. We found no evidence that the Invaders had anything to
do with Dr. King’s security. Rather, according to associates of Dr. King and for-
mer Memphis police officers, the Invaders were young, African American ac-
tivists who were attempting to associate with Dr. King. Accordingly, even if the
Invaders were evicted from the Lorraine by the “SCLC Minister” or some other
SCLC staff person, such action would not have diminished Dr. King’s security.
Moreover, Charles Cabbage’s recent trial testimony is inconsistent with his
testimony to the HSCA. Twenty years ago, Cabbage testified that did not recol-
lect the specific sequence of events leading to the Invaders’ departure from the
Lorraine but that they decided to leave on their own because the SCLC would
not pay their room bill. Cabbage told the HSCA that “one of the [SCLC] staff-
ers,” whose name he did not provide, somehow advised him that “they [the
SCLC] were no longer going to pay for the room, and we [the Invaders] were
already overdue and that left no alternative but for us to check out.”
Cabbage’s recent testimony is also uncorroborated and contrary to the recol-
lections of others. Significantly, in Cabbage’s recent testimony in King v. Jowers,
he claimed that it was Reverend James Orange who evicted the Invaders, tell-
ing him that the “SCLC Minister” wanted them to leave immediately. When we
spoke with Orange after the trial, he told us he did not recall receiving that in-
struction from the “SCLC Minister” or anyone else. Also, when we interviewed
the “SCLC Minister,” a friend and associate of Dr. King’s, who has led a life of
public service, he denied the accusation and claimed that he did not recall
that the Invaders were even staying at the Lorraine. We are aware of nothing
to contradict his denial. Accordingly, the record does not support the inference
presented at trial that African American ministers associated with Dr. King fa-
cilitated the assassination by removing his security.

3. Dr. King’s Presence on the Balcony

During the trial, the “Memphis Minister” was also called as a witness and ques-
tioned so as to create the impression that he had deliberately lured Dr. King
to the balcony of the Lorraine at precisely 6:00 P.M. and left him exposed and
alone so that he could be shot. This claim is consistent with the view expressed
to us by Dr. Pepper and Dexter King prior to trial. To support this contention,
the plaintiffs’ attorney questioned the “Memphis Minister” regarding his con-
duct before the shooting and confronted him with words from his speech at
ceremonies commemorating an anniversary of the assassination. In the speech,
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R . 795

as he described the events of the assassination, the “Memphis Minister” re-

counted that just before the shot he “moved away [from Dr. King] so he [the
assassin] could have a clear shot.”
According to a number of witnesses interviewed by our investigation and
previous investigations, Dr. King walked out of Room 306 onto the balcony of
the Lorraine just before 6:00 P.M. in the company of the “Memphis Minister.”
Dr. King conversed with several of his other associates, who were assembled in
the parking lot below as they all were preparing to go to dinner. When the “Mem-
phis Minister” walked a few steps away from Dr. King, the assassin fired. As dis-
cussed in Section IV.D.1.a.(1) above, we determined that Dr. King’s appearance
on the balcony at 6:00 P.M. for a 5:00 P.M. dinner engagement could not have
been anticipated with enough certainty to plan the time of the assassination.
The notion that the “Memphis Minister” was involved in the assassination
and inadvertently revealed his participation during a public speech is far-fetched.
The minister’s comment, “I moved away so he could have a clear shot,” con-
sidered in the context of his speech, appears nothing more than an inartful
attempt to explain the sequence of events and the fact that Dr. King was shot
when he moved away from the speaker’s side. It hardly amounts to an inadver-
tent confession.
In any event, we are aware of no information to support the accusation that
the “Memphis Minister” led Dr. King to the balcony and moved away to allow
the assassin to shoot. We confronted the “Memphis Minister” with the accusa-
tion and he denied it. We are also aware of nothing that would have motivated
him to assist a conspiracy to murder a friend and associate, while his public life
demonstrates his integrity and dedication to non-violence.

D. Conclusions Regarding the King v. Jowers Conspiracy Claims

The evidence introduced in King v. Jowers to support various conspiracy allega-
tions consisted of either inaccurate and incomplete information or unsubstanti-
ated conjecture, supplied most often by sources, many unnamed, who did not
testify. Important information from the historical record and our investigation
contradicts and undermines it. When considered in light of all other available
relevant facts, the trial’s evidence fails to establish the existence of any con-
spiracy to kill Dr. King. The verdict presented by the parties and adopted by
the jury is incompatible with the weight of all relevant information, much of
which the jury never heard. Accordingly, the conspiracy allegations presented
at the trial warrant no further investigation.

VIII. Conclusion and Recommendation

After reviewing all available materials from prior official investigations and
other sources, including the evidence from King v. Jowers, and after conducting
796 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F M A R T I N LU T H E R K I N G J R .

a year and a half of original investigation, we have concluded that the allega-
tions originating with Loyd Jowers and Donald Wilson are not credible.
We found no reliable evidence to support Jowers’ allegations that he con-
spired with others to shoot Dr. King from behind Jim’s Grill. In fact, credible
evidence contradicting his allegations, as well as material inconsistencies among
his accounts and his own repudiations of them, demonstrate that Jowers has
not been truthful. Rather, it appears that Jowers contrived and promoted a
sensational story of a plot to kill Dr. King.
Likewise, we do not credit Donald Wilson’s claim that he took papers from
Ray’s abandoned car. Wilson has made significant contradictory statements
and otherwise behaved in a duplicitous manner, inconsistent with his pro-
fessed interest in seeking the truth. Important evidence contradicting Wilson’s
claims, including the failure of James Earl Ray to support Wilson’s revelation,
further undermines his account. Although we were unable to determine the
true origin of the Wilson documents, his inconsistent statements, his conduct,
and substantial evidence refuting his claims all demonstrate that his implau-
sible account is not worthy of belief. Accordingly, we have concluded that the
documents do not constitute evidence relevant to the King assassination.
The weight of the evidence available to our investigation also establishes
that Raoul is merely the creation of James Earl Ray. We found no evidence to
support the claims that a Raoul participated in the assassination. Rather, a re-
view of 30 years of speculation about his identity presents a convincing case
that no Raoul was involved in a conspiracy to kill Dr. King.
In accordance with our mandate, we confined our investigation to the Jowers
and the Wilson allegations and logical investigative leads suggested by them,
including those concerning Raoul, who is central to both allegations. We how-
ever considered other allegations, including the unsubstantiated claims made
during the trial of King v. Jowers that government agencies and African Ameri-
can ministers associated with Dr. King conspired to kill him. Where warranted,
we conducted limited additional investigation. Thus, we evaluated all addi-
tional allegations brought to our attention to determine whether any reliable
substantiation exists to credit them or warrant further inquiry. We found none.
Similarly, we considered the suggestion of the House Select Committee on
Assassinations and the Shelby County District Attorney General to investigate
whether James Earl Ray’s surviving brothers may have been his co-conspirators.
We found insufficient evidentiary leads remaining after 30 years to justify fur-
ther investigation. Finally, while we conducted no original investigation spe-
cifically directed at determining whether James Earl Ray killed Dr. King, we
found no credible evidence to disturb past judicial determinations that he did.
Questions and speculation may always surround the assassination of Dr. King
and other national tragedies. Our investigation of these most recent allega-
tions, as well as several exhaustive previous official investigations, found no
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 797

reliable evidence that Dr. King was killed by conspirators who framed James
Earl Ray. Nor have any of the conspiracy theories advanced in the last 30 years,
including the Jowers and the Wilson allegations, survived critical examination.
We recommend no further federal investigation of the Jowers allegations,
the Wilson allegations, or any other allegations related to the assassination un-
less and until reliable substantiating facts are presented. At this time, we are
aware of no information to warrant any further investigation of the assassina-
tion of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

Source: U.S. Department of Justice Website. http://www.justice.gov/crt/about/

crm/mlk/part1.php.

Document 20
ASSASSINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY
(1968)—EDWARD M. KENNEDY’S EULOGY FOR
HIS BROTHER ROBERT F. KENNEDY

Senator Edward M. Kennedy delivered the eulogy reproduced below at the funeral
of his slain brother Robert Kennedy at St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on
June 8, 1968. The text below is not a transcript of the recording of Senator Kennedy’s
eulogy. It is instead based on the version released to the press, which differs in a few
particulars. Because of its wide distribution, the press version has at least as strong a
claim on the historical record as the spoken version.

Senator Edward M. Kennedy

St. Patrick’s Cathedral
New York City
June 8, 1968
On behalf of Mrs. Robert Kennedy, her children and the parents and sisters
of Robert Kennedy, I want to express what we feel to those who mourn with
us today in this Cathedral and around the world. We loved him as a brother and
father and son. From his parents, and from his older brothers and sisters—Joe,
Kathleen and Jack—he received inspiration which he passed on to all of us. He
gave us strength in time of trouble, wisdom in time of uncertainty, and sharing
in time of happiness. He was always by our side.
Love is not an easy feeling to put into words. Nor is loyalty, or trust or joy.
But he was all of these. He loved life completely and lived it intensely.
A few years back, Robert Kennedy wrote some words about his own father
and they expressed the way we in his family feel about him. He said of what
his father meant to him: “What it really all adds up to is love—not love as it is
798 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y

described with such facility in popular magazines, but the kind of love that is af-
fection and respect, order, encouragement, and support. Our awareness of this
was an incalculable source of strength, and because real love is something un-
selfish and involves sacrifice and giving, we could not help but profit from it.
“Beneath it all, he has tried to engender a social conscience. There were
wrongs which needed attention. There were people who were poor and who
needed help. And we have a responsibility to them and to this country. Through
no virtues and accomplishments of our own, we have been fortunate enough
to be born in the United States under the most comfortable conditions. We,
therefore, have a responsibility to others who are less well off.”
This is what Robert Kennedy was given. What he leaves us is what he said,
what he did and what he stood for. A speech he made to the young people
of South Africa on their Day of Affirmation in 1966 sums it up the best, and
I would read it now:
“There is a discrimination in this world and slavery and slaughter and star-
vation. Governments repress their people; and millions are trapped in poverty
while the nation grows rich; and wealth is lavished on armaments everywhere.
“These are differing evils, but they are common works of man. They reflect
the imperfection of human justice, the inadequacy of human compassion, our
lack of sensibility toward the sufferings of our fellows.
“But we can perhaps remember—even if only for a time that those who live
with us are our brothers; that they share with us the same short moment of
life; that they seek—as we do—nothing but the chance to live out their lives
in purpose and happiness, winning what satisfaction and fulfillment they can.
“Surely this bond of common faith, this bond of common goal, can begin to
teach us something. Surely, we can learn, at least, to look at those around us
as fellow men. And surely we can begin to work a little harder to bind up the
wounds among us and to become in our own hearts brothers and countrymen
once again.
“Our answer is to rely on youth—not a time of life but a state of mind, a
temper of the will, a quality of imagination, a predominance of courage over
timidity, of the appetite for adventure over the love of ease. The cruelties and
obstacles of this swiftly changing planet will not yield to obsolete dogmas and
outworn slogans. They cannot be moved by those who cling to a present that is
already dying, who prefer the illusion of security to the excitement and danger
that come with even the most peaceful progress. It is a revolutionary world we
live in; and this generation at home and around the world, has had thrust upon
it a greater burden of responsibility than any generation that has ever lived.
“Some believe there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the
enormous array of the world’s ills. Yet many of the world’s great movements, of
thought and action, have flowed from the work of a single man. A young monk
began the Protestant reformation, a young general extended an empire from
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 799

Macedonia to the borders of the earth, and a young woman reclaimed the terri-
tory of France. It was a young Italian explorer who discovered the New World,
and the thirty-two-year-old Thomas Jefferson who proclaimed that all men are
created equal.
“These men moved the world, and so can we all. Few will have the great-
ness to bend history itself, but each of us can work to change a small portion of
events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this gen-
eration. It is from numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human
history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve
the lot of others, or strikes out against injustice, he sends forth a tiny ripple of
hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and
daring, those ripples build a current that can sweep down the mightiest walls
of oppression and resistance.
“Few are willing to brave the disapproval of their fellows, the censure of
their colleagues, the wrath of their society. Moral courage is a rarer commodity
than bravery in battle or great intelligence. Yet it is the one essential, vital qual-
ity for those who seek to change a world that yields most painfully to change.
And I believe that in this generation those with the courage to enter the moral
conflict will find themselves with companions in every corner of the globe.
“For the fortunate among us, there is the temptation to follow the easy and
familiar paths of personal ambition and financial success so grandly spread be-
fore those who enjoy the privilege of education. But that is not the road history
has marked out for us. Like it or not, we live in times of danger and uncertainty.
But they are also more open to the creative energy of men than any other time
in history. All of us will ultimately be judged and as the years pass we will surely
judge ourselves, on the effort we have contributed to building a new world soci-
ety and the extent to which our ideals and goals have shaped that effort.
“The future does not belong to those who are content with today, apathetic
toward common problems and their fellow man alike, timid and fearful in the
face of new ideas and bold projects. Rather it will belong to those who can
blend vision, reason and courage in a personal commitment to the ideals and
great enterprises of American Society.
“Our future may lie beyond our vision, but it is not completely beyond our
control. It is the shaping impulse of America that neither fate nor nature nor
the irresistible tides of history, but the work of our own hands, matched to rea-
son and principle, that will determine our destiny. There is pride in that, even
arrogance, but there is also experience and truth. In any event, it is the only
way we can live.”
This is the way he lived. My brother need not be idealized, or enlarged in
death beyond what he was in life, to be remembered simply as a good and de-
cent man, who saw wrong and tried to right it, saw suffering and tried to heal
it, saw war and tried to stop it.
800 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y

Those of us who loved him and who take him to his rest today, pray that
what he was to us and what he wished for others will some day come to pass
for all the world.
As he said many times, in many parts of this nation, to those he touched and
who sought to touch him:

“Some men see things as they are and say why.

I dream things that never were and say why not.”

Source: John F. Kennedy Presidential Library and Museum Website. http://

www.jfklibrary.org/Research/Research-Aids/Ready-Reference/EMK-Speeches/
Tribute-to-Senator-Robert-F-Kennedy.aspx.

Document 21
ASSASSINATION OF ROBERT F. KENNEDY (1968)—
EXCERPTS FROM THE REPORT OF SPECIAL COUNSEL
THOMAS F. KRANZ ON HIS REINVESTIGATION OF
THE MURDER OF ROBERT KENNEDY (1977)

On August 12, 1975, the Los Angeles County Board of Supervisors appointed attor-
ney Thomas F. Kranz as special counsel to conduct an independent investigation of
the assassination of Senator Robert F. Kennedy, which occurred in Los Angeles in June
1968. The need for a reinvestigation of the murder was justified by the growing sup-
port for various theories that alleged a conspiracy to murder Kennedy, which involved
more shooters than just convicted assassin Sirhan Sirhan. The most persistent theory
was that a second gunman actually fired the fatal shot because Kennedy’s orienta-
tion to Sirhan as described by witnesses did not match the placement and direction
of wounds described by Coroner Thomas Noguchi during Kennedy’s autopsy. In his
report, which was released in 1977, Kranz concluded that the overwhelming weight of
the evidence pointed to Sirhan acting alone, without the presence of a second gunman.
Reproduced below are excerpts from the report describing the murder on June 5 and
the main evidence uncovered against Sirhan in the following days.

Evidence Presented at Trial

On the evening of June 2, 1968, Senator Robert Kennedy had given a speech
at the Palm Terrace Room of the Ambassador Hotel in Los Angeles. Prior to the
Senator’s speech on the evening of June 2, William Blume, who had worked
as a stock boy in a liquor store located next door to the organic health food
store where defendant Sirhan had worked the few months previous to that
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 801

date, observed Sirhan in the lobby area adjacent to the Palm Terrace Room.
Mrs. Miriam Davis, a hostess for the Kennedy event that night, was walking
around the hotel twenty minutes after the speech when she observed Sirhan
seated in the kitchen area. After the Senator’s speech on June 2, Kennedy had
passed through the kitchen area.
On the morning of June 4, 1968, election day, Sirhan signed in at the San
Gabriel Valley Gun Club located Fish Canyon road in Duarte. Her wrote
“Sirhan Sirhan” and the address of 696 East Howard Street, Pasadena, on the
roster. After Sirhan had fired awhile on the shooting range, he told the range
master, Edward Buckner, “I want the best box of shells you have, and I want
some that will not misfire.” I got to have some that will not misfire.” Buckner
then sold defendant Sirhan a box of shells, and Sirhan resumed shooting, en-
gaging in rapid fire shooting, using a .22 revolver and remaining on the range
till 5:00 P.M.
Five other witnesses at the trial testified that they observed Sirhan engage in
rapid fire at the range. One witness, Harry Carreon, noticed 300–4000 empty
casings where Sirhan was shooting. Sirhan told another witness, Mrs. Ronald
Williams, that his mini-mag bullets were superior to the bullets that she was
using, and when asked by witness Michael Saccoman if it was against the law
to use a pistol for hunting, Sirhan answered “Well, I don’t know about that. It
could kill a dog.”
Earlier in the year, Sirhan had had a conversation with Alvin Clark, a trash
collector employed by the city of Pasadena, in which Sirhan had expressed
his concern about how the assassination of Martin Luther King would effect
“Negro people and how the Negroes would vote in the coming election.” Clark
testified at the trial that he told Sirhan he was going to vote for Senator Kennedy
and Sirhan responded by saying, “What do you want to vote for that son-of-
a-b for? Because I’m planning on shooting him.” Clark then told Sirhan that
Senator Kennedy had paid the expenses of bringing Martin Luther King’s body
back from Tennessee and that “you will be killing one of the best men in the
country.” Clark remembered that Sirhan stated that Senator Kennedy had done
this merely for the publicity involved, and that this conversation had occurred
in mid-April 1968.
On the evening of the election, June 4, an hour or two prior to Senator
Kennedy’s speech in the Embassy ballroom, a member of the Senator’s staff, Judy
Royer, observed Sirhan in the area to the rear of the Embassy ballroom stage.
Because Sirhan was not wearing a press badge or staff badge he was asked to
leave, and he turned and walked toward the doors leading out to the Embassy
ballroom. Shortly before midnight, as Senator Kennedy took the service eleva-
tor down to the pantry area in the rear of the Embassy ballroom, Jesus Perez,
a kitchen helper at the Ambassador, and Martin Petrusky, a waiter, observed
Senator Kennedy as he passed through the pantry on the way to the Embassy
802 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y

ballroom where about 500 people awaited his speech. Both kitchen personnel
observed defendant Sirhan in the pantry at this time. Sirhan inquired whether
Senator Kennedy would be “coming back through this way.” Both hotel em-
ployees replied that they did not know, but testified that Sirhan remained in
the area of the pantry close to Perez at the corner of a serving table.
Upon concluding his address at approximately 12:15 A.M. (June 5) Senator
Kennedy was escorted off the platform toward the Colonial Room where he
was to meet the press. Karl Uecker, assistant Maitre’d at the Ambassador Hotel,
led the Senator through the pantry area behind the Embassy ballroom.
In the pantry area, Senator Kennedy stopped and shook hands with some of
the kitchen help, including Perez and Petrusky. At that time Sirhan appeared,
“smirking,” as testified by Perez and Petrusky, and began to fire his .22 cali-
ber revolver at Senator Kennedy. Several shots were fired in rapid succession.
Uecker attempted to grab the weapon from Sirhan, and Senator Kennedy fell
to the floor of the pantry.
A struggle ensued as those present attempted to immobilize and disarm
Sirhan. Roosevelt Grier, Rafer Johnson, George Plimpton, Jess Unruh, and other
members of Kennedy’s entourage arrived seconds later. Later that night Rafer
Johnson turned the weapon over to the L.A.P.D., and it was booked into the
property division.
While Sirhan was being held in the pantry awaiting the arrival of the
L.A.P.D., Rafer Johnson asked Sirhan repeatedly, “Why did you do it?” Sirhan
replied, “Let me explain” or “I can explain.” At this time Sirhan also remarked
in answer to Jess Unruh’s question “Why him?,” “I did it for my country,” and a
few seconds later, “It is too late.”
Two L.A.P. D. officers on patrol duty, Arthur Placentia and Travis White, an-
swered the 12:20 A.M. all units call, “Ambassador shooting, 3400 Wilshire,”
and when the officers arrived they took Sirhan off the serving table where he
had been restrained and placed him in custody and handcuffed him. Sirhan
was transported through a hostile crowd, which was chanting “Kill him, kill
him” to the officers’ police car. Jess Unruh also entered the vehicle and the
officers drown toward Rampart station. Officer Placentia several times asked
Sirhan his name, but Sirhan did not reply. Sirhan was advised of his constitu-
tional rights, and Sirhan replied that he understood his rights. Although the
officers did not address any further questions to Sirhan during the trip to the
station, Unruh asked Sirhan, “Why did you shoot him?,” and Sirhan replied,
“Do you think I’m crazy, so you can use it in evidence against me.”
Both upon arrest, and later at the Rampart station, L.A.P.D. officers attempted
to examine Sirhan’s eyes, but did not form an opinion whether Sirhan was
under the influence of alcohol or drugs. He did not smell of any Odor of alco-
hol nor did Sirhan appear to Mr. Unruh to be under the influence of intoxicat-
ing liquor.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 803

At the Rampart station, Sirhan’s eyes were subjected to a light test, and on
the basis of that test, as well as Sirhan’s appearance and movements, Officer
White formed the opinion that Sirhan was not under the influence of alcohol
or drugs.
Sirhan’s pockets were emptied and the following items were taken from his
possession: an automobile key, two live .22 caliber bullets and an expended
bullet, two newspaper clippings (one from the Pasadena Independent Star
News dated May 26, 1968, a story by columnist David Lawrence which in part
noted that in a recent speech Senator Kennedy had “favored aid to Israel with
arms if necessary”; the other newspaper clipping, an advertisement from an
unidentified newspaper inviting the public “to come and see and hear Senator
Robert Kennedy on Sunday, June 2, 1968, at 8:00 P.M., Coconut Grove, Ambas-
sador Hotel, Los Angeles”). Also removed from Sirhan’s pockets was $410.66
in cash, including four one hundred dollar bills. No wallet, identification, or
information indicating Sirhan’s identity was obtained from the examination of
Sirhan’s person. Sergeant William Jordon, who was watch commander at Rampart
detectives that night, assumed custody over petitioner around 12:45 A.M., and
asked Sirhan his name. Receiving no response, the officer informed Sirhan of
his constitutional rights. Sirhan asked some questions about his rights and re-
quested the admonition be repeated which was done. Sirhan indicated that he
wished to remain silent.
At this time Sirhan was able to identify an absent officer to Sergeant Jordon
by the officer’s badge number, 3949. Sergeant Jordon formed the opinion at
this time that Sirhan was not under the influence of either alcohol or drugs.
Sirhan was not given an intoxication test because Jordon concluded there was
no objective symptoms of intoxication and no reason to administer such a test.
When Sergeant Jordon offered Sirhan a cup of coffee, Sirhan asked the officer
to drink from the cup first, and the officer did so.
For security reasons, Sirhan was transported to police headquarters at Parker
Center, arriving at the homicide squad room around 1:40 A.M. Sirhan requested
some water and again, at his request, Sergeant Jordon tasted it before passing
the cup to him. Shortly before 2:00 A.M., a Doctor Lanz examined Sirhan in
those areas where Sirhan complained of pain. Sirhan refused to tell the physi-
cian his name, and the physician told the officers present that Sirhan was not
in need of any immediate medical treatment but that Sirhan should keep as
much weight as possible off his left ankle as it was possibly sprained.
At this time Chief Deputy District Attorney Lynn Compton and Deputy Dis-
trict Attorney John Howard arrived, as did members of the District Attorney’s
investigative staff. In an interrogation room, Howard asked Sirhan his name
and Sirhan did not answer and at that time Sirhan was advised by Howard of
his constitutional rights. Sirhan nodded in the direction of Sergeant Jordon and
stated “I will stand by my original decision to remain silent.”
804 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y

During Sergeant Jordon’s various contacts with Sirhan, including the four to
five hours he spent with Sirhan at the arraignment and immediately prior and
subsequent thereto, Sirhan never appeared irrational. While refusing to iden-
tify himself by name or place of origin, Sirhan engaged in banter with Sergeant
Jordon. Jordon formed the opinion that Sirhan had a “very quick mind,” and
that Sirhan was “one of the most alert and intelligent persons” the officer had
ever interrogated or attempted to interrogate during his 15 years experience on
the police force.
About the same time that Sirhan was being taken to the police station, Senator
Kennedy was taken to Good Samaritan Hospital in Los Angeles. Surgery was
performed, but Senator Kennedy died at 1:44 A.M., on June 6, 1968. Dr. Thomas
Noguchi, Coroner and Chief Medical Examiner of Los Angeles County and two
deputy medical examiners, performed an autopsy on Senator Kennedy’s body
between 3:00 A.M. and 9:15 A.M., on June 6. It was disclosed that the gunshot
wound to the head, in the tight mastoid, had penetrated the brain and was the
cause of death. The bullet had fractured the skull and had itself been shattered.
According to Dr. Noguchi, powder burns on the right ear indicated that the
muzzle distance between the weapon and the ear at the time of the firing was
1 to 1–1/2 inches. The only other two gunshot wounds were in the area of the
right armpit and the right side. These shots were fired at very close range. The
location, alignment, and direction of the three wounds, in conjunction with
the clothing worn, indicated to Dr. Noguchi that the three shots in question
were fired in “rapid succession.”
L.A.P.D. criminologist DeWayne Wolfer testified at trial (and previously
before the Grand Jury in 1968) that a bullet taken from the base of Senator
Kennedy’s neck (People’s exhibit 47) and bullets taken from victims Goldstein
and Weisel (People’s exhibit 52 and 54) were fired from Sirhan’s gun and “no
other gun in the world.”
Additionally, Wolfer testified that he had test fired eight bullets from the
Sirhan weapon into a water tank, obtaining seven test bullets. Wolfer had
taken one of the seven test bullets and compared it to an evidence bullet and
determined that the bullets in question had come from the Sirhan weapon. . . .
Wolfer was unable to positively identify the bullet that actually killed Sena-
tor Kennedy, People’s 48, as having been fired from the Sirhan gun due to the
fragmentation of the bullet. But Wolfer testified that it had been mini-mag am-
munition, and had the same rifling specifications as the other bullets fired from
the Sirhan weapon.
Wolfer then described the trajectory of the bullets.

a. The first bullet entered Senator Kennedy’s head behind the right ear and
was later recovered from the victim’s head and booked as evidence
b. The second bullet passed through the right shoulder pad of Senator Ken-
nedy’s suit coat (Never entering his body) and traveled upward striking
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 805

victim Schrade in the center of his forehead. The bullet was recovered
from his head and booked into evidence.
c. The third bullet entered Senator Kennedy’s right rear shoulder approxi-
mately 7" below the top of the shoulder. This bullet was recovered by the
Coroner from the sixth cervical vertebra and booked as evidence.
d. The fourth bullet entered Senator Kennedy’s right rear back approxi-
mately 1" to the right of bullet #3. This bullet traveled upward and for-
ward and exited the victim’s body in the right front chest. The bullet
passed through the ceiling tile, striking the second plastered ceiling and
was lost somewhere in the ceiling interspace.
e. The fifth bullet struck victim Goldstein in the left rear buttock. This bul-
let was recovered from the victim and booked as evidence.
f. The sixth bullet passed through victim Goldstein’s left pants leg (never
entering his body) and struck the cement floor and entered victim Stroll’s
left leg. The bullet was later recovered and booked as evidence.
g. The seventh bullet struck victim Weisel in the left abdomen and was
recovered and booked as evidence.
h. The eighth bullet struck the plaster ceiling and then struck victim Evans
in the head. This bullet was recovered from the victim’s head and booked
as evidence.

Finally, an envelope containing three of the test bullets fired by Wolfer (and
having a serial number of another gun—not the Sirhan weapon—on the coin
envelop) was stipulated into evidence by defense counsel. This introduction of
the mismarked bullet envelope passed without comment by defense, prosecu-
tion, or the trial court.
At approximately 9:30 A.M. on June 5, (after the shooting of Senator Kennedy,
but before his death) Sergeant William Brandt of the L.A.P.D. met with Adel
Sirhan, one of the defendant’s brothers, at the Pasadena Police Station. Adel
stated that he lived with his two younger brothers, Munir and Sirhan, and their
mother at 696 Howard Street, Pasadena. Adel, Sergeant Brandt, Sergeant James
Evans of the Homicide Division L.A.P.D., and agent Sullivan of the F.B.I. were
admitted to the Sirhan home by Adel at 10:30 A.M. Adel, whom the officers
knew to be the oldest male resident of the household, gave the officers permis-
sion to search the defendant’s bedroom. The officers did not have a search war-
rant and had not made an attempt to secure the consent of Sirhan to enter and
search, but their purpose in going to the Sirhan residence was “to determine
whether or not there was anyone else involved in the shooting and to deter-
mine whether or not there were any things that would be relative to the crime.”
Sergeant Brandt knew “that there was a continuing investigation to determine
if there were other suspects.”
806 A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y

Three notebooks were recovered from Sirhan’s bedroom. One was observed
on a corner of a dressing table in plain view from the entrance to the room.
A second notebook was observed by Sergeant Evans in plain view on the
floor at the foot of the bed next to a cardboard box filled with clothes. Both
of these notebooks were put in evidence (the third notebook was never put
in evidence by either party). The prosecution put in evidence (trial reporter’s
transcript, page 4364), eight pages (4 sheets) of the diary-notebook found
on the top of Sirhan’s dresser, which Mr. Laurence Sloan, employed in the
District Attorney’s Office as specialist in handwriting and questioned docu-
ments, identified as having been written by Sirhan. These pages read in part
as follows:
“May 18, 9:45 A.M./68—My determination to eliminate R.F.K. is becoming
more and more of an unshakable obsession . . . R.F.K. must die . . . R.F.K. must
be killed . . . R.F.K. must be assassinated before 5 June 68 . . .”
Other quotes taken from these pages were the following:

“Ambassador Goldberg must die” . . . “Ambassador Goldberg must be elimi-

nated . . . Sirhan is an Arab” “Kennedy must fall, Kennedy must fall . . . Senator
R. Kennedy must be disposed of. We believe that Robert F. Kennedy must be
sacrificed for the cause of the poor exploited people . . .”

On the evening of June 5, Lieutenant Alvin Hegge of the L.A.P.D. used the
automobile key, which had been taken from Sirhan’s pocket at the Rampart
station, in a successful attempt to operate the lock on a door of a 1956 DeSoto
parked in the vicinity of the Ambassador Hotel. On the basis of this successful
entry, Hegge applied for and obtained the issuance of a warrant to search the
vehicle at approximately 12:30 A.M., ( June 6), and the following items were
recovered:

1. From inside the glove compart6ment, a wallet containing among other

items, current membership card in Sirhan’s name in the Ancient Mystical
Order of Rosacrucian, as well as other cards identifying Sirhan by name
and address;
2. From inside the gove compartment, a business card from the Lock, Stock
and Barrel gun Shop in San Gabriel and a receipt dated June 1, 1968,
from that gun shop for the purchase of mini-mag hollow point .22 cal-
iber ammunition, and two boxes of Super X .22 caliber ammunition
(a total of 200 bullets);
3. From inside the glove compartment one live round of .22 caliber ammu-
nition and an empty carton labeled .22 caliber “mini-mag”;
4. And on the right front seat two spent bullets.
A S S A S S I N AT I O N O F R O B E R T F. K E N N E D Y 807

Documents obtained from the California Department of Motor Vehicles es-

tablished that Sirhan was the registered owner of the DeSoto searched in the
vicinity of the Ambassador Hotel.
Evidence introduced at trial established that at 8:00 A.M. on the morning of
June 6, Officer Thomas Young of the Pasadena Police Department arrived at
the Sirhan residence, having been assigned to security at the rear of the res-
idence to guard the premises from unauthorized persons. At approximately
11:00 A.M., upon discarding a paper cup of coffee into the trash which lay in-
side several boxes and cans of trash on the Sirhan property, he observed an
envelope which bore on its face the return address of the Argonaut Insurance
Company. Mr. Laurence Sloan, handwriting specialist of the Los Angeles Dis-
trict Attorney’s Office, testified that the writing on the back of the envelope
was that of Sirhan. The following words, repeated several times, were written
on the reverse side of the envelope, which had been put in evidence by the
prosecution:
“R.F.K. must be . . . disposed of properly. Robert Fitzgerald Kennedy must
soon die.”
Other trial evidence introduced was testimony of Mr. and Mrs. John
Weidner, the owners of a health food store in Pasadena, who had employed
Sirhan as a box boy and delivery boy. The Weidners had discussions with
Sirhan on the subject of politics in which Sirhan asserted that violence was the
only means by which American Negroes would achieve their goals, and that
the state of Israel had taken his home, and that the Jewish people were on top
and directing the events in America. When Sirhan stated to the Weidners that
there was more freedom in Russia and China than in America, Mr. Weidner
had inquired, “Why don’t you go there yourself?” Sirhan replied, “Maybe one
day I will go.”
Witnesses Enrique Rabago and Humphrey Cordero testified that they went
to the Ambassador Hotel on primary election night, June 4, and observed
Sirhan at approximately 9:30 or 9:45 P.M. at the election night headquarters of
Max Rafferty, candidate for the U.S. Senate. The two men stated that Sirhan,
who had a mixed drink in his hand, remarked, “Don’t worry if Senator Ken-
nedy doesn’t win. That son-of-a bitch is a millionaire. Even if he wins he is not
going to win it for you or for me or for the poor people.” When Sirhan paid for
a drink, he gave the waitress a $20 dollar bill and told her to keep the change
to “show them.” Sirhan also stated “It’s the money you’ve got that counts, not
the way you look.”

Source: Federal Bureau of Investigation Website. http://vault.fbi.gov/Robert%20

F%20Kennedy%20(Assassination)%20/Robert%20F%20Kennedy%20
(Assassination)%20Part%201%20of%203.
808 AT T E M P T E D A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F RO N A L D R E AGA N

Document 22
ATTEMPTED ASSASSINATION OF RONALD
REAGAN (1981)—BRADY HANDGUN
VIOLENCE PREVENTION ACT (1993)

On March 30, 1981, only 69 days into his presidency, President Ronald Reagan was
shot by John Hinckley Jr., as the president emerged from the Washington Hilton Hotel
after a speaking engagement. Reagan suffered a punctured lung and internal bleed-
ing, but received prompt medical attention and recovered. Also wounded by Hinckley
was Reagan’s press secretary James Brady, who survived but was left permanently
paralyzed. With his wife Sarah, Brady later served as chair of the Brady Campaign
to Prevent Gun Violence, which lobbied Congress from stricter handgun control and
more restrictions on assault weapons. Reproduced below is the Brady Handgun
Violence Prevention Act, known as the “Brady Bill,” which was enacted by Congress
in 1993.

Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States

of America in Congress assembled,

Sec. 1. Short Title.

This Act may be cited as the “Brady Handgun Violence Prevention Act.”

Sec. 2. Waiting Period Required before Purchase of Handgun.

(a) IN GENERAL—Section 922 of title 18, United States Code, is amended
by adding at the end the following:
(1) It shall be unlawful for any licensed importer, licensed manufac-
turer, or licensed dealer to sell, deliver, or transfer a handgun to an
individual who is not licensed under section 923, unless—
(A) after the most recent proposal of such transfer by the
transferee—
(i) the transferor has—
(I) received from the transferee a statement of the transferee
containing the information described in paragraph (3);
(II) verified the identification of the transferee by examining the
identification document presented; and
(III) within one day after the transferee furnishes the statement,
provided a copy of the statement to the chief law enforce-
ment officer of the place of residence of the transferee; and
(ii)
AT T E M P T E D A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F RO N A L D R E AGA N 809

(I) 7 days have elapsed from the date the transferee furnished
the statement, and the transferor has not received informa-
tion from the chief law enforcement officer that receipt or
possession of the handgun by the transferee would be in
violation of Federal, State, or local law; or
(II) the transferor has received notice from the chief law en-
forcement officer that the officer has no information indi-
cating that receipt or possession of the handgun by the
transferee would violate Federal, State, or local law;

(B) the transferee has presented to the transferor a written state-

ment, issued by the chief law enforcement officer of the place
of residence of the transferee during the 10-day period ending
on the date of the most recent proposal of such transfer by the
transferee, which states that the transferee requires access to a
handgun because of a threat to the life of the transferee or of
any member of the household of the transferee;
(C)

(i) the transferee has presented to the transferor a permit

which—
(I) allows the transferee to possess a handgun; and
(II) was issued not more than 5 years earlier by the State in
which the transfer is to take place; and
(ii) the law of the State provides that such a permit is to be is-
sued only after an authorized government official has veri-
fied that the information available to such official does not
indicate that possession of a handgun by the transferee
would be in violation of law;

(D) the law of the State—

(i) prohibits any licensed importer, licensed manufacturer, or
licensed dealer from transferring a handgun to an individ-
ual who is not licensed under section 923, before at least
7 days have elapsed from the date the transferee proposes
such transfer; or
(ii) requires that, before any licensed importer, licensed man-
ufacturer, or licensed dealer completes the transfer of a
handgun to an individual who is not licensed under sec-
tion 923, an authorized government official verifies that the
information available to such official does not indicate that
810 AT T E M P T E D A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F RO N A L D R E AGA N

possession of a handgun by the transferee would be in vio-

lation of law; or
(E) the transferor has received a report from any system of felon
identification established by the Attorney General pursuant to
section 6213(a) of the Anti-Drug Abuse Amendments Act of
1988, that available information does not indicate that posses-
sion or receipt of a handgun by the transferee would violate
Federal, State, or local law.
(2) Paragraph (1) shall not be interpreted to require any action by a
chief law enforcement officer which is not otherwise required.
(3) The statement referred to in paragraph (1)(A)(i)(I) shall contain
only—
(A) the name, address, and date of birth appearing on a valid iden-
tification document (as defined in section 1028(d)(1)) of the
transferee containing a photograph of the transferee and a de-
scription of the identification used;
(B) a statement that the transferee—
(i) is not under indictment for, and has not been convicted
in any court of, a crime punishable by imprisonment for a
term exceeding one year;
(ii) is not a fugitive from justice;
(iii) is not an unlawful user of or addicted to any controlled
substance (as defined in section 102 of the Controlled Sub-
stances Act);
(iv) has not been adjudicated as a mental defective or been
committed to a mental institution;
(v) is not an alien who is illegally or unlawfully in the United
States;
(vi) has not been discharged from the Armed Forces under dis-
honorable conditions; and
(vii) is not a person who, having been a citizen of the United
States, has renounced such citizenship;
(C) the date the statement is made; and
(D) notice that the transferee intends to obtain a handgun from the
transferor.
(4) Any transferor of a handgun who, after such transfer, receives a re-
port from a chief law enforcement officer containing information
AT T E M P T E D A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F RO N A L D R E AGA N 811

that receipt or possession of the handgun by the transferee violates

Federal, State, or local law shall immediately communicate all infor-
mation the transferor has about the transfer and the transferee to—
(A) the chief law enforcement officer of the place of business of the
transferor; and
(B) the chief law enforcement officer of the place of residence of the
transferee.
(5) Any transferor who receives information, not otherwise available to
the public, in a report under this subsection shall not disclose such
information except to the transferee, to law enforcement authori-
ties, or pursuant to the direction of a court of law.
(6)

(A) Any transferor who sells, delivers, or otherwise transfers a hand-

gun to a transferee shall retain the copy of the statement of the
transferee with respect to the handgun transaction, and shall
retain evidence that the transferor has complied with paragraph
(1)(A)(i)(III) with respect to the statement.
(B) Unless the chief law enforcement officer to whom a copy of
the statement is sent determines that a transaction would vio-
late Federal, State, or local law, the officer shall, within 30 days
after the date the transferee made the statement, destroy the
copy and any record containing information derived from the
statement.
(7) For purposes of this subsection, the term “chief law enforcement of-
ficer” means the chief of police, the sheriff, or an equivalent officer,
or the designee of any such individual.
(8) This subsection shall not apply to the sale of a firearm in the cir-
cumstances described in subsection (c).
(9) The Secretary shall take necessary actions to assure that the provi-
sions of this subsection are published and disseminated to dealers
and to the public.
(b) HANDGUN DEFINED—Section 921(a) of such title is amended by
adding at the end the following:
(29) The term “handgun” means—
(A) a firearm which has a short stock and is designed to be held
and fired by the use of a single hand; and
(B) any combination of parts from which a firearm described in
subparagraph (A) can be assembled.
812 A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F Y I T ZH A K R A B I N

(c) PENALTY—Section 924(a) of such title is amended—

(1) in paragraph (1), by striking “paragraph (2) or (3) of ”; and
(2) by adding at the end the following:
(5) Whoever knowingly violates section 922(s) shall be fined not more
than $1,000, imprisoned for not more than one year, or both.
(d) EFFECTIVE DATE—The amendments made by this Act shall apply to
conduct engaged in 90 or more days after the date of the enactment of
this Act.

Source: Government Printing Office Website. http://www.gpo.gov/fdsys/pkg/

BILLS-103hr1025rh/pdf/BILLS-103hr1025rh.pdf.

Document 23
ASSASSINATION OF YITZHAK RABIN (1995)—
LAST SPEECH OF ISRAELI PRIME MINISTER RABIN

On November 4, 1995, Israeli Prime Minister Yitzhak Rabin delivered a speech, re-
produced below, at a peace rally held at Kings of Israel Square in Tel Aviv. The rally
had been called to serve as a reaffirmation of the commitment of the Israeli govern-
ment and people to the ongoing Middle East peace process. Acts of violence committed
with increasing frequency in the mid-1990s by both Israelis and Palestinians provided
motivation for the rally. Shortly after completing his speech, Prime Minister Rabin
was assassinated by Yigal Amir, a fanatical right-wing religious settler, who hoped
that by killing Rabin he could derail the peace process.

The Last Speech—November 4, 1995

Allow me to say, I am also moved. I want to thank each and every one of you
who stood up here against violence and for peace. This government, which
I have the privilege to lead, together with my friend Shimon Peres, decided to
give peace a chance. A peace that will solve most of the problems of the State
of Israel. I was a military man for twenty-seven years. I fought as long as there
were no prospects for peace. Today I believe that there are prospects for peace,
great prospects. We must take advantage of it for the sake of those standing
here, and for the sake of those who do not stand here. And they are many
among our people.
I have always believed that the majority of the people want peace, are pre-
pared to take risks for peace. And you here, by showing up at this rally, prove
it, along with the many who did not make it here, that the people truly want
A S SA S S I N AT I O N O F Y I T ZH A K R A B I N 813

peace and oppose violence. Violence is undermining the very foundations of

Israeli democracy. It must be condemned, denounced, and isolated. This is not
the way of the State of Israel. Controversies may arise in a democracy, but the
decision must be reached through democratic elections, just as it happened in
1992, when we were given the mandate to do what we are doing, and to con-
tinue to do it.
I want to thank from here the President of Egypt, the King of Jordan, and
the King of Morocco, whose representatives are present here, conveying their
partnership with us on the march toward peace. But above all—the people of
Israel, who have proven, in the three years this government has been in office,
that peace is attainable, a peace that will provide an opportunity for a progres-
sive society and economy. Peace exists first and foremost in our prayers, but
not only in prayers. Peace is what the Jewish People aspire to, a true aspiration.
Peace entails difficulties, even pain. Israel knows no path devoid of pain.
But the path of peace is preferable to the path of war. I say this to you as one
who was a military man and minister of defense, and who saw the pain of the
families of IDF soldiers. It is for their sake, and for the sake of our children and
grandchildren, that I want this government to exert every effort, exhaust every
opportunity, to promote and to reach a comprehensive peace.
This rally must send a message to the Israeli public, to the Jewish commu-
nity throughout the world, to many, many in the Arab world and in the entire
world, that the people of Israel want peace, support peace, and for that, I thank
you very much.

Source: Mideast Web. http://www.mideastweb.org/rabin1995.htm.

This page intentionally left blank
Appendix: World Timeline of
Assassinations

The following list includes assassinations not covered in main entries of the
foregoing text, organized alphabetically by continents and their respective
countries, with the incidents listed chronologically.

Africa
Algeria
117 BCE: King Hiempsal I of Numidia
December 24, 1942: François Darlan, French prime minister
June 21, 1957: Maurice Audin, Communist Party leader
April 11, 1963: Foreign Minister Mohamed Khemisti
February 3, 1987: Mustafa Bouyali, Algerian Islamic Armed Movement leader
August 22, 1993: Kasdi Merbah, ex-prime minister
November 22, 1999: Abdelkader Hachani, Islamic Salvation Front founder
February 25, 2010: Ali Tounsi, Gendarmerie Nationale chief

Botswana
May 21, 1985: Vernon Nkadimeng, African National Congress member

Burundi
October 13, 1961: Prime Minister Louis Rwagasore
January 15, 1965: Prime Minister Pierre Ngendandumwe
September 30, 1965: Prime Minister Joseph Bamina

Cameroon
September 13, 1958: Ruben Um Nyobé, anti-imperialist leader

Chad
August 26, 1973: Dr. Outel Bono, presidential candidate

Comoros
May 29, 1978: Ali Soilih Mtsashiwa, ex-president
June 13, 2010: Colonel Combo Ayouba, head of state
816 APPENDIX

Egypt
December 11, 1121: Vizier Al-Afdal Shahanshah
October 7, 1130: Caliph Al-Amir bi-Ahkami I-Lah
June 14, 1800: General Jean Baptiste Kléber
February 20, 1910: Prime Minister Boutros Ghali
November 19, 1924: Lee Stack, governor-general of Anglo-Egyptian Sudan
December 28, 1948: Prime Minister Mahmoud an-Nukrashi Pasha
November 28, 1971: Wasfi al-Tal, prime minister of Jordan
October 12, 1990: Rifaat el-Mahgoub, speaker of Parliament

Guinea Bissau
March 1, 2009: Batista Na Waie, army chief of staff
June 5, 2009: Major Baciro Dabó, presidential candidate
June 5, 2009: Helder Proença, ex-minister of defense

Kenya
July 5, 1969: Minister of Economic Planning Thomas Mboya
May 16, 1998: Seth Sendashonga, ex-Rwandan minister of the interior

Libya
September 11, 2012: Christopher Stevens, U.S. ambassador

Nigeria
January 15, 1966: Premier Samuel Akíntọ́lá
July 29, 1966: Francis Fajuyi, military governor
April 14, 2007: Onyema Ugochukwu, governor-elect of Abia
October 16, 2011: Modu Bintube, state legislator

Rwanda
December 27, 1985: Dian Fossey, primatologist/conservationist

Senegal
February 3, 1967: Minister of Youth and Sport Demba Diop

Somalia
July 28, 2006: Minister of Constitutional Affairs Abdallah Deerow
June 18, 2009: Security Minister Omar Aden
June 10, 2011: Minister for Internal Affairs and Security Abdi Hassan
APPENDIX 817

South Africa
January 22, 2009: Mbongeleni Zondi, Zulu chief
April 3, 2010: Eugène Terre’Blanche, Afrikaner Resistance Movement
founder

Sudan
March 2, 1973: Cleo Noel Jr., U.S. ambassador
March 2, 1973: Guy Eid, Belgian chargé d’affaires
January 1, 2008: John Granville, U.S. diplomat
February 9, 2011: Minister for Co-operatives and Rural Development Jimmy
Milla,

Swaziland
April 1, 2008: Dr. Gabriel Mkhumane, People’s United Democratic
Movement deputy president

Togo
July 29, 1992: Octave Amorin, Pan-African Socialist Party leader

Uganda
September 22, 1972: Chief Justice Benedicto Kiwanuka

Western Sahara
June 18, 1970: Muhammad Basir, Sahrawi nationalist leader

Zambia
March 18, 1975: Herbert Chitepo, Zimbabwe African National Union
leader

Zimbabwe
March 24, 1983: Attati Mpakati, Socialist League of Malawi leader

Asia
Afghanistan
February 20, 1919: Emir Habibullah Khan
September 14, 1979: President Nur Taraki
September 28, 1996: President Mohammad Ahmadzai
September 9, 2001: Vice President Ahmad Massoud
February 14, 2002: Minister for Civil Aviation and Tourism Abdul Rahman
818 APPENDIX

July 6, 2002: Vice President Abdul Arsala

May 3, 2007: Abdul Kohistani, ex-prime minister
September 20, 2011: Burhanuddin Rabbani, ex-president

Armenia
October 27, 1999: Deputy Prime Minister Leonard Petrosyan

Bangladesh
August 15, 1975: President Mujibur Rahman
November 3, 1975: Tajuddin Ahmad, ex-prime minister
November 3, 1975: Syed Islam, ex-president

Bhutan
April 6, 1964: Prime Minister Jigme Dorji

Burma/Myanmar
1167: King Alaungsithu
April 30, 1550: King Tabinshwehti
July 9, 1628: King Anaukpetlun
August 2, 1866: Crown Prince Kanaung Mintha
July 19, 1947: Minister of Trade Ba Win

Cambodia
January 14, 1950: Ieu Koeus, ex-prime minister

China
July 13, 815: Chancellor Wu Yuanheng
August 22, 1870: Ma Xinyi, viceroy of Liangjiang
October 26, 1909: Prince Itō Hirobumi, Japanese governor-general of Korea
July 15, 1946: Wen Yiduo, China Democratic League spokesman
September 23, 2008: Li Shiming, Communist Party chief

Georgia
July 21, 1922: Djemal Pasha, mayor of Istanbul
December 3, 1994: Giorgi Chanturia, National Democratic Party leader

India
180 BCE: Emperor Ashoka Maurya
August 12, 1602: Vizier Abu’l-Fazl ibn Mubarak
APPENDIX 819

August 10, 1986: General Arun Vaidya

August 31, 1995: Beant Singh, chief minister of Punjab
May 21, 2002: Abdul Lone, Kashmiri separatist leader

Indonesia
November 22, 1965: Dipa Aidit, Communist Party leader

Iran
October 10, 1092: Vizier Khwaja Tusi
June 19, 1747: Emperor Nāder Afshār
May 1, 1896: Emperor Naser Qajar
September 3, 1933: Minister of Court Abdolhosein Teymūrtāsh
April 1937: Prince Firouz Farmaian III
January 27, 1965: Prime Minister Hasan-ali Mansur
June 28, 1981: Seyyed Beheshti, Islamic Republic Party secretary general
August 30, 1981: President Mohammad-Ali Rajai and Prime Minister
Mohammad-Javad Bahonar

Iraq
February 11, 244: Gordian III, Roman emperor
February 19, 1999: Grand Ayatollah Mohammad Sadeq al-Sadr
August 29, 2003: Ayatollah Mohammad al-Hakim
September 25, 2003: Aqila al-Hashimi, Governing Council member
November 1, 2004: Deputy Governor Hatem Fatah
May 17, 2004: Ezzedine Salim, president of Governing Council
July 6, 2005: Ihab el-Sherif, Egyptian ambassador
December 23, 2009: Brigadier General Riad Majid

Israel
February 135 BCE: King Simon Thassi
October 1174: Miles of Plancy, regent for King Baldwin IV
April 28, 1192: King Conrad of Montferrat
June 16, 1933: Haim Arlosoroff, Zionist leader
May 23, 1948: Thomas Campbell Wasson, U.S. consul general
September 17, 1948: Folke Bernadotte, United Nations mediator
January 12, 1981: Hamad Rabia, Knesset member
December 31, 2000: Binyamin Kahane, son of Meir Kahane
October 17, 2001: Rehavam Ze’evi, Moledet Party founder
820 APPENDIX

Japan
592: Emperor Sushun
February 13, 1219: Shogun Minamoto no Sanetomo
July 12, 1441: Shogun Ashikaga Yoshinori
August 1, 1507: Deputy Shogun Hosokawa Masamoto
June 17, 1565: Shogun Ashikaga Yoshiteru
January 30, 1703: Kira Yoshinaka, royal master of ceremonies
October 30, 1863: Serizawa Kamo, chief of Shinsengumi police
December 7, 1869: Ōmura Masujirō, military leader
May 14, 1878: Home Minister Ōkubo Toshimichi
February 12, 1889: Education Minister Mori Arinori
October 26, 1909: Prime Minister Iō Hirobumi
November 4, 1921: Prime Minister Hara Takashi
August 26, 1931: Prime Minister Osachi Hamaguchi
May 15, 1932: Prime Minister Inukai Tsuyoshi
February 26, 1936: Prime Minister Takahashi Korekiyo and
Admiral Saitō Makoto
April 18, 2007: Iccho Itoh, mayor of Nagasaki

Jordan
July 20, 1951: King Abdullah I
August 29, 1960: Prime Minister Hazza’ al-Majali
October 28, 2002: Laurence Foley, U.S. diplomat

Korea
304: King Bunseo of Baekje
October 8, 1895: Empress Myeongseong
July 19, 1947: Yuh Woon-Hyung, People’s Party of Korea founder
August 14, 1974: First Lady Yuk Yeong-su

Kuwait
March 30, 1971: Hardan al-Tikriti, ex-Iraqi vice president

Laos
April 1, 1963: Foreign Minister Quinim Pholsena

Lebanon
1152: Count Raymond II
APPENDIX 821

March 17, 1270: Lord Philip of Montfort

October 31, 1950: Colonel Sami al-Hinnawi, head of state
June 16, 1976: Francis Meloy and Robert Waring, U.S. diplomats
September 14, 1982: President-elect Bachir Gemayel
June 1, 1987: Prime Minister Rashid Karami
October 21, 1990: Dany Chamoun, presidential candidate
February 14, 2005: Rafic Al-Hariri, ex-prime minister
April 18, 2005: Minister of Economy and Commerce Bassel Fleihan
November 21, 2006: Minister of Industry Pierre Gemayel
December 12, 2007: General François al-Hajj

Malaysia
November 2, 1875: James Birch, British diplomat
December 3, 1949: Sir Duncan Stewart, governor of Sarawak
October 6, 1951: Sir Henry Gurney, British High Commissioner

Pakistan
October 16, 1951: Prime Minister Liaquat Khan
February 8, 1975: Hayat Sherpao, governor of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa
August 17, 1988: President Muhammad Zia-ul-Haq
October 3, 1991: Lieutenant General Fazle Haq, ex-governor of Khyber
Pakhtunkhwa
September 29, 1993: Ghulam Wyne, ex-chief minister of Punjab
October 17, 1998: Hakim Said, ex-governor of Sindh Province
July 28, 2001: Siddiq Kanju, ex-minister of state for foreign affairs
March 2, 2011: Minister of Minorities Affairs Clement Bhatti

Philippines
October 11, 1719: Governor-General Fernando Bustamante y Rueda
June 5, 1899: General Antonio Luna
April 28, 1949: First Lady Aurora Quezon and Ponciano Bernardo,
mayor of Quezon City
December 16, 1980: Jose Lingad, ex-governor of Pampanga
November 14, 1984: Cesar Climaco, mayor of Zamboanga City
February 11, 1986: Evelio Javier, ex-governor of Antique
January 17, 1988: Roy Padilla Sr., governor of Camarines Norte
April 21, 1989: Lieutenant Colonal James Rowe, U.S. military advisor
February 6, 2001: Filemon Lagman, Solidarity of Filipino Workers founder
822 APPENDIX

Qatar
February 13, 2004: Zelimkhan Yandarbiyev, ex-Chechen president

Saudi Arabia
November 7, 644: Caliph Umar bin al-Khattab
July 17, 656: Caliph Uthman ibn Affan

Sri Lanka
July 27, 1975: Alfred Duraiappah, mayor of Jaffna
November 13, 1989: Rohana Wijeweera, People’s Liberation Front founder
March 2, 1991: Ranjan Wijeratne, ex-minister of foreign affairs
April 23, 1993: Lalith Athulathmudali, ex-minister of national security
May 17, 1998: Sarojini Yogeswaran, mayor of Jaffna
September 11, 1998: Pon Sivapalan, mayor of Jaffna
June 7, 2000: Minister of Industries Development Clement Gunaratne
August 12, 2005: Minister of Foreign Affairs Lakshman Kadirgamar
June 26, 2006: General Parami Kulatunga

Syria
246 BCE: King Antiochus II Theos
223 BCE: King Seleucus III Ceraunus
175 BCE: King Seleucus IV Philopator
146 BCE: King Alexander Balas
138 BCE: King Antiochus VI Dionysus
November 284: Numeriam, Roman emperor
September 14, 1146: Imad ad-Din Zengi, Turkish nobleman
July 7, 1940: Abdul Shahbandar, nationalist leader
August 1, 2008: General Muhammad Suleiman

Thailand
1548: King Worawongsathirat
June 9, 1946: King Rama VIII
August 29, 1961: Princess Laksamilawan
February 16, 1977: Princess Vibhavadi Rangsit

Turkey
June 11, 1913: Grand Vizier Mahmud Shevket Pasha
January 29, 1921: Mustafa Suphi, Congress of Turkish Left Socialists founder
APPENDIX 823

February 23, 1979: Metin Yüksel, Muslim nationalist

July 19, 1980: Nihat Erim, ex-prime minister
July 22, 1980: Kemal Türkler, Metal Workers’ Union president
January 31, 1990: Muammer Aksoy, Atatürk Thought Association cofounder
September 20, 1992: Musa Anter, Kurdish activist
October 21, 1999: Ahmet Taner Kışlali, ex-minister of culture
May 17, 2006: Mustafa Özbilgin, Supreme Court judge

Yemen
17 February 1948: King Yahya Hamidaddin
October 11, 1977: President Ibrahim al-Hamdi
June 24, 1978: President Ahmad al-Ghashmi
December 28, 2002: Jarallah Omar, Marxist politician

Australia and Oceania

Australia
February 12, 1894: William Paisley, mayor of Burwood, NSW
December 17, 1980: Sarik Ariyak, Turkish consul general
January 10, 1989: Colin Winchester, assistant commissioner of the Australia
Federal Police

New Caledonia
May 4, 1989: Jean-Marie Tjibaou, Kanak independence leader

Samoa
July 16, 1999: Minister of Public Works Luagalau Levaula Kamu

Europe
Austria
October 21, 1916: Minister-President Karl von Stürgkh
July 13, 1989: Abdul Ghassemlou, Democratic Party of Iranian Kurdistan
secretary general

Belgium
August 18, 1950: Julien Lahaut, Communist Party chairman
May 23, 1971: Maximiliano Gómez, exiled Dominican rebel
March 22, 1990: Gerald Bull, Canadian artillery engineer
July 18, 1991: André Cools, ex-minister of state
824 APPENDIX

Bosnia and Herzegovina

May 28, 1995: Dr. Irfan Ljubijankić, ex-foreign minister
March 21, 1999: Deputy Interior Minister Jozo Leutar

Bulgaria
July 6, 1895: Stefan Stambolov, ex-prime minister
March 11, 1907: Prime Minister Dimitar Petkov
October 2, 1996: Andrey Lukanov, ex-prime minister

Croatia
June 22, 480: Julius Nepos, Roman emperor

Czech Republic
September 15, 921: Saint Ludmilla, wife of Duke Bořivoj I
August 4, 1306: King Wenceslaus III
February 25, 1634: General Albrecht von Wallenstein
February 18, 1923: Minister of Finance Alois Rašín

Finland
January 20, 1156: Henry, bishop of Uppsala
February 6, 1905: Chancellor of Justice Eliel Soisalon-Soininen

France
January 8, 1354: Charles de La Cerda, Count of Angoulême
November 23, 1407: Louis I, Duke of Orléans
September 10, 1419: John the Fearless, Duke of Burgundy
August 24, 1572: Admiral Gaspard de Coligny
July 14, 1789: Jacques de Flesselles, Provost of Paris
February 13, 1820: Charles Ferdinand, Duke of Berry
June 25, 1894: President Marie Sadi Carnot
July 30, 1914: Jean Jaurès, Socialist leader
May 6, 1932: President Paul Doumer
January 17, 1944: Eugène Deloncle, Fascist leader
March 23, 1944: Constant Chevillon, Freemasonry Grand Master
July 7, 1944: Georges Mandel, French Resistance leader
October 29, 1965: Mehdi Ben Barka, Moroccan socialist leader
February 2, 1980: Joseph Fontanet, ex-cabinet minister
July 21, 1980: Salah al-Din al-Bitar, Ba’ath Party founder
APPENDIX 825

August 6, 1991: Shapour Bakhtiar, ex-Iranian prime minister

July 11, 1995: Abdelbaki Sahraoui, Islamic Salvation Front cofounder
February 6, 1998: Claude Érignac, Prefect of Corsica

Germany
March 18/19, 235: Emperor Alexander Severus
June 21, 1208: Emperor Philip of Swabia
November 7, 1225: Engelbert I, archbishop of Cologne
January 15, 1919: Karl Liebknecht and Rosa Luxemburg, Socialist leaders
March 15, 1921: Talaat Pasha, ex-Ottoman minister of interior affairs
August 26, 1921: Matthias Erzberger, Centre Party leader
June 30, 1934: Kurt von Schleicher, ex-Chancellor
October 15, 1959: Stepan Bandera, Ukrainian nationalist
October 18, 1970: Krim Belkacem, Algerian revolutionary

Greece
514 BCE: Hipparchus, tyrant of Athens
461 BCE: Ephialtes, democratic leader
404 BCE: General Alcidiades
358 BCE: Alexander of Pherae, despot
251 BCE: Abantidas, tyrant of Sicyon
October 9, 1831: President Ioannis Kapodistrias
March 8, 1907: Marinos Antypas, Socialist leader
April 28, 1988: Hagop Hagopian, Armenian revolutionary
June 28, 1988: William Nordeen, U.S. military attaché
September 26, 1989: Pavlos Bakoyannis, New Democracy leader
June 8, 2000: Stephen Saunders, British military attaché

Iceland
September 23, 1241: Snorri Sturlson, Lawspeaker of Parliament

Ireland
April 23, 1014: King Brian Boru
May 6, 1882: Lord Frederick Cavendish and Thomas Burke, British
officials
March 20, 1920: Tomás Mac Curtain, Lord Mayor of Cork
July 10, 1927: Minister of Justice Kevin O’Higgins
March 24, 1936: Henry Somerville, Secret Service Bureau chief
826 APPENDIX

Italy and Roman Empire

748 BCE: King Titus Tatius
579 BCE: King Tarquin I
534 BCE: King Servius Tullius
133 BCE: General Tiberius Gracchus
December 7, 43 BCE: Cicero, philosopher/politician
October 13, 54: Emperor Claudius
January 15, 69: Emperor Galba
December 22, 69: Emperor Vitellius
September 18, 96: Emperor Domitian
December 31, 192: Emperor Commodus
March 28, 193: Emperor Pertinax
June 1, 193: Emperor Didius Julianus
December 19, 211: Emperor Geta
April 8, 217: Emperor Caracalla
March 11, 222: Emperor Elagabalus
April 238: Emperor Maximinus Thrax
August 253: Emperors Trebonianus Gallus and Volusianus
September 275: Emperor Aurelian
September 276: Emperor Florianus
May 16, 1412: Duke Gian Maria Visconti
November 15, 1848: Minister of Justice Pellegrino Rossi
December 6, 1921: Said Halim Pasha, ex-Ottoman Grand Vizier
June 10, 1924: Giacomo Matteotti, Socialist leader
March 2, 1925: Luigj Gurakuqi, Albanian independence leader
October 27, 1962: Enrico Mattei, public administrator
September 25, 1979: Cesare Terranova, magistrate
September 3, 1982: Carlo Dalla Chiesa, carabinieri general
March 12, 1992: Salvatore Lima, ex-Palermo mayor
May 23, 1992: Giovanni Falcone, magistrate
March 19, 2002: Mario Biagi, jurist

Netherlands
June 5, 754: Saint Boniface
April 14, 1099: Conrad, bishop of Utrecht
June 27, 1296: Count Floris V
July 10, 1584: William of Orange, revolutionary
APPENDIX 827

August 20, 1672: Grand Pensionary Johan de Witt

May 6, 2002: Pim Fortuyn, Livable Netherlands party leader

Ottoman Empire
October 11, 1579: Grand Vizier Sokollu Mehmed Pasha
July 21, 1922: General Djemal Pasha

Poland
April 11, 1079: Bishop Stanislaus Szczepanów
June 15, 1934: Minister of the Interior Bronisław Pieracki
February 1, 1944: SS General Franz Kutschera
October 19, 1984: Jerzy Popiełuszko, priest active in Solidarity

Portugal
138 BCE: Viriathus, Lusitanian ruler
January 7, 1355: Inês de Castro, queen consort
February 1, 1908: Crown Prince Luiz Filipe
December 14, 1918: President Sidónio Pais
February 13, 1965: General Humberto Delgado
December 4, 1980: Prime Minister Francisco Sá Carneiro and Minister of
Defense Adelino da Costa

Romania
November 27, 1940: Nicolae Iorga, ex-prime minister

Russia /Soviet Union

December 27, 1825: Mikhail Miloradovich, governor of St. Petersburg
August 4, 1878: Nikolay Mezentsov, secret police director
March 25, 1893: Nikolay Alekseyev, mayor of Moscow
April 8, 1902: Interior Minister Dmitry Sipyagin
July 28, 1904: Interior Minister Vyacheslav von Plehve
February 17, 1905: Grand Duke Sergei Alexandrovich
September 14, 1911: Prime Minister Peter Stolypin
July 6, 1918: Wilhelm von Mirbach, German ambassador
December 1, 1934: Sergei Kirov, Bolshevik leader
January 12/13, 1948: Solomon Mikhoels, Jewish Anti-Fascist Committee
chairman
May 31, 1998: Valeriy Hubulov, defense minister of South Ossetia
828 APPENDIX

November 20, 1998: Galina Starovoytova, Duma member

May 9, 2004: Akhmad Kadyrov, ex-Chechen president
April 10, 2005: Anatoly Trofimov, FSB deputy director
February 2, 2005: Magomed Omarov, deputy interior minister of Dagestan
February 13, 2006: Altynbek Sarsenbayuly, Kazakh opposition leader
November 26, 2008: Vitaly Karayev, mayor of Vladikavkaz
December 17, 2008: Nina Varlamova, mayor of Kandalaksha
December 31, 2008: Kazbek Pagiyev, ex-mayor of Vladikavkaz
June 5, 2009: Adilgerei Magomedtagirov, interior minister of Dagestan
June 10, 2009: Aza Gazgireyeva, deputy chief justice of Supreme Court
of Ingushetia
June 13, 2009: Bashir Aushev, ex-deputy prime minister of Ingushetia

Serbia
July 24, 1817: Ðord̄e Petrović, ex-president
June 10, 1868: Prince Mihailo Obrenović
June 11, 1903: King Alexander I

Spain
March 8, 1921: Prime Minister Eduardo Dato e Iradier
July 12, 1936: José Castillo, anti-fascist leader
July 13, 1936: José Calvo Sotelo, ex-minister of finance
January 4, 1967: Mohamed Khider, exiled Algerian politician
July 13, 1997: Miguel Blanco, Councillor for Ermua
November 21, 2000: Ernest Lluch, ex-minister of health and consumption

Sweden
May 18, 1160: King Eric IX
June 20, 1810: Count Axel von Fersen
September 11, 2003: Anna Lindh, minister of foreign affairs

Switzerland
January 24, 1639: Jörg Jenatsch, political leader
February 4, 1936: Wilhelm Gustloff, Nazi Party leader
November 3, 1960: Félix-Roland Moumié, exiled Cameroonian leader
April 24, 1990: Kazem Rajavi, exiled Iranian activist

Turkey
June 11, 1913: Prime Minister Mahmud Shevket Pasha
APPENDIX 829

January 29, 1921: Mustafa Suphi, Communist Party leader

February 23, 1979: Metin Yüksel, Kurdish Islamic leader
July 19, 1980: Nihat Erim, ex-prime minister
October 21, 1999: Ahmet Taner Kışlalı, ex-minister of culture
May 17, 2006: Mustafa Yücel Özbilgin, Council of State magistrate

Ukraine
May 23, 1938: Yevhen Konovalets, nationalist leader
October 15, 1957: Lev Rebet, anticommunist leader
November 29, 2005: Stepan Senchuk, ex-governor of Lviv

United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland

293: Emperor Carausius
February 22, 1452: William Douglas, 8th Earl of Douglas
May 21, 1471: King Henry VI
February 10, 1567: Henry Stuart, king consort of Scotland
August 23, 1628: George Villiers, 1st Duke of Buckingham
May 3, 1679: Archbishop James Sharp
June 22, 1922: Field Marshal Henry Wilson
March 13, 1940: Michael O’Dwyer, ex-lieutenant governor of the
Punjab
June 25/26, 1973: Paddy Wilson, Social Democratic and Labour Party
founder
April 10, 1977: Kadhi al-Hagri, ex-Yemeni prime minister
July 9, 1978: Abul al-Naif, ex-Iraqi prime minister
January 21, 1981: Norman Stronge, Speaker of Northern Ireland House
of Commons
December 3, 1987: George Seawright, Belfast City councillor
September 16, 2010: Imran Farooq, exiled Pakistani politician

Yugoslavia
268: Emperor Gallienus
282: Emperor Probus
285: Emperor Carinus
January 15, 2000: Željko Ražnatović, Serb warlord
February 7, 2000: Defense Minister Pavle Bulatović
August 25, 2000: Ivan Stambolić, ex-president
830 APPENDIX

North America
Canada
April 7, 1868: Thomas D’Arcy McGee, Irish Catholic Father of the
Canadian Confederation
May 9, 1880: Senator George Brown
August 23, 1982: Atilla Altıkat, Turkish military attaché

Mexico
June 29, 1550: Emperor Moctezuma II
March 7, 1913: Abraham González Casavantes, governor of Chihuahua
January 3, 1924: Felipe Carrillo Puerto, governor of Yucatán
January 10, 1929: Julio Mella, founder of the Cuban Communist Party
February 7, 1986: Carlos de Mola Mediz, governor of Yucatán
May 24, 1993: Cardinal Juan Posadas Ocampo
March 23, 1994: Luis Colosio Murrieta, presidential candidate
September 28, 1994: José Ruiz Massieu, Institutional Revolutionary Party
secretary general
June 8, 2005: Alejandro Domínguez Coello, police chief of Nuevo
Laredo
May 8, 2008: Édgar Millán Gómez, commissioner of Federal Preventive
Police
May 9, 2008: Esteban Robles Espinosa, commander of Mexico City’s
June 19, 2010: Jesús Lara Rodríguez, mayor of Guadalupe
June 28, 2010: Dr. Rodolfo Torre Cantú, Tamaulipas gubernatorial
candidate

United States of America

November 7, 1837: Elijah Lovejoy, abolitionist
March 28, 1868: George Ashburn, Georgia politician supporting black civil
rights
January 11, 1943: Carlo Tresca, Italian anti-fascist
May 7, 1955: Rev. George Lee, Mississippi civil rights activist
June 21, 1964: James Chaney, Andrew Goodman, and Michael Schwer-
ner, civil rights activists
June 2, 1965: Oneal Moore, first black policeman in Washington Parish,
Los Angeles
January 10, 1966: Vernon Dahmer, Mississippi civil rights activist
February 14, 1976: Anna Aquash, American Indian Movement activist
APPENDIX 831

June 18, 1984: Alan Berg, radio talk-show host

October 11, 1985: Alex Odeh, American-Arab Anti-Discrimination
Committee activist
May 19, 1988: Richard Daronco, federal judge
July 29, 1994: Dr. John Britton, abortion provider
October 23, 1998: Dr. Barnett Slepian, abortion provider
October 11, 2001: Thomas Wales, federal prosecutor
March 11, 2005: Rowland Barnes, superior court judge in Georgia
May 31, 2009: Dr. George Tiller, abortion provider
January 8, 2011: John Roll, federal judge

North America / The Caribbean

Antigua and Barbuda
December 7, 1710: Daniel Parke, governor of the Leeward Islands

Dominican Republic
February 16, 1973: Colonel Francisco Caamaño Deñó, ex-president

Haiti
October 14, 1993: Minister of Justice Guy Malary

Puerto Rico
July 25, 1978: Arnaldo Rosado Torres and Carlos Soto Arriví,
independence activists
April 29, 1986: Alejandro González Malavé, secret police agent

North America/Central America

El Salvador
February 1, 1932: Agustín Martí Rodríguez, revolutionary leader
March 24, 1980: Óscar Romero y Galdámez, archbishop of San Salvador
November 27, 1980: Enrique Álvarez Córdova, leader of the Democratic
Revolutionary Front
May 25, 1983: Albert Schaufelberger, U.S. Navy lieutenant commander
October 26, 1987: Herbert Anaya Sanabria, president of Human Rights
Commission

Guatemala
April 5, 1970: Count Karl von Spreti, West German ambassador
January 25, 1979: Alberto Fuentes Mohr, Social Democratic Party founder
832 APPENDIX

March 22, 1979: Manuel Colom Argueta, mayor of Guatemala City

July 3, 1993: Jorge Carpio Nicolle, founder of the National Centrist
Union
January 13, 2012: Oscar Leal Caal, former governor of Alta Verapaz
Department

Honduras
May 15, 1966: Maximiliano Hernández Martínez, ex-president
November 22, 2008: Mario Fernando Hernández, deputy speaker of Congress

Nicaragua
February 21, 1934: Augusto Calderón Sandino, revolutionary leader
February 16, 1991: Enrique Bermúdez Varela, founder/commander of Contra
guerrilla army

Panama
January 2, 1955: President José Remón Cantera

South America
Argentina
April 11, 1870: Justo de Urquiza, ex-president
May 29, 1970: Pedro Aramburu Silveti, ex-de facto president
September 30, 1974: Carlos Prats González, ex-commander-in-chief of the
Chilean Army
May 20, 1976: Héctor Gutiérrez Ruiz, ex-speaker of the Uruguayan
House of Representatives
May 20, 1976: Zelmar Michelini, exiled Uruguayan senator
June 2, 1976: Juan Torres González, ex-Bolivian president

Bolivia
January 1, 1829: President Pedro Blanco Soto
January 15, 1871: President Manuel Melgarejo Valencia
April 27, 1969: President René Barrientos Ortuño

Brazil
September 8, 1915: José Pinheiro Machado, senator for Rio Grande do Sul
July 26, 1930: João Cavalcânti de Albuquerque, vice presidential
candidate
September 27, 1964: Adib ibn Hasan Shishakli, exiled Syrian president
APPENDIX 833

July 21, 1980: Wilson Pinheiro, president of the Brasiléia Rural Workers
Union
June 23, 1996: Paulo Farias, campaign treasurer of President Fernando
Collor de Mello
September 10, 2001: Antonio da Costa Santos, mayor of Campinas

Chile
October 25, 1970: General René Schneider Chereau, army commander in
chief
June 8, 1971: Edmundo Pérez Zujovic, ex-secretary of Interior Affairs
January 22, 1982: Eduardo Frei Montalva, ex-president
February 25, 1982: Tucapel Jiménez Alfaro, trade union leader
April 1, 1991: Jaime Guzmán Errázuriz, Independent Democratic Union
founder

Colombia
June 4, 1830: Antonio de Sucre y Alcalá, ex-president
October 15, 1914: Rafael Uribe Uribe, revolutionary socialist
April 9, 1948: Jorge Gaitán Ayala, ex-minister of labor
April 30, 1984: Rodrigo Lara Bonilla, minister of justice
July 23, 1985: Judge Tulio Castro Gil
November 6, 1985: 17 Supreme Court justices
July 31, 1986: Hernando Baquero Borda, Supreme Court justice
November 17, 1986: Colonel Jaime Ramírez, national chief of narcotics
enforcement
October 11, 1987: Jaime Pardo Leal, presidential candidate
January 25, 1988: Attorney General Carlos Mauro Hoyos
July 5, 1989: Antonio Roldan Betancur, governor of Antioquia
Department
August 18, 1989: Luis Carlos Galán, presidential candidate
August 19, 1989: Judge Carlos Valencia
August 19, 1989: Waldemar Franklin Quintero, police commander of
Antioquia Department
March 22, 1990: Bernardo Jaramillo Ossa, presidential candidate
April 26, 1990: Carlos Pizarro Leongómez, presidential candidate
April 30, 1991: Enrique Low Murtra, ex-ambassador to Switzerland
September 19, 1992: Judge Myrio Rocio Velez
August 9, 1994: Senator Manuel Cepeda Vargas
834 APPENDIX

November 2, 1995: Álvaro Gómez Hurtado, ex-presidential candidate

February 27, 2000: General Romero Quiñones Quiñones
May 5, 2003: Guillermo Gaviria Correa, governor of Antioquia
Department

Ecuador
February 17, 1999: Jaime Hurtado González, presidential candidate

Guyana
November 18, 1978: Leo Joseph Ryan Jr., California congressman
April 22, 2006: Agriculture Minister Satyadeow Sawh

Peru
July 26, 1872: President José Balta y Montero

Uruguay
February 19, 1868: Bernardo Prudencio Berro and Venancio Flores Barrios,
ex-presidents

Venezuela
November 18, 2004: Danilo Baltasar Anderson, state prosecutor of
environmental offenses
Selected Bibliography

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nations. Richmond, Surrey: Curzon Press, 2000.
Belfield, Richard. The Assassination Business: A History of State-Sponsored Murder. New York:
Carroll & Graf, 2005.
Belfield, Richard. A Brief History of Hitmen and Assassinations. London: Constable &
Robinson, 2011.
Belfield, Richard. The Secret History of Assassination: The Killers and Their Paymasters
Revealed. London: Magpie Books, 2008.
Ben-Yehuda, Nachman. Political Assassinations by Jews: A Rhetorical Device for Justice.
Albany: State University of New York Press, 1992.
Blumenthal, Sid, and Harvey Yazijian, eds. Government by Gunplay: Assassination Con-
spiracy Theories from Dallas to Today. New York: Signet, 1976.
Castleden, Rodney. Assassinations and Conspiracies. New York: Little Brown, 2007.
Cooper, H.H.A. On Assassination. Boulder, CO: Paladin Press, 1984.
Davis, Lee. Assassination: 20 Assassinations That Changed History. Emmaus, PA: JG Press,
1997.
D’Encausse, Helene. The Russian Syndrome: One Thousand Years of Political Murder.
Teaneck, NJ: Holmes & Meier, 1993.
Derogy, Jacques. Resistance & Revenge: The Armenian Assassination of Turkish Leaders
Responsible for the 1915 Massacres and Deportations. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction
Publishers, 1990.
Donnelly, Paul. Assassins and Assassinations: History’s Most Famous Plots. London: New
Holland Publishers, 2008.
Fetherling, George. The Book of Assassins: A Biographical Dictionary from Ancient Times
to the Present. Edison, NJ: Castle Books, 2006.
Ford, Franklin. Political Murder: From Tyrannicide to Terrorism. Cambridge, MA: Harvard
University Press, 1987.
Grant, R. G. Assassinations: History’s Most Shocking Moments of Murder, Betrayal, and
Madness. New York: Reader’s Digest, 2004.
Greig, Charlotte. Cold Blooded Killings: Hits, Assassinations, and Near Misses that Shook
the World. Edison, NJ: Chartwell Books, 2009.
Gross, Michael. Moral Dilemmas of Modern War: Torture, Assassination, and Blackmail in
an Age of Asymmetric Conflict. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010.
Gundle, Stephen, and Lucia Rinaldi, eds. Assassination and Murder in Modern Italy.
New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2007.
836 SELECTED BIBLIOGRAPHY

Hancock, Larry. Nexus: The CIA and Political Assassination. Southlake, TX: JFK Lancer
Productions, 2011.
Heaps, Willard. Assassination: A Special Kind of Murder. Des Moines, IA: Meredith Press,
1969.
Hernon, Ian. Assassin! 200 Years of British Political Murder. London: Pluto Press, 2007.
Hudson, Miles. Assassination. Barnsley, South Yorkshire: Pen and Sword, 2011.
Hurwood, Bernhardt. Society and the Assassin. New York: Macmillan, 1970.
Hyams, Edward. Killing No Murder: A Study of Assassination as a Political Means.
Nashville, TN: Thomas Nelson & Sons, 1969.
Johnson, Francis. Famous Assassinations of History from Philip of Macedon 336 BC to
Alexander of Serbia AD 1903. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 2009.
Kirkham, James, Sheldon Levy, and William Crotty. Assassination and Political Violence.
New York: Bantam, 1970.
Kulczyk, David. California Justice: Shootouts, Lynchings and Assassinations in the Golden
State. Sanger, CA: Quill Driver Books, 2007.
Laucella, Linda. Assassination: The Politics of Murder. New York: McGraw-Hill, 1999.
Lentz, Harris. Assassinations and Executions: An Encyclopedia of Political Violence, 1865–1986.
Jefferson, NC: McFarland, 1988.
McConnell, Brian. The History of Assassination. Torrance, CA: Aurora, 1970.
McGovern, Glenn. Targeted Violence: A Statistical and Tactical Analysis of Assassinations,
Contract Killings, and Kidnappings. Boca Raton, FL: CRC Press, 2010.
McKinley, James. Assassination in America. New York: HarperCollins, 1977.
Miller, Tom. The Assassination Please Almanac. Washington, DC: Regnery, 1977.
Oliver, Willard, and Nancy Marion. Killing the President: Assassinations, Attempts, and
Rumored Attempts on U.S. Commanders-in-Chief. Santa Barbara, CA: Praeger, 2010.
Porter, Lindsay. Assassination: A History of Political Murder. New York: Overlook Press,
2010.
Sanello, Frank. To Kill a King: A History of Royal Murders and Assassinations from Ancient
Egypt to the Present. Seattle: CreateSpace, 2011.
Scott, Peter, Paul Hoch, and Russell Stetler, eds. The Assassinations: Dallas and Beyond.
New York: Random House, 1976.
Sifakis, Carl. Encyclopedia of Assassinations. New York: Facts on File, 2001.
Spignesi, Stephen. In the Crosshairs: Famous Assassinations & Attempts from Julius Caesar
to John Lennon. Darby, PA: Diane Publishing, 2003.
Urwin, John. The Sixteen: The Sensational Story of Britain’s Top Secret Assassination Squad.
London: John Blake, 2004.
838 INDEX

al-Qaeda terrorist group, 46– 47, 62, 98, Argaña Ferraro, Luis María del Corazon
304, 378, 441, 504, 645–646 de Jesús Dionisio, 21–22
Alumni, Conrad, 337 Argentine Anticommunist Alliance, 78
American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU), Argentine Regional Workers’ Federation
287, 473 (FORA), 149
American Colonization Society (ACS), Aristotle, 424, 641
116 (sidebar), 567 Armenian Genocide, 269–270
American Independent Party (AIP), Armenian Revolutionary Federation
623–624 (ARF), 269–270, 513
American Popular Revolutionary Alli- Armistice of Mudros (1918), 201–202
ance (APRA), 506–507 Army in Defense of the National Sover-
Amin, Hafizullah, 15–17, 106, 119, eignty of Nicaragua, 508–509
558–559 Army of God (AOG), 194–195 (sidebar)
Amin, Idi, 16, 256, 305–306, 449 Arnold, Samuel, 292
Amir, Yigal, 447 Arredondo, Avelino, 231
Amiztab, Ali, 88 Artabanus, 641
Amnesty International, 401 Artaxerxes, 642
anarchism, 134, 325 (sidebar), 345, 651 Arusha Accords, 592
Anastasia (film), 459 Arutyunian, Vladimir, 62
Anckarström, Jacob Johan, 196 Aspamitres, 641
Andone, Radu, 69 Assassins Cult, 23–25
Andriamihaja, 452 Aster (Chrysanthemum) Revolution,
Angelina, Irene, 420 562
Angiolillo, Michele, 73 Atahualpa, 429– 430
Anglo-Iraqi Treaty (1948), 147 Athemius, 67
Anglo-Persian War (1857), 8 Athens News (newspaper), 625
Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (newspaper), 634 Athulathmudali, Lalith, 435– 436
Anouilh, Jean, 38 Atthoumani, Said, 1–2
Antequera, Jose, 402 Atzerodt, George, 291–293
anti-Semitism, 13, 131, 142, 149, 192, Audisio, Walter, 344
216, 223, 225, 250–251, 418– 419, Aurelian, 67
461, 479 Auschwitz extermination camp, 224
Antonescu, Ion, 70 Awami League (East Pakistan), 14, 15,
Apartheid’s “Prime Evil,” 521 (sidebar) 454– 455
Apocalypse Now (film), 427 Azadifar, Bahram, 90
Aqa, Ahad, 89 Azikiwe, Benjamin Nnamdi, 31
Aquino, Benigno Simeon, Jr., 17–19 Aziz Khan, Sirdar Mohammed, 353–354
Arab Resistance Movement, 504 Azizi, Taher, 91
Arab Socialist Ba’ath Party, 148
Arafat, Yasser, 449, 502 Baader, Andreas, 59
Araujo, Manuel Enrique, 20–21 Baader–Meinhof Group, 59
Arbarios, 534 Ba’ath Party, 148
Arcadia (Lane), 493 Bábism religion, 8
Archer, Jeffrey, 86 Badr, Battle of, 586
Ardalan, Homayoun, 90 Baghdad Pact (1955), 147
INDEX 839

Bagheri, Behrouz, 88 Beatles, 154, 286

Bahá’í faith, 8 Becerra, Busch, 615
Bahonar, Mohammad-Javad, 27–28 Becker, Verena, 60–61
Baibars, 444– 445 Becket, Thomas, 35–38, 36 (portrait)
BAK International, 395 Becket play (Anouilh), 38
Bakhtiar, Shapour, 89 Beckwith, Byron De La, 140, 142
Balbinus, 28–30, 29 (portrait), 67 Bedford, Thomas, 550–551
Balboa, Vasco Núñez de, 428 Beg, Baba Ali, 351–352
Balewa, Abubakar Tafawa, 3, 30–32, 31 Begin, Menachem, 388, 449, 501
(photo) Belimace, Doru, 120
Balkan Wars (1912–1913), 10 Bellingham, Henry, 415
Ballivián, José, 39 Bellingham, John, 412
Balouch Khan, Hadj, 89 Bello, Ahmadu, 30, 31
Balzerani, Barbara, 338 Belvin, Tillman, 336
Bandaranaike, Solomon West Ridgeway Belzec extermination camp, 224
Dias, 32–34, 33 (photo) Belzu Humerez, Manuel Isidoro, 38–39
Bandi, Bernardo, 326 Beñaran Ordeñana, José Miguel, 40– 41,
Bangladesh Nationalist Party (BNP), 78
453, 456 Bengliu, Ioan, 121
Bantu Authorities Act, 602 Bent, Charles, 42– 43
Bantu Building Workers Act, 602 Berezovsky, Boris, 296
Bao Dai, 362–364 Berg, Alab, 279
Baptist World Alliance, 567 Berling, Peter, 24
Barazandeh, Hossein, 90 Berlusconi, Silvio, 57
Barbie, Klaus, 229 Bet-Zuri, Eliyahu, 190, 192
Barrera, Ernesto, 485 Bey, Ibrahim, 528
Barrientos Ortuño, René, 188 Bhatti, Shahbaz, 561
Barrière, Pierrfe, 220 Bhutto, Benazir, 43– 45, 44 (photo),
Bartlett, Asa, 278–279 562
Bartol, Vladimir, 24 Bhutto, Zulfikar Ali, 43, 106, 454– 455,
Bartolotta, Salvatore, 94 560
Bastien-Thiry, Jean-Marie, 174–175 Biayenda, Émile, 368
Batallón Vasco Español (Basque Spanish Bien Xuyen crime syndicate, 364
Battalion) terrorist group, 40– 41 Biko, Steve, 603
Batista, Fulgencio, 578 bin Laden, Osama bin Mohammed bin
Bautista Gill García del Barrio, Juan, Awad, 45– 47, 98, 252, 441, 502,
34–35 645–646, 649
Bautista Sacasa, Juan, 508–510, 539 bin Laden, Shafig, 46– 47
Bava-Beccaris massacre, 588 Birendra Bir Bikram Shah Dev, 48– 49
Bavaud, Maurice, 227 Bishop, Maurice Rupert, 49–50, 81
Bay of Pigs invasion (Cuba), 189, 261, Biwott, Nicholas, 393
262, 366, 408 Black Beret Cadre (BBC), 525–526
Bayahmadi, Ata’ollah, 88 The Black Hand (Serbian secret society),
BBC History magazine, 38 10, 158 (sidebar), 159
Bean, John William, 604 Black Hand society (Serbia), 10
840 INDEX

Black Muslims, 312, 314, 479 Buddharakkitha. Mapitigama, 33–34

Black Panther Party (BPP), 205, 207 Bulgarian Agrarian National Union
(sidebar), 273, 284, 479, 525 (BANU), 541–542
Black September Organization (BSO), Bulgarian Revolutionary Central
386–390 Committee (BRCC), 534
“Black Sheep Plot,” 571 (sidebar) Bundy, Theodore, 469
Blackburn, Robert, 155 Burnett, Michael, 379
Blanchard, Jerry M., 375 Burrows, Erskine Durrant, 525–526
Blood River, Battle of, 524 Burundi Civil War, 360 (sidebar)
Bobrikov, Nikolay Ivanovich, 51–52 Burundi Workers’ Party (UBU), 358
Bodjollé, Emmanuel, 384–385 Bush, George H. W., 46, 47, 62, 99
Boleslaus, 628, 629 Bush, George Walker, 46– 47, 61–63,
Bolles, Don, 52–54, 52 (photo) 99, 375–377, 394, 442, 469, 538,
Bonaparte, Napoleon, 412, 439, 453, 627
551 Butcher of Prague. See Heydrich, Rein-
Boniface VIII (Pope), 7 hard Tristan Eugen
Boock, Peter-Jürgen, 60–61 Butler, Norman 3X, 312, 317
Book of Mormon (Smith), 531, 551 Buzakha, Battle of, 586
Book of the Law of the Lord (Strang), 551
Booth, John Wilkes, 291–296 Cáceres Vasquez, Ramón Arturo, 220,
Borgia, Giovanni, 54–55 222
Borgia, Lucrezia, 55 Caesar, Gaius Julius, 65–67, 66 (por-
The Borgias (Showtime series), 55 trait), 431, 433– 434
Boroumand, Abdolrahman, 89 The Caesars (TV series), 69
Borsellino, Paolo, 56–57, 56 (photo) Cahill, Martin “The General,” 187
Boudiaf, Mohamed, 57–59, 58 (photo) Caldwell Tribune (newspaper), 545
Boumaârafi, Lembarek, 58, 59 Calhoun, John C., 238
Boxer Rebellion, 588, 653 Caligula, 67–69
Bradley, William, 316 Caligula (movie), 69
Brady, James, 465– 466 Caligula play (Camus), 69
Brandt, Karl, 618–619 Călinescu, Armand, 69–70, 121
Breitenbuch, Eberhard von, 228 Camus, Albert, 69
Bremer, Arthur Herman, 621, 624 Canalejas y Méndez, José, 71
Bresci, Gaetano, 588, 590 Cánovas del Castillo, Antonio, 72–73,
Bresler, Fenton, 287 325
Brest-Litovsk, Treaty of, 372 Capone (movie), 86
Brezhnev, Leonid, 17, 558–559 Caracalla, 67
British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC), Caranica, Ion, 120
525–526, 646 Carbonária (Portuguese conspiratorial
Britton, John, 195 revolutionary society), 74–75
Broken Sword (role-playing game), 25 Carbonneau, Marc, 285
Brooklyn, Earl, 336 Carinus, 67
Brusca, Giovanni, 57 Carlist Wars, 438
Bryan–Chamorro Treaty (1914), 509 Carlos I of Portugal, 73–75, 74 (photo),
Buback, Siegfried, 59–61, 60 (photo) 325
INDEX 841

Carnation Revolution (Portugal), 334, 607 Challe, Maurice, 173–174

Carranza de la Garza, Venustiano, Chapman, David, 285, 287
75–76, 310, 382–383, 611, Charles VII of Sweden, 92–93, 553
614–616, 652–654 Chartrand, Michel, 285
Carrero Blanco, Luis, 40, 71, 76–78, 77 Châtel, Jean, 220
(photo) Chechen-Ingush Autonomous Soviet
Carson, Christopher “Kit,” 42 Socialist Republic (ASSR), 247–248
Carter, Asa Earl, 622 Chechnya. See First Chechen War; Sec-
Carter, Jimmy, 154, 294, 304, 449, 468, ond Chechen War
492, 498, 501, 537, 581, 598, 624 Chelmno extermination camp, 224
Carthage, Battle of, 29 Chen Chi-li, 298–299
Casimirri, Alessio, 337 Chernozemski, Vlado, 10
Cassarà, Antonino, 57 Chiang Kai-shek, 652–654
Castillo Armas, Carlos, 78–80, 79 Chicago Tribune (newspaper), 583
(photo) The Children of the Grail (Berling), 24
Castro, Raul, 189 Children under Apartheid (September),
Castro Ruz, Fidel Alejandro, 80–82, 520
189, 262–263, 268, 304–305, 314, Chillingworth, Curtis Eugene, 93–94
512, 514, 559, 575, 578 Chinese-American Red Guard Party,
Catalano, Agostino, 56 206
Catargiu, Barbu, 83, 121 Chinnici, Rocco, 57, 94–96, 95 (photo)
Catherine the Great, 410– 411, 415– 417 Chitunda, Jeremias Kalandula, 96–97
Catholic League of France, 218–220 Choices of the Heart (film), 486
Cedergren, Sigvard, 399 Christian Democracy party (Italy),
Celaya, Battle of, 382 336–338
Central Intelligence Agency (CIA), 46, Chronicle of the Kings of England (William
79–81, 146, 189, 242, 259, of Malmesbury), 634
261–262, 267–269, 286–290, Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day
302–305, 328, 338, 361–368, Saints (Mormon, LDS Church),
400, 406, 425– 426, 472– 475, 531, 551
492– 493, 515–516, 537, 578, Churchill, Winston, 173, 191–192, 310,
625–628, 721, 749, 783–784, 343, 583
789 CIA “Executive Action,” 304 (sidebar),
Cermak, Anton Joseph, 84–86, 84 493
(photo), 212, 301 A Citizen’s Dissent (Lane), 493
Cesar, Thane Eugene, 267 Ciudad Juárez, Battle of, 611
Cha Jicheol, 403 Clark, Mark, 205
Chaco War (La Guerra de la Sed) (The Claudius, 67
War of the Thirst), 614–615 Clay, Henry, 116, 238
Chadian Progressive Party (PPT), 570, Clement VII (Pope), 326, 327 (sidebar)
571 Cleopatra, 422
Chaeronea, Battle of, 424 Clinton, Bill, 63, 97–99, 113, 304.
Chagra, Jamiel Alexander, 637–638 See also bin Laden, Osama bin
Chagra, Joe, 638 Mohammed bin Awad
Chain Murders (Iran), 87–91 Code Name Zorro (Lane), 493
842 INDEX

Coeur d’Alene “Dynamite Express,” 547 Crimean War, 13, 103, 439, 606
(sidebar) Criminal Procedure Act, 520
COINTELPRO (FBI), 206, 284 Cristero War (Mexico), 381, 383
Collazo, Oscar, 581 Croatian Peasant Party (CPP), 11
Collins, Max Allan, 86 Crocus Field, Battle of, 424
Collins, Michael, Jr., 99–102 Cuban Missile Crisis (1962), 81, 189
Columbus, Christopher, 430 Cubas Grau, Raúl, 21
Commodus, 67 Cubela, Rolando, 81–82
Communist International (Comintern), Cuffaro, Salvatore “Totò,” 57
564 Curry, Izola Ware, 271
Communist Party of Sri Lanka, 33 Cuzco, Battle of, 430
Comoros Democratic Union (UDC), 1 Czolgosz, Leon, 323–324
Compaoré, Blaise, 511–513
Comprehensive Drug Abuse Prevention Daam, Treaty of (1913), 201
and Control Act, 637 Daily Times (newspaper), 561
Conan the Barbarian, 24 Danilo I, Prince of Montenegro,
Congo Crisis (1960–1966), 2–3, 31 103–104
Congolese Labour Party, 366, 368 Daoud Khan, Mohammed, 16,
Connally, John, 257–260 104–106, 105 (photo), 558
Conseil National de la Résistance (the Darius, 641
National Council of Resistance) Darrow, Clarence, 546
(France), 215 D’Aubuisson, Roberto, 485
Constans I, 67 Davis, Leon, 316
Constans II, 67 Davis, Ossie, 315
Constantinescu, Nicolae, 120 The Day of the Jackal (Forsyth), 174–175
Constantinople Conference of (sidebar)
1876–1877, 543 Dayan, Moshe, 387
Contreras, Manuel, 289 de Kock, Eugene Alexander, 399– 400,
Controlled Substances Act, 637 521
Convention of Aguascalientes, 650 De Niro, Robert, 468
Conversations with Americans: Testimony The Death of American Virtue: Clinton vs.
from 32 Vietnam Veterans (Lane), Starr (Gormley), 98
493 DeFreeze, David, 155–156
Cooke, Judith, 143 Dehkordi, Nouri, 90
Coptic Christians (Egypt), 5 Delgado Chalbaud Gómez, Carlos,
Corbett, Boston, 293, 295 106–107
Corday, Charlotte, 317, 318 Deligiannis, Theodoros, 108–109
Corder, Frank Eugene, 98 Demetrius and the Gladiators (movie), 69
Corupedium, Battle of, 517 Democratic National Convention, 375,
Cosina, Walter, 56 408, 581, 622–624
Costello, Frank, 300 Democratic United National Front
Council of Troubles, 631 (DUNF), 436
Cowart, Daniel, 376–377 Der Mann ohne Eigenschaften
Cox, Joseph Neville, 336 (The Man without Qualities)
Crannon, Battle of, 518 (Arnheim), 460
INDEX 843

Derby-Lewis, Clive, 208–209 Dudayev, Dzhokhar Musayevich,

Des Moines Register (newspaper), 545 121–123
Despard, Edward, 414 Duhring, Louis, 318–319, 319 (sidebar)
Despoilers of the Golden Empire (film), Duhring’s Disease, 318–319, 319
430 (sidebar)
Dessalines, Jean-Jacques, 109–110 Duke, David, 279
Devi, Phoolan, 111–113, 111 Dulles, Allen, 81, 259, 303
(photo) Dungeons & Dragons (role-playing
Di Maggio, Baldassare, 57 game), 25
Diadumenian, 67 Dunlap, Max, 53
Diary of a Kidnapped Colombian Duran, Francisco Martin, 98
Governor (Gaviria), 176–177 Dutch East India Company, 524
Diawara, Ange, 368 Dutch War of Independence, 632
Díaz, Juan Tomás, 576 Dwyer, Richard, 492
Díaz Recinos, Adolfo, 508–509
Didius Julianus, 67 Earp, James, 125
Different View (magazine), 486 Earp, Morgan Seth, 125–127
Dimka, Buka Suka, 331 Earp, Virgil, 125–126
Dimtolaum, Lt., 569 Earp, Wyatt, 125–127
Ðindić, Zoran, 113–114 Ebrahimzadeh, Hassan, 91
Dingane, 522 Edict of Beaulieu (France), 218
Dingiswayo, 522–523 Edict of Nantes (France), 220
Dinulescu, Iosif, 121 Edict of Poitiers (France), 218
Dipendra (Nepalese Prince), 48– 49 Edmund I (of England), 128–129, 128
Dirección de Inteligencia Nacional (portrait)
(DINA) (National Intelligence Edward the Martyr, 129–130
DIrectorate; Chile), 289–290, 290 Edwards, Joe, 239
(sidebar) Egypt–Israel Peace Treaty, 501
Djohar, Said, 2 Ehrhardt, Hermann, 462
Doe, Samuel Kanyon, 115–116, Eichmann, Adolf, 224, 229, 617
567–568. See also Tolbert, William Eicke, Theodor, 481
Richard, Jr. Eighty Years’ War, 632
Dollfuss., Engelbert, 117–118, 117 Eisenhower, Dwight, 303, 385, 475
(photo) Eisner, Kurt, 131–132, 131 (photo)
Dominican Civil War (1965), 578 El Combate (newspaper), 438
Domitian, 67 Elagabulus, 67
Donald, Michael, 279 Elahi, Cyrus, 89
Doniphan, Alexander, 42 The Elder Scrolls (video game), 69
Douglas, William, 241 The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, Final Fantasty
Downey, Laurence James, 243 (role-playing game), 25
Draga Mašin (Serbian Queen), 9 Eleftherotypia (Freedom of the Press)
Dubs, Adolph “Spike,” 17, 118–119 (newspaper), 625
Duca, Ion Gheorghe, 69, 120–121, Eliot, T. S., 38
120 (photo) Elisabeth of Austria, 132–135, 133
Duckett, George, 525–526 (photo)